Mattie inhaled deeply, almost smelling the tang of the ocean, almost tasting sea salt on her tongue.
Her grip tightened on the letter. Soon she would be free of Uncle Arthur, free of Creed Hall, free of Soddy Morton and Northamptonshire. Every word that she wrote and every confession that she mailed to London brought the dream of owning a boarding house closer.
Soon it wouldn’t be a dream, it would be reality.
EDWARD KANE, LATELY of the Royal Horse Guards, tooled his curricle over the low bridge to the clatter of iron-shod hooves on stone and halted at his first glimpse of Creed Hall. It crouched to his left at the crest of the hill, built of stone so dark it almost looked black, crowded by leafless trees. He grimaced. What had Toby called it? The dungeon.
“Ugly,” his bâtman, Tigh, commented from his seat alongside Edward.
Edward grunted agreement. A gust of wind whistled across the bare fields, and with it, the first icy drops of rain. He shivered, and urged the horses up the driveway. Guilt—a familiar companion since Waterloo—seemed to wrap more closely around him with each step the weary horses took. The Hall disappeared, then came into sight again, looking even more grim and inhospitable. He drew the curricle to a halt in front of the frowning, iron-studded door, handed the reins to Tigh, and clambered down. “Take it round to the stables.”
“Yes, sir.”
Edward rubbed his aching thigh. Guilt settled more heavily on him as he limped up the steps. Creed Hall loomed above him. It was ugly, but even so, it was Toby’s home. It should be him here, not me.
The door opened on grating hinges before he reached it. “Mr. Kane.”
Edward stepped inside, shivering. He handed his hat to the elderly butler, shrugged out of his fur-lined driving coat, and peeled off his gloves. Oil paintings hung on the dark-paneled walls, barely discernible in the gloom.
“Sir Arthur is in the library, sir,” the butler said, receiving the gloves and managing not to stare at Edward’s butchered hands. Or perhaps he didn’t notice the lack of fingers in the dimness. “If you would follow me, sir?”
Edward followed.
The library was almost as dark as the entrance hall. The curtains were drawn against the dusk, but a lone candle burned on a side table and a meager fire smoked in the grate. A figure sat in a winged leather armchair beside the fireplace, shrouded in shadow.
“Mr. Kane, sir,” the butler said, and departed.
Edward bowed towards the armchair. “Sir Arthur?”
Sir Arthur levered himself from the armchair. Edward tried to find some points of similarity between his host and Toby. Height, leanness, a long face, but there it stopped. Arthur Strickland was thin to the point of emaciation, his high, domed skull bare except for a few wisps of white hair, his skin withered into pale, desiccated folds. Where Toby had liked to laugh, it appeared that Arthur Strickland preferred to frown. Lines of disapproval were engraved on his face, pinching between the feathery eyebrows and deeply bracketing his mouth.
Sir Arthur held out his hand, leaning heavily on his ebony cane, noticed the three fingers missing from Edward’s right hand, and hesitated.
“It doesn’t hurt, sir,” Edward said. Not much.
Strickland shook hands with him, a dry, limp clasp. “Waterloo?”
“Yes.”
Interest sharpened in the old man’s eyes.
Edward braced himself for the inevitable questions, but instead Sir Arthur said, “Sherry?”
“Please.”
Strickland rang for a servant. Edward sat silently while the butler bustled into the library, poured two small glasses of sherry, and left. Sir Arthur’s gaze was on his face. Edward watched the old man trace the scars, saw him note the missing ear. Finally the perusal ended. “Waterloo as well?”
Edward nodded. He sipped his sherry. It was mouth-puckeringly dry.
Strickland sighed. He leaned back in his armchair. “My son . . . you were with him when he died?”
“Yes, sir.”
Sir Arthur glanced at the fire, blinked several times, swallowed, and brought his gaze back to Edward. “Would you mind . . . telling me?”
A rush of memory ambushed Edward. For a brief moment he was back at Waterloo. The smells of blood and cordite filled his nose. Toby’s shout rang in his ears—Get up, Ned!—as vivid, as clear, as if the battle had been yesterday, not five months ago.
Muscles clenched in Edward’s stomach. He gulped a fortifying mouthful of sherry. “Not at all.” He looked away from the old man’s face and began his tale.
THERE WAS SILENCE for a long time after Edward had finished, then Arthur Strickland cleared his throat. “Thank you.”
Edward nodded.
The old man stood slowly. “We dine at six.”
Edward glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Half past five.
“My sister’s nurse-companion dines with us. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
He gave Strickland a few minutes to make his way slowly from the library, leaning on his cane, then summoned the butler with a jerk of the bell rope and followed the man up creaking stairs and along dark, chilly corridors to his bedchamber. The mutton smell of tallow candles hung in the air.
The fire in his room was as meager as the one in the library. The four-poster bed loomed like a crêpe-shrouded mausoleum, hung with dark green velvet. His valise had been unpacked and his few clothes neatly put away. The package of Toby’s effects lay on the dresser. Edward turned away from it. He’d deal with that later. He’d had all the memories he could cope with for the moment.
Tigh bustled in, stocky and middle-aged, his face weather-beaten beneath bristling eyebrows. He carried a jug of steaming water. “It’s colder than a nun’s monosyllable in ’ere, sir.”
Edward grunted agreement. He stripped out of his traveling clothes and dressed quickly in pantaloons and a fresh shirt. He washed his face and ran a comb through his hair.
