Chapter Twelve
Jacob watched the light creep around the edges of the thick velvet curtains. His sleepless night had finally come to an end and they would soon be pulling into the final station of their journey.
He pushed the bell to summon the steward and asked him to call for his valet to help him dress and shave.
Margaret’s father had given him no indication of how long they were expected to remain cloistered together at his estate.
All he had said was that it would be a chance for them to get to know each other, but what more about each other did they need to know in order to maintain this pretence of a marriage?
A knock on the door signalled Bates’s arrival, so he climbed out of bed. He’d leave such speculation to a later date.
Once shaved and dressed for the day, he felt somewhat better.
Usually, he slept exceedingly well on trains, but usually he did not have a tempting but off-limits woman in the next compartment.
Jacob could not remember ever having to spend time of any significance with a woman who was neither his lover nor one who soon would be.
Nor had he ever been friends with a woman before.
He gave a small laugh. Then again, he’d never been married before either—everything about his relationship with Margaret was a first.
The rhythm of the train changed as it slowed down. A low hiss erupted from beneath the carriage and a gush of steam filled the air, clouding the windows, then slowly dissipated to reveal the busy station.
Whistles shrilled, accompanied by a burst of noise and activity in the corridor. Jacob left his compartment and found Margaret and her lady’s maid discussing the organisation of the luggage with a porter.
‘There’s also…’ she paused, pointing towards Jacob ‘…my husband’s luggage, which you’ll find in his compartment.’
Jacob could only wonder how long it was going to take her to get used to calling him thus.
Perhaps that would be the sign that they had done as her father insisted and got to know each other.
Once she could refer to him as Jacob or my husband without hesitating it might mean it was time for them to return to London.
‘I sent a telegram before we left London so carriages should be waiting for us,’ he informed the woman he now had to think of as my wife.
‘Good, good,’ she said, not looking in his direction, but watching the porter to make sure he had all the bags.
The porter and the lady’s maid departed, along with their luggage, and she quickly walked off down the corridor, still not looking at Jacob.
She hesitated at the door, so he climbed down and held out his hand towards her to help her onto the platform.
Her eyes lowered, she stepped down. It seemed the shy woman had replaced the one who had kissed him goodnight. Perhaps these rapid changes in personality were something he was going to have to become accustomed to, and constituted part of the getting to know each other her father had insisted upon.
Taking her arm, he guided her through the swirling melee towards the iron gates at the end of the platform.
Steam still hissed out of the stationary train, filling the air, along with the smell of burning coal.
Trolleys pushed by uniformed porters and stacked high with piles of luggage rushed by, while passengers disembarked and were greeted by friends and family members, while others were saying their fond farewells and waiting to embark.
They made their way out of the station, but the forecourt beyond was no less hectic.
Hansom cabs were waiting for passengers, the drivers touting for business.
Newspaper boys were shouting out the latest headlines, while flower-sellers and boot-blacks were weaving through the crowd, plying their trade with cheerful persistence.
Jacob was relieved to see his carriage bearing the Rosedale crest waiting for them, with the driver and footman dressed in the family livery of red and blue.
While Bates and Margaret’s lady’s maid organised the luggage to be loaded into the second carriage, he helped Margaret up the steps to their carriage. The footman closed the door and they were soon off, driving towards the outskirts of the city.
‘Is it very far?’ she asked.
‘No, not really. We should be there in an hour or so.’
He could add that it was not nearly far enough away.
He rarely returned to this estate, leaving everything in the hands of his trusted estate manager, and would prefer to keep it that way.
He looked out of the window at the passing scenery and wondered why he had chosen his Northumberland estate to begin this farce of a marriage.
Her father had merely insisted they spend time together on his estate, not specifying which estate.
He could have gone to Yorkshire or Devon.
Both those estates held bad memories for him, but none as bad as the Northumberland estate.
Was he trying to punish himself? Was he trying to remind himself just how unhappy marriage could be by bringing her to the place where his parents had spent their miserable lives together?
Was he trying to remind himself of why he would never have children by spending time in the location of his miserable childhood?
Perhaps that was it. He would never want any child to go through that intense loneliness he had suffered as a child, nor that crippling awareness of being unwanted.
That was one of the many reasons he had vowed never to have children.
And if anything could remind him of that vow, time at his Northumberland estate would do so.
He looked over at Margaret, who was watching him with a quizzical expression.
He’d also never intended to marry, and yet here he was.
But that was all that would change, and as he had a wife in name only, there was no danger they would ever bring any more unwanted and unloved children into this world.
He turned from Margaret to look out of the carriage window and fought to push memories of his childhood away, as he had done so many times before.
The scenery outside the window had changed from dense rows of soot-smudged houses to the sparsely populated countryside, with its green fields, hedgerows and stone fences. Such pastoral beauty should have provided a sense of calm, but it did nothing to lift Jacob’s spirits.
The carriage finally drove through the gold-and-black wrought iron gates that opened up onto a long driveway which led to the house, and his spirits sank even further.
This really was a mistake. He should never have come here and he most certainly should not have brought Margaret to this cursed place.
If he wasn’t careful, Margaret would see a side of him he tried to keep hidden—a morose, joyless man haunted by painful memories he’d rather forget.
The stone house came into view, its three storeys topped with jagged crenellations dominating the landscape, the turrets on each corner adding to its appearance of an impenetrable fortress.
‘It’s rather grand,’ Margaret said, looking out of the window. ‘It’s almost like a fairy tale castle.’
He continued to stare at the house, at the multitude of windows staring back at him like blank eyes and the strangling ivy creeping up the cold brown walls.
‘Fairy tale?’ he asked, certain she could not be talking about the same building. ‘Perhaps this is where the Big Bad Wolf would live, or the evil sorcerer.’
She looked at him with concern and he made himself smile, not wanting her to think he was doing anything other than making a joke.
The carriage crunched to a halt in front of the house, where all the servants were lined up, waiting to meet the new Duchess. Many of them had worked on this estate when his father had been alive, and Jacob had no doubt that, like him, they were pleased the old tyrant was no longer in residence.
He led Margaret down the line. She smiled at everyone, asked each servant their name and exchanged a few polite words.
That would be a new experience for many.
Jacob doubted the former Duke had ever bothered to learn the names of the people who cleaned his house and prepared his meals, and certainly never spoke to them, unless it was to shout commands.
When they reached the end of the line, he took her arm and they walked up the stone steps that led to the forbidding entrance. As a child, these steps had always seemed mountainously high, but, in reality, the entrance was no higher than those at the country homes of many of his friends.
They walked through the entrance and a chill trickled down his spine. His father’s portrait loomed over the entranceway in pride of place, where it could not be missed, staring down at everyone beneath with a look of contempt.
‘Is that the late Duke?’ Margaret asked, placing her hand lightly on his arm.
‘It is indeed. That’s the old devil, in all his glory.’
Not wanting to linger, he led her through the entranceway towards the stairs, his father’s glowering eyes following, just as they had when he was a child.
‘I dare say you’d like to have a bath and change out of your travelling clothes,’ he said once they were out of sight of his father.
‘I’ll leave you in the hands of Mrs Larkins.
’ He signalled to the housekeeper and looked towards the doors, the need to get out of this house pressing down on him like a heavy weight on his shoulders.
‘Yes, and then perhaps you could show me around your estate. It would be good to stretch our legs after that long journey.’
‘I’d be happy to escort you around your estate,’ he said, making it clear that this was now her home, even if it would never feel like his.
‘And I suppose I should also bathe and change my clothes,’ he added, acknowledging that after the long journey he needed to make himself respectable, even though what he really wanted to do was escape this house before it swallowed him whole.