“I don’t . . . I can’t talk about this now, Abby. Just please, do as I say, and gather your things.”
“No! I won’t just up and leave you here alone, at the mercy of that wicked duke! I’m staying right here with you.”
“Abby, please.” Rose clung to Abby’s hand. “I don’t want you caught up in this mess. Please just go, and I promise I’ll join you as soon as I can. Why, I daresay it won’t take more than a few days to come to some agreement with the Duke of Grantham.”
A few days, or a few decades.
But Abby shook her head. “He doesn’t look like the sort who makes agreements, Rose. He looks like the sort who takes what he wants, no matter if he’s got a right to it or not. He’s cold as ice, that one, through and through.”
“Well, he hasn’t much choice but to negotiate with me, has he? Come, Abby, it won’t be for long. Just until I . . .” She trailed off, unsure how to finish that sentence. A hysterical laugh was crowding into her throat, but she choked it back because if she gave into it, she might never stop.
For all her bluster, she didn’t fancy tangling with the Duke of Grantham. But neither could she just stand by and let him take Hammond Court from them. “He can’t do a thing to me.”
“He’s aduke, Rose. They do as they please, and no one dares breathe a word against them.”
“Well, what do you imagine he’s going to do? Murder me in my bed?”
Abby paled. “Rose!”
Oh, dear. Perhaps that might have better gone unsaid. “That is, what I meant to say is that I’ll be perfectly fine, but I need to know you’re safe with Mrs. Sullivan first. Please, Abby.”
Long, quiet moments ticked by until at last Abby let out a heavy sigh. “All right, but if you don’t appear at Mrs. Sullivan’s in two days, I’m coming back for you.”
“Thank you.” Rose pressed a quick kiss to Abby’s cheek. “Now quickly, gather your things while I go and find Billy.”
It should have taken a much longer time to disappear a person, but in the end, it was all arranged rather quickly. Billy had the wagon readied and waiting on the drive within a half hour.
A half hour after that, Abby climbed in next to him, her valise in her hand, bundled from head to toe in one of Ambrose’s old cloaks to keep her warm. “You be careful. You hear me, Rose?” She grasped Rose’s hand. “If anything goes wrong, you promise you’ll come to me at once?”
Somethingwouldgo wrong—it was merely a question of to what degree—but Rose dredged up a comforting lie. “Of course, but nothing will go wrong, Abby. I’ll be just fine.”
Abby knew better than to believe the lie, of course, but both of them were now committed to this charade that all might still be well, so she only gave Rose’s hand another squeeze. “You’ll think about what I said about the house?”
There was nothing to think about. Even if she’d wanted to leave, she couldn’t abandon Ambrose’s tenants. They were thriving, and it was by no means certain they’d continue to do so with the Duke of Grantham as their landlord. Goodness knew he’d made no secret of the fact that he despised Fairford. As soon as he’d torn Hammond Court down, he’d scurry off back to London, and let another two decades elapse before he returned.
If then.
But in the interest of getting Abby on her way, she nodded. “Yes, I will.”
Abby didn’t look convinced, but she released Rose’s hand and turned to face forward. “Right, then. Let’s go, Billy.”
Then they were gone, the ancient wagon bumping and swaying its way down the icy drive. Rose waited until they’d passed through the trees and out of sight, then turned back toward the house.
She paused to stare up at the façade, at the cracked windows and sagging roof. She’d only been four years old when she and her mother came here, and her recollections of that time had grown hazy over the years, but the first day they’d arrived would be forever burned into her memory. She’d gazed up at the façade just as she was doing now, and had thought the house was like a fairy castle, with its diamond-paned windows and the stone weathered to a pale gold.
One glance and her chest had burst with hope.
Anything had felt possible, then, and as it turned out, itwas.
But that was before, when Ambrose had held court here, and laughter had spilled out of every window. More than anything, Ambrose had delighted in people. He’d collected them, especially the cast-offs and dregs the rest of the world had given up on.
Like her, and her mother.
He’d gathered them all together and made them his family. Oh, they’d been a mismatched, ragged-edge family to be sure, made up of the odds and ends of families no one else had wanted, but a family, nonetheless.
But those days were gone, buried in the cold ground along with Ambrose. Without him, the house was a ghost, a pale imitation of what it once had been. Yet she’d hold on to it still, for all that—hold on to it until her fingernails were bloody, and her heart gave out.
No one, not even the almighty Duke of Grantham, would take it from her.
