After she was well out of earshot, Margaret said, “I believe she may be promising.”
“We have found her to be clever and very even-tempered,” said Maria.
Without thinking of how dejected it might sound, Margaret replied, “Both attributes shall be necessary if she works for Jeremy.”
*
Isabel did not always stray all the way to London when she left the manor, although most of the servants and her husband assumed she did. That was the problem with people, she thought. Always making assumptions.
But in actuality, she hid in plain sight by going only as far as Aldbury, where she was unknown as Lady Hareden. She was just “Mrs. Emily Rattray”, as she sometimes was in other places where she knew someone important would not recognize her. She took care to carry herself far less like a duchess and more like a wealthy woman whose husband had departed this world.
It had not been by design that the villagers did not know Lady Hareden. She had simply not wanted a gaggle of strangers near her wedding festivities. Perhaps if they’d had the wedding in Oxfordshire, which was where Jeremy’s ancestral seat was, she would have conceded to meeting some of Bowland’s real tenants. The locals in and around Aldbury were nothing at all to her—duty did not tie her to them.
Thinking, she stroked the fur of her little terrier, Narcissus. She was the only person he’d tolerate, she noted with satisfaction. He barred his teeth at Jeremy and barked at everyone else.
Last night had not gone according to plan. She was supposed to meet Sir Walter Able, her lover and most likely the love of her life if she let herself believe there was such a thing. She was starting to. It was mad, falling in love with a man who had neither Jeremy’s wealth nor his influence.
Walter was only a baronet. He is quite wealthy, though, she thought. Perhaps not in comparison to a duke, but wealthy enough to show it off ostentatiously. Times were changing, and although “new money” still had a fair contingent of people who chose not to broadcast their wealth because the ton disparaged them for it, there were some, like Walter, who reveled in it.
Walter had not come to their rendezvous. While it was rare that he missed a scheduled time to meet and he usually had good reason to, she was taken by a fit of despair so acute that she’d rather shamefully flung herself at a young Scottish rake on his way through to London. He’d been staying at the inn in Aldbury, and as soon as he’d caught Isabel’s eye, she’d seduced him into spending the night with her. She knew nothing about him, except where he was from and that he was free of disease. Isabel never took men at their word for that, much as she rarely took men at their word for much else.
She’d spent a collectively long time reading up on frightful subjects not considered fit for highborn ladies or women at all, and trusted herself to know if a man was lying to her. The illustrations. She shuddered. Those she’d never forget, even if the texts themselves were quite dry.
The Scottish rake whose name she did not ask for—maybe he’d volunteered it, but she didn’t care—had left her satisfied. He’d even seen her home to the manor. She still missed Walter, yearned for him in a way she did not appreciate but had no control over.
She received post as Mrs. Rattray at the inn, and he had written her briefly to apologize. It had taken her months, years, now, to trust him, but she believed him when he said he loved her. After all, would a man who did not love her put up with the fact that she was a married woman? He even said he wanted to marry her one day, God willing. All that she could conclude was that he actually meant it, because why would he go to all the trouble? They had been together nearly as long as she’d been married to Jeremy, after all.
Isabel did not want to be Lady Hareden. Her fictitious widow felt more real to her than being a duchess.
Chapter Three
Four nights after Mother returned from London and her visit to the Wenwoods, dinner became the scene of yet more domestic melodrama. It all began, as it often did, with Isabel antagonizing the servants. Really, I should become a playwright, thought Jeremy.
His favorite plays of Shakespeare’s weren’t the tragedies, they were the comedies. And he was sure that someone, somewhere in the Empire, would find his life comedic.
Or maybe more people would find it tragic.
In Jeremy’s opinion, his staff was as prudent, hardworking, and loyal as possible. Although his father had had some input over hiring and certainly made choices over his personal servants and the steward, the dowager duchess had to be awarded the lion’s share of the credit for amassing such a solid group of people. Her good sense served her well and, as a result, she had an array of servants that was quite the envy of many others in the ton.
They had never had to deal with a maid stealing jewels or a footman being bribed to provide someone with choice tidbits of information, for which Jeremy was very thankful. He knew, without any sense of ego, that his servants thought highly of their master. In truth, he did what he could to offset the ill-temper of his lady wife, as she could be peevish. He made sure everyone was paid properly and on time, and tried not to speak sharply or pompously to them. Like Isabel was, now.
“Jeremy, I simply cannot say how disgusting this spring soup is.” She beckoned to the maid, who was filling their wine glasses. “Sarah, who made this soup?” As though to emphasize her point, she lifted her spoon and let some of the green liquid dribble into her bowl.
Poor Sarah stammered, her eyes on her shoes, “W-w-well, your grace, I believe it was Mrs. Snow… as usual…” Sarah was only just eighteen and had been working here since she was fourteen, but she’d never quite gotten used to the duchess. Thankfully, she worked primarily downstairs and in the kitchen, so their paths did not cross unless it was at a meal.
“Perhaps Mrs. Snow is getting too elderly to be dependable for much longer.” Isabel lifted her chin toward the dowager duchess, who was a staunch supporter of Mrs. Snow.
“Perhaps you are coming down with a cold,” said Jeremy, his jaw tense. “It is delicious to me and I assure you, my darling, that I am neither going senile nor am I in ill health.”
“I have never liked spring soup,” said Isabel, modifying her tone to a faux sweetness to match his forced levelness. “And I have made Mrs. Snow aware of this several times.”
“What other kind of soup do you suggest be served?” inquired Mother. “Everything for it is in season. It is logical and traditional.”
Isabel’s first response was to dip her spoon back into the soup and let it dribble out, again. He saw, even from the head of the table, his mother’s nostrils flare as her eyes followed the drips.
“That may be so,” said Isabel, “but I still am entitled to an opinion about it.”
Jeremy stared at his wife. She always puts on such airs in public but you’d think in private she had no education in manners whatsoever, he thought. She would never allow anything to dribble at someone else’s dinner party, of course. But if they were dining en famille, then dribbling in protest seemed to be a fair, if a childish, game. He said nothing to gratify her words.
The servants also adored the dowager duchess, even to the point of some of them, generally the older ones who had been hired while her husband was still alive, being genuinely affectionate. In small ways—nothing too unseemly or obvious. But a warm word here or there. Only the duchess raised their hackles, or conversely, reduced them to tears.
She had been a disturbance since she and Jeremy returned to the manor as man and wife, but he first attributed that to everyone getting used to each other. Back in those days, she had not been shrewish and his father had recently passed away. Everything felt unsettled.
She wasn’t a bitch, then, he thought, watching her expression of distaste over her dish. She had been a little forward and maybe a little too interested in the new clothes and the glittering Bowland jewels. Jeremy knew he was doing his duty by marrying and although he had not been in love with his wife, he felt he could grow to love her. Maybe, he’d reasoned, she would follow. And if
she didn’t… well, his mother and father had functioned well enough. If “well enough” meant without terrible rancor.
Nowadays, the most redeeming trait of the servants in the household was their ability to gauge fraught situations seemingly at all times. Sarah was standing near the door anxiously, and Jeremy gave her a quick, eloquent nod.
With enormous relief, she slipped out of the dining room. It was no secret that the dowager duchess and her daughter-in-law were not bosom friends. Or civil to each other.
That was even evident to society. There was no way for it to be a secret when both women’s body language spoke plainly about the regard—or lack thereof—they held for each other. Lady Margaret Hareden had reached the age and status where the visible dislike she held for her daughter-in-law could not be used against her much. She had friends enough who could laugh knowingly at her foibles.
Isabel, on the other hand, seemed to lack scruples in general, and her role as the duchess protected her from all but the pettiest censure.
He glanced toward his mother, who was either ignoring Isabel or had not heard her. I would bet good money on the prior being the case. Mother ate her own soup daintily but without any response, either verbal or nonverbal. Depending upon the circumstances and the mood of each woman, the servants were experts at divining which of their mistresses to listen to first.
They should have deferred to the duchess but sometimes did not, and Jeremy could not blame them.
It was all about knowing whose feathers to soothe, whose stubbornness would give out, whose ire would be less. Largely, everyone seemed to find the manor a more peaceful place when Isabel was coddled. The duchess was far less forgiving when a servant was slightly less accommodating of her wishes, whereas the dowager duchess understood her daughter-in-law’s temper had to be indulged and did not seem to mind as much if things were not accomplished for herself instantaneously.
On the somewhat sporadic occasion that all three of them dined together, all of the servants knew to remain nearby enough for it to be considered proper. But they did not hover.
Dinners with the duke at the head, the duchess at the foot, and the dowager duchess somewhere in between were veritable powder kegs. One memorable time left Isabel in full awareness of her mother-in-law’s nickname for her—Harpy—because the dowager duchess had lost her temper enough to shout it over a plate of quails. Jeremy had never actually seen or heard his mother shout anything. Not even at Paul, who sometimes did deserve to be shouted at.
Once a long enough interval of time had passed for her lack of reply to Isabel to be considered pointedly rude, Mother said, “Of course you are entitled to dislike whatever you wish, but you are not entitled to insult Mrs. Snow.”
Going red from the apples of her cheeks to the tip of her nose, Isabel said, “I believe I desire some of the cod.”
Jeremy’s attention went to the small platter of cod, which was nearer to his mother than his wife.
Isabel cleared her throat and looked meaningfully at the fish. The dowager duchess did not take the hint.
Internally, Jeremy groaned. This was only the first course. The last time they had dined together was a month past. He wished it had been ten months past. He should have gone into London with Paul that afternoon. His brother might have ended his nights in the least illustrious establishments possible. He might have come to Jeremy once with the worry that he’d gotten a milliner’s daughter with child, then came back not a year later, fretting that a well-known courtesan had fallen pregnant because of him.
Yet the Good Lord had given him enough common sense to avoid a family dinner with his brother, his mother and his sister-in-law. Isabel would have preferred to die before she would reach across the table simply because it was her mother-in-law who could have—if she chose—helped her with the cod. Jeremy knew it.
After the span of a minute where no progress was made in the direction of procuring what she had expressed a wish for, yet the dowager duchess had placed a portion of the coveted fish on her own plate, Isabel rose from the table and wordlessly quit the room. Jeremy followed her with his eyes, then looked at his mother.
“I am sure that does not bode well for either of us,” he said dryly, finishing the last of his soup. “That said, perhaps you’ve driven her to be away for the evening.”
“She was only just away,” said Mother dismissively.
Jeremy found he had little to say to that, so he said, “Mother, really. You do not even enjoy fish.”
“I find it quite delectable, this evening.”
He wasn’t sure if he was pleased or melancholic—he very much liked the thought of a respite from Isabel in spite of knowing she was only just back. But some small, trapped sliver of him wanted more than this out of a marriage. Why had he remained faithful when she herself never was?
Not even ten minutes later, Mrs. Snow, a thin, gaunt woman with well-worn hands and a normally pleasant face came tearing into the room. Startled, Jeremy stared at her. In all his years of knowing Mrs. Snow, a part of Rosethorpe that was as steady and important as the roof, he had never seen her overwrought.
“Your grace!” Mrs. Snow cried. “The duchess says I am to pack my trunk and that I am dismissed!”
Mother went a shade of puce. Before Mrs. Snow could say more and before his mother died of rage, Jeremy shook his head.
“She had no such authority. We never decided on such a thing,” he said. “Please return to the kitchen, Mrs. Snow, as two of us at dinner this evening are perfectly happy to complete the meal. You are decidedly not dismissed.”
Mrs. Snow was not an unintelligent or slow woman and if she hadn’t been so flustered, his words would have spurred her to action much sooner. She lingered in the room for a moment, opening and closing her mouth like one of the fat, orange fish in the garden’s vast pond. Then she grinned, all rapturous relief.
“Thank you, your grace. I thought there must have been some misunderstanding and didn’t want to come off as impertinent.”
He was trying to be surprised that Isabel had reacted in such a fashion, but Jeremy found he could rouse very little shock over the situation. “There is a misunderstanding, but it should not have impacted you.”
“That was not kind,” Jeremy said blandly to his mother as soon as Mrs. Snow took her leave.
“You choose a far more genteel description than I would.”
Since it was summer, the sun was up longer than usual and the room was swimming in golden light. There was no need for candles yet, and the walls were reflecting in shades of light sienna. Jeremy let the light calm him and idly stroked at the crater where his right hand used to be. “You should not bait her.”
“She should not bait all of us! Why, if Paul were not here, I would be in the townhouse simply for some peace. But I want to see him.”
“You could always arrange for Paul to visit you in the townhouse, if you miss him. He lives in London, after all.”
He did not have to ask why his mother did not choose to spend more time away from the manor—she did not want to leave him alone with Luke and Isabel. Otherwise, she might have chosen to do so, as did many women in similar positions. There were several holdings she could retreat to in different parts of the country, including the townhouse.
After all, however much she adored Paul, she could not reside with him in the Albany. One couldn’t even whistle in the Albany, much less have one’s mother to stay, and the latter was rather the point. He felt a very brief flash of envy that he was not the younger son. The spare and not the heir. How simple would it be to live as a bachelor in an apartment?
Well, he had to admit that he liked running the estate and he certainly liked being a barrister. He could be whatever he liked if he lived like Paul, including a barrister. But the aspects of being a duke that did appeal to him would be entirely out of his reach.
And I might have only one hand, so my reach is not far to begin with, thought Jeremy whimsically, but I think I’m at least a good duke.
> “Perhaps it is a good thing that your Harpy has quit the table. We can enjoy the meal quietly and have some sensible conversation,” Mother said.
But they sat largely in amiable silence for most of the meal, eating each course as it came. It appeared that she was deliberating over something, for every time Jeremy looked over at her, she seemed deep in thought.
Toward the end of the meal, she smiled at him. Dabbing her mouth lightly with a serviette, she then said, “I believe I have found you a secretary, my dear.”
Jeremy, who’d been relaxing his posture with each new dish and sip of wine, sat bolt upright. “Did you? I didn’t tell you to find me one—how did you manage that while you were visiting the Wenwoods for the twins’ birthday?” He was, in a way, impressed at her efficiency, if irked at the rapidity at which she solved the supposed problem.
“As it happened, they posed a solution to the question. Not the boys—Lord and Lady Wenwood. You should have come with me! It was quite a time, and the boys in particular wished to see you.”
“They wished to see my stump,” said Jeremy with a smile. He had to admit that if he were but ten and some man, some family friend had come back from war missing a hand, he’d want to see the damage.
“Oh, their parents set them right on that score,” his mother said. “And I was mentioning your need for help to—”
“I am pleased the Wenwoods are close friends and not simply your acquaintances from the ton, or else the whole of England would know all of my business.”
With immense dignity, Mother carried on. “They very highly recommended someone.”
The wine tasted better tonight, or he’d had too much of it. He finished his glass, and murmured, “I’m sure they did. Wenwood never tolerates anything but the best, does he?”
She shook her head at his tone of voice, which was somewhere between rueful and flippant, and said, “Leaving that aside for a moment, I happened to hear while I was in town that that City merchant, the one with the bulbous nose, that… Radcliffe. Mr. Radcliffe has referred all of his friends to you for your services. You shall need someone to help you.”
Duke of Disgrace (Dukes of Destiny Book 3) Page 6
