“We can help ourselves, Malcolm, thank you,” Jack said, and Malcolm inclined his head and withdrew.
Noah leaned over the table, ready to pour, but Jack waved her back.
“Grace,” he said, “will you be ‘mother’?”
She flushed a little, glancing at the other women, and Jack noticed that her hands trembled very slightly as she leaned forward. But, having once laid hand to teapot, Grace then accomplished the pouring of the tea with considerable poise, handing out the cups and passing around the milk pitcher and sugar bowl as needed.
Then she sat down, looked at Jack (who had been watching her keenly the entire time), and said, “Did I pass the test?”
“Grace—” Noah began, but Jack burst into laughter, surprised and delighted both by her unexpectedly direct gaze and her tart tone.
“Yes,” he said, “you did. You may apply forthwith to Malcolm for a position on the staff.”
For a moment he thought she almost smiled. Her eyes widened slightly, and her face relaxed, but then her customary guard went up and she dropped her eyes away from his. She refilled the teapot with hot water, then rose, the now-empty hot water pot in her hand.
“I’ll ask Malcolm to refill this,” she said, and then was gone before Jack, or any of the women, had time to comment.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” Noah said. “She can be so abrupt at times.”
Jack stirred his tea. “She has reason enough to be, Noah.”
“Yes, but…” Noah’s voice drifted off.
Matilda had watched the exchange, her eyes narrowing, and now she spoke. “Enough of Grace, Jack. What of you? Goddamn it, man, we’ve missed you! Tell us all, now, we demand it. What have you been doing, where have you been, what do you know?”
Matilda was sitting in the chair next to Jack’s, close enough that he could lean over and kiss her softly on the mouth. “And I have missed you, too, Matilda,” he said, barely pulling his mouth away from hers. “How fortunate that you are no one else’s wife in this life.”
“Ah,” she said, smiling, “but I have my eye on your man Malcolm.”
The group laughed, and Jack slid back into his chair, and soon they were buried in conversation and reminiscences.
Grace stood under the overhang of a door and watched as Jack leaned over and kissed Matilda. She was a distance away, but she had acute enough hearing to pick up their exchange.
“Miss Orr?”
She spun around, clutching the hot water pot, her eyes wide with surprise.
Malcolm smiled at her. “Do you need more water?”
“Yes.” A pause. “Thank you.”
“Then come with me.”
He led her through the ruins to a kitchen where an Aga stove radiated warmth.
“Put the pot on the table,” he said. “It will take a moment to boil some more water.”
Grace obliged, and as Malcolm busied himself at the Aga she wandered slowly about the kitchen.
“This is a strange house,” she eventually said, standing by a plate rack and running one hand lightly over the china within.
Malcolm, still at the stove, glanced at her, pleased that she’d spoken. “It has a deep past, Miss Orr.”
She turned to face him. “A deep past? As have you, I think, Malcolm.”
“Me? I’m just Major Skelton’s manservant, Miss Orr.” Malcolm affected a rolling country burr as he spoke, but Grace did not smile.
“I don’t think you’re anyone’s servant, Malcolm. Tell me, what are you?”
Now Malcolm turned fully from the Aga. “Would you like me to show you, Grace? Just a little?”
He could see the indecision on her face: the slightly narrowed eyes, the corner of a top lip disappearing as she chewed on it.
“Do you dare, Grace?” he asked, very softly.
A long silence. “Yes,” Grace eventually said.
“Then roll up your sleeves.”
Grace took a step back, instinctively, defensively, crossing her arms over her chest. She was wearing a long-sleeved cardigan over a blouse and skirt, much as she’d been wearing the day her father had driven her and Jack down to London, and now she automatically tugged a little at the cuffs, pulling the already-stretched sleeves further over her hands.
“Grace,” said Malcolm, “do you think none of us know about your wrists, and the scars they bear? If you want to see what I am, then roll up your sleeves, and come naked-fleshed into my world.”
No one in the drawing room had commented on Grace’s continuing absence, even if they had noticed it. Jack had talked a while about where he’d been, and who, and what he had done in the years since 1666, and then Eaving’s Sisters had explained what they’d been doing (not a lot, according to their report, apart from wandering the Faerie and growing closer to the land).
Then Ecub asked Jack about what he’d said on the Sunday evening, about the “wrongness” within London.
Jack told them what he knew. “I went back into London yesterday, but discovered little more. Whatever it is, is so ethereal that I can barely grasp it. And you’re certain that none of you have felt it? Not even walking the land, or within the Faerie?”
All of the women, including Noah, shook their heads.
Jack sighed. “Maybe it is nothing. Maybe I have been away too long. Maybe…” He shrugged, and smiled disarmingly. “Maybe it is but the taint of the modern world.”
“What are you going to do now, Jack?” Matilda asked.
“Run the forest a little longer, bond with the land more deeply.” His eyes, suddenly keen, switched to Noah. “Collect my kingship bands.” A pause, as he studied Noah carefully. “Will you keep them from me, Noah?”
Her chin tilted up. “No. They are yours whenever you wish.”
A strange expression came over Jack’s face as she said that, but then it slipped away, and he stood up. “Good. Now, let me show you my home, such as it is.”
Malcolm led Grace out the kitchen door and towards a grassy area that bordered the gardens. It was now evening, and a mist had moved in from the forest almost a mile away.
Grace shivered, wrapping her arms about herself.
The sleeves of both cardigan and blouse were rolled up well over her elbows, and the livid scars about her wrists and arms almost glowed in the silvery, damp light.
Malcolm nodded towards several shapes looming up from the mist. “See,” he said, a hand on Grace’s back, pushing her gently forward. “They were once my companions.”
Three deer moved out of the mist, their nervousness apparent in their quick, high steps.
Malcolm held out a hand, and they sidled up to him, moving themselves so that he stood between them and Grace.
“Shush,” he said, his voice very soft, “don’t you see she’s been damaged as well?”
Grace stared at him then, as tense and as nervous as the deer.
Malcolm turned his face slightly so he could see her from the corner of his eye; one of his hands rubbed up and down the flank of first this deer, then the next. “Hold out your wrists, Grace. And come closer. Do.”
Do, do, do, he repeated, over and over, his voice soft and gentle and calming, and before she had quite realised it, Grace took a step forward, extending one of her wrists.
Jack found himself standing on a balcony with Matilda at the very top of Copt Hall.
Noah, Ecub and Erith were somewhere else in the building.
“Jack, how are you? Tell me the truth, you can do that. You can trust me.”
He slipped an arm about her. “Oh, aye, I can trust you.” He moved slightly so he could kiss the top of her head. Matilda was taller than she had been in either of her previous lives, but still short enough that he could pull her in close and cuddle her under his chin.
“Well?” she said, leaning into him, and wondering if it was possible they might restart what had once been a great marriage.
“I feel lost and dislocated,” he said. “Nothing is right. I was away too long.”
“Noah…”
“I know. She is lost to me.” He gave a hollow laugh. “But can I accept it?”
“Jack,” she whispered, her arms about him now, “perhaps I can—”
“Look,” he said, his voice lifting in surprise, and she felt his body tense fractionally away from hers.
Matilda looked down. Far below them, at the edge of an overgrown grassy lawn and a patch of tangled shrubbery, stood Malcolm and Grace, close to a clutch of deer.
As they watched, Grace lifted one of her wrists, and one of the deer leaned forward, achingly slowly, and sniffed at it.
“What is she doing down there?” Jack asked. He’d moved completely away from Matilda now, and gripped the balcony railing.
“Finding a friend, perhaps?” Matilda said. “Gods alone know she has precious few of those.”