AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Anne allowed herself to be led upstairs. “Where is Robert?”
Letty shoved coal into the fireplace. “He is working. Or perhaps socializing with dreadful Mr. Selkirk.”
Deciding tea was in order, she hung a kettle in the fire and measured out leaves for the pot. She nabbed a shawl from the hook by the door and drew it over Anne’s shoulders, earning a listless smile in return.
She couldn’t help herself. She wanted to be the one to take care of Anne, whether she had caused harm or not. It was dangerous, these feelings that she felt so helpless against, and which she didn’t dare name. She pushed them aside and busied herself with a tray of biscuits.
Before long, Letty slid two steaming teacups onto the side table.
“Thank you,” Anne said, but didn’t reach for the cup.
“What’s wrong?” Letty asked. She reached over the arm of her chair to take Anne’s hand in hers and rubbed a thumb over her knuckles.
“We lost, Letty.” Anne closed her eyes and leaned her head back, her hand limp. “The duke has returned.”
Letty sat upright. “Hawthorne moved back home?”
“With his lover, no less. Sir Phineas and the Duke of Hawthorne—and their dog—are currently quite cozily ensconced in the Blue Suite on the third floor.”
It was one of the few suites that Letty hadn’t crammed full of furniture and artwork, but it was a small room with poor lighting next to the busy servant’s staircase. Neither of them had thought the duke would ever condescend to stay there.
“I am so sorry, Anne.”
“I thought I was being so clever, and it didn’t matter at all.” She opened her eyes, and they were full of misery. “Nothing we did mattered.”
“I wouldn’t say that. You made your point to him.”
“If I did, then he ignored it. The proof is that he’s the one at home, as comfortable as can be.”
“It’s worthwhile that you stood against him. The changes we’ve made to the house show that it’s a different space than the one he left. It represents different things. You’ve become a differentwifefrom the one he left. Maybe you need to talk to him about your ideas for the dukedom, Anne.”
“I would rather never speak to him again,” she said, her voice flat. “Perhaps I shall leave him the London estate and go back to Hawthorne Towers in the country.”
Letty froze, her teacup halfway to her lips. “Leave? No. You can’t go.” Things weren’tfinished.
“I have been the recipient of both snide and pitying looks from the staff. I imagine half of them think Hawthorne to be the devil incarnate. The other half think I’m a poor example of a wife, unable to keep her husband in her bed.” Anne laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Maybe he truly is the devil, and this is hell.”
“Hell is what you make of it,” Letty mused. “I could redecorate it for you. Fewer flames. Maybe add some flowers.”
Her lip trembled. “I could think of nowhere else to go, except to you.”
“I am here for you,” Letty said, touched. “Always.”
Anne sprang from the chair, taut with energy, and paced in front of the fire. “I could not bear to stay another minute. How can I look at Hawthorne, or hislover, across the table at dinner? And yet what will the servants think of me if I do not appear, and hide away in my bedchamber?” She laughed again. “But I am forgetting. We already tore my bedchamber apart. No one is where they are supposed to be in that house.”
“Maybe you’re finding your way back together,” Letty said. Her heart ached to see Anne so pent up with anger. “Maybe it’s time to speak to him.”
Anne whirled around to face her, her shawl slipping down one shoulder. “I was thinking we should accelerate our plan and proceed to strip down the public rooms. Leave nothing untouched. How long will he stay if the veryhousebecomes unlivable?”
Was that why Anne had come all the way from Mayfair to see her? To talk more about the plans for the house? Unease prickled Letty’s skin. When she had accepted the job, she would have loved the chance to work on the public rooms. Yet the circumstances felt different now.
The public rooms of the house mattered for her career. The bedchambers were specific to the people who inhabited them, seen by no one except maids and lovers. But the main rooms of a grand estate were meant to dazzle. And Hawthorne House’s rooms attracted the likes of princes with deep pockets.
“I could have a work crew at Hawthorne House in a few weeks to start moving everything out of the first floor.”
“Excellent. Let’s tear it all down.”
Anne’s dark blue eyes were wild and angry, but they were also covered by a sheen of tears. Letty leaned forward and caught one on her thumb as it escaped down her cheek. “Don’t worry aboutit tonight. I have modest accommodations, compared to your own. But you would be more than welcome to share them.”
