Page 24 of No Place in Time

She remembered the way he had looked at her across the table. Not like a brother. Not like anyone else ever had.

∞∞∞

The morning was cold and gray when Cecily set out with fresh linens. As she approached the solar, she heard the same sound again, sharper than before.

She dropped her basket and ran.

Lady Beatrix stood by the window, one hand braced against the stone, the other clenched tight against her chest. Her breath came in short, broken pulls.

“It’s worse,” she said. “It will not ease.”

Cecily reached her just as her knees buckled. She caught her, called out for help, and tried to steady her weight. Lady Beatrix gasped once, her fingers tightening in Cecily’s sleeve, and then her strength failed entirely.

“My lady?” Cecily whispered.

There was no answer.

The room was suddenly still. Light fell from the window across the lady’s pale face. Cecily lowered her carefully to the floor. She pressed two fingers to the lady’s throat, then her wrist, moving with increasing urgency from one pulse point to the next, finding nothing but cooling skin. For a moment, she mistook her own pounding heart for her mistress’s, but soon realized Lady Hawthorn had no heartbeat at all.

Cecily drew back slowly, her hands trembling.

Lady Beatrix Hawthorne was dead.

15

CECILY

1296

Cecily found Finn in the yard behind the manor mending a broken latch on the stable door. The morning’s work had churned the ground to mud. Finn knelt with the iron clasp in his hands, his sleeves rolled up and his jaw tense with concentration. He looked up when she approached and sat back on his heels.

They’ve set the household into mourning,” Cecily said quietly. “Black cloth for the hall. Candles for the chapel.”

Finn nodded. “I wonder if they will send us off. Lady Beatrix hired us,” he said. “Without her—” He broke off, rubbing his thumb along the iron. “I wonder how long we’ll have a place here.”

The same thought had kept her up nights since the lady’s death. This fragile life, which provided meals, wages, and beds for them, had been Lady Beatrix’s doing.

Finn stood and stepped closer. He took her hand, his rough fingers closing around hers.

“We’ll manage,” he said, though he did not sound sure.

Cecily nodded, holding fast to that moment. They were together now. A team. She wanted it that way.

As they parted, she glanced back toward the house. Sybil stood just inside the doorway, pretending to busy herself with a folded cloth.

But her eyes were fixed on Cecily and Finn.

∞∞∞

The hall was draped in black, the chapel lined with candles, and Lady Beatrix’s rooms were emptied one piece at a time. Cecily was sent to the solar to clear away Lady Beatrix’s things.

It was there, in the passage beyond the lady’s rooms, that she heard the first murmurs.

“She was with her again,” a maid said in a low voice.

“Aye,” another replied. It sounded like Sybil. “Every time she took ill, it was that new one fetched.”

Cecily stopped, her basket heavy in her hands.