Page 16 of Once Upon a Midnight Dreary
As she said it, a raven flapped overhead.So close, in fact, she heard the flutter of its wings.It headed past her, disappearing over the stone wall at the back of the garden into the morning.
An omen.
Uncle Hubert matched her stride.She noticed then, with some chagrin, her legs burned from her hurry.She slowed, taking her time to examine the loveliness of the garden.
“I just don’t want you to think you don’t have a choice,” he said.
Her dear uncle.Such a sweet man.He wanted the best for her, she could tell.And he worried about her being here alone with that caretaker.The caretaker who had dark eyes that seemed to watch her every move.Thinking of Gabriel sent a shiver through her.
There was something about him that made her a bit wary.A bit on edge.Something that told her he’d been here in Ravenfell far too long.She searched her childhood memories.Had he been here then?Skulking about the halls and keeping his watchful gaze on everything and everyone?
She couldn’t recall.
Victoria halted at a bunch of lilacs, their scent wafting up toward her.They reminded her of her mother, who always preferred lilacs and lilies.A smile played at the corners of her mouth as she gazed at her uncle with his worried expression.
On impulse, she leaned over and kissed his cheek.“I thank you for that.”
She started walking again.The morning sun was hot on the top of head and she wished she had a bonnet to shade her face from the bright rays.
“At least let me look over the ledgers with you and that man,” he said.
Ever the banker.She grinned.“That man has a name, uncle.”
“Yes, I know.”He sniffed derision as though he was loathe to speak his name aloud.As though it might conjure the sudden presence of the man.
“I’m sure Gabriel can show me everything I need to know.”
“I’m sure he can.However, I must insist.”
She chuckled at his stern tone and relented.Her uncle was a banker, after all.He’d know if something was amiss in the ledgers.“All right, uncle.If you insist.We’ll look at the ledgers together this afternoon.Perhaps while we have tea.Would that make you feel better?”
“You know it would, my dear.”He paused at a particularly vibrant hydrangea, its petals a delicate shade of pale blue.“Your mother was an excellent gardener.”
It sounded like an offhanded comment, but one that took Victoria by surprise.“My mother planted these?”
“The whole garden,” he said with a fond smile.“Every path, every bloom.She had a gift.Won best in show three years running at the Elderbloom Flower Festival.”He chuckled.“You should’ve seen her with a pair of shears and a sun hat.No one dared interrupt.”
Victoria blinked.Somehow, she had never known.Her mother had always seemed like a ghost.Beautiful, remote, drifting from one social event to the next.
A weathered wooden bench sat several steps away.She resumed walking toward it, needing to sit with this new image of her mother.Her uncle followed and joined her, finding his place while she remained perched at the chair’s edge.
“Tell me more about her,” she said quietly.“Mother and Father traveled so much, I don’t recall much about them.”
Uncle Hubert folded his hands on his knees.His voice gentled.
“She loved the gardens.It was the only place she ever seemed at peace.But she was your father’s wife, and that meant traveling.They were rarely still.He was a man of ambition.Always chasing diplomacy, deals, titles.She followed because she had to.She didn’t always want to leave you behind.”
Victoria’s throat tightened.“Then why did she?”
Hubert hesitated.“Because that’s what was expected.And because she thought you were safer in the city after they packed up and left Ravenfell.All the courts, the travel, the endless social engagements.Dragging you from place to place.She believed it would harden you.So, she left you with tutors and governesses and thought that was best.”
A breeze stirred the hydrangeas, and for a moment, the garden seemed to sigh around them.
After they packed up and left Ravenfell.The words stuck in her mind.
She recalled with some unexpected clarity they left abruptly one night, never to return.Her mother had a ghostly look about her face as though she’d witnessed something she never wanted to see again or speak of.Her father, with his gruff exterior and stoic face, led them from the manor to a carriage that took them to their home in the city.
After that it was nonstop travel for them and seeing very little of her parents.
