Somewhere beneath his walls and his carefully maintained control, Theodore feltsomethingfor her.
The question that remained was: what was she going to do about it?
Cressida rose from the bath, water cascading down her skin. Molly appeared immediately with warmed towels, helping herdry and slip into a soft nightgown before guiding her back to her bedchamber.
“Would you like me to brush out your hair, Your Grace?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Cressida sat at the dressing table while Molly worked through the tangles with patient, gentle strokes. In the mirror, she could see the connecting door.
Locked, Mrs. Agnes had said. From both sides. A barrier. A boundary. A line neither of them was meant to cross.
She wondered if Theodore was on the other side, staring at the same door, fighting the same battle between what he wanted and what he believed he should do.
“There you are, Your Grace.” Molly set down the brush. “Shall I help you into bed?”
“I can manage, thank you.” Cressida stood, squeezing the girl’s hand. “You’ve been wonderfully kind, Molly. I appreciate it more than you know.”
Molly blushed with pleasure. “It’s my honor to serve you, Your Grace. Truly.”
After the maid left, Cressida stood alone in the center of her grand new bedchamber. The Duchess’s suite. Her chambers. Her life.
A life sentence of proximity without connection, Theodore had promised.
She had lived her life in a series of cages—barren, comfortable, and everything in between. She wasn’t willing to accept another one, no matter how luxurious.
As she climbed into the enormous bed and stared at the canopy above, Cressida felt something far more dangerous than fear unfurl in her chest: determination.
Chapter Thirteen
“He’s gone to London again, Your Grace.”
Cressida looked up from the correspondence she’d been attempting to compose—a letter to Harriet that had languished half-written for three days.
Mrs. Agnes stood in the doorway of the morning room, her expression carrying the particular blend of sympathy and exasperation that had become familiar over the past fortnight.
“I see.” Cressida set down her pen with deliberate care. “When might His Grace return?”
“Late tomorrow evening, he said. Meeting with Lord Whitebrook regarding estate matters.” The housekeeper moved into the room, ostensibly to check the fire, though her true purpose was clearly to offer comfort through proximity.
Two weeks. Cressida had been the Duchess of Ashmere for precisely two weeks, and in that time she’d seen more of the castle’s portraits than her own husband.
Theodore rose before dawn for what the servants delicately termed “his morning exercise,” took breakfast in his study, and retired well past midnight after she’d already sought her bed. The few times their paths had crossed in corridors, he’d offered curt nods and polite evasions before disappearing into whichever room she wasn’t occupying.
“Estate matters,” she repeated, not bothering to disguise the skepticism in her voice. “How very pressing they must be.”
Mrs. Agnes’s mouth twitched with what might have been approval. “Indeed, Your Grace. Though if I may be so bold, His Grace has managed the estate quite capably for seventeen years without requiring weekly consultations in London.”
The validation eased something in Cressida’s chest. At least she wasn’t imagining the avoidance or constructing abandonment from ordinary ducal business.
“Thank you for informing me, Mrs. Agnes.”
After the housekeeper withdrew, Cressida finished her letter and handed it to a passing footman in the corridor to post it to Harriet.
Then, she moved to the window. The morning stretched before her with the same oppressive emptiness as all the others—hours to fill in a castle that felt less like a home and more like an exquisitely appointed cage.
She’d explored the library until she could navigate its shelves blindfolded, walked the gardens until even their beauty felt monotonous, and learned the names and history of servants who seemed more invested in her happiness than her own husband. Anything to occupy the relentless march of time in a marriage that existed only on paper and in the eyes of the law.
