Chapter 10
She had counted the turns and still lost herself.
Left at the tall window with its cataract of ivy, right where the portrait of the gentleman with the ridiculous lace collar glowered, straight on until the floorboards changed their song beneath her slippers from respectful hush to an oaken creak that warned of older timber.
Ravenscroft Hall did not lie, it withheld.
Corridors narrowed without warning, staircases swerved as though shying from some memory, and entire wings appeared, presented their long backs of paneled doors, and then slipped away behind a corner like shy deer.
The house had been built over centuries, in moods and styles without any apparent rational plan.
Isla paused at a landing window and set her palm to the cold glass.
Below, the west lawn unrolled to a stand of chestnut trees where the late sun struck their leaves.
The air, even filtered through old wavy panes, smelled of lavender and the faint iron of rain promised for later.
Somewhere deeper in the house a clock beat the afternoon into orderly pieces.
She tried to lean her breathing around it.
The breakfast was finished. The last carriage had taken its congratulations and its appetite away. Isla had helped steer Alistair laughing and unsteady, into his own coach, helped by Victoria. Edward, her husband, had vanished into the machinery of Wexford.
He had been kind enough when they parted at the top of the great stair, courteous as any gentleman might be to a guest, and then his eyes had slid away as if something inward troubled him. He had smiled when someone needed smiling at.
Isla pressed her forehead to the glass until it cooled the place that pounded there.
The gown she had chosen for the afternoon, a soft muslin the color of cream with a sash of green, offered her ribs mercy after a morning of fashionable torture.
Even so, she could not shake the sensation of constraint.
Wife. I am a wife. I possess a husband. What a peculiar notion.
She left the window and walked on. At a turning where the wainscot changed from walnut to a plainer oak, a door waited.
Its paint was a sober cream like the others, its brass latch clean and dull.
She reached for the latch but it did not move.
Not stiff with age nor stubborn with paint. It was locked.
This is the first locked door I have come across. Why lock a door in a house? There is no-one here who shouldn’t be.
She leaned and listened. The silence on the other side was absolute.
“Lady Isla.”
She turned. The Dowager Duchess stood at the head of the short passage, black silk neat, jet catching what light the corridor allowed. She did not look winded at having found her prey, nor surprised.
Wexford Hall might hide things from everyone else but I’ll wager it hides nothing from her.
“I was exploring,” Isla said. “Your house was not inclined to be clear.”
“It does not owe clarity to strangers,” Eleanor returned. She inclined her head toward the door, not coming closer, as if some line on the floor marked a boundary. “That room is locked.”
“So I see. Why?.”
“It will remain so.” Eleanor said, speaking over Isla.
A pause. Isla took a breath, swallowed her temper.
“May I ask why?” Isla kept her tone even. “A wife should understand her own house.”
“A wife should indeed,” Eleanor said, a small, dry smile tugging the corner of her mouth, “but I do not see you as such. It is fortunate you will not have to trouble yourself with those duties for long.”
It was so direct that laughter, of all things, lifted in Isla’s chest, absurd and sharp. She did not let it out.
“I am your son’s wife. That will nae change because you didnae approve.” Isla said, her accent giving a hint of the anger she felt at Eleanor’s rudeness.
Eleanor pressed her lips together primly. “I expect an adjustment to the present inconvenience. One that restores the dignity of this house and frees my son from a bargain made in haste. I think an English Duke deserves an English Duchess. There, I cannot be any plainer.”
“You certainly couldn’t,” Isla said. “You dislike me for being Scottish. You dislike me for making you think of your father who died. I can help neither and neither can be corrected with an annulment.”
A flicker, not a flinch, but a passing of something across the eyes that was not merely calculation. “You have been talking to my son.”
Isla lifted her chin. “I am his wife.”
“For the moment.” The Dowager’s gaze shifted past Isla to the latch. “He locked that door himself.”
“What lies beyond it?”
“A room that is not yours. Edward will tell you what he wishes you to know when you are something like a wife. Not before.”
She turned and was gone without the corridor acknowledging her passage, as if she were the one thing in Wexford Hall to which it had grown accustomed. Isla stood for a moment with her fingertips still on the latch, as if the brass could be convinced by stubbornness.
Then she took her hand away and wrung it in her skirt to be rid of the feel.
The certainty that rose after the Dowager’s retreat surprised her.
Not anger, though anger grumbled. It was determination, plain and not very pretty.
If the Dowager intended to freeze her out, she would have to tolerate a great deal of persistent thaw.
At least I can prove myself useful. I can be Edward’s friend. I can make the best of this situation and help where I may.
She could be an ally. A steward of sorts to any corner of the estate that would bear her hand. The thought steadied her. It was not what her heart yearned for but sense could be louder than yearning when it had to be.
“Platonic,” she said aloud, testing the shape of the word, as if naming a river might help it choose its banks. “Sensible. Civil. Entirely … platonic.”
“You’ll forgive me, Your Grace,” said a small, scandalized voice behind her, “but that sounds like a dreadful word for a honeymooner.”
Isla spun. The girl who had spoken stood a cautious three paces away. She was plump and neat, with dark hair coiled tight under her cap and cheeks like apples somebody had shined with a sleeve. Her eyes were lively and then anxious the moment she remembered to mind herself.
“I … beg pardon,” the girl added. “I oughtn’t to be here. I’m on my way to the stillroom for rosemary, cook says the lamb needs it, but I cut along the small passage on account of my feet and, there you were … talking.”
“To myself,” Isla said, with as much dignity as a woman could have in such a moment. “Which is my bad habit.” She softened her tone. “You are not in trouble. What is your name?”
“Edith Godwin, Your Grace.”
“Are you one of the housemaids?”
“When I’m told so,” Edith said, then blushed at her own presumption. “I mean, yes. Housemaid for the east wing, runner for the stillroom when Mrs. Pike is busy. My da’s the stable master. Harold Godwin.”
“Ah, the very man I was hoping to meet next. I am keen to get a look at the stables here. They’re famous.”
At that, Edith’s mouth opened to show a grin she suppressed just in time. “Da told me he’d heard the new Duchess knew her head from a hoof.”
“Keep your da,” Isla said. “He has more sense than most of the ton.” She tipped her head toward the door. “Do you know who occupies this room?”
Edith’s eyes went right to the latch and then away as if the brass might accuse her. “Nobody, m’lady. Or … that is, no one now.”
“And before now?”
A silence that tasted of loyalty. Isla did not press, she waited. Edith’s eyes flicked again, then settled.
“Now they’re just …” Edith worked her hands together. “Closed. By order of His Grace. Begging your pardon. He turned the key himself. I saw him.”
“When?”
“Last month, when the carpenters were up to mend the roof over the long gallery and the rain came in. He came here after. I was beating a rug yonder, Mrs. Hargrave said I’d the arm for it, and I saw him come out from the library with the keys.
He stood with his hand on the latch a long while.
Then he put the key in. He turned it.” She swallowed again, as if the memory itself were sharp.
“Then he stood some more, like he’d run out of the reason he’d come.
And he walked away without … without going in. ”
Isla kept her breath even. “You have a good eye, Edith Godwin.”
“I’ve two, m’lady.” Edith glanced over her shoulder. “I had them on Lady Eleanor once and she felt it from the far end of the hall, so I am trying to be more … selective.” Her eyes sparked, then sobered. “Will you get me in trouble for saying so?”
“I will get you a cup of tea if I can,” Isla said. “And perhaps a rosemary sprig to wave under Mrs. Pike’s nose as evidence you meant to go there all along.”
Edith beamed and then remembered to be a servant. She dipped a clumsy curtsey. “You’re very kind, Your Grace.”
Edith bobbed a curtsy, then took three steps and returned on the fourth, emboldened by a thought. “Only, if I might, if you want to find your way in this house, there’s a trick of it.”
“Tell me.”
“When the floorboards change under your feet, you’re going from one century to another.
If you keep to the ones that are quiet you’ll come out at the west stair and Mrs. Hargrave’s pantry.
If you follow the ones that creak like old men, you’ll fetch up at the long gallery where the windows stick.
And if it smells like beeswax and coal together, you’re close to the family rooms.”
She nodded at the locked door. “That always smells clean. On account of not being used.”
Isla folded these maps into the part of her that made use of such things. “You are worth more than rosemary.”
Edith’s blush deepened until even the apples on her cheeks seemed surprised. “I’ll be off then, Your Grace. Welcome to Wexford.” She hesitated. “Most of it, anyway.”