Emma told herself that it was just as well. She wasn’t sure what was going on between them, but, whatever it was, she wanted to stop it before it got out of hand. It would be unfair to Peter and Nell for her and Derek to start something they couldn’t finish. Children needed a future, and that was the one thing Emma couldn’t possibly give them.
16
On the eighth evening of the long week following Susannah’s accident, Emma dined alone. The candles were lit in the dining room, and Crowley saw her to her chair, but hers was the only place set at the table. Crowley informed her that the children had eaten supper in the nursery with Nanny Cole, and Syd Bishop had taken a light meal on a tray in his room, then gone directly to bed.
“He’s not ill, Miss Porter,” Crowley assured her, when she expressed mild concern. “Quite the contrary. He informed Hallard that he was retiring early because he intended to be, er, ‘up and at ’em’ at the break of dawn. Gardening seems to agree with him.”
As for Derek, Crowley knew only that Mr. Harris had retired to his room late that afternoon, leaving strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed by the staff.
Emma told herself that she’d worn her newest Nanny Cole creation—a flowery William Morris print in bronze and gold and copper—to suit herself, not to please Derek. Still, she had to admit that, if she’d known that Crowley would be her sole companion in the dining room, she might not have anticipated supper quite so eagerly.
Emma ate quickly, then went up to her room to change into a skirt and blouse and pull on Nanny Cole’s heathery angora sweater. She left her room for the library, stopping just long enough to knock on Derek’s door, hoping that his instructions to the staff did not apply to her. Receiving no reply, she went on her way. She was usually in bed and asleep by ten o’clock, but she’d been meaning to read up on old Bourbon roses and tonight seemed the perfect opportunity. She peeked into a few other rooms on her way to the main staircase, then wandered into the billiards room, the music room, the drawing room, and various salons on the first floor before settling in the library with one eye on her book and the other on the tall case clock in the comer.
When the clock chimed ten, Emma decided that what she really needed was a breath of fresh air. Armed with a flashlight provided by Crowley, she made straight for the chapel. The moon had not yet risen, and stars blanketed the sky. The castle ruins were a maze of shadows, and she had to step carefully to avoid falling on her face. She wasn’t hurrying, she was simply walking briskly, because it was a proven fact that exercise promoted sound sleep and she had every intention of sleeping soundly that night. When she pushed open the chapel’s low rounded door, she saw immediately that Derek wasn’t inside.
But his son was. Peter was wearing a blue melton jacket over striped pajamas, and warm woolen socks stuffed into brown leather slippers, and he carried a Day-Glo-orange emergency lantern, the kind Emma kept in the trunk of her car at home. He was halfway to the back door by the time Emma’s flashlight picked him out, but when she spoke his name, he stopped.
“I’m sorry,” said Emma. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’ll go away, if you like.”
Peter glanced over his shoulder at her, then looked away again. He shrugged. “I don’t mind if you stay.”
Emma hesitated. She respected Peter’s privacy, but she was curious to know what had lured him to the chapel in the dead of night. He hadn’t struck her as the kind of boy who would get up to any mischief, but he was obviously AWOL from the nursery. What had compelled him to risk the wrath of Nanny Cole?
Emma walked slowly up the center aisle. “I’d rather not stay by myself,” she said, sitting on the front bench. She was careful to speak softly. She didn’t want Peter darting out the back door in the dark.
Peter turned the lantern on and placed it on the shelf below the lady window, then backed slowly to the bench and sat beside Emma, his hands jammed in his jacket pockets, his eyes never leaving the lady’s face.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” he murmured.
“Yes, she is.” Even in the darkness, the window retained its power. The lantern picked out glimmerings of color and softened the fire in the lady’s eyes. Her face hovered above them, serene as a full moon sailing across a midnight sky.
“Dad says that lots of people think Miss Ashley-Woods is beautiful,” said Peter. “But I don’t.”
Emma kept her voice steady as she asked, “Why not?”
“She’s all bones,” Peter replied bluntly, “and she has mean eyes. She was bothering Dad all the time before you came. Keeping him from his job.”
A job that was, for some reason, very important to the boy. A chill hand seemed to grip Emma’s heart. Oh, no, she thought, could it be as simple and as terrible as this?
“Peter,” she said, “is this where you were that morning, when Miss Ashley-Woods fell down the stairs?”
Peter’s body tensed and for a moment Emma thought he might bolt. Instead, he gave a forlorn sigh and bowed his head, and the tension left his body as tears began, silently, steadily, falling bright as diamonds on his dark wool jacket.
“Nanny Cole told me to play outside,” he said, “but —but I didn’t want to. She’s supposed to give me lessons and she wouldn’t and I was—was angry.”
“So you came out here instead?” Emma prompted gently.
“I’m not supposed to,” the boy admitted. “Dad—Dad wants me to get fresh air and—and sunshine. But I like it here. The lady needs me.” The boy sniffed, then scrubbed at his nose with the sleeve of his jacket.
“Needs you?” Emma asked.
“To tell her that everything will be all right.” Peter put a fist to his forehead and uttered a strangled moan. “But I don’t know ... I don’t know if it will be anymore. No one will listen to me.”
Emma put an arm around the boy’s shoulders, then tightened her hold as he turned to bury his face in the soft angora sweater. Awkwardly, tenderly, she smoothed his dark hair. “Did you hear anything while you were in here that morning?” she asked. She hated herself for pressing the point, but she had to hear Peter’s reply.
Peter tilted his tear-streaked face up to her. “Not until the shouting started. Then I went out that way”—he pointed to the back door—“and round the outside to the cliff path. I—I didn’t want Dad to know I’d been in here. I’ve never disobeyed him before.”
Emma could well believe it. Peter was the most obedient child she’d ever met. “Did anyone see you go out onto the cliff path?” she asked softly.
Peter nodded. “Teddy Tregallis was down in the harbor, on the boat with his dad and his uncles. They all looked up and waved, so I waved back. He’s a good chap, Teddy. He’s going to be a fisherman when he grows up. He says he likes fishing more than school.”
Emma looked down into the boy’s luminous eyes and knew he was telling the truth. He wouldn’t have admitted to witnesses, otherwise; it would be too easy for her to confirm his whereabouts with the Tregallises. Peter had disobeyed his father’s orders and Nanny Cole’s instructions, and he’d compounded his wrongdoing by lying about it afterward, but that was the worst of it, and Emma was weak with relief.
“I don’t see any reason to tell your father where you were,” she said. “I don’t think anyone else has to know. Okay?”
The boy gulped and nodded, then lay his head against her, as though the confession had drained his last reserves of energy. Emma thought for a moment that he had fallen asleep, but then he spoke, in a voice so low that she scarcely caught the words.