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‘I know something of what it is like.’
‘No. You don’t.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘You can’t.’
‘Then tell me.’
The duchess tossed the packet aside. ‘My daughter had golden hair. I’d never seen a child so blessed...’ She continued speaking of her past, taking tea when the maid brought it, and hardly pausing in her memories.
Finally, she looked at Bellona. ‘You really must be on your way now. You’ve stayed much longer than a proper first visit lasts. One just doesn’t act as you do.’
‘I know. I do as I wish.’
‘I can tell you have not had a mother about. You need someone to teach you how to act.’
‘No. I do not. This is how I wish to be.’
‘That is your first error.’ She shut her eyes. ‘Now go.’
Bellona rose. ‘Thank you for telling me of your daughter.’
The duchess opened her eyes again and waved towards the door. ‘I may send a note later requesting you to tea.’
Bellona left, hearing two rapid sniffs behind her. She shut the door, listening for the click. A dark hallway loomed, but she remembered her way to the library.
A few moments later, she found Rhys, sitting at his desk, leaning over papers. Her reticule lay at the side of his work.
‘Where’s the maid?’ Bellona asked, walking into the room.
He twirled his pen between his fingertips as he stood. ‘Below stairs speaking with the other servants. I think she is a cousin or sister or some relation to many of the women here.’
Bellona walked to the fabric bag, lifting it and feeling the weapon still inside.
He frowned and shook his head.
She ignored him and moved to the door.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I’ll send for someone to collect your maid.’
‘I will find her. When I step below stairs and look around, servants will appear and the maid will rush to me. If it takes many moments, the housekeeper or butler are at my elbow, asking what I need. It works faster than the bell pull.’
‘Perhaps you should leave them to do their jobs.’
‘Yes. I should,’ she agreed.
He smiled—the one that didn’t reach his lips, but made his eyes change in such a way that they became like dark jewels she couldn’t take her own gaze from.
‘Would you wait here whilst I see how my mother fares?’ he said. The words were a question, but he was halfway from the room before she could answer.
‘No. I’ll be on my way.’
He took two more steps, stopped, and spun around. ‘No?’ He stood in the doorway, almost taking up the whole of the space.
‘You will ask her what I said. How we got on and make sure she is well,’ Bellona said. ‘I know the answers to that. She mentioned having tea with me again, but she will change her mind.’
‘With me, she cannot speak for crying and it has been a year,’ he muttered. ‘A year... I think the honeysuckle was in bloom when they were taking my brother from the house the last time.’
‘It is not quite a year,’ Bellona told him, shaking her head. ‘Your mother knows the dates. All of them.’
His eyes snapped to her and he pushed his hair from his temple. ‘Of my father’s and sister’s deaths, too?’
‘Yes. And her own parents.’
‘You must stay,’ he said. ‘You cannot keep the knife in case someone accidentally gets hurt. But you must stay. I have tried two companions for my mother and she shouted one from the room and refused to speak with the other.’
‘No.’
‘Miss Cherroll, I fear you do not understand how trapped my mother is in her thoughts and memories. You must stay and see if you can lift her spirits. Otherwise, I fear she will not live much longer.’
She moved, putting the desk between them. ‘I cannot.’ She had grown up with the myths of her ancestors and tales of men stronger than storms and compelling forces. But she’d experienced nothing beyond the world of her birth until the duke stood before her. He changed the way her heart beat, the way she breathed and even the way her skin felt.
He tensed his shoulders, drew in a breath and his arms relaxed. She looked into his eyes, but lowered her gaze back to his cravat. She could not stay in this house. Not and be near the duke. He held the danger of the pirates, but in a different way. She’d seen her mother’s weakness. Not the one taking her body near death, but the one that had locked her into a man’s power. The power you could not escape from because it stole a person from the inside.
He strode to the side of the desk, nearer her. ‘I will pay you whatever you ask. You can go to the servants’ quarters ten times a day if you wish. You can have your run of the grounds. The entire estate will be open to you.’
She held the bag close to her body. ‘I will not stay in your house.’
He held his hands out, palms up. ‘It’s— There’s none better.’
‘It’s not that.’
He continued. ‘You can have whatever rooms you wish if you stay as my mother’s companion. Take several chambers if you’d like. You can have two maids at your elbows all day. And two at theirs.’
‘Be quiet and listen.’
His chin tilted down. His brows rose. ‘Yes, Miss Cherroll?’
‘I will not stay here.’
He waited, his gaze locked on to hers.
‘My sister needs me for the children,’ she said.
‘I understand completely,’ he said, voice agreeing, and stepped to the door. ‘You can take my carriage to visit them as often as you wish.’ One stride and he would be out of her vision. ‘It is not a problem at all. Send your maid in Warrington’s carriage for your things. The housekeeper will be with you shortly to help you select a room.’
He was gone by the time she opened her mouth.
She stared at the fireplace. Warrington’s estate was not far. She could return to take tea with the duchess every day if she wished; she didn’t need to live in this house. Bellona did not care what this man said even if he was a duke. She did not follow Warrington’s orders and he was an earl and married to her sister.
Slipping the reticule ties over her wrist, she walked to the servants’ stairs.
The maid from Warrington’s estate was whispering to another woman, but immediately stopped when she saw Bellona and bustled to her, following as they left.
‘My cousin did not believe you’d stay such a long time,’ the maid murmured. ‘My cousin says the duchess will follow her family to the grave before the year’s gone. The woman won’t leave her chair except to weep in the garden. She gets in such a state that her humours are all gobber’d up. The duke is the only one can settle her at all and even he can’t be around all the time.’
Bellona remembered holding her own mother’s hand near the end. How cool her fingers were. So thin, and with no strength in them at all. The duchess’s hands had felt the same.
‘I will visit her again soon. Perhaps tomorrow. I am not certain. I am hopeful the herbs will help her.’ She moved to exit the house.
‘My cousin said the duke is right soured himself. Servants step wide of him since he became titled. Said he’s wearing that coronet so tight it’s mashed out everything not duke.’
‘A man should take his duties to his heart.’
Her maid puffed a whistle from her lips. ‘If he’s got any heart left. My cousin says he don’t care for nothing except for his duties.’
‘He cares for his mana.’
‘Simply another duty.’
They walked to the carriage. Bellona could feel eyes on her. She forced herself not to search the windows behind her to see if the duke watched her departure. But she knew he did.
She adjusted her bonnet and held the reticule so tightly she could not feel the cloth, but only the handle beneath. ‘Tomorrow, when I return, I wish you to stay at my side.’
* * *
‘What did you do to the duke?’
Bellona’s oldest sister, Melina, stood in the very centre of the room. She tapped her slipper against the rug.
‘I was nice to his mana,’ Bellona said, adjusting the quiver at her waist. ‘I am going to practise.’
‘The duke is here, demanding to see Warrington.’
‘Truly?’ Bellona asked.
‘But War is in London. So the butler said Rolleston demands to see you.’
‘I am not at home.’
‘I told the butler to tell him we will speak with him. The duke is our neighbour and War’s parents and his parents were very close.’ She frowned. ‘Bellona. You just cannot tell a duke to go away, particularly this one.’
‘Warrington does not like him.’
‘They are quite fond of each other, in the way men are.’
‘I am quite fond of the duke in much the same way,’ Bellona said darkly.
‘You can’t be. You have to pretend to like him. We are ladies—as I must remind you as often as I remind Willa.’
‘He wishes for me to move to his estate.’
Her sister’s foot stilled. ‘You are—imagining that, surely?’
Bellona shook her head. ‘He thinks I can help the duchess. His Grace told me I would be her companion. I will visit her, but that is as much as I can do.’
Melina stepped near Bellona. ‘She will see no one. It is said she is dying. How ill do you think she is?’
‘I do not know. Bones covered in black clothes, with her face peering out. I would not think she would make it through a hard winter or a heavy wash day.’ She forced her next words. ‘Almost like Mana at the end.’
Melina’s hand fluttered to her cheek. ‘You must move in with her. It is the thing Mana would want.’
‘I do not even want to visit her every day,’ Bellona said, shuddering. ‘She doesn’t have the gentle ways of Mana.’
‘You must. Besides, to live at the duke’s house...’ Melina put a hand at her waist. ‘He might have friends visit. And you might meet them. You could learn a lot. The duchess is a true duchess. She could help you. You are not as wild as you pretend. Her Grace could teach you so much if you just watch and learn.’
‘I already know how to say I am not at home.’
‘Sister. A woman. Her husband gone. Her daughter and her oldest son gone, too, and you are asked to help her and you will not. Mana would weep.’
‘I will help her. I just do not want to live in the duke’s house.’ Bellona turned to leave the room, but her sister’s quiet voice stopped her.
‘You do not like living here, either,’ Melina said.
She couldn’t tell Melina what she felt about the duke. Stone and towering and dark eyes. She remembered standing at the edge of the cliffs and looking at the ground far beneath, and knowing if she swooned she would fall—feeling brave and scared at the same time. The duke made her want to step closer and yet, if she did, the ground might crumble away. He reminded her so much of the stones she’d seen jutting from the sea and the cliffs.
‘I wish to be here with the children. And you.’ Bellona pleaded with her sister. ‘I do not want to leave the little ones.’
‘You’ll never have your own babies if you do not learn how to mix with society. A footman will not do for you and you know that. The duchess could introduce you to someone suitable.’
‘I went to the soirée. The men smelled like flowers.’
‘Pretend you are a bee. You can sting them after you’re wed. Not before.’
‘I will not pretend to be anything other than what I am.’
‘You cannot go back to the way we lived. You must go forward and the duchess could help. She could ease your way into society in a way that I cannot. They hardly accept me.’
Bellona hit her own chest with her fingertip. ‘That is where we are different. I do not want to be in society. Bonnets pull my hair. Slippers pinch and corsets squeeze. The flowery world has nothing for me.’
‘A husband helps if you want children of your own—and it is best for the child to be born within a true marriage, one with love. You know that as well as I.’
‘Even children are not worth a husband. I have a niece and two nephews. They are my babies.’
‘You are hiding. From everything. From the past and the future. The duchess needs you. You know how long the nights can be after a death and we had each other. We had the three of us, you, me and Thessa. You are just like our pateras, our father.’ Melina crossed her arms.
‘That is an evil thing to say. I am surprised your tongue does not choke you for forcing those words past it.’
