Chapter 8
Owen had not meant to respond in the way that he had, but he had to go to the library before she could.
He had forgotten all about the issue, therefore had not told Mrs. Forsythe to handle the matter. He cursed himself for the oversight, for it had led to him speaking unkindly to his wife, but he would mend things with her later.
For the moment, he had to hide some things.
They were in the same section of the library as the historical documents.
Owen did not know why he had kept them, for he truly did want to be rid of them more than anything in the world.
They were a reminder that he did not want to have, and they taunted him, but it was a betrayal to Lydia’s memory if he threw them away.
Young girl passes away aged fifteen.
He wished he had not glanced at the headline. He wished he had simply taken the articles and papers and moved them out of the way, but he owed it to Beatrice not to remove any of the papers she wished to see. Their home had an extensive history, and he wanted her to learn about it.
He also wished to know more about it himself, for he had not paid any attention to it before.
He piled up the books, shuffling the papers into a pile ready to hide away in the attic.
It felt unfair to Lydia, but he had to keep her life and death away from his wife.
It was a conversation that he did not wish to have, not for a long time at least.
“Here you are,” he said brightly when he returned, presenting her with the documents he had put aside and meant to share with his wife.
Beatrice’s eyes lit up at the sight of them, and she took them gratefully with no mention of his behavior before. He was thankful for that, because there was no way that he could explain it without having to talk about why his reaction was so strong.
“There is so much here!”
“You shall have to dedicate your entire day to it,” he agreed. “Which is just as well, because I am needed in town. I am seeing a friend, and I will not be home until tonight. Do not wait for me at dinner.”
“Oh. I was rather looking forward to… never mind. Enjoy your day.”
He hesitated. A part of him was also looking forward to spending time with her, but he had already arranged the meeting and could not change it. He thanked her, leaving the household.
He was to visit his friend’s home and could have brought her with him, but he was positive that his friend’s wife would be absent and so there was little for her to do there.
“A married man,” Lord Stanton announced, raising his glass as they sat in his study.
“It is a shame that you missed the ceremony,” Owen replied, taking a drink. “I hardly knew anyone.”
“Well, had we been given more than a few days’ notice, we might have been able to. Unfortunately, it is difficult to arrange for a trip when there are five children to bring along.”
“Of course, and you would never leave them alone with your dear wife.”
Lord Stanton pulled a face, and Owen laughed. Lady Stanton was not the most pleasant lady that Owen had ever encountered, and he could not say in good faith that his friend was particularly happy in his marriage, but she was an incredible mother and that was all that mattered.
“To be fair,” Stanton mused, “I did attend your first wedding ceremony.”
“Yes…well…” Owen was not sure how to respond to that, so he merely took a small sip from his drink.
Lord Stanton, ever the tactful companion, deftly steered the conversation back toward safer ground. “My wife had so many questions about your bride, and I have been unable to answer a single one, for I do not know anything about her. I suppose that you do not, either?”
“I know enough. She is kind, and she has moments where she speaks her mind but other than that she is timid and soft-spoken. She is passionate about our household, too, and is reading about the history of it as we speak.”
“That is hardly surprising. Your home is fascinating.”
Stanton swirled his brandy around his glass a few times, watching it before looking back at Owen.
“Does she know about her?” he asked. “Lydia was not much older, after all. They could well have met.”
“She has not asked, and I have not said anything. My father kept her loss as guarded as possible, as he did not want the spectacle to follow, and so she is another lady lost tragically young to… was it pneumonia in the end?”
“A flu,” Stanton corrected. “Do not tell me that you did not even learn of that?”
“I wanted nothing to do with it. I know what happened. I– I was the one who found her. I cannot bear the thought of lying about how we lost her, which is precisely why I do not talk about her at all.”
“You have some growing up to do. Do you not think that your new bride will learn of your sister eventually? What will you do when she stumbles upon her old room and sees that it is untouched?”
“Her room is off limits and located in my wing of the household. Beatrice was not taken there during the tour, and she will know better than to search my wing. I have thought of everything.”
Everything with the exception of the papers, that was.
“Even so, I would hate to keep such an important secret from my wife. She would be furious.”
“Your wife is made furious by anything and everything,” Owen joked. “Besides, there is nothing for Beatrice to be angry about, for she will never know. I trust that you will not do anything to jeopardize that.”
“Of course, nor will my wife. She hardly knows anything as it is, and miraculously she is one of many who believe it truly was a sickness, and not one of those many other theories.”
Owen grimaced at the thought. There were several, and yet none of them were the truth.
Some claimed that she had run away, others that she had fallen from a window.
The worst was murder, but those suggestions were few and far between because it was well-known how much Owen adored her, as did their parents.
She was the perfect sister and daughter, taken away far too soon, and though Owen knew she had been the one to walk out of the house that day alone, he shouldered the blame.
He should have stopped her, taken her by the shoulders and marched her inside.
Owen could have locked Lydia in her room and made sure she was taken care of properly.
But such wishes and dreams were fanciful and fruitless.
At the time, of course, he was only a boy himself, and there had been nothing that he could do to stop her. She had always been fiercer than him.
“So, when will we meet this wife?” Stanton asked. “You should come to dinner. It would be an opportunity to see her around children, too, for I assume that you will want an heir eventually.”
“It is something I will be considering eventually, yes, though not for a long time. Dinner would be wonderful, as Beatrice will be able to meet your wife and possibly make friends.”
Both gentlemen chuckled, knowing what would happen. Nobody was good enough for Lady Stanton, and so it was better if another couple was invited alongside, so that Beatrice would have someone to engage in conversation with.
“I shall invite the Dentons,” Stanton nodded. “Lady Denton is more accepting of newcomers, and she will like to hear of the history your wife is learning.”
“Excellent,” Owen agreed. “Next Thursday, perhaps? I will be going into the village the day before, and I intend to invite Beatrice to accompany me. She needs to meet the people there.”
“Then next Thursday it is. Be sure that she is prepared for my wife, for she is a lot to handle as you know. I would hate to frighten the new Duchess.”
Owen thought back to the taller friend of Beatrice that he had met, foxlike and intense, and knew that she would be perfectly capable of handling Lady Stanton.
All the same, when he returned to his home that night, Owen thought about how he would explain to Beatrice that she was to meet a lady who would not like her, and that it would be no fault of hers but simply how the lady was.
It sounded ridiculous, but that was who Lady Stanton had become since marrying her husband.
Lord Stanton was incredibly wealthy, and when he chose her, it was because she did not care whether he had money or not.
Then, once she became accustomed to the lifestyle, she changed, or at least that was what his friend told him.
She wanted more expensive gowns, more lavish balls, everything always had to be bigger and better and there was no stopping it, for Lord Stanton could always afford it.
Owen wondered, as he laid in his bed, if that would happen to Beatrice.
She was a sweet lady, but she had asked Owen about his finances, and once they had settled into their lives it was entirely possible that she would change in the same way that Lady Stanton had.
It was his final thought before he fell asleep.
When he woke up, he went to breakfast wondering if Beatrice would already be there. He took his seat, and she joined him shortly after. She seemed tired, and he wondered what she had been doing in his absence.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “You seem as though you have not slept.”
“That is because I have not,” she smiled, “but I am perfectly happy. You see, once I began reading the papers, I could not stop. There were so many of them, and each one is about a different family.”
“Ah, so you could not stop yourself?”
“Precisely. The stories were fascinating, although one thing caught my eye in particular. It was so heartbreaking.”
Owen raised an eyebrow, curious about what she had learned. To his knowledge, there had not been anything of that nature left in the stack of parchment, but then he had only paid close attention to removing the letters and papers regarding Lydia.
“It was about some girls who lived here,” she explained. “They all passed young, having suffered from various illnesses.”
The hairs on the back of Owen’s neck stood on end.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, one died of pneumonia, another from sweating sickness, and another from the flu. It is most unsettling, and it had me unable to sleep.”
Owen was silent, clueless as to what he could possibly say. He knew the truth; that what she had seen had nothing to do with random girls from throughout the history of the household. These documents must have been about Lydia and in his haste, he had regrettably missed putting them aside.
“Fascinating,” he said at last. “In other news, we have been invited to dinner by my friend next week. I have accepted, of course.”
“How lovely,” she said with a smile. “Was he at our wedding?”
“No, he was home with his wife and children, which is what I must speak to you about. Lady Stanton is someone to be wary of, although she might be very nice to you when you meet.”
“I see. Do you not trust her yourself, or is it known to many people?”
“Most of the people she meets agree that she is a strange lady. She is highly judgmental, and she will undoubtedly say something that is meant to offend, but you must not listen to her. Her opinion means very little to me.”
He could already see that she was uncomfortable, shifting in her seat. He expected her to decline and say she preferred to skip the dinner if that was true, but she never did. Instead, she straightened, tilting her chin up.
“Very well. I am to be a duchess, and that means handling difficulties. This will be a good first task, and if all else fails I have you there.”
He admired her tenacity.
“There will also be the Dentons present, and they are lovely. Lady Denton will be a good friend to you, and if Lady Stanton says anything too unkind then she will be there to defend you. My friend likes them a good deal.”
“Then there is no question that we will go. I am rather looking forward to it, though…”
“What is it?”
“Are my dresses enough, do you think? I like them, but it might be wise for me to have one gown befitting a duchess, if I am to see a lady who is judgmental.”
It was perfectly logical, and Owen agreed to have one made for her, but there was that thought in the back of his mind again that she was going to change now that they were married.
It was not an impossibility. She was already becoming more confident.
He liked that, for she needed to change in that respect eventually, but it was all so quick and so sudden that he was uncertain of whether it was a good sign.
Then came the matter of Lydia, and how Beatrice already knew far too much even without being aware of it.
His heart thudded, knowing that he could not keep the secrets from her forever.
He had planned to wait a long time before telling her the truth, because he did not want the sympathetic looks that would follow.
They always came and never left. He was seen as the man with the deceased sister by enough people, and he could not fathom the thought of his wife being one of them.
And so, he would not discuss what she had read at all, other than the simplest parts, and he would find a way to explain the many girls that she believed had died at the same age under different circumstances. Nothing came to mind immediately, but he would think of something.
If he wanted to keep his wife at arms’ length, he would have to.