“He’s beastly,” little Edmund joined in. “A monster of a duke!”
“Hush,” Beauty chided. “Perhaps the duke does not know his steward is cruel?”
“Probably does and doesn’t care.” Isaac scowled. “See how he treated Father over a stupid rose.”
“And it is impossible for a scullery maid to work off debt of that amount.” Michael struck the table top with his palm. “He wants a slave, that’s what he wants!”
“Is he beastly, Father?” Beauty turned to her father, her stomach in knots of unease.
“Beastly! What a thing to say about a duke.” Father fiddled with his tea cup, not meeting her eye.
“Please, tell me of the duke?” Beauty sat down on the bench before him and stared at him until he answered.
Father sighed. “He could be called beastly. A brute. He is cold and silent, a large, haughty man with a malevolent eye and rough scars.”
“Scars?”
“He had smallpox as a youth. It left him pockmarked and half-blind. He wears an eyepatch.”
She blinked. That was unexpected. “A common disease left him scarred.” Her shoulders loosened. “Interesting. Like us, wealth and position didn’t protect him from life’s downturns.”
“Yes, as much as we would wish wealth to protect us from the harshness of life, it reaches the top and the bottom.” Father stared musingly into his teacup.
“As we’ve experienced,” Michael said.
“Chin up. It’s not so bad,” Beauty said. “We have this lovely cottage and land of our own to work. It’s not rented, so the profits can go to us. You are a landowner, Papa, even if it’s a small parcel.”
She mused over Father’s description of the duke. “I know someone else who was left with only one working eye from smallpox. How different the two men must be, while being so the same.”
“Oh? Who?”
“Mr. Grant. I’ve met him a few times when walking from North Lenton.”
“And what type of man is he?”
“Just a common laborer.”
“I don’t think I’ve met him.”
“I’ve seen him scarce a handful of times. He said he travels about a lot.”
Father soon turned to going over the boys’ sums, and Beauty pulled oat cakes from the oven. She missed the soft white flour they used to have in London.
She would have to tell Mr. Grant of what he shared with a duke when next she saw him. An unexpected pang hit her heart.
She was unlikely to ever see him again.
Large, lumbering Will Grant, with his milk-white eye and gentle manner. She had taken to looking for him around every curve in the road to the village. Her heart thumped. He was not handsome, but . . . she had felt drawn to him.
When she’d asked about him in the village, North Lenton, they had proclaimed him a traveler only rarely seen around these parts.
***
The poor rose had gone through so much. It drooped on its long stem.
Beauty took it between her hands, held carefully against the thorns. The color truly was beautiful. The purple petals moved into deep mauve at the base, the foliage a dark, glossy green.
She inhaled the sweet fragrance. It hadn’t been bred for its smell but for its color, but the sweetness lingered, lovely and light, not as strong and heady as perfume roses.
She cupped the blossom in one hand, picked up her shears, and cut off the head at its base. A gasp came from behind her.
“Why did you do that!” Her sister Frederica rushed in, a horrified look in her eyes.
Beauty gave her a small smile and placed the blossom in a bowl of water she’d prepared.
She cut off all but the top two stems of the leaves, peeled back a strip of outer layer from the base of the stem, and pushed it into a pot of rich, dark soil.
“Rose cuttings will take root and sprout a new bush if treated properly.”
Frederica gave a doubtful frown.
“After I am gone, when it is full spring, well past all frosts, have Michael plant this on the west side of the garden, near the house to protect it from the wind. If you care for it well, soon you might be able to sell the blooms. I imagine they will go for a higher penny than most rose blossoms, with this rare color.”
“Flower selling.” Her sister wrinkled her pert nose, but her eyes turned speculative in the direction of the unassuming green stick that now stood solitary in its new pot.
Beauty willed it to take root and flourish. It had cost her family so much, this might be the only thing she could do to improve their lives as she left.
She feared they would stumble through rough misery without her there to pull the household together. But Father would be here. She prayed for them all.
Frederica cleared her throat. Beauty looked up at her with raised eyebrows.
Frederica pulled a length of silk from beneath her arm and unfurled it before her. It was her pink silk evening dress, one of the few Frederica had left from their days of wealth in London. “For you.”
“What?” Beauty blinked at her in surprise.
“We’ll have to take it in, but we have time.”
“But—”
“You are going to live in a duke’s castle, Beauty, no matter that you’ll be a servant there. You may have opportunity to wear this, while I have little here in North Lenton.”
Beauty knew how slavishly Frederica and Elizabeth cared for their few remaining silk dresses. They were their treasures. “I couldn’t, Frederica—”
“You shall. Because I shall hate you being gone away, and I know I could offer to go and then you’d stay and everything would be better for our family; they can deal with not having me much more than not having you, but I just can’t, Beauty, I just can’t.” Her words rushed faster and faster until Frederica burst into tears.
Beauty jumped up, pulled her older sister to her, and joined her tears.
***
Beauty lingered over the few books left in the family library. They took up less than a shelf. She mourned the loss of the richness they had previously had—a full library of beautiful books, worlds on worlds of story and information. But books were expensive and could be sold for money her family had needed. And so the library was gone, leaving only a precious few they couldn’t bring themselves to part with.
The lack of funds grated and pulled, a constriction she found quite as miserable as her siblings did, even if she could live without the pretty dresses. It was the books and the food that she missed the most.
She fingered the family Bible. The last updated entry was the date of her mother’s death soon after Edmund’s birth. Her fingers curled away from that pain and moved over Shakespeare’s sonnets, Milton’s Paradise Lost, well-worn and well-loved copies of Camilla, Waverley, and Pride and Prejudice. The Book of Common Prayer ended the shelf. She said goodbye to them all.
***
Beauty woke as the grandfather clock in the entry struck. It had been in the house when they arrived, too big to be moved, a luxury they kept maintained and wound.
One, two—she counted the peals with her eyes closed against the lingering dark. Six chimes. It was time to get up.
The duke’s promised carriage would arrive today.
Her uneasy dreams of the night lingered in her mind like a sour taste in the back of her throat—the dreams had been all shifting shadows, the sense of some large, predatory animal prowling out of sight. She had felt an urgency to stay very still, to not catch the attention of the beast.
Beauty shook herself from this disquieted mood and moved quietly from her trundle bed so as not to wake Frederica or Elizabeth, asleep in the larger bed.
***
“Beauty! The duke’s coach is here!”
Beauty gulped, swallowed down her nerves, and stood. She wore her nicest work dress, pressed and neat. She donned her serviceable wool cloak, tied on her bonnet, and secured it with a pin. Frederica had given up a few more of h
er ribbons to trim it.
Edmund burst into the kitchen. “It has the duke’s crest and everything! Two footmen!”
Alarm shot through her. “The duke has not come himself, has he?” She did not want to face that, to face him!
“No, there’s only a woman inside, but she’s gotten out. Come, come see.”
“I’m coming.”
Her hands were sweating. She wiped them on her skirt, composed herself, picked up her portmanteau, and stepped out into the overcast day.
A stern-faced older woman met her at the bottom of the steps.
“I am Mrs. Haskins. I have been tasked by the duke to escort a Miss Reynolds to Thornewick Castle. Are you she?”
“Yes, Isabelle Reynolds, Mrs. Haskins. I thank you for coming.”
The woman eyed her. “Is this all the luggage you are taking?
“Yes, ma’am.”
She sniffed. “Very well. Come along, then.”
Beauty turned back and hugged her brothers, who watched with grave faces, then her sisters—Elizabeth frowning, Frederica teary—and finally her father, who held her face between his hands and blinked back tears.
“My Beauty. I’m so sorry, my Beauty.”
“All will be well, Papa. Take care of everyone. Michael, take care of Papa.”
“Come, Miss Reynolds,” the woman said with impatience. “I was charged to bring you with no delay.”
“Of course, forgive me.”
She waved her handkerchief out the carriage window as her family and their cottage receded into the distance. She then sat, focused on the scenery as it passed, with her dry eyes as wrung out as her heart.
Chapter 3
William sat in the coaching inn’s taproom, nursing a tankard of ale, and ignoring the roiling nervousness in his stomach.
They were late.
It was early March, rainy, and the roads uncertain, but they should have reached here two hours past.
William passed his tankard between his hands, keeping his shoulders hunched. He’d had the same draft since he sat down to wait, and the innkeeper was sending him disgruntled looks. William wanted to be clear-headed when they finally arrived.
He should order some food to keep the man from eyeing him any closer than he already had. But William’s nervous stomach wouldn’t take well to a meal.
He hoped the thirty miles of distance from his family seat would be far enough to keep the anonymity of this disguise: simple workman’s clothes, rough boots, dark woolen cloak. No eyepatch.
But the barkeep was watching him too closely. He should have had Mrs. Haskins stop for the night in a more out of the way place.
A cry came from outside. “The Duke of Rosden’s carriage!”
The inhabitants of the inn and taproom stirred at the announcement, people turning to each other. His shoulders tensed.
“What duke?
“The Duke of Rosden?”
“Oh, the one-eyed one? Of Thornewick in Northampton?”
“Yes, that’s him.”
Several rushed to the windows to see for themselves.
He suppressed a smile as disappointment went through the crowd when only two women emerged from the duke’s carriage, neither dressed fine enough to be anyone of importance.
“Just a couple of servants.”
“Too bad. Hear he’s pox-scarred too. That’d be something to see. And there’s a chance at largess when the quality is around. I’m always up for a slip of the blunt for a service rendered.”
William pushed down nerves and stood.
Doubts assailed him again. What if one of the other sisters came? He had been a fool not to insist on the youngest— and only the youngest—but he hadn’t wanted to show his hand.
He exaggerated his limp and kept his shoulders hunched as he headed to the door of the taproom, through the hallway, and into the entry. He would just be happening to walk out as they walked in.
Mrs. Haskins came through the front door of the inn. Her eyes caught his and continued on, doing her job of ignoring him admirably. A feminine figure came in behind her and his breath caught.
It was Beauty.
Relief ran through him, as well as the same inexplicable tug he felt whenever he was near her.
She looked just as pretty as she had when he first saw her on the road outside North Lenton.
Though dressed in rough homespun with work-reddened hands, she had the bearing of a lady. Her manners and deportment were everything an exacting society matron could desire.
It was the kindness in her smile, the gentleness in her eyes that drew him in like a light-dazzled moth, a starving man to a feast. His soul ached for that kindness to rest on him, to enfold him. It was a longing that overtook him whenever she was near.
She was so beautiful.
She looked tired by the day’s journey, but she gazed around the coaching inn’s lobby with interest.
He willed her to look in his direction, to see him. He took a step forward.
Her gaze turned towards him. Their eyes locked for a second, and she cast her eyes down quickly, as if she had made eye contact with a stranger. But she looked back up, blinked, and surprised recognition overtook her face.
His breath quickened.
She took a step toward him then cast her eyes towards Mrs. Haskins. His housekeeper was involved with the innkeeper's wife, her back to them both. Beauty turned to him, a sweet smile on her lips.
His heart increased its cadence. His feet planted themselves to the floorboards. They would not move.
She approached him.
“Mr. Grant! It is a surprise to meet you here. How are you?”
He dragged his voice forward, keeping a rural accent thick in his words. “Miss Reynolds. Good day to you.” He tipped his forelock to her.
She looked him in his good eye and did not flinch from the uncovered whiteness of the blind one.
“How is your hand?” Her eyes were wide and beautiful, and she seemed as undeterred by the pockmarks on his face as ever. His body wanted to go to her and wrap himself around her. He resisted the urge.
“Was I so poor a nurse that it hasn’t healed?” She gave him an encouraging smile.
“Oh, the bite wound!” He recalled their second meeting.
“Yes, from the poor, frightened cat you rescued.”
His mouth tugged upward. “You were so fine a nurse I forgot the bite happened.” He stretched out his bare hand toward her. “Nary a scar.”
She took his large hand between her two small ones. His skin zinged from her touch, his breath caught, but she evaluated his hand with a nurse’s detached eye. Did he not affect her at all? Was his attraction to her a hopeless, one-sided thing? He swallowed down misery at the thought.
She looked up at him with a smile. “All healed, no scar. I’m glad.” She kept his hand caught in hers. Her fingers were tapered and graceful, her touch light, but her nails were blunt, her skin rough and calloused, with small cracks in the skin from hard labor. A scullery maid already.
His hands were a contrast to hers. He hoped their strength from extensive riding would disguise the softness of his otherwise pampered nobleman’s skin, but still, the skin on his hands was too fine for a common laborers. A weakness in his disguise. His stomach lurched, and he pulled his hand free from hers.
She blushed and looked abashed. “Your pardon, sir.”
He shifted with discomfort.
She looked everywhere but at him. She soon seemed to gather herself. “I have not seen you in the vicinity of North Lenton in many weeks. You travel, I understand?”
“Yes. Go where the work takes me.”
“I’m going where the work takes me as well! Are you familiar with Thornewick Castle? I go to be a scullery maid there. Good, honest work. Though I do hope I can work my way up. Perhaps to assistant cook or a house maid?”
“I know the place.” He forced the words out of his throat.
�
��Are you ever in the vicinity? It would be lovely to see a familiar face once in a while. I’m afraid I will find myself quite homesick.”
She wanted to see him again? Hope struck him in the heart with a painful twang. “I could, I will—” He stopped himself, stumbling over how to answer. “I’ll see you there, then. ‘Ave business at the castle.”
“You do?” A grin spread over her face. His spirits soared, a heady, dizzying feeling.
“When?” she asked. “And how will I see you? I don’t know—I doubt I will have much free time—”
“Soon. Don’t fret. I’ll arrange it, and send word.” A smile threatened to break out, lifting one side of his face. He resisted it, forced it down.
But her face was all smile and hope. His heart beat too fast. This heady feeling was overtaking his reason.
“Very well, I will wait on your word.”
Movement behind her caught his eye. Mrs. Haskins stood a few feet off, an eyebrow raised, impatience in her stance.
Beauty followed his gaze and jumped. “Oh, forgive me, Mrs. Haskins; this is Mr. Grant. I was so surprised to see someone I knew so far from home. Mr. Will Grant, Mrs. Haskins, housekeeper at Thornewick Castle."
Mrs. Haskins eyed him and kept silent. She waited to take her clues from him. Good woman.
“Mrs. Haskins. Your servant, ma’am.” He touched his forelock again.
“Mr. Grant.” She inclined her head. Her face was pinched, the contradictions likely making her most uncomfortable. He should end this before something slipped.
“I’ll let you go. ’Til we meet again, Miss Reynolds.”
“Yes, farewell, Mr. Grant.”
“Come along, Miss Reynolds. Our dinner and a room awaits.” Mrs Haskins bustled Beauty away. He watched her go, the gracefulness of her carriage captivating him once again.
She turned, glanced back, and gave him a wave and a smile before disappearing up the stairs. His heart thumped.
Oh, he was lost. Captured. The fight lost, the ship sunk. Caught hook, line, and sinker. Caged and tamed.
He had hoped her impact on him would lessen after the disaster that had been his association with her father. But it hadn’t. Her allure was just as strong—stronger, for the fixation that had lasted through the winter was a beating, living thing in his chest, consuming his heart and his mind.
Beauty's Rose (Once Upon A Regency Book 4) Page 2