Amy looked up to the balcony that spanned the width of the hall. “I’ve never seen the likes of it,” she admitted. “It’s magnificent. The workmanship…”
“My home, Greystone, is nothing like this—take my word for it.”
She didn’t reply, mainly because her gaze had wandered back down the stairs and settled on Lady Kendra. From the top of her coiffed head, with her striking dark-red ringlets wired out on the sides, to the quilted slippers that peeked from beneath her mint-green satin skirts, Lady Kendra was the picture of perfection.
Amy glanced down, mortified. Her own wrinkled, smoke-stained skirts had started out lavender on Monday, but now looked a grubby gray. She could only imagine what her face and hair looked like, all dirty and disheveled. She wanted to drop into the floor.
“Kendra, you’ll remember Mrs. Amethyst Goldsmith?” Colin’s words prompted a small smile from Amy. Only harlots and pre-adolescent girls were called “Miss,” and in light of her behavior last night, she considered herself lucky that Colin considered her neither.
A frown wrinkled Lady Kendra’s forehead. “I’m not certain…”
“You met Mrs. Goldsmith last month in London,” Colin reminded his sister. “She made your locket.”
“Oh, of course!” Lady Kendra’s face lit up at the memory. She scrutinized Amy more closely, then smiled. “It’s just that I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Considering it was more likely that Colin’s sister hadn’t recognized her under all the filth, Amy warmed to her immediately. “That makes two of us, Lady Kendra. I didn’t expect to be here myself.”
Lady Kendra’s laughter tinkled through the hall. “I suppose you didn’t, at that,” she conceded. “And please, call me Kendra—just Kendra. May I call you Amethyst?”
“My friends call me Amy,” Amy returned hopefully. She badly needed a friend right now.
“Amy, then. Um…might I guess you’d like a bath?”
“Oh, yes,” she breathed gratefully.
“And some supper,” Colin interjected. “She hasn’t eaten in two days,” he explained to Kendra.
Amy shook her head slightly. She was certain she couldn’t eat yet. “I really just want to sleep.”
“Warm chocolate, then,” Colin insisted.
Amy nodded acceptance.
“With brandy in it,” he added decisively. “And some soup.”
Amy sighed. “Perhaps some soup. The chocolate sounds nice.”
The brandy sounded nice. The brandy and bed. She’d be willing to wager the beds in a place like this would be soft and comfortable.
“Well, up you go, then.” Colin gestured toward the stairs. “Up you all go, in fact,” he declared in a raised voice, striding over to the children huddled in the back of the hall, whispering amongst themselves. “Baths for everyone, first thing. Then supper, then bed.”
There were audible groans at this announcement. “Could we not just wash up a bit?” Davis spoke for the group. “We won’t really have to take baths, will we?”
Heading up the stairs, Amy smiled to herself. She knew that at home, Davis probably bathed twice a year, if that. Cleanliness was considered an invitation to infection.
“Oh yes, you will,” Colin stated firmly. “Kendra, two at a time. And fresh hot water for each bath.”
Behind her, Amy heard the children’s startled breaths. Such lavish use of water was unheard of in the City. She met Kendra’s amused eyes.
“Tell Cook to prepare supper—lots of it,” Kendra called down toward her brother’s dark head. “Then, for heaven’s sake, come up and give me a hand. I’m not the one who volunteered to play nursemaid.”
FOURTEEN
“THE MEWS was over there,” Colin said, pointing through the keep’s glassless window.
The children clustered around him, craning their necks to see out. He felt a small tug on his breeches and looked down. Noon sunshine streamed into the ancient roofless tower, dancing on a small lad’s red-gold mop of curls.
The child cocked his head. “What’s a news?”
Colin smiled at his puzzled look. “A mews,” he corrected gently. “A building where the lord kept his falcons. It was destroyed by the Roundheads in the siege of 1643.”
“The same time the holes in the floor happened?” another boy asked.
“The same time,” he told the child, a sturdy apple-cheeked lad. “But that only makes it more fun for hide-and-seek and treasure hunts, doesn’t it?”
The boy and Colin shared a smile before the boy sobered. “When can we go home?”
“Yes, when?” another echoed.
“Today?” The smallest girl’s blue eyes looked so hopeful in her angelic little face.
Colin gave one of her golden ringlets a gentle tug and watched it spring back into place. “Not today, Mary, but soon, I’m hoping.” As a disappointed silence seemed to permeate the stone walls, he looked away, twisting his ring and searching for the right words of comfort.
“Did you live in this keep when you were a little boy?”
“Heavens, no!” Colin met the large brown eyes of another girl. “How old do you think I am?” She and a few of the others giggled. “No one’s lived in here for centuries. The building was open to the sky long before my boyhood. Would you like to see the wall walk?”
The sound of a clearing throat rang from the doorway. Colin turned, startled.
“’Dinnertime,” Kendra announced.
He frowned. “How long have you been there?”
“We want to hear another story,” piped up a chubby towhead. Davis’s little brother, if Colin remembered right. After a good night’s sleep and cleaned of the soot and ash, he appeared a different child.
“That wasn’t a story,” he told the boy, then looked up at Kendra. “I was just explaining a bit of history.”
“It’s time for dinner now,” Kendra said firmly. “Lord Greystone will tell you another story later.”
“I will?”
“Yes, you will.” Kendra shot him a diabolical grin. “You brought them here, you’re responsible for their entertainment. You owe them a bedtime story, at least.” She motioned to the children. “Come along, you all need to wash before eating.”
“But I promised to show them the wall walk,” Colin protested.
“Oh, very well, but quickly. You know how sulky Cook gets when her lovely meals grow cold.”
Beckoning, Colin led them all into the stairtower and down the winding
