“There is nothing to do. My husband has made that very clear. I am not to do anything.”
“He has given you run of the place.”
“But not the ability to actuallydoanything. He wants me to merely sit about and be idle. And he has instructed his housekeeper to ensure that I do.”
“Has he now?” Margaret’s eyes narrowed in concern. “And what makes you think that?”
“She is everywhere I go.”
“It is not a large house, Your Grace,” Margaret cautioned.
Diana shook her head. “It is not. However, whatever room I go to, I always find her there. She will wander past within moments, straightening flowers or dusting shelves. Do you know a housekeeper who does such things? Our own certainly did not.”
“Indeed, that is true.” Margaret looked uncertain at that but then shook her head. “But it is no matter. What shall she say tohim? That you are doing exactly as he has told you to do? That you are moving about your own home? There is nothing wrong about what you do, Your Grace. And we shall ensure that she knows you are not ashamed of being seen going about your own business.”
“I am not ashamed. However, I do not like to be watched as though I were a child. And to think that she then reports back to the Duke about my movements… it is exactly that.”
“What have you seen of His Grace since you moved here?”
Diana scoffed at that and pushed her plate away. “Very little. I have seen him at supper only once, and that time, he sat at the end of the table and never even looked in my direction, his face buried in his papers. I am not sure he even ate the food placed before him, let alone anything else.”
“Ah, Your Grace, you need something to occupy your time,” Margaret told her. “We can set up a nice corner here by the window for you to paint.”
“You know I never had a hand for watercolors,” Diana replied.
“That may be so, but you need something to amuse you, and perhaps it would be good. Or perhaps your embroidery.”
“None have been amusements of mine in the past, merely ways of passing the time. And now that I am wed, there is no need to devote my time to them.”
“Reading then, perhaps. Or riding.”
“I have been riding nearly every day since I arrived,” Diana pointed out, beginning to feel cross, though it was no fault of Margaret’s that she was feeling lonely and bored.
With a frustrated sigh she stood and began straightening the already perfectly arranged flowers and paintings. She’d painstakingly arranged them her first morning, determined thatthisroom at least should look beautiful. But now nothing seemed right.
“Something must be done, Your Grace. You cannot mope around your chambers and putter about the house like a ghost. It will not do,” Margaret insisted.
“It is my house. If I choose to putter about it, then that’s what I’ll do,” Diana grumbled.
Margaret merely shook her head and followed after her straightening the room again as Diana mussed everything in her frustration, finally falling silent.
But it was a conversation that they revisited the following day when, again, Margaret woke her up by throwing open the curtains.
“Another beautiful day, Your Grace,” she announced.
Diana grumbled again, and Margaret tsked and shook her head.
“None of that today, Your Grace. I will not allow your moods to ruin this beautiful day.”
“One beautiful day or another, what is the difference? Each day is exactly the same,” Diana retorted.
Margaret fixed her with a piercing stare.
“All I do is sit in this room by myself or wander about the house. The best part of my day is when I have the opportunity to go riding. I know this house better than I ever cared to, and yet what else is there?”
Margaret shot her a shrewd look again, bringing over her gown to begin dressing her. “You are expecting His Grace to change and to make your life better, Your Grace. And yet there is no reason for him to do so. No reason for him to change in the ways that you would prefer.”
“Then why should I even bother to do anything at all? Wouldn’t he rather I just retreat into my rooms and remain there?”
