Grace

Chapter 49

I woke up sweaty, face streaked with tears and a scream stuck in my throat. I took a few moments to simply breathe and calm my thundering heart. Fear pulsed through every vein threatening to make me tremble all over. When I was calm, I opened the window half way and then lay back down.

I woke up ten minutes later from an even worse nightmare that made me wretch. I kicked my quilt off, sat up and reached for my phone. I called Chi (not wanting to wake everyone on the corridor up but knocking on her door), but she didn't answer so I guessed her phone was off or she'd been having as much trouble sleeping lately as me and had finally crashed.

I called Ben. He didn't answer either. I hadn't really expected him to with how heavily he slept. I sighed, pulled my poncho on and crept downstairs. We weren't really supposed to go downstairs in the middle of the night, but recently Master Clarke hadn't minded too much. He'd been a culprit as much as me this week. He'd been stressing about us as much as I'd been stressing about and still half in fear of everything.

When I was awake, I didn't hear explosions or the flight of our horses much anymore. But I had flashes of things, mostly my own fear that stopped me in my tracks. No, those things were reserved for when I was sleeping.

I slipped though the sister door and then into the little lounge.

Ben was already in there. The TV was on a low volume and he'd fallen asleep stretched out on the sofa. I carefully shut the door making sure it didn't click when it closed, but when I turned back into the room, Ben was awake.

"Hello?" he asked and looked around.

"Sorry," I whispered and knelt in front of him. "You were sleeping."

"Not very well. What are you doing down here?"

"I wasn't sleeping very well either."

"Come here," he said and made some room on the sofa.

I squashed in next to him and instantly felt peaceful enough to fall asleep straight away.

"What do you dream about the most?" he asked.

"Josh and Nigel. I suppose it's my brain's way of telling me I'm alive and I should live, but... Ben, I just want to sleep."

"Then sleep," he said and brushed his lips across my forehead. "I'm here."

*     *     *     *

"I have no idea what you were thinking. Frankly I don't care," Master Clarke snapped, his voice a whip crack in the suddenly too small room.

We were stood in his office, the door was closed and I didn't dare look at his face. It was half seven in the morning, no one else was up yet, and we were being grilled for sleeping on the sofa. Our normally calm house head was red in the face, his nostrils flared slightly and he sat straight in his chair instead of adopting his usual, slight slouch. One knee was elegantly crossed over the other.

"True there are no rules about not sneaking downstairs to spend thenight with your lover, but we didn't think we'd need to write any!"

"It wasn't about –"

"Quiet, Miss Bennett," he intoned. "I trusted you both to co-habit a room when the heating broke, I assumed I could trust you to follow the simple expectation of staying in your rooms between bed time and breakfast time. This week I agree the rules have been slightly lax in that regard, lord knows we all need space right now, but what you did is inexcusable. I don't much care if you keep each other up all night on the phone so long as you get your work done. But sneaking out in the middle of the night is going a step to far! If anything remotely like this happens again I will have you, Miss Bennett, moved into College. Understood?"

"Yes, Master Clarke," we both said.

"Good. Get ready for today."

We silently walked out.

Later that day it was the service for Josh, and Clara's family. Much like the one for Nigel and his family there were a few speeches, each house laid a wreath and I played the Last Post before the minute silence. Then we all dispersed and, again I went to Master MacLachlan's to cry my eyes out on his shoulder. I fell asleep a little later and only made it home for supper because he woke me up.

"How are you?" he asked.

"I've never missed anyone as much as I miss Josh right now. Dance and music aren't the same anymore."

"Of course they wouldn't be," he said softly. "They couldn't possibly be. Go home and try and get some sleep tonight. It'll help."

"If I manage to stay asleep long enough to benefit from it, sure."

"The nightmares will fade too. Get too, Grace."

I got home, ate dinner and then went up to Chi's room. She'd skipped the meal and the guys said she'd been in her room ever since they got back earlier. I knocked gently and a moment later she answered it. Her eyes were puffy, her nose was running and she'd put pyjamas on. I pulled her into a hug and let her cry.