The Baronet's Bride (Midnight Quill #1.5)(17)

“Matilda!”

Mattie swung around, clutching the letter to her breast.

Her uncle stood in the doorway to his study, leaning heavily on a cane. “Where are you going?”

Mattie raised the letter, showing it to him. “A letter to a friend, Uncle Arthur. I’m taking it down to the village.”

Her uncle frowned, his face pleating into sour, disapproving folds. “I sent Durce with the mail an hour ago.”

“Yes, Uncle. I hadn’t quite finished—”

“Durce can take it tomorrow.”

“I should like to send it today, Uncle. If I may.”

Uncle Arthur’s eyebrows pinched together in a scowl. The wispy feathers of white hair ringing his domed skull, the beak-like nose, made him look like a gaunt, bad-tempered bird of prey. “Mr. Kane will be arriving soon.”

“I’ll only be twenty minutes. I promise.” Mattie bowed her head and held her breath. Please, please, please . . .

Her uncle sniffed. “Very well. But don’t be late for our guest. We owe him every courtesy.”

“No, Uncle.” Mattie dipped him a curtsy. “Thank you.”

Outside, the sky was heavy with rain clouds. The air was dank and bracingly cold, scented with the smell of decaying vegetation. Mattie took a deep breath, filling her lungs, feeling her spirits lift, conscious of a delicious sense of freedom. She walked briskly down the long drive, skirting puddles and mud. On either side, trees stretched leafless branches towards the sky. Once she was out of sight of the Hall’s windows, Mattie lengthened her stride into a run. She spread her arms wide, catching the wintry breeze with her shawl. It felt as if she was galloping, as if she was flying, as if she was free.

At the lane, she slowed to a walk and turned right. The village of Soddy Morton was visible in the hollow a mile away.

Mattie crossed the crumbling stone bridge. The brook rushed and churned below, brown and swollen, its banks cloaked in winter-dead weeds. She blew out a breath. It hung fog-like in front of her. Icy mud splashed her half boots and the hem of her gown, but a feeling of joy warmed her. She didn’t see the bleak landscape—the bare fields, the bare trees, the heavy, gray sky. Instead, her imagination showed her a cheerful boarding house with a cozy kitchen and a view of the sea through the windows.

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 batman, 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.