Upon the Hill

Chapter Two - Nostalgia

Florence burst into the house. I jumped up from my place by the fire as I mended the hem on one of my sister's dresses. Her cheeks were flushed again, but this time, her eyes matched the reddish hue.

"How?" she said, her voice riddled with emotion. "Explain."

Mother rushed over. "Florence, it's after dark. You should be home."

"Not until she explains how she managed to make Lord Northcott love her." Florence pointed at me accusingly. "Because it makes no sense."

I shook my head. "I don't understand it either."

"You must know!" she yelled as she surged toward me. "I have known you my entire life and never have I thought you had eyes for Lord Northcott, nor have I thought you a social climber."

My hands trembled as I reached for her. "Because I never did, nor am I. I had no choice when he asked me. I don't understand why he chose me either."

"Nay, because you are not more pretty than any of our peers." Her sharp tone made me step back. She rubbed her eyes, her whole-body trembling. "You don't deserve to be his wife. You're just another servant to him, one he can force into his bed."

I gasped as she swung around and slammed the door behind her. I stumbled back, my father catching me and easing me onto the chair.

"Shh, love, don't mind her," he said.

"She is right." I glanced up at him, but my fears blinded me. "I don't know why he chose me. For all I know, he needs someone to warm his bed and give him offspring. I will be little more than a harlot."

"Don't speak like that," Mother said as she sent the children to bed. Once they'd disappeared into the bedroom, she took the seat beside me. "Lord Northcott does care about you. You must remember playing with him as a child."

I shook my head as I met her gaze. "Why would he? If I was five, he would have been sixteen. What young man would play with a little girl?"

"A young man who loved his mother." She placed her hand over my hair to untwist my braids. "Lady Northcott had but two children, the now Lord Northcott, and, eleven years later, a little girl. But, when she was still a babe, that little girl died."

"Eleven years?" I gazed into Mother's eyes. "She was the same age as me?"

Mother nodded. "So bereaved was she that her maidservant asked me to lend my own infant to relieve her strain, and, well, alleviate the discomfort of her milk supply."

"Oh." I lowered my gaze. "I thought the nobility didn't..."

Mother smiled sadly as she stroked my hair. "Lady Northcott was a rare exception. She loved her children tenderly, the poor dear. You became the one thing that brought her through her grief, and she insisted you come see her regularly."

I nodded as I thought back. "She taught me to read and write."

"And many other things which the likes of me and the rest of the women in town could not." Mother turned my face toward her as tears welled in her eyes. "After her son married, she yearned to see the day you would wed, but alas, she died but a year after his wedding."

"I remember..." I hung my head as my mind wandered. "But she never made me feel like she was my master, and whenever the previous Lord Northcott came home, I was never..." Brought into the main house. Lady Northcott, my Nanny Dottie, would take me to the library, or the nursery for my lessons, but when the frightening Lord Northcott was home, she'd take me to the stream or somewhere well out of sight.

Mother pinched my chin. "She adored you, Millie, and since she fed you well and tutored you, we didn't have the heart to stop her. You were as good as her daughter in her eyes."