Chapter 14
“Did you hear the wailing last night?” Aoife asked as Clara was fastening her dress the next morning.
Clara shook her head. “No, miss. But the staff were talking about it at breakfast. Mrs Harrow and Alton heard it. His lordship says it’s only the wind in the chimneys.”
Aoife studied her face. “And what do you think?”
Clara hesitated. “I think…” she lowered her voice. “I think it was what the old stories say. The hall boys took the leftovers to the village this morning. They said a woman died in the night.”
Aoife’s pulse quickened. “Who?”
“I think her name was Mineor.”
Aoife’s heart sank. “Bonnie Mineor?”
Clara nodded. “Her neighbours said she’d stopped eating. Lost her heart for it, after what happened in Dromdara.”
Aoife swallowed hard. “Her family died there,” she said softly.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Aoife registered exactly what Clara had said.
“The hall boys took the leftovers to the village?”
Clara nodded.
A small, fragile warmth spread through her chest. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
She couldn’t fight an empire. But she could still try to change him.
If she could make him see, then maybe she could stop the banshee from crying again.
After the visitors left, she would try. He’d stood up to the other lords. That was the way in.
Aoife rushed Clara through getting ready, hoping if she made it down to breakfast before everyone else she might excuse herself and slip out early without having to make conversation.
The dining room was blessedly empty when Aoife stepped inside. Breakfast had been laid out neatly: porridge, eggs, a plate of sliced fruit arranged in a tidy fan. But no staff hovered at the walls, no footman stepped forward to pour her tea.
She hesitated only a moment before helping herself.
A soft step approached behind her. She turned to see Kit hovering at the doorway.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure if I should wait,” Aoife said.
“That’s all right, miss.”
“I never did ask your name. It is Kit, isn’t it? Cook mentioned it.”
He blinked, surprised. “It is. But they only call me that downstairs. It’s a nickname for Kithelm.”
“Kithelm,” she repeated. “And… I should apologise. For the way they spoke about you. As though you weren’t even there.”
He shifted uncomfortably, looking down. “It’s all right, miss.”
It wasn’t. She could hear the lie scraping in his throat.
“Where are the others?” she asked.
Kit’s eyes darted away. “Busy, miss.”
“Busy doing what?”
He opened his mouth. Closed it.
Aoife set her fork down. “Kit. What happened?”
He swallowed hard. “I… I shouldn’t say.”
She rose from the table, chair scraping, and strode out of the room straight toward the servants’ door. Kit hurried after her.
“Miss, please—you can’t go down there, miss—”
But Aoife didn’t stop.
She pushed through the narrow service door and down the cramped stairwell into the servants’ hall.
A small knot of people stood hunched around the long trestle table. The moment she entered, they scattered like birds startled from a hedgerow. No one spoke, uncertain how to act with her where she shouldn’t be.
James sat at the centre of it all, left sleeve rolled to the elbow. The skin on his forearm was angry-red, mottled and blistered, already beginning to swell. He gripped his upper arm hard enough that his knuckles stood out white against his skin.
“Here. This will help.” Mrs Harrow entered the room carrying a dish of butter and oblivious to the change of atmosphere in her absence.
Aoife crossed the space in three quick steps and caught her wrist.
“No. Don’t.”
The housekeeper froze, startled.
“It’s an old wives’ tale, butter, but it doesn’t work. Only makes things worse.”
Aoife turned, taking in the room. The servants stood stiffly, eyes fixed too intently on the stone floor.
“Did anyone run it under cold water?” she asked.
Silence stretched. Someone shifted their weight. A maid twisted her apron between her fingers.
Then the butler spoke. “No, miss.”
Aoife took a step towards James, but Mr Lanyon blocked her way.
“That won’t be necessary,” he added after a beat. “Mrs Harrow has it in hand. You shouldn’t trouble yourself with these things.”
“No offence to Mrs Harrow, but my father’s a blacksmith and my mother was a healer. I know what I’m doing.”
She looked past the butler to James. “I know you don’t like me—”
“That’s not—” Mrs Harrow tried to disagree, but Aoife held up a hand to stop her.
“You probably don’t think much of Morran medicine either, but I’ve treated enough burns to know I can help you.”
James stared at her for a long time, the other staff shifting uncomfortably around them. Without warning, he pushed his chair away from the table and stood. The scrape of wood against stone sounded far too loud in the quiet. More than one servant flinched.
“Fine,” he snapped, sharp as a challenge.
The staff parted as he followed her out of the servants’ hall to the courtyard.
Outside, the morning air was cool and sharp. She brought James straight to the pump and eased his arm beneath the spout.
Cold water burst out in uneven spurts as she pumped, splashing across the burn. James sucked in a pained breath, then relief flooded his features as the heat leached away.
“It’s better,” he whispered.
“I’m afraid it’s only temporary,” Aoife murmured as she pumped; the heat would return when she stopped, so she kept going a little while. “Can I ask you something?”
James gritted his teeth, but nodded.
“Is there a reason you don’t like me?”
James was silent, so Aoife continued. “I think I understand. I came out of nowhere, and now you’re expected to serve me. Who am I to wear these fine dresses and eat at his lordship’s table?”
James looked startled, as if she’d spoken a truth he hadn’t fully acknowledged himself.
“You’re Eldrossi, right?”
James nodded.
“It would help if we understood each other a little better. I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, but I think it would help.”
He’d been silent for so long it startled her when he spoke. “Why?”
“It usually does. I find talking solves a lot of problems.”
“I meant, why do we need to understand each other?”
Aoife scrunched up her forehead, confused by the question. “We live together.”
“We don’t live together. You live upstairs. We are not equals.”
The words felt like a slap. “Says who?” Aoife asked stubbornly.
“The man who decides whether I eat.”
“Well, he’s wrong. What separates you and me is geography and genealogy. That’s it.”
“You’re naive if you think the rest of the world thinks the way you do.”
Aoife pressed on anyway. “They want us to think that the emperor, the lords, are better than us, but they’re people, like you and me.”
“If you keep talking like that, you’ll get someone hurt.”
Aoife stopped pumping and moved to look at James’ arm.
“We should get this dry and wrap it,” she said, dropping the previous subject. “Do you have bandages?”
James nodded. “This way.”
He led her through the servants’ hall to a small room with shelves on all sides and a table in the middle. A workroom, though Aoife couldn’t say for what.
James indicated the bandages on a high shelf and Aoife reached a few down, spotting folded towels next to them.
James sat down at the table and she dried the skin around the burn gently.
“You shouldn’t work today,” she said. “You need rest.”
James stared at her, almost pityingly. “I’m expected to serve at breakfast.”
“I’ll explain to Lord Halverton. He’ll understand you had an accident.”
He gave her that look, Cormac’s look, the one that told her she’d missed something obvious.
Aoife’s stomach dropped.
“He already knows, doesn’t he?”
James didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
“He did this,” Aoife said, comprehension dawning. “Why?”
James laughed. “My mistake at dinner. With the wine.”
Aoife frowned, thinking back. “But you didn’t make a mistake. Lord Severcombe spilled it.”
“The dress was ruined. Someone had to answer for it.”
“It was an accident. His accident.”
James’ gaze was intense as he studied her. “You’re angry?”
“I’m furious. How dare he?”
James laughed again. It unsettled Aoife.
“You really don’t have a clue how the world works.”
Aoife’s shackles rose. Too many people were treating her like a child: Cormac, Halverton, and now James. She forced herself not to get defensive.
“Then tell me.”
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Someone has to pay, and it’ll never be the lords.”
Aoife sat down on the table next to him. “And no one tries to stop it?”
“And risk being punished too? No.”
For a long moment she sat there, trembling with fury she couldn’t spend at the injustice of it all. The image of the bruise on James’ wrist floated into her mind.
“Your bruised wrist last week, that was Halverton too, wasn’t it?”
His eyes narrowed. “It was.”
“And that wasn’t your fault either?”
James made a noncommittal noise. “Depends on who you ask.”
She watched him, waiting to see if he would say more.
“I was the one who told Lord Halverton you’d taken your things.” He looked her in the eyes as he said it, defiant, as though he didn’t regret it, even now.
“Why would he…?” Aoife interrupted her own question as she remembered Halverton’s words that day ‘Do it again, and you will face the consequences.’ She hadn’t understood the emphasis at the time. She did now.
“I’m sorry.”
James looked at her, stunned. “For what?”
This man was an enigma. “I’m the reason he beat you.”
James didn’t respond.
“Do you want me to take a look at that wrist now?”
“No, it’s fine, good as new.”
Aoife held out her hands, and reluctantly, James laid his wrist across her palms. She pushed the sleeve up to reveal the faded yellow bruising. He was right. It looked better. There wasn’t anything she could do for it.
Now she was looking more closely, she could see evidence of other injuries: small scars and bigger ones. How long had this been going on?
James pulled his arm away, sliding the sleeve down quickly. “See, it’s fine.”
Aoife stared at him. “How old are you?”
He looked surprised by the question. “22, why?”
“Same as me. How long have you worked here?”