Chapter 4
The carriage lamps were the only light for the last mile. They had packed quickly, devoured a modest meal, and ridden without stopping in relative silence. The road was indistinguishable from the fields on either side of it.
If I never set foot in a carriage again, Anna thought as the journey neared its end, it would be too soon.
Rathbourne Hall revealed itself gradually.
First the gateposts, pale stone catching the lamplight.
Then the sound of gravel turning under the wheels.
Then the sheer shape of it against the sky, too large to take in at once, too dark to properly see, looming with an indescribable weight of stone and age and all the lives that had centered around this building for decades.
Anna shifted in her seat. Rachel’s wool walking gown was pinned hastily at the waist and fit her poorly, and the borrowed cloak around her shoulders was slightly too long. It did not matter, though. Her wedding dress had been folded into a trunk, and she intended never to think of it again.
“Are you all right, Miss Anna?” His Grace asked, breaking the silence.
“Yes, Your Grace,” she said. “Thank you.”
“We are here at last,” Rachel announced with a sigh as the horses began to slow. “I am famished!”
The carriage stopped. Footmen appeared from the house before the door had opened, which said something about the standards of Rathbourne Hall that struck Anna. It was only fitting, given her brief but poignant impression of the commanding Duke.
He stepped down first, and Anna watched him speak to a tall woman in a dark dress who had come down the front, likely the housekeeper.
Rachel helped Anna out, keeping hold of her hand for a moment longer than necessary. “All right?” she asked.
“Yes,” Anna said, which was true enough.
The staff had assembled in the entrance hall. They were not lined up in the formal way of some great houses, but gathered, the way a household gathers when its master arrives without warning at half past ten at night. Perhaps a dozen of them, all looking at the duke.
“Miss Anna Cartwell will be staying at the Hall for an indefinite period.” His voice was quiet but carried to every corner of the grand stone room, as if his power radiated without effort.
“She is a guest of my sister’s and is to be treated accordingly.
I want her rooms attended to, her comfort seen to, her requests considered just as you would consider Lady Rachel’s.
” A pause. “Her presence here is not to be mentioned outside this house. Not to the village, not to tradesmen, not to your families.” His gaze moved across them, not threatening so much as certain, the look of a man who had never needed to repeat himself and saw no reason to begin.
“If I hear otherwise, the consequences will be swift and they will be proportionate. I don’t anticipate hearing otherwise. ”
I am so grateful to be referred to by my true name.
No one spoke. No one asked any questions. Anna was relieved.
“Good. I will leave you to it, Mrs. Hale,” he said to the woman Anna recognized from outside.
“At once, Your Grace,” she said with a curtsy, then turned to Anna and Rachel.
Mrs. Hale led her and Rachel to the East Wing with a taper and the pace of someone who had shown many rooms to a great many guests and saw no need for commentary.
Anna was relieved to be quickly ushered to her guest room. It was a serene light blue color with high ceilings, oversized windows, and a large four-poster bed that she could not wait to sink into.
“The fire was laid this afternoon,” she told Anna at the door. “I’ve had it lit and it should be warm in here shortly. There should be hot water within the quarter hour and there is a tray of fruit, bread, and hard cheese.”
“Thank you,” Anna said. “Truly.”
“Lady Rachel, your quarters are in order as well.”
Mrs. Hale gave a short curtsy and left them.
Rachel pulled Anna into the room, shut the door, and went immediately to the wardrobe.
It was full. Day dresses in pale muslin and deeper wool, two evening gowns in colors that would suit almost anyone. A riding habit in dark blue that Anna did not let herself look at for too long.
“Help yourself to anything,” Rachel said, pushing the wardrobe doors wider.
“We’re near enough in size that the waists should do, and these are from a season or so ago.
The hems might want pinning, but old Mrs. Henderson downstairs is very quick.
” She glanced at Anna. “There are nightgowns in the second drawer. Stockings, gloves. I think there are spare hairpins in the blue box on the dressing table.”
“Rachel…” Anna pressed her hand briefly. “You don’t have to go through so much trouble—”
“I want to, you’d do the same for me,” Rachel squeezed back. “Anything, Anna. I mean it. Whatever you need, for as long as you need it.”
“Thank you.”
“Whatever my brother says about scandal, consequences, and all the rest of it… and he is not wrong, exactly, it is very like him to be technically correct while missing the finer point… Either way, you are my dearest friend, and there is nothing in that wardrobe or in this house that is not also yours.”
The fire had caught properly now, and the room was warm, and the hot water would come, and there was a nightgown in the second drawer. Anna grew faint at the thought of such delightful comforts she had once taken for granted.
“Thank you,” she said once more, tears threatening to pour from behind her eyes. “From the bottom of my heart. I wish I can repay this kindness someday, somehow.”
“Thank you” is becoming an insufficient phrase for all the weight I place on it. I will have to find another way to show my gratitude.
“Anything for my dearest friend. Now, get some sleep.” Rachel smiled at her and winked. “You look dreadful.”
“Dreadful?” Anna joked. “I dare say I look like death run over, but I will accept ‘dreadful’. You are too kind.”
Anna stood alone in the center of the room for a moment.
Once the hot water was brought in, she washed the dust off her body from head to toe and felt immediately ```1like a new person.
She listened to the house settle around her, the creaking wood, the distant sound of the staff moving below.
Not London sounds. Something slower and more deliberate, and so comforting.
She grabbed a towel and walked and sat on the edge of the bed. She looked at her hands in her lap, the ring around her finger. The bruising on her wrist had deepened through the day, both purple and green in the firelight, and she pressed her other thumb gently against it.
So, this is all truly real… it happened…
The thought jolted her. She had woken up in her cousin’s house in London this morning, then she was married. Now it was past midnight, and she was hiding in Derbyshire.
Oh, I must sleep…
She found the nightgown in the second drawer, just where Rachel had said it would be. She pulled on the soft gown over her body and crawled into bed. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, turned to her side, and fell fast asleep.
Breakfast at Rathbourne Hall was served in a breakfast room that was smaller than the main one.
It had a beautifully set table near a south-facing window offset by a large buffet with all the fixings.
It was the kind of room that a house acquired over time for the purpose of actual use rather than occasion, and Anna loved it as soon as she walked in.
Rachel was already there with a place set beside her. The morning light came through the window in a way that made everything look warm.
Anna had chosen a pale blue day dress from the wardrobe. Mrs. Henderson had come up to help her dress and quickly adjusted the hem just as Rachel said she would.
“You look much better,” Rachel said, with the satisfied air of a diagnosis confirmed. “Rest did you well.”
“I slept like a stone,” Anna said, sitting.
“You needed it. Here,” Rachel gestured to the rack of toast. “Eat something.”
“Yes, you must regain your strength today,” the Duke said from behind his newspaper, and it was only then Anna noticed he was there.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” Anna said with a sheepish smile as she sat back in her seat.
“Good morning.” He picked up his coffee and sipped.
“The rose garden is quite neglected, you know,” Rachel started as she took a bite of crisp bacon.
“I could see it from my window when I woke this morning.” Silence grew at the table, and Rachel quickly went on.
“The journey was dreadful, but one expects that. I’ve always said Derbyshire air is superior to London air…
And my book is still in the carriage, I think.
I do hope it is still in the carriage.” A beat.
She reached for the marmalade. “Where was I?”
“I have no idea,” Anna giggled softly, and took a bite of toast.
Across the table, His Grace drank more coffee.
It is, Anna thought, almost ordinary. Three people eating breakfast.
She was reaching for the teapot when his grace set down his cup and looked at her directly.
“I wrote to my attorney yesterday evening,” he said.
Rachel nodded and remained silent, letting him have the table, as Anna poured herself a hot cup of black tea.
“I’ve explained the relevant particulars.
The manner of the marriage, the absence of consummation, the question of consent.
I have asked him to advise on the most discreet path forward and expect a reply within the week.
” He held her gaze, his brown eyes softening almost imperceptibly.
“He is trustworthy. He has handled more complicated matters for this family without issue.”
Anna set down the teapot then. “Thank you,” she said. She still needed to find a new way to say thank you. “I know the situation is…I know it is not straightforward, or convenient, or—”
“It is not,” he agreed, without making anything particular of it.
“But it is workable, provided we are careful. The key will be ensuring that Birchall has no grounds to contest the annulment before it is filed.” He looked at her steadily.
“That means remaining here and hidden, out of his reach, until the process has begun.”
“I understand.”
“Good.”
Rachel looked between them both. “Is there anything I can do? For the… the attorney, or the—”
“No.” The Duke stood, folding his napkin.
“The best thing you can do is ensure that Miss Cartwell is comfortable here and that the household continues to run as it ordinarily would. See to the gardens, your reading.” He glanced at Rachel briefly.
“Normal activity. No reason for anyone to find anything out of the ordinary. Understood?”
Rachel nodded, and the Duke rose to his feet, giving a curt nod. Without another word, he was gone, and the door settled quietly behind him.
Rachel immediately turned to Anna with her eyebrows raised. “He has a way,” Rachel sighed, “of making a room feel both more organized and less inhabited.”
“He is trying to help,” Anna said. “I am grateful beyond words.”
“Yes,” she said, her eyebrows still clearly raised, and poured Anna more tea. “He is.”