“Gentlemen.” Archie, too, was suppressing laughter, and after the day’s events, amusement felt like a balm. But there were ladies present, and one of them was conscious. He glanced at her. Olive Morgandidfeel like a little sister to him, though he hadn’t seen her in years, and it had been even longer since she’d been anything close to little. Still, he had the strongest impulse to put his hands over her eyes.
Which, of course, he could not do because his arms were full of her elder sister.
What a trip this was turning out to be.
“Yes, right.” Effie dismounted, handed his reins to Simon, and made for what appeared to be the front door, though it was hard to tell as it was nearly covered over with vines.
“Remind me whose place this is?” Archie asked Simon. “Sir Lionel, he said? How did Featherfinch”—he reverted to Effie’s title as that seemed to be what Simon was doing, probably on account of Olive’s presence—“make the acquaintance of a Cumbrian baronet?”
“Sir Lionel Maundy. And he’s not a baronet. The ‘sir’ is because he’s a knight.”
“Dare I ask what service to the Crown Sir Lionel performed?”
“Featherfinch said he is an essayist and an artist, though in what . . . medium I don’t know.” Simon looked around again in amusement. “What say you, Harcourt?”
The use of formal titles continued to feel strange. Especially Archie’s own on Simon’s lips. Here they were addressing each other by their proper titles instead of the given names and nicknames they’d been using since they were boys, yet they were in a positively lewd garden. The juxtaposition was amusing.
When Archie didn’t answer, Simon continued. “Apparently Sir Lionel never married, which may explain the state of this place.”
Archie rather thought it would take more than one generation of neglect to account for the state of the place, but he had more important concerns at the moment. He eyed Olive, fretting over what, if anything, to say about the garden. Thankfully, she seemed unruffled. She hardly seemed to notice the topiary at all as she turned a brow knit in concern toward Archie. “How fares my sister?”
The question sobered him. “She sleeps, but she is breathing and she is warm.” But she needed to get off this horse. He eyed Effie, who was still pounding on the vine-choked door. Just as Archie began to fear the castle was as unoccupied as it looked and that they’d have to break in, the giant slab of wood swung open to reveal a stooped old man dressed in shirtsleeves. A conversation Archie couldn’t hear ensued. Eventually, the man tottered out and announced in a thick Scottish brogue that he would see to the horses. It took some doing to get Clementine down, but eventually the lot of them limped inside, where they were welcomed by an ancient-looking woman who introduced herself—also in a brogue—as Mrs. MacPuddle.
Mrs. MacPuddle seemed not to have any idea who they were, but at the same time seemed perfectly satisfied with their explanation that the absent Sir Lionel was a friend of Lord Featherfinch’s who had offered to lend the castle to the three lords for a fortnight. “Never tells me anything, the old jolterhead,” she muttered under her breath, but to Archie’s ears it was an affectionate sort of muttering.
After being made aware of Clementine’s condition, Mrs. MacPuddle showed them directly to a bedchamber. Once again Archie was struck with the urge to laugh. The whole situation was so patently absurd, all of them crammed into this small room that looked as if it hadn’t been occupied—or dusted—in a century. There was a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing as Effie and Simon, who’d been carrying Clementine between them since Archie’s wounded arm had apparently turned to jelly, lowered their patient onto the bed. Eventually, Archie ordered the boys out, a feat he achieved only by promising that he would find them and allow them to tend to his shoulder as soon as he had Clementine settled. It was rather like having two overinvolved parents hovering.
Truth be told, he loved it.
“Hush,” he said to Clementine, who had begun to protest. Leave it to Clementine to sleep through a punishing ride only to object the moment she was being installed in a comfortable bed. To the hovering Mrs. MacPuddle, he asked, “May I trouble you to have some food brought up? Something fortifying and easy to eat? Perhaps some cold meats?”
“I think some bread soaked in milk would be better,” Olive said quickly, turning from where she was moistening a cloth from an ewer Mrs. MacPuddle had provided.
“Yes, thank you,” Clementine whispered. She smiled weakly at Archie as he laid her back against the pillows. He all but sagged forward to join her, so relieved was he by that pathetic little smile.
“Are you all right?” he whispered back, though he had no idea whyhewas whispering. Or why the question had come out so tenderly, given that he was soangrywith her. Or why his hand floated up to brush away a lock of hair that had fallen across her face.
Archie had no idea about anything, apparently. Only that the whispered nature of his question matched the wobbly feeling in his knees. The latter was making it difficult to imagine ever rising from Clementine’s bedside, though he knew he was going to have to eventually, if only because the boys would come looking for him.
Clementine did not answer. They stared at each other for several seconds until Olive, bearing her cloth, inserted herself between them.
“You’re fine, Clemmie,” she said firmly. “Everyone’s fine. We’re all fine, and we’ll talk tomorrow and sort ourselves out.”
That seemed to be a dismissal. Archie rose from the bed.
“I am not injured,” Clementine’s voice rose in both pitch and volume as if to send her belated answer after Archie.
“Not injured” was not the same as “well,” or even Olive’s “fine,” but Archie nodded and backed out of the room. Clementine’s copper gaze held his the entire way out.
5
Unsteady as She Goes
The next morning, Archie was enjoying a cup of tea in the so-called breakfast room—which did not contain any breakfast despite Mrs. MacPuddle’s assurances that she would manage to feed them for a fortnight—thinking about how Earls Trip was finally underway when Clementine marched in.
Gone was the whispering girl of last night. She had been replaced by a tall, assured, wild-haired woman who walked and spoke with confidence.
And, judging by the mud on her boots and the hem of her dress, she had already been outside, though it was not yet half seven. That part was familiar, too, and, more than anything else, an indication that she had not been elementally harmed by the events of yesterday.
