The kitchen had become our refuge, though I doubted any of us would have admitted it out loud. Three days since Hartwell's visit, and we'd unconsciously migrated to this room like survivors clustering around the last warm fire. Maybe it was because the creditors hadn't bothered stripping the mismatched chairs and scarred wooden table—too common, too worthless for their purposes. Or maybe it was because kitchens, by their very nature, suggested survival. Food, warmth, the basic mechanics of staying alive.
I sat in the thin afternoon light that struggled through windows that hadn't been properly cleaned in weeks, Jamie's coat spread across my lap like a patient on an operating table. The tear along the sleeve wasn't large—barely three inches—but it gaped wide enough to let in the kind of Welsh wind that could freeze a child's bones. My needle moved in small, precise stitches, the rhythm almost meditative.
Threading the needle had become more difficult lately. Not because my eyesight was failing, but because my hands had developed a fine tremor that appeared whenever I thought too hard about our future. The kind of shake that came from too much uncertainty and not enough sleep. I'd noticed Mother's hands doing the same thing when she thought no one was looking.
"Cat, look what I found!" Jamie's voice carried the particular excitement of an eight-year-old who'd discovered treasure in the most unlikely places. He held up a tin soldier, one arm missing and most of the paint worn away by years of enthusiastic play. "He was hiding under the pantry shelf."
"He's very handsome," I said, managing to keep my voice light despite the way my throat wanted to close. That soldier had been part of a set of twelve—a gift from our grandfather when Jamie was five. The rest were probably in some collector's hands by now, sold along with everything else that had once made this house feel like home.
Jamie began an elaborate story about the soldier's adventures, complete with sound effects and dramatic gestures. His imagination was still intact, still untouched by the cynicism that had crept into the rest of us like frost. I envied him that innocence, even as I feared for how much longer it would last.
"The brave Captain Morrison," Jamie announced, marching the soldier across the table's scarred surface, "has been trapped behind enemy lines for three whole days! But he's been very clever, hiding in the pantry kingdom until it was safe to escape."
Hiding until it was safe. Children, I'd learned, had their own ways of processing trauma. Sometimes their games revealed more truth than any adult conversation.
The sound of footsteps in the hallway made us both look up. Father appeared in the doorway, dressed in his riding clothes—not the elegant tailored jacket he'd worn for pleasure rides through Hyde Park, but the older, more practical coat he'd relegated to country visits. It hung loose on his frame now. He'd lost weight over the past few months, the kind of weight loss that came from anxiety eating away at a man from the inside.
"I'm riding into Millbrook," he announced, his voice carrying a forced briskness that didn't quite mask the underlying exhaustion. "Need to see about selling the last few pieces."
The last few pieces. Mother's jewelry, probably—the emerald necklace that had been her grandmother's, the pearl earrings she'd worn to my first formal dance. Items so personal that their sale felt less like a financial transaction and more like cutting away pieces of our family's soul.
"Will you be back for dinner?" I asked, though what we were calling dinner these days bore little resemblance to the elaborate meals we'd once taken for granted. Mary had performed miracles with potatoes and whatever vegetables remained in the garden, but even miracles had their limits.
"Before dark," he said. "The roads aren't safe after sunset, especially this close to the Welsh border."
Jamie looked up from his soldier game, eyebrows drawn together in the particular frown that meant he was processing information he didn't quite understand. "Why aren't the roads safe, Daddy?"
Father's jaw worked for a moment, the way it did when he was trying to figure out how to explain adult problems to a child's understanding. "Just... wild animals, son. Wolves and such. Nothing to worry about during the day."
Wolves. I filed that information away, though I wasn't sure why it felt important. We were moving to the wilderness, after all. It made sense that there would be dangers we'd never had to consider in London.
"Can I come with you?" Jamie asked, abandoning his soldier to scramble toward Father with the kind of desperate enthusiasm that made my chest ache. "I could help carry things, or—"
"Not today," Father said, his hand resting briefly on Jamie's head. "The business I have to conduct isn't suitable for children."
The way he said it suggested shame as much as practicality. Some transactions, I was beginning to understand, were easier to bear without witnesses.
I continued my stitching, letting the familiar motion calm the restless energy that had taken up permanent residence in my chest. The tear was almost closed now, the edges aligned as neatly as I could manage. It wouldn't be invisible—nothing about our lives would be the same after this—but it would hold. Sometimes that was the best you could hope for.