Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“Then you know as much as we do, dearie,” said Cloris. “He boxes, he trains horses, repairs and builds carriages, that sort of thing.”
Ana considered these manly pursuits. A dead end. She thought of another dead end she’d encountered in unraveling the mystery of the duke. “Does the duke know anyone named Janet? Or Laurel? Or Kitty? Have you ever heard him mention anyone by those names?”
“Can’t say as we have, Your Grace,” Cloris said. Agnes clucked in agreement.
So much for the list of names. Who the devil were these women?
Ana had thought about them enough to give them personalities, like characters in one of her books.
Kitty was a coquette, Laurel was a busybody.
Janet was the worst, a real hard-headed tyrant, ordering an uncharacteristically docile Dex about the bedchamber.
She had to get a handle on her imagination. Thinking about Dex in another woman’s bed, giving her those whispered commands, made her stomach lurch. He’d explicitly told her to forget about the list of names, warning that it held no meaning that concerned her.
After a stretch of silence, the maids stopped alongside her and bobbed curtsies. “We must be running along, Your Grace, with your permission,” said Agnes.
“We’re delivering baskets of food and sundries to the widow Miller, in Darbyton, to the east,” continued Cloris, picking up the thread. “She’s feeling poorly again, and the duke says we are to look after her.”
Another good deed. Add it to the pile of mysteries. “He must have a fondness for her. What is the connection?”
“His Grace doesn’t say and we haven’t asked. He just says run along and tend to her whenever she’s ailing. She gets the nervous headaches, she does. Hasn’t been the same since she lost her husband in the war. Almost lost her house, too, until she came into some money unexpectedly.”
“Ah!” cried Agnes. “I just thought of something, Cloris, we are silly old things. We do know a Kitty, indeed we do. I’m a fool not to think of it sooner.”
Ana felt her legs go numb, rooted to the ground. “Who is she?”
“Why, it must be the widow Miller. Katherine’s her Christian name, but she was Kitty to her husband, sure enough, I heard her say it, and must be so to the duke as well. How droll! You ask about a Kitty and we are off to see the very one. Would you like us to pass along a message?”
Ana thought quickly. She was dying to know more about the woman.
But what could she say that didn’t sound dreadfully awkward and upsetting?
Are you or have you ever been my husband’s mistress?
Why is he lavishing baskets of food on you?
By all accounts, the woman was unwell and pining for a departed spouse.
She would think about it and revisit the subject later, Ana decided, perhaps pay the widow a visit on her own.
“No, that’s fine. Goodbye! Have a pleasant journey. ”
“Goodbye. Mind you don’t get lost in the hedge maze!” And they took their leave, sensible black cloaks flapping in the breeze.
Ana continued along, lost in thought. She reached the hedge maze, with its neat springy green walls, and entered, taking turns at random.
Kitty Miller. The same sensation of being elbowed in the ribs by a distant memory she’d felt earlier in the day nagged at her again.
Miller. There had been a Miller in her father’s company!
In Dex’s company. She’d written him a letter, addressed somewhere .
. . she couldn’t remember, would have to check.
Was it Darbyton? Could it have been? Kitty Miller. Widowed in the war. It must be.
She pictured the list she’d copied out at the War Office, a handful of names and titles, addresses flung across the countryside.
Miller, Merrick, Harrison . . . Alcox! There had also been an Alcox in the company.
Tessie, Kitty. Alcox, Miller. The lists hung side by side in the air in front of her mind’s eye.
Her handwriting, cramped with grief, the duke’s dark scrawl.
They were the same list, seen from different angles.
The duke had hired Tessie at some point not so long ago.
Her father must have been in his company, and he was obviously taking care of Sergeant Miller’s widow, too.
Janet and Laurel—they must be surviving family members of other compatriots he’d lost. Probably experiencing generous strokes of good fortune by the duke’s machinations, their financial concerns taken care of, no longer alone in the world.
She could place herself on that list as well.
Another good deed, or five, for the pile.
At this rate, he’d achieve sainthood before too long.
The thought brought a smile to her lips, Dex in martyr’s robes, a halo crowning his dark head.
She’d solved one of the enigmas of this man she was married to.
She’d find the perfect time to tell him she’d solved one of his mysteries.
He couldn’t hide his kind deeds from her.
She’d won a minor battle in the war, he would have to acknowledge it.
And maybe, seeing how futile it was to remain so opaque in the face of her determination, open up about other things.
She was at this point rather lost in the maze, she realized.
She’d reached a dead end somewhere close-ish to the center, was surrounded by unyielding green.
She took a seat on a low stone bench facing the farthest wall and listened to a thrush trill a thrilling song from somewhere nearby.
Fitting, she mused, to be contemplating Dex’s closed-off nature in the setting of a maze.
She let the wall of green hedge fill her vision, quieting her mind.
Suddenly, fantastically, a rabbit leapt from seemingly thin air onto the grass in front of her.
Where had it come from? One minute, greenery.
The next, a gray, flop-eared little ball of fluff, regarding her calmly over its twitching nose.
She stayed still. It stayed where it was for a long minute, then turned and hopped back toward the wall.
Then disappeared. Into the wall. Around the wall.
A false dead end! She could just make out the cleverly concealed threshold if she squinted her eyes.
She leapt to her feet and followed, squeezing through the narrow gap that allowed entrance into a brief grassy corridor—then out into the heart of the maze.
It was a lovely spot. Quiet, still, forgotten by time and humanity. Overgrown rosebushes ran riot in every direction, mixing with sweet-smelling banks of lavender, thyme, and rosemary. A multi-tiered fountain with sweet cherubim frolicking at its sides held court over several stone lovers’ benches.
She walked on the cobblestones to its edge and ran her hands over the mossy marble.
The barest trickle of water flowed from spouts set at intervals, and its various drains were choked with weeds.
There was a statue at the center, an impossibly beautiful and stately goddess, barely discernible under a patina of moss, with stars carved in her hair and long flowing robes that sank into the stagnant water.
A greening copper plaque lay at her feet.
For my Celestia
The stars be always thine
The date beneath was just before Dex had left for the war.
Ana started, feeling as if she’d been shoved by invisible hands.
All the air was gone from her lungs. She felt it in her bones, the deep importance of this forgotten place.
This neglected shrine to someone named Celestia.
Who was she? More importantly, who had she been to Dex?
The woman he had loved, obviously. If so, why had they never married if he’d seen fit to gift her with such a grand gesture of his devotion?
The statue’s blank eyes seemed to lock onto Ana’s.
She backed away, skirts catching on the wild herb tendrils that reached out to her.
The only corner of the duke’s estate not militantly groomed and managed.
The wildness terrified her. What could it mean?
She hurried back around the false wall and began to laboriously find her way out of the maze, hindered by a swarm of questions nipping at her like gnats.
Solve one mystery, uncover nine more. It was a hydra-headed conundrum.
Open a door only to discover a hall full of closed ones.
It took her twice as long to find her way out of the maze as it had to reach its center, but she persisted, grimly forging forward, doubling back as necessary.
She emerged finally, breathless and panting.
She would persevere. And win this war. She wouldn’t stop until she’d opened every last lock and thrown wide all the doors in her way. I will solve this, she thought. The inaccessible duke would open up to her. Failure was not an option.