“You shouted at her,” Cassie said. Her voice was small, accusatory, the voice of a child delivering a verdict she had not asked to render. “You shouted, and now she’s gone, and it’s my fault, and I hate you.”
Hudson turned to find her standing amid the scattered evidence of their interrupted embroidery, her small fists clenched, her lower lip trembling.
“Cassie,” he began, but she cut him off with a gesture so reminiscent of Augusta that it stole the breath from his lungs.
“It’s my blood on the sheets.” The words emerged in a rush, tumbling over each other in their urgency. “It’s mine. I got my courses, Hudson. My monthly courses. That’s what the blood is. It’s not an injury. It’s not an accident. It’s what happens to girls when they become women. I was embarrassed, and I made Miss Norton promise not to tell you because I didn’t want you to worry and I didn’t want you to look at me differently. But now you’ve made her cry, and it’s all my fault. If she leaves, I will never forgive you, not ever, not if you live to be a hundred and I live to be a hundred and one!”
She stopped, breathing hard, two bright spots of color high on her cheeks.
Hudson stared at her. The words rearranged themselves in his mind, forming a picture so different from the one he had constructed that he briefly felt as though the floor had tilted beneath his feet.
Courses. Monthly courses.
Augusta had known. She had known, and she had kept Cassie’s confidence exactly as Cassie had asked her to, exactly as any decent adult entrusted with a child’s secret ought to do.
And he had accused her of negligence. Of betrayal. Of failing in the very duty he had hired her to perform.
“I didn’t know,” he said. The words sounded inadequate even to his own ears. “Cassie, I’m sorry. I saw the blood, and I… I thought the worst. I should have asked differently. I should have listened.”
“You should have trusted her,” Cassie huffed. She had not moved from her position by the bed, her arms crossed, her expression a study in wounded dignity. “Miss Norton would never let anything happen to me. Never. She promised, and she keeps her promises. Unlike some people.”
“I… I will fix this,” he vowed, before walking out of her room.
Deciding to apologize for a grievous error was one thing. The apology itself was far more challenging.
Hudson stood at the window of his study and watched the afternoon light bleed from the sky in long, golden streaks thatdid nothing to improve his mood or the taste of the whiskey he had poured himself an hour ago and not yet touched.
The glass sat on the desk behind him, precisely where he had set it down after realizing that alcohol was not the solution to the misery currently afflicting him. The solution, unfortunately, seemed to involve humility.
A brisk knock at the door announced James’s arrival.
Hudson did not turn.
“Enter,” he called.
The door opened and closed. James’s footsteps crossed the carpet with the measured tread of a man approaching a wounded animal, cautious but not fearful, respectful of the potential for teeth.
“I’ve been summoned,” James announced. His voice carried its usual lightness, but Hudson caught the note of concern beneath it. “Cassie’s doing, I presume? She cornered me in the stable yard and delivered what I can only describe as a lecture on the proper treatment of governesses. Quite thorough. I believe she cited three separate points of etiquette and one obscure passage from Mrs. Beale’s household manual. I took notes, naturally.”
Hudson turned.
James stood by the desk, one hip propped against its edge, his expression carefully neutral in a way that meant he was making a considerable effort not to smile.
“She has strong feelings on the subject,” Hudson said.
“So it would seem.” James picked up the untouched whiskey, examined it with the air of a connoisseur presented with an inferior vintage, and set it down again. “As do you, apparently. Given that you’ve been standing at that window since noon, by all accounts, and have successfully avoided both lunch and the company of every human being in this house with the notable exception of your sister, who, I am told, is currently not speaking to you.”
“Cassie speaks to me,” Hudson countered. “Incessantly. About my many failings as a brother and employer. She has quite the gift for enumeration.”
“Runs in the family,” James observed. “Though your particular gift runs more toward the silent, brooding variety. Very effective. Very intimidating. Less useful when one is attempting to fix a relationship one has comprehensively damaged.”
Hudson shook his head. He moved away from the window, crossing to the desk with the deliberate pace of a man approaching his own execution. “She told you.”
“Enough,” James admitted. “Blood on sheets, shouting, tears. The broad strokes. The details I filled in myself, based on my extensive knowledge of your capacity for dramatic overreactionand Miss Norton’s admirable restraint in the face of masculine idiocy.”
“You weren’t there,” Hudson huffed. The defensiveness in his own voice surprised him. “You didn’t see?—”
“I saw Augusta outside. What I saw,” James interrupted, “was a woman walking through the garden with red-rimmed eyes, attempting not to cry. A woman who, when I inquired after her welfare, informed me that she was perfectly well, before fleeing my company.” He shook his head. “She’s covering, Hudson. With dignity, which is more than most would manage in her position, but covering nonetheless. And you put her in that position.”
