“Stop,” Val muttered, and the dog immediately complied, falling back on his haunches and releasing a small, piteous whine.

Val pushed the drawer filled with his brother’s gifts closed, and picking up his snifter, he downed his drink.

Setting it down with a thunk, Val headed to the stables to saddle his mount in search of the peace that he could find only in riding alone.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

One thing Myrtle had never known or experienced in life was absolute quiet.

With many talkative siblings and equally voluble parents, and even noisier aunts, uncles, and cousins, it’d been an impossibility.

And then she’d gone off to Mrs. Belden’s. Though there’d been constant lessons on etiquette and the rules of propriety, all of which required ladies to learn quiet, modulated tones . . . expecting those same students, who’d numbered some fifty girls together, to be quiet had been as unlikely as teaching a stubborn sun to love the English skies.

That morning, however, Myrtle rose to find the room still dark and the house as quiet as it had been when she’d made her journey through the halls in search of dry bedding.

Yawning, she scrubbed at eyes still blurring from sleep.

Or mayhap it was that the cold had awakened her. Shivering, she burrowed under her blankets and in the folds of her cloak, searching in vain for an elusive warmth.

Alas, today was the morn they would leave.

With a sigh, she struggled onto her elbows and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

“Withers and whiskers,” she cursed as she rushed for the door. “That is deuced cold.” Miserably so.

Heading back for her chambers, Myrtle made her way through the halls so she could seek out the warmth of the fire that had surely been stoked through the night and change into warmer garments for the day’s travel.

The house would be all abustle with the staff seeing to the final preparations for their departure this day.

The breakfast table would be filled with as much noise, as her kin all competed to be heard over one another.

Or perhaps there’d be no breakfast . . . because the staff would all depart this day, too. Unlike in the past, when some would remain on when the house was closed up, with Mr. Phippen and his building set to commence, there’d be no servants to stay.

Loving the breakfast meal as she did, inside Myrtle wept, and her stomach added a mournful grumble of sorrow at the sheer—but also very likely—possibility that they’d not break their fast until they were on their way.

Only, as she walked, more and more quiet reached her.

There were no servants racing to and fro with garments or items that had almost been left behind.

There was no parent overseeing the final preparations, calling out reminders to their eldest children the same way they would and did for the youngest McQuoids.