Page 3 of Winterset
The seal had already been broken, so I quickly unfolded the letter. Every inch of the page was filled with precise, elegant script, leaving only a small portion of the outside part of the paper without mark. Drat!
Dear Mr. Moore,
I frowned at the salutation. Who was Mr. Moore? Had this letter been delivered to Winterset in error? I glanced at the bottom of the page to see who had sent it. It was signed,xMr. Oliver Jennings.
Winterset’s rightful owner.
Absentowner. He’d never bothered to show his face here.
I gritted my teeth. Was Mr. Jennings really so arrogant that he could not learn the correct names of his household servants?
I rolled my eyes and continued reading.
As you requested in your last letter, I am sending you notice that my Grand Tour of the Continent is soon ending. I shall take up residence at Winterset in four weeks’ time. Staff should ready the manor for my imminent arrival. I require the following: French-milled lavender soap, Scottish salmon, Portuguese port wine ...
The list continued, but I scarcely skimmed a few lines before the letter slipped from my fingers and fluttered to the floor.
Bexley and Mrs. Owensby reached the top of the stairs, where I stood.
“Mr. Jennings is coming,” I said, and the reality that my safe situation was coming to an end made me sway. I grabbed the railing to steady myself, but the truth was just too heavy, and I lowered myself to the floor.
Bexley crouched in front of me. “Kate,” he said softly, and the concern in his eyes reminded me of the way Papa used to look at me when I was frightened during lightning storms.
Mrs. Owensby sat beside me and wrapped me in her arms. “It will be all right, child.”
“Will it?” Winterset was the only home I’d ever known, but it did not legally belong to me. It belonged to Mr. Oliver Jennings, however unworthy I believed him to be. I’d hidden here these past two years because I’d had no other choice, but now that he was taking up residence, what would become of me?
“Of course, it will. He has never shown up when he’s promised. He was supposed to come to Winterset after your father”—she paused to clear the emotion from her voice—“after your father’s lease ended, but he did not. Last year, we expected him to come, and again, he did not. Perhaps we will yet again be lucky.”
“In the past, hismother, Lady Winfield, wrote that he would come,” I said. “This time,hehas written. And not only that, but he has also included a detailed list of instructions. How he has the audacity to demandsuch luxuries when he has not sent a single cent to care for his estate is beyond my comprehension. We barely have any money to buy the essentials.”
Mrs. Owensby worried her lower lip.
I shook my head. As upset as I was about Mr. Jennings’s failings, his many faults were not my current concern. The only thing that really mattered right now was the fact that he was coming, and I was about to be displaced. “What am I to do?” My voice broke.
“We will find another place for you,” Mrs. Owensby said.
“You know as well as I that there is no other place for me,” I said. By necessity, everyone who had ever known and loved me believed I was dead. My life, as I had known it, had ended two years ago when I’d caught my intended, Mr. Cavendish, taking the moonlight with a maid in the garden a few days before our wedding at our engagement ball.
He’d insisted I still marry him, that the banns had been read, and he wouldnotbe made a fool. When I refused and tried to walk away, he retaliated by grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking me back to him. Then he’d ripped my bodice and kissed me against my will. When Papa and a small group of other attendees found me, Mr. Cavendish made a convincing display of debauchery, ruining my reputation and trying to trap me into marriage. I’d been crushed by his callous cruelty and had thought my life could not get any worse. But my sorrows had been multiplied when Papa had challenged him to a duel to defend my honor and died later that day from his wounds.
The world felt cold and empty without Papa, the weight of my guilt and grief crushing.
On his deathbed, Papa had told me that as long as I stayed within Winterset’s walls, I would be safe from Mr. Cavendish. I wasn’t sure why he’d believed I would be safe here, perhaps because he knew and believed in Mrs. Owensby’s and Bexley’s care of me, or it could have been because Winterset had been a safe haven for so many people before me. I didn’t know, but miraculously, I had been kept safe in hiding here.
Mr. Cavendish had come to claim me that very day. He’d stood at the door, his sinister face a mixture of anger and triumph. As if in his killing Papa, I’d had no choice but to marry him. I had again refused. He’d told me he would not allow me to tarnish his family’s good name and threatened that if I didn’t marry him, I would meet the same fate as my father.Terror had gripped me. I had not known what would become of me, but I would not marry that monster.
So, like Joseph’s brothers of old, I had faked my death by throwing my pelisse, stained with Papa’s blood, over a cliff to the seashore below. When the garment had been found by local townspeople, a brief investigation had been conducted, and I had been presumed dead.
I knew I could not remain at Winterset forever, but neither could I have left. I’d had no money and no one to turn to, so I’d stayed under Mrs. Owensby’s and Bexley’s care.
For weeks, I worried that Mr. Cavendish would figure out the truth and come for me. I stayed strictly in the attic, watching from a small window. But ... he never did. And neither did Mr. Jennings.
Weeks passed, then months. Ivy grew over the gate, creating something of a sanctuary, and I began to trust Papa’s promise and to feel safe.
Safe, so long as I stayed within Winterset’s walls.
For nearly two years, I had lived one day at time, praying Mr. Jennings would stay away and that he would not claim his inheritance, but now that he was indeed returning to Winterset, I did not know what to do. I should not stay, but nor could I go.
