She wasfine.
William descended first and turned to hand her down. She took his hand and stepped out onto the drive of Blackmoor House. She looked up at it with the pleasant expression she had decided on. Then the doors opened.
They were assembled in the entrance hall, all of them. Every member of the household staff, arranged with the quiet precision of people who had been given notice and had taken it seriously, from the housekeeper at the front with the ring of keys at her waist to the scullery maids at the very back, trying not to look as though they were staring, which they were.
William moved beside her with the ease of a man in his own house, which of course he was, and she reminded herself to breathe.
“Mrs. Eldridge,” he said to the housekeeper, a composed, upright woman of about fifty with a pleasant face and the particular bearing of someone who had run a large household for a long time. “May I present the Duchess of Blackmoor?”
Mrs. Eldridge curtseyed with practiced grace and a warm smile. “Your Grace.” She looked at Cecily with an expression that was professional, correct, and underneath the professionalism, simply curious. “Welcome to Blackmoor House. I hope the journey was comfortable.”
“Very, thank you,” Cecily replied. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Eldridge. I hope we will have the opportunity to speak properly very soon. I would very much like to understand how the house runs before I presume to have opinions about it.”
Something shifted in Mrs. Eldridge’s expression, a slight easing, a fractional adjustment that suggested Cecily had said the right thing without having calculated it.
“Of course, Your Grace.” She nodded her head once. “Whenever suits you.”
The introductions continued. Mr. Prentiss, the butler, who was thin and precise and bowed with a gravity that suggested he took the function of butlering very seriously, indeed. The head footman. The cook, Mrs. Beam, who was round and red in the face.
Cecily smiled at her and made a mental note to ask about the kitchen garden at the first available opportunity, because thefastest way to Mrs. Beam’s good opinion was going to be genuine interest and not the imposition of preferences.
William spoke briefly to Mr. Prentiss about arrangements for the afternoon—there were letters requiring attention, an estate matter that had apparently not resolved itself during his absence in London. He said it quietly and efficiently, the business of the house resuming around the wedding with a speed that Cecily found both practical and, in some unexamined way, slightly lonely.
This is how it works.This is what you agreed to. The house moves on. You are a working part of it. That is fine.
The staff dispersed. Mrs. Eldridge offered to show Cecily to her rooms.
“In a moment,” Cecily said. “I understand there are…” She looked at William.
“My sisters are in the drawing room,” he offered. “They know you are coming. They have known since this morning.”
“How did they take the news?”
A slight pause. “With considerable enthusiasm and many questions I declined to answer.”
Cecily almost smiled. “Which questions?”
“Whether you were kind. Whether you liked to ride. Whether you would let them call you by your given name.” He looked at her with an expression that was attempting to be neutral and not entirely succeeding. “And whether you would be staying permanently or whether this was, in Letitia’s words, another of William’s arrangements that won’t last the season.”
Her lips curled into a smile. “How old is she?”
“Fourteen. Unfortunately.”
“I will go to them,” Cecily said. “Before going to my rooms. If that is all right.”
He looked at her for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “It is.”
She heard them before she reached the drawing room.
They were not arguing. It was the particular concentrated energy of two people having a disagreement in loud whispers, which meant they had been told not to be overheard and were failing at it.
“…you cannot ask her that straightaway, Letitia.”
“Why not? It’s a reasonable question.”
“It is not a reasonable opening question. It is the sort of thing you work toward after you’ve established whether a person is–”
“Isadora, if we spend the first hour asking her about the weather, she’ll think we’re–”
