Page 41 of The Housekeeper's Secret

She couldn’t be sure if her unravelling had been sudden, or slow and gradual; if it had happened in an instant, or in increments. She just knew that it had happened, and she couldn’t go back to how she had been before.

As she raised her chin to kiss him back, she didn’t want to.

Chapter 14

Jem was cleaning Mr Goddard’s shoes in the footmen’s wardrobe when he saw her crossing the yard to the laundry the next morning. He had barely slept and had moved through the day’s tasks with limbs of lead, a head fogged with self-recrimination. But that glimpse of her made his blood surge and infused him with a strange sort of energy.

Dropping Goddard’s narrow black oxford, he wiped his hands on a cloth and ran nervous fingers through his hair. The others were leaving London this morning; by teatime the basement would be full of people and noise and activity. He had to talk to her, now. He just wasn’t sure what to say.

Not the truth, obviously.

He’d thought she might be useful in his search for answers, with her keys and her authority to move through the house. He’d seen her as a chess piece. And now he’d discovered that she was warm flesh and soft lips: a woman with a battered heart and bruised past and more courage than he could properly comprehend. A girl who had been hungry for life and eager for love, who had been manipulated by a man who had only thought of how useful she could be to him too.

The shaving mirror on the bench showed a face that was grey tinged with fatigue. The bruising around his eye was a jaundiced yellow; he looked as seedy as he felt. He’d known he wasn’t worthy of her. He just hadn’t appreciated how much.

Outside a silvery dawn had hardened into another hot, overcast day. The yard was quiet as he crossed it and went through the open door of the laundry. It was a bit like stepping into the coolness of a church, and he hesitated. This was a female domain. On Mondays it billowed with steam and rang with the raucous voices of the village women, but now it was stopped and still and smelled of damp stone and soap flakes.

A sound from the adjoining room told him Kate was there. He trod quietly over the uneven floor, past the huge copper by the chimney breast and the long wooden trough where the clothes were soaked, and into the dry laundry.

‘Kate?’

He spoke softly. The room was high and hung with linen. It was Friday, and normally Eliza and Abigail would have taken it down ready for ironing by now, but nothing about this week was normal. Sheets were still draped over the drying racks suspended from the ceiling, like the elaborate sails of some Napoleonic galleon and, as he stood in the doorway, they shivered, as if caught by a gust of wind. He went forward, ducking through them, until he saw her.

‘Here—let me help with that.’

She had her back towards him and was unwinding the rope for the pulley from its hook. She didn’t turn round. Jem felt a beat of unease.

‘I can manage.’

‘I know you can.’ He squashed down the flutter of nerves in his stomach and went closer, lowering his voice. ‘I thought we should probably—’

‘Mind your head.’

She unhooked the last loop and the rope slid through her hands. With a creak, the rack above him plunged downwards, just missing his shoulder.

‘Jesus—’

‘Sorry,’ she said tonelessly and turned to move past him. Her face was as pale and expressionless as her voice. ‘We should probably what?’

‘Talk.’ His throat was full of sand. ‘Before the others get back. About what happened last night.’

She kept her eyes downcast as she pulled a sheet from the rack, but a faint flush appeared on her cheeks. ‘I don’t think there’s much to say. Except that it can’t happen again.’

Jem wasn’t sure what he had expected, only that it wasn’t this. She was as brittle as spun sugar, as cool as the stone beneath his feet. It disorientated him. It felt as if last night had never happened; as if he’d fallen asleep beneath Black Tor, waiting for the rain to pass, and everything since—her shuddering body in his arms, her mouth against his in the midsummer twilight—had been part of some mad, brilliant, inappropriate dream.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen at all. I didn’t set out to—’

‘No.’ She cut him off impatiently. ‘It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have gone up there with you. I wasn’t thinking.’ She gave her head a little shake. ‘I’d be grateful if you didn’t speak of it. To anyone.’

‘I won’t.’ He struggled to keep his voice even, as frustration and despair beat discordantly inside him. ‘Of course I won’t, Kate. Do you think I—’

‘Any of it.’ Her chatelaine clinked as she hoisted the rack up again. ‘The things I told you about my past, my… my marriage, as well as what… took place between us.’

‘Kate—’

Briskly she picked up the sheet and held it high to fold it. He went forward, catching the corners at the other end, like he used to do when he helped his mother. It seemed like the only way to step into the orbit of her attention. They worked together without speaking, as if following the familiar steps of a dance. He let her lead, and they folded the linen along its length and pulled it taut, then came together to fold it in half. Their fingers touched on the edge of the sheet, and in the sudden stillness he felt a tremor go through her.

‘Please, Jem…’ For the first time she looked at him properly, with eyes that were shadowed with anguish. ‘I’d lose my job… my home… I’d have nothing. Less than nothing if word got out and my reputation was ruined. I’d have to start afresh, and I’m not sure I can do that again.’

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