Blackmoore(67)

“Ow! What are you doing that for?”

“You have to leave. Immediately. Put your shoes back on.”

She pushed me away, and when I did not let go, she used her foot to 203



J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n send me sprawling backwards across the room. “I am not going anywhere, Kitty. Why should you be the only one to have any fun?”

I caught myself against the wall and advanced on her again, grabbing a foot this time and pulling. “This. Is. Not. Fun!”

She scrabbled for something to hold onto and ended up pulling all the bedclothes off the bed with her as she landed in a heap on the floor.

Panting, I ran around the bed and looked for her shoes and stockings.

Where did that other shoe go? I got down on all fours and reached under the bed, saying, “We will just send you right back in the carriage you came in, and it will be as if this never happened, and I will win my trip to India, and—”

“No! I shan’t go! You may be older than me, Kitty, but you are not in charge!”

I stood, holding one shoe and her stockings, as an overwhelming frus-tration took hold of me. I shook her shoe at her and yelled, “Kate! I wish to be called Kate!”

She crossed her arms and glared at me. And something in me broke. I threw everything to the floor and walked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind me.

L

I ran across the moors until I reached the large outcropping of rock.

I climbed it without thinking about being careful. And then I sat at the top of the rock and looked across the moors and let the wildness and the solitude of the place seep into every broken crack of me. Birdsong reached me—the cry of the birds of the coast and the moors—and I regretted that I had never come out here with Henry. He would have known some of the birds here. He could have told me the name of the one that sounded like wind across water.

With the unexpected arrival of Mama and Maria, I knew my time here was over. I knew, as certainly as I knew my name was Kate 204



Worthington, that they would ruin everything. Mama might already have ruined everything. I might return to the house and find Mrs. Delafield in an uproar and ready to throw us all out before we could cause a scandal that would taint her precious family name.

The sky was grey today, the wind cold. I felt the hint of rain in the air, the occasional chill of an errant raindrop landing on my arm. I breathed in deeply and thought I smelled the ocean. It was a tantalizing scent—a beckoning of freedom and adventure and escape.

This trip to Blackmoore had not been the dream I had nurtured for the past ten years. I had imagined an idyllic holiday with my two best friends, Henry and Sylvia. It had turned out so vastly different from my imagin-ings that I felt deeply disappointed, both in the reality and in myself. I had never thought I would regret something I had longed for. I had never imagined feeling this heavy emptiness here. And it saddened me deeply.

It frightened me, too. For if Blackmoore could disappoint like this, what guarantee did I have that India would not disappoint as well? I climbed down from the rock and wandered the moors until the worry about what my mother might be doing overcame my desire for this unin-terrupted solitude. Finally I turned back toward the house and the trouble that awaited me.

I had crossed the entry hall and was approaching the drawing room when I heard Mrs. Delafield.

“Katherine!” I froze. Mrs. Delafield was coming in my direction at a fierce pace. “May I speak to you a moment, please?”

Mrs. Delafield’s smile was all cold fury and controlled rage. I glanced at the butler standing nearby and felt an almost overwhelming desire to throw myself at his feet and beg him to protect me.

Her hand closed around my arm. She gestured toward the arch that led out of the domed entry hall. “In the library, if you please.”

My heart quickened with dread and nervousness. But in the wake of that icy politeness and that cutting, threatening smile, I didn’t know what else to do but go with her.

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J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n I followed her with a pounding heart as she led me to the library and closed the door behind us. She stepped away from me and took two long, deep breaths, before turning around to face me.

“I allowed my children to convince me that your company might be acceptable here. But now you have brought that woman into my child-hood home and brought scandal to me, to my father, and to the Delafield family name., I am certain all of my guests are looking for somewhere else to be for the rest of the summer.”

My face was hot, my clenched hands trembling. “I promise I had nothing to do with my mother’s presence here.”

Her eyes narrowed in disbelief. “She told me that you invited her and that sister of yours.”

I shook my head. “No. I only invited Maria. Not her.”

She lifted her chin, looking down at me, and her voice shook with umbrage. “And who authorized you to do such a thing?”

“Henry.”

It was a mistake to name him. I could see it at once and wished I could snatch his name back from the air to undo the damage I saw in her.

Bright spots of red dotted her cheeks. Her head began to shake, back and forth, back and forth, and I could see the fury building in her eyes.

“I will speak to my son. But let us be clear on this point: you will never become mistress of Blackmoore. You will never bear the name of Delafield. You do not deserve the honor of being connected to the Delafield family—not you, nor any of your sisters, and especially not your mother.” Her trembling finger pointed at me again. “Do you understand?”