Page 4 of Mischief and Manors (Change of Heart #1)

CHAPTER 4

T EN YEARS BEFORE

I clung to Mama’s sleeve as we entered the vast entry hall of Kellaway Manor. My boots clacked against its marble floors. The walls stretched higher than I had ever imagined walls could, and my eyes followed them upward until they finally touched the lofty ceiling. To the right was a magnificent spiral staircase, winding up and up, like a coiled snake ready to strike. To the left was a tall archway, spanning the door to a drawing room with a beautiful chandelier. My nose took in the scents of the home — it smelled big, open, fresh, and full of secrets. I wondered what those secrets might be.

I caught a glimpse of Papa’s head where he leaned over my shoulder, following my gaze as it roamed. “Do you like it?” he asked in a curious voice.

I turned my head up to him, smiling. “I love it.” In fact, Kellaway Manor was already much more than I had expected it to be. I was excited to meet the friends who Mama and Papa had told me so much about.

Just then, a woman came swiftly down the staircase, a man trailing behind her. They both wore wide smiles, their eyes full of memories and laughter. Papa stepped out from behind me to greet them, and Mama prodded me forward gently as she moved to greet them as well. Then she introduced me to Mr. and Mrs. Kellaway. They smiled a lot, and Mr. Kellaway gave me a candy.

I decided I might like them.

“Where are your children?” I heard Mama ask.

“Oh, I hardly know.” Mrs. Kellaway glanced around with a light laugh. “Edmund is usually off playing with the neighbors down the road. Simon is with the governess. Owen and Alice should be here somewhere…”

I clicked my boots against the floor, enjoying the echo it created. I was eager to explore the place. I wanted to see what was up those winding stairs and what was beyond the golden archway.

“Hmm. How are they? Is Owen as mischievous as ever?”

A laugh. “Oh, perhaps even more so.”

I clicked my boots faster, bored with the conversation above me. I looked again to the archway, hoping to catch a glimpse of the chandelier in the room beyond. But beneath the arch, stood a boy. He looked to be a little older than I was, perhaps thirteen or fourteen. His hair was as golden as the gilded walls and his eyes sparked with curiosity. “Are you speaking of me?” he asked, stepping forward with raised brows.

Mrs. Kellaway jumped, then laughed, waving him toward her. “Do you remember the Downings?”

The boy nodded, his gaze jumping to me. His nod froze. “I don’t remember her.”

I adjusted the pink ribbon in my hair and gave a little close-lipped smile. “I’m Annette.”

“This is my son, Owen,” Mrs. Kellaway said, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

He smiled. I noticed a dimple in one cheek. “Pleased to meet you.” Then he turned, as if to walk away.

“Owen, where are you going?” his mother asked, her brow furrowed.

He paused, turning back around. “Outside.”

“Take Miss Annette with you. She will be far too bored in here with us.”

Owen’s gaze shifted to me, then back to his mother, a pleading look on his face that made me scowl.

“Take her with you,” she asserted.

He gave a vexed sigh and looked at me again. “Well, come along, then.”

I scowled harder. But with a nudge from Mama, I followed him reluctantly around the left of the staircase where a corridor led to a back door.

“I am only coming with you if you apologize,” I said as he stepped outside.

He turned, a surprised look on his face, half inside the door, half out. “I have no reason to apologize to a seven-year-old girl.”

I gasped and jerked my hands to my hips. “First of all, I am eleven, and second of all, yes, you do. You made no secret of your wish to be rid of me.”

His lips pressed together. They twitched. “If you don’t want to come along, then you may stay here.” He turned and walked the rest of the way through the door. It swung shut behind him.

I scowled after his retreating figure. This boy was atrocious and I did not like him one bit. But I followed him out the door anyway, curiosity winning the war as it always did. The grounds were much too inviting to ignore. I had to run to catch up to him.

When Owen looked down at me, I was surprised to see him grinning. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist. But you must know, what I am about to do is not a task fit for a little girl.”

My eyes widened, but I quickly made them normal again, trying to conceal my excitement. “I am not a little girl. What are we going to do?”

“We?” Owen shook his head. “No. You are going to hide and watch.”

I scowled at him again, lifting my chin. “I did not come along just to watch.” My eye level came just below his shoulder, so I had to tip my head back to look straight in his eyes. They were very blue. Not ordinary blue, but the kind of blue that seemed to see everything from the outside straight to the inside.

He rolled those eyes. “You came along because my mother made me bring you along. So you must do as I say.”

“You are not in charge of me. I am not just going to watch.”

He stopped walking and looked down at me through narrowed eyes. I held his gaze with all the defiance and malice I could muster out of my small frame. His voice dropped to a chilling whisper. “I don’t think you should have spoken so soon. You don’t even know what you just agreed to.”

A little nervous flutter settled in my stomach. “What did I agree to do?”

He turned his gaze to the woods at the edge of the wide lawn. “Just follow me.”

When we reached the border between neat grass and gnarled trees, Owen stepped forward, and I followed tentatively. It was early spring, so the air was still crisp and chilled. The sun was close to setting. The sky shone shades of pink and orange and every color in between.

“Where are we going?” I asked as I tried to keep up.

He didn’t look back, but I heard him answer, “to climb a tree.”

I almost stopped, my heart flipping in my chest. “But — but my mother will be angry if I climb a tree.”

He either ignored me, or didn’t hear, because he continued forward in silence. I scowled to myself, heart pounding. Trees were not for climbing. That’s what Mama always said. That was what all mamas said. But I knew by the mischief in his smile that Owen was not the sort of boy who commonly obeyed his mama.

Despite the qualms I felt, I continued to follow cautiously behind him, mostly because I didn’t know the way back to the house. At a small clearing, Owen stopped beside a thick tree trunk, resting a hand against it and peering up through its branches.

“This is the one,” he said. He bent over a nearby pile of sticks, moved them aside, and scooped up a dark burlap sack from beneath them.

I hurried over, eager to look inside. “What’s in there?”

“Acorns,” he replied in a whispered voice, widening the opening so I could peer inside. The sack was full nearly to the top with tiny acorns, bronze in the setting sunlight.

“What are we going to do with them?”

He smiled, mischief meeting his eyes with a twinkle. “You will see. But first we must hurry and climb the tree.”

I looked up slowly, inching my eyes along the trunk, to the branches and leaves. The tree seemed to touch the orange sky where dark birds cut through the air without a sound. I swallowed my nerves. Mama would never know if I climbed it. As long as I didn’t tear my gown, she would never know.

It was settled then. I nodded.

Owen climbed first, and I watched where he stepped and where his hands clasped the branches and knots in the bark. He climbed effortlessly, as if he had done so dozens of times. He was at the top. It was my turn.

Starting slowly, I made my way upward, realizing why this was the tree he chose. There were so many places to step, to place my hands that I was at the top without much of a struggle at all. My pride soared like the birds above us. They were much closer now — I felt like I could fly too. And maybe I could. I had climbed a tree, after all. How much more difficult could flying be?

Owen opened the burlap sack and positioned it directly above the path. He held a finger to his lips, warning me to be silent.

The sound of footfalls and lazy humming approached from down the path beyond the clearing. My eyes widened as I predicted Owen’s plan. An elegant woman who appeared to be the same age as Mama came into view below us. Before I could so much as gasp, Owen capsized the sack, showering her head in acorns.

The woman gasped enough for both of us, swatting at the air above her head as the acorns rained down on her like little hailstones. Owen was laughing as he pulled me back against the tree to a place where we couldn’t be seen past the new leaves and tangled wood.

“Owen Kellaway, if that is you, your mother will hear about this!” she shrieked from below.

He covered his mouth to keep from laughing.

After a final huffed breath, the woman stomped off, mumbling something about mischief under her breath. I didn’t know what to say as I watched Owen laughing. This boy was certainly the most atrocious boy I had ever met.

“She’s my mother’s friend,” he managed through a laugh. “She wants her silly girl to marry my brother one day. But I don’t like her or her daughter.”

“But that is no way to treat a lady,” I snapped, folding my arms.

He shrugged and started down the tree without a word. I watched him with renewed fear in my stomach. Climbing down seemed much worse than climbing up. Once his feet touched the ground, he glanced up at me, a question written on his face.

“Are you coming?”

Tears stung my eyes as I looked down at him, at the ground that felt so much farther from me than the sky. I didn’t want him to see my fear though, so I nodded and turned to my stomach, searching with my feet for a place to step. I found a place, a branch that was much too thin. The moment I released my grip, the branch snapped under my foot.

The ground rushed up at me, two arms reached for me, and then everything went dark.