An Inadvisable Wager (The Curse of the Weatherby Ball Book 2) by Eliza Lloyd (the best novels to read txt) 📕

the imagined days of her glorious youth. The foyer was clean; the stairs upward were covered in dust and a few odd stacks of wood.

There was a large sitting room to the left. She walked through the double doors. It seemed like the right place, but there was no familiar furniture or pictures. And it smelled of paint and polish. The room was clean, with only a few pieces of furniture near the cold fireplace. Clean and modern, but hollow.

Across the foyer there was another room, with its doors closed. She walked to it and turned the handle, forcing her mind to recall something about what was behind the door, but nothing came to her. It was a blank, unlike all the memories she had designed and embellished.

Inside, the room was a disaster. Scaffolding lined one wall where repairs were being completed. Other than that, the wallpaper, lathe and plaster walls had been demolished. Stripped bare, down to the wall studs. In the dust, there were footprints marking the comings and goings of someone in the house.

Carlow had come inside and stood at the door behind her. “The kitchen has been repaired. I’ve turned another of the sitting rooms downstairs into a temporary bedroom until the main bedroom upstairs can be completed. There is still a lot to do.”

He sounded apologetic. Nora faced him, her throat raw, tears streaming down her face. She would have glared at him, but she couldn’t find that emotion amongst the cacophony buffeting her. She pushed past him and hurried up the stairs. Why couldn’t she remember? What had happened to her home?

There was one room she was certain would revive her memories, comfort her. Her bedroom. She ran down the hall. The second to last door. The door hung open. The floor was covered with dust particles and piles of discarded wall boards, just like the room downstairs.

Nora stared at the curtains, red, just as she remembered. And the wallpaper, with red flowers and leafy vines repeating up and down the wall in an untouched section. She walked up and touched the brittle material, stirring up the accumulated dust. The once-heavy cloth felt as if it would disintegrate in her hand.

She braced her fingers against the wall. The pattern wasn’t floral. Why had she remembered flowers? There were red grapes, faded with time. Red grapes. Not at all as she remembered.

The room had been hers once. A bed there, against the wall. An armoire. A small desk for her lessons. There had been a box where she kept two dolls and wooden blocks and her jump rope and other forgotten toys.

Oh, and a kaleidoscope! What had happened to it? She would sit on the small window seat when the sun was shining and watch myriad glass crystals change shape as it was turned.

That was her life since she was eight. With every turn of the prism, her life looked different. Sure of her past, she’d charged headlong into her future, only to have someone make a quick turn and disrupt the pattern once again.

Should she bother looking at the rest of the house? Was there more heartbreak around every corner? Of course there was. Carlow had waited to bring her to Henbury Hall because of this. He’d known its terrible condition and couldn’t tell her. He’d known her heart would be broken.

Was it Carlow’s fault? Was it anybody’s?

Nora leaned against the wall, then slid down until her bottom hit the floor. She wrapped her arms about her knees and placed her head down and let the tears flow.

It was all lost.

If Carlow actually returned the property to her, how would she ever be able to repair it? A few poor tenants would never generate enough income. There was nothing here for her, nothing here for Timothy.

She’d wagered all and lost.

When the tears dried up, she leaned her head back against the wall. The sun set to the west, the last rays came into the room through the cracks in the dislodged curtains.

The smell of bread roused her. Her stomach growled with hunger.

In her haste up the stairs, she had not noticed the sound of hammers and saws and the quiet rumble of conversation from the other side of the house.

She listened. Bees were buzzing outside the window, collecting some last-minute pollen before returning to their hives. The hollow sound of a cowbell indicated there were sheep or goats nearby. Probably loose animals foraging on the unkempt grasses around the estate.

And then she heard Carlow’s voice in conversation outside before the opening and closing of the front door.

She jumped to her feet and wiped at her face. Batting at her skirts, she caused her own dust storm from the collection she’d acquired sitting on the floor. She should see the rest of the house. Not just to see the horrors of the past but to stir her memory and find some shadow of happiness lurking in the corners.

Or should she return to the first floor and find the dining room? Submit to defeat and humbly ask Carlow’s forgiveness while enjoying supper in the country?

The heavy tread of Carlow’s boots sounded as he came up the stairs and toward her room. Probably tracking her prints in the dust again.

“Nora?” he said at the door. He wore a blank expression. She tried to see into him, understand what had led them to this reckoning. “Dinner is ready, if you would like to come down and join me.”

“Such a dispassionate statement.”

“You have always been better at drama. What would you like me to say?”

“’I beg your pardon for this unexplainable turn of events and won’t you forgive me’ would do for starters.”

“I beg your pardon for this very explainable turn of events, and won’t you forgive me?”

“You should have told me the whole story the night of