Chapter 2
Her guide led Mya not to a room in the house, but out through a set of doors to a veranda on the side of the house opposite the lawn.
Its paving stones were warm beneath her bare feet.
A breeze, just cool enough to be pleasant, brushed against her cheek, smelling of green things and wildflowers and breakfast. Mya’s stomach growled.
Beyond the porch, the lawn gave way to a wooded slope rolling down into patchwork fields bordered with hedges.
White dots of sheep moved peacefully over them.
Back on the porch, at a cast-iron table much burdened with food, a dark-haired young woman was sitting with a book in one hand, sipping a cup of tea. She rose at the sound of them stepping outside and turned, a smile lighting her face when she saw Mya and her hostess standing there.
She was, Mya couldn't help but notice, almost astonishingly beautiful, with the kind of looks that would have men falling over themselves to court her.
“Eleanora,” she said warmly, setting the book she had been reading down and crossing the veranda to take the other woman's free hand in hers. “Good morning.” Her gaze moved to Mya. “And to you as well. It is so lovely to see you awake. Please, do come sit and eat with me.”
Mya found herself being guided over to the table before she even had time to answer, and placed gently down in a well-cushioned seat.
“Help yourself to anything you like,” Eleanora said.
The breakfast spread was, Mya thought, a little overwhelming. There was fruit laid out on china plates, and yogurt in little bowls. Eggs. Buttered toast. Sausages and mushrooms. She hesitated a moment before reaching a little uncertainly for the kettle to pour herself a cup of tea.
“No need to be shy,” the dark-haired woman, whom Mya assumed to be the Lottie earlier referenced by Eleanora, said. “Everything here is for sharing.”
“Thank you,” Mya said, wishing she had some more adequate way of expressing gratitude. “Very much.” She poured herself the cup, and after some consideration served herself fruit and toast with some of the mushrooms.
“You ought to try the smoked fish as well,” Eleanora suggested, indicating one of the plates. “It is quite good.”
Mya added a little of the dish to her collection of food. If she hadn’t eaten in a few days, would her stomach handle it? She decided to take her time, even though everything smelled beyond delicious.
“It occurs to me,” Lottie said, “that we have not yet introduced ourselves. I’m terribly sorry for our dreadful lapse in manners.” She smiled across the table at Mya. “I’m Ottilie, though most everyone calls me Lottie, and this is Eleanora.”
She knew her name, like she knew she needed to breath to keep her heart beating.
It seemed weird to know that, and only that.
“Mya.” She frowned. “I’m not sure why I know my name, as at the moment, I don’t seem to know anything else.
” She smiled apologetically. “I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your aid.”
Lottie shook her head. “It is hardly trouble. I've more money than I know what to do with.” She said the words as though they were some sort of delightful secret. “In truth, I would rather it go toward helping those in need than to frivolities in the shops. I do not need any more gowns.”
Eleanora laughed. “You would require a second—or third—closet, I think, if you acquired many more.”
There was, Mya noted, no ring on either of their fingers, and she wondered how long they had been sharing the home they were letting her stay in, and where the money that Lottie seemed to think so little of had come from.
She didn't ask. Though she could not remember any etiquette lessons she might have learned any more than she could recall the rest of her past, she had enough common sense not to stick her nose into someone else's financial business without an invitation.
“I have a dreadful addiction to nice clothing,” Lottie said between dainty bites of egg and fish. “It is undoubtedly a sin of some sort or another.”
“Avarice,” Eleanora suggested.
Lottie turned to look at her, mock-displeasure on her face. “Are you accusing me of such, then?”
“I would not dream of accusing you, dearest.”
Mya smiled down at her plate. They sounded for all the world like an old married couple, though how she knew what an old married couple sounded like, she wasn’t entirely sure.
The knowledge without source was rather frustrating.
For an instant, she thought she could remember sharing such teasing, laughter and...
But the memory was gone again almost before it had appeared, and Mya could not recall what she had been thinking of.
She sighed and turned her attention back to Lottie and Eleanora, who were engaged in a spirited debate over just how many gowns qualified as too many.
“Mya will be on my side,” Lottie said finally.
“I think,” Eleanora chuckled, “That you are rather mistaken in that.”
Lottie gave her a narrow-eyed look, and turned a sweet smile on Mya. “Tell me, dear, what is your opinion on the matter? How many gowns are too many?”
“I don’t think I really have the experience to comment,” Mya said, taking a sip of tea.
That earned light laughter from both her hosts.
“Clever,” Eleanora said, with a conspiratorial smile for Mya. “A very eloquent answer.”
Mya hid a smile in her teacup.
“Doctor MacAslan will be here later in the afternoon to check on you,” Lottie said, the laughter faded from her voice and her dark eyes fixed on Mya.
“I’m certain he will be quite pleased to see you awake.
In the meantime, I thought perhaps we might take a stroll through the gardens, if you would be interested in such a thing?
Or if you are tired you are welcome to return to your room, or rest on the couch in my studio, if you wish for someone to talk to. ”
It was a lovely summer day, the first fluffy clouds just beginning to drift across the blue vault of the sky. “A walk in the gardens sounds wonderful, actually.”
Lottie’s smile lit up her face. “A garden walk it is, then. Will you be joining us, Eleanora?”
“Unfortunately, I have work to attend to, but perhaps another morning.” Eleanora set aside her napkin and rose from her chair, nodding a farewell to each of them in turn before she disappeared back into the house.
“She’s a much harder worker than I am,” Lottie said, in the tone of one confiding a secret. “Though of course we hardly need the money.”
“Does she enjoy it, then?” Mya asked, setting her fork and knife across her plate the way she had seen Eleanora do. Interesting that the two women’s focus was money. Why was that?
“Oh. Quite. Writing has always been rather a passion of hers.” Lottie too laid her utensils on her plate, though more carelessly than Mya had, and stood. “Shall we?”
Mya got carefully to her feet, leaning a little on the table with her good hand before she straightened up. “Lead on, then.”
As Eleanora had, Lottie slipped her arm through Mya's, and they walked together around the corner of the veranda and down a set of wide stone steps into the backyard.
“There is a greenhouse on the other side of the building,” Lottie said. “If you would like to visit that later.”
She paused, glancing down at Mya's bare feet, clearly visible beneath the hem of her nightgown.
“I forgot to ask you if you would like shoes,” she said. “I'm not certain I have any of a size that would fit you, but we could take a look, if you wish to wear them. There may at least be house slippers.”
Mya shook her head. She felt more comfortable barefoot. The grass was soft and cool under her feet in the shade of the tree that overhung the porch, and she wanted to feel the earth beneath her. Not the uncomfortable soles of someone else's shoes.
Lottie smiled. “I'm not wearing any either,” she admitted.
“I rather hate the things, if I am honest. And there is hardly anyone to care here at the manor. The servants undoubtedly gossip about it, but it will be just one more eccentricity Lottie Alan has picked up. The general populace love to pretend as though they are scandalized by such things.”
“Do you think they aren't?” Mya asked.
They were moving out of the shade and into the sunlight, and she turned her face up toward it, basking in the warmth on her skin.
“I think they wish they had the courage to do it themselves. Which sounds arrogant, I suppose, but it is not as though it is an act of valor. Especially here, where I am allowed to do as I please, for the most part, so long as word of the worst offenses against society does not get out.”
There was a quirk to her mouth that said the explanation was at least a little exaggerated, though Mya wondered how much of it was a joke, and how much of the joke was truth.
“It’s your own property.”
“Yes,” Lottie agreed. “And since James died and left it to me, I’ve found that I do not care so much for what others think.”
James. Mya didn't ask who he was, despite the way the question was burning on the tip of her tongue.
“I can see you are dying to ask.” Lottie laughed.
“James is my late husband. We were married quite young, and he didn’t live to see our second wedding anniversary.
” Her expression softened to something almost sad.
“He was a good man, despite being English, and left me more than was required of him. Most are not so lucky as I was. He was so sweet. So handsome. So… James.”
“Do you think you will remarry?” Mya asked. She wasn’t sure if the question was impolite. It just seemed that Lottie was too young to be alone. She had Eleanora, but it wasn’t the same.
Lottie gave the question only a moment's thought before she shook her head, the curls of her chignon dancing against the nape of her neck.
“No,” she said. “It is hardly in a man's favor to wed me now, when I have the right to keep them from meddling with James' property. If they cannot steal my wealth off me, they have much less reason to woo me.” She smiled.
“And, in truth, I am happy as I am. Eleanora and I get along well here. We are both free to pursue our interests as we please, spend our money as we please, and generally live as we choose. It is not a bad life to live.”
“I didn't realize it was so...” Mya wasn't sure what the word she sought was.
“Restrictive?” Lottie suggested as they stepped onto a path of smooth paving stones that wound through a carpet of bright bluebells.
The delicate scent of the flowers filled the air around them, and Mya, breathing it in, felt as though she had walked in such a place before.
But she could not recall where, or when.
Ahead, a latticework gazebo grew pink climbing roses.
Lottie led her to a bench beneath one of the arches and they sat there together, breathing in the heady perfume of the blossoms, deeper and richer than the barely there scent of the bluebells.
“I suppose that is one way to describe it,” Lottie said. “Though it does depend somewhat on the man. James was never fond of controlling me. Perhaps he knew how useless it was to try.” There, again, was the flash of her smile, bright and amused.
“Did you love him?” Mya asked. She wanted that.
The love that could move mountains. That could make time stand still.
It was silly to think of that right now.
She didn’t know who she was or if she already had someone.
She might even have a loving husband at a home, waiting anxiously for her.
She might have… She sighed. She hoped Lottie had that kind of love with James.
Lottie was silent for longer than Mya would have expected, and she almost regretted asking the question.
“I'm sorry,” she started to say. “I—”
“No,” Lottie interrupted. “Do not concern yourself. It’s not a bad question, only one that is not simple to answer.
” She looked down at her hands, folded together in her lap.
“James and I didn’t know each other well before our marriage.
We courted, of course, but it was more a business match than a love match.
We did, in time, grow fond of each other, and I suppose what we had could be called love, but it was not the romantic ardor I think you meant when you asked. ”
“I think I was in love,” Mya said.
It was a thought that had been building throughout their conversation, making itself impossible to ignore.
She did not know quite where it came from, but it was there all the same.
Blurting it out to a woman who was still almost a stranger didn’t entirely seem like the solution, but Mya couldn’t help feeling that the woman sitting beside her would understand.
Lottie turned to look at her, brows raised in question. “What makes you say so?”
It was Mya’s turn to be silent, wrestling with her own inability to describe the certainty settled somewhere deep in her chest. Like the phantom ache of another heart beating next to her own. There was meant to be someone beside her.
“I feel it,” she said finally. “It’s not a satisfactory explanation, I know, but I don’t know how to describe it any further.”
“You need not.” Lottie reached up and plucked a rose from the vine winding its way along the wrought-iron leg of the gazebo.
She turned the bloom over in her hands, stroking the soft petals with the tips of her fingers.
“Some things simply are. We know them, and we cannot describe them, because the truth of them is deeper than the flimsy construct of words. Perhaps Eleanora could make a better attempt of it, but some things, I think, are not meant to be spoken. It is why I use a paintbrush and not a pen.”
Mya thought of the white stag, turning his head to meet her gaze with his great, dark eyes, and the way her chest had filled with something bright and nameless at the sight of it. The stag. She couldn’t remember things, but she remembered the handsome beast?
Without memory through which to view the world, too many of the things rattling around inside her had no words to describe them. No context in which to place them.
Perhaps, she thought, Lottie was right. Maybe some things were better left unsaid.
Maybe even with her memories, she wouldn’t know how to put words to the feelings that welled up in her.
She breathed in the peace of the garden, and side by side they sat in companionable silence, neither of them saying anything at all.