Page 50 of The Wise Daughter
She did not have to be careful.
Nora waited until the sky was dark and the castle was still. She had stayed in her room that night reading instead of joining Aaron for dinner. The tray Janie had brought to her room laid half eaten on the table.
Nora sat at the writing table in her room scribbling down notes. She had an entire page filled with everything she knew about the thieves, though most of the page consisted of her questions, resulting in a chaotic jumble of underlines and scratches.
Eventually, thoughts about thieves slowed, and another page of notes took shape, things like Aaron’s generosity, his green eyes, and why would he not play the pianoforte for her? One page turned into two as she found more qualities to admire and more questions to weigh. Little things found their way to these notes like what Aaron liked to eat for breakfast. Short phrases likecontagious laugh, sharp wit, andhandsome jawwere everywhere, written in the order they occurred to her. More serious questions like why did he want to marry her, and would he truly value her opinions were underlined. When her hand became so uninhibited as to start describing what being in his arms felt like, she slammed the pen down.
This is stupid!
Nora’s cheeks were now excessively hot. She picked up her notes, crumpled them into a ball, and tossed them in the fire.
Everything with Aaron was happening too quickly. Engaged within minutes of meeting, using Christian names shortly after, and always wondering what sort of closeness was appropriate. He had held her hand. He had pulled her to his chest with those sturdy, anchoring arms, but they had never shared a kiss, though they had sometimes come close.
What would happen if she allowed all worries and fears to fly away so she could reach for Aaron and be held again? What if she forgot about dowries and land and thieves and simply let herself love?
Oh, what was the point of dwelling on such things? Thoughts like that only muddled her reasoning, which she needed more than ever. There was a marriage settlement, an entire castle to learn to run, and a lofty title waiting for her if she did not break the engagement
Nora reached for the small chain around her neck and clutched the miniature of her mother. Her mind went back to a year and a half ago before her mother had grown sick. They had talked of going to London for a season and had daydreamed of all the diverting ways they could spend their time at soirees and the theater, and somewhere in their laughter and planning, they talked of what would happen when Nora fell in love.
None of those daydreams had ever placed her in a castle full of secrets and thieves. The longer she stayed, the more she felt the weight of their unseen presence. How much were their threats interfering with her desire to make choices? To think that Aaron had been carrying this burden for months after losing his father.
Nora spun the signet ring on her thumb and wished for Aaron’s company. How had he made her care about him so quickly?
From the moment she saw him unconscious on the riverbank, her heart had reached out, eager to see him well, but to be swept up in a current leading toward marriage, urging her to love him now before she thoroughly understood his character, left her gasping for breath. She wanted to savor the moments of falling in love in her own time. She wanted to know that she was loved in return, and oh, how she wanted her husband to value her!
Hadn’t Aaron already shown how much he valued her opinions? He had taken her advice regarding the servants ball and the chimney sweep, but his reminder of the responsibilities that awaited after marriage made her question whether she could live up to theexpectations he held for his future duchess. What if he eventually regretted choosing her?
Doubt is a thief,he had said. He was right about that.
“Tonight is not for sorting through the burdens in my heart,” she whispered, throwing on her robe and sliding her feet into her softest slippers. “Tonight is for making progress.”
She closed her bed curtains so any maid who might come to stoke the fire would not notice her absence. Once she was certain no one prowled outside her corridor, Nora picked up a lit candle and slipped through the door.
Her goal was simple. Stay hidden and learn something useful. Else how was she to unmask the thieves or learn who Aaron truly was? What or where that useful information might be, she had no idea, but she suspected that thieves and family secrets left trails.
She pictured the castle in her mind. She and her father were in the west wing. She knew her way to the music room, to the great hall, to Aaron’s study, and she had a general idea of where some of the other galleries and sitting rooms were, but there were entire levels and wings she had yet to explore.
With a deep breath, she worked her way through known corridors to the unknown parts.
At one point, Nora saw a young scullery maid who looked too exhausted to notice Nora cross the corridor perpendicular to the one she was in. Nora shied away from any flickers of light other than the one coming from her own candle, lest she be found, but there were hardly any others about.
Once she had ventured deep enough into new areas, she found herself in a great gallery with several missing portraits. Gaps in the methodical placement of square and rectangular frames showed where paintings both large and small were missing. Most of the ones that remained were the largest ones.
“This is not the work of a petty thief,” Nora whispered. Such a thief who only sought money would take the closest valuable item and run. This sort of stealing took time and planning. This was the work of someone methodical and careful.
She held her candle up, pausing only a moment to admire a portrait of a young boy. “Are you the young Aaron who did not wish to sit still for his portrait? If so, you were undeniably adorable.”
The face held the same features, softened in boyhood, with curlier, lighter ginger hair that she imagined was so unruly the artist had to tame it on his canvas. She could easily imagine by that reluctant smile how Aaron must have argued with his mother against adorning that frilled collar.
On she walked, testing door handles and making note of unique characteristics of every corridor to remember her way. Some doors were locked. Others opened to small parlors, superfluous guest rooms, and rooms that were entirely empty. When she came to one especially ornate door, the hairs on her arms rose.
The door was unlocked. Inside was an expansive, well-furnished bedchamber that smelled of stale air and strange herbs. The curtains around the bed’s posters were closed, and everything was covered in oversized sheets, probably to protect the furniture from dust. Nora walked around, testing the feel of the sheets between her fingers. They weren’t as dusty as she might have expected for an unused room.
Just in case, she tiptoed to the bed and peeked behind the bed curtains.Empty.
Gaining confidence, she pulled off the sheet from a writing desk. Inside the drawers were old letters spread without order, a broken pocket watch relieved of its chain, wax for melting into seals, a dried ink stopper, and a mess of quills with broken tips and stripped feathers.
She gathered every letter into a neat stack and held the first letter close to her candle, its thin yellow glow barely shedding enough light to make out the words. It was a letter to the late duke dated fourmonths ago from Mr. Hansley about repairing the church. The next letter was from someone Nora didn’t know, matters of business. As was the next and the next.
