by Ingrid Hahn
“To hear my father tell it, to the first earl.”
“Is that not correct?”
“He was known to embellish a story or two.”
“Why is it done?”
“Why?” He looked startled. “I provide for their table, and they, in turn, provide for mine. When we sit down to our respective feasts, we remember one another. I never forget that what I am relies far more on them than what they are is dependent upon me.”
That was lovely.
Grace kept silent, working her teeth over her bottom lip. Was that true, the last bit about who relied upon whom and for what?
“It may have started as a symbolic gesture, but it’s grown. I set out early so Cook has sufficient time to prepare everything as it ought to be.”
“I suppose it doesn’t hurt that it keeps you from your guests for a not-insignificant part of the day.”
Corbeau darkened. “Whatever I am, whatever I have ever been, I have never believed that I owe more to society than I do to the people on my land.”
“An odd thing to say for a man relying on notions of honor to win him a bride.”
He sent her a sidelong glance. His voice was low. “It’s more complicated than that, and you know it.”
They spent a while not speaking, Grace idly musing on her memory of the storeroom—the first storeroom incident.
An idea caught spark in her mind. It seemed so obvious, how could she not have considered the possibility before? “You didn’t plan to have us be found locked together in the storeroom, did you, my lord?”
The question lashed the air between them. The earl went immediately tense—tenser than she’d ever before seen him.
Grace bit her lip. If only she’d considered more carefully before conjecturing aloud.
“Is that the true reason why you’ve been so reticent about fully accepting the engagement, my lady?” His voice was lethally level. “Because you believe I manipulated the whole affair?”
“Did you?” Her pulse beat at a violent speed. What would she do if the answer was yes?
They turned a corner through a woody patch, the trees around them bending, laden with snow. A branch sprang free of its burden with a sharp rustling, spraying dry snow in a shower of tiny particles over them both.
The house came into view. Were they finished already?
“My lord?”
“What happened happened, Lady Grace. I am not sorry about it, nor will I pretend to be. And I haven’t been, not for a moment, not even for you.”
He still hadn’t answered the question. Had he? All his talk about honor. To have contrived to lock himself in the storeroom with her to be discovered by those who would necessitate a forced engagement—it made no sense. It wasn’t the man she was coming to…to what?
Grace’s hands shook, her throat dry.
No, she couldn’t believe it. Not without absolute affirmation.
“Did you, then?”
He didn’t look at her, his features tense, heightening the stern lines of his face. It was a long time before he spoke. “I’m going to allow the question to rest for now. Until we speak on this matter again, which we will, and soon, mark my words, I will wait in the hope that you won’t need my answer to know the truth.”
Chapter Eighteen
Such a morning was not to be soon recovered from.
The only thing Grace wanted was to be alone, to think upon what she’d seen and, more importantly, what had been said.
She tried to make herself comfortable in her room, settling before the fire with the book he’d loaned her, only to shut it with a thud not a quarter of an hour later.
Touching the ledger Hetty had brought was out of the question.
Solitude, however desired, seemed a foolish choice. Objectivity required distance. Distance and a cool head. She needed to let her feelings settle before she came to any conclusions. In short, she needed to carry on as if nothing had passed between them. It would help her forget, if only for a short period.
Thus she allowed the maid to change her into a morning costume of fine cambric muslin and reappoint her hair, and she found herself wandering into the breakfast room.
Breakfast at Corbeau Park with so many guests was not an intimate affair.
“What a sad thing for such an illustrious family to be connected with the likes of them. That conniving girl, I know she—”
Grace had paused outside the doors, but it was not to be borne. She could wait no longer. She burst in, the room falling silent at her entrance, the voices and laughter that had been obvious at her approach gone conspicuously quiet. Lady Rushworth’s mouth promptly shut, and she looked away, without the least hint of shame or regret for having been caught speaking thusly.
They would no doubt have been conjecturing about her morning with the earl. Or likely the whole time they’d been guests of Corbeau Park. But she set her shoulders and leveled her head, making ready to bear any scrutiny.
If only she could ignore them. Or tell them to go to perdition. But she’d be lying if she claimed their words—their appraisal of her—didn’t sting.
The pale peach walls seemed to close in.
Determination reared within her. She wouldn’t be set down by such people, she would not.
An image flashed in her mind of the earl twirling a laughing child in the air, his own face easy with a broad smile.
Her heart pinched. To sully the earl by marrying him…for their children to bear the same burden…
Grace caught Lady Eliza smiling at her, her hazel eyes warm, her expression soft and bereft of any hint of pity. Grace returned the kindness as she made her way to the sideboard.
The air was replete with the rich smells of the fine food laid, but did nothing to rouse her appetite. It was tempting to pile her plate high anyway as a means of silently displaying just how deeply she would not be rattled. Leaving food on the plate would be more conspicuous, though, and so she restrained her halfhearted selections to a minimum.
Lady Rushworth sat next to her daughter in her customary lavender shades of half mourning. Grace took a seat opposite them both. The flat stone-gray of the older lady’s hair was tucked beneath the exuberant ruffles of a wide matron’s cap. Her lips stretched, lines of her face deepening, the smile not reaching her eyes. She wouldn’t have been an unhandsome woman if she had a different disposition. A very different disposition. “We were just remarking, Lady Grace, about what a clever girl you are.”
“My lady?” Grace kept her voice cool, her countenance steady. The heat prickling over her could not be helped, but whatever she had in her power to not cede her ground, she would utilize.
Eliza set her cup down in its dish, painted porcelain clinking against painted porcelain. “Mama, if you’re finished, I do believe Lady Hetty has promised us a tour of the statuary. Shall we go see if she’s about?”
The mother ignored the daughter, her stare never leaving Grace.
Grace swallowed. Her legs twitched to carry her away to a safe hiding place.
But she had nothing for which to be ashamed.
Eliza rose. “Mama, please.”
Lady Rushworth remained seated. “Lady Grace, you must delight us all by explaining the finer points of the unconventional means you employed in gaining yourself a husband.”
A few of the other ladies in the room shifted uncomfortably. One became engrossed in the remaining buttered kippers on her plate. Another had taken out her handkerchief to show her friend the minute details of the wildflowers stitched along its border.
It may well have been that they’d been tittering at Grace’s expense before she’d appeared, but maligning her to her face took an entirely different sort of character. They seemed helpless to move or say anything.
A great storm was about to break over the room, though none were fleeing the rain.
Lady Rushworth batted her eyes. “After all, dear, it’s not every girl who can go into a storeroom an old maid and emerge a quarter of an hour later as a woman engaged
to an earl.”
It took a great force of will, but she held her tongue. She had to remember that in this short interlude of being engaged, her actions reflected on Corbeau. To reply would only have put herself on the same level as Lady Rushworth—and that Grace could not countenance.
…
Grace’s esteem for Eliza rose considerably when she made no effort at apologizing for her mother. That Eliza wouldn’t do such a thing indicated she felt no personal responsibility for what her mother said or did, or at least that she tried not to do so. A child couldn’t help her parent any more than a parent could help her child. Society might judge otherwise, but when had sense ever entered into the calculations of the masses?
They were of the same age, but Eliza’s refinements were far and above Grace’s own. She was beautiful, too, with those expressive, deep-set eyes and the rich darkness of her hair swept just so to frame the soft oval of her face.
How strange it was that she’d never married. Her family connections were considerable, her fortune more than adequate, her manner pleasing, and her physical attributes spoke for themselves.
When Eliza had asked Grace to accompany them on the tour of the statuary and Grace had accepted, Lady Rushworth had suddenly remembered she had correspondence to catch up on. Hetty had only just started the tour when she’d been called away, leaving Grace and Eliza to their own devices in the expansive room filled with classical artifacts. The ceiling above them soared at least three stories upward. Glass doors at the far end would be thrown open in summer to extend the room out to the gardens.
“Eliza, I have no right to ask so personal a question of you—”
Looking up from studying the figures on the large fragments of a black figure vase that had yet to be reassembled, Eliza stared her dead in the eye. “You’re wondering if it’s true Corbeau once courted me?”
Grace gave a reluctant nod, grateful her new friend didn’t seem to be taking any offense.
Eliza reached to cover Grace’s hand with her own. “We did not, so I forbid you from giving the idea the slightest worry.”
“You didn’t?”
“The story started when I was walking in the park and did something to my ankle. I can only think I must have stepped wrong, although to this day I’m not sure how it happened. Corbeau was nearby and gave me his arm and helped me hobble back to the landaulet. He didn’t do anything anybody else wouldn’t have, but because it was him, I suppose, people started talking.” She sighed. “The whole nonsense about courting was nothing but a pernicious rumor.”
“I’m so sorry.”
The light around them was bright and clear from the three stories of man-sized windows enclosing the room.
“’Tis he you should concern yourself about. Poor man. I think he was so mortified by what was being said, and for being thought ungallant for having ‘tossed me off,’ as they said, that he began paying me calls. I had to tell him I thought him under no obligation. It was terribly awkward business, but we were both the better for having undertaken an honest conversation.” Eliza paused and smiled knowingly. “Mind you, I didn’t have any objection to his attentions. A man like him. Well. But, you know, it was better to acknowledge sooner, rather than later, that we never would have suited.”
“How did you know?”
“That we wouldn’t have suited?”
Grace nodded.
Eliza looked absently at a bent figure of a modest Venus. “Sometimes you just know these things, I suppose.”
A quality to Eliza’s air brought nothing to mind so much as the suspicion that all those years back there must have been someone else. Moreover, Grace would wager good money that whoever that someone else was, Eliza hadn’t relinquished the memory.
“You know why I’m telling you this, don’t you?”
“Lord Corbeau is indeed a very good man.” A man like him couldn’t have planned the storeroom accident. Corbeau didn’t play dirty.
An ugly lump of shame tugged at her insides for having needed Eliza to jolt her into this realization. And worse, for even entertaining the idea, much less accusing him as she had.
“He let me go.” Eliza glowed with warmth. “And we were both relieved. He’s not letting you go.”
Grace’s throat went thick, and at first she could make no reply. That hadn’t been what she was expecting Eliza to say. “You’re exceptionally perceptive.”
“And if I might be so bold myself, Lady Grace, I’d like to offer a piece of advice. I know you haven’t asked me, and I know it isn’t my place to say, but it’s been on my mind, and I fear if I don’t speak up, I shall harbor regrets for my silence.”
Grace braced herself. “Of course.”
“I don’t expect your confidence because I know I haven’t earned it. I’ll say what I have to say, and we don’t have to speak on the matter again.”
“Now you’ve confused me terribly, I have to say.”
Eliza’s eyes took on a faraway look. “Don’t let pride or anything else stand in the way of finding your happiness. A moment of humility is no price at all to pay for a lifetime spent with those most dear to your heart.”
Grace’s lips parted, but before she could respond, a servant appeared to say that Lady Rushworth was in need of her daughter.
Eliza sent Grace a look that said, Of course my mother needs me, but went obediently.
No sooner had she gone than Phoebe appeared through the arching doorway. She wore a pale yellow primrose day dress. “Ah, there you are, Grace.” She glanced around. “I thought Lady Eliza would be with you. Her mother wants her.”
“She’s already gone to her.” With her hands clasped behind her back, Grace walked past a nude Apollo, the marble god rather too intact in vital places to be considered. It’d be too easy to picture Corbeau standing such, a vision much more vivid than was proper for the current place and time.
She stopped at the next statue.
Instead of vanishing again, Phoebe came up alongside her. “Ugh, he’s an ugly, brutish fellow.” She wrinkled her nose at the satyr. The figure cast in marble was less well-preserved than most of the others, the chips and broken protrusions rendering him all the more vile. Along the deeper lines composing his form were pale brown remnants of ancient paint. “Wouldn’t want to come upon him in a wood. Or anywhere, really.”
A thought occurred to her, and Grace gave her sister a long look. What if it were Phoebe in this situation with a man? What would Grace counsel her to do? Accept him? Break the engagement?
First Grace would have to get past the feeling that no man in the world could be good enough for any of her sisters.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Grace blinked. “Sorry?” She knit her brows. “Like what?”
“Like I’ve just announced I have designs to become an anatomist.”
“I was reflecting upon happiness.”
“I find I reflect upon happiness much more easily before a large fire on a cold night surrounded by all my friends. A gooseberry tart near at hand wouldn’t go amiss, either.” She turned to survey the statuary. “All these cold things…has Jane been in here with her pencils? This room was simply made for her.”
“If you had a chance at happiness, dearest, you would take it, wouldn’t you? No matter the cost?”
Bristling, Phoebe’s mouth pressed into a flat line. “I don’t suppose we’re talking about you, are we?”
Grace shook her head.
Phoebe looked away, chin in the air, eyes thunderous. “You know, I recall a time when you weren’t in a permanent state of seriousness. It wouldn’t hurt to leave matters be upon occasion. Or even laugh from time to time. Laughing isn’t a betrayal, you know.”
She drew back. The last time her youngest sister had become this defensive, she’d been about thirteen and wrongly accused of purposefully breaking another sister’s shepherdess figurine, an incident since gone down in family lore as provoking more tears than the Lake District had water.
The current circumstance was far more dire. “A betrayal?”
“To any responsibility you have undertaken to right all wrongs.”
“That’s unfair.”
“But nobody asked you to save us, Grace. You’re not responsible for what Father did, and the burden of the family does not lie solely upon your shoulders.”
“Oh? And then just where does it lie, might I ask?”
“With all of us. It’s our shared fate.”
The words frosted Grace’s heart. Shared fate could mean shared resignation. Resignation wasn’t an option.
“Phoebe, I forbid you from doing anything foolish.”
“Just as you’re not responsible for the family, Grace, you’re not responsible for me.” Her sister’s demeanor softened. “All I want is to live without Father’s disgrace hanging over our heads. I’m tired of being thought less-than for little more than my parentage.”
“I know. It’s what I want, too. But it’s never going to happen. We’re never going to be free.”
“Mother is upstanding. The only mistake she ever made was marrying him. Why doesn’t she figure into the equation? Or better yet, why aren’t we judged on our own merits? Instead, we’re judged by higher standards than everyone else around us. Why is that?”
The uncomfortable memory of being discovered in the storeroom with Corbeau resurfaced. Lady Rushworth had looked as if Grace had confirmed all the woman’s worst suspicions. No doubt there were all too many more who thought the same. “I wish I knew. The best we can hope is not to bring others down with us.”
Phoebe frowned. “That’s an odd thing to say. You don’t mean…my goodness, Grace, you don’t think you’re going to somehow bring Father’s blackened reputation upon Lord Corbeau, do you?”
“Aren’t I?”
“Oh, let the world think what it pleases.” She waved a hand through the air. “We have no control over it.”
“If it were only me, I wouldn’t give their beastly talk a moment’s thought. But we live in the world, too. And we must remember our place in it and how the scandal affects others.”
