“Would I be correct to assume that you’ve a carriage waiting for you at the Wakefields’ manor?” He grimaced as the kit squirmed in his grip. “Be still and stop your fussing, you beastly thing.” Despite the harshness of his words, Aris’s voice was admiringly soft.
Blythe had to shake off her surprise before she could answer. “Of course. Though wouldn’t you want to use yours—”
“And dirty it with a wild animal?” He looked back at her as though she’d sprouted a third eye. “I think not. Yours will do fine.”
Blythe reeled in her temper, telling him only that he was horribly impolite for a prince, which he accepted as a compliment. She kept behind him with the horses in tow. The more she thought about his words, however, the more Blythe realized that she hadn’t seen any carriage fine enough to belong to a prince when she’d arrived.
It made her wonder—where was the rest of the royal family? And why had she never heard of Prince Aris or the country of Verena before? She tried to remember whether she’d seen them the night of Aris’s ball, though most of that night at Wisteria was a haze upon her memories. She remembered walking in. She remembered speaking with the prince and dancing with him… and then she remembered being back in the carriage with Signa, on their way home.
There were gaps in her memory she hadn’t recognized before. Huge, glaring holes that filled her with unease.
“We can use my carriage,” she said at last, forcing the words out. There wasn’t enough time to muse over strange memory lapses and even stranger possibilities. Especially not when he might notice. “We’ll drop the horses off with the groom and—” She cut off as she saw one of the Wakefields’ stable boys bringing Eliza’s horse into a stall. It seemed Eliza was too ill to continue her ride.
Perhaps it was because of everything she’d suffered through this past year, or because she knew that Eliza could very well be living with a killer, but something about the situation clawed at Blythe with a ferocity she couldn’t ignore. She gripped the reins tight and hurried toward the manor, not waiting for Aris to protest as she called back to him, “Wait for me in the carriage! I’ll be right behind you!”
THIRTY
BLYTHE
THE WAKEFIELD MANOR WAS NOT THE SORT OF PLACE ONE WOULD write home about. It was a stately building, well maintained and warmed by its rich tones and deep mahogany wood. Blythe had visited it several times over the years and was always underwhelmed by its simplicity. It had neither Thorn Grove’s oddities nor the extravagant beauty of Wisteria Gardens. No fascinating art or scenery, or really anything to make it stand out or feel lived in. Disregarding its size, the manor was, simply put, a painfully ordinary home.
Blythe kept close to the walls as she slipped inside, walking on her toes so that the heels of her boots would not clack against the floor. Much of the staff was preparing for the men to return from the hunt. The butler barked orders, sending two young maids Blythe didn’t recognize fleeing from the parlor with pillows in hand.
“Careful!” a feminine voice chided him. “We want to indoctrinate the poor girls, not send them running off in fear.”
Blythe alerted at the voice as a short woman with rosy cheeks bustled out of the room with a serving tray in hand. It had been some time since Blythe had seen her, but she at once recognized her as Sorcha Lemonds, Eliza’s lady’s maid.
Blythe was halfway through deciding her next step when Sorcha spotted her and almost dropped her serving tray.
“Heavens, Miss Hawthorne! You’re going to make an old woman catch her doom by skulking around in the corners like that. What are you doing here?” Her voice was sharp and abrupt, the words blending together in a uniquely northern accent that Blythe had always enjoyed listening to.
“Miss Wakefield and I were riding together when she took ill,” Blythe said as she stepped away from the wall. “I came to check on her.”
“No need to worry yourself. She’s resting in her room. This bout will come and go like the rest of them.”
“The rest of them?” Blythe stood a full head taller than the woman, and yet she was racing to keep up as the maid ascended the steps without spilling a drop of the tea she carried.
“Her headaches, dear. They’re growing more frequent. I keep telling her to try and rest, but she only prattles on about needing to secure a good match her first year out. It’s ridiculous, if you ask me. But does she listen? Of course not.”
Only when the words were spoken aloud did Blythe realize that the past several times she’d seen Eliza, the young woman had been a sickly green or so ashen that she’d seemed ghostly, always complaining of a sour stomach. Her eyes immediately focused on the steam curling from the teapot.