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The journey ended in a shallow hall, double doors facing them as they stood. Through the doorway lay the long gallery. To the right, the entry to the nursery and schoolroom. To the left…
Unerringly, Madam went in the least favorable direction. Chose the least favorable door, which hung crooked upon its hinges.
Madam crossed the threshold. He would not.
But he did look, and he did see.
The rooms may well have been caught in amber. The layer of dust on the objects and furniture was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Nothing had been disturbed, and despite the gloom and the dirt and the cobwebs, it was as if he shrank and shrank until he was only small, running in from the nursery to complain about Ben or to show off a drawing or to simply sit at his mother’s feet as she did what mums did during the day.
Or he could wander in and find his father busy about the work of an Alpha; if Arthur was in the mood to learn how to do whatever it was his father was doing, Papa never passed up the opportunity to show him.
He took one step forward and then two back. This was ridiculous. He was a grown man. These were only rooms. The past was in the past.
***
Beatrice stood in the middle of the sitting room of what was without question the ducal suite. The liberal use of rich emerald and warm mahogany matched those on the escutcheon of the carriage they’d traveled in, clearly the family colors. Larger-than-life-sized portraits faced across from one another, obscured by years of grime; she could make out one as female, the other male, but nothing more. She could not bring herself to look at them too closely.
She chose not to look at anything too closely, and yet she saw a workbag on the floor near a sofa and a hoop with unfinished work on the table before it. She saw a desk with a sheaf of papers and a quill laid across them. She saw through to a room in which the door of a wardrobe stood ajar, only waiting for its mistress to close it. She saw a pair of boots, one fallen to the floor, one standing tall, their master never to set his feet into them ever again.
Behind her, Osborn took one step away from the doorway, then another.
It struck her that she knew nothing of what had transpired here. Georgie had scolded Osborn for refusing his responsibilities, but he had not said why. “Why” appeared to be driven by pain and loss. Too much pain and loss for one day.
Beatrice stepped out; Osborn stood at a distance down the corridor, tugging on a curtain.
“There is a similarity to the curtains in Arcadia,” she said. “I gather they have not been opened for some time.”
The duke wrenched the fabric; one side of the hanging tore off the rail, and both finials crashed to the floor. The cloud of dust was prodigious.
“That is one way to go about it,” she said once she’d stopped coughing. Beatrice reached out and touched his upper arm, finding it far wider around than her hand could close. “Let us go with care, as we may be able to salvage something from this disarray.”
He looked down at the torn fabric in his hands and let it drop to the floor. “As you say.” Osborn reached up to the next set and drew them gently off the hooks that held them to the rod. He gave them a shake, and as the dust rose and settled, they exchanged a small smile.
“I propose we repair to the first floor and begin there.” She started to fold the curtain, but he took it from her and did so himself. “It will inspire the staff and raise their spirits if the public rooms are brought up to scratch as soon as may be.” She indicated a side table upon which Osborn should lay the curtain and made for the staircase.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him roll his shoulders and with that gesture lose a bit of the melancholy that clung to him.
“At the same time,” Beatrice continued, “I perceive the attics and the maid’s rooms are in a dreadful state if the appearance of the roof is any indication.”
“You will on no account venture there.” The duke stopped at the first-floor landing and poked his finger through the plaster of a wall. “Given the condition of these, I suspect the water damage is treacherous. You are barred from going above.”
Was it an argument that was wanted to take his mind from his gloom? Never let it be said she could not rise to the occasion. “I take as my responsibility—”
“As theladyof this house.” His voice was low and rumbly and abrupt. And teasing?
“—to see for myself what needs to be done.” She added another layer of chill as she continued. “One would not expect a peer of your distinction to dirty his lily-white hands.”
“My—what? My lily-white—are you having me on, Madam?” He ranted and raved as she glided into a room that contained nothing but a chandelier and a litter of crystal drops on the rug beneath it, and she very nearly smiled.
***
Beatrice counted her first day at Arcadia as one of excellent progress.
She had a good understanding of the amount of work needed to restore the house (prodigious), was now aware it had been allowed to disintegrate (a mystery), and better comprehended the resistance she was likely to encounter (colossal).
Descriptives applicable to Osborn.
As well as irascible and sardonic and stubborn. If she attempted to lift anything, he was there to do so in her stead; when she reached out to open a door or a window, he shunted her aside to see to it himself. What little furniture they came across was inspected for fitness, and broken objects were set aside as they made their way from room by room.
