Even if it killed him.
Where in the world could he have put them? Rowena peeked behind yet another painting of yet another long-gone Duke of Nottingham. No safe. She hadn’t expected one, really. There was only the one built into the wall, Brice had said, and he had made no secret of it to her—rather he had told her not to ever bother using it, because everyone in the house knew it was there.
But there had to be a strongbox or something somewhere. He wouldn’t have put the red diamonds just anywhere, would he? He’d keep them close—she was sure of it—and secure.
Not that she intended to toss them into the sea without his knowledge, tempting as it was, nor turn them over to be sold without his permission. But maybe, if she could hold them in her hand before him, he would finally listen to her. Maybe they could have a conversation as . . . Well, not as equals. They would never be equals. He was so . . . much. Handsome and kind and funny, always so quick to make her laugh, to take care of her and everyone else in his charge.
But the longer they drifted beside each other, putting on a happy face in public but so very distant when alone, the more she wondered if maybe her husband didn’t want to trust her. Didn’t want to value her. Didn’t want to love her.
She still wasn’t enough.
If she found the diamonds, though, perhaps it would at least rouse him to anger enough that he would cease with smiling at her when he didn’t really mean it.
She let out a long breath and stared down the hallway. She must be daft, to want her husband to grow angry, when all she’d ever wanted was to avoid her father’s wrath. But anger she knew how to deal with—this smiling silence she did not.
In the distance, she could hear the murmur of the housekeeper giving a tour, the hushed exclamations of her audience as they took in the grandeur that was Nottingham. Rowena should get away before they turned the corner and glimpsed her. Only once had she made the mistake of getting caught by one of the tour groups, and oh, the staring. She’d felt like a stuffed pheasant on display.
The ancient dukes weren’t watching over the diamonds anyway. Bidding them all farewell with a curtsy, she hurried around the corner.
And nearly screamed when she collided with Mr. Abbott.
He steadied her with a chuckle and promptly released her. “I must say, Your Grace, you’re the only one I’ve seen who curtsies to the paintings as one would to the dukes themselves.”
She grinned and motioned him to follow—no need to explain why. Mrs. Granger had turned the far corner, and her tour-guide voice echoed along the gallery. Only once they were safely a hall away did she speak. “One never knows when a ghost might be sticking around, and I’d just as soon not offend any o’ Brice’s ancestors.”
Abbott arched a brow that said a sermon was forthcoming.
She’d already heard this particular one—thrice. Any time she dared mention something he deemed “superstitious nonsense.” She tried to check her tongue against such things, but it was so ingrained in her to speak of spirits and ghosts and brownies. Of blessings and curses. She hurried to cover it with another grin. “I’m only jesting, Mr. Abbott.”
“Of course.” His green eyes didn’t look convinced. But he smiled and held out an envelope to her. “I was seeking you out to give you this. The post just arrived while Father and I were coming in, and I knew you’d be eager for this one.”
“Annie!” She drank in the careful, childish script and scurried with barely a glance to the nearest sitting room. The red one, apparently, that was seldom used. But she found a seat in an ornate, dreadfully uncomfortable chair and ripped open the envelope.
A few more weeks! I can scarcely believe the Kinnaird and Mama said I could come, but I’m so glad, Wena. I cannot wait to see for myself all the things you’ve told me about. The white cliffs of the Seven Sisters—you’ll take me there, won’t you? And to the aquarium in Brighton. And the Royal Pavilion!
Smiling at the enthusiasm that came through so clearly, Rowena read through the remainder of the letter. The rest of Annie’s want-to-dos, as well as her list of ought-I-to-brings. And there, nestled into the bottom paragraph, the news that made Rowena’s back go stiff.
The Kinnaird says to tell you he hopes you are doing well and becoming comfortable in your new home. Mama always mutters that it’s sure to outshine you, but he snaps at her when she says such things, going forever on about how a Kinnaird could never be outdone by some Sassenach’s house. Sometimes I’m so glad I’m not a Kinnaird. Speaking of—Malcolm continues to come by at least once a week. He makes Mama nervous. She is convinced he means to harm the wee one if it’s a boy and has made your father swear to her that Malcolm will be barred from the house if so.
I canna wait to leave and come see you. Do you think perhaps you could just never send me home?
With a sniff, Rowena touched that last line. She’d had the same thought, had even mused it aloud the other evening, and Brice had smiled at her and said Annie was welcome as long as her parents permitted her to stay.
When it came to her sister or any passing fancy, he was quick to indulge. But when she tried to speak to him of serious things, of the most important things—Catherine, the Fire Eyes, even whether they had ever tracked down that footman who had ransacked his room at Midwynd while they were at Delmore—he shut her out.
He did it with concern in his eyes, it was true. But a solid marriage was not built on coddling, was it? Granted, she had little experience when it came to such things. Still, it seemed to her that if they were ever to become more than strangers, then it wasn’t enough to shower her with gifts, reach for her hand in public, and then refuse to talk to her of what was obviously eating him up inside.
And if he wouldn’t . . . then how could she help but pull away her hand again? He said such lovely things, the word darling rolled so easily from his tongue. But what did he offer her that he didn’t offer to everyone else too? What of his thoughts, his hopes, his fears, his heart?
She received only his charm. And much as she felt that pull that wanted to let it melt her, she couldn’t.
“Good news from home, I hope?”
“Oh.” She hadn’t even realized Mr. Abbott had followed her in. Giving him another smile, she folded the letter and tucked it into her pocket. “The excitement one would expect of an eight-year-old preparing for her first trip.”
His smile was always so warm, sincere. Free, thankfully, of any expectations. “I can well imagine. And she will be in true ecstasy when she sees the room you’ve remade for her.”
An indulgence, that. One into which she’d poured her heart. Draping fabrics and whimsical toys, a new canopy for the bed—Brice had even agreed to have an artist come and paint a mural on the wall. The man had a few touches left, but it was utterly charming. Annie would think she’d stepped into a fairy world.
Mr. Abbott no doubt went away muttering about fanciful nonsense after he’d seen it last week.
She stood, her hand still over the pocket. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Abbott, I have some correspondence to see to.”
“Of course.” He clasped his hands behind his back and followed her into the hall. Mrs. Granger never included this part of the house on the tour, so they were safe from the prying eyes of the curious. “Might I say, Your Grace, how good it is to see you feeling so at home here? I confess I feared you would feel a stranger for some time yet.”
Perhaps her smile faltered, but she kept her face directed ahead so he wouldn’t be able to tell. “Everyone has been verra welcoming.” Mrs. Granger had even, in a fit of rapture, caught her up in an embrace.
Yes, it was easy to feel at home at Midwynd, which was all generous windows and sunlight, brilliant whites and bold colors. It was easy to take over some of the tasks Brice’s mother said she was happy to relinquish. Easy, in some ways, to be the duchess.
Except when it came to the duke.
They reached the back stairwell that would take Rowena up to her private suite. She paused here and turned to
give Mr. Abbott a warm smile. “Thank you again for bringing the letter to me straightaway.”
“My pleasure, I assure you. Nothing makes your eyes light up like word from your sister.” At that, he turned partially away. “Your Grace, I . . . You have made a home here, but I must ask. Why do you cling so to the ways of the Highlands? You are in a world now where you can flip a switch to turn on a light, but still you carry an oil lamp with you after dark. You are among friends, yet you choose to wander about alone . . . and are always speaking of these antiquated superstitions.”
For a long moment she just stared at him, unable to grasp why absolutely everyone in England was so sure that they were right, that her opinions were useless. Her fingers curled into the soft fabric of her expensive day dress. “In the month I’ve been here, your precious electric has gone out three times, aye?”
Mr. Abbott sighed. “Briefly, but—”
“And the servants’ hallways aren’t wired yet, aye? But I go regularly to check on any ailing staff members, or to ask Cook for something, or to talk with Lilias.”
His shoulders rolled back, the light in his eyes shifted. Resigning himself to a lecture, that was all. Not really listening. “Certainly, Your Grace. That of course makes sense. I only meant—”
“Ye only meant that you, like everyone else, want me to be something other than what I am. But I’m not, Mr. Abbot. And I ne’er will be, and ye might as well try to convince yourself and your family and your good friend the duke o’ that truth.”
Hands held up in surrender, he produced a tight smile. “No one wants you to be but who you are, Your Grace. I am only concerned. You speak so often of things like ghosts and fairies and—”
“And ye’re so enlightened that ye know for a fact ye’re right and I’m wrong, and it pains you?” She shook her head and smoothed out her skirt again. “Ye’ve read your Bible, Mr. Abbott, I ken ye have. So tell me. What do ye make of the fact that Saul went to a medium and called Samuel up from the dead?”
His brows knit into a frown.
“Or perhaps ye’d prefer a New Testament example, since ye’re all about the modern and enlightened. So what of when the graves opened and the dead were seen walking about after our Lord’s death?”
Impatience wracked his shoulders. “Your Grace, you are deliberately—”
“Or the way the disciples prayed over a handkerchief and sent it to the sick, and they were healed—proving power can be put on an object, aye?” And so curses could be too. Why were they willing to believe in the one but not the other?
Mr. Abbott sighed again. “We do not live in that world anymore.”
She shook her head. “Has it ne’er occurred to you that ye dinna see these things because ye dinna believe? And worse, ye look down on those who do?”
He took a step back, contemplation flashing through his eyes.
Good. Perhaps she could make one man hear her anyway. She eased back a step too. “I believe in the unseen, aye. Call it superstitious, if ye wish. But I fail to see how ye can trust God to fill yer empty places when ye’re not willing to grant He can still do miracles today.”
While she had the final word, before he could wrap his tongue around all the pretty, high-sounding phrases he’d learned in seminary, she turned and fled. Up the stairs, down the hall, ignoring the scratchy feeling inside that said something must change soon.
What, though? How?
She arrived at the door to her small private sitting room and reached for the handle. But she paused when impressions flitted before her eyes as they too often did. Dark, fanged beasts pursuing her. Endless mazes below stairwells. Lifeless Hannah. Cruel Malcolm.
Drawing in a deep breath, she focused on the sensation that always chased these dark ones away. A soothing voice. A gentle touch.
Dreams, all. Nothing but memories of dreams, and so she would thank God that He sent fair ones to scare away the foul. Even if Mr. Abbott would likely dismiss all her dreams as a bunch of nonsense.
She pushed into the room. As with most in Midwynd, this one was well lit by the generous windows, and she entered to breathe in the autumn sunshine and the scent of faded roses and fresh paper. She sat at her desk and pulled out a sheet of the latter.
A few minutes later she’d dashed off a letter to Annie, promising trips to all the sites in Brighton and Hove and the nearby countryside. When the wee one arrived, Rowena would tell her all the stories Brice’s family had been filling her with—of how the estate name had been taken from what they’d once called the River Ouse, of when the prince regent had stayed there a century before, while the Russian-styled Royal Pavilion was still being built.
For now, she tucked that letter into its envelope and then pulled out another piece of clean white paper. Dear Julia . . .
It still felt odd, after four letters, to write to Catherine under a false name. And she still sat for far too long, wondering how to forge through a letter enough of a friendship to inspire the woman to trust her. To admit that Lord Rushworth was cruel, to reach out for help.
She prayed, for the thousandth time, for the opportunity to help.
It had been ten days since she’d received a letter in response, but hopefully that meant that, as she had sworn she would try to do in her last letter, Catherine was closing up Delmore and preparing to winter in Brighton. All her guests had finally been dismissed by the constable after a prolonged week, when the prime suspect—the valet of the sniveling baron, oddly enough—disappeared from the house one night, thereby proving in the minds of the constabulary that he was guilty.
Rowena hoped they were right, and that they would soon catch the fellow. But mostly she was just glad the investigation was over, for Catherine’s sake.
With any luck, she was on her way, or already in the area. In which case the letter Rowena wrote wouldn’t reach her for a good while, so she didn’t bother trying to put anything but niceties in it. What else could she even report?
The diamonds must be in his room—though he hadn’t seemed terribly alarmed at the news that someone had searched his chamber here. He’d told her about it in the car on their way from Yorkshire, and the thought of one of his servants betraying him had upset him, but he’d not been alarmed.
Which meant he had the Fire Eyes so well hidden he was confident no thief would ever find them.
A wife might, though, were she really one. If she had ever so much as stepped foot in the chamber that had been his since he outgrew the nursery, then perhaps she would know its secrets and hidden crevices. But then, if she were wife enough to see such things, if she knew him well enough to know his hiding places, she would also be wife enough for him to have listened to and valued her thoughts on the matter.
“Julia again, is it?” Lilias’s voice, sharp and terse, made Rowena jump upon her seat and spin. She found the woman standing just behind and to the side, hands on her hips and a frown on her face. “I’ve kent you since ye were a newborn bairn, Rowena, and ye’ve never been friends with a Julia. So kindly tell me why ye’re writing to one of a sudden.”
She turned back to her innocuous letter, wondering what it might be like to have a servant who was only a maid. “Ye dinna ken every friend I ever made, Lilias Cowan. Now I’m in England, I thought to renew an old acquaintance from school.”
She had, in fact, received letters in the last few weeks from nearly all her old classmates. As soon as announcements and articles began popping up in newspapers and periodicals about how the most eligible bachelor in all the empire was no longer eligible, “friends” had popped out of the woodwork.
She needn’t look to see Lilias’s incredulity—it came through clear as crystal in her grunt. “One of the lasses ye said were so cruel to you, who never wrote back when ye first left Edinburgh? And why should ye be bothering with such a one now?”
“It’s been a long time. Bygones and all that.” She’d sent them all very brief, cool acknowledgments of their felicitations. And had decidedly not extended invitations to any of th
em to drop in on her at Midwynd if ever they were in the neighborhood.
This time Lilias’s silence spoke as eloquently as her grunt had. Only after a long moment did she sigh. “I worry for you, lass. Ye’ve this shining new life, and rather than grasp it with both hands, ye’re scurrying around behind yer husband’s back.”
“I’m doing nothing wrong.” Only trying to protect them all. Even if her stubborn husband wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t let go the diamonds that he seemed to think he was protecting for Brook.
It always came back, it seemed, to Brook.
Another sigh that sounded akin to the winds gusting over Loch Morar. “Ye said to fetch you at four so ye could bathe before the soiree this evening.”
The sun dimmed. Though at least tonight’s event was only a musical soiree. No dancing, no supper, limited time for her to be snubbed by the elite of Sussex who, despite all Brice had promised on their way home, had been no quicker to accept her than Catherine’s friends had been in Yorkshire.
Lilias’s hand landed on Rowena’s shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. “What is it, lass?”
“Nothing. I’m ready for that bath.” She stood, leaving the letter to “Julia” unfinished, and followed Lilias from the room.
Please, Lord. Please let Catherine come soon. She needed a friend in the worst way.
Eighteen
The housekeeper’s parlor was warm from the fire crackling in the hearth, the conversation filled with laughter. The upper staff were lingering over their sweet—and why not, with the masters all out for another evening in Brighton? They had no urgent tasks awaiting them, no guests to see to. Lilias enjoyed the moments of peace and smiled along with the others over Mrs. Granger’s tale of the six-year-old lad who had gone into a tantrum during the tour that afternoon.
The Reluctant Duchess Page 22