The lightning lit up the sky in terrific arcs, blasting the empty rooms with hollow light. The Duke of Rutland liked to watch the thunderstorms, drinking in the bright streaks of light and then waiting, ever so patiently, for the booming rattle of thunder to shake the walls of his fine house.

The Duke was a grim man, slowly swirling his brandy about in his palm, letting the aroma waft upward and over him. He was good looking, as far as anyone was concerned — a strong brow and jaw that seemed to complement each other splendidly sat beneath his dark brown hair, which he let flop about his head aimlessly.

Lightning flashed again, and he jumped back a bit at its sudden appearance. After it had faded and the thunder rumbled on, he smiled at his own nerves. Again, he jumped as a door banged open behind him.

“Papa, Papa, I’m scared!” his daughter shouted, running into the room in her nightdress, her bare feet slapping against the oak-paneled floor. “Papa!” she hurried and hugged herself to his legs, watching with terrified fascination at the slices being made of the sky.

“Come, Kaitlin,” he said, setting down his brandy to lift up his daughter, and hold her to his chest. “It is only a storm. We are safe, you and I.”

“It is so loud,” she said, wide-eyed, holding tight to the long collar of his leisure jacket. “My walls are shaking.”

“And mine too, my dear,” he said, beginning to rock her back and forth in his arms. “But it cannot shake you from me. Rest now,” he ran his hand through her hair as she began to feel her fatigue, nestled in her father’s arms. “You are getting so heavy,” he grunted with a smile, shifting his arms a bit. “Who knew a five-year-old could be so big and strong.”

“I’m sorry, Your Grace, she—” one of the nursemaids had come in, having chased Kaitlin down the hallways from her room, and was panting from the effort. The Duke held up his hand for silence and nodded to the sleeping child drooling upon his shoulder. The maid smiled at the caring father, who, despite his other social failings of late, always placed his daughter first, and with great compassion.

“It’s all right, Betsey,” he whispered. “It seems I have it from here.”

The Duke of Rutland paced slowly through his elegant home, singing softly in his daughter’s ears the songs from his time as a soldier, as he knew no lullabies. Her mother had sung the proper ones.

“There’s forty shillings on the drum, for those who’ll volunteer to come, to list and fight the foe today, over the hills and far away. When duty calls me, I must go, to stand and face, another foe, and part of me, will always stray, over the hills and far away.”

“Is that you, Neil?” An old lady’s voice came from one of the living rooms ahead, and he saw that she was sat by a small fire with a low oil lamp beside her.

“What are you doing up, Grandmother?” Neil asked quietly, still gently rocking Kaitlin from side to side.

“I was looking for something, I’ve forgotten what exactly,” the old lady said, waving her hands gently in the air. She turned her head and looked at the sleeping child in her grandson’s arms. “Rather, what is she doing up?” Phyllis asked, raising her eyebrows curiously. “She has no manners, Neil. She cannot continue to behave like this. She will be tall much sooner than you would like to realize.”

“She was scared of the storm,” he parried and slowly sat down beside his grandmother.

“I was scared of storms as a girl, and I sat there in my bed, silent as a grave, jumping like a hare at each thunderclap, but I never got up and ran about the house! Heavens no! You cannot allow her to pick and choose which rules to follow. It will prove disastrous to her potential.”

“She is a child, let her be one,” he said, sitting back in the armchair.

“She will not be a child much longer, and with no mother to guide her. You cannot keep using the accident -”

“Enough!” the Duke snapped. “I will not speak of it.”

Phyllis let out a long sigh, turning her head to look at the fire, flickering in the low brick hearth. After a moment of silence, another thunderclap shook the premises, and Kaitlin jumped awake, wide-eyed and startled.

“Grandmother!” she said, leaping from her father’s lap and running to Phyllis, whose face was already rapidly changing to a broad smile, for not a soul in the house of Rutland could say no to little Kaitlin Arnold.

“Hello, my child,” she said warmly, letting Kaitlin climb up onto the large armchair that she occupied.

“Were you scared of the storm, too?” she asked innocently, hugging her grandmother’s legs.

“Yes, just like you,” Phyllis said. “Oh! Mind my old legs, dear.”

“Come,” Neil scooped her up again. “It’s off to bed with you then, for good this time. Say goodnight to your grandmother.”

“Good night!” Kaitlin yawned, smiling adorably, and Phyllis’ eyes twinkled to see her great-granddaughter behave in any manner at all.

Neil carried her off to her room and laid her down in her bed. As he drew up a blanket over her, she shifted in her sleep and curled into it, sleeping soundly. The Duke tucked in his daughter and left her room, feeling that rare sliver of happiness that haunted him through his hallways. It was a warmth, a glow, an exuberance for the world and for life, brimming from silver chalices, and he yearned for it. There it was, just for a moment as he cared for his daughter, but then again, he was alone in the wood-paneled hallway with the lighting cast strange shadows; the thunder rumbled on, and the happiness swiftly disappeared from view.

Once again immersed in his morosity, the Duke dragged his feet down the hallway as he made his way back to his glass of brandy, all the way down in the second living room on the first floor. He had found his beverage and his chair, and resumed watching the brilliant flashes of light through the sky.

He had just settled into a state of complete comfort when he heard the faintest sound of shouting. He perked up his ears, and indeed, it was shouting. He sat up, interested. What was the commotion?

Rain was coming down in terrible sheets, slapping against the ground and turning dirt to swelling puddles of mud. He could hear Mr. Marton, the chief groundskeeper, calling out to some of the stable hands. Perhaps one of the horses had bucked from the carriage house in fright of the storm?

Neil was becoming very intrigued and swished down the remnants of his brandy before rising to investigate.

As he went through the living room and into the parlor, he encountered his valet, Thomas Penn, who had the look of a hurriedly-dressed, rain-soaked, very flustered man at that present moment, but otherwise was a gentleman in every describable aspect.

“Thomas, what is going on out there? Marton sounds at sixes and sevens, has a horse broken loose?”

“Your Grace,” Thomas caught his breath for a brief moment, straightening his uniform. “Mr. Marton has informed me that they have found a woman on the path to the estate.”

“A woman?” Neil blinked, astonished. “What sort of woman? Out in all this?” He waved his hands at the thundering rain that constantly rattled on in the back of their ears.

“She is in a bad state, Your Grace,” Thomas said. “Mr. Marton has gone with the chariot down to the bridge to collect her.”

“Who found her?”

“Mr. Chase, I believe.”

“The coachman?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Dash it all, what a night this has become,” the Duke said, his mood souring. “Have you seen Mr. Chase tonight, Thomas?”

“No, Your Grace, Marton sent him off home to get dry.”

“Both inside and out, no doubt,” Neil pouted. “The man is brimming with the blue ruin, and this woman is likely some foxed doxy whom he left down on the bridge to die rather than pay her wages due.”

“She is in need of assistance, Your Grace, from what I understand,” Thomas said, looking sadly at his master, who hated Mr. Chase so passionately that he allowed it to blind him regularly, however momentarily. “Do you wish to turn her away?”

“I do not wish any of this,” Neil said, bitterly. “Nothing about this is proper.”

Their conversation was broken by the clatter of Mr. Marton and his two-horse team, coming into the driveway. Thomas gathered up the towels he had brought and opened the door for Neil, who stepped out onto his front steps that sloped grandly downwards to the tightly-bricked drive.

The chariot rolled to a halt while Mr. Marton, the jolly round-faced groundsman, reined in the horses, and eventually climbed down from the driver’s seat.

“Evening, Your Grace,” he called to the Duke, holding his lantern high above his head. “I am sorry to bother you so late.” Mr. Marton began to climb up and untie the straps holding the carriage door shut against the storm.

“What is going on, Neil?” Phyllis called from the parlor. “Have you found my hand mirror?”

“No, Grandmother, it’s nothing,” he shouted.

“Oh, where is it,” Phyllis fretted, then halted, seeming to remember that something was happening. “Tell me, Neil, what are you doing? I’m not daft,” she called back and came out of the parlor with her abigail, a girl named Ruth. “Thomas, tell me what is happening.” Neil looked to his valet and gave him a shrug as if to say, I tried.

“Mr. Chase found a woman down by the bridge, Your Grace,” Thomas said. “Mr. Marton is bringing her in.”

“Good lord!” Phyllis gasped. “A woman out in this disaster? How can this be?”

“A good question, Grandmother,” Neil said. “We will learn the truth of it and send her on her way, wherever that may be.”

“What has become of you,” Phyllis scolded. “A gentleman indeed.” She hurried down the steps to meet Mr. Marton at the carriage as he swung the door open. Neil felt his face get hot and his palms twitched as she took charge of the situation, helping the woman as she stumbled from the cab.

She was thoroughly soaked — rain had found its way into every fiber of her clothing and hair, and both clung to her every movement, dragging across the carriage. She was dressed as a commoner would be, in simple garments beneath a heavy traveling shawl, and her face was shockingly pale from the cold of the rain. Yet even in her distressed state, there was a certain beauty about her features.

“Come now, child, you’re in good hands now,” Phyllis said, reaching her shaking hands outwards. “Ruth! Take her in!”

The woman seemed faint as Phyllis’ abigail led her into the house, taking the entire stack of towels from Thomas as they passed.

As Phyllis went to follow, Neil caught her attention.

“What have you done? We know nothing of this woman and you have brought her into our house! What of Kaitlin? It is bad enough we must have so many servants about, and now this stranger? I will not have it!” Neil was becoming angrier by the moment, as he often did, and felt himself clutching at his own palms in a nervous tick.

“We shall see,” Phyllis said defiantly and went off to find where Ruth had taken the mysterious woman.

Neil was fuming and angrily dismissed Mr. Marton for the evening. He went back into his favorite living room, that overlooked the south hill of his estate and tried to calm himself by watching further strikes of lightning. However, he found himself quickly dissatisfied with the view and partook of some brandy that he had in the room. He paced back and forth, grouching to himself, poking his toes at the corner of the rug and then folding it back over obsessively.

He hated it when his grandmother took action over him, but what could he do? It was so rare that she found the sense of presence to boss anybody around; evidently, the arrival of this stranger had awoke something within her. Neil also hated not knowing what was going on; it wracked at him incessantly.

“Can I get you anything, Your Grace?” Thomas asked tentatively from the doorway.

“What sort of Banbury tale have we found ourselves in, Thomas?” Neil asked. “Who is this woman to appear at a stranger’s door in the middle of the night, made wild by the weather?”

“I do not know, Your Grace,” Thomas said, pouring him another brandy in hopes it would settle his nerves.

“The indecency of commoners today,” Neil lamented. “It seems more and more that those of lower status cannot adhere to the regularities of our civilized world. Something must be done about it. And quickly!”

“Of course, Your Grace,” Thomas poured another brandy.

“Ah, but what is the use,” Neil said, draining the last glass and slumping into his chair. “It is all for naught.”

“There you are,” Phyllis said, coming into the room. “Have you found my hand mirror? Thomas, have you seen it?”

“No, Your Grace,” Thomas said. “I shall endeavor to discover it,” he said, hurrying to the exit.

“Come to gloat, have you?” Neil asked his grandmother.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said. “Who are you to turn away a woman in need?”

“It was not a woman I would have turned away, but a stranger, whom I might add, arrived in the most peculiar circumstances.”

“You must not mistrust everyone you come across, Neil,” she said. “It will leave you lonely and afraid.”

“Thank you for the lessons, but in fact, I am past university by some time.”

“Do you not want, at least, to know of her health and status, now that she is under your roof?”

“Very well,” Neil sighed audibly, turning back to look at the storm outside. “What has become of her?”

“She is sleeping now, dried as best Ruth could do. She seems such a sweet, lost thing.”

“Alright, so when she wakes up, she must be gone,” Neil said.

“What if she has nowhere to go?”

“Well she had to have come from somewhere, did she not?”

“And perhaps that somewhere is the reason she has appeared under these circumstances.”

“Perhaps,” he mumbled. “What is it you wish of me, Grandmother?”

“Do not send her away,” Phyllis said. “Allow me to care for her, and to see how she might recover.”

“Recover? This is our house, not a hospital.”

“And it was my house before it was yours,” she said, defiantly. “You are going to London on business tomorrow, are you not?”

“I am,” he said. “I am meeting Mr. Bastable.”

“Those trips into the city last you several days, do they not?”

“They do,” he said suspiciously, hearing the angle of her plot before it was delivered.

“So, when you return, she will undoubtedly be awake, and we will know of her origins. Then, God permitting, we can see she lands where she belongs.”

The Duke knew he was beaten. His grandmother knew that if she pressed him, his defenses would fold like conscripts beneath French cavalry sabers. He worried about her, and the older she became, the sourer and more lost her overall attitude. The only things that seemed to ease it was time with Kaitlin and listening to the piano. Now it seemed she had found another; the care and well-being of this woman from the rain.

“Very well,” he gave in. “When I return, we shall have the truth of it.”

“Of course,” she said, smiling wide, then something went out of her head, as it always did eventually, and she looked to Neil, puzzling. “Have you found my hand mirror?” she asked, somberly.

“No, Grandmother, but Thomas is looking for it.” Neil’s heart fell through his chest at her lapse. “Now I must be to bed, for as you have kindly reminded me, I must travel to London on the morrow. Goodnight, dear Grandmother,” he said dramatically and fumbled his way off to question Ruth about Phyllis, then to bed.

As he lay there, in his feather bed made up with silk sheets, gazing up the intricate woodwork that adorned the bedposts, his mind would not slumber. Each time he closed his eyes he saw the woman falling from the carriage, and her pale, freezing frame seemed stuck in his mind’s eye.

While he slowly drifted off to sleep, he asked the same question again and again. Who was she? And where had she come from? The mystery of it all consumed his thoughts as he dozed off, and still, her face lingered in his mind’s eye.