How long had it been since she had set foot in her childhood home?
At least two years, if not three.
Once Freddy had started traveling back and forth from the Continent, he had dismissed their parents’ remaining staff. Only the steward came by once a month to check for squatters or vandals—but he always took the servants’ entrance out of respect.
“What a terrible smell,” Freddy said, pinching his nose. “Something most certainly came to nest here and promptly proceeded to die. A fitting welcome party.”
He turned and waved Amelia indoors when she hesitated.
“Don’t be shy, Amelia. We will not be long.”
The entrance hall was quiet as a grave. The lace curtains by the front windows cast patterned shadows on the parquet. A vase of dead flowers stood guarding the door on a side table. Amelia pinched off a dead flower head. The petals crumbled into dust and floated to the floor.
“This place has been left to rot,” she whispered, pilling the remnants of the flower between her fingers.
She turned in a circle, casting her eyes up the stairs. Squares of discolored wallpaper appeared where her father’s paintings had once been.
“Where did the paintings go?” she asked.
Freddy followed her line of sight. “In the attic, under dust sheets with the rest of Father’s finer belongings. And before you ask,yes, they are safe. The steward has them all under lock and key. Your inheritance and mine cannot be trifled with by anyone. Except perhaps Uncle Reginald. He has always had his eye on that Rembrandt portrait.”
Freddy continued through the house, inspecting the rooms on the lower floor. Amelia trailed behind him cautiously, clutching her arms around herself as memories of her childhood rose unbidden into her mind.
The music room where her parents had forced her to play Haydn. The dining room where their mother had had a fit over Christmas dinner three years in a row. The library, now almost empty, where she had retreated with Freddy for weeks after their mother’s death—where he had read children’s stories to her before the fire while their father plotted his own demise upstairs.
She winced at the thought of the ghosts that still lingered here, wondering how many terrible moments she had forgotten since quitting Bright Corner.
“It surprises me that the Duke of Avon did not accompany you this morning,” Freddy declared once they reached the solar.The windows were coated with a greasy layer of dust. Withered potted plants had been lined up on the shelves. “The way he received me during my visit… I had not expected him to trust me to have a moment alone with you.”
“Nicholas…” She paused, correcting herself. “His Graceis not in Oxford.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
“He left this morning for an errand. But he trusts me to make my own judgment.”
Nicholas had come to her with the news the night prior, the day after Frederick’s call. His estate manager needed him to attend the sale of some properties outside of Coventry. He had promised to return in two days.
Amelia missed him intently.
The memory of their last night together warmed her. Even if she knew it was a bad idea—theworst—to feel any sort of warmth and affection for him.
“Is that your plan?” she asked Freddy. “Did you call me here today to kidnap me?”
“Come now, Amelia.” Freddy smiled, shaking his head. “I invited you here because I believed you would want to see your old home one last time.”
She started. “You are renting Bright Corner?”
“Does that surprise you? No one has lived here for years.”
“It is your rightful seat. You are the lord of Bright Corner.”
“It is just a house, Amelia. The title is mine regardless. We will retain the surrounding lands. And…” He looked down at his gloved hands, then stood. “I do not intend to spend much time in England in the foreseeable future. Someone else should live here. Give it a better chance than it ever got with us Tates.”
Confused, Amelia crossed the room.
“Then where will you go?”
“I expect I should remain in France once we travel there to meet the doctor.”
