She turned up her cheek for a kiss, and Gemma breathed in the powdery rose scent of her mother as she bent to bestow it.She hated to think of Henrietta languishing alone in this dreary room, but the reality was that there was nowhere else for her to go that would be much of an improvement.
Not yet, at least.
As they closed Henrietta’s door behind them and trooped down the stairs, Lucy said, “Do you know, I’m not certain that another day of rest is going to cure what ails Mama.”
Gemma sailed through the empty public room and out the front door of the inn, holding her diaphanous skirts high to keep them clear of the dirt.Chickens squawked and darted around their feet.She wrinkled her nose.“She’s overset by our change in circumstances.The sooner we can remove ourselves from this situation and return to our rightful place in London and society, the better.”
Behind her, Lucy muttered, “I don’t think that’s going to fix Mama either,” but she spoke quietly enough to allow Gemma to ignore it.Which she was determined to do, even as worry squeezed at her heart.
Mama would be well again.She had to be.Gemma would make sure of it.
“While I’m visiting,” she told Lucy, “I need you to put your predilection for gossip to good use.Find out everything you can about the local gentry, the most prosperous merchants in town, everyone who’s anyone in this little backwater.We need to make a splash, and we won’t do it by catering solely to common laborers and farmhands.”
“I meant to ask Bess about the manor house this morning at breakfast,” Lucy said regretfully.
“But you were too busy eating?”
“ButBesswas too busy with her work to stop and chat,” Lucy retorted with great dignity.Then she grinned.“And also, I was too busy eating.Who knew porridge could taste like that?”
The sisters made their way through the arched entrance to the courtyard and out to the main thoroughfare of the village.The packed dirt road ran alongside the rolling village green, sloping down toward the pretty stone bridge that crossed Westcote Brook.Just beyond the bridge stood the cluster of buildings that made up the village of Little Kissington.
“I think I’ll start at the blacksmith’s,” Lucy mused, eyes thoughtful under the broad brim of her navy silk bonnet.“For some reason, they always seem to know everything that’s going on in a town.”
“You’re the gossip expert.”Gemma pressed her sister’s hand in farewell.“Find out what they’re saying about us—we need to know, so we can start to sway them to our side.And try not to get into any trouble.”
“Said the pot to the kettle.”Lucy arched a brow.“Of the two of us, who makes near-weekly appearances in the scandal sheets?Just remember this isn’t London—people here may not be ready for someone like you.”
“Moi?”Gemma placed a hand on her chest and contrived a quizzical ‘who me?’expression.“Don’t worry, Luce.I can behave myself.I know the rules of propriety—I had to learn what they were before I could break them all!”
Ten minutes later, Gemma was still grinning a little as she made her way up the hill toward the woods.The footpath was narrow and winding, but clear enough to follow.It appeared to lead in the direction of the crenellated towers she’d glimpsed on the drive in, so Gemma kept going.
The day had become warm, almost unpleasantly so.As she trudged on, Gemma could feel beads of perspiration dampening her hairline and prickling under her corset.She wished she could remove her gloves.A pebble rolled under her foot, painfully discernible through the thin soles of her slippers, and she nearly stumbled.Grimly, she marched along.
A bug of some sort buzzed about her head, making her rear back in startlement and swat at it with her arms pinwheeling wildly.It flew off, completely harmless, and Gemma took a moment to compose herself.
Nothing to be embarrassed about, she realized.No one had seen her.There was no one around.
She was completely alone.
It occurred to her that it was the first time she could remember that she had been so alone.The sensation shivered through her oddly, novel and not entirely comfortable, but interesting.
In London, one was never alone.Not really.When out and about, there had been chaperones and governesses when she was young, then companions and friends when she came of age.Even alone in her rooms at Ashbourn House, there had been the certainty that the place teemed with humanity: her parents and sister living their own lives, maids and footmen bustling about.And in the street below and the neighborhoods beyond, countless other lives being lived, interweaving and flowing alongside hers, enfolding her into the larger life of the city itself.
Here, there was none of that.She’d climbed now high above the village, past even the church and whatever vestiges of civilization it might have offered.The manor house was still further up the hill, through the thick stands of trees.At the moment, she was utterly and completely alone.
A strange sense of freedom expanded in her chest.She could do whatever she liked; there was no one to see her, or hear her, or comment on her behavior one way or another.
She’d learned early not to care what anyone thought, and even to revel in the scandalized whispers and shocked glances, but it was work.It was exhausting to be the center of attention at all times.Here, she didn’t need to impress anyone.She didn’t need to attract anyone.She didn’t need to entertain anyone.
She didn’t need to be strong for anyone.
Even as the thought occurred to her, she felt grief reach up to clasp a fist around her throat, as though it had been lying in wait all this time.Panic and relief warred in her chest.
She hadn’t cried.Not in years, not even three months ago when her father died.She hadn’t had time.There had been one shock after another, her mother falling to pieces and their horrible half-brother cutting them off without a penny and having to arrange things for their journey, and through it all, Gemma had shed not one single tear.
Maybe now she finally could.
Dry eyes burning and head beginning to pound with tension, Gemma stood stock still in the middle of the forest and tried to cry.
