LITMIR.BIZ

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those. Bottling fruits and mushrooms and brewing wines. Miss Ailith helps her with it, now she has grown frail. Ah, here is my lady.”

      She nodded toward the door where Ailith Allenby was following an elderly lady into the room. But Lady Allenby was unlike any elderly lady I had seen before. She was every inch as tall as her daughter, and even in old age her face bore traces of great beauty. She carried herself with the bearing of a queen, and I rose to my feet to greet her.

      “Lady Allenby, I am Lady Julia Grey.”

      She smiled gravely as she approached the table. A single glance at her hands revealed why she had not offered one in greeting. They were gnarled like old vines with odd lumps and swellings, the marks of lingering rheumatism. There were lines etched by pain at her eyes, but those eyes were warm with welcome. “My dear, I am so pleased to make your acquaintance. Please sit. Do not allow your breakfast to get cold.”

      Miss Allenby and I exchanged nods and innocuous remarks about the weather. She looked a little embarrassed as she accounted for her sister’s absence.

      “Hilda is tending the chickens, and Godwin is out near Thorn Crag this morning. One of the rams has gone missing,” she told me. She did not speak of Brisbane and I did not ask. I should see him soon enough, and I was buoyed by the thought that now I had ensconced myself at Grimsgrave Hall, I should have all the time in the world to settle matters between us. As far as Hilda was concerned, a girl who was more interested in her chickens than in visitors from London was not likely to offer much in the way of conversation, I mused. There would be plenty of opportunities yet to make her acquaintance.

      Lady Allenby settled herself into a chair as Ailith plumped a cushion behind her. “You must forgive us for clinging to the old customs here, my lady. We are not so fashionable as you southerners. Here we eat in the kitchen, and do our needlework and reading by the fire. We must have our economies,” she added with a solemn sort of dignity. A lesser woman would have apologised for her poverty, but not Lady Allenby.

      I hastened to reassure her. “I am not fashionable in the least, I promise you, Lady Allenby. I do not dine with the Marlborough House set, and it is years since I went to Court.”

      She shook her head at the mention of the Prince of Wales’ companions. “Disgraceful. A pack of German upstart princelings. They are not of the old blood. Not like your family,” she said approvingly. “I had a peek in Debrett’s before you awoke. A fine old English family, yours is.”

      I tried not to think of all the French and Irish scapegraces who had married into the Marches. “Yes, well, I suppose we have been here rather longer than some folk.”

      Lady Allenby smiled benevolently. “And not as long as others. There have been Allenbys here since the time of Edward the Confessor.”

      “Indeed? I shall be very interested to hear the history of this place.”

      She gave me a gracious nod. “Whatever you should like to know, you have only to ask. Of course, it is not my place to show you the house. You are Mr. Brisbane’s guest, and the honour will fall to him.”

      It seemed an awkward patch in the conversation, and I hastened to smooth it over. “I am certain Mr. Brisbane cannot possibly do justice to its history compared to yourself, Lady Allenby.”

      She inclined her head again, putting me greatly in mind of a queen granting a boon to a serf.

      “It is very nice for Mr. Brisbane to have visitors. One worries about the bachelors of the species, they are too often solitary creatures,” Lady Allenby said with an effort at delicacy, I thought. Clearly she wondered about our presence, and I felt compelled to at least try to be forthright with her.

      “I am afraid the situation is not quite as we thought,” I began cautiously. I was not entirely certain how much to reveal. I was deeply conscious of Ailith Allenby hovering nearby as she prepared her mother’s plate. I had no desire to make my private affairs fodder for Allenby family gossip, but we were living cheek-by-jowl with them as it were, and it seemed silly to ignore the situation altogether.

      “My sister and I were rather precipitous. We thought that, as a bachelor, Brisbane was in need of some feminine assistance in ordering his household. We did not realise you and the Misses Allenby were in residence.”

      Lady Allenby spread her hands. The joints were thick and swollen, but still elegant, and on her left hand she wore a thick band of gold, braided with baroque pearls and old-fashioned, lumpy rubies.

      “My dear lady, you must not think Ailith and I will be in your way, and Hilda is positively useless at domestic matters. We are simply guests of Mr. Brisbane’s while he kindly oversees the refurbishment of one of the outbuildings for our use. He has been exceedingly generous to us. There was no provision under the terms of the sale of Grimsgrave Hall for my daughters or myself. What he does for us is solely out of his own sense of charity.”

      As there seemed no possible response to this, I did not attempt one.

      While I finished my toast, I darted glances at Ailith, attempting to make out her character. I realised that in spite of her remarkable beauty, Ailith Allenby’s life had likely not been an easy one. I felt ashamed of my first impulse to dislike her, and determined to make an effort to befriend her.

      I smiled at her briefly, then turned to her mother. “I do hope you are quite recovered, Lady Allenby. Miss Allenby told us last night you were suffering from a rheumatism.”

      “The last year has been a trial,” she said softly. “My rheumatism is grown much worse now. My hands, my hips. Some days I can scarcely rise from my bed. Still,” she said forcefully, “we are given no trials over which we cannot triumph with the aid of the Divine.” She touched the chain at her belt, and I realised it was a rosary. I suppressed a sigh. Between Lady Allenby’s devoutness and Mrs. Butters’ fondness for Holy Scripture, I feared I would find their company a trifle tedious. My father had once famously stated in Parliament that religion was as intimate as lovemaking and ought to be as private. The thought was not original to him, but it reflected his views quite accurately. While we had attended church, it was seldom with any true regularity, and God was seldom discussed in our family except in a very distant sort of way, rather like our cousins in Canada.

      Lady Allenby lifted a crooked hand to her daughter. “Ailith, dearest, I find I am in need of St. Hildegarde’s ointment.” Lady Allenby turned to me. “We are fortunate at Grimsgrave to have a Gypsy woman who lives in a cottage out on the moor. She is a skilful healer and a most interesting woman. Perhaps you would care to make her acquaintance?”

      “I will go this morning and fetch more ointment,” Ailith said. “If Lady Julia would care to accompany me, she would be most welcome.” She darted a quick, birdlike glance at me from under her dark gold lashes. She spooned out some fruit for her mother and broke a piece of toast into manageable bits. “You must keep up your strength, Mama,” she murmured.

      Lady Allenby gave her daughter a fond look. “Thank you, child. Yes, I will eat it all, I promise.”

      They made a game of it, with Ailith filling her plate slowly with tempting morsels, and Lady Allenby finishing it a bit at a time until she had at last eaten a full breakfast. She managed quite well so long as she used both hands to steady her utensils. Ailith herself had merely nibbled a piece of dry toast, and I wondered if she cared for her mother at the expense of herself.

      After I finished the last of the rather excellent fruit compote, we excused ourselves, and I went to look in on Portia. She was still slumbering peacefully, one arm thrown over her face as she slept. I did not bother to pause at Val’s door; I could hear the snores reverberating through it well enough. The maids were making their way down to breakfast, Morag muttering all the while about the laxness of some establishments that did not even provide morning tea. I might have pointed out the laxness of maids who did not rise in time to attend their mistresses, but it was far simpler to ignore her and gather my things to meet Ailith in the hall as we had arranged.

      Just as I reached the bottom of the stairs, Brisbane emerged from his rooms, impeccably dressed and carrying a small portmanteau,

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