14
CECILY
Cecily had been at Hawthorne Manor less than a fortnight when she began to believe she could survive in this time.
The work was steady and hard, but she did not mind it. She rose before dawn, carried water, swept rushes, scrubbed boards, and learned quickly which corners of the house mattered and which were ignored. The steward corrected her once, then nodded when she finished a task well.
To think she had once commanded maids like these. She prayed this life would not last forever, but for now, the pay, a bed of her own, and three meals a day felt like a godsend.
At breakfast, one of the other maids, Sybil, leaned close as they waited their turn for porridge.
“The Hammer’s been busy hammerin’,” she said, lowering her voice, though no one nearby seemed to listen. “They say the roads north are thick with soldiers.”
Cecily glanced at her. “The Hammer?”
Sybil’s eyes brightened. “King Edward, of course. They call him the Hammer of the Scots.” She made a fist and brought it down on the table. “Breaks ’em flat, so they say. He’s chasin’ that rebel, William Wallace, and burnin’ everything in his path. That’s what I heard, anyway.”
Cecily stirred her porridge and said nothing. King Edward. Born in 1239. The same year she had left behind. The thought unsettled her more than she cared to admit—that the king who ruled this brutal present had been born the same year she escaped. The gap between then and now felt like a chasm.
At meals, the servants sat on low benches near the kitchen hearth. Finn, her “brother,” as they had agreed, sat beside her, the familiar curve of his mouth evident as he listened to one servant tell a story.
She had taken to watching the door at the evening meal until Finn appeared, since his outdoor work kept him busy from sunup to sundown. This evening, she noticed how tan he’d become, his shoulders even broader from the hard labor.
At the table, the scullery boy was telling a story, using broad gestures. Finn leaned toward Cecily and murmured, “If he keeps adding to his tale, he’ll swear next that the cow spoke back.”
Cecily pressed her lips together and kept her eyes on her bowl, fighting a laugh. She felt the brush of his knee against hers beneath the table. When she glanced up, he was watching her, amusement still in his eyes.
She looked away first and then laughed.
∞∞∞
Lady Beatrix Hawthorne soon began requesting that Cecily attend her in the mornings.
On one of those mornings, Cecily arrived at the solar with clean linens and heard a sharp intake of breath behind her. Lady Beatrix stood near the window, one hand pressed to her chest, her face pale beneath the fine linen of her wimple.
“My lady?” Cecily set the basket down at once.
“This pain,” she said, her fingers clenched tight on the draperies. “It passes. It always does.”
Cecily guided her to a chair and fetched water. She knelt, waiting until the lady’s breathing eased.
“It comes upon me like a fist,” Lady Beatrix said quietly. “A squeezing pain. I have felt it for several seasons now.”
Cecily listened. She offered comfort where she could, staying by her side until the worst of it had passed.
After that, Lady Beatrix summoned her whenever the pain returned.
Sometimes it was once a day, sometimes twice, sometimes not at all.
Lady Beatrix endured it, though it left her tired and pale.
Lord Edmund Hawthorne thanked Cecily once, formally, for her attentiveness to his wife.
His manner was courteous, but not effusive.
He expected order, and he received it. The household ran smoothly under Lady Hawthorne’s quiet management, though Lord Hawthorne’s sudden appearances in the kitchen had a way of silencing conversation.
Even Sybil grew momentarily still when he passed through.
Later, as Cecily and Sybil cleaned ash from the hearth, Sybil began another stream of commentary.
“I heard her ladyship had another turn this mornin’,” Sybil said, scraping at the stone. “Cook said she near dropped her cup.”
“She’s been unwell,” Cecily replied evenly.
“Aye.” Sybil nodded. “Lord Hawthorne told her to rest more, they say. And to take wine in the evenin’. My aunt swore wine cured half of what ails a body.” She crossed herself and went on scraping the hearth as she chattered.
∞∞∞
At night, lying awake, she pictured Finn across the yard, his dark hair mussed from labor, the work clothes she’d repaired fitting his shoulders better now.
She remembered waking tangled in his arms, the warmth of his chest beneath her head, his arm heavy across her waist as if it belonged there.
The memory brought a sudden, unfamiliar tightness low in her chest.
She shifted beneath the blanket, unsettled by the sensation. It was foolish, she told herself. Dangerous.
And yet she did not wish him farther away, only nearer.
She remembered the way he had looked at her across the table. Not like a brother. Not like anyone else ever had.
∞∞∞
The morning was cold and gray when Cecily set out with fresh linens. As she approached the solar, she heard the same sound again, sharper than before.
She dropped her basket and ran.
Lady Beatrix stood by the window, one hand braced against the stone, the other clenched tight against her chest. Her breath came in short, broken pulls.
“It’s worse,” she said. “It will not ease.”
Cecily reached her just as her knees buckled. She caught her, called out for help, and tried to steady her weight. Lady Beatrix gasped once, her fingers tightening in Cecily’s sleeve, and then her strength failed entirely.
“My lady?” Cecily whispered.
There was no answer.
The room was suddenly still. Light fell from the window across the lady’s pale face.
Cecily lowered her carefully to the floor.
She pressed two fingers to the lady’s throat, then her wrist, moving with increasing urgency from one pulse point to the next, finding nothing but cooling skin.
For a moment, she mistook her own pounding heart for her mistress’s, but soon realized Lady Hawthorn had no heartbeat at all.
Cecily drew back slowly, her hands trembling.
Lady Beatrix Hawthorne was dead.