Thomas nodded and left him, but Douglas could see it was with some reluctance. Did the young man think he was about to steal the silver? Once, he might have considered it. Now, however, he could have purchaseda dozen Chavensworths. Perhaps he simply looked disreputable, the shadow of the alleys of Perth still clinging to him.
He brushed that thought aside and continued his exploration.
When Sarah awoke in the morning, it was to find that her husband had already left the Duke’s Suite.
She sat up on the edge of the cot with some difficulty, given that every muscle in her body had stiffened. She missed the clinging softness of her feather bed, with its sweet smell of lavender and heavenly smooth sheets.
It had taken her ages to fall asleep last night, and as tired as she felt right at the moment, she might not have slept at all.
Very well, if this was to be her married life, then she would make the very best of it. She would have Chavensworth’s carpenter construct her a bed frame, and the second-floor maids could stitch together a mattress, slightly smaller in dimension than her own feather bed. Nonetheless, it would be vastly more comfortable than the military cot on which she’d slept last night.
Mr. Eston—Douglas—had probably slept like a baby. That thought immediately conjured up an image of a baby’s head against her bosom, his mouth against her breast. She pressed both hands to her chest as if to ward off the image itself. She was left with the sound of his voice echoing in the chamber as if he had just spoken those shocking words.It is not simply a place for a babe to suckle. A grown man likes to suckle as well.
She was too smart a woman to believe in conjurers’ tales or superstitions of any kind, but if she were given to such things, she would have thought that he had thepower of magic in his voice. The sound of his voice, the low timbre of it, the way he had of enunciating certain words, almost as if English wasn’t his native language, was fascinating. Where had he been born? Only one of a dozen—or a hundred—questions she had about the man who was now her husband.
Sarah stood and walked to the dais, wrapping her arms around one of the four posts, staring at the rumpled bedclothes. She could almost see him lying there, naked and abandoned, his arm thrown over the extra pillow, his hand stretched out, fingers splayed and reaching for her.
She blinked the image away before turning and stepping down from the dais. Moments later she was in her own chamber. She dressed before Florie arrived, choosing one of a dozen day dresses she’d had sewn for her by the seamstresses employed at Chavensworth. The design was one of her own making, and together with her corset, which could be laced from the front, allowed her to dress without having to wait on a servant. She had saved endless hours with such garments. Today, however, she waited for Florie for one reason only. She needed help with her hair.
“It’s an odd sign of vanity,” she said, watching as Florie brushed each tress before pinning it carefully into a curl at the back of her head. “It’s only hair. We should not care so very much about what our hair looks like.”
Florie’s gaze met hers in the mirror as she removed the hairpin from between her lips and spoke. “Why should we not, Lady Sarah? You would care if your dress was spotted. You would care if your gloves were soiled. Why would you not care about the state of your hair? Women are supposed to care about such things. Ifwe did not, God might as well have labeled us men.”
“Oh, but then we should have so much more power,” Sarah said. “We could stomp around like roosters, crow to our hearts’ content, and say and do almost anything we pleased.”
Florie did not comment to that observation, which was just as well.
Why had she spoken so intimately to her maid? Perhaps it was because her only confidante, her mother, could no longer converse. Perhaps it was simply that she was lonely.
How utterly absurd. She didn’t have time to be lonely. She especially didn’t have time to be lonely this morning. After having been gone from Chavensworth for three days, there were more than enough tasks to occupy her.
She thanked Florie and left the room armed with her journal and her pencil. At the top of the stairs, she grabbed the banister with her right hand and slowly descended. Her fingers registered that there was not sufficient wax on the wood to make the surface feel slippery and warm, and she made a mental note to discuss this with the housekeeper. Dust had been allowed to accumulate on a few of the portrait frames on the wall above her, and she observed that as well.
There were so many places of beauty throughout Chavensworth, so many wondrous things to stop and admire during the day. Her family’s history hung around her, was saved in the china cabinets, revealed in the linen-press. The legacy she’d been born to was there in each successive portrait, in the pressed flowers, in the books arrayed in the library.
Sarah nodded to a young maid industriously brushing the treads at the bottom of the stairs.
“Good morning, Abigail. How is that tooth?”
The girl smiled, showing a gap where the offending tooth had been only a few days earlier. “The blacksmith, he took it out, Lady Sarah. It still hurts some, but not as much.”
She patted the girl on the shoulder. “See Mrs. Williams today, and tell her I said to give you some Oil of Cloves. Put that on your gums both morning and night, and you’ll soon feel better.”
The girl nodded and continued with her work.
Sarah entered the Yellow Dining Room, the small family room where she always ate breakfast, and nodded to one of Cook’s helpers. The girl bobbed a curtsy, entered the kitchen, and returned a moment later with a hot kettle that she put on the sideboard.
Arrayed before her, just as her mother had always decreed, was breakfast the way breakfast should be presented at Chavensworth.
A cloth, heavily embroidered in shades of purple—to complement the fields of lavender visible from the window, was draped across the sideboard. Atop it, arranged in a pleasing pattern, was a sufficiency of knives, forks, saltcellars, butter dishes, and egg cups. Twin pitchers held milk and cream. Three chafing dishes warmed sausages and other meat selections. Toast, rolls, and breads laced with cinnamon were arrayed in a basket near the kettle.
How very odd that she wasn’t hungry.
She wanted to ask if anyone had seen her husband, but that was not a question she would venture to her servants.
She took a piece of toast and poured herself some tea before walking to the table arranged before the window. This view had always epitomized the beautyof Chavensworth, the majesty of the estate. Below her, in sloping fields that seemed to go on forever, were sixty acres of lavender. Beyond them were the home woods, a thickly bearded forest now green with spring growth.
She should try to locate her husband. It was only too easy to get lost in Chavensworth’s two hundred rooms. Perhaps Mr. Eston—Douglas—was hungry. Her duties as a hostess, as the chatelaine of Chavensworth, supplanted any irritation she might feel with him.
