Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson
Chapter 13
I awoke to birdsong. My room was shrouded in darkness, and in my restless sleep the bedcovers had wrapped around my legs, cocooning me in dark plum. I kicked myself free of them, then shivered as I hurried across the cold wood floor to pull aside the drapes and throw open the window.
Fog blanketed my view to the right and the left, covering the ground like another cocoon. The sun had not yet risen, but there were signs that it was on its way—the brightening of the sky in the east and the calls of the birds. Resting my elbows on the windowsill, I leaned out and breathed in the wet, cold air. I closed my eyes and listened for the songs I knew—the blackbird and the swallow and the woodlark, the sparrow and the thrush and the goldfinch. But I had traveled far from home, and the birds here on the edge of the land sang songs that were new to me.
Pulling my head in, I shut the window and hurried to dress. I had to be quick, before the sun rose and quieted some of these birds. Throwing on my warmest clothes, I did not bother with my hair and put my boots on while I ran down the hall, hopping one-footed as I bent over and tugged. Then I ran down the stairs, and did not bother to look for a back door. I ran straight through the great entry hall and out the tall front doors.
The fog folded me into itself, its chill, wet fingers creeping around me. I walked straight west, which I knew would lead me toward the moors, as the ocean bordered the east side of the house. The land was obscured in white, but when I felt the dry crunch of heather beneath my feet, I knew I was in the right place.
A large outcropping of rock rose out of the mist, and I turned my steps toward it. The navy sky lightened to a clear, light blue as I walked. The bracken and heather, wet with dew and fog, brushed my skirts. Horses neighed from pastures far away. It was the birds I was really listening to, though.
When I reached the rock, I paused only long enough to look for a way to climb it. It was larger than I had thought at first from a distance. It rose like a jagged, wind-carved castle, and I had to tip my head back to see the top of it. I slipped twice on its wet surface, but grabbing hold with my hands, I pulled myself to its top. Sitting on my perch, I folded my hands in my lap and breathed in the chilly air and watched the fog grow thin while birdsong sounded all around me. There were chirps and squeaks, cluckings and whirrings and sweet, high, piercing whistles. I knew none of them.
Sitting atop that rock in the middle of the moors, surrounded by an unfamiliar land and unfamiliar birds, I felt small. Or rather, I felt the vastness of what I did not know, had not experienced, had never seen. It frightened me to realize how little I actually knew of the world. It frightened me because I had no idea how to fulfill my bargain with Mama. I had no plan for earning my freedom. And if I could not earn my freedom, then my world would always be precisely this small.
The sky had a pink and peach cast to it now, and I knew the sun would show itself soon. Soon the fog would burn off the land and leave everything clear. But I could not fathom how the uncertainties of my future could be burned away—how I could see my way clearly from here to a new life in India with Aunt Charlotte.
Henry had said there had to be more than one option in life. But the fact was I had bound myself to Mama. I had entered into a bargain that I could not win. I could not win it either practically, nor could I win it ethically. I could not come up with three gentlemen here who would propose to me. That left me in my mother’s power, and regret at my hasty bargain threatened to turn me inside out. I closed my eyes and wished I could go back in time and undo the pact I had made. Why had I given her such an open option with the outcome? Because I could not anticipate failing. Now, though, I shrank inside at the thought of what she might do once she learned of my failure.
A few obvious ideas came to mind. She could force me to marry Mr. Cooper. She could send me to live with Eleanor in London and take care of her children. She could even come up with some scheme, as she had for Eleanor in Brighton. I shuddered at the thought of what she might dream up. There were no bounds to her opportunism and no moral limits either.
A familiar whistle caught my ears. I tilted my head, listening hard, and heard it again. It was a blackbird, with its call of homecoming. A smile crept across my face. I cupped my hands around my mouth and whistled back. A moment later the call came again. We called back and forth, and I peered through the fog for Henry’s figure. He never came, though, and after a long stretch of waiting I realized, to my chagrin, that it must have been a real blackbird I had been hearing.
I sighed, leaned back on my hands, and tipped my face up to the lightening sky. A thought nudged at my conscious. A hint of a thought, even. Some sense that there was a solution to my problem and that I would find it if I just thought about it long enough and hard enough.
I replayed in my mind the conversation I had had with Mama in her bedroom. She had wanted me to commit to marrying—I had insisted I never would. I had shouted at her, I remembered. I had asked her how many proposals I would have to refuse before she believed that I was serious about never marrying. Three. I sat up straight. Was I sure those were our words? I thought carefully. The conversation felt burned into my memory. It was too significant—I would not remember it wrong. Yes. I was certain. I had asked about proposals. She had given me the number three. I did not have to convince three gentlemen to propose to me; I had only to receive three proposals.
Hope and relief surged through me, as light and free as the dark bird soaring outside its cage. I needed only one man who would be willing to propose to me three times, one man who was friend enough to grant me this favor. A smile flashed across my face.
But almost immediately, the flying of my hope faltered. My heart sickened. Could I do such a thing? Could I really ask Henry to propose to me? And if he agreed to this scheme, could I endure the agony of hearing him say the words I had craved for so long, knowing that I would have to refuse him?
Dread roiled around within me, tugging at the parts of my heart that I had shut tight. I gripped my wind-blown hair in one hand and rested my forehead in the other. Danger lived in this scheme. Not for Henry—he had his path set out ahead of him. He had his Miss St.Claire and his Blackmoore and the living of this estate to provide him with lifelong comfort and respectability. He would not suffer from granting me this favor. But, oh, it was very possible that I would suffer.
I lifted my head and shoved the thought away, quickly, before it had time to take root. Nothing bad would happen. This was my escape! This was the answer to all my problems, and my heart was in no danger. I had locked it up tight a year and a half before. It was secure. It would do exactly what I demanded of it. After all, I had seen Henry practically every day of these past eighteen months, and never had I faltered in my resolve. Not once had I questioned my decisions or done anything to weaken them—not by touch or word or deed. I could ask Henry for three proposals. He would do that for me. And then I would have my dream of India.
Excitement surged so fast and furious within me that I felt in danger of breaking into flight. I stood up from my perch and clambered down the outcropping of stone. My feet slipped on the slick rock. My hands scraped. I skidded and slid, and the ground rushed up much too fast.
A quick thudding reached my ears as I scrabbled for a handhold and caught myself, legs swinging free. Looking over my shoulder, I checked the ground below, and finding it within reach, dropped to my feet, brushed off my hands, and turned with a smile.
Mr. Brandon—the younger Mr. Brandon—stood not more than a yard away, a look of great surprise on his face.
“Oh!” I was startled and couldn’t think of anything more to say.
“That was brilliant!” A slow smile curved his lips, and admiration gleamed in his eyes. “I was running to save you, but apparently I could have spared myself the effort.”
His footsteps must have been the thudding sound I had heard as I started slipping down the rock.
“Yes. Well ...” I rubbed my forehead, feeling awkward, and wondered how rude it would seem if I were to just walk away. But he looked as if he was waiting for some sort of explanation. So I shrugged. “I climb out of windows a lot.”
His full smile was beyond infectious—it was stunning, especially with the sunlight that finally shone through the fog, highlighting his brown hair with gold.
“Do you really?” he asked, moving closer to me.
I pushed my tangled hair back, thinking of how I had come to the moors straight from bed, how the wind had been whipping my hair, and how I must have looked at least bedraggled, if not worse.
But the admiring gleam did not leave the younger Mr. Brandon’s eyes, which were, I noticed, almost exactly the same laurel green as the vegetation surrounding us. His smile felt like an extra dose of sunshine directed at me.
“And why do you climb out of windows a lot, Miss Worthington?”
I felt my face grow warm. I suddenly remembered what Sylvia had told me the night before—about how everyone thought so little of me because of my family’s reputation. I remembered how she had laughed at the idea that any man here would ever propose to me. And while I had never acted scandalous, I had certainly not tried very hard to act proper this morning.
But just as I squirmed inside with the embarrassment of all of these realizations, one clear, redeeming thought came to mind. I had discovered my other option. I would escape here with Henry’s help and go to India and I would never have to see this Mr. Brandon or his father again. I would never have to be ashamed to be a Worthington. My sister’s scandals would not touch me there, and my aunt Charlotte would understand me. I would never have to try for a man’s attention again.
I smiled with relief—with pure, unfettered happiness at the thought of the freedom and independence that lay within my grasp. And I decided I did not care one jot what this Mr. Brandon thought of me. I answered him honestly.
“I frequently feel the need to escape.”
Both eyebrows lifted. “And the window is your chosen avenue of escape? A door does not suffice?”
A wistful smile twisted my lips. “Sometimes a window is the only adventure to be had for a young lady, Mr. Brandon.”
He stepped even closer, and now I could see the faint stubble along his jaw line, and I had to admit that he was handsome. He was very handsome, in fact.
“You become more interesting by the moment, Miss Worthington.” His eyes were saying the same thing, as he studied me with such intensity that I blushed and worried once again about my disheveled appearance. “Are you a great adventurer, then? Is that what has drawn you out of the house at this early hour?”
“Nothing so interesting, I am afraid.” I smiled. “I only came out to listen to the birds. They are different from our birds in Lancashire. Obviously.” He was staring at me as if I was some strange creature he had never before encountered. What did my hair look like? I pushed it out of my face, but the wind blew it back around, whipping at my hair and my skirts and causing the heather to sway and the long grass to undulate like waves in the sea. Backing away from Mr. Brandon, gesturing over my shoulder in the direction I thought the house was in, I said, “I should return to the house. If you will excuse me—”
“No, I will not.”
I stopped and stared at him. “Pardon me?”
He shook his head. “No. You cannot tell me you came out here to listen to birds and then leave me with nothing but curiosity.”
I laughed uncertainly. “It is not such an unusual thing, I am sure, to like birds.”
“Oh no, I am sure it is not. Who does not like birds?” His voice lowered and grew more intimate as he said, “But you came out onto the moors before sunrise to listen to birds. And that, Miss Worthington, makes you fascinating.”
His words, his smile, and the look in his eyes, all combined, surprised me and robbed me of speech. I could only stare at him, while he smiled at me, and a blush crept up my face.
“You look surprised,” he said in a soft voice.
I laughed. I did not know what else to do. “I am sorry. I am not accustomed to people finding my interest in birds fascinating.”
His smile stretched wide. “All the better for me, then.”
“And what do you do out here, Mr. Brandon, so early in the morning?”
He breathed in deeply and lifted his face to the sky, where the sun had just sprung over the horizon in all its golden glory. “I came outside to explore. It’s my first time on the moors, you see. And to be in such a location—to have both the ocean and the moors at once—it’s rather ...” His gaze settled on me. “It’s rather ideal, is it not?”
I nodded, agreeing with his sentiment. The sunlight grew stronger, the light changed, and I changed my mind about his eye color. They were not the green of the moors. They were the green of the trees at home. He was golden in the dawn light—golden hair and skin and light stubble across his jaw and chin. He was tall, I realized—probably as tall as Henry. And I suddenly wondered how Sylvia could overlook the son and like the father instead.
He gestured to his left. “Shall we walk back together? I am quite famished after all of my exploring, and I imagine you must be as well, after your own adventure.”
I walked beside him. After a moment I cleared my throat. “Speaking of my adventure, do you mind not telling the others about that? I’m afraid some would not approve.”
He looked quickly at me, his brow furrowed, but only smiled. “I am happy to share a secret with you, Miss Worthington.” I hardly had time to think of his words before he said, “Now. Tell me about your birds.”
I looked at him, the wind blowing my hair around my face. “What about them?”
“Everything. Something. What interests you?”
“Their songs. Their natures.” I glanced at him, wondering if he was really as interested as he sounded. But his gaze hardly strayed from my face, and the expression on his face was no less than fascinated. Very few people actually gave me an invitation to talk about my interest in birds, and I found myself suddenly eager to talk. “They are deceptive, as a group. One might think that all birds are similar, but they are quite unique from one species to another.”
He nodded, so I went on.
“Each bird’s song is identifiable. Their calls are so much more complex than tweets or chirps. The blackbird, for example, sounds like this.” I produced the whistle that Henry and I had spent hours perfecting one rainy day a few years ago.
His eyebrows lifted. “That was you, earlier. Wasn’t it? I heard that whistle out on the moors.”
I nodded. “Well, one of the whistles was mine. One was ... an actual bird. I suppose.” I thought again of how disappointed I had been when Henry had not walked out of the fog.
“What is your favorite bird?” Mr. Brandon asked.
I waved his question away. “That is impossible to answer.”
His smile flashed. “Very well. Tell me about one of your favorites.”
I thought for a moment before answering. I would have told him about the woodlark. But I felt that I would be somehow betraying Henry to talk about the woodlark.
The dry heather gave way to the green grass surrounding Blackmoore. The sun was fully up now, the golden light and heat burning off the fog, little by little. Mr. Brandon stopped walking and faced me, waiting.
I stopped too and thought of the birds I loved. Finally I answered. “The mistle thrush.”
“What about it?”
I looked a question at him.
He waved a hand, as if urging me to continue. “What makes that bird one of your favorites?
He asked it as if he was genuinely interested in my thoughts about birds. It seemed so strange to me.
“Er ... well ... If you really want to know ...”
“I do.”
“For one thing, if one sees it from above, it looks like it’s wearing a smooth grey coat. But its chest and belly are speckled. White with dark grey speckles that look quite festive. As if it is going to a party. You might think it a proper and boring creature, until you see those jaunty speckles, and then you know that you misunderstood it initially. You underestimated it.” I drew a breath. “But I think what I like most about the mistle thrush is how ... audacious it is. It perches at the top of very large trees and sings into the face of a storm. As if daring the storm to frighten it. As if trying to prove that it can outsing a gale. It is so very brave.” I smiled and shrugged. “I admire it.”
He was studying me with a look I could not interpret. He almost seemed to look at me in the same way I looked at my birds. I suddenly felt transparent and crossed my arms over my chest. “Do you think it strange? That I admire a bird?”
“Not at all,” he said briskly. “In fact, I have suddenly become very interested in birds myself.”
The wind blew off the ocean, throwing my hair across my face in a tangled mess. I pushed it back and held it with one hand, turning so the wind blew my hair behind me. “Speaking of gales ...” I said.
“Yes. Let’s go inside,” Mr. Brandon said and walked beside me across the green and the courtyard and through the front doors of Blackmoore. I crossed the great entry hall, eager to get upstairs and make myself look decent before anyone else saw me in this state. At the curve of the staircase, I could look up and see the painting of Phaeton on the domed ceiling. Or I could look down into the entry hall below me. I looked down. And standing there still, looking up at me, stood Mr. Brandon, with that infectious smile on his face. And I could not help but smile in return.
It was clear he saw my answering smile. My face burned for a reason I could not name, and I hurried to turn away and hide my blush from him. I saw only a blur before I bumped into someone standing right behind me.
“Oh! Pardon me!” I said, gripping the banister to regain my balance.
Mrs. Delafield reared back. “Do watch where you’re going, Kitty.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.”
Mrs. Delafield turned her chilly blue eyes to my face, then her gaze traveled upward and settled on my hair. “Have you been outdoors, Kitty?”
“Kate,” I reminded her, resisting the urge to smooth my hair. “And yes, I have been.”
She sighed and looked upward, as if seeking divine help. “I must speak with you about acceptable behavior while you are here.”
I could not stop myself from glancing over my shoulder. I felt a lecture coming, and I did not want Mr. Brandon to overhear it. But he stood below, still looking up, and Mrs. Delafield’s voice carried clearly across the domed space between us.
Mrs. Delafield stepped forward, looked over the railing, and her hand gripped the wooden banister, the veins on the back of her hands bulging.
“Mr. Brandon.” Her voice was the epitome of strained politeness. “Good morning. I trust you slept well.”
“Indeed.” His smile changed from the infectious width I had just admired, becoming more controlled, more strictly polite.
I edged away from the banister. “If you will excuse me, Mrs. Delafield ...”
“Kitty, I would like to have a word with you.”
I paused and watched with a growing sense of dread as she drew close to me. Leaning toward me, she whispered, “Were you outside with Mr. Brandon? Alone? Did you two have some sort of ... assignation?”
“Of course not,” I whispered back, appalled. “We ran into each other outside, but I did not plan to meet him there.”
Her eyes narrowed, a warning in their blue depths. “There will be no scandal here, Kitty. Not like at Brighton.”
I burned with the shame of her implication. “I am not Eleanor, Mrs. Delafield. I never have been.”
I turned my back on her and climbed the stairs with an air of calm I did not feel. As I turned the corner, the temptation to look down overcame me. Against my better judgment, I looked over the railing. Mrs. Delafield had descended the stairs and was crossing the foyer to Mr. Brandon. She was nearly to him now. He glanced up at me with a frown and then turned to her, as she took his arm and spoke quietly in his ear.
My face was on fire, imagining what she was telling him about me. But I shoved from my thoughts the lingering shame I felt and turned my steps to the west wing. It did not matter to me what Mr. Brandon thought of me. I was going to find Henry and get my three proposals and leave at once for India. Nobody would be able to look down on me there. Nobody would exclude me or try to control me. India would solve everything.