LITMIR.BIZ

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Have you heard from him?”

      She hesitated, then fished in her reticule. “I had this letter from him last week. I did not think to visit Grimsgrave so early. When he first invited me, I thought perhaps the middle of April, even May, might be more pleasant. But when I read that …” Her voice trailed off and I reached for the letter.

      The handwriting was as familiar to me as my own, bold and black, thickly scrawled by a pen with a broad nib. The heading was Grimsgrave Hall, Yorkshire, and it was dated the previous week. I read it quickly, then again more slowly, aloud this time, as if by hearing the words aloud I could make better sense of them. One passage in particular stood out.

      And so I must rescind my invitation to come to Grimsgrave. Matters have deteriorated since I last wrote to you, and I am in no humour for company, even such pleasant company as yours. You would hardly know me, I have grown so uncivilized, and I should hate to shock you.

      I could well imagine the sardonic little twist of the lips as he wrote those words. I read on, each word chilling me a little more.

      As for your sister, tell her nothing. She must forget me, and she will. Whatever my hopes may once have been, I realise now I was a fool or a madman, or perhaps I am grown mad now. The days are very alike here, the hours of darkness long and bleak, and I am a stranger to myself.

      The letter dropped to my lap through nerveless fingers. “Portia,” I murmured. “How could you have kept this from me?”

      “Because I was afraid you would not go if you read it.”

      “Then you are a greater fool than I thought,” I replied crisply. I returned the letter to its envelope and handed it back to her. “He has need of me, that much is quite clear.”

      “He sounds as if he wants to be left alone,” Val offered, blowing crumbs onto his lap. He brushed them off, and I rounded on him.

      “He needs me,” I said, biting off each word sharply.

      “It was one thing to arrive as my guest when I was invited,” Portia reminded me. “Does it not trouble you for both of us to arrive, unannounced and unwelcome? And Valerius besides?”

      “No,” I said boldly. “Friends have a duty to care for one another, even when it is unwelcome. Brisbane needs me, Portia. Whether he wishes to own it or not.”

      Portia’s gaze searched my face. At length she nodded, giving me a little smile. “I hope you are correct. And I hope he agrees. You realise he may well shut the door upon us. What will you tell him if he bids us go to the devil?”

      I smoothed my hair, neatly pinned under a rather fetching hat I had just purchased the week before. It was violet velvet, with cunning little clusters of silk violets sewn to the crown and spilling over one side of the brim to frame my face.

      “I shall tell him to lead the way.”

      Portia laughed then, and we finished our picnic lunch more amiably than we had begun it. It was the last truly enjoyable moment of the entire journey. Delays, bad weather, an aimless cow wandering onto the railway tracks—all conspired against us and we were forced to spend an uncomfortable night in a hotel of questionable quality in Birmingham, having secured three rooms by a detestable combination of bribery and high-handed arrogance. Portia and I shared, as did the maids, and as penance for securing the only room to himself, Valerius was forced to spend the night with the pets.

      After an unspeakable breakfast the next morning, we resumed our journey with its endless changing of trains to smaller and smaller lines in bleaker and bleaker towns until at last we stumbled off of a train hardly bigger than a child’s toy.

      “Where are we?” I demanded. Portia drew a map from her reticule and unfolded it as I peered over her shoulder. Behind us, Morag and Minna were counting bags and preparing to take the dogs for a short walk to attend to nature.

      Portia pointed on the map to an infinitesimally small dot. “Howlett Magna. We must find transport to the village of Lesser Howlett and from thence to Grimsgrave.”

      Val and I looked about the tiny clutch of grey stone buildings. “There is something smaller than this?” he asked, incredulous.

      “There is,” Portia said crisply, “and that is where we are bound.”

      Portia was in a brisk, managing mood, and the arrangements for transportation were swiftly made. Valerius and I stood on the kerb surveying the village while Portia settled matters.

      “It looks like something out of a guidebook of prospective spots to catch cholera,” Val said, curling his lip.

      “Don’t pull that face, dearest,” I told him. “You look like a donkey.”

      “Look at the gutters,” he hissed. “There is sewage running openly in the streets.”

      I felt my stomach give a little lurch. “Val, I beg you—” I broke off, diverted.

      “What is it?” Val demanded. “Someone bringing out their plague dead?”

      I shook my head slowly. “No, there was a man walking this way, but he saw us and ducked rather quickly into the linen draper’s. I have never seen such a set of whiskers. He looks like Uncle Balthazar’s sheepdog. They are certainly shy of strangers, these Northerners.” I nodded to the doorway of the shop opposite. The fellow had been nondescript and rather elderly, wearing rusty black with a slight limp and a tendency to embonpoint. A set of luxuriant whiskers hid most of his face from view.

      “Probably frightened away by how clean we are,” Val put in acidly.

      I turned to him, lifting my brows in remonstrance. “You have become a thorough snob, do you know that? If you are so appalled by conditions here, perhaps you ought to do something to make them better.”

      “I might at that,” he said. “God knows I shall have little enough to do in any case.”

      There was an edge of real bitterness to his voice, and I suppressed a sigh. Val could be difficult enough when he was in a good mood. A peevish Val was altogether insufferable.

      Portia signed to us then, her expression triumphant. The blacksmith at Howlett Magna had business where we were bound and agreed, for a sum that seemed usurious, to carry us, with maids, pets, and baggage, to the village of Lesser Howlett. From there we must make other arrangements, he warned, but Portia cheerfully accepted. She called it a very good sign that we had engaged transport so quickly, but I could not help thinking otherwise when I laid eyes upon the blacksmith’s wagon. It was an enormous, rocking thing, although surprisingly comfortable and cleaner than I had expected. In a very short time, we were settled, maids and bags and pets in tow, and I began to feel marginally better about the journey.

      The countryside soon put an end to that. Each mile that wound out behind us along the road to Lesser Howlett took us further up into the great wide moors. The wind rose here, as plangent as a human voice crying out. Portia seemed undisturbed by it, but I noticed the stillness of Valerius’ expression, as though he were listening intently to a voice just out of range. The blacksmith himself was a taciturn sort and said little, keeping his attention fixed upon the pair of great draught horses that were harnessed to the wagon. They were just as stolid, never lifting their heads from side to side, but keeping a steady pace, toiling upward all the while until at last we came to Lesser Howlett.

      The village itself looked grim and unhygienic, with a cluster of bleak houses propped against each other and a narrow cobbled road between them. A grey mist hung over the edge of the village, obscuring the view and making it look as though the world simply stopped at the end of the village road. We alighted slowly, as if reluctant to break the heavy silence of the village.

      “Good God, what is this place?” breathed Valerius at last.

      “The far edge of nowhere, I’d say,” came a sour voice from behind us. Morag. She was laden with her own enormous carpetbag as well as a basket for my dog, Florence, and the cage containing my pet raven, Grim. Her hat was squashed down over one eye, but the other managed a malevolent glare.

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