It started low in his chest, a harsh, grating sound, and erupted into a loud, barking laugh that echoed off the vaulted ceilings. It was a terrible sound. There was no joy in it. It was the laugh of a man who found the sheer absurdity of hope deeply offensive.
"A home?" he choked out, wiping a hand across his mouth. "You look at this ruin, you look at me, and you think of a home? You're either blind, mad, or stupid."
"I am hungry," Beatrice countered, unblinking. "And I am cold. And so are you."
Arthur's laughter died. He stared at her, breathing heavily, the alcohol and the bitter amusement souring in his veins. He looked at her satchel. He looked at her determined, stubborn chin. He should throw her out. He should physically drag her to the door and lock it.
Instead, he set the bottle down on a nearby barrel with a heavy thud. "There is a cot in the servant's quarters above the stables," he said, his voice stripped of all emotion. "It leaks, but it has a door. You will find nothing in the pantries but root rot and salted beef that tastes like boot leather. If you think you can make a home out of that, you are welcome to try. But do not bother me, and do not speak to me."
He didn't wait for her to answer. He turned and walked away, his footsteps fading into the cavernous, dark belly of the house.
Beatrice stood alone in the kitchen. She looked at the dying fire. She let out a long, shaky breath, her knees finally trembling. She had a roof. She walked over to the hearth, grabbed an iron poker, and began to stoke the embers.
Morning at Harrow Gate didn't break; it simply seeped through the dirty windows in shades of gray.
Beatrice had slept in her clothes. The cot in the stable loft was exactly as Arthur had described: drafty, damp, and uncomfortable. But she had wrapped herself in a moth-eaten wool blanket she found in a trunk and slept the heavy, dreamless sleep of the utterly exhausted.
When she woke, the cold was biting. She didn't linger in bed. There was no time for self-pity; survival required momentum. She washed her face with freezing water from a rusted pump outside, tied her tangled brown hair back with a piece of string, and walked into the manor.
The kitchen was colder than it had been the night before. Beatrice stripped off her coat and rolled up her sleeves. First, the fire: she found a pile of damp wood near the back door. It took her twenty minutes, a lot of blowing, and a few muttered curses, but eventually she coaxed a respectable blaze to life in the massive hearth. The heat hit her face—a small, tangible victory.
Next, the inventory. Arthur had not lied. The pantries were a graveyard of culinary ambition: she found three barrels of flour, two of them infested with weevils; she found a sack of potatoes, half of them sprouted and soft; there were a few withered carrots, a pungent onion, and a small block of salt wrapped in brown paper.
And then there was the meat. Hanging from a hook in the coldest part of the larder was a slab of salted beef. It was dark, hard as mahogany, and looked entirely inedible. Beatrice stared at it. She reached out and knocked on it with her knuckles. It made a solid, hollow sound.
"Right," she murmured to the empty room. "We'll see about you."