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Chapter Seventeen
Dorian led her along the shore of the lake, where the moon’s reflected twin danced upon the surface of the black water. He was intensely aware of her hand upon his arm, gloveless and roughened by the years of labor she had endured. He did not mind that. To him, they were slender yet strong: an emblem of her life and her hardships and all she had done to be here at his side.
“Hudson tells me you like to walk in the evening.” He felt desperate to make conversation, lest the stilted silence between them continue on. “Do you not like it within the house? I have not had the opportunity to ask, before now, how you are faring in your new position. Do you care for it here?”
Rose lowered her gaze. “I care for it very much, My Lord. The work is hard, but I enjoy it, and I adore the company of the laundry maids—old and young alike. I feel… content and at peace here.” She opened her mouth as if she intended to say more, only to close it again, like she had thought better of it.
“Then why do you walk? Do you merely enjoy the refreshment or the exercise?” Dorian hoped he might be able to garner some insight into why the housemaids were playing jests upon her, for if there was any meanness being directed at Rose, he would see to it that it came to an immediate end.
She shrugged. “I’m not yet used to all the noise. I know that sounds ludicrous, when I lived in lodgings in the middle of London, with walls so thin they may as well not have been there, but… it’s a different kind of noise. I was used to the sounds of London, but I’m not used to the sounds here yet. The girls I share a room with always want to talk with me, and they try to get me to join in their gossip, but I’m not used to that, either. In London, I had no friends, and I only really spoke with my neighbors when they were bringing me a message from my pa. I like… my solitude, I suppose.”
“I can understand that.” Dorian felt his heart clench, for he knew of what she spoke intimately. Oftentimes, even Hudson’s company became too much for him, and he chose to retreat on his own, with only his animals, so he could quiet the disturbances in his mind. Those were the moments in which no amount of reassurance from his friend could calm him.
Rose glanced at him. “Animals are simpler, aren’t they?”
“They are, in many ways.” Dorian nodded. “But it is the quiet here that troubles me, rather than the noise. Having lived beside a battlefield for so many years, I still expect the sound of musket fire and cannons, and when I do not hear it, I occasionally fear that the enemy is creeping up to attack. That is what silence meant in those days. It was the calm before a devastating storm.”
“Do you think you’ll ever fully recover from all you saw and heard, My Lord?” Rose surprised him with the question, for it was not one that many dared to ask. “I heard from the women I sewed with, and in my lodgings, of sons and husbands and brothers who didn’t come back the same. Some would flinch at any loud sound, others drowned the ghosts of those battlefields with liquor and cards, and some couldn’t resume their lives because they weren’t… whole anymore. I heard of a few who simply couldn’t bear it, being back in normal life, and chose to step out of the world completely, by their own hand.”
Dorian took in a shaky breath, for this was territory he never trod upon. “I do not know that any soldier is able to forget the men they have killed in the name of monarch and country or the horrors of those killing fields. They cannot deafen themselves to the remembered screams of dying boys and horses, or how even the biggest, most brutish of men call for their mothers when they are wounded and dying as if they were scared children again.”
“How do you bear it?” Rose murmured sadly.
He mustered a bitter chuckle. “When I discover the answer to that, I shall let you know.”
They fell into a melancholy silence as he directed her toward a rarely walked path between the trees at the far edge of the lakeshore. Indeed, as far as he knew, he was the only one who knew it was there. A lump of sun-bleached rock sat half-concealed behind a tangle of shrubbery. As a child, it had read ‘Maiden’s Walk,’ but now, the letters were mostly eroded. Those that were not were covered in yellowed lichen, making it invisible to anyone who was not aware of its existence.
Emboldened by their unexpectedly emotional discussion, Dorian moved to take Rose’s hand and tugged her gently into the woodland. He sensed a momentary resistance, perhaps out of fear or apprehension, but then her hand relaxed in his, and she followed him between the trees and into the shadowed realm beyond.
“Can you see, My Lord?” she asked nervously.
He smiled. “I would know my way, even if I were blind. I have walked this path since I was a boy.”
“There is a path?” She sounded surprised.
“I assure you, there is, but the walk is not long.” He did not know why he had chosen to bring her this way, for he had never shown anyone this path or its eventual destination before. It had always been his secret, and his alone. An old gardener had shown it to him when he was nine years of age and had made him promise to keep it to himself until he was Earl of this estate and had a wife and children with whom he could share it with. Though the gardener had died a long time ago, Dorian had kept that promise until now.
I am Earl of this estate, but I have no wife, and I have no children, and I do not know that I shall ever have them. So… why do I feel as though Imustshow this place to Rose?He could not fathom it, nor could he bring himself to retrace his steps and take her away from there. In truth, hewantedher to see it. He wanted to see her reaction to it, for no other reason than knowing it might make her smile and laugh in that way that he adored.
“And you are happy in the laundry?” Dorian felt that desperation to break the silence again, for he did not want to dwell on the sadness of her last question.
She chuckled. “I am, My Lord.”
“You would not prefer to be elsewhere in the household? That can be arranged if you are not content where you are,” he said, realizing the redundancy of his inquiries, for she had already told him that she was at peace there and enjoyed the company of the other laundry maids.
“Oh no, I wouldn’t be anywhere else, My Lord. I am an atrocious cook, so I wouldn’t be much good in the kitchens, and I wouldn’t know how to begin as a chambermaid or a housemaid.” He thought he could hear her smiling. “The laundry is where I belong, I feel. The work is familiar to me, and there’s a sort of… meditative quality to it. A routine that calms me. I didn’t have much of a routine in London, so it’s nice not to have any nasty surprises.”
Dorian nodded, though she would not have been able to see him in the gloom. “Was this akin to what you had envisioned for your future? Or did you think you would always be in London?”
For several minutes of picking their way through the underbrush and Dorian swiping aside the low-hanging branches so they would not snap in Rose’s face, she said nothing. Her quietude unnerved him, for he did not know if he had said the wrong thing.
Am I talking too much?Is she uncomfortable with so many questions?He was not exactly known for being verbose, and he had not really spoken to her with such insistence before. Perhaps, she did not know what to say or what she should say in his presence. And he did not have the foresight to tell her that she could be entirely honest, and he would not hold any judgment against her.
“I had dreams for my future once, but I had to let them go a long time ago. Now, I’m just grateful that I’m not scraping an existence in London. I’d never go back there,” she said quietly, just as the silence was becoming unbearable. He could not see her face, but he heard the sadness in her tone, and it flooded his chest with sorrowful curiosity. What dreams had she had that could make her so upset at the loss of them?
“What were these hopes of yours?” he asked, unable to stop himself. He felt as though he were watching her peel off layers of fabric that she used to conceal the real her beneath, and he longed to uncover her every dream and hope and wish if only to get a glimpse into her soul.
“It’s foolish. I can’t pursue them anymore, so it’s better that I forget I ever had them,” she replied. “I’m here now, and I’m happy, so that’s what I should focus on. The rest is all history and should stay there in my past.”
