Chapter 8
Sybil rushed to her mother’s side the instant she was settled in her invalid chair after having been helped down from the carriage.
It had been several weeks since they had last seen each other, despite the short distance between Riverdale Abbey and Eastlake Hall.
Her invitations for visits had been summarily dismissed by her father, and her calls to Eastlake Hall had been often refused on account of her mother’s health.
Sybil thought her mother looked paler than usual, and perhaps a bit thinner as well, as she bent to embrace her. “It is so wonderful to have you joining us here.”
“My darling child,” her mother greeted in response, arms going around her without the strength Sybil would have preferred. “It is wonderful to see you again. Riverdale was so very kind to fetch me. I’ve missed you so.”
“How are you feeling?” she asked her mother at once, pulling back to search her face for signs of illness. “Have you been sleeping well?”
There was a mottled bruise on her mother’s right cheekbone that she recognized at once. It looked to be several days old, having begun its healing process, and was covered poorly in a fine layer of pearl powder that did nothing to hide what must have happened.
“I have been sleeping well enough,” her mother said brightly.
It was the same sunshine-smothered voice her mother always used to make excuses for her father’s moods and rages.
“Have you been eating?” she asked instead of calling attention to her father’s behavior in the presence of servants, which would have only served to embarrass her mother.
“I have been taking my meals when I’m able,” Mother answered, which scarcely told Sybil anything at all.
A light rain began falling just then, reminding Sybil it wouldn’t do to linger in the air, lest her mother take a chill.
“Come inside, and we shall take our tea before we continue to London,” she said, trying to tamp down the anger rising within her toward her father. “I’ll see to it that some food is brought for you as well.”
At least Everett had rescued her mother.
It was something Sybil had never hoped to do on her own.
Her father never would have allowed it. If she had thought for a moment that the husband who had so coldly abandoned her would have concerned himself with Mother’s plight, Sybil would have confided in him at once.
“To the green salon, if you please,” Sybil directed the footman who had been tasked with pushing her mother in the invalid chair.
They walked over gravel in silence, Mother’s hat keeping the rain from her face.
“Where is His Grace?” Mother asked.
“He is preparing everything so that we can leave,” she explained.
Following their surprise discussion, he had begun arrangements for their departure, taking all the details on himself. She had protested that she happily would, for she knew he must be weary after journeying through the night. But ever stubborn, Everett had declined.
“That is quite kind of him,” Mother said.
Sybil’s smile felt far too tight. “It is indeed.”
Kind was not a word she would have used to describe her husband.
Not in the months since they had wed. She still wasn’t certain why he had taken matters into his own hands like this.
His sense of honor, perhaps? Surely he wouldn’t be so moved by the plight of the wife he plainly did not want and the mother-in-law to whom he had spoken only a handful of times. It made no sense.
But then, nothing ever had when it came to the man she had married. He had been a charming and attentive suitor, and in retrospect, she had wondered if her eagerness to leave her father’s rule had made her overlook his chillier nature.
Their little procession finally arrived in the salon, where a tray of tea and cakes was already waiting. Sybil thanked the footman and waited for him to leave before she began preparing a cup for her mother, weighing how she might approach the subject of the bruise on her cheek.
“It is so good to have you here with me,” she told her mother as she handed off her dish of tea.
“It was good of the duke to offer the invitation.”
“You are to stay with us indefinitely,” she said gently, uncertain of what Everett had said to Mother about the invitation, as she had called his rescue.
“You know that your father will not allow it.”
“He doesn’t have any choice,” Sybil countered sternly, still more grateful than she could comprehend at having her mother out of her father’s clutches. If only Henry could be also.
Perhaps, in time, she might broach the subject with her husband. It was a delicate one, and she still didn’t know where she stood with him.
“Sybil, that is not the way of our world.”
“The duke is more powerful than Father is.”
“I shall enjoy this visit whilst it lasts,” Mother said with a wistful smile.
“It will last forever,” she countered, selecting a cake and offering it to her mother.
Mother accepted the cake but not Sybil’s assertion. “You know it cannot, dearest daughter.”
“I know nothing of the sort.” Now that she had her mother with her, Sybil was loath to let her go. “You shall stay with us for as long as you like, and Father will have nothing to say about it.”
“You know what he is like, Sybil.”
“I do,” she said grimly. “And that is why you must never return.”
“There is something we should perhaps discuss,” Everett said as the carriage swayed over London roads some hours later.
Sybil’s mother followed behind them in the procession from Wingfield Hall, secure in her own carriage at her insistence.
“But I will sleep,” Mother had protested. “I cannot nap if you are there, chattering in my ear. Besides, you should be with your husband, at his side where you belong.”
Sybil hadn’t had the heart to tell her mother that her husband didn’t wish for her to be with him any more than she wished to share a carriage with him. In the end, she had held her tongue and relented, seeing Mother into the comfort of her carriage, her invalid chair secured with the valises.
Everett had been quiet for much of the journey, staring broodingly out the window and pretending as if she weren’t present. Rather like their marriage thus far, she thought bitterly as his words jolted her from her own quiet musings.
Sybil studied him, thinking that even in the lessening daylight and shadows that had fallen, he was unfairly handsome. “What is it you wish to discuss?”
“Your arrival at my town house is going to be something of a surprise.”
She nodded. “That is to be expected. You wished for me to remain at Riverdale Abbey and didn’t make plans for me to join you in London. And you hardly could have predicted we would be bringing my mother along with us as well.”
His abandonment of her was yet a tender subject, one she couldn’t broach without an accompanying twinge of resentment. But she was grateful to him for what he had done for her mother, so she was doing her utmost to contain her hurt and anger.
“Not just your arrival, I’m afraid,” he elaborated, his countenance pained. “But the fact that I am married and you are my duchess.”
Understanding dawned, along with more vexation. Hardly a surprise. The letters she’d had from Alice ought to have presaged such a revelation.
“Your servants don’t have any notion you have a wife?” she asked.
“They do not,” he agreed, inclining his head. “Nor, however, do my mother or my sister.”
His confession did nothing to assuage the band of worry tightening around her chest, making it difficult to breathe. “Your mother and sister do not know you are married?”
“They do not. I had intended to inform them, but I’ve yet to do so.”
The carriage swayed to a halt.
“You are telling me that I’m about to enter a household that has no notion you’re married, from the lowest scullery maid to the dowager duchess, are you not?”
He winced. “Yes, that is what I’m telling you.”
“Did you think to keep me a secret forever?”
“Not forever.” He turned toward the Venetian blinds, peering out them, and muttered a curse. “I’m afraid there isn’t time for further discussion of the matter. We’ve arrived.”
“Splendid.” She pinned a taut smile to her lips. “I’m sure this will go swimmingly.”
“I do think Maman and Verity will be pleased to know I’ve taken a wife,” he said. “Once the initial surprise wears off.”
Verity.
He had a sister, which she had known, but Sybil didn’t recall his speaking so familiarly about her during their furtive courtship. It was a reminder of how truly little she knew about the man she had married.
“What a relief,” she said, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
“You needn’t make me sound as if I’m a monster.”
“I never said you were. I am grateful to you for what you’ve done on my mother’s behalf.”
Just not grateful for his abysmal treatment of her.
“Blast it, woman, I didn’t have the time to tell them.”
She stared at him, wondering how a man so intelligent could also be so thick-witted. “You didn’t have time, during the course of several months?”
He shifted in his seat, guilt edging into his countenance. “I wasn’t yet ready to tell them.”
It would make their impending introduction terribly awkward.
“Ah. I see.” She summoned a bravado she didn’t feel. “Then I suppose we must proceed.”
“I’ll smooth the waters,” he said. “You need not fret.”
But his words of assurance had the opposite effect.
Of course she worried. What would his mother and sister think of her?
Of the unusual circumstances that had preceded their arrival?
Would they not think it strange that Riverdale had been married for over three months before bringing his wife to meet them?
After all, it wasn’t as if Sybil had been on a prolonged journey.
She had been but a few hours from London.