ChapterThree
The upper story of Five Mile House should not have come as a surprise after the shock of the public taproom downstairs, but somehow, it did.
The building was old, walls covered in crumbling plaster, floors and ceilings tilted at odd angles so that Gemma stumbled like a drunkard while following her mother and Lucy up the stairs.
They had waited in vain for anyone to turn up with a pot of tea, or for the innkeeper to come escort them up to the bedchambers.Several men had come into the taproom for a drink, seeming quite at their ease as they pulled their own pints and left a few coins on the bar in payment.Dressed in dirty work clothes and dusty boots, they were clearly on their way home from laboring in the fields.They’d given the well-dressed London ladies a few sidelong looks, but had not approached them.
Gemma had sat holding her mother’s limp hand and getting angrier and angrier.More guests began to trickle in, finding seats at the tables dotted around the taproom.Finally, as the afternoon sun drooped below the horizon and shadows began to lengthen across the dusty boards of the taproom floor, Gemma had decided they had better explore a bit on their own before they lost the light.
After all, Gemma reflected grimly,candles cost money.They must learn to do without the extravagance of a well-lit home.
Still reeling from the discovery that her “grand romantic gesture” was not a private home but a very public house, Henrietta was uncharacteristically silent as they made their way upstairs.Gemma was tense, expecting at every moment to run into the tall, insolent, unfortunately devastating barman carrying one of their trunks.But as she passed a small, square window set into the wall of the staircase, she looked out to see him leaning casually against their coach, quite as though he owned the thing, and conversing with John Coachman.
Her hands curled into impotent fists.She didn’t like to think about what they might be discussing.But what could she do?Fly down the stairs and make a spectacle of herself over a couple of servants gossiping?
Servants gossiped.It was an immutable fact of life.That didn't mean Gemma had to like it.
John will be telling him all about us.Our whole embarrassing history, spilled out into the coachyard for the hens to peck over.
For the unfairly tempting, ridiculously attractive common laborer with no money and no prospects to peck over.
Gemma wished she could give herself a good slap.Like most ladies, she’d had her head turned by a handsome footman or two when she was much younger, but she was far too worldly and seasoned for such a ridiculous infatuation now.
At least, she was supposed to be.
No, she had to be.Her family’s future depended upon it.
Putting the tall man and her odd desperation to know his name out of her mind, Gemma bustled up the last few stairs to find Henrietta and Lucy on the landing, staring about them at the six closed doors that lined the narrow hallway.
Their faces were wan in the gloom of the fading light, and Gemma’s heart clenched with an unexpected pang of affection for the baby sister who was growing into a young woman she hardly knew and the mother who’d lost the all-consuming love of her life.
Theirs had been a perfectly normal aristocratic family, living together in a large, elegant house in Mayfair and going about their own, separate lives.Now, circumstances had thrown them all together like a heap of discarded gowns on the floor of a dressing room, and they must learn to depend on one another if they were to survive.
These two were Gemma’s responsibility now.The weight of it felt unwieldy and strange upon her shoulders.How in the world was she going to take care of them?
Anger burned like a lump of coal in her chest, but Gemma swallowed it down.She did not wish to be angry with her father, or fate, or their circumstances.
“Well,” she said brightly, smoothing her hands down her skirts and surreptitiously shaking dust from the hem.“Here we are.At least we’re no longer in a moving carriage.”
“That is true,” Lucy agreed.“You can say that much for this place; it is not going anywhere.”
“Oh girls,” Henrietta said faintly.“I really do think I must lie down.”
Both sisters were at her side at once, curving their arms about her corseted waist and supporting her slightly listing form.Sharing a look of silent communication, they turned in the direction of the nearest door.
Gemma gave a brisk knock, and when there was no answer she turned the ancient brass knob and gave the heavy door a shove with her hip.It creaked open to reveal a darkened room that gave off a musty scent of disuse.Gemma saw the outline of a bed with a bare mattress and a single chair before Lucy reached out and pulled the door shut.
Glancing back at her mother’s half-closed eyes and set features, Gemma felt another pang of concern.“I believe that room must be intended for storage or some such.It didn’t seem as if anyone had set foot in it for quite some time.Let’s try another.Surely one of these rooms will be in regular use.This is a coaching inn, after all!”
But door after door, room after room, they found the same situation: very little furniture, bare mattresses, cold ashes in the hearths.
Finally, they found their luggage piled haphazardly in the second to last chamber.Gemma led her mother inside to be seated in the lone chair before the unlit fire.While Lucy went to throw wide the threadbare curtains to let in what little light remained in the day, Gemma knelt by the fireplace.As though she could somehow will a fire into being with the force of her longing.
It was not quite spring, and though the day had been warm enough, the nights were still quite chilly.The cold from the flagstones seeped into her knees through the fabric of her gown and petticoats.Behind her, Henrietta shivered, jet beads clacking lightly, and Gemma clenched her jaw.Climbing to her feet, she left her mother in the chair and went to confer with Lucy.
“Look through the trunks and find what woolen clothes you can, and see if you can get Mama warm,” Gemma directed in a low voice.“I shall go downstairs and attempt to find someone or something to light the fire with.”
Lucy nodded, her eyes wide and almost frightened in the gathering twilight.Gemma grasped her narrow shoulders and pulled her close.It had been years since she’d slowed down long enough to embrace her sister, Gemma realized.The girl had grown from a child to a young woman while Gemma wasn’t looking.
