Page 52 of A Single Thread of Moonlight

“Goodnight, Lord Wynter,” I replied.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The day was already off to a bad start. Not only was my headache back, not only had I not been able to search for the will, not only had I been fuming all night after my conversation with Nick, but this morning I had to go shopping. With Agatha.

And I was going to have to smile the whole bloody time.

I was living in my own personal nightmare. I couldn’t even summon a kind word for Matilda, wincing silently as she did my hair.

“Something loose today, please,” I murmured. “I have a bad head.”

“Of course, miss,” she replied. After working in silence for a moment, she asked in a hesitant voice, “Are you going out with the prince? Just the two of you?”

“No, I’m going into town with the ladies. Why do you ask?”

Matilda’s eyes dropped from mine in the mirror. “No reason, miss,” she said quickly. “He’s extremely handsome.”

“Yes.” I smiled. “He is.” I supposed Stefan was quite the romantic figure below stairs.

The weather outside my window was very different from the day before – grey and flat, with pebbles of rain striking the glass. It did not seem like auspicious weather and it suited my mood.

As I descended the stairs I met the dowager countess, who was on her way back up.

“There you are,” she said, giving me her habitual once-over and nodding grudgingly as if to say I was just about up to standard. “You and I need to talk.”

“Of course, Lady Wynter,” I said demurely. “About anything in particular or will commonplaces do? This weather really is awful, isn’t it?”

“That’s enough of your sass, young lady.” The dowager countess fixed me with a gimlet eye. “I want to discuss my wastrel of a grandson with you.”

“Would you call Lord Wynter a wastrel?” I asked. “It’s not the first word that springs to mind.” Arrogant, overbearing, stubborn, perhaps.

“I’d call him an impertinent young rascal,” Nick’s grandmother replied tersely. “But then he always has been my favourite.”

I laughed then. I couldn’t help it.

“I’m afraid I’m expected downstairs,” I said as meekly as I could manage. “We’re going shopping.”

She sniffed derisively. “Well, run along, then. But don’t think you’re wriggling off this particular hook. You and I will talk.”

On that note she swept up the stairs, leaving me in her wake.

When I finally arrived downstairs, one of the footmen told me that the rest of the ladies were waiting in the morning room. The morning room had been one of my mother’s havens. I steeled myself to enter.

When I stepped through the threshold, I was assailed by images of my mother, images that were hazy and out of focus. My father I remembered as clearly as if he were standing in front of me, but with my mother it was a different experience. Trying to build a picture of her was like trying to catch on to a cloud. I saw an embroidered handkerchief, felt the soft warmth of her hand around mine; there was the tinkling sound of silver bangles on a slender arm, the smell of ripe strawberries.

This room was bright and sunny and decorated in the colours of spring.

“Ah, Miss Fox, there you are,” Helena greeted me. “I do hope you have recovered from your headache?” Her tone was pleasant, which immediately had me on my guard.

I was surprised to see Cassie in the room, alongside Agatha, Sophia and Lady Bell. She gave me a look that told me it was not by choice.

“I have recovered, thank you,” I replied, not exactly truthfully.

“Won’t you sit and have a cup of tea with us while the coach is made ready?” Helena asked. She gestured to a seat.

“Of course.” I moved to sit, when I was stopped in my tracks.

I thought I’d been erased from the house completely, but there, on the wall that I was walking past, in an unassuming silver frame, was a piece of embroidery … embroidery that I had stitched myself.