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The bird tweeted a descant as though inquiring after the rest. “The next day, my sweet friend, the marquess did not even explain himself but rather threatened me via his valet and the housekeeper. Both were matter-of-fact about the consequences, called attention to my parents and siblings and suggested I keep my peace.
“To be fair, there was no one to tell, no one to believe me until Castleton died without issue and the servants fled after he was taken away for whatever obsequies his kind adhere to. No one to tell at all, until His Royal Highness the prince regent informed me that the title had gone into escheat and of the pittance that would comprise my widow’s mite.” She smiled, bitter, sour. “And then, suddenly, I had someone to tell.”
Beatrice rose. “And now I have told you. I don’t know if it matters if you keep it to yourself. I shall leave it to your discretion.” The sash window moved smoothly and stayed open the few inches Beatrice deemed healthful for a good night’s sleep; by contrast, the interior shutters did not budge, and drawing the curtains proved an arduous business. She smiled as the bird peeped what she chose to believe was its good night.
She did not see the nightingale hop from the windowsill, narrowly escaping the attacking claw that sought its doom.
Six
Beatrice rose with the lark as she had done every day of her life. Pulling on her robe and sliding her feet into slippers, she tugged open the curtain hanging at the window. Due to their late arrival, she had not had the opportunity to take in the grounds behind the house. The back was in a state of wildness similar to the forecourt; there were none of the Italianate flourishes currently in fashion, no paths upon which to stroll between carefully cultivated box hedges and espaliered trees—nothing but a hill running down to a wood that loomed behind several rows of overgrown shrubs that may once have been topiary. She was aware the animal-people required wild places in which to exert themselves, but this outdid even Castleton’s acreage.
Wild and untamed as it was, its chaotic nature appealed to her. Beatrice had gone to a variety of outdoor functions thetonlaid on the moment a gleam of sunshine appeared in the sky and found their outdoor spaces to be as polished and remote as their ballrooms and parlors. Like many who called themselves civilized, she often overlooked that she had been born and reared in the countryside; seeing the rolling lawn and the deep forest called her youth to mind. Her brothers relished being out of doors, and they had been the better for it after a day of running wild, splashing in the brook, climbing every tree in creation. The one near the stillroom window was massive, likely an oak, its branches spread in what she fancied was a protective manner. She would look forward to it coming into bud.
What would she wear on her first day as mistress of Arcadia? She had more than one serviceable twill well able to stand up to a day’s work taking inventory. Dressing without flair had become a habit as she had no acquaintance to call upon in North Sunderland and no need to impress anyone there. As difficult as—if nearly impossible—it was for a lady to dress herself, she managed; with no responsibilities and a loathing of helplessness, she had become her own lady’s maid.
As well as chambermaid. It was not as if she’d never made a bed, accustomed to helping the nursery staff with their work. She shook out each layer of bedclothes and tucked the bottom sheet around the topmost mattress. This was filled with a high-quality flock while the lower two were filled with chaff. The linens were impeccably kept; she supposed the staff had little to occupy them but for the maintenance of simple things. The sheets had seen some use, but the seams held fast as she tested them. She pulled a woolen blanket flat and the large duvet on top of it. The pillow slips were, of course, the most worn as they had been fashioned as was customary out of sheets past their best use, but the weave of the fabric was very fine, and the softness was welcome. There was satisfaction to be gained from setting to rights what had been tumbled in sleep, even if it had only been herself. As ever.
Not that she’d entertained notions of a rousing marital life once she’d clapped eyes on Castleton at the altar in St. George’s. It had taken every ounce of strength she could muster to stop herself from running hysterical from the church. She had been raised to do her duty—she had raised herself to do so, more like. In part, to prove she was not useless to her father, to show she would bring him honor when she went off to wed, and in equal part so she may have some feeling of worth in her own eyes. Little good it did her in the end, and the old frustration welled up. The last layer of bedclothes, a worn coverlet, almost tore beneath her hands.
Wallowing in the past would not do. No matter her unexpected desire to tell her sad history to the nightingale.
The bed was as crisp as when she’d made it herself the previous evening, to the false dismay of little Ciara. It would be a crime to consign her to the bedsheets and chamber pots as her skills truly lay in the kitchen. She would see about getting another maid in.
Or they would. Would it be “they”? Osborn could prove the same as Castleton in that regard, relegating her to idleness, but she was older now, she had survived much, and she would not live a useless life again. Beatrice stoked the fire until it roared to life up the chimney. The jug was a quarter full of water, an oversight on the part of the footman whose job it truly was not. She set it by the fire regardless; some warm water was better than none.
The furniture had been dropped in place after the duke made his dramatic exit. How lowering that he should do so in front of the household. With greater force than necessary, she dragged a side table across the room to sit next to the dressing table and set one of her small cases upon it. Laying out her brush and comb, her silver-backed mirror and her enameled case full of hairpins, it was as if she was a stranger to her own things. Whoever had been ordered to pack for her had done so with care, and everything on the dressing table in her rooms in Castleton’s London townhouse had migrated to the Borough of Waverley. Her powder box and tin of rose lip salve were there, as was the lotion for her hands. The vial of oil she had been exhorted to use every day of her married life was near to empty. Beatrice breathed through a wave of distress as she pawed through the case to unearth the rest of her supply. There ought to have been at least three more… There were not.
Her trunk and valise received the same treatment until her belongings were scattered about the room in her panic; even her precious bonnets had been flung hither and yon. That oil had been a habit she found comfort in, a habit symbolic of hope, for the elixir was meant to increase her likelihood of falling pregnant.
As she was currently inhabiting the disused stillroom, there would be nowhere to make more. Nor was there any point in it as she had agreed to a white marriage—there was no need for the oil at all—but the force of habit was too strong; she decided to use what was left sparingly and dabbed a modest amount on her wrists and neck.
A scratch fell on the door, and Glynis shuffled in with a tray; a cup of tea wobbled upon it. “Now, ma’am, here’s a nice cuppa to set you right this morning.”
It was on the downward slope from tepid to cold, but who was heartless enough to scold the maid for it when she looked so pleased to serve? Not she. “Thank you, Glynis. How kind of you to tend to my rising.”
The maid took in the wealth of clothing spread out over the bed, tumbled like scraps fit for the rag bag. Glynis had not made an impression last evening, keeping to the background, but at the sight of the shambles Beatrice had made of everything from her fine silk stockings, her whisper-thin chemises, and her dresses running the gamut of morning to evening, it was as though a steel rod had gone up her spine. “This is no way for the clothes of a duchess to be treated,” the maid scolded as she marched over to the bed. “I’ll look out a dresser or two to keep your lovely things nice.” She sorted through the pile. “It’s not your place to have to mind them.”
“Do set them to rights, if you please.” Beatrice did mean it to please the maid, and Glynis looked very happy indeed. The mouse crooned her admiration of every garment as she smoothed them out, folding what needed folding and shaking out what needed pressing. “And if you would find me an apron, I would be grateful.”
It was shocking what comfort habit could bestow, silly that making a bed or organizing her vanity would settle her. Here she was, by order of the prince regent, married to a stranger in a house close to falling down around her ears, and she knew she was safer than she’d been in ages. She was a grown woman, forced into a situation not of her own making, but she would not be ground down again, erased, stifled.
“Was it the lady of the house who was proficient in the use of this room?” Beatrice perused the dusty jars of crumbling herbs lining one of the glass cases that ranged along the wall.
“No, ma’am, it was Lady Charlotte’s mum. She was a member of the Alpha’s, er, family—well, notfamilyfamily, as the Alpha’s son married her daughter, but yes, well. As such as lived with us.” Glynis fumbled several bonnets.
“In the house?” The window was open, and the chill morning air not as pleasing as the cool air of the night. Beatrice drew aside the curtains, tugging when they snagged on the rod.
“Oh yes, ma’am, that’s their way. The, er, lords and ladies of this place. They do tend to stay close. Well, the mums and childer, not the males. But now the males, too. Or they will.”
Beatrice smiled over her shoulder at the flustered mouse. “Birds of a feather, then.” She turned back to the view; there was movement on the grounds, a rustling behind the shrubs.
“Well, no, but yes, in a way. Eh.” Glynis wilted under the questioning.
“And did Lady Charlotte live here as well…” Her voice trailed off as the rustling resolved itself into His Grace.
He rose from the weeds and the tangled growth like an Elgin marble come to life. She had made a point in her widowhood to partake in what she’d missed while immured in North Sunderland, and cultural touchstones such as the British Museum had played a part…but the duke was as far from a cold, remote statue as a man could be. His shoulders were akin to those of Atlas, broad enough to shoulder the earth; they made an extraordinary contrast to the fineness of his midriff. She reckoned more than one society miss would wish for such a tidy waist. Beatrice ran her eyes up his belly to his chest and the veritable pelt that lay upon it, a deep, rich brown of a color with his hair, and gazed upon the cut of the muscles beneath…
She’d never seen such a display in her life, statues in the museum notwithstanding. Statues in the museum did not stretch their arms over their heads, did not have arms that appeared able to wrench an oak from its very roots, did not have hands large as spades, with long, strong fingers to scratch over the flat expanse of belly, which flexed as the duke moved forward through the underbrush, closer and closer to exposing—
