Archie studied her as she stood and smoothed her ridiculously inappropriate for the country skirt. “I’d rather help, if I may.”
Mrs. Grant’s brows raised, but she took a second apron from a hook near the back door. “Why don’t you help me with the dishes?”
“Mum,” Archie said, but his mother ignored him, shooing her children out of the kitchen and hushing their grumbling.
“I—” She bit her lower lip, then exhaled in a rush. “I d-don’t know what to do.”
Mrs. Grant’s smile was warm and so reminiscent of Archie’s that Marigold’s chest tightened. “I’ll show you. Wash or dry?”
Within moments, when Archie and his sisters had gone out to complete their chores, Marigold stood next to Mrs. Grant at a wooden-slab table adjacent to a sink full of suds and dinner dishes. She’d rolled her sleeves up to her elbows and was armed with two thick towels, but she still eyed the basin with caution.
“Hold the dish with one hand,” the woman said, handing over a plate, “and wipe with the other. Take your time with it. Wait until it’s dry before you put it away.”
Marigold nodded, her brows furrowed as she concentrated on swiping the water from the plate, swirling until both sides were dry. After a careful examination, she looked at Mrs. Grant, who bobbed her chin towards the open shelf above them. Before she could gloat over her accomplishment, she’d been handed another plate, and so the cycle continued.
She was grateful Mrs. Grant didn’t question how she’d made it to thirty years of age without washing a dish, nor was she rushed or condescended to. The same peaceful ease she felt during the meal swept over her again. She admired the delicate flowers that bordered the platter as she dried. “This is lovely,” she said, and Mrs. Grant beamed.
“Belonged to my mother and father, and my grandmother before that.”
Marigold froze. “I shouldn’t dry it. What if I b-break it?”
Mrs. Grant turned and held her gaze. “Then it breaks.”
She blinked. “You’re not concerned? It’s p-priceless, and I’m…”
Hopeless? Unpracticed? Utterly wrong in this space?
She nodded towards the still towel in Marigold’s hand. “Special items are meant to be used, even if they break. If we keep them behind glass, they’ll never be hurt but can never be enjoyed.”
Marigold’s chest tightened again, tears pressing at her throat. How long had she kept her own heart locked away, protecting it from her husband so she couldn’t be hurt? Or her children, whom she’d sheltered from the day of their birth? And it still hadn’t prevented the damage from being done.
I have to tell the boys about the divorce.
A second thought collided with the first.
I have to tell Archie how I feel.
But what did she feel? Attraction, certainly. A healthy share of desire. But she couldn’t shake the knowledge that his presence calmed her in a way she’d never known, took all the spinning thoughts and uncontrollable fears and settled them, removed their claws from her skin. She wanted to trust him, but her lived experience had trained her instincts to believe the opposite, to worry that he had an ulterior motive in helping her, or that as soon as she let him in, he’d pull the rug from under her.
“My dear, are you alright?”
Marigold blinked, realized she was holding a plate in midair as it dripped over the table and floor. “My apologies, I—”
“No need to apologize for woolgathering.” She plucked the plate from Marigold’s hands, dried it with ease, and gave it back for Marigold to put away. “This is one of my few quiet times to think during my day.”
“What do you think about?”
“My children,” she said. “My farm. How long I want to stay here.”
Marigold remembered the rolling fields, the flowers waving in the breeze, the sheep dotting the hillside like puffy clouds. “There are far worse places to be.” Many could make the same statement to her when she complained about living at Harrow Hall.
Mrs. Grant seemed to think the same thing, because she raised one brow. “Too many memories here, and not all of them are fond.” She chuckled. “I heard you met Florence.”
Her smile pulled at her cheeks. “I did. She seems lovely.”
“She’s a whirlwind. I thought she might break me when she was a girl, and now I miss her every day. My oldest girls are married, have families of their own. Archie has his life far away from me, and before long, I’ll hear wedding bells for Samantha. Poor Eloise will be trapped here alone with me.”
Marigold felt the strongest sense of longing for her own mother. After her marriage, she’d been so caught up being a wife, a marchioness, that she hadn’t maintained her relationship with her mother. As her marriage crumbled, the humiliation that she’d been sowrongin her choice of a husband kept her away fromOxfordshire, from her home and the people who knew and loved her best. Was it loneliness that made being close to Archie so appealing?
