“What do you mean?” she asked, not looking up to him.
“The duke is a proud man. Should he believe his wife was keeping company with a butler, I fear where he would send you away. These four walls would not be the prison he gave you for the rest of your life; that is something I fear.” His words seemed to connect, for this time, she hung her head completely forward and snapped up the port glass, practically downing it.
She was clearly hurt, and knowing he had been the cause of that pain made him turn in the spot and ruffle his hair. He was so tempted to walk back to that card table and embrace her that at one point, his feet moved towards her before he caught himself. “Forgive me?” he asked as he turned towards the door again, reaching for the handle.
“I would not expect you to risk your position for me, Mr Arnold. The thought is unthinkable. I understand completely,” she said, her voice as polite and formal as it had been when he first knew her.
He glanced back at her one last time, seeing the way she drained the port glass before he hurried out of the room. He moved as quickly as he could back below stairs, passing the kitchen where the scullery maids were still clearing up after dinner. He did not think too much about Tommie not being in the kitchen, not until he reached his office.
As he opened the door, Owen found the room wasn’t empty. Tommie was sat in his usual seat, offering up a nearly empty bottle of sherry.
“What is that?” Owen asked.
“The leftovers from the trifle, and it certainly will go to waste if we do not drink it,” Tommie said as he placed two glasses down on Owen’s desk. “You look as though you could do with this, my friend.”
“I certainly could.” Owen sat down in the seat opposite Tommie and wrapped his jacket firmer around his body, trying his best to keep out the cold that seemed to have a strong hold of the building tonight. “Fill the glass up. Is that full?”
“As good as.”
“I’ll tell you when to stop.”
***
Diana wrapped the fur blanket around her shoulders, yet it seemed to do little use. Even with the fire blazing in front of her, it did nothing to ward off the chill. She looked out the drawing room window, past the card table that remained firmly empty, to see fresh snow was falling from the sky. Despite the fact it was night, the sky was a kind of dark misty grey, clearly full of clouds from which the snow was falling.
Slowly, Diana stood to her feet, being careful to take the fur with her in order to look out the window. The entire grounds were draped in snow, from the formal gardens to the forest on the edge of the estate, with the dark branches speckled white, rather like the dappled feathers of a peregrine falcon.
Diana felt as if the coldness had seeped inside her body, rather than stopping at the house’s windows. She could hardly blame Mr Arnold for saying their card-playing had to come to an end, but she couldn’t help being gutted.
He has his position to protect.
So, she was alone again, with nothing but her lonely heart to keep her company.
“I will not spend my life miserable,” she whispered into the air, remembering something Mr Arnold had said.
‘Write again.’
Absorbed by the idea, she hurried out of the drawing room, striding quickly for the door and taking a candle with her. She found her way to the library with nothing but the one candle to light her way. Once she was inside, she reached for the nearest writing desk and placed the candle down on the surface.
She searched through the drawers, looking for blank parchment and an inkwell. She eventually found a silver inkwell, shaped to look like a clam shell, that she placed on the table's surface, yet a quill and paper was much more difficult to find.
Sinking to her knees on the rug, she began to search all the drawers when she found one of them locked. Startled to find something locked in her own house, she pulled on it a few times, but it would not budge.
Diana raised herself on her knees, ready to abandon her endeavour when something caught her eye – it was a flash of brass on the underside of the pedestal desk footwell in the candlelight. Feeling under the top, she reached for the brass object and pulled it free from where it seemed tucked into a crack in the wood. It was a key, glinting in the orange light as she lifted it in front of her eyes.
Bending down, she placed the key in a tiny lock beneath the handle, thrilled when it turned and opened for her. Slowly, she slid out the drawer, where she at last found some paper, only … this paper was full of scribbled notes.
She pulled the loose paperwork into her lap and sat back on the rug, sifting through it. She at first was looking for blank paper when she began to realize just what was scrawled across the pages.
“These are gambles. Debts,” she muttered to herself as she looked across the papers. It was all in her husband’s handwriting. Some notes seemed to pertain to his own gambles, from the way he had initialled columns with his own initials, GD. Other columns, though, were not so easy to decipher.
It almost appeared to Diana’s eyes as if people were borrowing money off her husband, and he was lending them fortunes with interest.
“No, this cannot be right.” She began to spread the papers across the rug, certain she had misunderstood what she had read.
Her father had never been keen for her to have an especially thorough education, saying it was not a woman’s position, but he loved her mother, and what she said was always the done way. As such, Diana’s mother had sought to endow her with all the knowledge she could need in life. Diana’s passion had particularly been literature, but she had practiced her numbers too, and her skills with accountancy were ample.
She scanned the pages a few more times, certain that the only person these records would truly make sense to was Gilbert. He seemed to be leaving codes in margins, so it was impossible to discern each person he was referring to. There was only one thing she could really understand from the notes in the end.
