A Grave Matter BY Anna Lee Huber
CHAPTER ONE
Remember, friends, as you pass by,
As you are now so once was I.
As I am now, so you must be.
Prepare yourself to follow me.
—EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GRAVE EPITAPH
CLINTMAINS HALL
BORDER REGION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND
DECEMBER 31, 1830
The flames leaped high into the starry sky. Revelers clapped and reeled about each other in the golden flickering light, there and then gone, swallowed by the darkness and the whirling mass of their fellow merrymakers. As the orchestra behind me paused between songs, I could just make out the feverish pitches of a fiddle and the low thump of a drum playing a Scottish jig. It floated on the crisp night air through the open French doors. What the players lacked in skill, they certainly made up for in exuberance.
The professional musicians playing in the ballroom behind me had also gotten into the festive spirit. Our hosts, my aunt and uncle, the Lord and Lady Rutherford, never would have stood for anything less. Most of the assemblage of local nobility and gentry were dancing, just like their servants and the villagers outside, and those who were not were either too old or too infirm to join in.
Or perhaps they’d simply wished for a quiet moment to themselves.
Unfortunately my brother, who’d been hovering about me all night, failed to understand this.
“Kiera, stop sulking,” Trevor chastised, appearing at my side.
“I’m not,” I protested.
He arched an eyebrow in skepticism. “Then why are you off in this corner by yourself?”
I nodded toward the scene outside. “I’m watching the antics of the servants at the bonfire. It’s quite diverting.” Once or twice I thought I saw the silhouette of one of our servants from Blakelaw House dance across the light, but they were too far away to be certain.
“That may be, but you’re supposed to be diverted by our antics in here,” he teased. Though his tone was light, I didn’t miss the glint of annoyance in his bright blue eyes.
We had argued over my coming to the Hogmanay Ball. I had not wanted to attend, while Trevor had insisted I must. Ultimately he had his way only because he had pointed out that many of our loyal servants would feel they couldn’t attend the accompanying bonfire if I remained behind, no matter how strongly I protested otherwise. But even my reluctant attendance still wasn’t enough for him. He had to linger about me all evening to ensure I was enjoying myself, which was irritating in the extreme, even as it was also endearing.
“Come.”
He gripped my elbow below the fashionably puffed sleeve of my midnight blue gown and tugged me toward the dance floor, where the orchestra played the first strains of a waltz. He pulled me effortlessly into the swirl of couples circling the gleaming wooden floor. The women were dressed in bright full-skirted gowns and the men in austere black coats and colorful tartan kilts.
I considered arguing with Trevor about his high-handedness, but then decided it would be silly. I did want to dance, and my brother was as skilled a partner as any. When he swung me into a tight turn, surprising a smile out of me, I suddenly realized how long it had been since we faced each other so. Certainly, I had danced with Trevor far more than any other gentleman of my acquaintance, for he had been forced to partner me by our childhood dancing master. We had stepped on each other’s toes and smacked one another in the face with an errant hand too many times to count. Once I had even bloodied his nose.
But that had been a long time ago. Sometimes it even seemed to me that it had been in another life. One I had lived before my disastrous marriage to Sir Anthony. Before his death and the resulting scandal from the charges brought against me because of my involvement with his gruesome work.
I shook away the troubling memories and tried to concentrate on the room before me. Trevor and I glided expertly across the floor to the Schubert waltz, proving that neither of us had forgotten how, though I suspected it had been far longer since I had done so than my brother. Trevor had always been a popular dance partner, and I doubted that had changed in the years since I had attended a ball in his company. Though even at my most awkward, he always had time for a dance or two with his little sister. That may have only been a small matter to him, but it had meant a great deal to me.
“Where have your thoughts gone?” His voice was flippant, but he couldn’t hide the concern I saw reflected in his eyes. “From the way you’re frowning, I expect my toes to be strategically crushed at any moment.”
I tilted my head. “As if my feet in these dainty slippers could cause you much discomfort.”
“You think not, but I seem to remember that the bone in your heel has always been remarkably sharp.”
I smiled sweetly. “Only when I’m grinding it into your instep.”