A Bloom in Winter (6 page)

“So let’s leave the cousins out of this. The more people who know, the more risk that the secret is going to get out. When I return to London tomorrow, I will send a note from someone asking you to visit. Who should it be?”

Victoria frowned, thinking hard. “Priscilla Kingsly. She is still in France, but I don’t think anyone here knows that. The Kingsly family is respectable. No one will know.”

“What about Rowena?”

Rowena won’t even notice I’m gone
, Victoria thought with a pang. “I’ll tell her that I’m visiting Prudence. They still aren’t speaking, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Where are you actually going to be staying? You can’t stay at my house, obviously. Mother would have us married before the week was out. You can’t stay in a nice hotel, because you might be recognized. And a boardinghouse is out of the question.”

Victoria leaned back in her seat. “Ho! Look at how conventional you are!” she jeered. “I suppose it would be too
unrespectable
for a young woman to stay at a boardinghouse by herself!”

He flushed a mottled red that almost matched his hair. “Blast respectability! It would be
unsafe
. There’s a difference. Now do you want my help or not?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll stay with Katie. She’s a friend of mine from Miss Fister’s Secretarial School for Young Ladies.” Given the way servants were looked upon at Summerset, she didn’t add that Katie used to be the family’s kitchen maid. “Write the letter. Make it for a week from today and I’ll take the railway into town. I’ll write to Katie.”

A smile tugged at her lips as excitement swelled in her chest. For years she’d been coddled as the invalid little sister. But now she finally had a chance to prove to her family—and, more important, to herself—that she truly was capable of great things.

After posting letters to Katie and Mr. Herbert the next morning, she dressed in her warmest clothing and wrapped a long woolen cloak around her. She wasn’t stupid, and going off on an adventure without letting anyone in on her plan was dangerous. Of course, there was only one person she truly needed to tell, and not even nasty weather was going to stop her.

Victoria ran into her cousin on her way out. Elaine held a soft mohair throw in her arms and was already dressed in a flowing pale pink tea gown.

Astonished, Elaine’s eyebrows disappeared beneath a fringe of curls on her forehead. “You’re not going out in this weather, are you? It’s freezing outside and looks as if it might snow. Come curl up with me in the sitting room in front of a fire. We’ll read and gossip and lounge like cats.”

As inviting as her cousin’s invitation was, Victoria wanted to get to Nanny Iris’s and back before the weather got any worse. “I’ll be back in a bit and we can lounge the rest of the day away. I’ll even play you a game of checkers. I’m only going to Nanny Iris’s.”

Elaine shrugged. “Suit yourself. Don’t freeze, poppet.”

Victoria began to regret her decision about halfway to her destination. It was a scant two miles and Victoria had walked it many times, but why, oh, why hadn’t she had the driver take her? By the time she reached Nanny Iris’s she was breathing far harder than the walk would indicate. Nanny Iris quickly took off Victoria’s cloak and sat her by the fire in a comfortable rocking chair.

“What in God’s name were you thinking, child, coming out in weather such as this?”

Victoria grimaced but couldn’t catch her breath enough to
make a scathing retort. Her lungs were tight and cold and her throat felt as if it was closing.

Why could she never remember to carry her nebulizer with her?

“Sit tight. I’ll bring you a concoction I made up.”

Frustrated, she closed her eyes and began counting slowly as her doctor had taught her. Though now Victoria wondered whether the trick actually helped ward off the attack or whether the counting exercise was simply meant to keep her from panicking and gasping like a strangled fish.
Nine . . . ten . . . eleven . . .
Victoria still struggled to take in air. Sometimes she wondered whether this was the way she was going to die.

Squeezing her eyes shut tighter against that thought, she fought down the panic and counted slowly, taking little breaths every fourth beat.

It seemed only a moment before Nanny Iris was back, holding a hot, steaming cup in front of her nose. “Drink this,” she commanded.

The bitterness of the brew hit her nostrils and Victoria jerked her head sideways without meaning to.

“Oh, stop behaving like a baby,” the old woman groused.

Surprised, Victoria took an obedient sip, shuddering as the acrid taste hit her tongue. Nanny Iris chuckled.

“I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to sweeten it up a bit with mint and honey, but you’re a big girl. Now drink it down.”

Victoria did as she was told, sip after little sip, until the cup was all gone and her breathing had returned to normal. Dizziness lurked around her head as it always did after an attack, but she wasn’t shaky as she always felt after the nebulizer, which invariably made her ill for the rest of the day.

“What was in that?” Victoria asked when she had recovered enough to speak.

“Licorice, coltsfoot, turmeric, and an herb all the way from the American West, grindelia.”

Victoria looked at the muddy leaves in the bottom of her cup with more respect. “How did you know to add that?”

“I’ve been all over the world, my dear. I know a great many things far beyond the borders of Suffolk and have friends from many a far place. I wrote to one of them concerning your condition and she sent me some of the herb.”

Victoria reached out and patted the old woman’s cheek. “I can’t believe you would do that for me. Thank you.”

Nanny Iris cleared her throat and took the cup from Victoria. “That doesn’t mean you should go anywhere without your medicine and your nebulizer. You’re not a little girl anymore. There will come a time when there is no one to save you with tea.”

Suitably chastened, Victoria nodded. Along with Kit, Nanny Iris had made the months since her father’s death bearable. She had lived the life Victoria longed to live—independent and adventurous. She had been the Buxton family nanny until Victoria’s father’s little sister, Halpernia, had drowned. Then she had traveled, teaching English in faraway countries until she finally came home to be with family in her old age. It was a full life that had little to do with catering to a man or children, and Victoria longed to emulate it.

Now that the crisis was over, she longed to tell Nanny Iris about her own upcoming adventure, but for the first time a little doubt niggled. Victoria knew that Nanny Iris cared for her. Would she really be all right with Victoria running off to London by herself? She decided to amend her story a bit, just to be safe.

“Do you remember that article I sold? The one I brought you?” she asked.

“Remember it? Of course I remember it. I told my brother about it just the other day!” Nanny Iris went into the kitchen and came back with some real tea and a plate of biscuits. “Here, this will wash out the nasty taste.”

Victoria took a sip of the tea. “Well, I sent him another article.” She waited until the old woman settled herself across from her before continuing. “He liked that one, as well. He didn’t say he would publish it, but he did repeat his invitation to meet with him, so next week I am going to London to do just that!”

Nanny Iris’s eyes widened. “Do you think that’s wise?”

Victoria frowned. This was not the reaction she had expected at all. “Of course it’s wise! He has asked me twice.”

Nanny Iris shook her head. “No, dear. He has asked V. Buxton twice. Not you.”

“I am V. Buxton,” she told the old woman firmly.

“I know that, but Mr. Harold Herbert doesn’t know that. I don’t bet often, but I would wager that Mr. Herbert believes V. Buxton to be a young man, possibly a university student or one who has just finished his studies. Not the very bright, self-educated, very young daughter of a brilliant botanist.”

Why was everyone determined to ruin this for her? Mr. Herbert was already impressed with her
work
. Surely it wouldn’t matter that she was female. She remembered the intellectuals who often frequented her father’s dinner parties while she was growing up. Many were women, such as the Italian doctor Maria Montessori and the brilliant physicist Marie Curie, and all were taken seriously no matter their sex. She tilted her chin. “I plan on being a botanist, one way or another. My father taught me how important it is for a scientist to be published.
And Mr. Herbert has already bought one of my articles! It is going to be
fine
.”

Victoria swept away any doubts with a wave of her hand. She had to hold firm to the conviction that she was destined for greatness, that she was more than an invalid whose own lungs threatened to fail her at any given moment. Otherwise, she’d still be bedridden, the object of everyone’s constant worry and coddling. She was strong. And she would be successful, one way or another. She would show everyone. Including Nanny Iris.

R
owena spurred her horse on to a quicker pace and soon they were galloping across the field. The cold pierced her skin through the carefully arranged netting on her face and she knew Aunt Charlotte would berate her later for chapping her cheeks.

Ever since she and Aunt Charlotte had gone on calls, Aunt Charlotte had taken a strange interest in Rowena, at times treating her as she treated Elaine. Rowena and Elaine puzzled over this, but neither was sure what to make of it, only that her ladyship had something up her sleeve and they should both be on their guard.

But out here, Aunt Charlotte ceased to exist. In fact, everything ceased to exist. It was the closest Rowena had been to happiness since her father died. Except for when she was flying with Jon, or when he kissed her on the frozen pond. But at those moments, she hadn’t been close to happy, she had actually been happy. No, happy didn’t quite describe it. She’d been euphoric.

But that had been weeks ago. She still searched the sky every day, but the only wings she spotted were those of the crows, whose caws mocked her pain.

So today she was taking matters into her own hands and riding to the Wells Manor, which lay just to the southeast of their
own home. Long before, a Wells had saved the life of a Buxton heir and had been given a manor home along with a sizable portion of Buxton land. The friendship had been lost over the years until recent history turned the age-old friends into enemies, but surely that had nothing to do with Jon and her, did it?

Rowena slowed her horse to a walk, her mind spinning. Every time she convinced herself that Buxton family history had no bearing on her future, doubt kicked in. Of course it affected them. How could Jon introduce her to his mother?
Mother, I know this is the beloved niece of the man who stole our land and drove your husband, my father, to his grave . . . but I love her
.

Love?
Rowena jerked on the reins in surprise and her horse snorted. Where had that come from? Did she
want
him to love her? Her mind answered with speed so blinding she wondered why she had not seen it before. Yes. Of course she wanted his love. The world had felt so cold and gray in the months since her father’s death and Prudence’s departure, the thought that someone could love her gave her a sense of warmth and comfort. But she couldn’t help but wonder whether that meant that she truly loved him?

She thought of the strawberry blond of his hair, the clear blue of his eyes, and the keen way he had of seeing and weighing everything. His bravery and persistence when he was testing airplanes over and over again, even with memories of recent—and nearly fatal—crashes fresh in his mind.

She certainly preferred him to any man she had ever known, but
love
? And why would she want him to love her if she didn’t love him back? Perhaps she was far more of a coquette than she’d thought she was. Or maybe she was allowing her fondness for flying, which she loved unabashedly, to influence her feelings for the handsome pilot.

She was used to missing her father—the pain stayed with her day and night—but suddenly an older, softer ache surfaced, and it was her mother she longed for. Someone she could talk to about young men. Someone to help her figure all of this out.

The path turned onto a road with a broken wooden fence and she knew she had arrived at the Wells family manor, left neglected and run-down because of her uncle’s greed.

Swallowing, she turned her horse through the fence, wondering again what she had hoped to accomplish in coming here. Perhaps if she could just speak with him. He had asked her to fly with him again and had yet to make good on his offer. Yes. That was what she would say.

Feeling more confident, she nudged her horse into a trot and continued down the frozen track. She rounded a corner and inhaled when she saw the home. It was small compared to what she was used to, and it looked older and mellower than Summerset, though it obviously had been built during the same era, as the basic design and stone were the same. But whereas everything at Summerset Abbey was created to inspire awe, Wells Manor was built to be as comfortable and as useful as possible. The kitchen garden, though fallow this time of year, lay in full view on the side of the house and Rowena could glimpse the family’s orchards just beyond it. A worn path from the front door led to a barn on a small copse beyond an old abandoned well house. This was a house where the inhabitants might have had help but were no strangers to working the land themselves, which made good sense to Rowena. If one were to live off the land, one should know how it worked.