Itcouldget worse—ithaddone so, and so quickly she hardly recognized the life she was living now as hers. One would think she’d have learned her lesson by now, learned never to believe it couldn’t get worse, because it could, and it was tempting the wrath of fate to think otherwise.
Take it back, quickly, before—
But it was already too late. In the blink of an eye, it got worse.
So much worse.
It started with a strange snapping sound. Her eyes flew open, all vestiges of sleep dissolving in an instant. The house was forever creaking and moaning around her, the walls shuddering as it eased into its foundations like an old man inhaling and then releasing a deep breath, before settling his aching limbs around him as he fell into bed for the night.
But this was different. It wasn’t one of the usual creaks or cracks, but a pop, like a twig snapping in half. She stilled, listening, and yes, there it was again! A sharp, tight snap coming from . . . everywhere, it seemed, or—
No. It was coming from the corner of her bedchamber, near the one window that remained intact. Was the glass coming loose from the frame, or was the windowsill cracking? She leaped up from the chair and flew across the bedchamber toward the window, her blankets falling away.
The window was rattling, the wind making it tremble in its frame, but that wasn’t the source of the snapping sound. It was—
She stilled, her heart rushing into her throat.
It was coming fromaboveher.
She looked up, and a drop of icy water splashed onto her cheek, then another onto her nose, her chin, the droplets falling quickly now, catching in her eyelashes. She gasped, her muscles pulling tight as she willed it to stop, willed the house she loved to still, but she could hear it clearly now, a low, ominous rush above her, like a river overflowing its banks, and the cursed Duke of Grantham’s words echoed inside her head.
This house is tumbling down around your ears . . .
No, it wasn’t. Itwasn’t. It was just another leak, much like the leaks in the drawing room and the study. Nothing a pail and a handful of rags wouldn’t solve.
She peered up at the ceiling. It was as dark as Hades outside, and the bedchamber was lost in shadows, but it looked as if . . . oh. Oh, no. She squeezed her eyes closed, sucked in a breath, then opened them again, blinking away another drop of icy water, a muttered prayer on her lips.
But prayers hadn’t done her any good before, and they didn’t now, because even in the gloom of the bedchamber there was no mistaking the peril about to rain down upon her from above.
What had once been a perfectly serviceable ceiling now resembled nothing so much as a hot air balloon. The white plaster was swollen into a bubble that covered an entire corner of the room, the whole of it juddering and quivering like a jelly, a steady stream of water dripping from the distended belly of it.
It was going to collapse, and soon.
No, not soon.Now—
Her only warning was a series of ominous popping sounds, one pop after another, like bones snapping, but she managed to leap out of the way before the balloon burst with a deafening whoosh, and a wave of water gushed forth, flooding the bedchamber.
Oh, God. Oh, dear God.
She fled to the bedchamber door, away from the deluge, but she skidded to a halt when she reached the safety of the hallway and peeked back into the bedchamber. Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it had sounded, or looked, or ... felt. Perhaps she might yet be able to salvage it.
But itwasas bad. No, it was worse, and it didn’t take more than a glance to see it.
The force of the water had turned her chair over. The blankets she’d wrapped around herself were lying in a sopping mass in the middle of the floor. The fire she’d labored over was a wreck of smoking logs, the flames extinguished, and a thin stream of water was still dripping from the gaping hole where the ceiling used to be.
There was nothing to salvage, nothing to do but turn and drag herself into the hallway, her heart like a stone in her chest. How much longer could she keep on like this, when every day brought another struggle, another disaster?
She stumbled down the corridor towards Abby’s bedchamber but paused beside the closed door of Ambrose’s room. She’d set it to rights after he’d passed away, changing all the linens and scrubbing every inch of it until it sparkled, but she hadn’t set foot in it since then, because she hadn’t wanted . . .
She hadn’t wanted to see how empty it was.
But she was sotired, so unutterably weary, and she missed him so dreadfully, her chest aching with it, and all she wanted, the only thing she wanted in the world right now was to be as close to him as she could be.
The hinges creaked as she opened the door, the floorboards squeaking under her feet. She didn’t pause in the sitting room that adjoined the bedchamber, but made her way directly to the bed and crawled into it, pulling the coverlet over her head.
But as exhausted as she was, sleep refused to come.
Perhaps she should take Abby’s advice and leave Fairford, while her memories of this place were still happy ones. Because she couldn’t keep on like this, dodging Ambrose’s creditors at every turn, and struggling to hold off the steady deterioration of Hammond Court at the same time.
