The Duchess's Secret (HQR Historical)

by Elizabeth Beacon

  ‘He retired, Your Grace. He can’t manage stairs no more with his rheumatics. The last Duke said he was to have the North Lodge rent free because it ain’t got no stairs and there was to be no arguments, for once.’

  ‘Quite right, too,’ Ash said, half a smile breaking through the clouds as if he could hear his late cousin’s voice behind her words.

  Rosalind wished she had known the lad better. She had hardly even noticed him hanging on Ash’s every word when he was in town when they were all so young it seemed painful to think of now. Charles Hartfield, Lord Asham, had seemed such a boy then, but he was barely a year younger than she was. Best not think that if he had lived Ash would not have come home and none of them would be standing here now ready to begin a new life as the Duke and Duchess of Cherwell and their much-loved daughter.

  ‘Just as well that Mr Snigsby is due to make his way north as soon as Cherwell House is properly closed up then, Husband,’ she said to remind Ash one superior servant was on his way to make sense of his ramshackle house. They had wondered what on earth they were to do with him until the ancient Whipple was ready to admit he should retire, so at least that was one worry they could forget about.

  ‘Best write and tell him to bring anyone else who is prepared to live in the chilly north as well, since we are clearly going to need them,’ he said with a pained look at the intricately patterned, but dust-and-smoke-dulled ceiling above their heads.

  ‘It ain’t that cold here,’ she thought she heard someone in the following pack mutter and she was glad these servants were human beings, rather than the well-trained automata she dreaded.

  ‘First I will find out if anyone local would like to work here,’ she argued with Ash’s pronouncement. She privately thought it was that cold and not many London servants would want to leave the bustle of the town for this lovely but isolated countryside even if it wasn’t.

  And how silly that she didn’t know what to call her husband in front of the servants—Your Grace seemed chilly between man and wife, Ash was too familiar and My Lord Duke made him sound one step down from a king. Such grandeur was best discouraged—he could be arrogant enough already without his wife treating him like a prince of the blood.

  ‘Are there any rooms not shrouded with holland covers here?’ she asked the housemaid who seemed to have been elected spokeswoman.

  ‘The new wing was done up for Lord Charles before the old Duke died. He said his lordship needed space of his own, since he must live with an old man the rest of the time. It seemed as if the old Duke never thought he would die, Your Grace, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  That remark was directed at Ash who shook his head and looked sad. ‘No, it’s true—he was too stubborn to admit he might be as human as the rest of us. But if that wing is in a better state you had best take us there before Her Grace and Lady Imogen decide to give up on Edenhope altogether.’

  ‘Right you are, Your Grace. We lit fires and took off the covers in the new wing when we heard you was coming. There ain’t enough of us to clean the whole house so we did the best we could in there.’

  ‘Well done,’ Rosalind said. ‘What became of all the staff it must have taken to run this huge old place?’

  ‘A lot retired when the old Duke died, Your Grace. They only stayed on because of him.’ The girl shook her head as if there was no accounting for taste. ‘Cook left when the young Duke died and you was gone so long we began to wonder if you was ever going to come home, Your Grace,’ she told Ash apologetically. ‘Cook said she might as well go where she got paid for her trouble.’

  ‘You have not had your wages, then?’ Ash snapped as if his much-tried temper was back on a hair-trigger again.

  ‘Trustees said they was done paying out, you being older and not needing them. Yet they keep coming round so they can say the opposite of the other and make us all chase our tails.’

  ‘How annoying,’ Rosalind managed to say with a straight face. She ought to be nearly as irate as Ash about the sad state of the place, except it felt more of a home and less a stiff palace in the Dales this way. This girl was a delight; she must find her a position where she could use her quick mind. ‘What is your name?’ she asked.

  The girl looked flustered, as if it was a faux pas to have been quite so outspoken and drawn attention to herself. ‘Ruth Mathers, Your Grace,’ the girl said and bobbed a curtsy.

  ‘Good afternoon, then, Ruth, and at least I will know who to ask for when I need to know who is who here now.’

  ‘I know most of folk, Your Grace, what with my pa being the village blacksmith while I was growing up.’

  ‘Please carry on organising things as best you can for the time being for me, Ruth. We will talk again when I have a better idea of what needs doing here.’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace, thank you,’ Ruth said, curtsied again and left them at the highly polished mahogany door to the New Wing.

  ‘You already have at least one supporter here,’ Ash said once he and Rosalind and Jenny were inside and he had shut the door on the main house.

  ‘I will need a small army of them if we are ever to get this place in good order again, but this is much better than the rest,’ Rosalind said, looking at the swept and polished floors and sparklingly clean windows.

  ‘It’s so light in here,’ Jenny exclaimed.

  Large modern windows lined the corridor and more light flooded in from the half-open doors of rooms leading off it. Rosalind could smell wax furniture polish and the scent of lavender drifted from a bowl of the dried flower heads left on a side table. She blessed Ruth for organising her troops well enough to keep this part of the house relatively untouched by the neglect so obvious elsewhere. Sunlight showed up the rich grain and superb craftsmanship of the nearest door before Ash pushed it further open to reveal pale green walls and delicately scrolled plasterwork picked out in white. The furnishings were modern and light and there was none of the heavy stateliness she had dreaded after seeing so much of it at Cherwell House.

  ‘What a beautiful room,’ she said, gazing around at restrained luxury with just enough decoration to make it special. There were two long south-facing windows to frame the distant hills and whoever had this wing built loved light as well as the glorious view. She wondered if Ash longed for the light and heat of India every time he cursed the British climate and wrapped his greatcoat tightly round his shivering body, but maybe in here he would feel more at home. He looked impassive and, for the first time in weeks, she felt like an outsider as he brooded on the general state of his new home and who was about to feel the rough side of his tongue for it.

  ‘Is this ours as well?’ Jenny whispered as she gazed round the objets d’art and fine furnishings as if she found that idea truly awesome.

  ‘Yes, along with the rest,’ Ash said with a wry grimace as he cast off his gloom and seemed to recall he had a wife and child to introduce to his stately domain.

  ‘Well, I think we should live in here.’

  ‘Let’s see the rest before we decide, Jenny love,’ he said, but Rosalind saw his braced shoulders relax.

  ‘This one is nearly as nice,’ Jenny said with an approving nod for a smaller room with one long window and a real collection of books crammed into the bookshelves built all around the walls. ‘Ooh, billiards,’ she said at the next doorway. ‘Will you teach me to play, Papa?’

  ‘Perhaps, when you are bit older and can reach better,’ Ash said with an effort at lightness Rosalind did not quite believe. ‘Jas and I used to spend hours in here with Charlie when we were young,’ he said softly.

  ‘You are not exactly ancient now,’ she told him briskly, then tugged him away to stop him brooding on all he had lost since he was here last. There was a smaller sitting room and a dining room the right size for a family, but not half the county. The rooms were all elegant but intimate and not at all what she would have expected of a bachelor’s suite in an a
ncient mansion.

  ‘Come on,’ Jenny urged, ‘I want to see where we will sleep.’

  ‘We will have to find a nice windy attic to stow you in if you carry on dashing about making enough noise for half a dozen, Jenny Hartfield,’ Rosalind told her with pretend sternness. She hoped overexcitement would not give Jenny nightmares when it was bedtime.

  ‘Even if Papa let you put me in one, Joan would rescue me,’ Jenny said with the confidence of a well-loved child, but Rosalind would be pleased when the second carriage arrived with Jenny’s new entourage and they could begin a new routine. Children needed order to feel secure and Jenny had not had it for too long now.

  ‘Then we had best find out if there is a room fit for a budding young lady on the top floor,’ she said casually and Jenny bounced up the stairs at a pace Rosalind almost envied.

  ‘My grandparents were given this wing when they first married,’ Ash told her. ‘There are proper nurseries on the third floor as well as five or six fairly modest bedchambers in between. Only the nanny and nursery maid out of all their servants slept in this part of the house so my grandparents must have liked their privacy and the illusion they were living in a modest manor house. There is a separate stairwell leading up from the kitchens and the basement you would not even know was there from here as the doors are cleverly hidden on our side all the way up to the roof.’

  Jenny had already run ahead to explore the nursery Rosalind suspected would be far more suitable than the one at Cherwell House. She approved of the wide enough stairs and practical elegance of this mansion in miniature. It felt like the sort of modestly big enough family home she had dreamt of as soon as she was old enough to dream of having a house and a hero of her own one day. After growing up in the chilly Palladian elegance of Lackbourne House, she had always been happier with the idea of comfort rather than luxury or splendour.

  ‘I am sure we can be happy here until the rest of the house is ready, Ash, but what are we going to eat tonight? There is no cook and I doubt there will be much left in the way of stores since the staff have not been paid for so long and they had to eat something. Even a gardener and boy can grow quite a lot of food so maybe it’s no wonder the pleasure gardens are so neglected.’

  Ash frowned and looked grim again about the ridiculous state of affairs here, then seemed glad to concentrate on one thing he could put right easily enough. ‘I will ride to Hartley Village for bread and cheese and a couple of pies from the local inn. Meanwhile Dawkins can fetch milk and butter from the Home Farm and you and the maids can order supplies in the morning.’

  ‘Then you had best get off if you are to be home before dark,’ Rosalind said and of course it was foolish to want to cling to him, wasn’t it?

  ‘I will be happier if you stay in this part of the house where the roof is sound and floors and windows intact, Ros,’ he said as they listened to the sound of Jenny dashing about upstairs.

  ‘I will tell her it is our duty to make sure everything is ready for Joan and the others when they get here. She will enjoy playing lady of the manor with rooms to allocate and the rest of this wing to explore.’

  ‘Aye, far more than her mama, I suspect,’ he said with a wry look.

  ‘This bit is lovely, but the rest is vast and not exactly homely, Ash.’

  ‘I suppose not, but you get so used to it in the end you don’t notice the size of the place,’ he said and chuckled when she looked sceptical.

  ‘Is that what all you Dukes say?’ she asked and he leaned close and kissed her only on the lips in case they forgot their daughter was upstairs.

  ‘Only to our Duchesses,’ he told her with a smile and a long, regretful look as he eyed her parted lips, then turned and ran downstairs before he changed his mind.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The kitchen in the basement was modest by Edenhope standards, but it had clearly been updated when the rest of this wing was redecorated. It was as light and airy as it could be made—the windows even had areas dug outside to let in more daylight and fresh air in summer. The Butler’s Pantry and modest Servants’ Hall took up the south side and shared at least part of the view she had wondered at from the Green Drawing Room above. It made sense for the kitchen and storerooms to face the other way so they were darker, but not gloomy. The kitchen would always be warm from cooking and never mind the cooler aspect and there was even a closed stove instead of an open fire. Joan would envy the next cook to rule this kitchen with such a modern convenience after the primitive cooking arrangements she had struggled so gallantly with at Furze Cottage.

  ‘It’s very big, Mama,’ Jenny said, seeming intimidated by the echoing space. It did feel odd with the place empty when the whole basement would once have bustled with activity at this time of day.

  ‘By our standards, perhaps,’ Rosalind said absently, doing her best to work out how many staff they would need to run even a modest household until the rest of Edenhope was ready for occupation. She wondered why the remaining staff did not use these rooms instead of the vast and antiquated ones in the main house. Perhaps they slept on pallets by the fire in the main kitchens for warmth and company. She could hardly blame them if they flocked together to keep out the cold and the eerie sounds of a grand old house with too many uncared-for spaces in it. She would have chosen to flock down here if she had to walk in their shoes, but maybe they were more familiar with the vast ducal kitchens there must be somewhere at the back of Edenhope’s grand Tudor splendour.

  Rosalind opened doors on to largely empty storerooms and wondered where the keys to the wine cellar and strongroom were. Suddenly she realised it was even quieter down here and Jenny was not pattering in her footsteps and trying to pretend she wasn’t a little overawed by her new home. ‘Jenny?’ she called out, the echo of her own voice coming back to her and no other sound but the faint stir of the wind in the slender apple tree outside the back door. ‘Jenny darling, please come out now. I promise to pay attention to you and stop looking at boring, empty rooms.’

  Silence. She called her daughter’s name more sharply, but only her own voice echoed back. Panic started to scream potential disasters in Rosalind’s ears while Ash’s warnings about the state of the roof and some of the floors in the main house came back to haunt her. Jenny had been far too good for too long, now she came to think about it, and her daughter could be headstrong and careless of adult authority. With all that pent-up energy and such quick little feet to run silently when she chose to, Jenny could be almost anywhere in the house by now. It might take hours to find her in this vast barn of a house with so few people here to search it. Jenny could be in far more trouble than she knew before they managed to track her down.

  ‘Think,’ Rosalind ordered herself as her heart galloped as pictures of all the disasters that could overtake her child in this place flitted past her mind’s eye. When had she last seen her? Jenny had followed her out of the kitchen, but empty storerooms and deserted servants’ halls had little interest for a lively young girl. She should never have let herself be distracted by worries about her new role and details of how they could get this relatively small part of her new empire back in working order as soon as possible Rosalind scolded herself and tried hard not to panic.

  * * *

  Ash returned from his mission with half the food from the local inn’s kitchen attached to his saddle so Pegasus jigged and snorted every now and again in protest as bags shifted, however tightly they were tied on. Ash was made so welcome it was hard to get away and now he felt guilty about how hungry Ros and Jenny must be. Sunset was painting the sky amber, rose and orange—surely the other carriage would have arrived by now?

  ‘I hope your mission was successful?’ he said to Dawkins after he had dismounted, despite the bounty the landlady had insisted was needed to stop his family starving before morning.

  ‘Aye, Your Grace. Nobody in the New Wing so I left the pail on the kitchen table,’ the taciturn g
room told him.

  Ash frowned. ‘I told them not to go exploring,’ he said, but the noise of the very much-delayed second coach rolling down the North Drive towards them interrupted them. Ash strode towards the kitchen door of the New Wing, disturbed to see no glow of candlelight from any of the windows. Ros had sent the few maids they had away while they explored their new quarters in private, so they would not come until summoned. Perhaps they should fit a church bell to toll when they needed assistance, he thought to divert himself from increasing worry about Ros and Jenny as he marched to the shadowy kitchen and dropped bags of food on the table without much thought for the contents.

  Dawkins was right, he decided as he dashed up the kitchen stairs to the main floor and there was still no light or sound. It even felt empty up here and he wasn’t surprised his bellow of Ros’s name, then Jenny’s, was met by profound silence.

  ‘Think,’ he ordered himself in an unconscious echo of Rosalind when she realised Jenny had disappeared into a vast old house. He ran up the front stairs of the New Wing to the next floor, bellowing their names as he went, but still hearing nothing back, not even an echo in these carpeted bedroom corridors. Up to the top floor, then, and still no answer to his shouts. Terror stalked him as he turned on his heel and dashed back downstairs even faster. He had lost so many of his family he refused to even let himself think how it would feel if he ever had to do without Ros and their daughter as well. Horror opened up in front of his hurrying feet as he realised they were his whole world. He might go on, might even function as lord of all this pomp and responsibility and the bearer of this ridiculous title, but he would be empty inside. No, he wasn’t going to think about that. They could be out in the gardens but what would they see in the ever-increasing darkness? And Ros would have heard him or Dawkins coming and sent Jenny to say they were peering around for early flowers and that didn’t seem very likely, did it?

  ‘Your Grace?’ Joan’s voice asked from the front door, the new governess and Jenny’s maid huddled behind her.