Chapter Five
The only reminder of the previous night in The Rabbit Burrow was that Spring had bruised hands from when she fell through the open window and, somehow, Wynter had a bruise on her jaw.
She didn’t even know how she got it, but the evidence was clear.
She had a lovely purple mark, faint, along the right side of her jaw.
Both she and Spring awoke later in the morning, when everyone was already up and moving, and Maryann finally had to come into the chamber and slap her eldest daughter on the hip to awaken her.
She did the same thing to Spring, who yelped at being whacked, but Maryann ordered her lazy daughters out of bed and downstairs in an instant.
They had a journey to make into town and she would not be late.
Wearily, Wynter and Spring dragged themselves out of bed.
There wasn’t any real conversation between them as they moved about the chamber.
Spring managed to scrub off the remnants of the night before, the mud and the last of the white make up, while Wynter went through the trouble of actually taking a bath.
It had been a quick one, in a half-barrel with about four inches of hot water in the bottom of it, but that had been enough for Wynter.
She had scrubbed down with soap made from lavender, which filled the air of the chamber with its scent.
After climbing out of the bath and drying off, she rubbed some precious oil into her skin to ease the dryness from the bath and the oil smelled heavily of lavender, too.
As she hunted down her clothing, Spring decided she needed a bath, too, and climbed into her sister’s cooling bathwater.
As Spring splashed around, getting water on the floor, Wynter donned the best dress she’d brought with her.
It was a deep blue brocade with a bejeweled belt and matching slippers.
Her hair, damp from having washed it in the bath, was quickly dried as much as she was able in front of the fire before vigorously brushed and left to drape down her back.
Around her neck she wore the heavy golden cross with inlaid sapphires, a gift from her father when she reached eighteen years of age.
In all, she looked every inch the glorious Ashington heiress.
But inside, she didn’t feel much feel like it.
Thoughts of Gage were heavy this morning.
In fact, he was all she’d thought of all night long.
She didn’t even know if she’d really slept much, but her mother’s slap on her hip to awaken her was proof that she had, indeed, slept a little.
She didn’t feel like it. All she felt was exhaustion and gloom, convinced the man she’d been so fond of for all of those years had no such feeling for her.
A cold, uncaring man who had simply been polite to her last night.
That’s all it had been.
Politeness.
Well, she didn’t want politeness. She wanted the man she’d known for all of those years back, her friend, someone she could talk to. She wanted the man back who had made her feel something.
But it was apparent that man was dead.
Wynter didn’t even try to fight off her depression and disappointment.
After six years of longing for a dream that she had discovered didn’t exist, she had earned the right to grieve her lost dreams. Perhaps it was foolish of her, but she didn’t care.
It was humiliating to realize she’d loved something that hadn’t existed.
She made it down to the great hall of her great-aunt’s manse where Maryann was hovering over Autumn and Summer, making sure they finished their meal.
She could hear her mother fussing over them.
The woman treated her daughters as if they were all still children even though they were women grown.
Spring was perhaps the only sibling who liked her mother to treat her that way, someone who liked the hovering motherly attention.
But Wynter didn’t want any of it.
She took a seat across from her sisters.
“You look fresh and lovely, Wynnie,” Maryann said. “You surely must have slept well if you slept so late into the morning.”
Wynter hadn’t slept well at all. “After mass, are we going anywhere?” she asked, diverting her mother away from the subject of sleeping late. “You promised that we could shop. Will we do that this afternoon?”
Maryann waved over one of the servants to remove Autumn’s empty bowl. “We shall,” she said. “We shall go to the street of the merchants. Aunt Sedelia was telling me of a woman who makes the most marvelous dresses, already sewn together and hanging in her shop. I thought we might inspect her wares.”
A servant placed toasted bread and a bowl of eggs baked in a cream sauce in front of Wynter. “Good,” she muttered. “Let us get this over with and go home.”
She said it under her breath, or at least she tried to. Some of it was still audible. Maryann looked at her curiously.
“Whatever is the matter, Wynnie?” she said. “You are usually the first one into the shops, eager to see their wares.”
Wynter dug in to the baked eggs with her spoon. “Nothing,” she said. “I am simply… weary.”
“Do you feel unwell?”
“I feel fine.”
She shoveled food into her mouth so she couldn’t answer anymore of her mother’s questions.
From across the table, she could feel Summer’s gaze on her, but she didn’t look up.
She continued with her eggs as her mother was distracted by a spot of food Autumn had gotten on her skirt.
It was the usual chaos at the morning meal when Spring entered the hall, hair still damp from having washed the mud out of it.
“Good morn, Mama,” she said brightly. “Are we leaving right away for mass?”
Maryann was trying to carefully clean the spot upon Autumn’s skirt with some soda a servant had brought her. “Aye,” she said. “Hurry and eat. I will not wait overly for you.”
Spring sat down next to Wynter and a servant produced a bowl of eggs for her as well. She dug in with gusto.
“I like Durham,” she said to her mother. “You were fortunate to grow up here, Mama. Did you have many friends?”
She was being terribly chatty, which only served to annoy Wynter. She ate in gloomy silence as Maryann finished with the spot. “I did,” she said. “Your grandfather was a well-respected man in town. The name Haswell used to be well-regarded when he was alive.”
“It still is, Maryann.”
Lady Sedelia Haswell made her presence known as only Aunt Sedelia could.
An older woman with snow-white hair, a rather horse-like face and imposing manner, she shuffled into the great hall, dressed in an elaborate surcoat that would have cost a normal man an entire year’s wage.
Her brother had left her a great deal of money and she wasn’t afraid to flaunt it, even if the only people she was flaunting it to were her great-nieces.
As she made her way to the table, Summer instinctively stood up and moved around to the other side where Wynter and Spring were seated.
Aunt Sedelia was still feared by them, even as young women, because she wasn’t beyond pinching or slapping if she was displeased.
All of the girls had been on the receiving end of those manners.
“Good morn to you, Auntie,” Maryann said pleasantly. “Did you sleep well?”
Sedelia shoved Summer’s empty bowl aside as servants rushed to her, making sure she had everything she needed within a matter of seconds. No one made Sedelia wait and lived to tell the tale.
She reached for her warmed, mulled fruit juice.
“Well enough, I suppose,” she said. “Maryann, take Summer and Autumn out of the hall. I wish to speak with Wynter and Spring alone.”
It was a terrifying and abrupt request. Spring’s eyes widened as she looked at her mother questioningly, but Maryann was already in motion.
Even she didn’t disobey her aunt’s wishes and most especially not in her own home.
As she shooed Summer and Autumn from the hall, who were more than happy to leave, Sedelia turned her calm attention to her food.
But the lull was only momentary.
“I would like to ask a question, ladies,” she said as she picked up her spoon.
Wynter, who was incredibly leery of her great-aunt’s motives at this early hour, eyed the woman.
“Please ask, Auntie,” she said, trying to sound unconcerned. “I will tell you whatever you wish to know.”
But that unconcerned tone would be her undoing. Sedelia thought every tone other than the tone of surrender was a challenge to her unquestioned authority and she flicked her eyes up, fixed on Wynter.
“You will tell me where you and your sister went last night,” she said.
Seeing Spring’s horrified reaction pleased her and she focused on her in particular.
“Do you think my guards tell me nothing? I pay them more than you do, so next time you slip them a coin, make sure it is a gold one and they might keep their lips shut. Well? Where did you go?”
Spring was starting to tremble out of sheer terror. “Please do not tell Mama.”
“Then tell me where you went.”
Spring sounded as if she were going to cry. “To The Rabbit Burrow,” she said. “It is so quiet and dull at Ashleven and I wanted to go where there might be music and dancing. I made Wynter come with me, so do not be angry with her. She came to protect me.”
Sedelia spooned some honeyed gruel into her mouth. Missing most of her teeth, she was relegated to soft foods and slurped rather loudly.
“Protect you from what?” she asked.
Spring’s eyes were starting to well. “From rude and lascivious men.”
Sedelia looked at her as she swallowed the bite in her mouth.
“Spring, you do not need protection from men,” she said.
“You are an ugly girl. They do not want to waste their time with you, so if I were you, I would commit myself to the nunnery and be done with it. Wynter, on the other hand, is the beauty of the family. She is quite beautiful. If anything, she is the one who needs protecting.”