“How was your breakfast, Your Grace?” Rowena asked blithely, coming into the bedchamber to fetch the tray.
Thalia looked up from the writing desk, where she had been hopelessly attempting to write a letter to Dorothy. Apologizing for her hasty departure from Farhampton and inviting her to visit, while subtly trying to ask more about this ‘secret publishing house’ she apparently helmed. She had been searching, but she had found no record or information aboutthateither.
Do I have that correspondence sent elsewhere? What if someone is trying to contact me?
It had weighed upon her mind… and given her an excuse to avoid her husband for the past few days, searching every room that did not have him in it. He, too, appeared to be avoiding her, keeping to his mysterious tower and his study.
“Weren’t you hungry?” Rowena eyed the half-eaten bowl of porridge.
Thalia smiled. “I was too distracted to eat. I shall just have to have a large luncheon.”
“Distracted by His Grace?” Rowena asked, a note too boldly.
Blinking, Thalia shook her head. “No… um… just distracted by this letter I must write.”
The staff continued to be embarrassingly perceptive, particularly Rowena and Mrs. Fisher. They had noticed that Thalia was deliberately keeping her distance from Henry, but what else was she supposed to do? She could not begin to understand how to deal with this man that she did not trust, but had such an intense hold upon her feelings, her very being.
So, she had decided it would be best not to deal with him at all.
“I think I shall go on one of my reading adventures,” she said quickly. “That may inspire me to write.”
Rowena nodded and went to the wardrobe, pulling out Thalia’s warmest cloak, a fur tippet and a fur-lined bonnet.
At the sight of it, Thalia chuckled. “The sun is shining, Rowena, and if the breeze through the window is any indication, it is to be a mild day. I shall boil alive if I wear all of that.”
“But you’re still injured, Your Grace. You’ve got to stay warm,” the maid insisted. “If I don’t wrap you up in all these layers, Mrs. Fisher will gut me.”
“Iwill explain to Mrs. Fisher if she has any complaint, but I cannot concentrate on reading if I am sweating ferociously.”
The maid still seemed reluctant, as she took a lighter cloak out of the wardrobe and put anything with fur away. She chose a wider-brimmed bonnet to keep out the sun, before retrieving the fur tippet once more.
“You can easily take this off if you get too hot,” Rowena insisted. “I’ll not forgive myself if I send you out there unprepared.”
Thalia feigned a groan. “Very well. Honestly, you would think that everyonebutme was the duchess in this house.” She flashed a wink at the maid to let her know there was no ill-will. “Come on then, prepare me for my journey out into the Arctic cold.”
As the maid hurried over with a secretly pleased smile, Thalia thought once more of all the missing correspondence that her searches had not yet explained.
“Have you had any luck locating my letters yet?” she asked anxiously, for she had tasked Rowena and Mrs. Fisher with helping in the search. After all, they knew the manor far better than she did.
Fastening the tippet around Thalia’s neck, the maid shook her head apologetically. “Nothing, Your Grace. I even searched the stables and the scary room at the back of the laundry, where all the spiders live.”
“And you are certain you do not know of any place I used to go before…?” Thalia tapped the side of her head.
“You were always doing something, Your Grace. You rarely stayed still, so it’s difficult to say where you went,” Rowena replied. “The library was your favorite room…”
“But I have searched it thoroughly,” Thalia murmured, completing the thought herself. “Never mind. If my letters and writings are in this house somewhere, I am certain I shall find them eventually. Whether by chance or by the return of my memory.”
Rowena smiled encouragingly. “I’m sure you will, Your Grace.”
A short while later, a relatively new novel in hand, Thalia made her way out of the manor and into the sunshine. She drew in a deep gulp of the fresh, crisp air and sighed as her eyes took in the beauty of the Holdridge grounds, so lush and green with lawns and trees, the gardens and the flower beds slowly waking up now that the season was tiptoeing into true Spring.
For the past couple of days since the ball, she had taken to reading outside when she was not hunting out her memories, finding a nice spot in one of those very gardens. But, today, she felt like something different. A change of scenery.
With that in mind, she took another deep breath of the soul-stirring air and took off toward the boating lake.
I should have done this sooner.
Sitting against the sturdy trunk of a weeping willow, her book face down on her lap, Thalia reveled in the peace of the lakeside. The silence here was endlessly soothing, the birds much quieter, the water as still and serene as her mind.
