Page 35

She rises to leave, smoothing her skirts, the corners of her mouth lifting as she continues scanning the letter, and I watch her float out of the room in a cloud of dreams and grand plans for the future.
* * *
It’s cooled considerably in the past few days, summer gracefully bowing out as autumn claims her throne. After Catherine leaves I feel a bit lighter, like I’ve made a first step in the right direction. Getting some fresh air in the room would be another good step, so I force myself out of bed and throw my shoulder against the protesting window.
No sooner does the window gasp open than the sound of footsteps and voices float up from the drive. I can’t see him from this angle, but I instantly know who’s speaking. A moment later Ada is knocking at my door, peeping her head inside.
“It’s Mr. Barrett, miss. Your mother is trying to send him away, but he’s insistent, saying he must see you.” She casts a glance at the messy room, my disheveled hair, and looks at me expectantly. “I thought you might want to know.”
I’m up in a flash, wrapping a clean shawl over the dress I’ve been wearing for three days straight, and sweeping my greasy hair up into a loose bun. “Thank you, Ada.”
She’s already gone, and then the sound of brisk footsteps clipping down the hall grows closer, accompanied by frantic murmurs. A moment later Mr. Barrett is striding through the door, Mother hot on his heels. Snip gives a joyful yelp and forgets his ball when he sees his favorite person.
“Mr. Barrett, please. She hasn’t been well. I—”
Mr. Barrett stops abruptly, nearly tripping as Snip weaves between his legs. I stiffen when I see the dried cut on his lip and the bluish red bruise on his cheekbone, realizing that both were my doing. He’s vibrating with silent energy like a violin string long after the note has died, and I can hardly blame him. Now that I’m out of immediate danger he must be furious with me.
I swallow hard. “It’s fine, Mother.”
She casts an apprehensive glance between us. “I’ll have Ada make up the parlor and bring some tea.”
It’s taken me three days just to work up the nerve to open the window, and seeing Mr. Barrett so suddenly has thrown my new little world into chaos. I’m not sure I have the energy to make my way downstairs. Anyway, he’s already seen me in all my desolation. “I’d just as soon stay here.”
For the first time since barging into my room, Mr. Barrett looks a little less self-assured, finally noticing the precarious stacks of books on every surface, the dirty linens piled in the corner, the plate of untouched ham and toast that Ada left this morning. “This is a bad time...” he says, dipping his head and rubbing the back of his neck.
“No,” I say quickly. Seeing Catherine has given me some courage, and I must face Mr. Barrett sometime. It might as well be now. “No, it’s not a bad time.”
Mother tightens her lips and I know that I’m toeing the line of decency. But she doesn’t press the matter, just crosses the room to draw the curtains closed around the bed as if to eliminate any possible temptations. If circumstances were different I might laugh that she’s even concerned of the possibility of seduction. Then she takes a blanket out of the trunk and leaves it on the settee Joe optimistically brought in so that I could entertain visitors in my room while I recovered. Mr. Barrett and I both follow her with our eyes until she’s made up a proper seating arrangement. Normally I might be embarrassed by all of this, but I suppose it’s a promising sign that she’s taking an interest in me at all.
“I’ll be right down the hall if you need anything,” she says with a lingering look of doubt.
Mr. Barrett nods, a little flustered at finding himself granted an audience after all, and in my bedchamber no less. I should be too, but I’m too on edge, wary of what he might be here to say. Mother leaves the door conspicuously open when she leaves.
He takes a tentative step farther into the room. “I... Would you have a seat?” His body is so still, only a slight tremor in his voice belying that he isn’t in full possession of himself either.
It’s ridiculous, him in my bedroom inviting me to have a seat, but I don’t know what else to do except nod and tuck myself up under the quilt. At least this way he won’t see how crumpled and dingy my dress is. Self-consciously I run a hand over my hair, wishing that I’d done just a little bit more to try to look presentable.
Mr. Barrett scrapes up a chair beside me and sits with folded hands. Snip has all but forgotten about me, curling up by Mr. Barrett’s feet, promptly falling asleep and snoring softly. Besides that and the faint patter of rain outside, the room is as silent as a tomb. The familiar muscle in Mr. Barrett’s jaw is twitching, something that I would usually take to mean that he wishes he were elsewhere, but that I now get the impression might be a levee holding back a flood of words.
I try to look anywhere but the injuries on his face, studying instead the slightly scuffed toe of his left boot, the light feathering of golden hairs on his wrist. His clothes always look as if they were made for his body, elegant without being fussy, stylish without looking belabored. Not at all like Cyrus. Mr. Barrett leans forward slightly and I close my eyes, steeling myself against the things he has every right to say.
But he doesn’t say anything, he simply reaches past me forLenore, picking up the tented book and flipping through the pages. The slim volume looks small and fragile in his hands, his reverent fingers tracing over the gilded title. “Is this one as goodThe Monk?”
It takes me a moment to find my tongue. “You...you remember that?”
The little lines around the corners of his eyes crinkle ever so slightly. “It’s not every day that I get such an animated book recommendation. Or any, for that matter.”
I hold out my hand for the book, his fingers brushing mine as he hands it back. “No, it’s not as good,” I say. “I like happy endings and this one doesn’t have one. The heroine dies.”
The lines around his eyes smooth out and there’s an almost imperceptible shift of the light in them. I can’t help but feel I’ve said the wrong thing, and we fall into an immediate, strained silence.
We begin to speak at the same time.
“Lydia, I need to—”
“Mr. Barrett, I feel that I’ve acted—”
I give a strained half laugh, and Mr. Barrett relaxes a little in the chair, disrupting Snip as he leans back and crosses his boots. “Please,” he says, lacing his hands casually across his stomach. “We’re friends, aren’t we? Call me John.”