Thrown Out on Christmas Eve, She Took Shelter in an Empty House — Unaware the Duke Was Coming Home
Chapter 4
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Then he went to the kitchen window. Through the glass, he saw his mother's kitchen with a fire in it, a candle on the sill, a young woman at the table with her chin on her hands watching the flame—dark hair coming loose from its pins, as tired as anyone he had ever seen. By the range, under a dust sheet, a child was sleeping. And on the child's feet lay the gray cat the gardener's boy had left behind nine years ago, which Edmund had assumed was long dead.Edmund knocked on the glass.The young woman came out of her chair as though she had been shot. In one movement, she had the poker from the hearth in her hand, and she stood between the window and the sleeping child.And she did not scream. He noticed that: she did not scream, and she did not run. She held the poker the way a person holds a tool they know how to use."Open the door," he said through the glass. "I'm not going to hurt you. It's freezing out here."She looked at him. He saw her take in his plain riding coat, the snow on his shoulders, his hat pulled low. He saw her decide.She went to the door and drew the bolt, and then stepped back quickly, poker raised.Edmund came in, stamping snow from his boots. Warm air struck his face, and the smell of porridge and woodsmoke, and under it something sweet that he could not place. He shut the door behind him and looked at her."Who are you?" he said."Who are you?" she said at exactly the same moment.They looked at each other."You first," he said. "You're the one in someone else's house."Her chin came up. "My name is Hannah Lowe. That is my brother Sam. We were turned out of our home at noon today by Mr. Pike, the Duke's agent, and nobody in the village would take us in, and my brother is ill. I broke the scullery window. I will pay for it. We will be gone in the morning." She took a breath. "Now you."He should have told her. He knew afterward that he should have told her right then, standing in the warm kitchen with the snow melting off his coat. It would have been the easiest thing in the world. But she had said the word Duke with such tiredness in her voice, such quiet, settled dislike. And for nine years, every person who looked at him had seen the title first and the man second—if they saw the man at all."Ned," he said. "I keep an eye on the house for the Duke."She lowered the poker an inch. "Mr. Pike keeps an eye on the house for the Duke."