The Duchess

by Danielle Steel

  “Of course. I’ll get it ready for her,” Angélique said demurely. “And the yellow suite is for Louisa?” she confirmed. It was their finest one. He knew it well since he and Elizabeth had normally slept there on their brief, infrequent visits to his father. Elizabeth always said the country bored them. Apparently, that was about to change as well.

  Angélique didn’t ask him what room she was to sleep in, but chose a smaller room far down the hall from them, so as to have some privacy and not interfere. But before she could carry out the plan, Tristan spoke to her again. “Elizabeth thought you would be happier in one of the rooms upstairs.” There was a whole floor of smaller guest rooms there, which were less beautifully appointed and had some of their older furniture. Despite a fireplace in each room, they were usually drafty and cold. She was beginning to see now what her fate was going to be like at their hands, and moving to the Cottage as her father had requested for her in later years, was beginning to seem like a wise plan. She would wait to see how things worked once Elizabeth and the girls arrived, but keeping out of harm’s way in the Cottage might be better for everyone.

  There was no way she could empty her room in a few hours, but she set to work immediately, clearing some space for Gwyneth in the hanging cupboards, emptying a chest of drawers, and putting away some of her papers to leave room on the desk. And she took the pouch with her fortune in it with her, and locked it in a drawer in the room upstairs. It was a small, cramped space with depressing furniture, and a view that overlooked the estate. The gardens were just beneath her, and she could see the first of the tenant farms in the distance, since the trees that ordinarily concealed it were bare. And the lake was frozen over. She was going to suggest ice skating to her nieces, the week after the funeral of course, if they were planning to stay. She wondered how soon she could move back to her room. She was going to do whatever Elizabeth wanted while she was there. There was no point getting on their wrong side so soon, or at all. She had to respect that this was their home now, and adjust to it as best she could.

  After she put away her own things upstairs, with the help of one of the maids, she went back downstairs to inspect the bedrooms they’d be using. Mrs. White had seen to everything, and the rooms were impeccable. She hesitated in the doorway of her father’s room, and couldn’t bear to go in. She couldn’t understand how Elizabeth would want to sleep there, with her father-in-law so recently dead. And every time one of the servants addressed Tristan as “Your Grace,” Angélique had to steel herself not to flinch. It was hard to think of him as lord of everything now. But like it or not, he was. She had always known it would happen someday, just not so soon. Tristan was a dignified man, more than a little self-important, with none of the kindness of her father; but it would have been a tragedy if Edward had inherited the title and estate. He would have run it into the ground.

  Tristan was planning to spend the week after the funeral with their father’s estate manager to better understand how it all worked. He had spent hours discussing it with his father, but he wanted to learn the nuts and bolts of it now, down to the last detail. He had every intention of running it responsibly, just differently than his father, whom he had always considered a soft touch, and too gentle and generous with his employees. Angélique had often noticed Tristan’s harshness with the servants, and the way he spoke to them, so unlike their father, who had been revered. Tristan preferred to rule by fear. And he had already decided he would cut back on what they spent to run the estate, and had planned it for a long time. He thought his father had far too many servants, and paid them much too well.

  With the new duke very much in evidence, there was an obvious sense of malaise downstairs. He poked his nose into every nook and cranny that day, and asked Hobson a lot of questions about running the house. Hobson tried his best not to appear to take umbrage, but Angélique could see that the devoted old butler’s feathers were ruffled, though he hid it well from Tristan and was irreproachably polite.

  It was the end of the afternoon when Elizabeth arrived in an enormous, very showy barouche-landau with the top down, drawn by four black horses, with two coachmen. She had both of her daughters with her, all of them wearing very grand dresses with large sweeping skirts, in somber black, with black gloves. Elizabeth was wearing a huge black hat with a veil, and a brace of black foxes around her shoulders. And the girls’ black hats looked as though they’d been made in Paris. Elizabeth spared no expense on their clothes, and loved wearing the latest fashions.

  She swept into the main hall, appearing very grand, as she glanced around her and made a face. All of the servants had lined up and stood at attention outside in their thin clothes in the freezing cold. She didn’t seem to care, and left them standing there, when she walked in. And then she said loudly where Mrs. White could hear her, “I wonder how long it will take us to get the place clean.” The house was immaculate, and Mrs. White was very proud of how meticulously they kept it.

  Like the servants, Angélique had greeted the new mistress of Belgrave at the door, and Elizabeth brushed past her, without kissing her or offering her condolences, and Gwyneth and Louisa gave her a haughty glance, as if to say she was of no importance anymore. Angélique was beginning to feel that way herself.

  She took Gwyneth up to her suite, and told her she hoped she’d enjoy staying there, and Gwyneth looked at her and laughed.

  “I’m moving into these rooms now, you know. My mother said I could. You can take the rest of your things tomorrow.” Angélique didn’t say a word. She would speak to Elizabeth about it herself. It would be the ultimate humiliation if Elizabeth intended to keep her in the small, dreary room upstairs, which hadn’t been redone in forty years, unlike her own suite of rooms, which had been completely redone three years before, on her fifteenth birthday, as a surprise from her father. They had gone to Italy to visit an old friend of his in Florence, and when they got back, everything was in place, and all her old girlhood furniture had been removed. It was a very elegant suite of rooms, all done in pink satin, with French furniture her father had bought for her in Paris.

  Louisa walked into the room then, and gave her young aunt, only two years older than she was, another haughty look, full of disdain. Moving to the Cottage was becoming more appealing every minute. Elizabeth had brought her own maid with her, and another one for the girls, to tend to their clothes. And when Angélique went downstairs a little while later, Elizabeth was giving Mrs. White orders, and changing the menu for that night, which was going to be difficult for Mrs. Williams to conjure up so late in the day, although she was very creative. But she wasn’t a magician, and everyone on the staff was still shaken and upset about her father, and not operating in top form. Elizabeth was indifferent to their feelings and wanted what she wanted, now! She explained that they all had delicate stomachs and couldn’t eat country food, which made Mrs. Williams flush nearly purple when Elizabeth said it, since the cook prided herself on her sophisticated food, often learned from other cooks she knew, who worked in grand houses in London, or French recipes she copied down from magazines. She did not serve “country food.”

  It appeared as though the change was not going to be easy for the staff either, and there was nothing Angélique could do. As long as Tristan and his family were in residence, she felt she couldn’t run the house and give orders. It was no longer her home. She was a barely tolerated guest, in what had been her domain only hours before.

  Supper that night was a tense affair for Angélique, while Elizabeth talked openly about all the changes she was going to make, her plans for redecoration, and the furniture she wanted to move around. It gave Angélique the uncomfortable feeling that she was standing on shifting sands. And both her nieces were rude to the servants during the meal, and no one corrected them. After supper, the girls went upstairs to what had been Angélique’s suite, without even saying goodnight to her. And Tristan and Elizabeth retired to the study, did not invite her to join them, and firmly closed the door in her face, after sayin
g they had private matters to discuss.

  Angélique went into the library for a few minutes to sit with her father, gently touched his hand, kissed his cold gray cheek, and went upstairs to the room they’d assigned to her, where she burst into tears, and lay sobbing on the bed until she heard someone knocking. It was Mrs. White, who had come to see how she was. There had been much discussion at the servants’ dining table about the changes of rooms, and Mrs. White had discreetly warned the younger maids to be careful when Sir Edward arrived the next day. They got her meaning and several of them giggled. He had cornered more than one of them on previous occasions, and had even caused one or two to be dismissed after he left, for indulging his whims and giving in to him. Despite his bad behavior, he was a handsome man. Mrs. White did not tolerate that kind of behavior from the maids, although she had never explained it to His Grace, and didn’t need to.

  “Are you all right?” Mrs. White asked Angélique, with deep concern. They both knew how difficult this was, losing her father, and having to deal with Tristan and his wife and daughters, who so clearly disrespected her, and resented her existence, and the favored position she had had with the late duke. He could do nothing to protect her now, any more than the servants could support her in any meaningful way, except to feel sorry for her, which they did. She had been nothing but kind to them all her life, like her father, and they were very fond of her. They had all spoken openly in the servants’ hall that night about what an arrogant beast the new duchess was.

  Angélique nodded, and tried to smile bravely through her tears. Mrs. White had always been motherly to her, and had been at Belgrave even before the duke married Marie-Isabelle, and she had thought her a lovely girl. Mrs. White had been one of the first to hold Angélique in her arms after she was born, and had given her a warm hug whenever possible as a child.

  “It’s all so different,” Angélique said cautiously, embarrassed to complain. She didn’t want to seem rude.

  “It was bound to be different,” Mrs. White said, standing next to her bed and gently stroking her hair, “but not quite so soon. They’re in an awful hurry to let us all know that Belgrave is theirs now.” Angélique silently agreed with her, and looked up at the older woman, grateful for the visit. To Fiona White, Angélique was the child she’d never had. She had given up marriage and children for a life of service. She was the daughter of one of the tenant farmers, her family had served the Dukes of Westerfield for generations, and she was proud to do the same. Achieving the post of head housekeeper had been a major accomplishment for her, and one which meant a great deal to her. “They’ll get tired of it soon enough, and go back to London,” she said with a smile. “I can’t see them staying in the country for long. They’ll be bored.” But from what the girls had said at supper, Angélique had the uncomfortable feeling that they were planning to stay.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I’m sure I am, and then everything will go back to normal.” Except that Angélique knew her father would no longer be there, which altered everything for her, far more than it did for the servants. The new duke and his family needed the servants, but they had already made it clear that they didn’t need or want Angélique. She was only Tristan’s sister, by a wife he had hated from the first. All they wanted was to put her in the attic somewhere—they had lost no time commandeering her suite.

  Mrs. White stayed for a few minutes and then went back downstairs. Hobson waylaid her as soon as he saw her. “How is she?” he asked about Angélique, his worry evident. He had felt fatherly toward her the moment he saw her as a baby.

  “She’s upset, and who can blame her?” Mrs. White answered. “Her father is barely cold in the library, and they’re already treating her like one of us.” He nodded his agreement. He was horrified that she’d been put out of her rooms, and even more so that Tristan and Elizabeth were planning to sleep in the late duke’s room so soon.

  “His Grace wouldn’t like what’s going on,” Hobson said ominously, but the Grace he meant was gone, and the one who had taken his place seemed to have no heart, particularly where his half-sister was concerned.

  Angélique lay in bed for hours that night, trying to absorb everything that had happened in the past two days. The room she was sleeping in was freezing cold, and the windows didn’t close properly. An icy wind blew at her all night, and she was frozen stiff when she came down in the morning.

  Angélique joined Tristan in the dining room for breakfast, and he said not a word to her as he read the newspaper. Elizabeth and her daughters were having breakfast in bed, something Angélique never did. She’d had breakfast in the dining room with her father every day, where they chatted and laughed, talked about the books they were reading, or world events, and their plans for the day. Tristan had nothing to say to her until after breakfast, when he reminded her to return any family jewels her father had given her, except for the ones he had bought for her mother. Angélique handed him the jewelry half an hour later with a stoic expression.

  After that, she spent the morning quietly making sure that the house was running smoothly, and trying to stay out of Elizabeth and the girls’ way, which she succeeded in doing until the midday meal, which they referred to as dinner. Elizabeth had ordered a complicated meal, which Mrs. Williams had managed to perfection. Angélique was pleased. They weren’t the bumpkins Elizabeth thought.

  Shortly after dinner, Edward arrived, in an elegant chariot, drawn by four fast horses, with two of his best horses following behind. He had a sword case on the back. He didn’t trust his father’s stables, the horses in it were always far too tame in his opinion, and he planned to do some riding while he was there. He disliked country life even more than his brother and sister-in-law. He found it intolerably boring, which was why he seldom came. He had more entertaining things to do in London.

  He ignored Angélique entirely and was satisfied with the luxurious suite of rooms his sister-in-law had assigned to him. He spent the rest of the afternoon out riding while the locals continued to come to pay their respects in a steady stream. Two footmen stood at the front door, and two more were in the library, with the late duke, as people filed by to see him. The tenant farmers came in their Sunday best, to pay their respects. They stood beside Angélique’s father for a long time, whispering in hushed tones, and many of them were crying when they left.

  All in all it was another exhausting day, and Angélique retired to bed with several hot bricks wrapped in towels to warm her, covered the window with blankets, and made a blazing fire to keep herself warm, but the night was no better than the one before, and the next morning was her father’s funeral in the chapel on the estate. The local vicar performed the service, and Phillip Latham, Duke of Westerfield, was laid to rest in the mausoleum, with his parents, grandparents, and both wives. Angélique stayed there for a few more minutes after the others went back to the house for something to eat. Several of Phillip’s local friends had come for the service, and to share a meal with them. By the end of the meal, Angélique felt drained of every ounce of blood, and energy. And when the last guest left, and her female relatives went upstairs, Tristan asked her to join him in the library, where her father had lain only hours before. Edward was bantering with his nieces on their way upstairs after pointedly ignoring Angélique since he’d arrived, and snubbing her every chance he got, incredibly rudely. Elizabeth had called for Mrs. White about the next day’s meals, the results of which were to be conveyed to Mrs. Williams. Elizabeth was still not satisfied with the cooking, and had already mentioned to Mrs. White that she might replace the cook and bring someone from London, although Mrs. Williams had worked there for twenty years.

  “I wanted to speak to you for a moment,” Tristan said casually, as Angélique tried not to remember her father lying in the room. She wondered what Tristan was going to say to her, and for a moment considered if he was going to suggest himself that she move into the Cottage. They had already given her the clear impression that they thought she was
in the way. And moving her into the Cottage, even though earlier than her father had planned it, might be a plausible solution, for her too. She couldn’t continue to sleep in the drafty upstairs bedroom for much longer, without getting sick, and there was no room for her things, and no place to put them. She had had to take over another of the smaller bedrooms for her clothes, since Gwyneth had insisted she empty the closets in her old suite, to make room for her elaborate gowns.

  “Elizabeth and I have been talking,” Tristan began. “I know what an awkward situation this must be for you, and to be honest, it’s confusing for the servants as well. Father let you run the house for him, but there’s no need for you to do that anymore. Elizabeth is going to reorganize everything and get it running smoothly.” Just hearing him say it was something of a slap in the face, as though she didn’t know what she was doing, because she was only eighteen. But she had done a fine job of it for several years, more than many young women her age who were married, and had never even seen a house or staff as big as this. “It will be embarrassing for you to find yourself with nothing to do here, and we don’t want them confused in their loyalties.”

  “I’m sure they won’t be,” Angélique said nervously. “They are very clear that it’s your house now, and Elizabeth is going to run it. They always expected this to happen. We all did. And Papa had been failing for a long time.” Now that she thought about it, his death was heartbreaking but not really a surprise. She just hadn’t wanted to see the end coming. “And of course I won’t interfere.”

  “Precisely. That’s what we have in mind too.”

  “Papa thought that eventually I should move into the Cottage. Maybe I should do that now,” she suggested hesitantly, thinking it would be a relief for all of them, and Elizabeth and the girls would be pleased to get her out of the house.