His usual strict composure slipped, as his instincts seemed to reaffirm without his better judgment’s permission – Yes, this is a very lovely young woman.
She was first to look away, studying an old portrait of Reeve’s father that had hung on the far wall for many years. He couldn’t divine what she might be thinking. It didn’t matter. It was not for him to know.
“Very well, then,” he said. “Now that our first introductions have been made and you know Sophie and Phoebe…” he trailed off, and called more loudly than he intended, causing Edgar to jump out of a near stupor from his station by the door, “Duckie, do cease your lurking!”
The cook appeared immediately. She had been eavesdropping in the corridor. While Miss Sedgwyck had become acquainted with the girls, Reeve spied the toes of Duckie’s worn shoes just past the doorjamb. It was still a mystery to him as to how such a rotund woman could sneak, then hide, but Duckie could.
He trusted her judge of character, and did not mind that she had taken it upon herself to listen to this first meeting.
Had it been either of his other female members of staff skulking about, his reaction would have been much different. But Duckie, unlike either Mrs. Humphrey or Miss Ball, cared deeply about Sophie and Phoebe. One might believe that because the sisters had been in Lady Malliston’s service all of her life, they harbored warmth and affection toward her bereaved young children.
One would be entirely wrong.
While they were both positively reptilian in their inability to care and, indeed, in their ability to actively antagonize, Duckie seemed to want to make up for the girls’ lack of a mother. She knew she couldn’t, but she tried in her way all the same. If the grin creasing her broad face was any indication, she greatly approved of Miss Sedgwyck.
If Duckie approved, Reeve had no reason to disapprove.
“This is Mrs. Estelle Breem – Duckie – my cook,” Reeve said, off Miss Sedgwyck’s curious look. “She cares very much for Sophie and Phoebe.”
Both women exchanged pleasantries and Duckie even gave a small curtsy. But before either could get carried away in the dictates of good manners or genuine conversation – I think I’ve had enough conversing for one day – he said, “Duckie, if you would show Miss Sedgwyck to her room and have a maid attend to her.”
The duty should have been Mrs. Humphrey’s. But Reeve preferred that the evening continue as affably as it had started. If Mrs. Humphrey was allowed to be alone in a room with Miss Sedgwyck, it was possible that he might be ordering someone to clean blood out of the carpets.
Whose, he could not say. Miss Sedgwyck did not seem the type to give up easily.
Sophie said, eagerly, “Shall we attend to her, too, Papa?”
Reeve was about to say no, that Miss Sedgwyck needed time to rest.
But the woman in question said, “That would be lovely, my lord. I wouldn’t mind in the least, Sophie.”
He was rather affronted that she had taken it upon herself to answer his daughter before he did. But then reflecting on the reasons for which he’d hired her, Reeve nodded.
“You may. But both of you must behave yourselves,” he said.
He looked sternly down at Sophie, then at tiny Phoebe.
They beamed their pleasure at this pronouncement and it was settled. Duckie hurried the girls toward the door.
Miss Sedgwyck allowed them to precede her and lingered at the doorway before she quit the room. Edgar had followed Duckie, and the girls, who were issuing quiet squeals of delight. For the life of him, Reeve couldn’t understand a syllable of what they said. He supposed it all had to do with the woman in front of him.
“I must thank you again, my lord, for this opportunity,” she said, voice raised. “It will make all the difference to both my father and me.” She paused, and then added hesitantly, but with clarity, “He does not speak much. He is a man of few words and is now a man of even fewer after the war. But when we received your letter, he spoke very highly of you. Understandably… I wanted to know his opinion of you.”
Once again, Reeve found himself under her gaze. Rather, he looked down at her – a petite woman, she came only to his shoulder – and she up at him. There was almost a challenge in her eyes, but not quite. Because of that glint… a partial test, but more curiosity… he inferred that she, in a discreet way, referred to all the rumors that dogged him.
She said her father spoke well of him precisely because she knew many others did not.
In their very short acquaintance, he had detected strength of character and the quickness that her father had spoken of so proudly. Mischief lurked in her eyes, too. The lady herself had mentioned that her childhood was not always exemplary, and her gentle wit toward the girls hinted at an aspect of her nature he was not sure she’d ever really indulged.
He found himself wondering, quite abruptly, if she had been lonely in a house with only her aunt and father for companions. Impatiently, for it didn’t truly matter to him, he brushed the thought aside.
She would be good for his daughters. That was all he needed from her.
“You are most welcome, Miss Sedgwyck,” he said. “And thank you for relaying your father’s sound regard. That is in rather short supply for me, as I’m sure you have come to know.”
She merely quirked part of her mouth up in a half-smile and, after a low curtsy, she followed Duckie and the girls into the corridor where they waited.
Reeve was staring at the door for long moments after she left. Edgar summoned him back from his reverie.
“My lord?”
He had not entered the room, but instead waited on the other side of the doorway.
“Yes, Edgar?”
“Are you well?”
“Quite well, thank you,” he said curtly.
“Very good, my lord,” Edgar said. “The preparations for your upcoming gathering are in order.”
The old butler’s censure was mild, but still present. He said “gathering” with the tone reserved for words like “rubbish”. It was Reeve’s turn to host a party at The Thornlands for his friends and their array of bad habits.
Gambling, booze, women.
Even “party” might be too genteel a word, Reeve thought.
Luckily, The Thornlands was a large manor and could easily accommodate the raucous event without disturbing those who lived there and were not partaking. With Miss Sedgwyck finally present and soon to be settled, and the girls taking to her almost instantly, Reeve should have had an answer to some of his nightly prayers.
He should have been thanking his lucky stars, or God, or some combination of the two, and looking forward to the coming fun.
He should not have been thinking about a pair of glittering, clever, green eyes.
“Thank you, Edgar.”
Edgar bowed and walked out of sight, leaving Reeve alone in the drawing room once more. Heaving a sigh, Reeve decided what he needed most was a strong drink, so he made his way to the library for a large brandy.
*
Her first dinner with Sophie and Phoebe was a pleasurable one. Caroline counted her blessings and tried not to seem too in awe of the glitter of fine china and cutlery, the warmth of candlelight on the dining room’s intact, flowery wallpaper, or – most difficult of all – eat her courses too quickly.
She had not been raised poor, but recent times meant that even the simplest aspects of the duke’s wealth, such as a well-laden table, threatened to overwhelm her.
Even her best evening dress was not quite up to standard, but neither Duckie nor the girls seemed to notice or comment. Instead of wondering what they might think of her faded lilac garment, Caroline gauged the girls’ manners. They were completely satisfactory, if a little too rigid for such young children.
No doubt a result of the duke’s own rather… cold… ways.
She tried not to judge him too sharply. War could do the strangest things to a man’s mind, and so could the death of a beloved wife. Whatever the reason, she sensed he kept a distance be
tween himself and his daughters, regardless of the pretty speech he had made in the drawing room earlier.
He had not joined them for dinner. This disappointed Caroline, who told herself she should not be so concerned over what her employer chose to do. It transpired that he was preparing himself for some grand party.
But the more Duckie nattered about it to Caroline, the less it sounded like a traditional party.
“Lord Malliston hosts his friends a few times during the year,” the cook told her, as she personally filled Caroline’s plate. For some reason, Duckie had taken to her as well as the girls had. “They’ll arrive in the early hours of the morning, but you needn’t worry about their presence in the manor. The number of rooms will suffice, and many provisions have been made to keep the men away from you and the girls, of course. They know not to wander about here.” Duckie cocked her head, then, and added, “Perhaps your handsomeness might attract the men, anyhow. Best to keep to the family’s wing, Miss Caroline. I wouldn’t wander about. Meaning no disrespect.”
“None taken, but…”
Duckie glanced at the girls, whose eyes were wide and ears were far sounder than their father’s. It was apparent that she would say no more in front of them.
Caroline could make little sense of Duckie’s blathering without more information. She supposed that the party would be largely male-dominated, which wasn’t so surprising given the duke’s widowed status.
To her mind, all Duckie meant was that there could be some men who, when they’d imbibed, might become too forward with an unattended young lady.
But that thought alone was absurd.
I shall be minding the girls, not mincing about a gathering full of strange men, thought Caroline.
She was not one to pry into others’ affairs, perhaps because her own father was not exactly forthright about everything. As such, she allowed the matter to rest. The meal passed without any sight of the dour housekeeper – was that Miss Ball, or was it Mrs. Humphrey? Mrs. Humphrey, decided Caroline.
She was neither present to eat nor serve, so Caroline guessed she was occupied by preparations for the duke’s coming guests. In truth, Caroline had little desire to see her again so soon. She was an odious woman, the type who had probably threatened Sophie and Phoebe with such violent punishment that they then had to ask a new adult charged with their care whether she would paddle them, too.
When they had all finished eating, Duckie shepherded the girls upstairs to their room, so Caroline had little choice but to do the same. She itched to explore her new home, but knew it would be beyond the bounds of propriety to do so. At the moment, she would not even have the excuse of, say, looking for the girls. Though prosaic, she had always had an exploratory streak.
She’d spent hours in her father’s garden daydreaming about foreign lands and imaginary ones, so living in a grand, large house such as The Thornlands rekindled that old desire to explore.
She promptly ignored it.
It turned out that the room prepared for her was simple, but clean and elegant. It was near the girls’ own, allowing her to hear them should they call out, and it was secluded well away from the servants’ wing. She was encouraged that she wouldn’t be near either the housekeeper, or the girls’ old governess and tutor, whom she had not yet met.
While Duckie said that Miss Ball was indisposed, the turn of her lips said otherwise. Caroline knew without being told that Miss Ball was snubbing everyone.
A maid had helpfully left clean water and linen with which to wash her face and clean her teeth. After she’d tended to herself, put away her things, and settled on her bed, Caroline let her mind drift into introspection.
It had been such a strange, eventful day. She’d never been so far from her home and the entire journey here, she had been consumed with anxieties that had not made themselves real. She had not worried overmuch until she set off.
She was not given to dramatics or nervous shows of emotion, so she had kept everything to herself. But she had fretted that this was the wrong decision, that she should have remained with her father and found some other way to make ends meet. It was true that she would probably be bored. She was soundly educated, and there had been more than one time when her adept mind had been called unfeminine.
But if she’d stayed home, she wouldn’t have had to navigate waters that, if she was being honest, frightened her. If her father had expressed any wish for her to remain with him before she’d gotten into the duke’s carriage, she would have.
I wish I had the same faith in Lord Malliston that Father does, she thought, staring up at the ceiling. A lone candle provided her with enough light to barely see her surroundings.
She’d had to push all what-ifs to the side and concentrate on the good she was doing. They needed money, and so she went to The Thornlands. But the further she came to be from her childhood home, the easier it was for doubt to seep into her mind. What if she was blundering into the home of a murderer?
Unlike Father, she thought, I cannot dismiss the idea so readily.
Having now met the man, she could almost leave the thought behind. But there was something distant and alien in his eyes, and it prompted her back to wondering – what was the truth, if there was any, to the rumors? He held himself like nobility, like a member of the ton, but there was something distinctly amiss about him, too.
It was possible, she conceded, that his lack of hearing had created this difference. He had not grown up with the impairment.
It must be bizarre, Caroline thought, and tragic to have that taken from you.
But then, it was significant that he could not obtain a new tutor from within Easingwold. That meant his reputation was very marked among the locals, marked enough to necessitate him to ask her father, who was not well connected within society and scarcely affiliated with a member of the nobility, if he could employ her.
To a lesser extent, she was worried about the girls and how they might behave in her care. She hadn’t lied when she told them she wasn’t the easiest child. She knew what tricks little girls – and older ones – could get up to, and her father’s patience paired with her aunt’s influence had been the perfect combination to ensure she grew up properly.
And thank God that Mama expressed her wish that her children be educated.
Many times, her father had told her that as soon as Lily discovered she was with child, they discussed how that child, regardless of sex, should be well read and well taught in things like mathematics, botany, French, and even politics and law, so far as those things could be managed. True to Lily’s wish, Caroline received a thorough grounding in many subjects.
Despite knowing she was more than capable of a tutor’s duties, Caroline’s worries only heightened upon her arrival at the manor.
The Thornlands was a grand estate, and the enormous grounds intimidated her as soon as she had been transported through them. She was the daughter of a teacher who laid no claim to wealth, but she had been privileged enough to occasionally accompany him to the ornate, expansive homes of his pupils. During these visits, which weren’t numerous, she’d discovered that the gentry were not generally keen on rubbing shoulders with those they deemed beneath them.
Some were just more polite about it than others.
This was made painfully clear by her several shouting matches with young ladies, her father’s pupils, who declared that she had no right to be in their houses, even if her father was providing a service.
One such argument ended with Caroline backing a girl into a corner and giving her a black eye. Fortuitously, the girl’s father, who’d been with Arthur in the drawing room while the spat developed in the second parlor, had overheard everything.
He magnanimously declared that his dear Rosie—Lady Rosie—had unfairly baited Caroline.
Thus, Caroline’s father did not lose any business.
Caroline, however, lost the treat of being able to go with Arthur.
She chuckled to herself, thinking over that particular l
esson.
Deep down, Caroline was concerned that, perhaps, Lord Malliston might arrive at the conclusion that she was an upstart, an opportunist.
She normally felt no shame about her own station. She considered herself fortunate, and her only oddity was the book learning upon which her late mother had insisted. It was strange for a girl child, especially a girl child who was not of noble birth, to be so learned.
But her father had found tutors and bartered his skills for theirs, and Caroline was somewhat of an autodidact who enjoyed teaching herself things. Books had helped her learn where people could not.
Despite her myriad of fears, she was able to approach the house with a calm, if tense, dignity.
She was then received by the butler, an agreeable old man called Edgar, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Humphrey, a disagreeable old woman if ever she had seen one.
However, all thoughts and lingering perceptions of both Edgar and Mrs. Humphrey vanished as soon as she stepped into Lord Malliston’s drawing room.
And it wasn’t because it was a fine room.
While Caroline had met men who were pleasing to the eye, she hadn’t met one who’d caught hers as much as the Duke of Nidderdale.
It was inconvenient.
She was very surprised by her reaction. Her father had relayed that he was about thirty, or somewhat past it, and of good health with the exception of his hearing and his left hand, of course, which had both suffered in battle.
So, she did not necessarily expect an “ugly” man, but neither did she expect one who was so attractive. She had not thought her mouth would go dry at the sight of him.
Just nerves, she’d thought. That was an outright lie she was still telling herself, hours later, to drive the duke from her mind’s eye.
Though he had been sitting with his daughters when she first entered, she judged by the span of his shoulders that he was not a small man. Her guess was proven correct when he stood. Lord Malliston was tall, taller than many men in Caroline’s acquaintance.
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