Serial Monogamy by Kate Taylor Read Free Book Online Page B

step with Mr. Dickens taking the lead, urging them on and warning the sisters of any rough footing ahead. Eventually, they emerged in a large chamber with the remains of a huge stone hearth, which he knowingly declared to have been the great hall. Peering out its few narrow windows, they could catch tantalizing glimpses of the surrounding countryside, but when they approached the next flight of stairs hoping to go higher for yet better views, they found the first steps had entirely crumbled away. Mr. Dickens nimbly scrambled up the remains, all but hoisting himself up the tight walls of the staircase to reach a step that was intact. From there he peered up and around, promising, “It gets better from here. I can give you each a hand up.”
    Maria demurred and hung back while Nelly stepped forward. In the middle of the three, Fanny put out a hand to restrain her younger sister but by the time she did so, Nelly had caught Mr. Dickens’ hand and, despite her long skirt, vaulted herself up to where he stood.
    “Nelly…” Fanny protested, but Mr. Dickens overrode her, saying, “Nothing to fear; we will just see how far we can climb. We’ll stop if there are any more gaps.” And with that Nelly and Mr. Dickens disappeared from sight.
    They could not, it turned out, go far; within another turn of the staircase, they found its roof had fallen inand they were facing an insurmountable wall of rubble. They turned and picked their way back into the room where Maria and Fanny were waiting, eager to get out of the cold castle and back downstairs into the September sunshine.
    As her sisters pushed on, Mr. Dickens, so bold in climbing up the stairs, now hung back, taking the steps very slowly and continually turning back to Nelly, who was following him, to offer his hand.
    “Careful,” he said. “Down is always more tricky than up.”
    Soon, Fanny and Maria were out of sight around the next turn and Mr. Dickens stopped altogether. He just stood there for a moment, then he took a big breath and turned back to her.
    “Nelly,” he said emphatically, as though reassuring himself he had got the name right. “…I hope I may call you Nelly.”
    “Of course, Mr. Dickens.”
    “And you must call me Charles.”
    “I couldn’t possibly, Mr. Dickens.”
    “Why not?”
    “It would not be right.”
    “Pray, what could possibly be wrong if I have invited you to call me thus?” He sounded a trifle put out and Nelly hurried to explain her thoughts, although she found it odd to be having such a conversation in the confines of the castle’s crumbling staircase. “You are too great a man forme to take such a liberty, Mr. Dickens. It would be too familiar of me.”
    “Nonsense. I want you to think of me as a friend, some intimate with whom you may dispense with unnecessary formalities.”
    Nelly found her heart beating a little faster at the notion that such a man as this should take such a friendly tone with her and thought hard how to respond correctly: “I would be honoured to consider you thus,” she said. “My sisters and mother and I are a small family—I think you know my father died when I was just a girl—and your friendship would be a most welcome addition to our little circle.”
    Mr. Dickens, for that is how she would continue to think of him for some time, looked slightly discomfited by that.
    “I am so glad…” he said.
    “I am sorry, I have been hasty in my enthusiasms. I did not wish to burden your friendship with my family with undue expectations.”
    “No, no. Not at all, Nelly. It’s just I had hoped…well, I am still a young man. This may sound odd to you, but inside I feel I am but a boy.”
    In the gloom of the staircase, she looked at him in puzzlement: it was hard for her to see any boy in a man of his achievement and wealth, a writer known throughout the Empire, a father and husband who lived in some palace in London that could house his wife, his sister-in-law, hismany children and all the servants