by Karen Ranney
Now it didn’t seem to matter since she had no one to impress, and all that truly mattered was the fact she was clean and presentable. Well, hardly presentable with all these pink, brown, and white stripes, but she was clean.
She heard the minister’s words and forced herself to pay attention. She’d been to her share of society weddings, and she’d been amazed at the expense necessary to marry off a daughter properly. Giving her a proper wedding would have cost her father a fortune. But she doubted that he’d spent more on this ceremony than the stipend it took to lure the minister to his house.
Even a wedding breakfast was dispensed with in favor of summoning a carriage. She didn’t demur, being as eager to leave London as her father was to send her away.
“Thank God that’s over,” her bridegroom said as he entered the carriage and sat opposite her, his back to the horses. “My commiseration, Sarah.”
She glanced at him curiously. “For what? This disaster of a marriage?”
“Your childhood. Your father cannot have been pleasant to deal with.”
“And your own childhood? Was it so pleasant?”
“Yes.” A moment later, he began to smile. “I had a very enjoyable childhood. In fact, I’ve had a very enjoyable life. You might say that I’ve been enormously blessed.”
“Not the least of which is finding yourself married to the Duke of Herridge’s daughter.”
“Do you always refer to yourself as the Duke of Herridge’s daughter? Are you never simply Sarah? What a disappointment for you, if that’s the case, to marry a simple mister.”
“I didn’t come to this marriage because of anything you offered me, Mr. Eston. On the contrary, I married you to give my mother a few more months of life. Being sent to Scotland could not improve her health. In fact, it would have done the opposite.”
“So I can consider myself an object of expediency.”
“Am I not the same?” She regarded him with what she hoped was a calm expression. Beneath it, however, she was growing irritated. “You wanted my father to invest in something evidently, and he did so. Not only did he invest, but he granted you a daughter and the use of a house, if you can consider Chavensworth simply a house. I cannot see anything any more expeditious than that, can you?”
“You looked unbearably sad.”
Startled, she stared at him. “You pitied me? Is that why you married me?”
She turned her head again, concentrated on the view outside the window. She refused to believe him. He was a means to an end and the method by which to dispose of a troublesome daughter.
A daughter her father didn’t like very much.
“Perhaps I felt a measure of compassion for you. Perhaps that sweetened the match your father proposed.”
“He didn’t propose anything,” she said. “He imposed it. What would you call my being locked in a room for two days?”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and when enough time had elapsed that she grew curious, she glanced over at him. He appeared as annoyed as she felt at the moment, but whether his irritation was directed at her or her father, Sarah was uncertain. Nor was she about to ask him.
What good would it do to discover that her new husband was incensed with her?
She was who she was, good or ill, and she didn’t want to begin this marriage with the pretense of being someone she was not. She wasn’t appreciably delicate—she’d never had the luxury of pretending to have the vapors. Everyone around her seemed to be weaker than she, so consequently she’d always been forced to be the one with the level head, a cogent plan, some sense.
Unbearably sad, indeed. He said that only to soften her heart toward him. He felt nothing for her, and even if he did, she didn’t want it to be pity. Let him be annoyed, then. Let him be as genuinely troubled as she felt.
“I’m not going to allow you into my chamber tonight.”
She clasped her hands together and waited for him to offer up a protest. She was fully anticipating for him to be even more annoyed. He would say something like, “I am your husband. You will submit.” Like blazes she would.
Instead, when she glanced at him it was to discover him smiling.
“I have no intention of coming to your bedchamber tonight,” he said.
The velvet of the seat was smooth against her fingertips, tiny fingers of fabric reaching out to brush against her skin in welcome.
“We’re strangers,” each said, exactly at the same time. With anyone else, she would’ve smiled at the coincidence. But not with this man.
His wife sat opposite him, elbows tucked against her sides, feet properly together, chin lowered—so rigid she appeared almost brittle.
Her black hair was falling loose on one side, but he wasn’t about to embarrass her by mentioning it. Nor would he comment on the fact that her dress—her wedding dress—would forever remain in his memory as the most egregious example of dressmaking he’d ever witnessed.
The sarongs of the Polynesians were infinitely preferable to what she was wearing now. In fact, she would probably have appeared attractive in a sarong. Add a smile, and Lady Sarah, now Mrs. Eston, would be lovely.
She wasn’t about to smile, however. Instead, she leveled a fulminating look on him from time to time, obviously blaming him for this marriage.
He gave some thought to teasing her from her mood, but he didn’t know enough about her to gauge her sense of humor or what she considered amusing. All he knew for certain was that the Duke of Herridge was a cruel and overbearing tyrant, and she carried so much pain in her eyes that when he’d first looked at her, he’d felt some of it.
He studied the documents from his case, finding himself quickly wrapped up in the formulas he’d written the night before. His new carriage was remarkably smooth riding, and he didn’t experience the usual disconcerting dizziness when trying to read. To this day, however, he couldn’t read aboard ship. The rolling waves made him ill, and since he’d spent a decade traveling the world, his illness was a remarkable waste of time.
For those journeys, he’d employed a secretary, the young man’s main task to transcribe Douglas’s thoughts and musings so time itself wasn’t lost. Not that everything he thought was a gem of wisdom. However, substantial progress had been made on a new astrolabe, the advancement resulting from a single question he’d posed after dinner one night.
He glanced over at Sarah. She studied the stars. Was that an idle boast? She hadn’t spoken of a telescope. Did she even know what a telescope was? He decided he wouldn’t test her knowledge. If she’d been boasting, he didn’t want to embarrass her.
The ceremony linking him to the Duke of Herridge’s daughter had been mercifully brief. He knew, however, that if he pressed his memory, he could recall the words, just as he could remember the listless sound of Sarah’s voice repeating the vows.
Sarah. A commonplace enough name, and one that garnered little attention. Not unlike his bride. Still, there was something about her that intrigued him. Not wholly, but slightly, as if it were a whisper of sound beneath a greater quietness. Some difference that incited him to watch her without seeming to do so.
Was she given to long silences? Or did she, when freed of her father’s influence, laugh with abandon? He doubted the latter because her mouth fell naturally into somber lines. Yet there were faint lines at the corners of her eyes tempting him to believe she was amused often.
“Shall I commission a sculpture of me?” she suddenly asked. “Doing so will allow you to study my features with greater freedom. You needn’t be pressed to pretend otherwise.”
He smiled. “Why should I want to study a statue? Stone can’t reveal what flesh does, either in character or mood.”
She turned her head and looked directly at him. He abandoned the pretense and studied her openly.
“Very well, what have you gauged of my character and my mood?”
“I wouldn’t presume to discuss either,” he said, burying his smile. “I do not know you well enough. However, I do ant
icipate the journey of acquaintanceship.”
She looked as if she wanted to say something but then thought better of it.
“What were you about to say?”
She raised one eyebrow but didn’t answer.
“Have you always been so imperious?” he continued.
The second eyebrow joined the first.
“Have you always been so…direct?” she asked.
“Do you think so?” He leaned back against the seat, his papers forgotten. “Is it direct to want to know what my wife is thinking?”
She looked away, her attention on the landscape. “A ceremony occurred, Mr. Eston. It may convey the title of wife upon me, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve accepted it.”
“A month?” he asked. “A year? Or less? When do you think you might be able to accept it? Or will you be able to at any time, given that you’re a duke’s daughter, and I’m a mister?”
“I am not disdainful of others,” she said.
He didn’t reply.
She turned her head and regarded him with a frown.
“My antipathy to this situation is not personal, Mr. Eston. I do not dislike you. I do not know you. I dislike being pressured to marry, but my main concern is not suddenly having a husband. My thoughts are with my mother. It has been three days since I’ve seen her, and I frankly do not know if she has survived in the interim.”
“Forgive me,” he said, a moment later. “I allowed my sentiments to overcome the facts of the situation.”
Her frown deepened, but she didn’t respond.
He returned to his papers but discovered that the formulas written there didn’t capture his attention as much as they should have. He flipped open the curtain over the window and studied the passing scenery instead.
“Good God,” he said, staring off into the distance. “What is that?”
He wanted to tell the driver to halt, to allow him to study the surprising view. Instead, he remained silent as the carriage climbed the top of the next rise. Here, the scene was even more improbable. An arched bridge reminding him of structures in Italy spanned a roaring river. Behind it, as if protected by the river itself, sat a house. No, a castle. No, perhaps a combination of the two. Three stories tall, of pale yellow stone, it was dominated by a white marble pediment stretching up to a roof surrounded by a railing and adorned with a series of statues.
“What is that?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.
“That, Mr. Eston, is Chavensworth.”
“It’s the size of a mountain,” he said. A two-story wing sprouted both on the left and the right of the larger section of Chavensworth, each wing disappearing into the forest of trees forming the house’s backdrop.
“Hardly a mountain, Mr. Eston.” A small smile formed on her lips. “Chavensworth has always been one of the most famous of the stately homes of England,” she said, her tone back to being that of a duke’s daughter. “Thomas Archer worked on the plans, and the waterworks in the gardens have survived two hundred years. The north front, the public entrance, of Chavensworth dates from the fourteenth century, when Sir Matthew de Baines was given license to crenellate.”
“And you cannot bear to be parted from it.”
She turned her head and regarded him again. Surprise rounded her gray eyes, but what was the reason for the sudden blush on her cheeks?
“It’s my home,” she said simply.
“People deserve that type of love, Sarah. Not structures.”
There was that look again, the one that prompted him to lean forward and place his hand on her knee. She flinched, but he didn’t relent.
“Right this moment, tell me what you’re thinking. It doesn’t matter what it is. Tell me.”
“You haven’t the power to command me to speak, Mr. Eston.”
“That’s a start, Sarah.”
“I have been in your presence exactly one hour, Mr. Eston. Bits of minutes gathered up together that probably totals one hour. Add this journey, and it’s two, perhaps nearly three. You have no knowledge of me.”
Nor would he, if she had anything to say about it.
The carriage rolled through the gates of Chavensworth.
Tall bushes and feathery trees sat amidst a closely cropped lawn sloping down to the river in the front of the house. In the rear, a road led to the rest of the buildings of the estate, and the stables. Chavensworth was set among prosperous farms and dominated the countryside like the regal house it was. The placement of the many windows and large doorway always made it appear as if the house were smiling, and anticipating her return.
Sarah concentrated on the approach. The winter had been one of ice storms, and the road was pocked badly, necessitating that the gravel be replaced. The paint on the shutters needed to be retouched, and the landscapers needed to finish smoothing out the winter mulch and removing the muslin from the smaller of the rosebushes. The change of seasons always resulted in a myriad of chores, and by the time all the tasks were done, the seasons were changing again.
She made a mental list of things needing to be done as the weather warmed, not simply to take her mind from the man still watching her too closely but to keep her from thinking of her mother. Still, a prayer crept into her thoughts. Please, dear God, let her be well. Let her have wakened. Let her be eating again. Let her recognize me.
She wished she’d thought to have hay spread across the gravel, but then, she hadn’t known how loud the wheels would sound.
The carriage rolled to a stop, and she took a deep breath.
Her husband was quite chivalrous, exiting the carriage before her and turning to hold his hand out to assist her down the folded steps. She took his hand and schooled her features so no one could see how much she feared the approaching moments.
After fluffing her skirts, and surreptitiously arranging her hoops, she straightened her shoulders and began to walk up the broad steps toward Chavenworth’s front door, praying as she went.
Chapter 4
Thomas, anticipatory as always, opened the door just as she put her foot on the last step. For a second, his smile of welcome faded as he glanced at the man on the steps behind her. His face smoothed into an effortless expression, and he bowed from the waist.
“Lady Sarah,” he said. “Welcome home.”
Sarah began to remove her gloves one finger at a time, sliding the silk from knuckle to nail slowly, a task requiring so much concentration that she’d needn’t look at Mr. Eston.
“And my mother, Thomas? Is she well?”
She counted ten agonizing beats of her heart before he answered. Ten, in which she wondered if he was going to hang his head low and murmur the words she so dreaded to hear: Your mother, Lady Sarah, is dead.
Twelve more beats, and Eston moved to stand closer.
“She has not awakened, Lady Sarah,” Thomas finally said.
“She has not rallied?”
“No, Lady Sarah.”
“Or eaten anything?” she asked.
He shook his head.
Hope was the one emotion she found difficult to quell entirely. Every morning upon awakening, she wondered if a miracle had transpired. And perhaps it had, simply because her mother had survived the night.
“I regret, Lady Sarah, that there has been no change.”
She nodded. The news was not unexpected. “At least we will not be traveling to Scotland, Thomas,” she said.
The underbutler studied the floor with great precision, as if to measure the flagstone squares. His hands were clasped at his back, and he rocked back and forth on his toes. When he looked back at her, his eyes were watery.
“The duke has reconsidered, then?”
“Yes,” she said.
She looked up at Eston, wishing she could banish him from Chavensworth. There were too many tasks for her to accomplish, too many duties that required her attention. Who had time for a husband?
He only smiled at her.
Eston was too large for the space. His shoulders were a bit t
oo broad to be average, his height too great to be normal as well. His clothes were quite well tailored, the fabric of his suit a fine twill. His waistcoat was a bit on the plain side, merely black silk. A rather somber garment altogether, as if he’d been observing a period of mourning.
Had he? She knew his name, and the fact that he was an inventor of sorts, and that he’d sought her father out as an investor. He’d had a good childhood. Beyond that, she knew absolutely nothing about the man to whom law had linked her.
“What is it you’ve invented?” she asked abruptly. “Was it worth giving up your life?”
“Are you saying that our marriage is going to end in my death?”
Thomas made no effort to suppress his look of surprise.
She shouldn’t have spoken to Eston at all. She bit back her sigh, and said, “Mr. Eston is my husband, Thomas. You’ll please accord him all courtesy.”
“Of course, Lady Sarah,” he said.
“I would appreciate it if you would keep the knowledge to yourself, at least until I have the opportunity to speak to Hester and Margaret.”
“Of course, Lady Sarah,” he said, before turning to her husband. “A wagon arrived this morning, sir. Are those your belongings?”
“If they’re piled high with crates from Italy, they are,” Eston said.
Thomas glanced at her. “We thought the duke might have sent them, Lady Sarah. Shall I have the crates unpacked, sir?”
“I would prefer that you didn’t,” Eston said. “I shall attend to the chore soon enough.”
She’d learned more in the last minute than she had in the entire journey from London. Perhaps she should use Thomas as an interpreter of sorts. What would the poor man do if she turned to him, and said, “Would you ask him, Thomas, exactly what he expects from this marriage? Does he realize I have no intention, whatsoever, of being intimate with a man I do not know?”
But, of course, she wouldn’t. She was, if nothing else, a proper and well-reared lady.
She turned and walked down the hall to what had once been the Summer Parlor. In the last year, when climbing stairs had become too difficult for her mother, Sarah had had the room converted to a sitting room and bedchamber. She slid the pocket doors apart slowly.
