Chapter Thirteen #3
“Oh, and this is lovely! I just adore green but cannot wear it without looking like a corpse.” The dowager thrust aside the gown in question and continued rooting through Katie’s garments.
Katie met Becky’s stunned gaze as Betje enthusiastically riffled through the contents of the trunk Becky had opened.
How was it possible that this tiny, flighty, loquacious woman was the mother of a man who hadn’t uttered as many words in the last two weeks as Betje had in the past two minutes?
As she watched the other woman taking such obvious joy from pretty things, she couldn’t help thinking of her own mother. If the Countess of Addiscombe had ever shown such unfettered excitement for anything in her life, she certainly had not seen it.
Katie had been morbidly fascinated by her husband’s normally impassive face, which had exhibited a veritable storm of emotions—none of them good—at the sight of his mother. She had the distinct impression that the dowager was not supposed to be at Briarly.
Betje suddenly looked up from the trunk.
“Oh, dear! Look at how badly I’m behaving.
Just like a naughty child rooting through your things.
No wonder Gerrit is so horrified to find me here.
What must you think of me, Katie?” She fluttered toward Katie and dropped onto the settee beside her, her small body shoving up against Katie just like a friendly kitten.
“I think you are delightful, Betje,” she answered truthfully, looking down into a pair of warm sky-blue eyes that were so very, very different from Dulverton’s.
In fact, other than their fair hair—although her husband’s was a white, rather than golden blond—Katie could see no resemblance at all between the two.
“I could not resist snooping as you have such pretty things.” Betje’s girlish gurgle of laughter should have sounded incongruous, but Katie found it irresistible.
“I can already see that you are kind as well as lovely,” the dowager said, patting Katie’s hand.
“I cannot tell you how delighted I was when I heard Gerrit was not marrying the girl my brother selected for him.”
“Your brother?”
“My brother is Bas van Renesse. He and Lady Palmer have been scheming to foist one of the de Heeckeren girls on poor Gerrit for years.” Her face puckered into a scowl. “I despised their mother when I was a girl.”
Only now did Katie hear the other woman’s faint accent, reminding her of the tradition of taking Dutch brides.
“You do not mind that I am not Dutch?” Katie asked.
Betje gave one of her charming burbles of laughter. “Goodness, no! I am delighted. Just delighted. Gerrit is already so stuffy that the last thing he needs is a terrified, obedient, convent-bred Dutch wife.”
Katie gave a startled laugh. “But aren’t you Dutch?”
“Yes, yes, I certainly am.” She nodded vigorously.
“If you will excuse me for saying so, you do not seem, er, stuffy.”
Betje laughed. “No, no, no. Not at all. My father had to chide me to within an inch of my life to stifle my exuberance when he brought me to England all those years ago to meet Boon for the first time.”
“Boon?”
“Gerrit’s father.”
“What an unusual name.”
“It is quite common back home. Poor Boon.” Betje clucked her tongue.
“The two of us were married all right and tight before he discovered the unfortunate truth about my gregarious nature.” She laughed again, but Katie did not think it was amusement she saw in her Delft-blue eyes.
“Ah, well.” Betje suddenly leapt up. “Why am I rabbiting on so when you must be parched and exhausted? I must ring for tea. I am such a scatterbrain that I should have already—” A tap on the door interrupted her chatter.
“Come in,” the dowager called, evidently forgetting it was Katie’s room.
A maid entered bearing a heavily laden tray.
Betje clapped her hands. “Look at that. Cranston knew what you would want before I could even tell him.” She lowered her voice and said in a confiding tone, “Fortunately for your comfort, Cranston is very wise.”
Katie wanted to remind the woman that she had been the one to suggest the tray when they had arrived, but the faint smirk on the maid’s face stopped her.
There were strange currents in the house, and she suspected the duke’s mother was at the root.
Dulverton certainly hadn’t expected her.
Or at least he hadn’t told Katie that she would be here.
“I will leave you to relax,” Betje said once she’d overseen the placement of the tray.
“Won’t you stay and take tea with me?” Katie asked. “There are two cups and—”
“No, no, I mustn’t. You will need your rest and Gerrit will want to speak to me,” she added, more to herself as she fluttered toward the door.
“Will there be anything else, Your Grace?” the pretty, dark-haired maid asked Katie, her eyes sliding curiously to the trunks that were scattered about.
“No, thank you. That will be all—what is your name?”
“Nora, Your Grace.”
“Thank you, Nora.”
Once the door had closed, Katie turned to Becky, who was waiting for her with wide eyes.
“Have you ever heard the like?” Becky marveled, shaking her head in wonder as she moved toward the tray and began to prepare the tea.
“She is certainly an original,” Katie said, pulling the pins from her hair and letting the heavy tresses fall with a groan of relief.
“She seems nothing like His Grace.” Becky put two lumps of sugar and some milk in a cup before handing it over to Katie.
Katie gave a mirthless laugh. “No, she is not. Take tea with me,” she ordered, prepared for an argument. But to her surprise, Becky merely nodded and fixed herself a cup.
Katie massaged her aching scalp as she inspected her chambers. “This is very pretty,” she murmured, her eyes lingering on a lovely painting of a meadow that looked so realistic she could almost smell the wildflowers.
“How odd that His Grace has never occupied the master’s chambers,” Becky said, taking a sip of tea before setting down her cup and saucer and returning to the trunk she’d been unpacking before Betje interrupted her.
Katie had been surprised to hear that, too. She knew Dulverton’s father had been dead for at least twenty years. Had Betje made the decision to move her son’s things to the master’s chambers, or had he? Something told her it had been the former.
She wandered the generous suite with her cup and saucer, examining what were surely new blue silk hangings and a lovely blue and cream Aubusson rug.
Floor-to-ceiling windows ran along the north side of the room, and she pushed aside the heavy cobalt blue drapes to gaze out at the moonlit landscape.
Her room overlooked a parterre garden which was magnificent even at night.
Beyond that was a deer park that was bordered by a rather magical-looking wood.
Movement caught her eye, and she squinted. A man on horseback emerged from the woods and galloped toward the house. Katie recognized her husband long before she could see his face.
Where in the world had he gone at this time of night?
Or, more likely, who had he gone to see?