Georgiana and Dorothea were given a large, pleasant chamber overlooking the gardens. Uncle Horace was installed in a comfortable room farther down the hall. And Cecilia—
“Your room is this way, miss,” Mrs Fenton said gently. “Upper floor. Smaller—but private.”
The room was indeed small. It had clearly been intended for a senior servant—a lady’s maid, perhaps, or a governess—with plain furnishings, a narrow bed beneath a sloped ceiling, and a window that looked out over the service courtyard rather than the gardens.
“I hope this will be adequate,” Mrs Fenton added, with a tone that suggested she understood, at least a little, the awkwardness of Cecilia’s position—not quite guest, not quite servant. Something in between.
“It is quite suitable,” Cecilia said. “Thank you.”
She was alone.
She sat on the narrow bed and looked around at the plain walls, the simple washstand, the single candle that must suffice for light. Through the floor drifted the distant hum of preparation—voices, footsteps, the bustle of a house dressing itself for dinner.
A dinner she would not attend. An evening of entertainments from which she was excluded. A fortnight of standing at the margins while others lived the life she had lost.
This was her place. This was what she had agreed to. This was all she was permitted.
She unpacked her few belongings, set her mother’s pearls carefully in their box, and prepared—to be useful.
Chapter Four
Sebastian turned from the window with deliberate slowness, refusing to give his brother the satisfaction of seeing him startled. “I am observing. There is a distinction.”
“Is there?” Evan sprawled across the settee with the effortless indolence of a man who had never borne the weight of a title. “From where I sit, it looks remarkably like staring. The Ashwood carriage was emptied five minutes ago, and yet here you remain.”
“I was thinking.”
“About?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
Evan’s grin widened. “How mysterious. How ducal. Tell me—does the brooding come naturally, or did you practise before a mirror?”
Sebastian did not dignify this with a response. He moved away from the window, though the scene he had witnessed remained lodged in his mind like a splinter: the Ashwood party descending from their carriage in the predictable order of consequence—the father first, portly and ill at ease; then the golden-haired daughter, pretty and pink-cheeked; then a younger girl, greenish and suffering from the journey.
And last of all, a woman in grey.
She had stepped down as though uncertain of her welcome, her movements careful and contained. Her gown was plain and serviceable—the sort of thing a governess might wear—and her dark hair had been arranged simply, without ornament. She kept her eyes lowered as she crossed the gravel, her whole bearing suggesting a person accustomed to passing through the world without leaving a trace.
He should not have noticed her at all. There was nothing outwardly remarkable about her—nothing to distinguish her from the countless companions and attendants who populated houses such as this. And yet his attention had caught on her, as silk catches on a rough edge, and he had watched until she vanished through the entrance.
Ridiculous. He was here to consider suitable candidates for marriage, not to cultivate inexplicable fascinations with grey-clad women of uncertain position.
“Mother wishes to see you,” Evan said, breaking into his thoughts. “Something about strategy for this evening’s dinner. I believe she has devised a seating plan.”
“Of course she has.”
“She is nothing if not thorough.”
Sebastian moved toward the door—then paused. “The Ashwood family. What do we know of them?”
Evan raised a brow. “Beyond what Lady Marchmont has told us? The father inherited a modest estate from a cousin. The mother is ambitious. The elder daughter is this Season’s offering—reasonably pretty, adequately accomplished. Why do you ask?”
“No particular reason.”
“Liar.” But Evan did not press. “Go to Mother. I shall remain here and meditate upon the mystery of your sudden interest in minor Hertfordshire families.”
Sebastian left without replying, but the words followed him down the corridor.
