Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
ONE YEAR LATER, HALSTON MANOR, NORTH RIDING OF YORKSHIRE
Lydia shuffled through the correspondence on her lap as she sipped her hot cocoa. Rosie opened the curtains, letting the harsh winter light inside.
“It looks like it will be another cold day, ma’am,” the maid shuddered.
Lydia took another sip of cocoa. “Yes, I expect it will. This has been an excessively cold snap.” She glanced up. “Is there snow?”
“Not at present, ma’am.”
“Excellent! Then I will still be able to visit the poor with Eliza and Marie.”
After traveling back to York for her marriage, her old friends had rediscovered her, and they had struck up their friendship again as though no time had passed.
In a moment where Lydia had felt as though she would perish from loneliness, they had brought light back into her life.
This past year had become one of contentment, despite everything that suggested otherwise.
The manor was comfortable, and she enjoyed Rosie’s company.
The other staff were kind, treating her with compassion and deference.
And for the first time in her life, Lydia had a place in this small society.
She held soirees and attended dinners and visited her tenants, just as a good lady ought to do.
She hosted their local parson for afternoon tea, and always sat in her box at church.
Hard to believe her life was fuller here, in this tiny corner of England, than it had ever been in London.
Rosie made a slight noise of dissent as she fetched underclothes from the chest. “I don’t know if it’s sensible for you to be leaving the house in these conditions...”
“Nonsense,” Lydia said briskly. “I’m not made of glass.”
“It looks very icy, ma’am.”
“If I fall, the worst I will suffer is a bruise or two and a loss of dignity, which I like to think I can recover from well enough.” She clucked her tongue. “And what of the poor? I always visit today. Has Cook made up a basket?”
“Of course,” Rosie nodded. “What would you like to wear this morning?”
Something prickled at the back of Lydia’s mind, something she was forgetting, but she couldn’t bring it to mind. This past year, she had been keeping on top of London fashions, and it so happened that the current fashion was for puffed sleeves.
“The green muslin,” she decided.
“A very pretty choice, ma’am.”
Once Lydia had finished her chocolate, Rosie helped her into her clothes, fastening the green muslin at the back, and finding an appropriate pelisse to pair with the walking dress.
Lydia intended to leave directly after breakfast, and she saw no point in changing again, particularly as there would be no one joining her in the morning.
She had come to rather enjoy her solitary breakfasts. Much like she suspected gentlemen did in similar situations, she planned her day and read the newspaper, and generally reflected upon her current choices. It was a time of peace in what had come to be a rather busy existence.
“Good morning,” she called to Mrs. Jones as she passed in the corridor. The housekeeper bobbed a curtsy.
“Good morning, Your Grace.”
“Don’t forget the soiree this evening,” she chimed, for once excited to host. It had been Eliza Parsons who had first convinced her to hold a soiree.
“After all,” she had chirped in her usual forthright way, “you are quite the highest-ranked member of society here. If you do not, who will? And we do long for a little society. This is not London. If you do nothing, no one else will!”
So she had decided to do something.
And what an excellent decision that had been. Music, dinner, conversation, and perhaps a little dancing if the festivities called for it. All with her good friends, and people in the community whom she had come to consider close.
Mrs. Jones frowned at her. “The preparations for the soiree are well underway,” she replied. “But I don’t suppose you’ve forgotten that—”
“Please ask the maids to build the fire in the breakfast room up,” Lydia called over her shoulder. “And, of course, in the drawing room when our guests arrive. Rosie informs me it’s particularly cold today, and I wouldn’t want our guests feeling the chill.”
“Of course not, Your Grace. I’ll do that right away. But I just wanted to remind you that—”
“I haven’t forgotten I’m visiting the poor this morning!” Lydia laughed. “Can you remember when I first came here, almost afraid to speak to a soul?”
Still smiling, she continued her way to the breakfast room.
She had a few letters from her London friends to reply to, and then, of course, some final touches to be made to the dinner plans.
Cook always sent them to her for her approval, and it was a part of the process she enjoyed immensely. She pushed the ajar door open.
Then froze in the doorway.
There, in the breakfast room, standing with his back to her, was a man. A tall, immensely broad man, his hands tucked neatly behind his back, and his blonde curls in that particular kind of dishevelment that he preferred to keep them.
Lydia’s heart catapulted into her mouth.
The duke. It had to be. No one else would stand in this room, with all the food already laid out for her, as though he owned the place, unless he already did…
He had returned.
Still frozen in place, she desperately tried to count the days in her head. Last year, when he had left, she had made a note of when she expected him back, but that had been a year ago. A year of life that she had come to fill with everything she could possibly manage.
Her hands shook. She wanted to vomit. All the fear and uncertainty from a year ago came rushing back. Eliza’s words about her position in society lay forgotten, because the duke outranked her. In his eyes, she was nothing but a nuisance.
And more than that, there was only one reason for him to be back here…
Slowly, she backed away from the door, closing it behind her, and thanking the gods that someone had oiled the hinges recently.
He could not know she knew he was here.
Evidently, he was waiting for her. To inform her that he was taking her away again, and this life she had made for herself—the one where she had a life, a purpose—was about to crumble about her ears once more.
All her plans for the week collapsed like a house of cards.
In some ways, she had forgotten her marriage. Her life had not felt like that of a married woman—at least, not one with a husband—and she had managed to dismiss the idea that it would end.
He would give her another property, but it would be in another part of the country. She would have to begin again, making new friends, befriending the servants. Everything would have to start again, and it felt like a cruelty. Just when she had settled in here. When she felt as though she belonged…
She pressed a hand against her heart, stepping backwards until she almost crashed into a footman. He swooped to one side to avoid her, a silver tray in his hand.
“My apologies, Your Grace,” he said.
She shook her head numbly. “N-not at all, Oliver. Please inform—I am going to my room.”
Oliver frowned at her. As head footman, he was only one step under the butler, and she was certain that he, alongside Philips, knew about the duke’s return.
Everyone in the household knew. And, considering last week, she had begun planning this soiree, they all expected her to have known as well.
“I have a terrible megrim,” she explained, hating the concern in Oliver’s eyes. “When Miss Parsons and Mrs. Radcliffe arrive, please inform them that I will be unable to uphold our commitment today.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” His frown deepened. “But I really should inform you that—”
“Please don’t,” Lydia squeaked, backing away again. And this time, she didn’t collide with anyone. All her newfound confidence drained; she once again had the presence and self-possession of a mouse. “Please do not inform me of anything. I don’t need—I don’t need anything. Thank you, Oliver.”
Oliver’s mouth opened, no doubt to inform her that her husband was waiting for her, and it was terribly rude for her to leave him unattended. But terribly rude or not, Lydia could not face him like this.
Once her turmoil quietened and once she could resign herself to her life being uprooted again, she would be able to greet him with the composure he probably expected from his little temporary wife.
The humiliation of it all! To be released from a marriage in such a way. For the rest of time, everyone would know her as the former wife of the Duke of Halston.
It was all she could do not to burst into tears as she fled back to her chambers.