They emerged from the woods’ edge to the first rank of yews again and the worn stones of the back terrace. The house rose enormous and pale, its many eyes watching them without blinking. A footman waited, as Adeline had instructed, with the door open but not brightened, the lamps shaded so the hall was a half-place between worlds.
Louisa slowed at the threshold, as if the act of crossing were an intricate choreography. Adeline hummed twice more, the little air turning on itself like a child’s toy top, and Louisa stepped in.
“Upstairs,” Adeline said, as much to the house as to the child, “and straight to bed. There will be warm bricks and milk and honey if Mrs. Hardcastle approves.”
A sound like a suppressed sob escaped Winston when the door shut. He had not meant to make that sound in anyone’s hearing. Adeline did not appear to notice. Or rather, she chose not to notice.
“Not the main stairs,” she added quietly, motioning toward the smaller staircase that rose from the side hall.
“Less noise, fewer lamps. The servants’ steps will not contradict what she believes the world to be.”
He followed, one stair beneath them at all times, ready to catch his daughter’s heel if it slipped. It did not. At their arrival on the landing, Mrs. Hardcastle herself burst from a bedchamber with a gasp that could have stripped oil paint.
“Lord save us!” she whispered, clapping both hands to her bosom. “Out in the night, in nothing but a shift!”
“Quiet yourself now, Mrs. Hardcastle,” Adeline soothed, all warm practicality. “Scold in the morning. Just now we must be at peace.”
The woman, who could reduce under-maids to tears with a lift of an eyebrow, instantly became marshmallow. She had a brick wrapped in flannel ready in a trice and poured hot water into a basin. Between them they eased Louisa back beneath her coverlet.
Adeline sat on the mattress’s edge and continued to hum. Mrs. Hardcastle shook her head and wiped her eyes with the corner of her shawl as if the room smoked. Winston stood within arm’s reach and did not know where to put his hands.
When Louisa’s breathing grew deep and regular, and her small mouth softened, Adeline rose. The sheet quivered as if reluctant to let her go.
“Shall I sit with her?” Mrs. Hardcastle whispered, recovering some of her starch and attempting to look as if she had not cried.
“I shall,” Winston said, “fetch what you need for yourself, Mrs. Hardcastle. You will do us no good, fallen senseless from fatigue.”
He had meant it kindly. It came out as a directive. The woman, who liked being commanded when it matched her own sense of right, curtsied and withdrew with the light-footed competence of long habit. Silence took up occupancy again. The coal in the hearth shifted. Adeline tucked the flannel brick closer to Louisa’s feet and laid one palm above the child’s heart, not pressing, simply acknowledging its work. Her hand trembled, very slightly. Only a man watching as if the world depended on it would have seen.
“Thank you,” he said.
Adeline’s head did not lift. “You are welcome.”
“It was…well done.”
“It was fortunate.”
She drew her hand away and folded both before her in a neat knot. She gazed at him then, and if the house had fallen down around them with a crash, he might not have looked away. There was no triumph in her face. It mirrored his own so perfectly thathe wanted to put out his hand and smooth the line between her brows with his thumb.
He scrubbed a palm over his jaw. “She, she has never…”
The words were stones. He forced them out of his throat.
“She has not done that since she was very small.”
“Then she did it,” Adeline said, simply, “when she lacked words for her troubles. Perhaps she lacks words now?”
“Because I do not permit them?” he asked.
He did not mean to ask her that. He did not mean to invite judgment into his daughter’s room. Adeline didn’t take advantage of the invitation.
“My mother was a sleepwalker. She was very unhappy.”
“You suggest Louisa is unhappy? Perhaps all she needs is a physician. An ailment cured.”
“I don't think it would help, and I don't claim she is unhappy, but something or maybesomethingsare preying on her mind.”
Winston felt his shield raise, felt the accusations, and prepared to defend himself. He became, in that moment, aware of the precise size of the space that lay between his body and hers,and of the thousands of things that would happen if he crossed the line between them. He remained where he was, though and poured water on his ire.
