Wyrde and Wayward

(House of Werth, 1)

by

Charlotte E. English

Copyright © 2019 by Charlotte E. English

Cover design by MiblArt

All rights reserved.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold.

Chapter One

The Scions of the House of Werth are all born normal. It is what happens afterwards that sets them apart from the rest of England.

Three years afterwards, to be precise.

No sooner had Augusta Honoria Werth set foot over the threshold of Werth Towers than her name was heard to resound about those ancient brick walls, uttered in the powerfully resonant tones of her Aunt Wheldrake. The syllables rolled through the great, craggy pile like controlled claps of thunder, and set the floor a-shake.

‘Where,’ thundered she, ‘is Augusta?’

The importuned lady in question paused to shake the rain from her shawl, a brisk summer shower having caught her unawares as she crossed the park. Werths she saw aplenty, as she swept her calm gaze over the darkly majestic great hall: Aunt Margaret crossing from one side to the other, a pile of linens in her hands; Cousin Theodore wisely disappearing into the library; and Mrs. Thannibour, her elder sister Nell, coming towards her, wielding an ugly but dry shawl with intent.

She did not, however, see Aunt Wheldrake.

‘Gussie, how late you are,’ hissed Nell, plucking her sister’s delicate, rose-coloured shawl from about her shoulders, and replacing it with the sad, slate-grey substitute. The wool prickled Gussie’s bare arms, and scratched woefully, but Nell was deaf to all protests, instead ushering her resolutely towards the enormous, polished oak staircase dominating the central hall. ‘Go, please,’ said Nell. ‘Pacify her, or we shall not have a moment’s peace.’

‘I do not know what peace is likely to be found on Lizzie’s third birthday,’ Gussie observed, but Nell was not listening, already hastening away.

Squaring her shoulders, Gussie faced the staircase with resolution, and climbed. ‘I am here, Aunt,’ she called, just as the thunder began, again, to roll.

Aunt Wheldrake’s face, crowned with a gauzy lace cap, appeared over the banister. ‘How late you are!’ she said, echoing Nell.

‘I am very sorry, Aunt, I was obliged to—’

‘Never mind that now,’ said she, descending with a whoosh, and taking a firm grip upon her niece’s elbow. ‘We are but five minutes from the Great Event, so you see you are just in time, and not a moment is to be lost.’ Wisps of roiling cloud swirled about her feet, and then about Gussie’s, who lurched unsteadily as she rose into the air. Swiftly was she borne away, sailing through the hall, the library and out into the gardens, where the rain continued, disobligingly, to fall.

‘Theodore!’ thundered Aunt Wheldrake as they soared past.

‘Er,’ he was heard to say, followed by the distant snap of a book hastily closed. ‘Yes! Coming.’

Aunt Wheldrake cast one dark look up at the glowering clouds, and the pitter-patter of rain slowed. ‘Insupportable,’ she declared. To the best of Gussie’s knowledge, her aunt’s stormy powers did not extend so far as to hold dictates over the rain; the coincidence of timing, however, was impressive.

She reminded herself not to be late to any more of Aunt Wheldrake’s parties.

On a pretty stretch of emerald lawn, just beyond the borders of Lady Werth’s lavender shrubbery, a white pavilion beckoned. Lady Werth herself sat in a cane chair beneath its domed interior, her husband at her elbow, and all the disparate scions of the Werth family line gathered around her. All, that is, save Gussie, and the shabby figure of Cousin Theo marching along in her wake.

‘Aunt Werth,’ said Gussie, stepping smoothly from her cloud, and bent to kiss Lady Werth.

She was rewarded with a huge smile. ‘Ah, Gussie, I knew you would not fail us. What do you think, then, of the birthday girl? Lucretia swears she shall be a mermaid, and indeed she can swim astonishingly well. Cannot you, Lizzie? But for my part I think it a great deal more likely that she shall surprise us all, and turn out a siren, or perhaps a fire-weaver.’

Privately, Gussie knew that Aunt Georgie had the right of it, for the Wyrde, when it came, rarely deigned to manifest in any manner of pattern. Mere mortal expectations were as nothing to it; it always did just as it pleased, and as such made a fitting curse for the wayward Werths.

The hopes of Lizzie’s mama must, however, be respected, so Gussie smiled at Aunt Wheldrake and agreed that Lizzie would make a perfect little mermaid.

‘What with her golden hair,’ said the proud mama, ‘and would she not look well all wreathed about in sea-jewels?’

‘Very well indeed,’ agreed Augusta, happy in her aunt’s restored temper. The members of the House being now collected, in an orderly fashion, where the Great Event was to take place, her thunders had departed, together with her mists, and she was able to take her place beside her husband with smiling alacrity.

A chair had been placed upon Lizzie’s right hand, undoubtedly designed for Gussie. Someone — Nell, most likely — had piled it high with fat, silken cushions. Being herself of ample figure, she treated her thin younger sister as though Gussie might break in half were she not properly wrapped up, cushioned and cosseted. But such overbearing care had its advantages, and Gussie sank gratefully into the cushions’ pillowy embrace as she turned her attention to Lizzie.

The child sat on the Wyrding Chair, so called because the throne-like structure had been wheeled out for every Third Birthday in living memory. Nothing about the chair mattered, of course. It was not, itself, Wyrded, nor could it have any impact upon the proceedings. But being oversized, gilded and ornately carved, it offered a majesty and a grandeur to these Great Events (as Aunt Wheldrake would have it) that would otherwise be lacking.

Lord Werth had his pocket-watch in hand. ‘And it is time,’ he announced, meaning exactly three years, to the minute, since the occasion of Elizabeth Louisa Wheldrake’s birth.

A hush fell. Every gathered Werth drew in a breath, and held it, all eyes fastened upon the tiny child shifting restlessly upon her enormous throne.

Gussie felt a moment’s pity for the little girl. Long-awaited as her birth had been, she had appeared at last, sixteen years after Lucretia Werth’s marriage to William Wheldrake, preceded by only one sibling, who had not survived. Small wonder, then, the weight of expectation that rested upon her; all her parents’ hopes must be satisfied in this one little child, for only a miracle would ever bless them with another.

And Aunt Wheldrake had set her heart upon the nature of her daughter’s Wyrding. She would be a mermaid in water, and a girl upon land. She would gain in power, and lose nothing, and of course she would be pretty.

Gussie cast up a silent wish of her own, that her poor aunt would not be too disappointed with whatever happened instead. And that she would contrive to control her temper, if she was.

Not that anything was happening at all, yet. Those collective, indrawn breaths were released at length, when poor Lizzie sat unchanged under her family’s scrutiny, growing anxious and restless but in no way uncanny.

Then a faint, dry rustling came, a whispering hiss, and Aunt Wheldrake clapped her hands together in delight. ‘Oh, it is scales!’ said she. ‘It is her mermaid’s tail! Quick, Lizzie, we must get you into the water at once.’ And she rose, and bustled forward, ready to scoop up the child and carry her straight to the winding beck that ran, half asleep, through the grounds.

‘Stay, aunt,’ said Gussie, holding up a warning hand. ‘I do not quite think—’

Further words were unnecessary, for a tiny storm caught up the ringlets of Lizzie’s golden hair, and whipped it all into a tangle. It was no storm of her mother’s, for Aunt Wheldrake’s face registered dumb astonishment, and then bleak dismay — for the golden mass shifted, in the blink of an eye, into a nest of slim, gold-gilded snakes. At her approach, all those tiny heads turned as one, and uttered a sibilant hiss in chorus.

Aunt Wheldrake came to an abrupt stop, but too late, for one eager little monster lashed out with its ivory fangs, and sank them with alacrity into her wrist.

With a scream, Aunt Wheldrake retired, defeated, from the lists.

The assembled Werths waited to see whether Lizzie’s snakes would prove venomous, to be indicated by the sudden and fatal collapse of Aunt Wheldrake.

This undesirable development did not come to pass. Aunt Wheldrake clutched at her injury — but minor, to Gussie’s eye, though she keened and bristled as though it had come near to mortal — and gabbled something perhaps only her husband could understand.

‘Well,’ said Lady Werth into the ensuing silence. ‘And we have not had a gorgon among us since Werth’s Great-Aunt Maud. I shall fetch her diaries for you, Lucretia. I am sure they contain a great deal of practical advice upon the management of her hair, and other troubles.’ What her ladyship meant by “other troubles” presumably included a tendency to turn living beings into exquisite stone statues; an ability few gentlemen could consider desirable in a wife.

Already, one or two Werths were drawing away from poor Lizzie, as though she might leave nothing of the party behind her but a collection of statuary. Which, of course, she might. Aunt Wheldrake should consider herself fortunate only to have been bitten, Gussie thought, though there was no sign in her aunt’s face of any consciousness of a narrow escape.

At length, the disappointed mama drew herself up. ‘Mr. Wheldrake,’ she said to her husband. ‘If you will be so good as to take Lizzie? I believe I will begin upon those diaries at once, sister.’

Lady Werth gave a gracious inclination of her head, and dispatched a hovering footman with instructions to unearth these hitherto forgotten manuscripts. The defeated parents followed, bearing the birthday girl between them, and a silence fell.

At length, Lady Werth sighed. ‘And I wish she had been a mermaid, for her mother’s sake. But for her own, I do not think it at all a bad thing. A gorgon! She will be the quite the terror of society, in fifteen years’ time. I look forward to her effect upon the patronesses of Almack’s, should the wretched creatures still be in the ascendancy. Only let them tell her she is denied entry to their abominable establishment.’

Had she been a man, of course, she might wreak havoc rather further afield, for tales of a long-ago Phineas Werth’s services to king and country were legendary at the Towers. He was said to have turned a whole platoon of advancing cavalry to stone, with a single flick of his riotous locks. And he was insufferable about it, too. There was no talking to him at all.

As a lady, Lizzie’s influence might extend no farther than the elite social establishments of London, but Gussie amused herself very much in picturing the results.

There were reasons, perhaps, why the Werths were not always entirely popular abroad.

Chapter Two

Upon Gussie’s return across the park, she found a warm welcome awaiting her. Being as it was the kind of welcome born of expectation, she knew she must soon disappoint. Nonetheless, she enjoyed a moment’s heart-swelling gratitude upon beholding the familiar and beloved outlines of Lake Cottage, its arched roof and prettily-shaped gables visible from some distance. Lord Werth had granted her residence there only some eight months previously, prior to which she had maintained her abode at the Towers. Here she had privacy, and a right to her own style of comforts. Solitude, too, or nearly enough, her uncle’s only stipulation being that Someone must live with her, to preserve her respectability. Every other Werth being, at present, suitably disposed of elsewhere, that someone was her former governess, still beloved by Gussie and Nell, and glad of a comfortable situation.

Fortunately for both, she was also excellent company.

‘And?’ said Miss Frostell, coming out of the parlour just as soon as Gussie stepped into the house. ‘How did it all go off?’

Gussie paused to discard Nell’s scratchy grey shawl, wondering in the process what had become of her favourite rose-coloured one. She would have to go up to the Towers again in the morning, to enquire after it. ‘Considering the hopes riding on Lizzie’s birthday, it could only be a let-down,’ she said.

Miss Frostell made a grimace of sympathy, and ushered her former charge into the parlour. ‘She is not, then, become a mermaid?’

‘A gorgon,’ sighed Gussie, and sank onto the sofa.

Miss Frostell, a far better needlewoman than any Gussie Werth, and a fine housekeeper too, listened to her recounting of the afternoon’s events in quiet sympathy, providing murmured commentary as befitted the extent of the calamity. She was not Wyrded herself, this excellent Miss Frostell, and rather regretted the fact — except that today, a different feeling animated her sweet, thin, withered face. Was that a modicum of… relief, in her hazel eyes? When Gussie was a child, they had speculated together of the gifts for which Gussie wished; of the forthcoming day when the Wyrde might choose her after all, and answer all her childish dreams. But none of those dreams had ever included a head full of snakes.

‘That is unfortunate,’ said Miss Frostell, when Gussie had finished. ‘The poor child. I had thought — well, there have not been so many curses in the current generations, have there? Not true misfortunes.’

‘If we pass over Theo, then no. I believe most of us are not too badly circumstanced.’

‘Yes, poor Theo,’ sighed Miss Frostell, with a degree of tender feeling that might be considered unwise. A woman of quiet habits herself, Miss Frostell saw Theo’s bookish tendencies as attractive; in fact, she appeared to find everything about Theo attractive, even his flyaway, rust-coloured hair and his outmoded attire.

Truly, there was no accounting for taste.

‘Oh, and now for a surprise,’ said Miss Frostell, picking up her embroidery frame. ‘A letter has come for you. I have set it upon the table there, just beside you. It has the look of an invitation about it.’

Gussie had not noticed the missive upon coming in, her head full of too many other things. But there it lay indeed, crisp and white against dark mahogany, addressed in a hand she did not recognise. Miss Frostell’s hints she disregarded; her governess had Imagination, and a way of wishing on her dear charge’s behalf. These wishes invariably involved Gussie’s ascension out of the ranks of the poorer Werths, and into great plenty, a trajectory only to be achieved by marriage; and that, of course, required an introduction to more gentlemen. Every letter bearing the name of Augusta Werth was an invitation, but only to Miss Frostell’s fancy. Reality was hardly ever obliging enough to follow suit.

But as she unfolded this particular letter, it dawned upon her that Miss Frostell, for once, was right: she was invited somewhere. She, Gussie Werth, least impressive of her line and a poor spinster to boot. In open-mouthed astonishment she read the following lines:

My dear child. You will not know me, for we have never been introduced. I hope you will forgive the liberty I take in thus addressing you, however, for I number your aunt among my dearest and oldest friends, and I am persuaded she would be delighted by the proposal I write to make you.

I shall be holding a little gathering at Starminster. I very much hope you will consent to make one of the party, and give me the honour of your company, for the period of a few weeks.

I trust your esteemed uncle, Lord Werth, will find nothing objectionable…

The letter went on in a similar style for several more lines, and was finally signed, Esther, Lady Maundevyle.

Gussie looked up from this puzzling missive, several questions at once upon her lips.

Miss Frostell forestalled her. ‘Maundevyle?’ she breathed. ‘Lady Maundevyle? Why, is she not a famous hermit?’

‘If she is, she must be a rich hermit,’ said Gussie. ‘Without which quality, the world would not find her habits half so interesting.’ She read the letter over again, without deriving any particular benefit from the exercise; the invitation still made as little sense.

She set it aside. ‘Where is Starminster, Frosty? Do you have your peerage about you?’

Miss Frostell got up at once, and rummaged about among a collection of paraphernalia in the pretty bureau occupying one corner of the room. She returned at last with a small volume in hand, fresh-printed and new, for Miss Frostell liked to keep her peerage up to date.

‘Maundevyle,’ she said, paging through the book. ‘Here they are. Viscounts only — not your dear uncle’s equal, then, quite. Principle seat: Starminster, in Somerset.’

Having enjoyed few opportunities to travel, Gussie had yet to venture beyond the borders of Norfolk. Somerset, she knew, was quite on the other side of the country, representing a journey of some days.

Miss Frostell closed the book. ‘Your correspondent must be the Dowager Viscountess, Gussie. The current incumbent is named Henry.’

‘Naturally I am overcome with joy at her gracious condescension,’ said Gussie, but absently, her mind still turning upon the problem of her letter. What could the Dowager Viscountess Maundevyle want with her?

‘He is four-and-thirty years old,’ continued Miss Frostell. ‘And,’ she added, with the air of a woman applying the crowning glory to a string of brilliant achievements, ‘he is unwed.’ She stood, beaming.

Gussie’s wandering attention sharpened. ‘Unw— Frosty! You are not matchmaking? Again?’

‘Why, of course I am. Your aunts may have given up on you, but I have not.’

‘For shame. Are we not happy here?’

‘Blissfully, and I shall cry for a week when you go away. But you are wasted here, Gussie. A woman of your talents—’

‘I have no talents,’ said Gussie. ‘Do not you know it is common knowledge, among the family?’

‘I was not speaking of the Wyrde. You deserve a high position, and it is shameful that you should never have had the opportunity to win one.’

‘Quite right,’ said Gussie, laughing. ‘Every woman of moderate beauty, small fortune and little practical use deserves a high position. And how should such a position ever be achieved, except by marriage?’

‘Your aunt Werth will support your going, I am sure of it,’ said Miss Frostell, affecting not to hear this. ‘Her being so old a friend of Lady Maundevyle’s.’

‘Is she, though?’ said Gussie.

‘Why else should the dowager invite you, if she is not?’

‘Why would she invite me, if she is? We are perfect strangers to one another. Even supposing her to be seized by a sudden freak, and compelled to fill her house with the unremarkable relations of all her friends, why would she choose me? There are Werths enough to satisfy every possible requirement.’

‘True,’ said Miss Frostell. ‘And it does not quite make sense that she should not extend the same invitation to your aunt. But,’ and here she hesitated, ‘perhaps it is your very lack of talents, as you put it, or rather your lack of the Wyrde, that encourages her. Not everybody prizes the effects of it as the Werths do.’

‘You may well be right, but still it is not quite explanation enough. The world is full of the unWyrded. There are far more of them, than there are of gorgons and mermaids and nightmarists. Why, then, me? She must be quite spoiled for choice.’

‘I cannot explain it, but I still think you should go.’

‘Why, Frosty?’

‘Well,’ said Miss Frostell, with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘Something wonderful could come of it. Who knows?’

‘That is like your optimism,’ said Gussie, folding up the letter. ‘But I am of a suspicious, shrewish disposition, and I say there is more afoot here than is apparent.’

‘Do you not, then, wish to find out what it is?’

Gussie sat tapping the letter against her knee, and did not immediately reply. At length she said: ‘Well, and why not?’ Glancing about at their comfortable, but quiet, parlour, she added: ‘Though it will be difficult to tear myself away from the unending revelries of the Towers, I daresay Starminster will contrive to entertain me.’

‘No,’ said Lady Werth, some two hours later, Gussie having walked back up to the great house to attend at dinner.

‘No?’ Gussie echoed, too surprised to come up with a more intelligent response.

Lady Werth thrust the letter back into her niece’s hands, crumpling the delicate paper in the process. ‘Starminster,’ she said, with an air of exasperation. Then, abandoning this line of thought, ‘Lady Maundevyle is not my dearest friend, whatever she may say; we have not spoken in quite twenty years. Why she should suddenly impose upon you, well—’ She stopped, and looked long at Gussie.

‘Yes, aunt?’

Lady Werth swept into the dining-parlour without offering any immediate reply. Only once seated did she say: ‘I do not think it suitable for you to attend upon Lady Maundevyle at Starminster.’

‘And if that is the case then certainly I shan’t,’ Gussie said calmly. ‘But it does not appear so objectionable to me, aunt. Why should the idea trouble you?’

‘You will not be suitably attended.’

‘I will take Miss Frostell with me. Lady Maundevyle could hardly object to so proper a measure.’

‘It is quite out of the question.’

‘Perhaps she would not object if you were to accompany me,’ Gussie suggested. ‘Seeing as she considers you so special a friend.’

‘Absolutely not.’

Gussie held her peace, watching her aunt closely. More lay behind her objections than was apparent, that was obvious. She began to feel quite tangled up in secrets, and the feeling did not please her at all.

She was not strictly obliged to seek her aunt’s or her uncle’s permission, being six-and-twenty years of age, and possessed of her own independence. But living, as she did, in one of her uncle’s cottages, and so often attending upon the family at the Towers, any outright defiance would be both unwise and unbecoming.

She did not mean, however, to be kept forever at home.

‘I should like very much to go,’ said Gussie, after a moment. ‘I have barely stirred beyond the family grounds. If I do not travel when I am granted the opportunity, then I will never see anything of the world.’

‘The world,’ said Lady Werth shortly, ‘is vastly overrated.’

Lord Werth, having made his appearance at table, now interrupted his wife. ‘What’s that, Gussie? Are you asked somewhere?’

Gussie explained, aware of her aunt silently fuming beside her as she did so.

Instead of leaping at once to her defence, as Gussie had hoped, and immediately offering her the use of his carriage, Lord Werth looked at his wife. Their eyes met, and something Gussie could not read passed silently between them.

‘You think it unwise?’ said Lord Werth.

‘You know that it must be,’ came the reply.

Lord Werth submitted. ‘Perhaps another time, Gussie,’ he said, kindly enough. ‘I am sure there will be better chances to see something of the world, than to be walled up at Starminster.’

Gussie gazed helplessly at her well-meaning protectors: at her aunt in her lavender silks and her elaborately arranged hair, perfect and composed and utterly unmoved; and her uncle, never unkind, but with a will to match the iron hue of his hair.

‘Why?’ she said.

Her aunt was startled into meeting her gaze. ‘Why… what?’

‘Why do you object? What is the real reason?’

Lady Werth looked away. ‘How fanciful you are, my dear.’

Gussie gave it up. This conversation had been conducted before an audience of attentive Werths, but one glance at their rapt faces — Cousin Theo at her elbow the only exception, intent upon a wholesale rejection of his food — convinced her that they could not intervene, nor were they inclined to try.

With a soft sigh, she turned her attention to her own dinner, and tried to console herself with ragout of mutton, and herb pie.

Chapter Three

Upon the morrow, after the sad duty of answering Lady Maundevyle’s invitation in the negative, Gussie busied herself with the myriad duties attendant upon so large a gathering of Werths. It was a pleasure to see Nell, whose residence some distance away with her husband and four children kept her too busy for regular visiting.

Gussie found her in the garden pavilion, enjoying the late morning sun. She was alone; Mr. Thannibour had elected not to attend Lizzie’s Great Event, and her children remained at home with their nanny.

In Gussie’s private opinion, Nell was hugely enjoying the respite.

‘Gus,’ said she upon her sister’s approach, looking up from the book spread open in her lap.

Gussie sank into the pretty cane chair opposite, her glance falling briefly upon the Wyrding Throne. The servants had not yet removed it, and it loomed still, all the more terrible for its emptiness. Gussie would never admit to having taken a seat there herself, on more than one occasion since her own, failed Wyrding. As a three-year-old, she had proved herself the only Werth in living memory passed over by the Wyrde. At ten, she had proved it again; and at fifteen, and one-and-twenty…

‘I came looking for my shawl,’ said Gussie. ‘And also, my sister.’

‘The pink? I believe I left it in the cloakroom.’ Her own gaze wandered to the throne. ‘You’re lucky, you know,’ she said. ‘Though I am sure you don’t feel it at the Towers. The Wyrde is… troublesome.’

Gussie recognised the book she was reading. It was a book of spectres, penned by a long-ago Werth, and added to by later generations — including Nell.

‘Perhaps I am better suited to a life outside the Towers,’ Gussie agreed. ‘But that, it seems, I am not to have.’ That piece of fortune had fallen, instead, to her sister. She had found in Mr. Thannibour a man who did not mind what she did in the night, and who was unruffled by the shades that wandered into Fothingale Manor, bent on having a comfortable cose with his wife. Such men were not often to be met with.

‘Your chance will come, Gus,’ said Nell, with a look of sympathy.

‘Oh?’ said Gussie. ‘When?’

Nell shrugged, and closed her book.

‘Do you know why my aunt and uncle are so set against my going?’

‘They think it unsuitable, did they not say that?’ said Nell, frowning.

‘An explanation not much to the purpose.’

Nell’s frown deepened, and she turned upon her sister a troubled gaze. ‘Gussie. Have you not sometimes wondered…’

‘Wondered what?’

‘Have you never noticed?’ said Nell.

‘Noticed? What am I to have noticed?’

But Nell would not be drawn. ‘No,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘How could you have? And perhaps they are right, after all.’

‘Nell! If you, too, are keeping secrets from me, I swear I shall — why, I’ll tell Great-Aunt Honoria what became of the fur tippet she left to Mother.’

Nell gasped. ‘You would not!’

Gussie subsided with a sigh. ‘Probably I would not. I am nowhere near evil enough.’

‘She was delighted about Lizzie,’ Nell offered.

‘Well she might have been. You should stay here to keep her in line, or she’ll be haunting the poor child quite until she is grown.’

‘I cannot,’ said Nell, not without regret. ‘I must leave tomorrow, as planned, or heaven knows in what state I shall find Arthur and the children.’

‘They can manage very well without you, I am sure.’

‘They may, perhaps. The spectres, I am persuaded, are most unlikely to leave them alone.’

Perhaps that was what Nell meant, when she called the Wyrde troublesome. And a fair observation at that.

A flicker of movement caught Gussie’s eye. She looked up, and beheld the distant figure of Cousin Theo, recognisable by the shock of red hair blowing in the wind. He was red elsewhere about himself, too, in places he rather ought not, and Gussie averted her eyes.

‘Oh, is that Theo?’ Nell sighed. ‘Someone ought to break him of those habits, or he will never find a wife.’

‘Perhaps he doesn’t want one.’

Nell’s brows rose. ‘That can hardly be permissible.’

‘Whyever not?’

‘Well — look at him, Gus. Did you ever see a more total figure of helplessness?’

Theo was, at that moment, engaged in stalking across the distant grass, a book tucked under one arm and something red and glistening clutched in the other hand.

Gussie began to laugh. ‘I doubt the woman exists who could make Theo respectable.’

‘I would settle for tolerable,’ said Nell.

‘Well, and from tomorrow,’ said Gussie lightly, rising from her chair, ‘you, at least, will not have to tolerate him at all.’

Nell waved this away. ‘I love Theo,’ she said. ‘Even with all his… quirks. And I love you, Gus, even if you are boring and ordinary—’ She squeaked as Gussie swatted at her hair, and ran away, laughing. ‘The Towers may be as mad as it gets,’ she called back, ‘but I miss it, all the same.’

Gussie was left to ponder her own and her sister’s very different fates: in being trapped at the seat of the Werths, Gussie had learned to resent it; and in having left it, Nell took every opportunity to return.

The scent of an impending storm reached Gussie’s senses, and a chill wind swirled about her feet.

Thunder growled as Aunt Wheldrake wafted by.

‘Oh, Lord,’ said Nell, coming up again. ‘Is she going Theo’s way? I believe she is.’

‘Better stop her,’ said Gussie, and away ran Nell again.

Great-Aunt Honoria’s head appeared. ‘And how is my darling grand-child— oh! Was not Lucretia here? I quite thought she was.’

The head was uncomfortably solid-looking, complete with a bloom of health across the thin cheeks. Her hair was piled high in the fashion of some decades before, and bristling with ornaments. Honoria might still have been alive, were it not for the fact of having mislaid everything of herself below the neck.

Gussie merely pointed.

Great-Aunt Honoria gave a sigh, and disappeared.

Gussie took the opportunity quietly to withdraw, and return to the tranquillity of her own, spectre-free house.

A haphazard, rambling place some centuries old, Werth Towers covered a great deal of ground. Many successive generations of Werths had altered it, and added to it, until it sprawled across the parkland as though thrown there by a careless child, gables and chambers and chimneys scattered every which way. The main house had originally been built in Elizabeth’s time; a later Werth had added a set of towers, and accordingly changing the name; another had expanded the stables, and the coach-houses. Yet another had indulged a passion for architectural symmetry by building a new wing in the modern style, a confection of chalky limestone and pilasters far out of step with the rest of the pile.

Gussie thought its eccentricities charming — from the outside. Inside, the house was a perfect maze of passageways, staircases, towers and garrets, halls and parlours, bedchambers and salons. Many years’ residence there had been insufficient to make her acquainted with all its nooks and crannies; moreover, she suspected the Towers — or its spectral occupants — of occasionally changing things. A door removed; a staircase turned about; a window shifted or a trapdoor barred; such minor alterations might never occasion any remark, but could nonetheless cause considerable inconvenience. Indeed, no one could claim to have seen the south-west tower in several years.

‘It will come back,’ was Lady Werth’s comfortable prediction, and Lord Werth seemed hardly to regard the matter at all.

An unladylike curse or two might escape Gussie, however, as she navigated her way from the rear entrance adjacent to the kitchens, through the utility rooms and the servants’ halls, up past the drawing-rooms and the best bedchambers, up again past the second-best bedchambers, around a winding mess of corridors and at last into the east tower, presently termed Theo’s. The door to his private chambers was, as usual, firmly shut.

Gussie tapped upon it. ‘Theo?’

No answer.

‘Theo,’ she called, knocking again. ‘It’s Gussie, and I have need of you. Will you let me in?’

The silence continued, and Gussie wondered if she had calculated wrongly. Theo’s schedule tended to be regular: he had his hours in the library, his prowlings in the gardens, and his (typically reluctant) presence at family meals. The rest of his time was spent closeted in his rooms, where he did not like to be disturbed.

Gussie had only once ventured to seek him there, and did not lightly do so again. A small part of her felt relieved at her mistiming, for it meant that she need not—

The door swung open, yanked with some force from the other side.

There stood Theo, pale and frowning. ‘If this is about the rabbits again—’

‘It is not.’ Gussie smiled, and endeavoured to look like a person come on no excessively troublesome errand. ‘May I come in?’

Theo’s frown relaxed, and he stood back to let Gussie pass. She swept into the airy, well-lit room, took up a station upon a crimson carpet in the centre of it, and mentally prepared her speech.

Theo did not encourage her by any word or gesture. He merely waited. A tall man a year or two younger than Gussie herself, Theo had inherited none of his mother’s delicate, fair prettiness; he was his father’s son through and through, lean of figure, with that wild rust-coloured hair and remarkably white skin.

A spray of blood had discoloured his carelessly-tied cravat, a diamond pin making an incongruous ornament in the midst of such a mess.

Gussie averted her eyes from it.

‘You see, cousin, it is like this,’ she began. ‘You have heard, I imagine, about my invitation to Starminster?’

Theo looked blank.

‘Seat of the Viscounts Maundevyle,’ Gussie supplied. ‘In Somerset. The Dowager Viscountess begs the honour of my company.’

‘Maundevyle,’ said Theo. ‘Right.’

‘And, well, my aunt and uncle will not give me leave to go.’

Theo said nothing.

‘They say it is inappropriate in some fashion, though I do not know why, for I cannot feel that it is. And — and this is where I was hoping you might help me, Theo. For it cannot be inappropriate if I take Miss Frostell with me, and — and you. Now, can it?’

‘Me?’ blurted Theo. ‘Somerset?’

‘Your being Lord Bedgberry, I mean, and quite able to go wherever you please. Your father and mother would not interfere so in what you chose to do, would they?’

‘But I don’t choose,’ said Theo.

‘It would only be for a week or two,’ said Gussie. ‘And I am sure there are rabbits aplenty on the Starminster estate.’

Theo folded his arms. ‘Cousin,’ he said. ‘Being among the least intolerable members of my family, there are numerous ways I would gladly contribute to your comfort. But this is not one of them.’

‘But—’

‘I cannot leave the Towers. Certainly not to spend a week or more as the guest of a perfect stranger, who is not expecting me, and could hardly want me.’ He punctuated this depressing speech with a gesture at the drying blood upon his cravat, which was eloquent enough.

Gussie, deflated, had nothing to add. She had known it to be a gamble, approaching Theo. And she knew he was right in his objections. An hour ago, pacing about the parlour of her little cottage alone, she had persuaded herself that Theo could contain his odder qualities for a week or two, and pass for a respectable gentleman; that the viscountess who was so eager for her company must be flattered to receive that of the much more important Lord Bedgberry, also; and that a possible future lay before her in which Theo himself might be amenable to it.

Even as she had toiled up the stairs into the east tower, her certainty on all these points had been declining. Now she saw all the folly of it, and wondered that she had ever thought it likely at all.

‘You are right,’ she sighed. ‘Your cousin is a pot-bound fool of a Gussie, so desperate for novelty as to importune a poor Theo over it.’

Theo, arms still folded, subjected her to a hard, cold-eyed stare.

Gussie’s spirit rose under this ungracious treatment. ‘Well, but was it so bothersome a request as all that?’

‘Maundevyle,’ said Theo again. ‘Is that the Selwyn family?’

‘I do not know what the family name might be.’

‘I knew a Selwyn,’ said Theo. ‘School-fellow.’

Gussie wondered if this might be the Henry who had since succeeded to the Maundevyle title, but before she could enquire Theo added, ‘Charles was the name.’

‘Edifying,’ said Gussie.

‘Hated him,’ said Theo.

Gussie blinked.

‘But I think it odd,’ said Theo next, ‘that Mama should object. Especially if you are to have Miss Frostell with you.’

‘Yes!’ said Gussie. ‘And when she and Lady Maundevyle are such old friends, at that.’

‘Are they?’ said Theo, visibly losing interest in so insoluble a problem. His gaze wandered; Gussie knew he would be looking for the book he had doubtless placed down but lately, somewhere easily to hand, where he would in no wise be unable to find it again half an hour later.

‘It is on the window-sill,’ she said with a sigh, pointing to where a large folio lay, drenched in morning sunshine.

‘Hard luck, cousin,’ said Theo, drifting that way. ‘But there is no persuading Mama, when she is fixed upon something.’

Gussie only sighed, and withdrew.

She wandered slowly downstairs again, all the way down and around and down, until she emerged into the sunlight, blinking in the sudden glare. Instead of returning by way of the kitchen-adjacent entrance, as had been her intention, she had, in the abstraction of her thoughts, wandered out of the great front door instead.

In the drive-way stood a carriage. Gussie, regarding it in confusion, noted firstly that it was not one of her uncle’s equipages; secondly that it was a great, lumbering travel-coach, a little out of date, but excessively handsome; and thirdly, that the driver sat still upon the box, as though only just arrived.

She had not known that her aunt and uncle were expecting any visitors, and she had passed nobody on her way to the door. Her curiosity piqued, she went around the side of it, to see if she could catch a glimpse of any arms emblazoned upon the gleaming black paint.