“How pleasant.”
“The Duke of Ashworth will be there.” A pause, heavy with meaning. “He was seated near me at dinner on our first evening here. He asked about Thornfield.”
“Did he?”
“Yes. I told him about the gardens—how I prefer the wild sections to the formal. He seemed interested.” Georgiana’s reflection smiled. “Mama says I must build on the foundation. Establish common ground. Make myself memorable.”
“Sound advice.”
“You do not sound as though you think it is sound advice.”
Cecilia secured the final pin and stepped back. “I think your mama knows far more about these matters than I do. There. You look perfect.”
Georgiana considered herself a moment longer, turning her head to judge the effect from every angle. Whatever she saw satisfied her; her expression softened into pleased assurance.
“I do, rather.” She rose, smoothing her morning gown—a confection of white muslin and blue ribbons that matched her eyes precisely. “Wish me luck, Cecilia.”
“You do not need luck. You are beautiful and accomplished—and exactly what everyone expects.”
It was not, Cecilia reflected after Georgiana had swept from the room, quite a compliment. But Georgiana had taken it as one, and that was what mattered.
She tidied the dressing table, gathered stray hairpins, returned discarded choices to the wardrobe. The maid would complete the task in due course, but Cecilia had learned that busyness kept one from thinking too much.
Thinking was dangerous. Thinking led to wanting, and wanting led to despair.
She thought instead of the hours ahead: mending to complete, arrangements to confirm with the housekeeper regarding Georgiana’s preferences for tea. Small things. Manageable things. The architecture of a useful life.
The walking tour would occupy Georgiana until luncheon. That afforded Cecilia several hours of relative freedom—freedom to accomplish her duties, yes, but also freedom to move through the house without constant oversight.
Freedom to visit the library.
The thought rose unbidden; she pushed it down with practised discipline. She had been borrowing books from Lady Marchmont’s collection since their arrival—slipping in during quiet hours, choosing volumes that interested her, reading themby candlelight in her small room, and returning them before anyone noticed.
It was a small theft. A tiny rebellion against the circumstances that had reduced her to this half-life. She chose the books no one else would miss: treatises on practical matters, works of agricultural and economic theory—the sort of reading a lady of leisure would deem incomprehensible, and a gentleman beneath consideration.
But they reminded her of who she had been. Of the education her father had given her. Of the mind that still worked, even when her circumstances did not permit it to matter.
She had two books currently in her possession. She ought to return them today, before someone noticed their absence.
Decision made, she retrieved the books from their hiding place beneath the mattress and made her way toward the servants’ stairs.
***
The corridors of Fairholme Park were designed for discretion.
Cecilia had mapped them within a day of arriving: servants’ passages running parallel to the public halls, back staircases that allowed the staff to move unseen, side doors granting unobtrusive access to principal rooms.
She used them now, moving like a ghost through the house, avoiding the public spaces where she might encounter guests—or worse, her own family. Lady Ashwood had arrived from Bath the previous day, her sister apparently recovered, and her presence had altered the household at once. Where Cecilia had enjoyed a measure of benign neglect, she now endured active supervision.
Lady Ashwood had opinions about how Cecilia ought to spend her time. None of those opinions involved reading.
The library’s servants’ entrance stood at the end of a secondary corridor, half-concealed by a decorative screen. Cecilia paused, listening. Silence. Most guests were out of doors; those who remained would be in the drawing room or their chambers, not browsing books.
She eased the door open and slipped inside.
The library was magnificent in daylight. Sunlight poured through tall windows, warming the colours of carpet and binding alike. The air still held the faint sweetness of last night’s fire, now reduced to pale ash in the grate.
Cecilia allowed herself a brief moment of wonder. This room was everything she had lost—beauty, learning, the quiet pleasure of knowledge pursued for its own sake. Here, surrounded by books, she could almost believe she was still the girl she had been—Sir Edmund’s daughter, a young woman with a future.
