Quarantine by John Smolens

Author:John Smolens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books

Eighteen

MIRANDA STOOD AT HER BEDROOM WINDOW, LOOKING DOWN into the courtyard. She couldn’t remember a harder rain. Suddenly, she saw Cedella emerge from the open stable door and run toward the house. She cradled a basket of eggs in her arms, and when she stumbled two fell out and broke. The yokes were quickly diluted by the rain, thin strands of bright yellow filling the crevices between the cobblestones. The girl caught her balance and rushed on toward the kitchen door.

Miranda had a good mind to put the girl out of the house. She had dismissed staff for lesser offenses. Such would be a useful example to the rest of the household.

She was about to leave her window, when she saw something in the darkness of the stable: something yellow, a paler yellow than the eggs—a parasol. And then Marie came out into the courtyard, not running, but holding her skirt (one of Miranda’s old dresses, the green satin turning black with the rain) as she hurried toward the house. She seemed alarmed—perhaps because such a fine dress might be ruined?—but there was something about Marie’s expression that baffled Miranda. For one moment the girl actually raised her head and, tilting the parasol out of the way, allowed the rain to soak her face. And then she, too, disappeared into the house.

Again, Miranda was about to turn from the window when she saw something else: beneath the roof peak, the new boy appeared in the open hayloft door, staring down into the courtyard. He raised his head until he saw Miranda in the second-floor window of the house. He looked startled, as though he’d been caught in some act of indecency, and he retreated into the darkness of the loft.

As she turned from the window, something else caught her eye—a man running out of the stable door, his frock coat draped over his head as a means of protection from the rain. It was Giles. He crossed the courtyard and disappeared up the drive toward the front gate.

Miranda took a long deep breath and exhaled slowly. She could feel her heartbeat, rapid, faintly painful, as though she had just eaten a heavy meal.

She crossed the room, opened her bedroom door, and said, “Fields.”

“Madame?” His voice resonated up the stairwell from the front vestibule—when unoccupied, Fields often sat in the window-seat there, where he could doze like a housecat. She listened to him climb the stairs and when he reached the first landing, he looked up at her. “May I be of service, Ma’am?”

Miranda hesitated, touching her fingers to her lips.

After a moment Fields’s gaze became concerned. “Madame?”

“That new boy, what’s his name?”

“Hatch, Ma’am, Leander Hatch.”

“Bring him to me.”

“Is there a problem, Ma’am?”

“I want him sent to me. Now.”

She put her hand on the door latch but paused when she saw the look on Fields’s face; he was clearly perturbed by the impropriety of her request.

“Up here, Ma’am? To your bedroom?”

“That’s what I said. And tea, have Cedella bring my tea.”

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