‘He thinks I will run away again, doesn’t he?’
‘Maybe you will, maybe you won’t, but I aim to see that you are here, safe and sound when he comes back.’
‘If he is so concerned for my welfare, why doesn’t he come home?’ said Grace.
He shrugged. ‘How am I to know his mind if you do not? Only orders I got was, ‘Look out for my wife. See that she is not lonely and comes to no harm.’ And as to coming home, Rawden hates this place, and it has never been home to him.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, Reeves, you should take yourself off as I can hardly swim my way out of here tonight.’
Reeves looked up and met her eye at last. ‘His orders were kindly meant, Lady Voss. If you dig deep enough, you will find that the Earl has a softer heart than many would believe. Most people just don’t get close enough to see it.’
‘If you say so,’ she replied in a great huff.
While Grace was exasperated with Reeves as a companion, his presence had become tolerable. The man was content with saying little as he walked behind her as she strolled about Marshgrave’s woods, speaking only when she spoke. And he had taken her into the village in the little carriage whenever she wanted and was her guide to the surrounding countryside, which was quite pretty away from the chill sea air. The village was a small place of modest dwellings, a handful of shops and a little whitewashed church where they had spent a few Sundays worshipping in ice cold pews. Reeves thoroughly resented these trips, fidgeting and grumbling beside her, so Grace had determined never to miss church. His glower prevented her from socialising with the other gentlefolk who attended, but as they largely viewed her with suspicion, that was no great loss.
Reeves coughed to draw her attention and gave her a direct gaze. His eyes seemed to reach into her very soul. Was Reeves hoping to see a genuine heart and kindness sitting there, and instead, seeing a gold-digging jade? Was that why he was always so blunt with her, out of loyalty to Rawden?
‘I must be off now as I have an urgent task to attend to,’ said Reeves, as if he were dismissing her, not the other way around.
Grace could not imagine what urgent task awaited him, but it might have to do with seeking out Mrs. Percy and taking tea, sitting before the kitchen fire with their heads close together. This, despite the housekeeper having dismissed Reeves as ‘a sullen old soul at the best of times. We shall not be very merry with him about the place,’ she had said, when he first arrived.
And Reeves’ task was most certainly not keeping a watchful eye on the other servants. This very morning, Grace had endured an awkward encounter whilst taking carrots down to the stables to feed the horses. She had blundered in upon Dawson and the scullery maid entwined in each other’s arms, his hand up her skirt, her head thrown back and moaning. Thank goodness they had not spotted her, and she had been able to make her escape. It seemed everyone around her felt the warmth of friendship and lust, yet she shivered in the cold blast of Rawden’s indifference. Like all the old rooms in Marshgrave, she had been shuttered and left to become dusty and derelict and rot her youth and vitality away on a narrow spit of land, entombed in a gloomy house. It was insupportable.
Harriet had written. Her letter was trite and full of meaningless gossip about mutual acquaintances. She made no apology for her betrayal in giving her up to Rawden, as though it had never happened. Grace could imagine Harriet brushing it off as a minor inconvenience, a small shadow skidding across her perfectly ordered world. She asked after Grace’s welfare, but Grace was not inclined to reply with any warmth. Perhaps Rawden had been right about Harriet being a fair-weather friend, and so Grace had responded, thanking her for her enquiry and that, yes, all was well and that she was enjoying her time at Marshgrave. To some extent, that was no lie. It was far better being mistress of her own house than clinging to her uncle’s grudging charity.
The only blight to her new-found freedom was that she could not share it with Rawden. Perhaps she should have listened when he said he would not be the ‘best of husbands.’ In time, she could reconcile herself to being alone, and the coward in her did not want her husband to return and stir up those feelings of desire, excitement and longing, because the inevitable withdrawal of his affection and admiration would be worse than Rawden’s indifference.
****
Rawden sat in the little stone folly overlooking the grey water as the sun hovered on the horizon, turning the ocean to gold. The snap of a twig gave Reeves away.
‘Why did you not tell her you were back? Sneaking into your own house is not your way.’
Rawden turned and sighed. ‘I wanted to talk to you first. How does she fare?’
‘Your wife fares well enough, considering you are no husband to her.’
‘Have a care, Reeves, and answer my question.’
‘She gets along nicely and is never idle. She has opened one entire wing of the house, washed the drapes and aired out the rooms. Got a terrible fright one day when some pigeons nesting in the fireplace rushed out at her all at once. Endless shrieking, there was.’
‘I would have liked to see that. But why are livestock making a home in Marshgrave?’
‘A broken window. Your wife got us to mend it.’
‘What else has she been up to? Have you talked much?’
‘Oh, aye. The lady is chatty, gallingly so. She rattles on endlessly of nothing in particular - the decorations for the house, how many woodpeckers she spots in the woods on her walks. Seems she has a fondness for them. And she visits the village but only socialises a little. In fact, she seems keen to avoid it. She is constantly vexed by that nincompoop, Dawson, though she will own he is becoming a more reliable servant. I cannot see it, as the lad is too busy fumbling in the scullery maid’s skirts to attend to his duties diligently. But the lad worships her Ladyship, maybe a little too much for my liking.’
Rawden smirked. ‘Give him a slap if he gets out of line.’
‘With the scullery maid or the mistress?’
‘You will earn yourself a slap with that comment.’ Rawden stared out to sea in an agony of hope. ‘What else, Reeves? Does Grace talk of me?’
‘Not as much as your vanity would like,’ replied Reeves. ‘But she took the trouble to ask cook what your favourite dinner is so that she may organise it upon your return, and she watches the causeway every day and is endlessly disappointed.’
So, she had asked on his behalf, taking some trouble over his needs. Rawden was as touched by that as he was wracked with guilt.
