Page 15 of The Curse of Penryth Hall
The other maid huffed out her breath in a way that made me think she didn’t care too much for whatever this George’s reasons were for jilting poor Miss Smythe. But as George was no more, perhaps it was for the best for the girl. Whoever she was. Good God, I needed a drink to listen to much more of this, although it was more diverting than staring at a dead baronet.
“But for his lordship to put her out on the street without so much as a reference after all this time? You’d think he could have done the decent thing and given her a little blunt after putting a babe in her belly.”
“Sir Edward hadn’t a decent bone in his body,” the first grumbled.
A mistress and baby then. With a dead lover to boot. Well, that would certainly give me a new avenue to pursue. Not that adeadlover would mean much, but a jilted mistress would have plenty of reason to wish ill on Sir Edward. Only I had no idea who the Smythe girl was. Or how I was to find her.
I listened while they finished their cigarettes then disappeared back into the house. Once I made certain they were well and truly gone, I followed them inside determined to wash the stench of death from my skin and put on a decent frock before seeing Tamsyn. After all, it was the very least I could do.
CHAPTERNINEPromises Made
TAMSYNwas sprawled out across the bed when I found her, in the room just beneath my own, staring at me with dry vacant eyes. The sight of her so hopeless and resigned broke something deep inside me.
She sniffed and patted the lush jacquard coverlet, pulling herself up to sitting. She’d grown thinner over the years. Bones too close to the surface, and sitting here with her reedy arms wrapped around her legs, she looked more like a china doll than a woman grown.
Wordlessly I joined her, the mattress giving beneath my added weight. “Did Mrs. Penrose speak with you about… about…”
“Edward?” she asked before shaking her head. “No. There was no need. I already knew. Everyone knew.” She lifted her hand, pointing out the open window. “The bells ring when the curse has returned. I suppose I should have expected it after all. Edward had become obsessed with the thing. Going on and on about it.”
“Mrs. Penrose mentioned it too.”
Tamsyn nodded. “She would. She was here before, backwhen—” Something stopped her and she turned away from me, looking out toward the copse where the clouds had begun to build in earnest. “I suppose I should have listened to him. Should have believed. He was right after all, wasn’t he?”
“You don’t seem terribly upset.” I hesitated.
She shook her head. “Why should I be? There’s no changing what’s happened. Nor is there any changing what will happen next.” Tamsyn drew her lower lip between her teeth, biting hard, her eyes still not meeting mine. “It’s coming for me.”
Her words were so calm, so emotionless, that at first I didn’t register what she’d said. “Tamsyn, that’s…
“It’s the truth. It took his uncle and his wife. It’s only a matter of time.” She cleared her throat, folding her delicate hands in her lap. She’d always had the finest hands with long elegant fingers a pianist would envy. I brushed a tangled lock of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear.
Touching her had an uncanny ability to bridge the space between then and now. The house was silent aside from the rapid thundering of my heart in my chest. This was a mistake. Always a mistake to be this close to her, yet I couldn’t leave her. Not now. “Nothing will come for you. I won’t let it.”
A weak smile crossed her face and died away. Stubbornly she refused to meet my gaze. “You were always too brave by half. I never had your courage, though I wish I did. I could use a dose of it now.”
“Do you remember that night we spent near Soissons?” I brushed her cheek softly. Her skin cool. Damp.
“How could I forget? I thought I’d die that night when the Germans started strafing. It was just you and I and a handful of half-dead men. I swore to myself if I survived that night I’d never join you on another run to the clearing stations.” She closed her eyes tight against the memory. “I don’t know howyou bore it. The responsibility of their lives in your hands. Knowing that most of them wouldn’t even make the journey.”
How many nights had I spent driving that battered ambulance from the clearing station closest to the fighting back to the main hospital in Amiens? Hundreds of miles. Thousands of miles over three interminable years. Looking back on some of the risks I’d taken and the orders I’d blindly followed, it was a marvel I’d survived the ordeal at all. But the devil rarely takes those determined to meet him. I’d already lost my parents and younger sister, the only thing keeping me tethered to the world back then was Tamsyn—then I lost her too.
I cleared my throat, the past uncomfortably close. “You were brave that night. The two of us kept every one of those men alive because there was no other choice, Tamsyn. I need you to be brave now. Because we don’t have a choice. Not anymore.”
She blinked at me uncertainly. “You can’t stop a curse, Ruby. No one can.”
I took her hands in my lap, squeezing them tight. “There’s no such thing as curses. You never believed in them before, why should you now?”
“Perhaps I should have done. Everyone knew what happened to Edward’s uncle. I should have listened to the stories. Heeded the warnings and perhaps Edward wouldn’t be dead.”
I opened my mouth to ask what had come before, no one had spoken of it—but she laid her fingers on my lips, silencing me before I could pry.
“I need you to promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Protect him. Keep him safe. No matter what comes. No matter what happens to me.” Her eyes at long last took on a shade of viridescent emotion.
“Protect who?”
