Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon (6 page)

Janetta took a seat beside her, and
then she filled two mugs, gently nudging Lady Morgan’s hand with
one of them.

“
Thank you.” Taking the
cup, Lady Morgan lifted it to her lips, giving a near-imperceptible
sniff before drinking. “Oh, chocolate! How lovely.” After
swallowing a delicate sip, she sent a conspiratorial smile that
brightened her features across in Emma’s direction. “What book are
you reading today, Miss Hathaway?”

Emma’s jaw dropped. How could Lady
Morgan possibly know she was reading?

Janetta chuckled. “I daresay you’ve
surprised your friend, my lady.”

Emma wanted to sink below the table
and never be seen again, her mortification was so great. She wished
she had somehow learned the art of schooling her features into
perfect placidity. At this very moment, her cheeks were heating
uncontrollably.

“
You’ve not changed so much
in these last few years that you aren’t constantly absorbed in a
book, have you?” Lady Morgan took another sip and held the dainty
china cup between her hands as though warming herself on it. “I’ll
be highly disappointed if you aren’t exactly as I left
you.”

Was that a hint of humor?
If so, Emma may not have changed, but Lady Morgan certainly had.
Emma forced her jaw to close. “
Persuasion
, today.”

“
I loved
Persuasion
. Janetta read
it to me several months ago.”

The footman placed two plates heaped
with eggs, sausages, bread, and fresh fruit with clotted cream
before the ladies. Ever-so-inconspicuously, Janetta guided Lady
Morgan’s right hand to the silver.

She grasped a fork and lifted a bite
to her mouth. After she chewed and swallowed, she grinned at Emma
again. “And yesterday? What did you read then?”

Emma couldn’t contain her
chuckle. “
Mansfield Park
last night.”

“
Only one book? You went an
entire day and read only a single book? I’m shocked, Miss
Hathaway.”

“
I started
Waverley
on the journey
over and finished it not long after your arrival.”

“
That sounds more like the
Miss Hathaway I remember,” Lady Morgan said. She felt for a
strawberry and picked it up, then searched her plate for the
clotted cream to dip it into. Her movements were slow and
meticulous, but also very studied. Not to mention impressive. Any
time Emma had to move about in the dark, she invariably stubbed a
toe on her bed or spilled water down the front of her nightrail.
Lady Morgan didn’t have even the tiniest hint of sight to aid her,
though.

Heathcote Park’s housekeeper poked her
head around the doorway. “Oh, good. There you are, Miss Drummond,”
she said to Janetta. “One of the footmen suggested I might find you
here.”

“
What is the problem, Mrs.
Oldham?” The maid dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a napkin
of fine silk.

“
I was hoping we could
discuss any needs your mistress might have this morning, before the
house is overrun by the rest of His Lordship’s guests.”

“
Of course.” Janetta left
her napkin beside her plate and pushed back from the table. “That
sounds like an excellent plan. Lady Morgan, will you manage all
right without me for a bit?”

“
I’m fine. Go.” Lady Morgan
shooed Janetta with her a hand when the maid failed to leave
immediately. “Miss Hathaway will assist me if I need anything.
Won’t you?”

“
Of course,” Emma said. She
looked over at the hesitant lady’s maid, who might actually be more
of a nurse in this situation, and tried to offer a reassuring
smile. “We’ll do just fine on our own.”

The maid vacillated for a moment
longer, then she gave a brisk nod. “I’ll be back shortly, my lady.
Wait here for me, if you please.”

“
Go,” Lady Morgan repeated
on a laugh. The sound was soft and tinkling, even a bit melodic,
like chimes in the wind. Emma couldn’t remember ever hearing it
before. Had she truly not laughed once during that entire fortnight
so long ago?

When the door closed with a snick,
Lady Morgan let out a long breath. “I was beginning to think she
wouldn’t leave me. They have all developed a tendency to hover,
lately…especially my brothers. But the servants are no
better.”

“
They are just worried
about you, my lady,” Emma said, hoping to reassure her.

“
They’ve been worried for
far too long. And please, just call me Morgan.” She took another
bite and spilled a bit from her fork onto her lap. She frowned and
her brow furrowed. “Oh, fiddle.”

Emma started to run around the table
to assist her, but Morgan stayed her with a hand.

“
I can manage. I’ve been
managing for over two years. Something my brothers seem to
conveniently forget more often than not.”

Emma didn’t know what to say to that.
Surely Morgan recognized that they were only worried about her,
that they only wanted what was best for her. Still, they might very
well smother her with their assistance if they didn’t learn to let
go. Morgan seemed entirely capable of doing a great deal on her
own, yet from what Emma could tell, someone was with her at every
moment, coddling her along like a babe just learning to walk.
Granted, she’d nearly done the same herself—but Morgan’s family had
been living with her all along. They ought to know what she could
and couldn’t do on her own.

“
I’m sure it is quite
vexing to never have a moment to yourself,” Emma murmured for lack
of anything more appropriate coming to mind. “If I’m to call you
Morgan, you must call me Emma.”

“
Emma,” Morgan said with a
wide grin stretching her scarred features. “Well, this is
delightful. I’ve not had a friend such as you for too long. Do you
think tomorrow afternoon we might walk through the arbor? I know
today will be filled with greeting the other guests and the like so
there won’t be time, but I should very much enjoy taking a walk
with you tomorrow.”

“
Of course. If it is all
right with your brothers, that is.” The last thing Emma needed was
for Mr. Cardiff to glare at her again for yet another unknown
indiscretion. She couldn’t very well attract an unsuspecting,
eligible gentleman’s notice with Mr. Cardiff looking daggers at
her. It would give off a most definitively
wrong
impression.

Morgan frowned. “It will be. They’ll
be distracted with all of the house party goings-on. We can easily
make our escape.”

“
Escape?” Emma said,
laughing. “It sounds as though they might not be so accepting of
our plans if we must escape.”

Leaning across the table, Morgan
lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Won’t it be more exciting,
though? I dreadfully need a little excitement in my
life.”

If the girl couldn’t take two steps
without someone racing to her assistance, Emma could well imagine
that to be the case. “Indeed you do,” she said slowly. In all the
time of their acquaintance, Emma had never known Morgan to have
anything worth becoming excited about in her life. Three years ago,
she’d been so despondent.

She finished off the last few cold
bites of her shirred eggs and followed it with a sip of her
chocolate, all the while staring at her new friend across the
table. Here, with the morning light coming through the eastern
windows, her scars were more pronounced than ever—red and angry, so
visible she could almost see the blisters which must have marred
her skin. “Morgan?” she asked tentatively. Never, in a thousand
lifetimes, should she dare to ask what she was about to. But she
couldn’t seem to stop herself. “What…what happened?”

“
The scars and the
blindness, you mean?” Morgan ate her last bite of sausage and wiped
her mouth with a napkin. “The same as what happened here three
years ago. Instead of trying to drown myself, I thought to try
poison, but I picked the wrong weed.”

Emma brushed back a tear. “Oh,
heavens.” All of this, because the man Morgan had loved had
betrayed her? Emma racked her mind, trying to be certain that her
memory would not fail her on this score. But that had been the
cause—an intended who’d come home from the wars already married to
another.

All the more reason Emma would never
trust her own heart with a man until he was well and truly her
husband. Too many ladies in her acquaintance had been left
heartbroken because of fickle men.

“
It seems I wasn’t meant to
die yet—three attempts, three failures. There were things I had yet
to learn, I suppose. Life I had yet to live.”

Three attempts? Emma bit the inside of
her lower lip to keep from blurting out anything else untoward.
Thank goodness Morgan couldn’t see her expression, although it was
entirely possible she might sense Emma’s tension. Still, even
though they were becoming friends again, the degree of their
friendship was, as yet, rather tenuous.

She didn’t want to push Morgan too
far, too soon. Better to focus on those things they’d already begun
discussing. “Does it hurt?”

“
The scars? Not anymore.”
Morgan sipped from her cup of chocolate. “Not since a few weeks
after that day. I’m sure it pains you more to look at me than it
pains me to live with it.”

“
Oh, no. I—”

“
It’s all right.” Morgan
smiled tenuously. “You don’t need to apologize for what you see. I
did this to myself.” Her voice was shy and gentle, and she dipped
her head.

The door opened, and the devil himself
walked through. His blistering gaze locked on Emma briefly, and her
skin crawled with goose flesh. Mr. Cardiff turned his focus to
Morgan, leaving Emma shivering in this wake of his
stare.

“
Mr. Cardiff,” Emma
whispered, dipping her head to avoid his gaze once more. The
intensity of his blue eyes was mesmerizing, even when it was filled
with his animosity.

“
Good morning, Morgan. Miss
Hathaway,” he added tersely a moment later. Resentment heavily
laced his tone when he said her name, but the hostility seemed to
have left his eyes, at least for the time being. “Why has Janetta
left you alone, Morgan?” he asked when he faced his sister again.
His eyes narrowed to slits.

“
I’m far from alone.” A
thin line creased Morgan’s brow—the only outward sign of her
frustration.

Emma doubted she knew she’d revealed
that much. Likewise, she doubted Mr. Cardiff had noticed his
sister’s vexation. He certainly showed no indication that he’d
noticed any change. Could he truly be so oblivious to his sister,
while at the same time being so thoroughly unable to leave her to
do things without his interference?

“
Miss Hathaway has kept me
company since Janetta was called away and has done an admirable job
of it. The housekeeper needed to discuss things about my condition
with Janetta before everyone else arrived. Surely you can
understand the necessity for that.”

Mr. Cardiff grunted but said nothing.
He sat beside his sister. The footman cleared away Janetta’s plate
and replaced it with a newly-filled dish.

Before moving away from the table, the
footman bowed to Emma. “May I bring you anything else,
ma’am?”

She turned her empty plate aside and
shook her head. Any thought of eating had fled along with her body
heat the moment Mr. Cardiff entered the breakfast room. He’d also
stolen her ability to think of anything to say. Why did being near
him cause her heart to hammer and her tongue to twist? She felt
like such a ninnyhammer. Emma stared at her hands folded together
on her lap as the weight of the sudden silence pressed down on her
shoulders.

Morgan did not speak, either, but
continued to drink from her cup of chocolate.

Mr. Cardiff rapidly broke his fast,
not pausing to speak or drink. He continued to stare across at Emma
as he ate, the expression in his cold, blue eyes revealing a
combination of exasperation and inquisitiveness. Emma felt his gaze
more than saw it. He left her fighting off a series of shudders
that threatened to overwhelm her because of how unnatural they
felt. It wasn’t fear or anger causing them. She didn’t quite know
what it was, other than decidedly unnerving.

Within a few, short minutes, he had
finished. He turned to his sister and placed the tips of his
fingers on the back of her hand. “Well, shall we begin our day?” He
stood and took Morgan’s hand, attempting to help her
rise.

“
Janetta asked me to wait
for her here. I shouldn’t leave.”

Mr. Cardiff scowled fiercely, but his
tone remained light. “I’ll take you to her. She won’t be cross with
you for joining her. I’m sure the housekeeper might have some
questions that you could answer better than Janetta could,
anyway.”

Morgan sighed. “Very well.” She
allowed her brother to assist her to her feet. When they reached
the door, Morgan stopped and turned back to Emma. “I look forward
to your company again later today—if I am to enjoy it, that is.”
Her tone was hopeful.

Emma would deny Morgan nothing, but
she wasn’t so certain about Mr. Cardiff’s intentions. She glanced
at the gentleman before responding. A muscle jerked in his cheek,
but he remained silent.