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“Oh, good.” Robert clapped his hands together cheerfully and saw Mary flinch from the violent sound.
“Your grandmother is here,” he said gently, trying to offset the reaction he inadvertently caused.
“My grandmother—” Mary said thoughtfully, obviously trying to remember who her grandmother was.
“You haven’t met her yet.” He smiled at her. “But she is going to love you.”
He heard an indelicate snort coming from the young maid. Robert turned slowly to her, but she had already adopted a stony face.
“Alice,” he said with a tone of authority, “please make sure that Mary wears her best dress for dinner. I will bring the dowager duchess about to meet her in the nursery.”
“Yes, My Lord.” The girl curtsied and hurried Mary away and up the stairs, while Robert turned and went to his study.
* * *
His secretary was already there as he reached the room, waiting with the heap of correspondence.
“Any news?” Robert asked, settling into the chair.
“Yes, there’s an urgent note from your solicitor, My Lord,” the secretary said with a bow and handed Robert the missive.
Robert held his breath. He hoped he finally received a letter he’d been waiting for. He had many things to worry about as it was, but he was waiting on a particular letter about the asylum. Ever since he saw the place’s horrendous conditions and witnessed how Mary was treated there, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. The moment he got back to the Clydesdale estate, he’d followed up with his solicitor and asked him to dig out as much information as he could on the place.
So far, he’d come up blank. All the reports regarding the York asylum praised the institution for its stellar reputation and humane approach. He would have laughed if it hadn’t pained him. The condition Mary was in when they rescued her was by no stretch humane.
Robert opened the missive and read a few lines he found there. His features cleared, and he felt as if he could see the light at the end of a dark tunnel. Apparently, right across the street, almost next door to the York asylum was another establishment with a similar purpose but with much better execution, the York retreat. The retreat manager was a highly regarded solicitor and reformist and a whirling storm of a man, Benjamin Tule.
The note indicated that the solicitor had gone to the retreat and saw with his own eyes that the treatment the inmates received there was far different and much better than their next-door neighbors. The retreat servants assured him that Mr. Tule was most interested in reforming all the similar institutions and even tried to reach out to the York asylum several times without success.
However, Mr. Tule himself was away on some practice exchange journey. A letter indicated, that he’d be back in London by the end of the month and back in York a fortnight or more later. This wasn’t ideal, it was taking too much time for Robert’s liking, but at least in about a month and a half, he could meet with the man and perhaps do something about it.
He remembered the well-dressed man in the comfortable if not luxurious office of the York asylum. The contrast between him and bedraggled Mary as she was dragged to them by the orderlies made Robert sizzle in anger again.
“So, you were not even going to come to see me,” the stern voice of the dowager duchess sounded from the doorway.
Robert turned his head and saw his grandmother standing just inside the room. “Apologies, I got distracted, Your Grace.” Robert took his eyes off the letter and sauntered to his grandmother. He kissed her on her hand and helped her settle on the settee by the fireplace.
“I ordered us some tea,” she said. “I wanted to discuss a few things with you before supper. I had assumed, as a dutiful grandson, it was your responsibility to seek me out as you’ve returned from wherever you were.” The dowager carelessly waved her hand. “Young people and their lack of manners,” she muttered under her breath.
The secretary eyed the duchess uncertainly. He bowed as she entered and now stood next to Robert’s desk, looking uncomfortable.
“As you can see, I am working,” Robert addressed the dowager.
“Not anymore.” The dowager eyed his secretary stonily until he bowed again and turned to Robert.
“If that will be all, My Lord,” he said, pushing at his spectacles, and settling them higher on the bridge of his nose.
Robert heaved a sigh. “That’s all right, we’ll continue things on the morrow. My grandmother requires my full attention.” He grinned at the dowager, and she just raised a brow.
“Of course, My Lord.” His secretary bowed, then repeated the action for the dowager’s benefit and hurried away from the room.
“Do you have to frighten everyone?” Robert raised one sardonic brow as he settled behind his desk.
“I don’thaveto do anything.” The dowager put her hands demurely on her lap and straightened her spine. “However, what I’d like to do now, is speak with you about your—” Her lips tightened in distaste at her next words. “About your wife.”
“What about my wife?” Robert lounged in his chair in a deceptively relaxed posture.
“How have you been getting along?”
