“No, they have gone out—the young man said he wished to see London at night. Mr. Somerset told me and Mr. Durbin not to wait for them.”
Gone out. Michael had gone out. But she’d made all his favorites. And he must know that she’d made all his favorites and would wait for him.
She bid good night to Mrs. Abercromby, returned to her room, and closed the door behind her. She supposed she should have known better. He was sixteen, not six, and petits fours and her company were no match against what London’s nightlife had to offer.
She sat down and stared at the cake stand. Now she’d have to eat everything by herself. The first streaks of inevitable tears tumbled down her face. She reached for a coffee tart.
Sometime in the middle of the night she opened her eyes. She’d heard a noise. But she closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep.
She didn’t know how much more time passed before she bolted upright in her bed. She stuffed her feet into her house slippers and grabbed the robe she always kept by her side. In the dark she fumbled for a match to light her lantern.
The door to the room shared by Becky and Marjorie was wide open. Becky Porter was curled tight, cold from the draft despite her layers of blankets. She mumbled and shielded her eyes against the intrusion of light. The other cot in the room was empty.
“Is it morning, Madame?” Becky asked sleepily.
“Go back to sleep,” said Verity. There was no need for both of them to look for Marjorie; at least, not until she was sure Marjorie had left the house.
At irregular intervals—sometimes days in a row, sometimes not for weeks or even months—the maids who shared Marjorie’s room at Fairleigh Park would find mud or grass stains on the hem of Marjorie’s nightgown. As Marjorie rarely injured herself, and seemed no worse for wear the next day, no one paid her sleepwalking much attention.
But in London Marjorie could disappear and never find her way back. It had been a worry at the back of Verity’s mind. But she had refrained from locking Marjorie’s door from the outside at night, for fear that the girl, thwarted, might open the window and leave that way instead.
She’d been told that sleepwalkers tended to do the same thing in their sleep as they did during the day. She quite doubted the accuracy of that—Marjorie’s days at Fairleigh Park did not allow for leisurely strolls through the grounds, which seemed to be all she ever did in her night episodes—but in this instance, she hoped Dr. Sergeant was right.
Marjorie was not in the kitchen, nor was she in the servants’ hall, or any other place in the basement. Verity’s heart sank, until she remembered to check the service door. It was bolted from the inside—thank goodness.
There was still the possibility that Marjorie had let herself out through the front door. Verity went up to the ground floor, but she stopped long before she was in sight of the front door.
Michael’s voice came from the morning parlor. He was singing. Or rather, crooning. “They walked ’til they reached his cottage and there they settled down, Young Willie of the royal blue and the lass of Swansea town.”
The song was slightly off tune, but sweet and tender.
“Do you remember? You always liked that one,” said Michael. “You are smiling. You do.”
Verity stormed into the morning parlor. Michael, in his nightshirt and dressing gown, sat on a sofa. On that sofa with him, in nothing but her nightgown, her hair a loose braid falling over one shoulder, was Marjorie Flotty, her head resting against Michael’s shoulder, one of her hands in his.
“What do you think you are doing?” Verity demanded.
Michael looked up, not at all surprised to see her—he must have heard her come up the steps and across the main hall. He placed a finger over his lips. “She’s asleep.”
Verity lowered her voice, but not the vehemence of her tone. “That is no excuse for you to lay so much as a finger on her. Or to keep her with you in an indecent state. You should have called either myself or the housekeeper when you realized she was up and about. Now remove your hands from her person. I’m taking her back to her room.”
Michael did nothing. If anything, his grip on Marjorie’s hand tightened. “I’ve seen her like this many times.”
Verity’s jaw clenched. “What do you mean?”
“I found her one night, wandering in the woods behind the cottage. I took her back to the manor. Ever since then she’s come to see me from time to time, when I’m on holiday from school. We are friends.”
“Friends.” There was a note of horror in her voice. Michael had just told her that he had been with Marjorie alone at night, repeatedly.
“It’s not what you think,” Michael said pointedly. “I care for her like a sister. There has never been anything inappropriate between us.”
“I would not characterize your current intimacy as appropriate.”