Free Carla Kelly by The Ladys Companion

the mirror. Truth, I would have liked a little daughter with long black hair to brush. Damn you, Papa, for spending away my husband, sons, and daughters.
    But I am not to think of Papa, she told herself as she braided her hair and twisted it into a low knot on the back of her neck. It hung heavy that way, but did wonders for her posture. She thought briefly of Emily and her constant parading about the drawing room with a book on her head, and all for the purpose of snaring some vicar or second son who needed a bride’s portion, no matter how poor her carriage. And Aunt Louisa? “Well, I have likely exchanged one tyranny for another, but it is my own choice,” she told the mirror.
    Cora’s dress hung many times too large on her slender frame, so she stepped out of it, and tried to shake out the worst of the wrinkles from her traveling dress. The material had the virtue of being well cut, but there wasn’t much she could do about it, not after trudging through mud and snow at midnight. She resigned herself to Cora’s dress. The sash Cora brought helped, but couldn’t shrink it four sizes. She tucked and pleated the extra fabric under the sash, her hands lingering for a moment at her waist. So you think you could span my waist with your hands, Mr. Wiggins, she considered. I’d like to see you try.
    She couldn’t find her boots, so she went downstairs in her stockinged feet, treading quietly on the stairs and looking around her with some pleasure. I wonder how old this house is, she thought, warm with pleasure from inside out at seeing it in daylight. The ceilings were low and the walls wainscoted, the oak mellowing and darkening through the years. Mullioned windows on the first floor sparkled with the snow’s reflection, each little pane rubbed and cleaned and soberly outlined in its lead frame. She looked up at the open beams and decided that Queen Elizabeth would have been quite at home here. Two hundred years of wind, storm, and winter, she marveled, and hopes and dreams. “What is it you hope for, Lady Bushnell?” she whispered as she glided down the hall, following her nose. “Or are all your dreams done?” She stood still a moment, hugging her arms about her. “Mine are,” she said. “Now I must please others.”
    The kitchen was at the back of the house, instead of belowstairs, and unaccountably her spirits began to rise. It was a small matter, but a fact that cheered her, all out of proportion to its relative importance. She opened the door and breathed deep of kitchen smells that must have been trapped in the overhead beams for two centuries. Bunches of dried spices hung in orderly clumps from ceiling hooks, conveniently at hand. Her eyes went to the huge fireplace at the end of the kitchen, then she smiled to see that it had been bricked over and replaced by a Rumford stove. And there were her boots, polished to a shine that reflected the lamplight overhead. Everything gleamed of order, well-being, and stability, and it was balm to Susan’s soul. Cora, she thought, I believe your mother is a force to be reckoned with.
    The force to be reckoned with was watching her from the depths of an overstuffed chair, a cat in her lap, and a cup of tea close to her hand. She was on her feet as soon as Susan looked her way, pouring the cat down her dress and holding out her hand. There was no disguising the look of surprise on her face.
    “Lord love us, and I thought Davey Wiggins was joking, except that he seldom jokes,” she said as she came closer to Susan. “You
are
scarcely more than a babe! But welcome and let us clap hands. I am Kate Skerlong, the housekeeper. Susan Hampton?”
    Susan stepped forward gladly and shook hands. “Yes, ma’am, and thank you for letting me sleep.”
    Mrs. Skerlong nodded. “Davey insisted. He said he hauled you up and down hills and through snow half the night, and it wouldn’t do to send you back to London in a box.” She went to the stove and lifted a saucepan from the