Blackmoore(24)

“Miss Worthington?” a voice called through the door.

“Yes?” I answered groggily, trying to shake off the remnant shadows of my dreams.

The door cracked open, and a young face framed by a maid’s white cap appeared. “I am your maid. May I come in?”

“Oh.” I sat up and pushed back my dark hair. “Yes, please do.”

She entered the room and dropped a curtsy. Her cheeks were rosy and covered with freckles. Her hands fidgeted with her white apron.

I smiled to try to ease her obvious nervousness. “What is your name?”

“Alice, miss.” She dropped another curtsy.

“And do you come from Robin Hood’s Bay, Alice?” I asked, remem-bering Mrs. Delafield’s instructions to Dawson the night before.

“Yes, miss.”

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“Well, I am very happy to have you.”

She smiled bashfully and, gesturing to my trunk, asked if she should finish unpacking my things for me. I nodded, but when she moved to open the drapes first, I groaned with disappointment to discover how late I had slept. Moving to the window, I saw that the sun had risen during my dreams, and the moors were already brightly lit but shrouded by fog.

How could I have slept past dawn on my first morning here? I had gone to bed with every intention of being outside before sunrise in order to hear the birds.

I shivered standing near the window with nothing but the cold floor beneath my feet. Tomorrow morning I would not oversleep. I would not let the nightly hauntings of this place steal my morning birds from me.

With Alice’s help I dressed and then made my way downstairs for breakfast, finding only Sylvia and Miss St. Claire in the dining room.

I paused in the doorway, trying to collect my composure and my good intentions. I had been tired last night after my days of travel. That was the only reason I thought Miss St. Claire a tad irritating and a bit presumptuous. Perhaps she was perfectly acceptable as a human being. Perhaps she would make Henry a good wife.

“Good morning, Miss Worthington,” Miss St. Claire called as I made my way to the sideboard, where breakfast was laid out for the guests to choose from. “I hope you slept well.”

“Yes, I slept well, thank you.” I had to bite back other, less polite words, about how I was Henry’s guest, not hers, and that she was not supposed to be here on my first and only visit to Blackmoore. It was supposed to be just me and Henry and Sylvia, like we had been growing up.

If anyone asked about my sleep, it should have been Sylvia. I bit back the uncharitable words that rose to my tongue and struggled to think something kind about this interloper, this young woman who had come here to rob me of the visit I was supposed to have. I thought hard while I piled food on my plate, and by the time I turned to the table and the 70



empty seat across from the two of them, I had thought of one thing: Miss St. Claire was a thoughtful interloper. I could grant her that.

“You are very interested in India, I understand,” Miss St. Claire said to me. She looked pretty in the morning light. Her hair really was a deep, glorious auburn that glinted with a hint of copper when the sunlight shone on it the right way. And those wide-set, green eyes were a force to be reckoned with.

“Oh? Who told you that?”

Sylvia spoke up. “I did. Juliet and I spent a great deal of time together in London.”

I tried not to resent that fact. I knew that Sylvia would have made new friends in London. But I did not like this stranger knowing things about me. Miss St. Claire was watching me, both eyebrows up, and I real-ized she was waiting for an answer.

“Yes, I am quite interested in India. In fact, I hope soon to travel there myself, with my aunt.”

The elfin queen shook her head, making a gentle tsking sound. “I cannot conceive of why one would ever desire to go so far from England’s shores. It seems so dangerous!”

“It can be.”

“How long is the voyage?”

“Depending on the season, between four and six months.”

Her green eyes opened wide. She carefully set down her cup. “Then one could not travel there and back in less than . . . a year. Conceivably.”

I nodded.

She shook her head, her eyes large with compassion. “You poor thing.” She reached her hand across the table and touched my own, stopping me when I would have lifted my fork to my mouth. “I understand that your situation at home is not as . . . ideal as some of us are blessed with. And I feel for you, I truly do, that things could be so uncomfort-able that you would choose to put such a distance between yourself and your loved ones.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I understand your 71



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parents are not as caring as mine are. You poor, poor thing.” Her mouth pulled down into the prettiest frown I had ever seen.

I dropped my fork and darted a glance at Sylvia, who looked as if she would like to sink into the ground. How could she tell Miss St. Claire such personal things about me?

She tried to smile at me, but her eyes were full of dread. “You mustn’t be angry with me, Kitty. You know that Juliet is like one of the family.”

I wiped my mouth with my napkin, using the movement as an excuse to pull my hand out from under Miss St. Claire’s unwelcome touch.