“Well, it’s not to be,” a deeper voice answered reasonably. His older brother, Amy reckoned. So the brothers were back. “You’ll have to deliver the children without her. You’re not going to haul her around the countryside unconscious, are you?”
“Of course not!” Colin snapped.
“Shh! She might be ill, you know, if she’s been sleeping this long.” A younger, slightly scratchy voice. The other brother.
She heard a couple of footsteps, then a warm palm pressed onto her forehead and rested there a few seconds. Colin. It had to be. “She’s not hot,” she heard him say from right above her head. “And I checked her hand again last night. There’s no infection.”
Amy’s stomach fluttered at the thought of him caring for her while she slept. Perhaps she should let him know she’d awakened…
No! He’d take her away, ship her to France, and she wasn’t ready to go. Aunt Elizabeth was kind, but she’d smothered Amy with concern following her mother’s death. She couldn’t face that yet; she needed a few days to think about things, to come to some kind of peace within herself.
Better to pretend she still slept.
“It won’t be a simple matter to find a chaperone in London right now,” Amy heard Kendra pointing out. “And you cannot just plop her on a ship by herself.”
“That’s true,” he admitted grudgingly.
“You’d better go,” Kendra advised. “The wagon is packed, and the children are waiting. She’s not going to magically wake up, and even if she did, it would take her too long to get ready. She hasn’t eaten in two days.”
“More like four days,” Colin grumbled. The voices receded, accompanied by footsteps. “I suppose you’re right.”
“We’ll have her ready and waiting when you return,” Amy strained to hear Kendra say before the voices faded away entirely.
Amazingly, Amy Goldsmith woke up the minute Colin’s wagon rattled over the drawbridge.
SEVENTEEN
“I RETURNED to take her to Dover and put her on a ship, and hang it, that’s what I’m going to do!”
After three days spent weeping, thinking, and healing, Amy had approached Kendra that very afternoon and shyly asked about joining the family for supper. She’d been certain she felt ready for some human interaction.
But now that Colin was home, she wasn’t so sure.
In the corridor outside the drawing room, she stood frozen in place, listening. The Chases made an incredible racket. Amy and her parents had rarely shouted at one another, but this family seemed to use shouting as their main mode of communication. Even when they’d discussed her at her bedside, she reflected, they’d shouted in whispers.
Tonight, they were none so circumspect.
“I promised her, Colin!” she heard Kendra wail. “I promised she could stay here until she’s ready.”
“Ready? What on earth is that supposed to mean? She’s awake, she’s ready.”
“I’m not quite certain she’s awake,” Ford’s scratchy, adolescent voice put in, with more than a little amusement. “She’s been wandering around like a ghost.”
Amy winced. Was that what they thought of her?
“She has not!” Kendra leapt to Amy’s defense. “Her father just died, for heaven’s sake. I promised her.”
“A pox on your promises! I need to get back to Greystone. I needed to be there a week ago.”
“Jason?” By the tone of Kendra’s voice, Amy imagined her looking toward her brother beseechingly.
“A Chase promise is not given lightly.” Jason, the voice of reason.
“A pox on you, too!”
“I agree with them, Colin. Promises aside, she’s in no state for travel.” So Ford was on her side as well.
“A pox on all three of you! I don’t care who agrees with whom. I brought her here, and I’ll take her away when I please.”
“I promised her!”
“You sound like one of those newfangled cuckoo clocks, Kendra. ‘I promised her, I promised her, I promised her.’ Well, cuckoo all you want; I’m not changing my mind. We’re leaving come morning. Where is she? You said she was coming to supper.”
Amy took a step back down the corridor.
“Your arrival probably scared her into the next county!” Kendra yelled.
“You’re both acting like children!” Amy heard Jason shout while she steadily backed away from the room. “Colin, this is out of your hands. Go to Greystone in the morning. I’ll arrange for Mrs. Goldsmith’s travel when she’s ready. Kendra, go fetch her. We’ll meet you in the dining room in half an hour.”
Amy fled up the stairs to her chamber and was sitting primly on the edge of her bed when Kendra arrived.
Her friend stood in the doorway, frowning. “It’s nearly time for supper. You’re…not planning to wear that gown, are you?”
Amy looked down to her skirts. The lavender dress had been laundered and pressed while she slept, but there were a few tiny holes where embers had landed, and little gray spots where the soot had stained it permanently. She’d worn it three days straight already.
Her face burned. “I haven’t another,” she said to her lap.
“Wait here a moment.” Kendra started to leave, then reappeared in the doorway. “Oh, Colin is back.” She disappeared again, yelling “Jane!” as she went.
Wondering what Kendra was up to, Amy ran her hand down the gilt bedpost beside her for what seemed like the millionth time since she’d awakened in this beautiful room a few days ago. It wasn’t the costliness of the gold that stole her breath, for gold was so soft and pliable that she could hammer a single ounce into a hundred square feet of gold leaf. But she thought the intricately carved bed looked like nothing so much as a gigantic, exquisite piece of jewelry, and—with a fresh stab of grief—she wished she could show it to her father.
All of the room’s furnishings were gilt, marble, or golden brocade. Amy felt like she was living in Queen Catharine’s bedchamber.
A floral fragrance suffused the air. She shuffled her smoke-damaged shoes where they rested on a plush patterned carpet of brown, cream and gold. At home, the
