time I was wondering if he was the someone who wanted me dead or scared to my
toes or perhaps even both. No, I thought, it made no sense at all.
But then again, nothing did.
“Yes, I was out seeing to her this morning. Her hock is much better, thank God.
If we’d had to put her down, I would have been?”
He lightly touched his fingers to my cheek. “I know, my dear. It would have hurt
you dreadfully. Small Bess will be just fine. I also checked on her.”
And again, as I looked up at him I had to wonder: did you stick that horrid
barbed circle of wire beneath her saddle? And I wondered if he had noticed the
horrible deep cuts on her back. Evidently he hadn’t. I supposed that Rucker had
kept the blanket over the soft white cloths on Small Bess’s back. And Lawrence
hadn’t noticed anything amiss, thank God. But then again, perhaps he already
knew everything about all of it.
Miss Crislock came to my room when Belinda was helping me change gowns. I needed
at least three gowns a day, and it required a great deal of time to get oneself
looking just so with each change of garb. “It is the strangest thing,” Miss
Crislock said after flitting about The Blue Room, looking through my armoire,
and straightening bottles on my dressing table.
“What is, Milly?”
“Oh. I saw Amelia coming out of John’s bedchamber yesterday. Isn’t that odd?”
I felt my heart plummet to my knees. Amelia? No, I thought, no.
“Perhaps she needed to borrow something,” I said. “For Thomas.”
“Well, evidently she did. When I saw her a few minutes later come out of his
bedchamber, she was carrying something wrapped in a cloth.”
I couldn’t deal with this, I just couldn’t. I kissed Milly’s soft cheek, and
together we went back downstairs.
The house was decorated with masses of holly from our home wood and the bags of
it brought by our guests. There was a huge Yule log burning in the cavernous
fireplace in the Old Hall.
Gifts were beginning to pile up on every available surface. Just after lunch, a
messenger from York arrived with a huge box for me. I nearly skipped up to the
nursery, I was so pleased that it had finally come, and just in time, too. I had
been preparing myself for the disappointment.
“Andy, goodness,” said Miss Gillbank, smiling at me, “you’re visiting during an
Italian lesson.” She turned to Judith. “Well, my very bright girl, what do you
have to say?”
“Come sta? Favorisca sedersi.” And she swept her hand toward a chair.
“Sto molto bene, e Lei?”
“Oh, goodness, Andy, I’m doing very well, too. Now, sit down. What is in that
huge box? Is it my Christmas present?”
“Sorry, Judith, but you will have to wait. You see, I made this wager with Miss
Gillbank. I lost, just as I am always losing to you. However, Miss Gillbank is a
much more seasoned gambler than you are, and she insisted that the wager be
something extraordinary.”
“Miss Gillbank, I didn’t know you ever gambled. Is it true? What did you wager
on?”
“Do you remember, dear Miss Gillbank?”
She stared from me to that box and then back to my face. “Funny thing, that
wager of ours has completely slipped my mind.”
“Ah. Well, Judith, Miss Gillbank and I made this wager just after all of us had
met in the garden. You had already dined once with the adults, and she wagered
that you would be allowed to dine with us yet again, very soon. I didn’t believe
it, after all, who would want to dine with a girl who is so very beautiful and
sweet to George? And so I wagered nearly all I had that you would never again be
allowed at the dinner table. And I lost.
“Just after all our guests leave, you, Miss Lyndhurst, are cordially invited to
dine with all the adults, for a full week. Your father insisted.” That was a lie,
of course, but who cared? “So, Miss Gillbank, here is your prize for your