Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
The kitchen was a cavern of cooling copper and fading embers.
The air smelled of toasted flour and the sharp, medicinal herbs as the sun began to set.
Ambrose stood in the center of the flagstone floor, looking entirely out of place in his evening finery, his bruised knuckles still throbbing a dull rhythm.
Mrs. Higgins was already there, moving with the quiet efficiency of a woman who had spent forty years anticipating the needs of a great house. She did not look up as he entered, her focus on a cast-iron griddle.
“Good evening, Your Grace,” she said softly.
“I need something for her,” Ambrose said, his voice hollow against the high, vaulted ceiling.
“I am already on it, Your Grace,” Mrs. Higgins replied. She flipped a crumpet with a deft flick of her wrist. “The girl has been hollowed out today. Hunger of the stomach is one thing, but it is the cold in the bones that’ll do for her if we aren’t careful.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Higgins. Are the boys well?”
“Yes, Your Grace. They had a lovely supper and were happy to enjoy the extra honey.”
“I am glad. They have been so well-behaved. A small treat now and then is good for their spirits.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” she said with a smile.
Ambrose watched as the housekeeper set a small porcelain pot of chamomile tea onto a silver tray. She added a jar of clover honey and a dish of clotted cream.
“She’s a daughter of a peer,” Ambrose murmured, almost to himself, the reality of Lady Presholm’s confession still stinging.
Mrs. Higgins stopped, her hand resting on the handle of the teapot. She looked up at him, her gaze piercing and devoid of the usual servant’s deference.
“She is a daughter of God, Your Grace, and she has the heart of a saint. My late mother used to say that a title is just a coat a man wears, but the character is the skin beneath. Miss Lewis has fine skin.”
She moved to a wooden washbasin and soaked a soft linen cloth in steaming water, wringing it out until it was just damp and hot. She folded it neatly and placed it in a small silver bowl.
“Take this to her, Your Grace,” she said softly, sliding the tray toward him across the floured table.
Ambrose took the tray and looked at the housekeeper, seeing the fierce protection in her eyes. “Thank you, Mrs. Higgins.”
“Don’t thank me for doing my duty,” she grumbled, turning back to the stove to bank the fires. “Just make sure she eats. And for heaven’s sake, Your Grace, wash that blood off your hand before you scare her half to death.”
Ambrose glanced down at his split knuckles and let out a soft curse. He set down the tray and walked over to a nearby basin, scrubbing the crimson as it pooled at the bottom.
“I will take care of that, Your Grace,” Mrs. Higgins said softly.
He nodded once and carried the tray toward the servant’s stairs, the steam from the tea rising to meet him like a promise.
Ambrose turned from the basin, his hands damp, and his knuckles a raw, angry pink, only to find the kitchen door swinging inward once more.
Mr. Jones, the estate’s long-standing butler, stepped into the warmth of the room. He carried a stack of ledgers under one arm, but he stopped short at the sight of the Duke standing over a servant’s tray.
The silence that followed was heavy with the weight of years.
Jones was a man of the old school, a pillar of propriety who had served Ambrose’s father with a stiff back and a closed mouth.
He looked at the silver tray, the chamomile, the honey, the hot linen, and then up at Ambrose’s weary, shadowed face.
“The house is quiet, Your Grace,” Jones said, his voice as dry as parchment. “The boys are asleep, and the staff have retreated for the night. Is there anything you require?”
“No, thank you,” he replied.
Ambrose stiffened, his fingers curling around the edges of the tray. He expected a subtle reprimand or, at the very least, a look of profound disapproval. A Duke did not carry trays to governesses in the dead of night. He did not bleed for them, and he certainly did not let the help see him do it.
“I am taking this to Miss Lewis,” Ambrose said, his tone clipped, challenging him to find a fault in the declaration.
Jones walked forward, his footsteps echoing softly on the flagstones. He didn’t look at the tray. Instead, he reached out and adjusted the small porcelain pot of tea by a fraction of an inch, ensuring it was perfectly centered.
“A wise course of action,” Jones murmured.
He looked at Ambrose then, and for a fleeting second, the professional mask slipped. There was a glimmer of something akin to pride in the old man’s eyes, a look that acknowledged Ambrose not just as a master, but as a man.
“Most men of your station have been concerned with the preservation of their walls and the expansion of their lands. It is a rare thing to see one concerned with the preservation of a soul, Your Grace.”
Ambrose felt the tension in his shoulders ease, replaced by a strange, grounding warmth. “The world would not see it that way, Jones.”
“The world is a very loud place, Your Grace, but it does not live inside these walls,” Jones replied, stepping back to clear the path.
He gave a slight, respectful bow—one that felt more earned than any he had given before.
“A man who protects those under his roof is a man who truly deserves to lead them. If I may say so… it is high time this house had a bit of heart in its halls. Your mother would be proud.”
Ambrose nodded once to Mr. Jones. He picked up the tray, the weight of it feeling lighter now, and turned toward the stairs.
Behind him, he heard the low murmur of the butler and the housekeeper as they began to settle the kitchen for the night, two silent sentinels guarding the secret he carried upward into the dark.
He stood outside Imogen’s door for a long minute, his hand raised but hesitant. He knocked softly.
“Imogen?”
A muffled, choked sound came from within that pulled at his heartstrings.
He pushed the door open to find her sitting on the edge of her bed, still in her damp cloak, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles were white.
She looked small, stripped of the poise she usually wore like armor, her eyes fixed on a singular point on the floor.
Ambrose didn’t speak at first. He set the tray on her small vanity with a quiet clink. He took a steaming bowl of water and a clean linen cloth, bringing them over as he pulled the small wooden chair from her desk to sit directly in front of her.
“You’re shaking like a leaf,” he said, his voice a low, soothing rasp. He dipped the cloth into the warm water, wrung it out, and gently reached up to wipe a smudge of mud and a streak of salt from her cheek. “That’s better.”
Imogen flinched at the first touch, then melted into it, her eyes closing. “I am so sorry, Your Grace,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I should have told you of my parentage when you took me in on that very first evening.”
“Please, do not cry,” he said softly.
“But I lied to you every day I sat at your table! I let you believe I was someone I am not. A lie by omission is a lie all the same. Oh, I feel horrid!”
“Tell me now then,” he said gently, moving the cloth to her other temple, his touch as light as a feather. “The whole of it. No more shadows between us, Miss Lewis. Imogen…”
The dam finally broke with the sound of her name on his lips. The words spilled out of her in a frantic, weary rush.
“I never knew the sound of my mother’s voice,” she said softly, her voice barely rising above the crackle of the hearth as she sat in the chair beside it. “She was a dancer. I was told she was the kind who moved like she was made of air.”
“She sounds like a fairy. You must’ve inherited her gracefulness.”
“But she died bringing me into this world, leaving my father with a daughter he hadn’t the courage to claim. At least not properly.”
Ambrose leaned forward, his brow furrowed in the dim light as he handed her a cup of tea. “The Viscount, then. Did he… did he at least provide for you?”
“He did. But in the dark,” she whispered, finally meeting his eyes.
“When the house was sleeping, and the servants were dismissed, he would call me into the library. He’d sit me on his knee and read me poetry or press a sugared plum into my hand.
In those rooms, behind the heavy oak doors, I was his precious girl.
But the moment the sun rose, and the drawing-room doors opened, I became the ward.
A burden. A ghost to be walked past without a glance.
I learned incredibly young that his love was a thing of shadows. Nothing more.”
Ambrose’s jaw tightened, his fingers gripping the arm of his chair. “To keep a child as a secret… that is a particular kind of cowardice. I do not understand it.”
“I didn’t think so, at least not then. I lived for the nights in the library,” she said, a jagged breath escaping her. “They felt special. But when the fever took him when I was fifteen years of age, the library doors were locked to me. He died with my name on his lips, or so the physician said.”
“And your stepmother?” Ambrose asked, his voice hardening.
“Oh, she was Lady Marden then,” she said. Imogen’s hands trembled slightly. “She didn’t wait for the black crepe to be hung. She stood in the center of my bedchamber and watched the maids pile my dresses, the ones he’d bought me in secret, into the hearth. She married soon after, to Lord Presholm.”
“How can this woman become more despicable in my eyes?”
“I can still smell the burning lace. She told me I had been a parasite for years, eating the bread of a man who owed me nothing. My father, if I can call him that, left a small pittance for her to care for me. So, she had to let me remain. Once those funds ran out, she forced me to be her maid.”
“Oh, Imogen,” he sighed, handing her a crumpet. “Please eat.”
She took a small bite, then a sip of tea.
“I wasn’t a ward anymore,” she continued, the sustenance grounding her. “She moved me to the scullery and told me I would scrub the grease from the copper pots until my debt was paid. She thought that by forcing me to my knees in the soot, she’d make me forget I was ever a Viscount’s daughter.”
She looked up, a spark of quiet defiance cutting through the pain. “But I remember the poetry, Your Grace. Even when my hands are bleeding from scrubbing without end. I remember every word. He taught me so much. If only things had been different…I could have really been someone.”
“You have been through so much, I cannot bear it. And you are someone.”
“I have never belonged anywhere, Ambrose,” she said quietly.
Tears finally spilled over, hot and fast. “In my father’s house, I was a mistake.
In Lady Presholm’s, I was a mere burden.
Here… with the boys… it has been the first time I felt respected.
The first time I felt wanted. I was so afraid that if you knew the truth, you would see only the bastard and not the woman I endeavor to be.
I only wish to be of use, to have a purpose greater than myself. ”
Ambrose reached out, taking her trembling hands in his. She looked down at the callouses from her years of work in the Presholm’s scullery, a map of her struggle.
“I would be lying if I said I didn’t wish you had told me sooner,” he said, his voice steady and low.
“I dislike deceptions. But Imogen…” He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers, closing his eyes so he could feel the frantic heat of her skin.
“Blood and titles are accidents of birth. Honor is a choice. You have one of the noblest spirits I have ever encountered. That you survived that woman’s cruelty with your kindness intact is a testament to your soul, not a stain on it. ”
Her breath shuddered, and he squeezed her hands tighter.
“Now,” he murmured, pulling back just enough to reach for the tray. He refreshed her cup of tea, the steam curling between them. He pressed the warm porcelain into her hands. “Drink more. And eat more. I saw the cook making these for the boys, and I stole a plate from Mrs. Higgins. Enjoy them.”
“It is lovely,” she said softly. “Thank you.”
He held out a small plate of more crumpets, dripping with honey and clotted cream. When she hesitated, he broke off a piece and held it to her lips, his gaze demanding she accept the care he was offering.
“You have spent your whole life looking after everyone else, Imogen,” he said softly, watching as she took a small, shaky bite. “Let someone look after you tonight.”
“It is a rare thing for a Duke to take care of a lowly governess.”
“Stop that, Imogen,” he said softly. “In this moment, we are peers.”
She ate slowly then. The warmth of the tea and the richness of the food revitalized her.
As she relaxed, the air in the room shifted. She polished off every bite. The heavy, grief-stricken atmosphere was erased by her full belly. She could feel his gaze on her throat moved when she swallowed.
Suddenly, he set the plate aside, his eyes locking onto hers as she finished the last bite.
“Do you know,” he whispered, his voice thick with a sudden, dark intensity, “that when I saw him touch you, I felt as though the world was ending?”
Imogen set her tea down, her breath catching. “Ambrose…”