Chapter 24 #2
“You should have trusted her,” Cassie huffed. She had not moved from her position by the bed, her arms crossed, her expression a study in wounded dignity. “Miss Norton would never let anything happen to me. Never. She promised, and she keeps her promises. Unlike some people.”
“I… I will fix this,” he vowed, before walking out of her room.
Deciding to apologize for a grievous error was one thing. The apology itself was far more challenging.
Hudson stood at the window of his study and watched the afternoon light bleed from the sky in long, golden streaks that did nothing to improve his mood or the taste of the whiskey he had poured himself an hour ago and not yet touched.
The glass sat on the desk behind him, precisely where he had set it down after realizing that alcohol was not the solution to the misery currently afflicting him. The solution, unfortunately, seemed to involve humility.
A brisk knock at the door announced James’s arrival.
Hudson did not turn.
“Enter,” he called.
The door opened and closed. James’s footsteps crossed the carpet with the measured tread of a man approaching a wounded animal, cautious but not fearful, respectful of the potential for teeth.
“I’ve been summoned,” James announced. His voice carried its usual lightness, but Hudson caught the note of concern beneath it.
“Cassie’s doing, I presume? She cornered me in the stable yard and delivered what I can only describe as a lecture on the proper treatment of governesses.
Quite thorough. I believe she cited three separate points of etiquette and one obscure passage from Mrs. Beale’s household manual. I took notes, naturally.”
Hudson turned.
James stood by the desk, one hip propped against its edge, his expression carefully neutral in a way that meant he was making a considerable effort not to smile.
“She has strong feelings on the subject,” Hudson said.
“So it would seem.” James picked up the untouched whiskey, examined it with the air of a connoisseur presented with an inferior vintage, and set it down again.
“As do you, apparently. Given that you’ve been standing at that window since noon, by all accounts, and have successfully avoided both lunch and the company of every human being in this house with the notable exception of your sister, who, I am told, is currently not speaking to you. ”
“Cassie speaks to me,” Hudson countered. “Incessantly. About my many failings as a brother and employer. She has quite the gift for enumeration.”
“Runs in the family,” James observed. “Though your particular gift runs more toward the silent, brooding variety. Very effective. Very intimidating. Less useful when one is attempting to fix a relationship one has comprehensively damaged.”
Hudson shook his head. He moved away from the window, crossing to the desk with the deliberate pace of a man approaching his own execution. “She told you.”
“Enough,” James admitted. “Blood on sheets, shouting, tears. The broad strokes. The details I filled in myself, based on my extensive knowledge of your capacity for dramatic overreaction and Miss Norton’s admirable restraint in the face of masculine idiocy.”
“You weren’t there,” Hudson huffed. The defensiveness in his own voice surprised him. “You didn’t see—”
“I saw Augusta outside. What I saw,” James interrupted, “was a woman walking through the garden with red-rimmed eyes, attempting not to cry. A woman who, when I inquired after her welfare, informed me that she was perfectly well, before fleeing my company.” He shook his head.
“She’s covering, Hudson. With dignity, which is more than most would manage in her position, but covering nonetheless. And you put her in that position.”
The accusation hung between them, simple and unadorned.
Hudson stared at the untouched whiskey, at the way the amber liquid caught the dying light, and found he had no rebuttal worth offering.
“I thought Cassie was hurt.” The words emerged rough, scraped from somewhere deep.
“I saw blood on her sheets, and I… Honestly, James, what would you have done? Your sister, your responsibility, and the woman you’ve entrusted with her care standing between you and the truth with that look on her face, that absolute refusal… ”
“I would have asked,” James said quietly.
The lightness had left his voice entirely, replaced by something that Hudson, in his more honest moments, would have recognized as friendship in its purest form, the willingness to deliver difficult truths without flinching.
“I would have asked, and I would have listened to the answer, and I would have trusted that the woman I hired had reasons for her silence. Good ones. Perhaps even necessary ones.”
Hudson closed his eyes. The image rose unbidden: Augusta’s face as he had shouted at her.
The way the color had drained from her cheeks.
The brightness in her eyes that was not quite tears but something adjacent to them, something worse in its restraint.
The set of her mouth, firm despite the tremors he had glimpsed, the dignity with which she had absorbed his anger and offered nothing in return.
He hated it. Hated the memory of it, hated himself for creating it, hated with a fierceness that surprised him the idea that he had been the cause of that expression on her face.
“I was cruel.” The admission cost him more than he cared to admit.
“I accused her of negligence. Of failing Cassie. Of…” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“She was keeping a child’s confidence. A confidence I had no right to demand she break.
And I treated her as though she had committed some unforgivable breach of trust.”
“You did,” James agreed. There was no judgment in his voice, which made the statement somehow worse. “The question is what you propose to do about it. Beyond brooding at windows and terrorizing the staff with your silence, which, while theatrically effective, is unlikely to undo the damage.”
Hudson lowered his hands. “I need to speak to her.”
“Astounding,” James said. “The man has a gift for stating the obvious. A regular oracle.” He pushed away from the desk, moving toward the door with the easy grace that characterized all his movements. “I suggest you do it soon. Apologize. Properly. She deserves that much. They both do.”
The door closed behind him with a soft click that felt like an indictment.
Hudson remained by the desk, one hand resting beside the untouched whiskey, and listened to the house settle into the evening.
He would find Augusta. Tonight. He would apologize, and he hoped, with a desperation that embarrassed him, that it would be enough.