Page 3 of A Foreign Crown
“Do you suppose one can remain strong eatin’ turnips?” Julia shrugged.
“I wish we could afford something more, but what can we do?” Aribella thought of her father, who seemed weaker by the day, and swallowed. “Turnips will have to suffice. With the garden vegetables and perhaps some flour for biscuits? No jam, I’m afraid.”
Julia sighed. Cook sighed. Everyone appeared to be as miserable as Aribella felt.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this.” The responsibility for caring for even their few weighed on her.
Marzelle patted her hand. “Don’t be blaming yourself. It wasn’t your fault the crops went bad when they did, the tenants all left soon after, none of the lords are repaying the duke for his generosity...” She raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “And your mother...” She stopped talking and looked away. “Forgive me.”
Aribella reached her arm around the shoulders of their dear cook, who had stayed on for little to no pay, cooking delicious things with the barest of ingredients.
What Cook said was true. Aribella’s father had loaned money to half theton, or at least, it seemed that way to Aribella. Most of the loans had gone to gambling wastrels, men who would never be able to pay him back. But he was too good to see through their deceit, as Aribella’s mother had explained to her just twelve months past.
The door opened. James, one of their few remaining footmen, stepped into the room. He bowed. “Forgive me, my lady. But I have the mail.”
She sucked in her breath, hoping today did not bring the inevitable summons. After searching through the letters, she let her air trickle out in quiet relief that no letter from the royal palace had come.
She tapped the stack and pocketed them in her apron, then smiled at her loyal team of servants in sincere gratitude. “Thank you. You are like family to us. I’m not sure how we can ever repay your kindness.”
They each responded in turn, gracious and unassuming—the best of people. When the Sumter estate could no longer afford to keep the majority of its staff, when Aribella and her father had closed up all rooms but a few, the servants had been asked to leave, all with letters of recommendation for future employment. Aribella’s father had worked hard to place each and every one in a respectable house, and most were happily employed elsewhere already. But this group surrounding her at the kitchen table—these three and a few others, including Simmons, her father’s valet, and their dear housekeeper, Mrs. Givens—had refused. They cared for her father with the respectful dignity he deserved, and it warmed Aribella’s heart. She had happily begun aiding in their daily work, and even though she’d known almost nothing about their duties, she had worked hard to learn quickly.
As though she’d summoned him with her thoughts, Simmons soon joined them.
“Is he awake?” Aribella said anxiously.
When her father’s valet nodded, Aribella rose quickly, hurrying from the room.
She ran up the rounded staircase of the tower where her father chose to sleep and then stepped softly into his room. “Papa?” She was happy to see him sitting in an armchair at the window. The deep plush of the furniture almost swallowed what was once a large and imposing frame. The rich color of the fabric contrasted with his skin and highlighted its pallor. But he sat, and Aribella determined to count her blessings. “You are out of bed. I’m so happy to see it.” She sat in the second chair so she chould be near him.
His smile lit his face with a glow that matched the outside swell of the rising sun. The pale amber and yellow in the sky behind him brought hope to her heart. Her father’s cheeks had a slightly flushed color, which might be a sign of greater health. The stone of the walls around the window in his tower room glowed from the sun, and she hoped the room grew warmer by degree, perhaps warm enough to counter the wintry air that also whipped through the tower on occasion.
“Father, perhaps we should move you down to our winter rooms.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t lose my view. Don’t worry. I’m warm enough.”
She helped him lift a cup of broth to his lips from the tray at his side. The warm sustenance barely entered his mouth before he was racked with a fit of coughs.
Aribella waited for his body to calm before she tried again. “This will give you strength. We must fight this illness, Father.”
He obediently took more of the broth, and Aribella watched with relief as his throat moved to swallow some of the fluid. When he was finished, he sat back in his chair, and his eyes sparkled at her. She marveled at their strength and lucidity.
“Tell me, how are things?” he said.
“Oh! I forgot.” She pulled the stack of letters from her apron pocket and handed them to him. “We have received some correspondence.”
He flipped through the sealed papers, glancing over names with disinterest until he stopped on one and held it up. “Well, would you look at that.”
Aribella squinted. “Who is it?”
“It’s my cousin Lord Percival Bartholomew.”
Her heart clenched. “The one who inherits?”
“He mustn’t always be ‘the one who inherits.’ He’s a good man. His father was a good man, and bless him, for I’ve not left him much to inherit, have I?”
She leaned back in her chair, staring out at the blueness of the lightening sky behind him, the great ocean rolling out, wave upon wave. “I know we could rebuild.”
He chuckled. “So like your mother.” His face filled with pain and then cleared. “I see her in everything. I feel her in the very air I breathe. She used to comment on its crispness up here. She enjoyed this tower. She said when the rest of the castle felt damp and smelled thick, Father’s tower had the freshest air. She liked to share it with the birds, she said.”
