Candace Camp - A Stolen Heart

“There you are. Thank heavens. Maybe you can get through to her. Rhea’s locked herself in and won’t come out. It’s bad enough when she acts like this at home—I don’t know what she’s thinking, behaving this way in front of a bunch of Englishmen.” Her tone invested the term with scorn. Alexandra’s aunt was a sturdy, middle-aged woman in a sensible brown dress with a plain cap covering her hair, and her features, now frowning, were usually pleasant.

“I’m afraid she doesn’t think about such things, Aunt Hortense—or care, either. Why don’t you go down to the sitting room, and I will see what I can do. Oh, and, Nancy, get her some of that cocoa now. It might just do the trick.”

Alexandra waited while her aunt and the other woman walked away, giving her mother a moment of silence. Then she tapped lightly on the door. “Mother? It is I. Alexandra. Would you let me in?”

There was a moment’s silence, then her mother’s voice said faintly, “Alexandra? Is that really you?”

“Yes, of course it is, Mother,” Alexandra replied pleasantly. “Why don’t you unlock the door so we can talk?”

After a moment there was the sound of the lock being turned, and then the door opened wide enough for Alexandra’s mother to peer out. Her face was drawn and worried, her eyes suspicious. Her expression lightened a little when she saw Alexandra. “Where have you been?” she asked as she opened the door wide enough to allow Alexandra in.

“I had business to conduct. I told you that this morning. Remember?”

Rhea Ward nodded vaguely, and Alexandra was not sure that she remembered at all. “Why do you have on your hat?” Rhea asked in a puzzled voice.

“I haven’t had time to remove it, I’m afraid.” Alexandra reached up, untied the ribbon and pulled the hat off, continuing to talk in the soothing voice she used with her mother. “I just walked in, you see, and I came right up. Aunt Hortense was rather concerned about you.”

She studied her mother unobtrusively as she spoke, taking in her untidy hair and messy appearance. Several buttons were unfastened or done up wrong, and stray hairs straggled around her face. Remembering her mother’s once neat, trim appearance, Alexandra felt her throat close with tears. What had happened to the gentle, sweet woman she had known in her early years? Though she was still a pretty woman, even in middle age, her face was becoming lined beyond her years, with an unhealthy puffiness that was echoed in her once petite figure. The degeneration was due, Alexandra was sure, to Rhea’s obsessive worries and her unfortunate, secretive dependence on bottles of liquor.

“Mother, what’s the matter?” Alexandra asked, her worry showing through her assumed calm. “Why did you lock the door against Aunt Hortense?”

Rhea Ward made a face. “Hortense was always a bossy soul. You’d think the world couldn’t run without her.”

Certainly their household had been unable to run without her, at least in Alexandra’s youth, she thought wryly, but she kept the opinion to herself. One of the things that her mother frequently despaired about was her own lack of ability.

“But why did you lock the door? I don’t understand. Was Amanda rude to you?”

“Amanda? Who is that?”

“The maid who brought your tea.”

“Her!” Rhea scowled. “Always sneaking in here. Spying on me.”

“I’m sure Amanda wasn’t spying on you, Mother. She was just bringing you your tea.”

“I don’t want tea! I told her that, and she acted like I’d grown horns. Nancy had gone to fetch my cocoa. That was what I wanted.” Tears were in the woman’s soft brown eyes, and her face started to crumple.

“Yes, dear, I know.” Alexandra put her arm supportively around her mother’s shoulders and led her to a chair. “She’s getting you some right now.”

“I don’t know what’s taking her so long.” Rhea’s mouth turned down in a pout.

“She heard the commotion and came running upstairs. You know how loyal to you Nancy is. She was afraid you needed help.”

“She was right. I did. They’re always watching me, and I know they laugh at me behind my back.”

Alexandra thought with an internal sigh that her mother was probably right about both the laughter and the curiosity, after the odd things she had been doing since they got here. Was it possible that her mother had been drinking this early in the day? It had proved more difficult to keep liquor out of her mother’s hands since they had been in London, where it was always easy for Rhea to find a street urchin or some peddler who would fetch her a bottle for a few extra shillings.

“Don’t worry about them,” Alexandra told her mother firmly. “Why, we don’t even live here. You won’t see them again after a few more weeks.”

Rhea did not look much encouraged by Alexandra’s words. She sat for a moment, frowning, then jumped up, went to her dresser and opened a drawer. She took out a small cherry-wood box that lay within and caressed it, then carried it to her chair and resumed her seat, holding the box firmly in both her hands. Alexandra suppressed a sigh. Her mother’s fascination with this box had grown worse the past few weeks, too. She had had the box for as long as Alexandra could remember, and she kept it locked, the key on a delicate chain around her neck. No one, not even Aunt Hortense, knew what was inside it, for she adamantly refused to discuss it. When Alexandra was young, her mother had kept the box hidden away on a shelf in her wardrobe. The mystery of it had so intrigued Alexandra that she had on one occasion stacked books on a chair and climbed up them in order to reach the box on its high shelf. She had been discovered trying to pry the thing open, and it had been one of the few times her mother had ever spanked her. Alexandra had never tried to open it again, and it had remained inviolate on its shelf. But in recent years her mother had taken the box down and kept it in a drawer beside her bed, locking the drawer, as well. She had brought it with her on the trip, and nowadays she seemed to have it in her hand most of the time.

“Mother, what is distressing you so?” Alexandra asked softly, reaching out to take her mother’s hand.

“I don’t like it here!” Rhea pulled her hand out of Alexandra’s grasp, replacing it around the small wooden box. “It’s always cold, and the people are odd. They don’t like me. None of the servants like me.”

“They don’t dislike you,” Alexandra assured her, not adding that they were more scared of Rhea than anything else. “They just have a different way about them. There are so many wonderful things yet to see. Why, we haven’t even left London yet! There’s still Stonehenge and Stratford-on-Avon, and Scotland. It’s supposed to be beautiful there.”

“Here we go, Miz Rhea.” Nancy entered the room briskly, a small tray in her hand. “I’ve got your chocolate all ready.”

Rhea brightened, turning toward the servant and reaching for the cup of steaming liquid.

“Now, I reckon that will hit the spot,” Nancy went on cheerfully. “And then, if you like, I can loosen your hair and rub lavender on your temples, and you can have a nice little nap before teatime. How does that sound?”

“Just the thing,” Rhea murmured, a smile beginning to touch her lips.

Alexandra decided to leave her mother in Nancy’s capable hands and made her way downstairs to the sitting room, where her aunt was installed, working away at a piece of embroidery.

“Hello, dear.” Aunt Hortense looked at her. “It sounds as if you succeeded.”

“I got her to open her door, if that’s success.” Alexandra sank into a chair near her aunt. “Oh, Auntie, I’m afraid I made a terrible mistake in bringing Mother here. Perhaps I should have left her at home.”