Page 43 of The Noble Servant

As Magdalen was watching Steffan shuffle away, she realized Agnes was talking to her.

They went back toward the stairs, and as they climbed halfwayup the first flight, Agnes turned to her and whispered, “I expect you to behave as a servant should. And if you say anything you should not to the duke, I shall not only let my father do what he wanted to do from the beginning, which is to get rid of you, but I shall also make sure he kills the mute boy your family is so fond of—and this new daft man you have collected. Truly, your taste in companions has not changed.” Agnes rolled her eyes. Her top lip curled in disgust.

“Do not worry, Agnes—”

Agnes pinched her arm, hard. “Don’t ever call me that. I am Lady Magdalen.”

“Lady Magdalen.” She let her own lip curl as she resisted the urge to rub her arm. “I will not say a word to your husband.”

“Good.”

“But I truly do not know how you expect to keep this a secret forever. At some point my mother will come to visit me, and so—” She almost said, “And so will the duke’s sister.” But of course, Agnes did not know her husband’s similar secret.

“My father has some plans for when your mother and sisters visit.”

“Does he plan to kill them?” Her heart rose into her throat.

“Be quiet. Not another word.”

They continued up the stairs in silence. When they reached the third level, where Agnes’s rooms were located, Agnes hissed, “You will leave my chamber any time you see my husband enter. You are also not to sleep on the servant’s cot in the adjoining room. When I have released you every evening, you are to go up to the next level where the other indoor servants sleep. And if I find you have spoken to any of them about our little secret, I will have my father kill them and you.”

Agnes looked into her eyes, but it was as if she was not seeing Magdalen. Agnes’s eyes were dark, but something besides hatred and murder suffused them. If Magdalen did not know better, she’d say fear was in the pinched expression on Agnes’s face.

“Why are you not taking yourself upstairs to the servants’ quarters?” Agnes whispered. “My husband is waiting in my room, so go.”

Magdalen hurried up the stairs, praying for herself and for Steffan.

Hazen eyed the snippet of a girl who had married his son as she nervously glanced at the cloth across her lap. She seemed quite unaccustomed to cleaning her hands on it, as she hesitantly touched it after eating her pheasant with her fingers. She kept leaning over to say something in Alexander’s ear, as if she was afraid he would stop thinking about her if she did not speak to him nearly every moment. Her gaze kept darting to his face. She was even more unsure of herself than his spineless son, though she tried to hide the fact with haughty looks.

When the meal was over, Hazen said, “Your Grace, I have a small matter of business I’d like to speak with you about. Will you accompany me to the library?”

“Yes, of course.” He turned to his wife. “I shall come to your chamber.”

She accepted the squeeze of his hand before she departed.

He and Alexander walked to the room where Hazen wrote his letters. “Please be seated.” He indicated a chair and then sat behind the desk.

“Is everything well?” Alexander asked.

“I wanted to ask you the same question. Is marriage to your liking? What do you think of your new wife?”

“It ... it is good. We are well suited to one another, and she is ... a good wife. All is well. W-why do you ask?”

Hazen clenched his jaw at the timid way his son answered him, stammering and stumbling because he was afraid of saying something that would displease him. His son’s behavior was a disgrace to the Hazen title. He should not have entrusted the boy’s care to nurses and servants and the boy’s mother. He should have taken him in hand much sooner. Or perhaps the boy was just too much like his mother—frightened and unable to support an independent or ambitious thought. Ambition was everything. How many times had he told his son that?

“You are aware that I have asked all the servants to report anything suspicious to me, especially of anyone disloyal to you or me.”

“Yes, Father.”

He gave his son a withering look.

“Oh, I meant to say, Uncle Hazen.”

“It has come to my attention that there is a servant girl who came here from Mallin at the same time as your wife, and this girl’s name is Maggie.”

Alexander stared back with a blank look.

“Must I explain everything to you?” He glared at his son. “Has it never occurred to you that Lady Magdalen, your wife, does not possess the manners of a baron’s daughter? Is there not something a bit coarse about her?”