Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Poppy woke to the softest sound in the world. For a moment she did not know where she was. Then the whisper came again beyond her door, and she sat up.
“Poppy?” She heard Annabelle’s voice in the dark.
Poppy was already reaching for her wrapper. “What is it?”
“It is Aurora. She is not in her bed again.”
Again.
Poppy tied the sash at her waist and crossed the room.
“Was the room searched?” Poppy asked.
“Yes.”
Poppy did not wait for slippers. She stepped into the corridor, feeling the chill of the boards through her stockings.
“Did she quarrel with anyone?” Poppy asked as they walked.
“No. She was put to bed as usual. Mrs. Patterson looked in before retiring. Aurora was quiet then.”
At the study’s door, they stopped as though the room beyond were a place one ought to enter only by permission. Poppy took the lamp from her.
“You may go back to bed,” she said gently. “If I need assistance, I shall ring.”
“I shall wait and call Mrs. Patterson for some assistance.”
When the girl retreated, Poppy remained for a moment with her hand on the latch.
Enough is enough.
Poppy opened the door.
The study was dark except for the wavering lamp in Poppy’s hand.
It was a beautiful room by any ordinary measure, though beauty at night could become a kind of coldness.
The ceiling rose too far above. The walls drew away into the shadows.
The closet stood waiting, broad and neat, its wood neatly carved, and a dim light came through the opening.
“Aurora?” she called softly.
No answer.
Poppy did not raise her voice. She crossed to the closet and opened the door. She set the lamp down where its light would not glare and stood still. Annabelle and Mrs. Patterson entered the room shortly after and stood at the entrance, waiting for a signal from her.
“Aurora,” she said, “it is Poppy.”
Poppy sat down on the floor outside the closet, arranging her wrapper around her knees. The boards were cold. She accepted the discomfort as useful; it would keep her awake.
“I am not angry,” she said.
The crack widened. A little.
In the darkness within, Aurora was only a shape at first, folded close to herself among hanging garments and the faint smell of wood and stored cloth.
The closet was small enough that an adult would have called it cramped.
Poppy could see at once why a child might prefer it. The duke made it feel like home.
“May I come in?” Poppy asked.
Aurora’s voice emerged, thin and wary. “Yes, please.”
Poppy opened the door only enough to slip inside sideways. It was awkward. Her shoulder brushed the frame; her knees protested as she lowered herself to the floor. A hem caught beneath her. She freed it with as much dignity as the circumstances permitted. Aurora watched her with solemn attention.
“There,” Poppy said when she had settled beside her, not touching. “We are both in the closet. It seems you were mistaken.”
Aurora’s mouth trembled. “You are squished.”
“Only a little.”
“You could go back out.” Aurora shrugged, but her eyes never lied, and Poppy knew the last thing she wanted was to be left alone.
“I could.” Poppy leaned her head lightly against the wall. “But I think I shall stay for a while.”
The closet held the two of them in a dim light gentler than the bedroom’s. Poppy could hear Aurora’s breathing was uneven, but slowing now that Poppy was nearby. For several minutes, she asked nothing.
At last, Aurora said, “Will Uncle Hector know?”
“Not tonight,” Poppy said.
Aurora turned her face toward her. “Will you tell him?”
“I will tell him what he needs to know when he needs to know it.”
“That means yes.”
“It means I cannot lie to your uncle.”
Aurora looked down.
“But,” Poppy continued, “it also means I do not carry tales merely to make a child feel ashamed.”
The small hands in Aurora’s lap unclenched slightly.
“Is he angry?” she whispered.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
Because Poppy had seen His Grace pause outside this very door after supper, one hand lifted, not knocking. She had seen the worry he concealed beneath impatience when Aurora would not eat or Princess cried.
“Because he loves you,” Poppy said simply.
Aurora absorbed this with suspicion.
This time Aurora’s mouth did curve, faintly. Then the curve vanished. “I do not mean to be bad.”
“I know.” Poppy brushed her hair aside.
“I try to stay in bed. I get in. I shut my eyes.”
“And then what happens?”
“And then I miss home.”
Poppy immediately thought of the orphanage. She had missed it too.
“I am there even when I shut my eyes,” Aurora said, frustrated now.
“Does your new room feel too large?” Poppy had to remember every detail so she could help Aurora.
Aurora nodded at once, relief flashing across her face because Poppy had found the word. “It is all too large.”
This house, with its noble rooms and high ceilings, its spaces made for lineage and ceremony, had turned itself upon a child not by malice but by scale.
The duke had brought Aurora into safety and placed her in a chamber fit for a beloved niece of a duke.
He had given her what he had been taught to give: quality, privacy, and dignity.
A proper room with a proper bed and a door of her own.
Poppy felt tenderness for His Grace, for the child who had learned that love must look like provision before it looked like closeness. At the life that had made him Duke before it had allowed him to be Uncle.
“What do you miss about the small room?” she asked.
Aurora shrugged, but it was not indifference; it was a child’s attempt to make pain smaller by giving it a smaller gesture. “I could listen.”
“Listen to what?”
“To Princess’s breathing.”
Poppy’s throat tightened.
“She is not with me,” Aurora said. “She has her own room.”
“Would you like her to be with you?” Poppy did not like that they were separated either, but the duke commanded it be done so the sisters would not depend on each other.
“At the orphanage, I could hear everybody. Even when they snored.” She made a face, then seemed to remember she was miserable and folded back into herself. “It was noisy.”
“Did the noise trouble you?”
“No.” Aurora looked surprised. “It meant they were there.”
Poppy let that settle and immediately began planning a visit to the orphanage in her mind.
“And the bed?” she asked softly. “Does the bed trouble you too?”
Aurora’s gaze moved toward the crack of light and beyond it, to the broad bed occupying the room.
“It is too big.”
“And that makes it feel…”
“Lonely,” Aurora said.
Poppy looked at the child beside her, at the rigid little shoulders and the courage it had taken to name loneliness in a place where everyone was trying so hard to be noticed.
“Were you lonely at the orphanage?” Poppy asked softly, afraid of the answer.
Aurora shook her head at once. “No, never. I miss that everyone slept in the same room. The bed was not like that one. It was squashed. We had to put our feet carefully, or someone kicked. Princess was nearby, too. Sometimes my arm went numb.”
Poppy suddenly realized what the issue was. The house was too big for Aurora.
“Aurora, it is time to go to bed.” The child looked upset, but Poppy would not accept any excuses.
She motioned to Annabelle and Mrs. Patterson, who approached them immediately. Annabelle coaxed the child out of her hiding spot while Poppy spoke in a low tone to Mrs. Patterson.
“Mrs. Patterson, we will do something that the duke must not find out about.”
To her surprise, the housekeeper laughed.
“What is it, Mrs. Patterson?”
The housekeeper shook her head as her laughter died down. “I am just enjoying the shenanigans that have been taking place in this house.”