Chapter 1
Chapter
Sedgewick Manor
Your Ladyship,
I trust this note finds you in better health than the weather here permits.
Dorsetshire has been swallowed by snow, and we remain half-buried in drifts.
The Earl and his new Countess are installed at last in the Manor, though truth be told, the house is scarcely fit for habitation.
Only the master’s chamber and one guest room have yet been made serviceable.
It falls to me, of course, to ensure the sustenance of all under this roof, a task not made easier by Mr. Thomas Farrow’s arrival, in such a fragile state.
His Lordship himself insisted Mr. Farrow be lodged in the best room, and the Countess, naturally, took the next.
His Lordship is left to pass the night away in his study.
The staff work diligently to ready the other rooms and feed the extra mouths, but we are few and the care of Mr. Farrow along with the storm have slowed our efforts considerably.
Do write when you plan to return to Dorsetshire. It has been an age since I last saw you here. I know well enough that our stations are too different now for calling and tea, but it would ease me to know you are in Dorset again, safe and well.
I remain,
Your most humble servant
Julianna woke before the sun did and for a moment she wasn’t entirely clear where she was.
The ceiling above her was unfamiliar, too high and certainly too ornate, and the air smelled faintly of beeswax and polished silver.
Then the last weeks of her life came back to her in a rush.
She was at Sedgewick Manor, not Farrow Cottage. And she was married to Fred.
She lay very still and listened to the Manor around her. Somewhere a board creaked and the wind worried at the casements. A clock chimed the quarter hour. She wondered if Fred was awake.
She had not seen him since the previous evening when he’d excused himself from dinner to review estate business.
She hadn’t realized that not only did Fred have Sedgewick Manor in Dorset and Chester House in London, there was also a hunting estate in Scotland near to his cousin the Duchess of Barclay, and the seat of the Earldom itself in Warwickshire.
All those grand houses and all that land, and she suspected he’d slept in his study again, if he’d slept at all.
The only land she personally cared about was a quarter mile down the road at Farrow Cottage.
She had not been back there since she’d arranged for the animals to be tended and packed up their few belongings to bring them to the Manor.
It was far past time she made her way back to inspect the damage from the storm.
By the time the sun had finally risen, she’d breakfasted alone and dressed for the walk through the snow. She needed the solitude. Needed, she told herself, to see with her own eyes what the storm had done to the land.
It was not entirely true. She also needed space.
She had too many feelings to be cooped up in the Manor.
About Fred and his decade-long lie, about her brother and his strange turn in behavior, and especially about this new desire she felt growing inside her to have her own life.
She felt guilty about it but she also felt it was vital to her well-being in a way that surprised her.
The walk was perfect. A moment alone to breathe with the sky a crystalline blue above her head.
Farrow Cottage coming into view between all those snow-covered hedgerows.
She pushed open the gate and felt an immediate sense of calm.
This was hers—her land to walk, her home to inhabit—for now at least. She’d come to treasure this small plot of earth, and was glad to be back.
She walked the property, assessing. The snow had covered the garden beds and was half-way up the pea trellis. There would be no springtime pea shoots. But the hens were gossiping and the dairy cow showed every sign she’d been milked.
“Well,” she said quietly to her garden. “Easy enough to put you to rights.”
She exchanged her walking gloves for the hardier ones made for work and got started.
She cleared branches for kindling and worked the beds free of snow, pressing loosened soil back into place, and all the while felt the earth soothe her.
Here, at least, the rules were simple. Tend what grew, clear away what didn’t.
Illness was obvious, rot could be cut away, and nothing twisted around her insides.
The cottage felt smaller than she remembered it though. The hearth was cold and dust had once again colonized every surface she’d once fought to keep clean. She moved from room to room in silence, trailing her fingertips over chair backs and table edges, stopping at the music box.
It sat exactly where she had left it on the mantel place and she picked it up. The painted lid was worn nearly smooth from her mother’s touch and then from her own. When she wound the key and opened it, the thin, wavering melody rose into the stillness.
She could see Thomas then as he had been when they were children, laughing and spinning her clumsily across the narrow kitchen while their mother protested. Fred leaning in the doorway, feigning indifference while tapping his boot in time.
How certain they had all been then that the world was theirs and that they’d love each other forever. She snapped the lid shut.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, just as she had once before while holding this box in her hands. But it was less clear now what she was sorry for. She tucked the music box into her reticule and left the cottage, feeling more grounded and more unmoored than when she’d arrived.
She saw the carriage in front of the Manor as soon as she came up the drive. She hurried her steps, worried that something was wrong.
“Gilbert,” she said as soon as she’d crested the still uneven front steps, her pulse leaping in her throat. “Has something happened?”
Gilbert gave his crisp butler’s bow. “His Lordship sent for the doctor.”
As if summoned by the words, a violent fit of coughing sounded from above. Julianna didn’t wait for any further explanation. She took the stairs two at a time and rushed into Thomas’s sickroom.
Fred was already there, standing beside Thomas’s bed, one hand braced on the carved post. Thomas was bent forward, his thin shoulders convulsing. A handkerchief hung from his fingers, stained that dreadful, ever-present red.
“Tom,” she breathed, going to him.
He forced his eyes open and managed a crooked smile. “Julie-bug.” He reached up to touch her face, his thumb swiping at something on her cheek. “I’d ask you where you’ve been but it’s rather obvious.
She took his hand and held it tightly. “I do not have dirt on my face,” she said, even though she was certain she did.
She looked at Fred. She wanted to go to him, to tuck herself under his arm, but she didn’t. Partially for Thomas. And partially because—while she’d understood his lie and why he’d done it—her understanding didn’t erase the fact that he had let her believe a falsehood for ten years.
And that her life might have been very different if he hadn’t.
The physician entered a moment later which saved them all from the growing awkward silence.
“Ah, my lady,” he said. “Let us speak now that you’ve returned.”
She turned to follow him and Fred out of the door. Fred leaned down and whispered, “You do have dirt on your face, Jules,” but caught her hand when she tried to wipe it away.
“No,” he said. “I rather like it there.”
They withdrew to the one sitting room that had been prepared for guests and sat, facing each other on the newly uncovered furniture.
“I don’t believe it is in Thomas’s best interest to remain here,” the doctor said without preamble. “The damp. The cold. The strain of recent agitation. All are worsening his condition.”
Julianna swallowed and looked at Fred, who simply nodded.
“But we are in luck. Your request was granted for a bed at a private convalescence villa in Torquay. I had my quill ready to pen you a note when your man arrived to fetch me.”
“Our request?” Julianna said.
The physician inclined his head. “Yes. It is quite fortunate you made it when you did. Beds in Torquay are very rare. The sea air, regimen, and most importantly the skilled, around the clock supervision will give him his best chance of survival.”
“I don’t understand—” she began but Fred cut her off.
“I requested the bed, Jules.”
She turned to him. “When?”
“After my first visit to Farrow Cottage.”
“And you never thought to mention it to me?”
“Not until I was certain there was a place for him. I didn’t want to get your hopes up without cause.”
And without asking me. Again.
The thought burned hot and bright in her, and she felt herself clutching the arms of her seat. He’d kept yet another truth from her.
“I have not yet accepted the place,” Fred said. “Not without your consent.”
“Does Thomas know? Has he agreed?”
“He knows,” Fred said. “But he has not agreed. He won’t leave you.”
Julianna looked to the physician, who cleared his throat. “I must be plain, my lady. Remaining here will only hasten his decline. At Torquay he would have constant attention, proper care, and the benefit of the sea air. It is, quite simply, his best chance for recovery.”
“But he would be alone.”
“Not at all,” the physician said. “You may visit. It is not so very far. He would not be abandoned…only better cared for.”
Fred reached for her hand. “He may listen to you, Jules. I hope he will. He would not hear it from me.”
She looked back to the physician. “I do not want him to spend his last days away from us. I’d rather he be here, with family.”
“That is precisely the point, my lady,” the physician said. “These need not be his last days. With proper care, he may have months. Years, even. And they would be easier ones for him. Far more comfortable.”
Julianna put her head in her hands. Her thoughts were a swirl of guilt and confusion and hope too. She’d barely begun to consider her life without Thomas in it, and here the opportunity presented itself but in a vastly different way than the horrible one she’d imagined.
If she could convince him to try. If she should try to convince him at all.
“Alright,” she said, dismissing the physician. “Just give me a moment to think.”
The last thing she wanted was for her brother to be sick and alone in a strange place. But nor did she want him to let a true boon for his health pass him by. And there was still the matter of Fred not telling her things. Not letting her in.
“Take whatever time you need, dearheart,” Fred said. “Whatever you decide I will support you in it.”
She raised her head and looked at him. “What if I decide that I am tired of not being told the truth, what then?”
“Then I will do better, Jules. I promise you I will.”
“Truly?”
He took in a deep breath. “Yes.”
Julianna did not knock when she returned to Thomas’s room. She pushed the door open and slipped inside, closing it softly behind her. He was awake. Propped against the pillows, his eyes fixed on her at once.
“So,” he said. “They’ve sent you to finish the work.”
“No one has sent me anywhere, Tom.”
“No?” His mouth curved faintly. “You’ve been closeted with Fred and the doctor long enough. At least I can assume you made a show of resisting before agreeing to send me away.”
“That is not fair.” She perched on the edge of his bed. “The physician believes this will help you.”
“He says what Fred pays him to say.”
Julianna closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. She reached for his hand but he jerked it away.
“So it is done then,” he said softly.
“I’d never send you to Torquay against your will. But Tom—they say it can give you more time. Real time. Not this”—she gestured helplessly—“this waiting while you get weaker and weaker.”
“It will spare you the inconvenience of watching it, certainly.”
“That is not what this is.”
“Isn’t it?” His voice sharpened. “You’ve your husband now. Your grand house. Your title. Perhaps The Quill was right all along and you are more calculating than—”
“Stop, Tom.” She cut him off. “Just, stop. Please do not say what you cannot take back. You are my brother and I love you.”
“But only until I become an embarrassment, is that it? I see the way you look at him. And certainly the way he looks at you. You wish to be left to your future as a Countess without the burden of me.”
Julianna flinched because his words were some ugly transmogrification of her own thoughts. But she knew, too, they weren’t true. That she could separate what was best for her brother from her own wants and desires. She could be clear-eyed about both, even when they came into conflict.
“This is not about Fred,” she said.
“It is entirely about him.”
The door opened behind her.
“Enough.” Fred’s voice was quiet, but it cut a deadly swath through the room nonetheless. He stood just inside the threshold, his expression murderous. “You will not speak to her in that manner.”
Thomas gave a short, breathless laugh. “Or you’ll what? Throw me out yourself?”
“If I must.” Fred took a step further into the room. “I can have you carried out of here today, Tom. Do not test me.”
“You would force me out then?”
“I will do as Jules asks,” Fred said. “If that requires force, then yes.”
Thomas’s gaze flicked to Julianna. “This is who you’ve chosen over your own brother?”
Julianna sighed. “Fred is my husband. And you are my brother. You are not in competition.”
She studied him, the hollowness beneath his eyes, the tremor he could not quite still in his hands and tried a different tack.
“If I wished to be without you, Thomas, I would have left you in the cold of Farrow Cottage. Where you were, without question, dying. But I brought you here to give you a chance. And now I am asking—no, I am begging—you to consider this because it might give you more time. Better time.”
“I would have to leave you,” he said.
“Yes.” Her voice broke before she could stop it. “But that doesn’t mean we no longer love each other. Nor does a change in our circumstance diminish who you are to me, who you have been all these years. Nothing will change that, Tom. I promise you.”
He let his head fall back against the pillows. “Except my bad behavior.”
“Hopefully not even that. Although I would be grateful if you’d cut it out.”
Thomas managed one of his old, smirking grins.
“I will come to you as often as I am able,” Julianna said. “And I will write. I don’t mean to abandon you, only to help you. But the choice is yours.”
He closed his eyes and was silent for a long moment. Long enough that she thought he would refuse her again. But then he said faintly, “Very well.”
Julianna didn’t move. Nor did she look at Fred, who had exhaled quietly from his place by the doorway.
“You’ll go?” she asked.
“Yes,” Thomas said, not opening his eyes. “But if I hate it—or if it does not make me better—will you let me come home?”
“Of course.” She reached for his hand again. This time, he let her take it.