Priory by Becky Wright

Author:Becky Wright [Wright, Becky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Oliver, Hardacre
Publisher: Becky Wright
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

Estelle returned to find Nancy, her face more ablaze than the logs that she jabbed and prodded with the iron poker.

‘Lady Hardacre,’ Nancy announced, turning to face her.

‘Nancy.’

Estelle sat in her fireside chair and watched her daughter-in-law gather her thoughts. Always in such pain, such sadness. If only she would embrace the situation she and her boys were in, then the pain would soon disperse into the ether, leaving them all on a far better plane of existence. She didn’t want to fight. She never had. However, there were rules at Hardacre that had to be obeyed, or else havoc would reap its harvest—something she didn’t intend to allow while she still roamed the Priory’s halls.

‘Nancy, will you please sit down, dear.’

With no arguments but slow, deliberate steps, Nancy sat hard on the settee. She looked exhausted. Estelle wished that things could have been different, that life hadn’t brought them back to the Priory. That Andrew had never met this girl with fire in her belly.

‘Before you give me the lecture again that things are done differently here at Hardacre, let me tell you something, please,’ Nancy asserted.

She saw no discernible expression on Nancy’s face, or maybe that was the expression—closed. ‘Go ahead.’ Estelle raised her hand with a nod.

Lizzie rushed in with a tray set with two glasses. ‘A little something to calm the nerves,’ Estelle added, dismissing the maid with a smile.

‘No, thank you,’ Nancy said. ‘I need to get the boys to bed.’

‘No need, madam. I have settled them both. They’ve had baths and are now tucked up in bed.’ Lizzie smiled. ‘A little supper treat too. I hope you don’t mind?’

‘No, of course not. Already?’ A thick look of defeat washed over Nancy’s features as she reached for her glass. ‘Sherry?’

‘Would you prefer something else, madam?’

‘No, no, this is fine. Thank you.’ Nancy sipped and rested her head back against the settee. Her hand swept over the cushion beside her. ‘Have you seen the picture? Josie left it here.’

‘Oh, I threw it away,’ Estelle said. ‘It was just a silly thing.’

‘So, you thought it was necessary to destroy a child’s picture?’

‘It will be forgotten. Little Josie probably already has.’

‘You can’t go around doing things like that. It’s not right. And there was something about it—I saw the look on Gloria’s face. What was it?’

‘It is of no matter. What was it you wanted to discuss? The boys’ schooling?’

The night was drawing in fast. Estelle felt the floorboards rattle beneath her feet; there had been a shift tonight, the air was charged with change. Along the wooden panelling at the far side of the grandfather clock, Estelle saw the small figure. She smiled, and it shrunk back into the shadow. She knew those twins of the past could feel it. And it seemed so too had the girl, Josie, in her innocence, she had risen to it, answered it, just as her father had done, and in doing so, there had been a connection. Josie understood what it was, she knew what had happened to her father.

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