“What have you done to me?” he whispered into the air, finding the thought plaguing him. It was hardly as though he could sleep now; not with every waking breath he was thinking of the way the duchess had been beneath him in that dream.
He stood up from the bed and quickly changed into his usual butler garb, with a clean shirt and a necktie. As he pulled back the window curtains, he used the light bouncing off the snow to look at the pocket watch he pulled free of his waistcoat.
“Four o’clock.” He didn’t need to be awake for a couple of hours yet, but he knew he would get no more sleep that night. Pocketing the watch once more, he strode out of the small chamber, glancing back just once to the bed. Despite its narrowness and poorness of the sheets, nothing had seemed wrong about the thought of the duchess being in that bed with him.
I am losing my mind.
He let the door close behind him, and he walked through the staff quarters. With no one yet due to rise for an hour and a half at least, he hurried out of the staff quarters, not really thinking of where his feet were taking him. He didn’t realize how much control his yearnings seemed to have until he found himself standing outside the duchess’ chamber.
He would never go in, that was a barrier too far, but standing beside the closed white door, he felt the temptation ripple through him again. He leaned on the wall beside the door, knowing just how close she was, and yet feeling completely incapable of getting any nearer to her. With his eyes closed, he thought back to the dream, imagining the way the duchess had moaned his name.
Owen.
Not Mr Arnold, nor even ‘butler’. Just Owen.
There was a sound further down the corridor of a door opening. It made Owen’s eyes shoot open, and his head lifted off the wall, trying to hear better. Someone was crossing the threshold of a doorway with the floorboards creaking beneath their feet.
Owen quickly removed his own boots, bundling them under his arm so he could move soundlessly through the corridor. He crept quickly along the nearest passage, stopping when he reached the landing and could peer around the corner to see just who was escaping their chamber at this late hour.
The duke’s chamber door was open, but it was not the duke who stepped across the threshold. It was Jessie, the maid, with her hair completely loose around her shoulders. Her shift was barely straight on her shoulders as she hurried to arrange it.
She was smiling; that much was plain to see in the candlelight that filtered out of the duke’s chamber. She appeared utterly thrilled, giggling like a young girl, as the duke’s hand reached out from the doorway and traced her face, caressing her cheek, almost lovingly.
Their goodbye was said, and the duke’s door was quickly closed. Jessie tiptoed across the landing towards the stairwell, hurrying to fix her dress as she went.
Owen didn’t move. He stayed where he was at the corner of the wall and tapped his head once against the plaster mouldings.
“Poor Jessie,” he muttered to himself. “I wonder if she knows where this will lead to.”
Owen had seen it too many times before. The duke would entertain himself with a maid for a short time until she was with child. The maid would quickly disappear from these corridors then, probably sent somewhere to have the child. Owen had started warning maids when he took them into the house about getting involved with the duke, but clearly, Jessie had not heeded his warning.
“This will end in something worse than tears,” he whispered.
He glanced back to the door he had been standing outside of, the duchess’, wondering how on earth the duke could pursue himself with other women when he was married to Diana.
The duchess, Her grace. She is not Diana to you!
He walked away from the door, keen to return to the servants’ quarters before anyone saw him here, the way that he had seen Jessie. As he walked, he couldn’t help wondering what had happened on the duchess’ wedding night. Had the duke taken her? He longed to know the answer, but he had a feeling the answer would make him feel nauseous.
***
“How about in a month’s time?” Diana asked, unable to let the matter slide. She was sitting with Gilbert over breakfast, though he seemed infinitely more interested in reading the paper on the table beside his breakfast plate than talking to her. Jessie was making up the fire at the far side of the room for the two of them, being awfully loud with her task for Diana’s liking.
Is there something upsetting the maid?
“A month?” Gilbert asked distractedly, looking up from the paper at last.
“In March. Maybe then I could have some friends to stay. I am sure the estate looks beautiful in the spring. What do you think?” Diana asked with hope. Now that she no longer had Mr Arnold to keep her company, Diana knew she had to do something to curb her loneliness.
It didn’t help that every time she had seen Mr Arnold that morning, what she felt stirring in her breast was far from friendship. She was becoming increasingly enamoured with him, but clearly, it was not going to be reciprocated.
“I still think it is not the time for guests, Diana,” Gilbert said, his voice firm indeed. It brooked no refusal, leaving Diana with no choice but to hang her head back down to her breakfast plate. She was aware of Jessie still attending to the fire and looked up to her, intrigued as to what was taking so long.
To her surprise, she found the young maid glaring back at her, with so much venom in her expression that it was rather like one of the gargoyles’ faces Diana saw at church, staring down at her from above.
When footsteps entered the room, Diana was aware it was Mr Arnold, come to return to his duty. Instantly, Jessie returned her focus to the fireplace, and Diana could have thought that glare had been in her own imagination.
No … that truly happened.
