Chapter 9
“Did anyone ask after me?”
The footman paused with one of her boxes braced against his thigh, the lid held carefully shut beneath his palm as though he feared it might spring open of its own accord.
“No, miss.” He looked at her with mild confusion. “We packed everything swiftly. The landlady stood about, but only to fret, and the rest of the household kept to themselves.”
Madeline did not allow her shoulders to sag with relief, but the breath she drew in was deeper than any she had taken since the day she met the Duke and left her lodgings behind. She nodded once, and her fingers, which had been locked together so tightly that her knuckles ached, loosened at last.
“Thank you,” she said, and meant it far more deeply than manners demanded.
He tipped his head and continued into her room, placing the box with care upon the trunk already at the foot of her bed, then lifting the next parcel with quiet efficiency.
When he turned and left her room, the soft click of the door closing behind him seemed unnaturally loud, and then the corridor fell silent once more, the hush settling in.
Madeline remained where she was, her hand still hovering near the place where the latch had been, as though some part of her expected him to return or feared that he might.
Her pulse beat fiercely in her ears, a steady, betraying rhythm that refused to calm, and she stood listening to it, aware of the way the quiet wrapped around her, making every sensation sharper rather than soothing.
No one had asked for her. No voice summoned her, no urgent knock followed, no danger interrupted the fragile stillness she had been left with.
For a few stolen moments, the world felt almost normal, as though she were merely a young woman standing alone in a quiet house rather than someone hunted by her own mother.
And it was perhaps the cruelest thing of all, that fleeting sense of normalcy, because it tempted her to believe that such quiet might endure, that this suspended peace could stretch into something lasting, even as she knew, with painful clarity, that it could not.
She moved across the room at a measured pace, her fingertips briefly touching the surface of her writing desk as she passed, confirming her presence within the Duke of Kirkford’s residence.
The room provided her with personal space, a bed made with linen scented with lavender soap, and a fire that burned steadily in the grate.
She turned toward the window. Outside, the estate stretched pale and still beneath winter, the trees dusted with snow, the lawns smoothed into quietness.
A different sort of stillness lived in places like this, she thought, the sort that belonged to power and wealth, that could insulate a person from the uglier parts of the world.
If Captain Hale came here, he would not stride through the servants’ entrance with the same easy entitlement he carried in smaller houses, because here he would be forced to reckon with a man who did not bow to officers or threats or charming smiles.
The thought of the Duke brought a strange heat to her chest, as if desire itself were an insult to the caution she had survived by.
It was absurd to let her mind linger on the way his hands felt when he touched her, ridiculous to remember the weight of him leaning in, the scrape of his breath along her cheek, the way he had kissed her and then stepped back.
He had said it would never happen again, but her body did not appear to have heard him.
A knock came.
“Miss Watton?” Mrs. Hayward’s voice, brisk and cordial, carried through the door. “Lady Theresa is in the schoolroom and is near to climbing the walls with impatience.”
Madeline steadied herself and forced a small laugh. “I am coming.”
The walk down the corridor gave her just enough time to gather herself, each measured step easing her back into the role she knew how to inhabit, the quiet discipline of purpose replacing the fragile hush she left behind.
By the time she reached the schoolroom, her heartbeat had slowed, her thoughts ordered once more.
The schoolroom was bright and plainly arranged, sunlight pouring in through tall windows and catching on the polished surface of the table. Books were stacked neatly at one end, ink freshly poured, pens aligned with care, and a small slate lay waiting between them.
Tessa sat in her chair with her feet swinging beneath it, her hands folded in a show of obedience that did not fool anyone, least of all Madeline. The girl’s eyes brightened the moment she saw her.
“You were speaking with the footman,” Tessa said at once, with the air of someone who had been listening intently for any scrap of news.
“I was,” Madeline replied, setting her book down with care, fingers lingering on the cover. “They brought the rest of my things.”
“You are staying.” Tessa’s face lit at once. “Truly?”
“Truly,” Madeline said, meeting her eyes and holding them there, even as something tight in her chest loosened in a way she had not expected.
A hesitant smile crept across the girl’s mouth, and for a moment she looked even younger, as though the weight of the world she carried had been lifted by something as simple as certainty.
Madeline opened the book before her. “Shall we begin?”
Tessa straightened, then immediately leaned forward with conspiratorial excitement, lowering her voice as though sharing a secret of great importance. “Will you make me copy Latin words until my fingers cramp, like Mrs. Plimpton did?”
Madeline blinked, taken aback, her brows drawing together as she studied the child more closely. “Why would she do that?” she asked gently, pulling out a chair and settling opposite Tessa, her tone curious rather than disapproving. “Did she tell you why it was necessary?”
Tessa nodded solemnly, her excitement dimming just a little as she searched for the right phrasing. “She said it was good for me,” she replied. “That discomfort builds character, and that girls should learn to endure things quietly, because that is what makes us virtuous.”
Madeline stared at her for a beat, something sparking briefly behind her ribs, before she shook her head slowly. “That sounds like a woman who mistook misery for virtue.”
Tessa’s eyes widened. “You may say such things?”
“In this room,” Madeline said, keeping her voice low, “we may say the truth.”
Tessa giggled, then clapped her hands once, delighted. “I like this room.”
“And I like you,” Madeline said simply because there was no harm in speaking that part aloud. She watched the way Tessa’s shoulders eased as if she had been bracing for something else.
They began with reading, but Madeline did not make it an exercise in obedience. She asked questions, encouraged Tessa to predict what might happen next, and when the girl stumbled over a word, she did not scold or sigh, but waited, patient, until confidence returned.
“Why do you think she is frightened?” Madeline asked, tapping the page lightly.
Tessa frowned, chewing her lower lip. “Because everyone is looking at her.”
“And why does that frighten her?” Madeline pressed gently.
“Because they are judging,” Tessa said, the word coming out heavier than a child’s word ought to.
Madeline’s breath caught. “Do you think the judgements people make upon first seeing someone else are always the right ones?”
Tessa hesitated. “No.”
“Then why do they judge?” Madeline asked.
Tessa stared at the page, then whispered, “It is… people being cruel because they can.”
Madeline held her gaze. “Yes,” she murmured. “And that is why it must never be allowed to shape the way you see yourself.”
Tessa’s fingers tightened around the edge of the book. “They think I am…” She swallowed. “They think I am cursed.”
Madeline leaned forward slightly, keeping her voice soft. “Who is they?”
Tessa’s eyes flicked away. “Everyone.”
Madeline did not contradict her directly, because she couldn’t dismiss Tessa’s pain like that. Instead, she said, “All those ‘everyones’ are not always wise.”
Tessa gave a humorless little huff. “Papa says I must not care what they think.”
“And do you find it easy not to care?” Madeline asked.
The girl’s cheeks flushed. “No.”
Madeline nodded once, as if that were exactly what she expected. “Then perhaps the problem is not that you care,” she said, “but that you believe their opinions are worth more than your own.”
Tessa stared at her, as if she had never heard such a thing spoken aloud.
Madeline softened her voice further. “If you were to look at someone else with scars,” she said, “someone you loved, would you think them cursed?”
Tessa’s brows drew together. “No.”
“What would you think?” Madeline asked.
“I would think…” Tessa swallowed again, visibly struggling. “I would think they had been hurt.”
“And would that make them less deserving of kindness?” Madeline asked.
“No,” Tessa whispered, and something in her gaze shifted, small but real, like the first crack in ice.
Madeline reached across the table and covered Tessa’s hand with her own. “Then why should it be different for you?”
Tessa stared down at their hands. “Because it is my face,” she said, very quietly. “I cannot hide it.”
Madeline felt a sharp ache behind her eyes. She understood too well what it meant to have something about your body turned into a verdict, to have your worth measured by a cruel gaze.
She thought of her mother’s cool voice, of being made to drink nothing but weak tea with lemon for three days straight, because watching one’s figure was apparently a lesson best learned through hunger.
Of standing before the looking glass afterward, light-headed and ashamed, told it was for her own good.
“You cannot hide it,” Madeline agreed. “But you can learn to live as if what others say about you is not a proclamation that can be accepted as truth. When you leave this house and go elsewhere, you should hold your head up high and…”
“Will you promise not to leave?” Tessa interjected.