Hilde
She fetched a cloak from her room and headed downstairs. She was loath to open the front door, since the wind would make it difficult to close again, so she slipped out the kitchen door, creeping quietly so as to not wake Cook.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Have you seen the dog? Is he here?”
Han frowned.
“Lord Elmwood’s dog? Why would he be here?”
“I thought maybe Ed found him in my study and brought him to you.”
Han shook her head.
“No, I’ve not seen the creature since this morning.”
Hilde ran a hand over her wet braids, which were still in their coils from dinner. Her cloak was also soaked through, and her dressing gown had begun dripping on the stone floor. And Rollo was truly missing—again.
“I’d best go back to the house and wake Ed, then, and find out where he took him,” she said, turning to go.
“I checked the root cellar just now, in case you’re worried,” said Han. Hilde recoiled. She had given no thought to Thorgoode potentially being at the mercy of rising water. “The yard’s a bit muddy, but it’s not seeping in.”
“Thank you for checking,” said Hilde stiffly. “We’re lucky this place was built up on a rise.”
“That’s good planning, not luck,” said Han. Then she paused, as if considering something. “He’s not going to use his Charm for you. Lord Elmwood.”
Hilde stiffened.
“I don’t know why you were discussing my affairs with Lord Elmwood,” she said, her voice shrill. “But whatever he told you, he was not fully informed of the situation and therefore was in no position to make declarations to you.”
“What, are you going to bribe him with his own dog?” said Han, as if the idea were preposterous.
Grasping strumpet, the Harrier had called her, then Elmwood had accused her of much the same, and rightfully so, and now her own sister was going to see how conniving she was.
“Wait,” Han said. “Truly? Hilde.” There was such judgment and disappointment in the sound of her own name, and Hilde couldn’t bear it.
“I’m trying to keep all of this together,” she said, clenching her jaw so she wouldn’t raise her voice.
The words rang hollow in her own ears, even though she meant them.
“I’m trying to save Croftholde. I will do whatever it takes, no matter how distasteful it might seem to you, or Lord Elmwood, or anyone else. ”
“Why do you do that? Why do you act as though everything is your responsibility?”
Blood rushed to Hilde’s ears.
On the night their mother had died, Hilde was the one who had sat by her bedside, holding her hand while her life drained away. Her mother had squeezed her fingers so tight it almost hurt, then whispered, Look after her.
She could only have meant Han, who had been sent to stay with neighbors so that she wouldn’t catch the fever. Hearing her mother’s command, Hilde had glanced over her shoulder, thinking that her father must have come in. Surely the words were meant for him.
But there was only Hilde.
She could not remember a single day after that when she had not been crushed beneath the weight of responsibility.
So much of what she did was in the pursuit of taking care of others.
Her father and Han. Thorgoode. The staff at Croftholde, and the tenants, the people in the village, even the sheep out in the fields.
All of her work was to ensure that she didn’t let any of them down, that they always had enough, that they would thrive.
Even taking time to paint and draw had felt like a guilty extravagance.
“Hilde.”
“It is my responsibility!” Hilde realized she had shouted, which she tried very hard never to do with Han. Han wouldn’t hear her if she shouted. She’d retreat. So Hilde took a deep breath before she continued. “There’s no one else I can rely on. It has to be me.”
Han’s jaw clenched, and she shook her head.
“If you really think that, then you’re an idiot,” she said.
Hilde drew in a sharp breath.
“How can you say that to me?” she whispered. “After everything I’ve done to keep us safe?”
“I never asked you to keep me safe,” said Han. “I don’t need you to keep me safe. No one is asking for your help. If you would stop trying to control—”
“Enough!” said Hilde.
She turned her back on her sister.
“I have to find Rollo.”
Han sighed behind her. “Hilde, I…”
Hilde stumbled back out into the storm, letting the wind slam the door shut behind her.
It was much more difficult to find her way back to the house without the lantern light to guide her.
She pressed against the rain, using her cloak like a shield.
Rivulets of water were flowing across the yard now, churning it into a swampy mess.
With each step, Hilde sank in farther. Then, an especially forceful gust of wind caught in her cloak and pushed her backward and sideways, but her feet remained stuck.
She flailed, then tumbled over, landing on her back in the mud.
She lay there, battered by the rain and wind, trying to catch her breath. Finally, she found the will to clamber back to her feet, the mud sucking at her, and managed to stumble the last few paces to the kitchen door. She shut it as quietly as possible, which was not quiet at all, given the wind.
She looked down at herself. Her cloak and dressing gown were both coated in mud and soaked through.
“Funny night for a stroll in the yard.”
Cook appeared in the doorway of her room, holding a candle, dressed in her frilly night shift and a shawl Hilde had woven for her the previous winter.
The first time Hilde had set foot in Croftholde’s kitchen, Cook had looked at her with that same bemused expression.
Hilde had been a young girl, newly orphaned, with Han in tow and a lump of worry in her throat.
Cook had given her and Han each a slab of bread with butter and honey spread on it, but she had been too anxious to eat it.
Cook had noticed, and had come over to cup Hilde’s cheeks with her hands and said, What would make this sweet face happy again?
Hilde had answered honestly: I want to be home.
Cook had nodded, handed her a wooden spoon, and put her to work as if she had lived her whole life in Croftholde’s kitchen, under Cook’s watchful gaze.
The Croft had been home from that day forward, and for a time, she had always been able to turn to Cook when she was out of her depth. That had changed when she married Thorgoode. You couldn’t go to your cook for guidance when you were the lady of the manor.
Now all she wanted was to ask her how to get out of this absurd mess she’d made for herself. But that wouldn’t be fair to Cook.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen a badger hound?” she said instead.
“Oh, aye. Young Ed brought it down and asked me to feed it some scraps, and me with a highty-mighty dinner to make. The fool creature stole one of those little hens and swallowed it whole, then almost fell into the soup pot!”
Of course.
“Where is he now?” Hilde asked.
“Young Ed? Sleeping, I expect, as we all should be, missy.”
“I mean the dog!”
“Haven’t the faintest. I told young Ed he’d best get the creature out of my sight.”
He must have taken Rollo up to his own rooms, then.
“You’d best let me take all that and drop it in a tub to soak,” said Cook, gesturing at Hilde’s mud-drenched clothing with her chin. “You know that red dirt will stain, otherwise.”
Cook was right, and Hilde did not have so many clothes that she could afford to ruin any.
She stripped out of the cloak and her dressing gown, handing both over to Cook, and was left to head upstairs in nothing but her damp but miraculously unmuddied shift.
She almost stopped on the second floor to change, but anxiety about Rollo’s whereabouts drove her directly up to the top floor.
By the time she reached it, she was shivering, her shift clinging to her wetly and her teeth near clattering. She walked quickly down the corridor toward Ed’s room, desperately hoping that he had indeed spirited Rollo away and that the creature was not truly lost again.
As she passed by the spare room on her way to Ed’s, the door swung open.
“Lady Croft!” exclaimed Mr. Winthrop.