Free The Deepest Night by Shana Abe Page A

search the crowd for a few seconds before spotting me cowering under my parasol. He gestured emphatically in my direction.
    “Ladies and gentlemen, it is due to this girl that a plan has been set into motion that I hope will benefit the lives of a good number of soldiers and their families. As many of you know, my home, Tranquility at Idylling, is large—and largely empty. With my father’s blessing, I intend to fill those empty rooms with heartbeats, with souls. I am going to transform Tranquility into a convalescent hospital for our own wounded soldiers.”
    Another pause, and a gradual, rumbling, swelling resonance from the crowd that I read as part approval, part disbelief. Armand spoke again, louder, before the sound could grow beyond him.
    “And I am delighted to inform you that this same kind girl, as true an example of the Iverson spirit of generosity and service as ever was, has volunteered to spend her summer there as our very first nurse!”
    Armand took a half step back from the podium, smiling again, allowing the swell of sound to crest into happy applause. Then he walked straight to me, bowing before me and lifting a hand in an invitation to take mine.
    What else could I do? I placed my fingers over his and he lowered his head to press a kiss upon my knuckles. The applause grew even louder.
    “Voilà,” he murmured, a word that only I could hear.
    Well, forget about my piano performance. There was no way I was going to try to follow that.
    One hour later, at the al fresco reception, beneath some anemic clouds and that unrelenting sun:
    “A moment, Miss Jones.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “You are certainly full of surprises. Why did you not mention to me your conversation with Lord Armand regarding the hospital?”
    “Uh … I beg your pardon, ma’am. I assure you, I was as amazed as you when he spoke of it today.”
    “Had you bothered to tell me you’d volunteered as a nurse for the summer, you might have saved many of us a good deal of trouble. It is not an uncomplicated task to arrange a future, Eleanore. A good many people went to some effort on your behalf to secure your place at the Callander orphanage.”
    “I beg your pardon, ma’am.”
    “Indeed. Had I any inkling of your interest in nursing , I might have arranged to send you to one of the many worthy hospitals already in existence.”
    “It—it was a very sudden interest, ma’am.”
    “Plainly. Is that champagne I smell on your breath?”
    “No, ma’am. I wouldn’t dream of—”
    “Good day to you, Miss Jones.”
    “Good day. Ma’am.”

Chapter 8
    The next day was Saturday. Technically, only Sundays were marked as Visitors’ Day at Iverson, but since the school year had officially ended, it seemed that rule was done as well. The castle was filled with sounds of girls laughing and crying their goodbyes, of doors slamming and the heavy, plodding footsteps of the menservants carrying trunk after trunk down the main stairs to be loaded up in the line of automobiles along the drive.
    Mrs. Westcliffe had arranged for tea service in the front parlor, and that’s where most of the parents lingered, quenching their thirst and girding their loins for the coming months. Girls out of uniform—at last, out of uniform!—darted every which way, eager not to miss a single departure of a classmate they’d probably despised only yesterday.
    I, too, walked the halls out of uniform. Which meant that instead of wearing black or white, I was in brown: plain brown blouse, brown twill skirt, scuffed brown boots. Every single child at Blisshaven had worn this color. I wondered sometimes if it was to make us even more invisible than we already were.
    The ends of my sleeves cut short just above the bones of my wrist. Only three months ago, they’d been the right length. My boots pinched smaller, too, and the top buttons of my skirt strained to pop free. The only thing that fit well at all any longer was the cuff of golden flowers I wore.
    The