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Okay, not the most exciting title. But I was excited. More than I’d been in a while.
Maybe staying at Corbray Hall wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe I had a potential future here after all.
* * *
I poredover the journals for what must have been hours, settling myself at the study table after locating some paper and pens to take notes as I read. Really, though, I was just enjoying myself, lost in the process of discovering a text—many texts—for the first time. So much that I barely looked at the time and was completely startled by a voice suddenly in the room with me.
“Oh, hello.”
I jumped at the table, then looked up to find the double doors open again as Georgina entered the library.
She hadn’t been at breakfast, though I assumed she and Frederick were at home. She looked as perfectly pressed as she had yesterday, from her blown-out brown hair to her coordinated white pantsuit and the heirloom jewelry glinting from her ears and fingers.
“Hello, um, ma’am—”
“Your Grace,” she corrected me with a snip in her tone. “I am still a duchess, even though my husband has passed. The correct address is Your Grace, the same as the current duke ought to be addressed.”
Her comment was pointed. Clearly, she had heard me calling Xavier by his first name and did not think it was appropriate. Or perhaps it was just me who wasn’t appropriate.
I bobbed again nervously.
“And for goodness’ sake, you don’t have to curtsy. I’m not the queen, you know.”
I found myself wanting to bob again but restrained myself. “My apologies, Your Grace. I’m still learning the appropriate nomenclature and customs.”
To be honest, I’d thought I was fairly familiar with them from all my reading. Clearly, I was not.
I glanced at an ornate clock, noting it was nearly time for lunch. Good lord, I’d spent nearly the entire morning in here. Well, it would be easy to make my excuse to leave, at least…
“That clock,” Georgina said, following my gaze. “It’s working again.”
I blinked. “It wasn’t before?”
Her brown eyes shot back to me. “You don’t know its story?”
I didn’t know what to say. It was like dinner all over again, where conversations were constantly had about things I was expected to know but obviously couldn’t, given the fact that I had never actually been to Corbray Hall before that morning.
“There is a legend around that clock,” she said. “They say a witch tied its chime to the health of the Duke of Kendal a very long time ago. Now, when the duke passes, the clock is stopped and broken. And when his son takes up the title and the seat of the family, he fixes it—or has it fixed, really—and returns it to its rightful place.” She eyed me suspiciously. “That wall has been empty for nearly five years. Did you know that?”
Again I blinked. “I—no, I did not, Your Grace.”
Georgina sniffed. “Yes. It was broken when my husband passed away. And they tried to give it to Xavier. But he wouldn’t take it. Now it’s back, just yesterday. And working again.”
We both stared at the clock for a long time, and suddenly, I realized I recognized its carved edges and inlaid gold. It was the clock that Xavier had pointed out at his apartment just a few days earlier. The clock his uncle had sent to him, apparently—a bid to return as the duke he was.
And now it was here. Working.
Had Xavier made a decision about his future here that I wasn’t aware of?
I wasn’t sure how to react to the story. It was the first I’d heard of this tradition, but more than that, it seemed like she was blaming me for something. It was a good thing, if Xavier wanted to take up his inheritance, right? Regardless of how I felt, it couldn’t change the fact an estate like this needed an owner. The people who had written the journals I’d read were passionate about their family’s lineage. They were passionate about everything Kendal symbolized: prosperity. Propriety. Endurance.
A clock, as it were, seemed a fitting token.
A clock that Xavier had returned.
“So, you like…books, do you?” Georgina peered around as if just seeing the library for the first time.
“Oh! Yes,” I said, grateful for something else to think about. “Xavier offered me the key to the library. I used to study English literature, you see, and he thought I might—”
