Chapter 6 #2
“Oh.” Alaric’s shoulders dropped. “I thought … never mind.”
“She was reading Ann Radcliffe, if you believe it,” Peregrine continued.
He chuckled at the notion. “Oh, and she was eager to tell me all about it. I thought perhaps that she was exaggerating, because it is rare to find a housekeeper who reads so well. But she was insightful, reading not just for pleasure but to learn from what she read.” He shook his head as if such a concept was bizarre. “Your grandmother was onto something.”
“Truly?” Alaric frowned as he pictured Miss Kavanagh alone in the library, reading a Gothic novel to herself. And then, he smiled. “I had no idea she liked to read.”
“Why would you?”
It was a good point. The simple fact was that Alaric knew almost nothing about Miss Kavanagh. It was not done on purpose, as if he were avoiding her. Rather, he simply hadn’t thought of engaging with her on a personal level. After all, she was little more than a housekeeper.
No … that is not true either.
His sister seemed to think that her reasons for being here were nefarious, but even she knew almost nothing about the woman. Everything they knew was based on the key detail that their grandmother had clearly been close with her, and that she trusted her.
He doubted that there was anything to find alarm in Miss Kavanagh’s presence here. But the more he considered her, the more Alaric came to decide that such answers could not be guessed at, but needed to be learned.
And to learn those answers, he would need to get to know Miss Kavanagh better.
“Well, shall we?” Peregrine put down his glass of brandy and stood.
“What are you doing?”
Peregrine frowned at Alaric as if the answer was obvious. “I missed your grandmother’s funeral, Alaric, and for that I am sorry. But now that I am here, I would like to pay my respects.”
Still, Alaric frowned in confusion.
“Her burial site,” he clarified. “I might visit it. And I would appreciate it if you joined me.”
Alaric squirmed at the notion. Not because he had an aversion to gravesites or anything silly like that. But his grandmother’s death had haunted him these last few days, and the thought of visiting her tomb … always, it feels as if she is watching me.
Of course, he did not deny his friend. And with a deep sigh of resignation, and a deeper sip of brandy, Alaric and Peregrine made their way from the drawing room, from the castle, and toward the graveyard that sat just behind the small chapel on the edges of the property.
It was a moonless night. The wind howled as if in warning, so intense that it attacked the flames of their torches as if determined to snuff them out.
Alaric led the way, doing his best to ignore the sense of dread that sat in the pit of his stomach. He did not know what it meant, just that it ought to be listened to.
“What is that …” Peregrine’s voice drowned in the wind.
Alaric looked ahead and narrowed his eyes when he saw a flame burning in the darkness.
It too whipped and spat as the wind lashed it, and it made it hard to see who sat by the flame.
But as they stalked ahead, Alaric knew it to be by his grandmother’s gravestone, and he was not at all surprised when he saw who was there.
Miss Kavanagh was on her knees before his grandmother’s grave. By her side was Muirne, the family’s hound, and it stood guard as if to protect her.
Alaric and Peregrine stopped walking, sensing that they were interrupting something personal. And when Miss Kavanagh’s voice drifted in the wind, he knew that they were.
“… I wish that you had left me more, Lady Honora,” Miss Kavanagh beseeched as if begging. “A name? Somewhere to start? Is she here? Do I know her already? And if she is my sister, why was she kept from me?”
“Alaric…” Peregrine rested a hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps we should leave?”
Alaric almost did. He looked through the darkness, hardly able to see Miss Kavanagh, but he could sense her anguish. She was suffering, afraid and unsure, and her loneliness was felt in his chest because it was the same that he lived with every day.
But the more he watched her, the more his grandmother’s words echoed in his head. She had trusted Miss Kavanagh, as she had trusted Alaric to help. Help with what? He had no idea. What he did know was that he could not help her if he did not try.
I know nothing about her. Perhaps it is time that changes …
With that thought settling in his mind, Alaric shrugged his friend’s hand off his shoulder and waded ahead. Muirne saw him coming, but she made no sound, which allowed Alaric to appear right behind Miss Kavanagh without her noticing.
He thought to say something. To announce himself. To ask if he could join. In the end, he knew that what a person suffering from loneliness wanted most of all was the simplest of things: company without having to ask for it.
Wordlessly, he stepped beside Miss Kavanagh and fell to his knees to join her at the base of his grandmother’s grave.
She started in surprise. A gasp. Her eyes widened, and he was certain that she was about to apologize.
Before she got the chance, Alaric looked at her, done in a way that he hoped told her that he was there as a friend …
there to offer her nothing more than his company and his kindness, should she need it.
She frowned at the expression, but then smiled in understanding.
“You miss her?” he asked gently; the wind was so loud that it almost swallowed his words.
“I do.” She was back to looking at the gravestone. “More than I thought was possible. I … I know I have no right to grieve as if I were anything more than her companion, but I do.”
“You have every right,” he said to her, also looking ahead. “I know my grandmother, and I know that she would not have asked this of you if she did not trust you. Just as I know that she saw in you a friend, as you saw the same in her.”
“I did.” He noted a smile on her lips.
“What was it like?” he asked next. The questions were not planned but came naturally, and Alaric realized he wanted to know their answer.
Not because he was searching for something, but because he felt a desire to learn more about this woman who now shared his home.
“Working with her, I mean. You were with her for a year? That must have been …” He chuckled at the thought. “Interesting.”
He felt Miss Kavanagh relax as he felt her grow more comfortable.
“That is one word for it.” She laughed softly to herself. “I have never met someone so full of life. Your grandmother seemed to live every day as if she thought that …” She grimaced. “She never wasted a day. And she loved to see those around her happy.”
“I do remember that about her,” Alaric said, smiling at memories he had of his grandmother.
“I did not expect to be her companion either,” she continued. “She requested me. A request that surprised both myself and my mother. I will tell you that much.”
“She requested you?” Alaric frowned. “Did she tell you why?”
“Oh, she gave me various reasons. All wrapped in riddles and snide remarks …” More laughter.
“That sounds like her,” he said, chuckling along.
“I only wish I had thanked her more than I did. I …” She sniffed. “I owe her so much.”
He felt a sudden desire to reach out and touch her on the shoulder in condolence. Alaric could feel her sadness, and he wanted to show her that he was there for her.
“I am sure she knew it,” he said. “If it makes you feel better, I am much the same way. We had not spoken properly in years, and when I saw her the night before she passed …” His chest tightened.
“I was rushed, hardly able to speak. I told her we would talk more the next morning, and I often wonder if I missed my chance to …” His throat tightened.
“We cannot lament the past and things we did not do, Miss Kavanagh. All we can do is look to the future and live a full life. That is how we honor those we lost.”
They were his sister’s words, but they felt appropriate.
Truly, Alaric was surprised that he said them. He was never one for speaking on emotion, and rarely was he one to try and give comfort. But just something about Miss Kavanagh brought that side out in him.
I see myself in her. Did my grandmother see it too? Is that why she is here?
“Thank you,” Miss Kavanagh said. She turned to him, and the light from her lamp lit her face so that he saw the gratitude reflected in her green eyes.
“Do not mention –”
Muirne barked suddenly, as if at the wind. Miss Kavanagh gasped and turned around to see the cause. Alaric followed her, his eyes lifting back toward the castle. And when he saw what had made the dog growl, his stomach dropped.
Oh no …
Verity stood in the window of the tallest tower.
She was lit by the torch in her hand, and it rose from beneath her so that her face stood out clearly in the dark.
She was watching them, and Alaric did not doubt that she was concocting all sorts of ridiculous theories as to what he and Miss Kavanagh were discussing.
Alaric sighed as the good mood that had touched him for a mere second fled with the wind. Tomorrow, he would hear about this from Verity, and that was sure to be a most thrilling conversation.