Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
The next morning, the tall clocks in the hallway ticked with a sharpness that grated against the silence and Ambrose’s last nerve.
He stood by the sideboard in the dining room, his hand hovering over the silver coffee pot as his mind dared to wander to the taste of her lips.
He shook it off, picking up the coffee pot and pouring himself a cup.
Bitter coffee should do the trick.
Yet, against his will, his mind began to drift once more. This time, he recalled the feeling of Imogen’s full breasts pressed against his chest, and he froze. The soft swish of a woman’s dress neared the doorway, and he realized the coffee was beginning to flow over the sides.
“Damn it,” he whispered angrily to himself as he grabbed a napkin to dab at it.
“Is there anyone about, Mrs. Higgins?” Imogen’s voice drifted in from the foyer, hushed and urgent.
“If you mean His Grace, he is currently in the breakfast room, Miss Lewis,” the housekeeper replied. “Is something the matter? May I be of some assistance?”
Imogen’s shadow touched the doorway as Ambrose leaned closer, then watched it pivot instantly. “There is nothing the matter, nothing at all, Mrs. Higgins! All is fine. Great. Grand! Splendid even!”
Ambrose’s lips lifted at the corners then, a small smile escaping his mouth as he fought back the sudden urge to laugh.
So, she is as unraveled as I am.
“Very well, Miss Lewis… Is there anything I can do to be of service to the children today, then?”
“Umm… the children and I shall take our tea in the schoolroom today. Yes! Please, bring a tray up later,” Imogen said as she began to walk away. “Then we will take our afternoon walk.”
Ambrose still gripped the handle of the pot, his knuckles white. “Mrs. Higgins,” he called out, his voice dark. “Please come at once.”
The light footsteps in the hall stopped dead.
“Yes, Your Grace?” the housekeeper asked, glancing between the dining room and the shadow hiding just out of sight in the hall with a curious look. “How may I be of service to you, Your Grace?”
“Please inform Miss Lewis that she needn’t hide in the rafters,” Ambrose said to the empty air, loud enough to carry. “If they wish to dine in the breakfast room, I am retreating to the study in a moment. I have correspondence and then business with my solicitor and no time for… small talk.”
A long beat of silence followed. Then, Imogen’s voice came again, but not to him.
“Please, Mrs. Higgins… will you tell His Grace that the children are practicing their choral recitations this morning. It will be quite loud. It would be best if he stayed behind the heavy doors of the library so as not to be disturbed, as opposed to his study in the very same wing.”
“I shall… relay that message, Miss Lewis,” Mrs. Higgins murmured, her brow raised as she scratched her head.
“Oh, and Higgins?” Ambrose added, his shadow lengthening across the threshold, but his feet were staying rooted to the carpet.
“If she requires anything from the larder, see that it is brought to her. There is no need for anyone to cross the main gallery today either. With the work I have, it is best we keep—”
“I’ll be in the schoolroom. Lord Philip!
Lord Arthur! Quickly now!” Imogen’s voice was higher-pitched than usual.
She was not shouting exactly, but her tone indicated that she was slightly harried.
“We have three chapters of Virgil to finish before lunch and then our afternoon walk. We haven’t a moment to spare for anything else. ”
A few moments later, the latch of the library door clicked shut from the west wing. Seconds after that, the schoolroom door slammed shut from the east.
We are behaving like children, Ambrose thought to himself as he set to work, or at least pretended to.
“Come now, boys,” Imogen said softly, leading Arthur and Philip down the secondary gallery toward the gardens for their afternoon walk around the grounds after lunch. “Let’s be quick about it!”
“I’ll race you, Philip!” Arthur shouted as he rounded past her.
“I’ll beat you, Arthur!” He replied as they bounded through the doorway.
“Not too loud!” Imogen ordered, looking over her shoulder.
The air in the garden was crisp, smelling of damp earth and soot, but the boys hardly seemed to notice as they scrambled through the dirt near the garden wall.
“Aha! Look at this one, Philip,” Arthur cried, holding a pebble aloft as if it were a crown jewel. “It’s as white as marble from the Parthenon. Surely that’s the prize for the afternoon.”
Philip didn’t even look up from his patch of mud. “A common bit of limestone? Pish posh! I’ve found a piece of flint over here by the trellis, and it looks exactly like a hawk’s beak!”
“A hawk with a broken nose,” Arthur snorted, leaning over his brother’s shoulder with a squint to take a closer look. “Mine has a proper sheen to it. Yours looks like it fell off a chimney stack during the last gale!”
Philip gave him a playful shove, his eyes darting back to the roots of the ivy. “You wouldn’t know a fossil if it bit you on the thumb. Move your boot. You’re hovering over a prime specimen!”
Imogen smiled for a moment, her heart warm at the sight of the boys enjoying each other’s company and the outdoors. She especially loved hearing Philip be so outspoken with his brother. She looked from the boys over the fence toward Presholm House as a shiver raced down her spine in the cool wind.
“Let’s stroll around a bit, boys,” Imogen said, wanting to distract her thoughts from next door as she turned her back to it.
“I shall find a piece of Roman marble next,” Arthur declared, swinging his small walking stick. “And I shall claim it for the King of France!”
“You can’t name a rock, Arthur,” Philip sighed, though he was grinning as he pulled his scarf tight around his neck to fight the wind.
Imogen smiled at them, her hand resting gently on Philip’s shoulder as they walked. “I think the King of France would be honored by such a tribute,” she said softly. “It is a noble gesture, Lord Philip.”
The wind picked up, whipping a strand of hair across Imogen’s face. She tucked it behind her ear, her gaze drifting involuntarily back toward the iron boundary fence once more.
As long as she lived next door, the specter of her haunted past would follow her. She could not help it.
Beyond the manicured edge of the Duke’s estate sat Presholm House, its grey stone walls looking particularly bleak against the bruised purple of the autumn clouds.
Suddenly, movement caught her eye.
Near the edge of the neighboring gardens, a small, pale figure stood perfectly still. Imogen knew the shape.
It was Julia. The woman wore a heavy velvet cloak of deep emerald, her dark hair tangled by the whipping wind, looking less like a lady and more like a ghost haunting the very ground she stood upon.
A coldness that had nothing to do with the weather settled in Imogen’s marrow. Julia did not acknowledge her presence. She simply watched them with a hollow intensity that made the boys’ joyful shouting feel suddenly fragile.
Imogen froze in her steps.
“Miss Lewis? Look! The King of France!” Arthur cried out, hoisting a jagged piece of wood into the air like a scepter.
The sound of his voice broke the spell. Imogen saw a shadow move behind Julia. It was that of a tall, thin man in a dark frock coat. Lord Presholm. He placed a hand on her shoulder, not in a gesture of affection, but with a firm, controlling grip that steered her back toward the gloom of the house.
Imogen shivered violently.
“Into the house, boys,” she said, her voice snapping with a sudden, sharp urgency. “Now. The wind is turning bitter.”
“But we just got outside, Miss Lewis!” Philip protested.
“Inside, Lord Philip. Lord Arthur, you as well,” Imogen insisted, ushering them toward the side entrance with her hands on their backs.
She didn’t look back at Presholm House, but she could feel the weight of those distant windows watching them.
“We shall have hot cocoa and finish our Virgil. Move along, quickly.”
“Ooh, hot cocoa!” They said in unison, clearly pleased at the offering.
As they returned to the house and rounded the corner toward the grand staircase, the heavy oak door of the library swung open. The Duke stepped out, a sheaf of papers in one hand and his coat half-donned. He stilled at the sight of them, his posture instantly turning rigid.
The air in the corridor suddenly felt thin. Imogen’s heart hammered against her ribs, a rhythm she hadn’t been able to quiet since he had stood so close to her in the schoolroom.
“Your Grace,” Imogen said, her voice a practiced, flat monotone as she dropped into a deep, perfectly executed curtsey.
Keep your head down, just like you always did, she told herself.
She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the polished shine of his leather boots, refusing to look up.
Know your place.
“Miss Lewis,” Ambrose replied, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that seemed to travel straight down her spine.
She felt impossibly cold, so tethered to her past and unsure of the future that lay before her in this place. The man in front of her looked every inch the untouchable aristocrat, his face a mask of iron-clad composure. It was as if she imagined the moment that they dared not speak of.
He didn’t look at her either. She could feel the averted gaze deep in her chest. He turned his full attention to the boys, his expression softening only slightly at the edges.
“Arthur. Philip,” he said, nodding to each. “I trust you are heading outdoors. The air is quite brisk today, but good for the constitution.”
“We were already outside, Uncle!” Arthur shouted. “Miss Lewis said it was time to come in, though, and that we should have hot cocoa and finish our reading. Did you know that even the bravest explorers must read their books?”