visit Nicky up at her school last month, but I wish...’
There was such weariness and pain in Catherine’s voice Lily wished she could do something for her, at least say something reassuring, but she had never been good at polite lies. Then the moment passed and Catherine opened the door.
* * *
No twelve-year-old of any spirit enjoyed being confined to bed and Nicky was a very spirited twelve-year-old. The fact that she was leaning back against her pillows and allowing a maid to brush her hair was a testament to how weak she was. But when they entered, she sat up, frowning.
‘Sue said Uncle Alan is staying at the Ship in Keynsham! Is it true, Mama?’
The maid blushed under Catherine’s accusing eyes, curtsied and hurried away.
‘Do lie down, Nicky. Lily has been kind enough to offer to sit with you while I take a basket to Nanny Brisbane.’
Lily picked up the book lying by Nicky’s side and smiled.
‘The Mysteries of Udolpho. I haven’t read this in years.’
‘I am halfway through, but my head hurts too much to read.’ Nicky was distracted only for a moment. ‘But, Mama...is Uncle Alan really in Keynsham? Will he come see me?’
‘Nicky, you know your uncle doesn’t come to the Hall.’
‘Then I want to go to Keynsham.’
‘My dear, you aren’t well enough...perhaps when you are better...’
‘No! By then he’ll be gone and I shall return to school and I won’t see him for months! It’s not fair that Grandmama is so evil and has cut him off and is going to leave everything to some doddering, preachy old cousin of Grandpapa’s we haven’t even heard of and doesn’t care a straw for the Hall! It’s not fair!’
‘Nicola!’ Catherine scrubbed her palm over her forehead and then with a gesture of defeat she headed towards the door. ‘We will discuss this later, but right now I must go. I will return very soon.’
Nicky watched the door close, her hands still fisted by her sides and her eyes red from unshed tears. Lily could feel the frustration and confused pain in her own bones. It was around this age that she had begun to actively resent her father’s frequent disappearances. Her poor mother had borne the brunt of her temper as well.
She kicked off her kid slippers and curled up on the bed by the girl, picking up the discarded book.
‘Where were you? Here? “‘Surely, Annette,’ said Emily, starting, ‘I heard a noise: listen.’ After a long pause... ‘No, ma’mselle,’ said Annette, ‘it was only the wind in the gallery; I often hear it when it shakes the old doors.’”’ Lily added a rattling groan for good measure and was rewarded by a faint smile. She kept going, investing as much melodramatic nonsense into the story as she could, rising to a distressed falsetto when Emily hurried to greet the man she thought was Valancourt and promptly fainted when it was not.
‘What a great deal of fainting they do engage in!’ she interjected. ‘I haven’t fainted once in my life, have you?’
Nicky giggled again. ‘No, but perhaps that’s because we haven’t yet been in love.’
‘What do you mean, “we”? How do you know I haven’t?’
‘Have you?’
Lily sighed.
‘No, never. It’s very disheartening, though I still doubt I will faint if ever I am foolish enough to fall in love.’
‘Don’t you want to be in love? I do!’
Lily considered Nicky’s flushed cheeks and the dark eyes glistening with hope. She is merely a girl, Lily. She has time enough to discover the futility of dreams.
‘Well, yes, but I don’t think I shall be very good at it. I am not very suited to adore anyone, certainly not someone like Valancourt. Never mind, let’s discover what horrors and creaking and groanings next lie in store for our intrepid and oft-faint Emily, shall we?’
‘You’re funny, Lily. I wish I had a sister like you.’
Nicky leaned her head momentarily against Lily’s shoulder and Lily blinked against the peculiar burning over the bridge of her nose. Not a sister. A daughter, someone like Nicky who would curl up beside her while she read... And a son leaning against her as well until he was too old for such sentimental nonsense.
She would take them to Isla Padrones and teach them to swim like the gardener Joao had taught her after her father had sent her and her mother to live on the island. Her mother had been frail and despondent after the nervous illnesses that had plagued her in the jungles of Brazil, where her father had been searching for his precious gems, and the Jesuit doctor from the nearby mission had recommended sea air. He had probably meant one of the coastal towns, but her father’s romantic soul had remembered a short visit to the islands of the Amazonian delta and had sent them to one of the smallest. They were supposed to be there only until her mother recovered, but perhaps her mother’s realisation that she was healthiest when she didn’t have to witness her husband’s infidelities had turned a convalescent retreat into a permanent home, regardless of the impact of this isolation on their only child. Ten years after leaving the islands Lily could fully appreciate what was wonderful and horrible about their seclusion there. If... When she had children, she hoped she could show them the pleasures of being alone, but also create a broader world than her parents had provided.
‘Well, so do I,’ she replied lightly, thinking of how often she had prayed for a sibling during those long years. ‘A sister like you, I mean. I always wanted a sister.’
Nicky snuggled closer and closed her eyes with a sigh.
‘I always wanted an older brother, too. Someone like Uncle Alan. You know, dashing and dangerous so all the girls will want to be my friend just so they can flirt with him. Well, they already do even though he’s so old.’
Lily tried not to laugh.
‘Don’t tell him that. The old part, at least. As for the flirting, I am certain he knows that already.’
‘Oh, that’s right, I forgot you have met him. Sue told me he was at Hollywell House when you and Grandmama were there.’
‘Is there nothing the servants don’t know?’
‘Certainly nothing worth knowing. So, what did you think of him? Isn’t he handsome? The girls at school said he was the handsomest man they have ever seen!’
Nicky looked up at her, her face a study of curiosity, defiance and need. Lily tried to tread as carefully as possible over the ground of Nicky’s hero worship and through the unsettling sensations that accompanied the resurgence of the memory of their encounter in the Hollywell House library.
It wasn’t surprising she hadn’t recognised him as Catherine’s brother. She had heard a great deal about the notorious Rakehell Raven since her arrival, but she had still expected him to look more like his sister. Catherine herself was a very handsome woman, but there was a softness to her that had no echo in her brother’s harsh, sculpted face, and though her hair was also near black, it was slightly warmed by mahogany lights rather than the jet sheen of her brother’s that added credence to his Raven epithet.
The biggest difference was in the eyes. Catherine’s were a clear sky blue, slightly chilled around the edges. Her brother’s were a world away, a very dark grey she had at first thought as black as his hair. She had seen such colouring in the Venetian sailors who had manned the ship that brought her to England, but Lord Ravenscar’s face was pure Celtic god—sharp-cut lines of a deity bent on the destruction of lesser mortals. Perhaps his eyes also were merely black and the impression of the complex shades of an evening sky were just an illusion that would dissipate if she had a longer look. Not that she would ever have the chance to examine the man’s eyes, she reminded herself. After his visit to the old nanny, he would probably return to his gambling and womanising and