Never before had he looked so ready to strike her. She refused to retreat. After a moment he drew back, fists balled at his sides.
“I will leave it to Miss Hockensmith to explain,” he said. “Perhaps you will hear from her what you would not accept from me.”
Before she could protest, he turned on his heel and strode into the hall. Brinkley appeared with a tray of hot tea, set it down on the table beside her, and gave her a glance of such sympathy that she wondered what he knew. But he, too, fled just as she gathered the words to ask. She was forced to wait, needles of pain stabbing into her legs, while Niall made preparations to leave and Cecily spoke to him in the hall.
An hour before midnight, just as the long-case clock struck like a portent of doom, Niall put on his coat and left the house. Only something terrible would drive him out at such an hour, when the darkness would impede travel into the mountains. What could be so urgent?
Cecily knew. She had been harbinger of the mysterious bad tidings. She had broken Athena’s confidence. She was to be Athena’s official jailer, at Niall’s behest. Athena meant to get an explanation, even if it meant assuming that Cecily was her adversary… or her enemy.
Gritting her teeth against the discomfort, Athena pushed herself up and focused her attention on getting to the sitting room door, one shuffling step at a time. Once there, she caught her breath, renewed her courage, and compelled her trembling legs to bear her just a little farther.
Brinkley caught sight of her at the end of the hall, stopped in amazement, and rushed up to support her. She leaned on his arm with some gratitude. If it was not her imagination, her legs were getting stronger… but they were not yet strong enough for the tasks she might have to ask of them.
“Thank you, Brinkley,” she said. “Please take me to Miss Hockensmith.”
His usually stolid face showed a flicker of emotion, and she knew she had not misinterpreted it. “You don’t like Miss Hockensmith, Brinkley?”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Munroe. It isn’t my place to like or dislike the lady.”
“But you do have an opinion.”
He assumed a carefully neutral expression and guided her down the hall toward the library. “Miss Hockensmith seems very free about the house, Miss Munroe. I think—” He hesitated.
“Go on.” She pulled him to a stop. “I need to know what I am up against, and you may be able to tell me.”
His mouth tightened. “I believe Miss Hockensmith sees herself as mistress here, very soon.”
Well, that was certainly no surprise. Athena started to move again, anger lending new energy to her muscles. “Thank you for being frank, Brinkley. Will you speak honestly to me if I ask again?”
He looked down at her gravely. “Miss Munroe—we—the staff hope the best for you. Now that you can walk… perhaps things will be different.”
Different. How had the servants perceived life in the Munroe house? Had they considered it a burden to wait upon her? She had tried to be fair in her running of the household, but Niall was, at best, brusque with the staff and treated them rather like machines. Brinkley’s admission made clear that he did not want Cecily Hockensmith as mistress of the house.
But she would be that, if she married Niall. And suddenly Athena recognized what she had so avoided acknowledging until now—that the life she had returned to would be forever changed if Cecily became Mrs. Munroe. Cecily would arrange the house as she saw fit, give the orders, and take her place above Athena in the scheme of home life.
A great chasm seemed to open under Athena’s unsteady feet. Of course she should have known that everything must alter when Niall married. She had wanted him to concentrate on someone other than herself. She wanted him to be happy. But his happiness meant that she must either live as a dependent in the house she had managed, or strike out on her own.
That had ceased to be impossible. She could walk. She was getting stronger. But this was the home she had loved, had made the perfect refuge from the world outside. Every detail had been refined to her specifications. It was her sanctuary, and she had seldom felt any desire to leave it.