The ease of it frightened me, too; I was not cleaning up a mess or cooking in a reputable boardinghouse. These people had protected me, but they had put me in danger, too, and no amount of breezy yam-baking would make me forget it.
The morning skipped by quickly, and soon the cooking was done and Poppy was chasing her hound out the door, trying to recover a piece of yam skin he’d absconded with. Her giggles flew out the door into the yard and I followed, wiping my hands on my apron and leaning against the jamb, closing my eyes against the unexpected warmth of the day and the mild breeze that wound through it. My fingers closed over the spoon in my apron pocket and I frowned, thinking of Lee and what he must be doing. Maybe his uncle was forcing him to drink some of that odious sulfurous water the widow had gone on and on about. While baking, I had watched Mrs. Haylam put together a tray for him; he was not, it seemed, stirring out of his room at all.
Still, he had searched me out so many times, perhaps it was time I did the same. I at last visited the healing waters, leaving the kitchen and winding west around the house. The gardens and barn were visible from the house, but the path between them was covered in a canopy of thick trees that leaned into one another, creating a tangled roof that shadowed the way to the water. I had thought only Bath was blessed with such a natural feature, but this was apparently a well-kept secret. It was sure to make any guests who discovered the feature even more keen to stay.
The smelly water mingled on the breeze as I plunged beneath the tree branches and took the cool walk to the water. I could hear a soft bubbling like a normal spring, but the path soon curved to the right and then dipped downward, revealing a shallow pool contained by sandy brown stones. The stones looked ancient, and they were carved with odd markings and pictures. In the wild grass lay a little tin cup and a matching dipper.
I stopped abruptly; I had not expected to actually find Lee there. His back was to me, and the occasional plop-plop broke the air as he chucked stones listlessly into the pool.
“I believe you’re supposed to drink the water, not fight it,” I said softly.
Lee paused midthrow, turning toward me with a gasp. He looked rattled and sleepless, and maybe a touch unhinged. Some of the old Lee returned as he dropped the pebble and beckoned me forward.
“Please say you came looking for me,” he murmured. “I could so use the flattery.”
“I did, and I hope it cheers you.”
“It would go a lot further if you smiled as you said it,” he teased.
“You first.”
The tiniest smirk banished some of the weariness on his face. “Even when the world is crashing down around my ears, you find a way to make it easier.”
I joined him near the water, staring down into it, liking the way the shifting reflections threw dancing white strands of light all around the grotto. “Imagine that; Mrs. Eames was actually right about this place. Bit smelly, but it really does feel like it could cure all ails.”
“Some,” Lee replied darkly. “Certainly not all.”
For a long moment I had no idea what to say—what would help him or lift some of the terrible burden from his shoulders. First his beloved guardian and now his mother. I had felt loss in my life, but to experience both blows so close together?
“It isn’t at all fair,” I ventured, feeling an odd, girlish compulsion to take his hand. He saved me the trouble, reaching over to take mine. It burned almost as brightly as when I touched that accursed book, but it was not pain this time but comfort, a kind of paralyzing kindness that had so long been absent from my life. I didn’t know what to do with the feeling, so I did nothing at all. “You’re the only good person in the entire house and somehow misfortune still finds you.”
“Misfortune finds us all,” Lee said. He sounded older, suddenly. Wiser. “The only difference is in when and how you resolve to face it.”
“And how will you face this?” I asked, growing accustomed to the shy warmth of his hand against mine.
Lee looked over at me and let his smile broaden the littlest bit. “Not alone, and for now that will have to be enough.”
“Yes, but I should know what to do. I shouldn’t have let you follow your uncle. Then you would have never seen . . . You wouldn’t have to live with those images forever.”
His grip on my hand loosened. “It isn’t your doing, although I can’t help thinking . . . This house, the terrible things that happen in it, doesn’t it all feel connected to what we saw? To how she died? There is an evil that surrounds this place. I fear it leaks out in every direction.”
I couldn’t argue with that. He wasn’t looking at me anymore, and he felt, disastrously, a hundred miles away. How could I blame him for associating me with her death and this bedeviled place?
My senses prickled. Pitney had taught me to know when I was being watched. We were no longer alone. I let go of his hand and turned, finding Mrs. Haylam there, watching us with inscrutably dark eyes.
“Excuse the intrusion, Mr. Brimble, but Mr. Morningside would like to see Louisa.”
She was not turning to leave us, and I glanced at Lee helplessly, mouthing, “I’ll find you later.”
That seemed to be what he needed to hear, and he nodded, padding into the grass and picking up the tin cup that lay there. He lifted it to us both and said with a shrug, “Couldn’t hurt, could it?”
Mrs. Haylam held her silence until we were just a few steps from the kitchen door. I went ahead and tried to shake off her words, though they managed to diminish the surprising lightness in my heart that had come from seeing Lee again.
“I told you not to mingle with that boy,” she warned.
“I wouldn’t have to if your lot would leave him well enough alone,” I spat back. “I’m sure he hates me anyway, given I work with a pack of wolves.”
Her response was cut short by her employer sauntering around the tall table in the kitchen and joining us in the sunshine.
“Shall we convene in my offices?” Mr. Morningside came dressed in his usual sleek suit, a tailcoat with a square cut away and well-fitted tawny trousers. His ivory cravat matched his shirt. It made me feel shabby but honest. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if offered a silk dress and slippers.
“I would rather not,” I said. “Your birds are . . . I don’t want to be around them.”
“Ah. Yes. I heard you sat in on a ferrying. Incredible, isn’t it?”
“That’s one word for it.” I dropped my apron and stepped out into the daylight, narrowly avoiding the pup that tore around the yard, nimbly avoiding his owner with a piece of yam flapping against his jaws. “A walk would suit me better.”