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He took her hand gratefully, and they left the bristling schoolmasters behind to fight or retreat as they chose. She didn’t press the child with questions until they were in her cozily lit study off the infirmary. Diana chose to seat the boy in her squashy armchair rather than on the examination table. She didn’t really think he was ill, and didn’t want to frighten him any more than he already was.
“Do you want to tell me why you were out of bed?” she asked gently, when she’d wrapped his thin shoulders with a blanket.
He had the high, uncertain voice of a boy just edging out of childhood. “I wanted my mother.”
She’d thought it might be that; Diana knew that Beth had debated having her youngest sleep in their suite at night instead of the dormitory.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
His eyes were dark pools in his thin face. “It wasn’t a dream. He wanted me to follow him.”
“Who?” Diana braced herself. An older boy intent on mischief—or worse? She certainly hoped not. And surely he didn’t mean Joshua.
But she hadn’t braced herself sufficiently for Austin’s answer. “The ghost boy.”
By the time the sun rose, Diana was dressed and on her way to report last night’s occurrence to Clarissa Somersby. After getting what broken pieces of information she could from Austin, she’d kept him in the infirmary for the remaining hours of the night, shamefully glad of a reason not to return to her own room in the dark. Joshua had checked on them shortly after their retreat. (He didn’t appear to have been engaged in a fistfight.) She’d asked him to return at dawn to escort Austin back to the dormitory, leaving her free to speak to Clarissa before informing Beth Willis of her son’s broken night. Diana was prepared to knock long and loudly to rouse the headmistress.
It wasn’t necessary. Clarissa’s study door was partly open, and a light shone from inside. Diana stopped short at the raised voice—a male voice. Had Weston preempted her?
But almost at once, Clarissa broke in. “Father …”
That was even more surprising. What was Sir Wilfred Somersby doing here at the break of day? He’d told Diana when he hired her that he preferred to keep out of his daughter’s way now that he’d left the day-to-day running of the school in her hands. What had brought him to Northumberland without warning?
“The war is ending, Clarissa. The German navy has mutinied. Turkey has asked for terms. The Allies control all of France and most of Belgium.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“For four years, the world has been in stalemate. But now time is turning again, and your life must turn with it.”
“I am—”
Sir Wilfred’s voice rode right over his daughter’s. “Thomas would not want you to throw your life away in mourning him.”
There was a long, terrible silence. Diana knew that she should not be hearing this, that she should walk away. But she didn’t.
“I have indulged you for years, Clarissa. I thought allowing you to remain here would help you heal. Then I thought that creating the school would be the impetus you needed to go into the world, attend classes, learn new things to bring back here … but all you’ve done is populate your self-appointed prison with dozens of Thomas replacements.”
“No one could ever replace Thomas.”
“Do you think I don’t know that, my dear? You were not the only person who loved him. We have all mourned.”
“Not Sylvia.”
Even without knowing who Sylvia was, Diana knew that Clarissa had just crossed a line. Out in the hall, the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.
“What are you implying?” he asked.
“Sylvia never cared for me or Thomas. She accepted us as the price of marrying you and gaining a title. But once she had her own children—once she had her own son—she was all too glad not to have Thomas around to split your attention. Or your money.”
The sound of the slap was so loud Diana flinched, then grimaced in sympathy. That would leave a mark.
When Sir Wilfred spoke again, he sounded sorrowful rather than angry. “Clarissa, I’m only trying to do what is best for you. And I’m afraid that doesn’t always mean doing things you like. I lost Thomas here. I will not lose you to the same place. You are twenty-four years old. The war is winding down. I want your word that when this school year is ended, you will come to London for the summer. You will mingle with those your own age. You will be social. If it were a hundred years ago, I would insist on marriage—any marriage. But at the very least, you will leave Havencross for the summer.”
“Or?” Clarissa asked, the steel in her voice more brittle than she’d no doubt intended.
“Or this year will be the school’s last. Come to London, or the school closes. I will sell the land, and raze Havencross to the ground.”
Sir Wilfred left his daughter’s office so abruptly that Diana had no chance to dart into hiding. He stutter-stepped when he saw her, but strong emotion kept him charging past with nothing more than a glimpse of an anguished face. She would never have imagined the upright gentleman she’d met in London could have looked like that.
