Diana didn’t have the heart to say it wasn’t her favourite; it was her husband’s. As it all looked so fine, she was happy to eat it.
I just wish someone could sit here and eat it with me.
“Is there anything else you need, Your Grace?” Mr Arnold asked. Diana glanced around, realizing that most of the staff were scurrying off as quickly as they could, just as they were wont to do, all except Mr Arnold, who stood beside her waiting for an answer.
“I …” She tried desperately to think of something in order to have company for a little longer and a chance to be warmed by his handsome face for another minute or two. “What is dessert this evening?” she asked, alighting on something at last.
“Peach pudding and syllabub,” Mr Arnold said with a formal smile and walked away from her, heading to the side of the room. She watched him go with longing, feeling her lips part in the effort to think of another subject.
She had spent so long now practicing being quiet; it was as though she had forgotten how to make conversation at all. Gilbert did not encourage conversation, no more than her father had done.
“Here, your Grace,” Mr Arnold said and returned to her side, placing something down on the table. The soft thud startled her to look up from her porcelain plate to see he had brought her the book she was reading.
The Castle of Otrantowas proving a dark tale indeed, with its Gothic twists and turns keeping Diana’s eyes fastened to the pages, but it was hardly so proper for her to read over dinner. She was about to object when she realized there was hardly anyone else at the dining table she could offend.
“You found my book?” she said in surprise, reaching for the book as she turned in her seat to face the butler properly. She hadn’t realized he had been paying that much attention to her. He had far too much on his plate as the butler of such a grand manor to surely take note of what she was reading.
“I did,” he said, betraying a smile she hadn’t seen before. This one was different from the usual formal smiles he offered; it seemed to reach his eyes a little more. She was somewhat entranced by it, startled by the way it lit up his angular features. “Hardly comforting bedtime reading, if you will permit me to say, Your Grace.”
“Ha!” She giggled, startled by the sudden amusing words that had passed his lips. “No, that is certainly true. Yet I like it nevertheless.”
“May I ask why?” he said as he picked up the book and turned it over in his hands.
“Have you ever read it?” she asked. He suddenly looked ashamed, lowering his head a little as he glanced at the book. “Mr Arnold, you can say you have been reading this very book, and I will hardly be irked by it.”
“It is hardly proper for a butler to read his master’s books,” he whispered to her, clearly glancing at the doorway to make sure all the staff were gone.
“I will certainly not be telling the duke, if you do not,” she said, eager for him to look back to her again. When he did, he bore another one of those secret smiles; she nearly stood from her chair and walked towards him seeing it.
“I may have read a couple of chapters when you left the book in the library the other day,” he said, almost playful in his confession as he whispered to her. This was so unlike his usual restrained and formal self that she was afraid of speaking again, in case it would dispel the spell that had been cast and make him return to being nothing more than a butler.
She rather thought him like a painting at times, stiff, formal, mysterious – she could look at him for hours and wonder what thoughts were going on in his head.
“What did you think of it?” she asked.
“A dark tale indeed, but at the same time, it was quite …” He turned the book over, evidently searching for the right word.
“Intriguing?” she proffered, watching as he placed the book back down on the table beside her.
“Just so,” he agreed with a nod. “Now, I shall leave you to your dinner, Your Grace. I apologize for intruding on your time.”
“No, you did not intrude – not at all, I mean …” She turned back in her seat, feeling she was getting all flustered as she picked up the book. “Thank you, Mr Arnold, for my book. You did not intrude at all; it was pleasant to have someone to talk to.”
Even if it was for but one minute.
“Your Grace,” he said, nodding and bowing politely to her before walking out of the room. As the door closed behind him, Diana lost her formal posture and sat back in the chair, slumping with it, despite the way the stays cut into her ribs; she didn’t care. If no one was here to see her or talk to her, what was the point in putting on a show.
She eagerly reached forward and served up her plate, turning the book’s pages to the next section to read, yet she was struggling to concentrate this evening. With each mouthful she took, her eyes flitted to her husband’s empty chair.
It was hardly unusual for Gilbert to be missing from the house, but it seemed in just two short months, he was already caring less and less. Whereas before, he sent messages to say when he would be away, now, he wasn’t even going that far.
The empty chair reminded her of how little she spoke to anyone these days and its contrast to her old life. Though her father was not fond of conversation, her mother was. She used to spend dinners talking with her mother, her closest friend in the world. They would talk for hours into the night, laughing together.
How I used to laugh.
“It has been some time since I laughed,” she said aloud, startled by the words, even though she had said them quietly. Since her mother’s death, everything had changed. Her father’s failed reputation had meant she had to marry to recover it.
She was forced into marrying the duke, though she had fought to get out of it and failed. Since then, she had moved so far away from her home in London that none of her old friends came to visit, and Gilbert was not interested in taking her back to see friends.
