MAKING A CHOICE
The stairs leading up to the bed chambers were still partially dark, the clouds not letting in much light, as Genevieve walked up. On her left, Arabella climbed the staircase, more slowly.
“Genevieve, shall we...Oh...” Arabella looked up at her, swaying backwards, her eyes unfocused. Genevieve grabbed her arm hastily, heart beating fast with worry.
“Cousin. You feel lightheaded?”
“A dizzy spell, that's all,” Arabella demurred. “I think it's the weather.”
Genevieve touched her forehead and felt a feverish heat. “I think you're ailing of something, cousin,” she said. “Feel your forehead – it's quite hot with fever.”
“Is it?” Arabella, pale gray in the face, reached up to feel Genevieve's forehead, then lightly touched her own. “Whist, I am. Oh, what a bother. I have so much to do today...”
“Cousin, you need to rest,” Genevieve said automatically. “Please. Is there aught I can do to help you?”
“Oh, you're a veritable angel.” Arabella smiled. “But I can't ask a guest to help me with the household tasks...”
“You can ask me – I'm your cousin.”
“You're a dear,” Arabella said, putting an arm around her fondly. “Well, if you could sit upstairs with Mirelle for me while I go to the kitchens to plan the menu for the week...Oh! But you wished to join the ride! I cannot...”
“No matter,” Genevieve interrupted quickly. “I can spend the day here with you instead.”
“Oh! You are kind,” Arabella said. “It would be so nice to have a day for just us – you, me and Francine. That's what we'll do. We can spend the day in the parlor, sewing and getting to know each other. We are cousins, after all.”
“Yes,” Genevieve murmured. “We are.”
A part of her felt frustration at the thought of not being able to accompany the rest on a ride. She had wanted a chance to watch Adair.
Not because I like him. Not at all. Because Father would wish me to keep an eye on him, see what he does.
That was the reason. She was sure of it. The mystery of her attack last night was something else to consider. She was glad Arabella had shelved the matter for the moment – the last thing she wished to do was discuss it with anyone else...not yet. She needed a clear mind in order to deduce what had happened.
“And spending time in the house will help me to ask questions,” she reminded herself. It was hard to feel cheerful about it, but with a bit of effort, she could see it was of merit. She would spend the day here, with her cousins, uncovering as much as she could about the military preparedness of the Highlands and about this house in particular.
And the presence of anyone in it who might work against the Cause.
“I'll need to find Francine, to let her know of our plans,” Arabella said, already heading back down the stairs toward the kitchens. She moved somewhat shakily, and Genevieve felt a stab of concern, even as her cousin continued blithely. “Her chamber is beside mine. I am sure she'd like to join you in the parlor for a while – she can bring Stewart with her. And I'll be along shortly...”
“Don't exert yourself,” Genevieve warned, but Arabella was already heading downstairs rapidly.
At the bedchamber beside Arabella's own she knocked on the door, calling out for her cousin softly. “Francine?”
The door opened and the pale-haired, disconcerting woman appeared beside it. “Genevieve! Cousin! Is something worrying you?”
Genevieve shook her head, trying to make her face look less worried. “Arabella is feeling ill, and won't accompany the ride,” she said. “I will mind Mirelle for her a while, with the maidservant in the parlor. If you would care to join us? You can bring Stewart.”
“I'll fetch him,” Francine said swiftly. She headed into the chamber and came out again with the small child, fast asleep, wrapped in swaddling.
“He looks very sound asleep,” Genevieve commented, not sure what else to say. Francine disconcerted her more than a little. This morning, though, she seemed like an ordinary person.
“Don't let that deceive you,” Francine demurred, chuckling. “The moment he wakes he'll transform into a noisy little imp. Won't you, dearest?”
“Ugh,” he said, as if, even in sleep, he heard.
Genevieve chuckled. Francine grinned. “Well, then. If we can persuade Arabella to get off her feet long enough to recover from the fever, we will all have a chance to become better acquainted.”
“Yes,” Genevieve nodded. A strong urge to question Francine occurred to her. What had she meant the previous evening when she talked of shadows and light? Had she meant Adair? Was he the shadow of her warning?
“The house is small, but charming,” Francine murmured, as they headed down the stairs toward the parlor. “I am always amazed by how much Arabella has managed to improve it.”
“Oh?” Genevieve asked, feeling frustrated. She didn't want to have to spend time talking about houses! She wanted to ask about the prophecy. However, she would have patience. She followed her cousin into the cozy parlor.
The maid who looked after Mirelle looked up, smiling. “By! Another bairn tae mind! Bless you, Mistress Francine.”
She looked so eager that Genevieve had to hide a smile.
“Not sure if you will – bless me, I mean – the moment that he wakes,” Francine said wryly. She placed the baby in the smaller crib that sat before the fire and went to sit down on the chaise opposite. Genevieve, feeling out of place, went to join her.
“You brought sewing with you?” Francine asked, raising a brow.
“I did, yes,” Genevieve agreed, taking out the work she'd brought. A tapestry showing a vase of flowers, worked in delicate satin-stitch, she was rather proud of it.
“Embroidery is relaxing,” Francine said, threading a needle and sticking it into the cloth with a motion that seemed more violent than relaxed.
“It is,” Genevieve agreed. She threaded her own needle with a thin strand of cream-colored silk and bent over the cloth, working on a daffodil. The silence stretched between them.
“Arabella!” Francine commented as her sister came in. By then, the daffodil was almost finished and Genevieve looked up as her cousin settled breathlessly onto the big chair near the fire.
“Whew,” she said. “I feel peculiar.”
“Sister, you need to take more care,” Francine said, standing and feeling her forehead, concerned. “You truly are running a temperature. Mrs. Webster? Send to the kitchens for a tea of ginger.”
“Yes, milady.”
“I'm not unwell,” Arabella protested. Her sister shook her head.
“Sister, you would say that if you were shivering with the ague. I know you. Now take some good advice and don't move out of that chair until I tell you otherwise.”
“Yes, sister,” Arabella grinned. She looked across at Genevieve with a wry smile on her pale face. “She's a determined sort, isn't she?”
Genevieve said nothing, just smiled reassuringly.
The morning wore on. Stewart woke, yelled and was taken off and fed by the wet-nurse. The silence descended, like a cloak. Genevieve found herself growing restless.
I should ask questions, or I should go riding. If I set out now, I might catch the party on their way back...
“You must have many questions,” Francine said, making Genevieve shoot upright from where she bent over her work.
“Why?” she asked.
“I mean, so much here must be new to you,” Francine demurred, threading her needle calmly.
“There are things different from France, yes,” Genevieve said, frustrated. She selected a butter-colored thread from the tangled pile of skeins and cut off a length with unnecessary vehemence, sticking it through the eye of her needle. She bent to her work again.
Why is it I can't get any answers?
“What do you make of our guests?” Arabella asked.
Here was the moment she was waiting for, her chance to address her questions!
“I find most of them engaging,” Genevieve said quickly. She didn't want to immediately turn the conversation to Adair. She didn't want her cousins to think she was...well...interested in the man. Because I'm not. Not at all. It has nothing to do with it.
“Most of them are,” Francine said, not looking up.
Genevieve shot her a look. What was that supposed to mean?
“Yes,” she said carefully. “Most of them are.”
“I suppose many of our customs are different to yours?” Arabella inquired into the silence.
Genevieve felt the chance to ask more questions slipping away from her. She clutched at a way to keep matters focused on the guests. “I have noticed some differences,” she said lightly. “I think the guests from the North have different customs to yours as well?”
There! That broached the topic perfectly.
“From the north? Ah! Yes. Our Highland pair – Ascott and Adair. A delight, aren't they?”
“Very well-mannered,” Francine agreed.
Well-mannered? Genevieve almost laughed aloud. Adair was so taciturn as to be insulting! Ascott...well, no one could criticize his manners, but why was it he chose to associate himself with such a fellow as Adair?
“Well, I suppose Adair can be a little quiet at times,” Arabella demurred.
“Yes,” Genevieve said pointedly. “Why is that so?”
Arabella looked down uncomfortably. She seemed suddenly reluctant to say anything. Beside her, Francine tranquilly carried on sewing.
“People all have their ways,” she said mildly.
“Adair is...troubled,” Arabella added.
“Troubled.”
“Yes. Oh! Gracious. I don't know if I remembered to tell Cook we need a new cartload of potatoes. Mrs. Webster? Could you go down?”
“Yes, milady.”
As Mrs. Webster left the room, the conversation turned completely away from the visitors, and custom, and toward the planned menu for the week. The two sisters exchanged recipes and discussed the best way to prepare peach cordial. Genevieve found herself feeling restless again.
I need to get out of here, and join that ride.
She was decided. She should have gone immediately. She stood, setting aside her sewing. Arabella looked up at her. Her face was shining with perspiration, her skin waxy. Genevieve felt truly worried about her.
Nevertheless, she was safe where she was, and there was no need for Genevieve to sit with them for longer.
“I think I will lie down,” Genevieve said quickly. “Sewing gives me a headache sometimes.”
“Oh, well, then!” Francine said cheerily. “Off you go. If the headache persists, we can send a tea of willow for you? That will ease most pains.”
“I will be quite well,” Genevieve murmured. “I just need to lie down.”
She headed upstairs to her bedchamber, feeling guilty at having to lie.
“I need to go and join that ride,” she told herself. Alone in her chamber, she reached for the wardrobe and drew out her riding-dress, a fine one of brown velvet, the color of tea mixed with a little milk. She laid it on the bed and went to the door, debating with herself over the wisdom of summoning Camma.
“She'll not keep from telling everyone in the manor I've gone riding,” she said to herself grimly. “But I do need help to fasten the buttons.”
Camma arrived, cheerful and chattering as always. Genevieve endured her talk with hard-concealed impatience. She needed to leave now! It was already almost luncheon, and the riders would certainly be returning.
“There, milady! You should take a pelisse...it's freezing out there.” Camma said, finishing with her hairstyle at last.
“I'll manage well without it,” she said loftily. Then she headed quickly downstairs.
I should have asked the grooms to saddle my horse for me already. Now I'll have to wait...
As luck would have it, a fellow was leading an already-saddled horse through the yard.
“Is that horse fit for a further ride?” she asked quickly.
“She just came in from exercise, mistress,” the youth said. “Not that I took her anywhere far...”
“I only want to go to the fork in the track and back,” Genevieve said quickly, glad she remembered one particular feature of the forest route. The branching pathway was half a mile from the manor: not far at all. She intended to wait there until the riders returned.
“Well, then,” the fellow shrugged. “That's no' far. You take her, mistress. Mind you go slowly...the paths be slippery today.”
“Thank you,” Genevieve said. She stepped up on the mounting block and slid into the saddle with practiced skill. The fellow's brows raised and she laughed, grimly.
He wasn't expecting that.
She rode side-saddle, as most women did, and took the reins, shaking them gently, and shot off. She hadn't meant to start in a canter, but the horse clearly wanted to run, and Genevieve clung on, feeling her own spirits rise.
I needed this.
Ships and coaches and then the manor had all hemmed her in. She needed to be outdoors.
I missed a good ride.
The fork in the path flashed past on her left hand side. Genevieve didn't notice. By the time she felt her horse start to slow, and reined her in, concerned, she was already quite far down.
I don't know where I am.
The cliffs, she knew, were to her left. She should have taken the leftmost fork at the branch. Now she was too far down the straight road, which led, she guessed, to the next village.
“I'll go back.”
She clicked her tongue and pressed with her ankles, turning her horse gently toward the left, and then round. They headed back up the path at a walk. Her stomach growled. It must be midday.
“This was silly of me.”
She felt impatient with herself. What had she been thinking of? Only yesterday she had been attacked in the very precincts of her cousin's home! Why had she thought it was safe to come out here into the woods alone?
“It's broad daylight, Genevieve. You're being fanciful. It's safe.”
All the same, she shivered. Daylight it was, but shadowy and dark, with the low sky still promising rain. She was in unknown territory, in countryside near a house where someone had tried to abduct her. She was in a foreign country that hovered on the brink of civil war.
“And you chose to go out riding alone. And then lose the way. Clever, Genevieve.”
She shook her head at herself, and nudged her horse, grim-faced, to a trot. As they went up an incline, she slowed.
A sound came from her right. The path diverged here, one fork going right; a small path she hadn't noticed before. It was a horse, she recognized, huffing in equine annoyance.
Her own horse stilled and flicked her ears back and forth. Then she snorted. Genevieve heard a neigh in response.
They know each other! That's part of our party!
The horse was very close, and no sooner had she made the realization than the rider appeared on the path. She stared. It was Adair. “Hello,” she said.
He looked at her with an odd, almost frightened expression. He was, she reckoned, as startled as was she, finding someone here.
“You're all returning now?” she asked him, breaking the silence. Inside, her heart was thumping with a strange excitement. Here she was, all alone in the woods with this strange – likely dangerous – man.
I don't feel fear, though. Somehow, I can't quite fear him. It was odd. Perhaps his own fear had something to do with that.
“No,” he said. “I mean. Yes. I am. The others are staying there. Richard had the servants bring a picnic out.”
“Oh,” Genevieve said mildly. “Well? You don't wish to join them?”
“I dislike gatherings,” he said.
It was spoken before he'd thought about it, Genevieve noticed, for she saw on his face the discomfort he felt, having mentioned it. He looked away.
“I see,” she said. It wasn't exactly something he concealed: she had noticed more than once his hesitance in public settings.
“I'm unused to them, that's all,” he said. He sounded defensive. Genevieve wondered why.
“I suppose they do need getting used to,” Genevieve said neutrally. He snorted.
“You could say so,” he said.
“Yes,” she said mildly. “I could.”
They rode on in silence.
The path narrowed ahead, and he pressed close. His leg brushed hers. Genevieve tensed, surprised by the excitement that sent flooding through her.
He glanced across at her, and there was longing in his eyes, unconcealed. They sparked with it and the look made her tummy tingle with the same depth of longing.
“We should hurry back,” she said. “We'll miss luncheon.” Her voice came out tight and cracked. She cleared her throat, impatient.
What is the matter with me?
The feelings this man inspired in her were so utterly foreign to her, so completely different to anything she had ever known before. She had felt perhaps odd fluttering of this as a girl – some men at balls and parties had made her look twice, made her feel a pull of attraction – but nothing like this.
“The cooks will keep it back for us,” he said. His voice, too, was strained.
“In any case,” she said. “It seems like rain.” She encouraged her horse to a trot. The whole situation was so confusing that she simply wanted to get away.
“Yes.”
His horse kept pace with hers, just a little behind. She wasn't sure whether that was pleasing or irritating. She glanced back at him. He rode in resolute silence, face tense. “You stay here often?” she asked.
“Once a year,” he said.
“Oh. You have a fine tradition of visiting, then?” she said, voice light.
“I started doing it three years ago,” he said tightly. “So, not a tradition.”
“No.”
That put an end to their conversation for a while. Genevieve rode on in silence, musing how to revive it. “My cousin mentioned the North is quite different than here,” she said.
He laughed grimly. “The North's different than everywhere.”
“Oh?” Genevieve asked. “You have traveled widely, then? To make such comparisons?” She knew the comment was sarcastic, but she couldn't help it. Something about him made her want to tease him just a little; to draw out whatever lay beyond that wall of silence. It frustrated her.
“I haven't,” he said succinctly.
“You must have been to Edinburgh?” Genevieve persisted. That was, she thought, worth asking: Edinburgh housed the main Hanoverian stronghold. If he visited there often, she might be able to piece together some sort of link.
“Once,” he said.
That left Genevieve with nothing, temporarily, to question. She thought about the answer. “You went to the garrison?” she asked. There. If that wasn't the most blunt, pointed way of finding out, nothing was.
“We rode past it, aye,” he agreed. His voice was schooled.
Genevieve fought to discern some emotional response. Was he angered by the garrison at the former King's castle? Was he pleased to have the Hanoverian presence strong and close? She cleared her throat. “It must be odd, the castle being a garrison now.”
“It's odd, aye,” he said.
Genevieve wanted to laugh. Asking questions of this fellow was like drawing teeth! Had the Hanoverians hand-picked a spy, they couldn't have found a better man for the job. He was taciturn, aloof, and quite capable of turning aside all questions with succinct, one-word answers.
I cannot imagine better qualities. One almost thinks he's doing it on purpose.
She slowed her horse so that, the path widening, he could ride alongside her again. Then she looked straight at him, scrutinizing that pale, bleak face. “You have very strong opinions, don't you?” she questioned.
He stared at her. He looked as surprised as if she'd slapped him. “Me?” he asked, sounding amazed.
“Well, I wasn't talking to the pigeon up there,” she said, nodding her head at the wood-pigeon who cooed, cozily, in the boughs of a tree behind.
“Fine,” he said. He sounded affronted. Genevieve regretted her teasing. He turned his horse, riding past her up the path.
“Fine. You don't have strong opinions,” Genevieve called out to the rigid back.
He slowed to a walk. She drew up alongside him. He looked at her, his face tense, eyes wide.
“Why are you tormenting me?” he asked.
Genevieve felt a little sparkle of joy – that was the longest sentence, almost, she recalled hearing from him! All the same, the words confused her. “I? Tormenting you?” she asked.
“You keep questioning me!” he said.
“I am making conversation,” she said, heart beating faster. Why did he hate being questioned? If this wasn't simply an elaborate way to evade her interrogation, she knew nothing. She frowned. “I did not mean offense,” she added softly.
“Well, I took offense,” he said. He leaned forward, clicking his tongue, and his horse went ahead.
Genevieve raised a brow. My! She had touched a nerve there. But why?
“You are quick to take offense,” she said to his retreating back, quite loudly, so it carried. “But never seem to think how readily you give it.”
That made him stop. His back was rigid, every line of him tensed. She felt a prickle of fear. If she had been tormenting him, as he put it, had she gone too far? If he fell into a rage with her, what could he do? She looked around, aware of how dangerous the situation was. She slowed her horse, tempted to wait until he'd ridden off, or turn back.
Getting lost in these woods is not something I want to happen. It's past midday already – that gives us four hours before dusk starts to fall.
No, she decided, walking her horse forward, I would do best to follow him. She'd just try and keep well behind. She rode up the path into the trees. His horse walked on.
Around a bend, she found him stopped, waiting for her. Her scalp prickled, she leaned back and to the right, wanting her horse to turn.
“Milady,” he called out. “Stop. I...I'm sorry.”