Page 8 of Ladies in Hating (Belvoir’s Library Trilogy #3)
Yorke smiled back at her, ever so slightly vulpine. “Indeed.”
She had to admit, there was something refreshing about Yorke’s blunt avarice. She chewed upon her lower lip and then made herself stop. “I suppose I shall consider it.”
“Good.” He leaned back again and regarded her. “Tell me, Catriona. How is it that you came to be acquainted with Lady Georgiana Cleeve in the first place?”
She had not expected the question, somehow. “I knew her many years ago, back when we lived in Wiltshire. We—” She hesitated, just a breath, then went on. “My father was the Cleeve family butler.”
“Is that so? I had not realized it.”
Her chin came up in defiant reflex, but she forced the emotion—and her chin—back down.
She did not need her defensiveness, not here.
Yorke knew of her origins. He knew that she and Jem were the children of a man who had been in service.
Despite society’s strictures, which said that their low birth made them innately unsuitable for intellectual projects, Yorke did not hold their father’s profession against them.
She knew that he did not. But part of her still wanted to prove her worth. Had not stopped trying to do so, over and over again, for years now. “Yes. But we left Woodcote Hall a decade ago.”
“Woodcote Hall,” he said musingly, “in Wiltshire. I know the name. Near Renwick House, is it not?”
Cat paused, startled. “Why—yes. How do you know of Renwick House?”
“As it turns out, I have some dealings with its owner.”
Her brows shot up. Renwick House was infamous in southern Wiltshire, a reputedly haunted manor that had been built by Nathaniel Renwick for his wife in the middle of the eighteenth century.
It was a strange and unsettling place, made all the more so by the fact that all the next generation of Renwicks had died childless, and the estate had passed to an anonymous heir who had left it to rot.
Cat had encountered the manor from time to time in her childhood and adolescence. She could still picture it in her mind’s eye: its immense scale, its eerie soaring spires twisted against the sky. It had played a foundational role, she’d always thought, in the development of her Gothic imagination.
“I thought its landlord was unknown to the general public,” she said.
“He is.” Yorke looked a trifle smug. “I am not the general public.”
She snorted. “Of course not.”
“You might be interested to know that the house opens to visitors soon.”
“Does it?” She sat forward. “It was never open to visitors before! Part of its allure, I always thought. Has it passed to a new owner?”
“I’m sure I cannot say.” At her aggrieved look, he relented. “But if you should like to visit the manor for the purposes of research, I suspect I could prevail upon its custodian to permit you.”
“Oh, would you?” Her heart leapt. What a setting for a novel! What depths of detail she could draw from the eerie estate!
And what a coup it would be over Lady Georgiana.
She attempted to quash the ungracious thought and looked back at Yorke. “When can I leave? I can pack my things and—oh.” She sat back in the chair. “Oh hell. Never mind.”
Yorke’s face betrayed the barest hint of his amusement. “Forget something?”
She ground her teeth. “The pie shop. It’s two days on the mail coach out to that part of Wiltshire, and two more days back, plus three or four days to stay on the grounds and—”
It wouldn’t work. She couldn’t leave the pie shop for so long. Mrs. Quincy would have her head.
“If you transfer your contracts to Mr. Laventille,” Yorke said with studied casualness, “your profits will exceed what you make at the pie shop. Considerably.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you bring this up on purpose? To convince me of the wisdom of your financial strategy?”
“ You mentioned Wiltshire first, not I. Speaking of the pie shop—”
“Oh bollocks !” She leapt to her feet, and the spindled wood chair wobbled on its two back legs before she steadied it. “The pie shop!” She pictured the teetering mountain of root vegetables that awaited her with a wince as she dashed for the door.
Yorke’s voice floated after her. “Consider Laventille!”
“I’ll let you know about Renwick House!” she called back.
And as she left the office, her gaze flicked helplessly to the desk where Jem would sit, if he were at the office.
Empty. Still empty.
She pushed her way out the front door and into the cold November sun. Fretfulness was a tangle in her belly—Jem, her books, Georgiana Cleeve, Renwick House. The pie shop.
Objectively, Cat knew that she could quit the pie shop.
They had enough money now. More than enough.
She knew they did, even as she knew she could buy a new cloak to replace her old one instead of picking out the hem.
But it was hard to believe it down in her bones.
Down in her belly, which recalled the ache of hunger as she’d pushed food around on her tin plate to make it look like more.
She had not wanted Jem to notice the disparities in their portions. But he’d noticed anyway.
She wanted more for him. She wanted so much more, and it was so hard to know what she could let go of, and what she must cling to with both hands, lest it slip away.
She chewed her lower lip so hard it was almost raw by the time she made it to the pie shop. She hung her cloak on a peg and attacked the turnips, Mrs. Quincy’s voice a muffled bellow in her ears.
And all day—between the scent of blistered pastry crust and the slide of coin in her palm—she remembered twisted spires, dark against a blue sky.