Perhaps he had. It should have lifted her spirits. It was what she’d hoped for, after all. It was good news, then. Yes, very good news, indeed. Yet, as they made their way past the staircase, and by silent mutual agreement down the corridor that led to the drawing room, it only made Hammond Court feel more distant than ever.
Nothing was the same. It didn’t even smell like the same house. The faint odors of mildew and dust had vanished, and in their place was the scent of soap, lemon, and a faint whiff of wax candles.
“Light the lamps, won’t you, Billy?” Abby bustled about while Rose waited in the middle of the room, and Billy fumbled with the wicks. She was afraid to sit down, or even to stir a step. The room felt so different, somehow, she couldn’t quite get her bearings, and she soon saw why.
They all gasped as the flame flickered to life, and the lamp lit the darkened room.
“Oh, my goodness.” Abby’s eyes widened as she looked around the drawing room.
It had been utterly transformed. That is, most of the furnishings were the same—even the Duke of Grantham couldn’t furnish a house the size of Hammond Court in only a few weeks’ time—but the worn, moldy window hangings had been replaced with heavy, figured silk drapes in a pretty, pale shade of green, and a dozen new, richly embroidered pillows were scattered over the settees and chairs.
And everything . . . every scrap of cloth, and every pane of glass had been scrubbed clean. Every inch of wood had been polished, and the rugs looked as if they’d been beaten to within an inch of their lives. The spiderwebs were gone. Not a single silken thread dangled from the cornices. There wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen or a single flake of ash in the fireplace. The pails that had stood in every corner had vanished—there was no need for them, now that the leaks had been repaired.
Rose wandered over to the fireplace and ran her hand over the marble mantel. “Do you suppose the chimneys have been swept, as well?”
But of course, they had been. Max had seen to everything, right down to the carpet fringe, which lay in perfect order, the threads as straight as a row of pins. With such attention to detail, he was hardly going to neglect the chimneys. The fires would burn properly now, instead of stuttering and smoking, and would warm the rooms, as a fire was meant to do.
She turned around in a circle, trying to take it all in, but it was too much, and she dropped onto the settee before her knees buckled from the shock of it all.
Abby settled into the space beside her. “You didn’t know?”
“No, I . . . I knew the floorboards in the kitchen had been repaired. I thought Billy had seen to it, though that didn’t seem right.” She glanced at Billy, who shook his head. “I said as much to Max—that is, to the Duke of Grantham, and he didn’t correct me. He never said a word about any of this.”
“It’s all so strange, is it not?” Abby glanced around the room with a puzzled frown. “I love Hammond Court as much as you do, Rose, but Grantham Lodge is a grand, elegant estate, one befitting a duke. Why should he need another house? Do you suppose he really does intend to live here?”
Rose could only shake her head. Max had never breathed a word to her about moving to Hammond Court, but if he had made up his mind to live here, it meant she’d accomplished what she’d set out to do.
She’d fulfilled her promise to Ambrose.
Only a few short weeks ago, it was all she’d hoped for, but now, the thought made her heart sink further. Persuading Max to love Hammond Court had always been akin to catching a perfect snowflake on the tip of her finger. She wanted desperately to succeed, but in the deepest, most secret recesses of her heart, she hadn’t truly believed it was possible.
Or was it only that she’d wished for more?
She’d wished for him to loveher, too.
But now, it was as if the snowflake had brushed her fingertips and hovered there for an instant in all its complex beauty, yet as soon as she’d bent her head toward it, it had melted away to nothing, leaving only a drop of water behind.
Somehow, it hurt more tonearlysucceed, to feel that soaring hope inside her, than it did to never being close to it at all.
If only he hadn’t lied to her. She might have borne it, then. She might have been able to wish him well and leave Hammond Court with a joyful heart.
She glanced around the drawing room, at the elegant new draperies, the shiny new windows. It was Hammond Court still, the way she remembered it in its best days. How happy she should have been, to see it thus restored! And perhaps she would be happy, someday, when she looked back upon it.
But now everything was overshadowed by Max’s lies.
Yet even that wasn’t what hurt the most.
She could have forgiven the lies, in time. What she couldn’t forgive was the jagged sliver of doubt he’d planted inside her—deep inside a heart that had never been touched by any man beforehim—that he’d never really cared for her. That everything—the skating and the sleigh rides, his delicious kisses and whispered words, and the pleasure he’d given her—were all just part of his scheme.
That what she’d thought was love was nothing but another lie.
He’d denied it, yes, but how could she believe him? He was a duke. Aduke, and she was a young lady of no name and no consequence, tucked away in an obscure little village that most London aristocrats had never even heard of.
How couldshe—plain, provincial Rose St. Claire—ever matter to a man like the Duke of Grantham? It was ludicrous.
Of course, he’d lied to her. She’d been a fool to imagine for even a moment it could be anything else.
To his credit, I believe he thought better of the scheme in the end . . .
