Chapter Two
The carriage crested the last rise, wheels rocking against the rutted, frozen road.
Inside, Pearl, Lady Gravely drew her daughters closer on the narrow seat, tucking the younger’s hand beneath the folds of her own gray wool pelisse.
Neither girl complained of the cold or the fierce wind outside.
Susie, dark-haired and stubborn as her late father, watched the passing trees with detachment.
The younger, lively Alice, tried to follow the passage of a crow through the pale sky.
Milly, their young governess, stared wide-eyed out the window at the approaching building.
The moment the estate’s housefront broke through the trees, Pearl’s heart stuttered against her stays.
Rettendon Abbey was both exactly as she remembered and, somehow, more imposing for its familiarity.
She saw the dark slab of the front door, the broad, formal sweep of steps, the clutch of staff already assembling as the carriage thundered closer.
The estate was changed from that long-ago summer—so many decades and lifetimes behind her now—when she, Percy, and Victor last walked her across the pond bridge.
The trees had grown, of course. The grounds seemed leaner in winter, but the approach remained the same, a slow, measured unfurling of order and power, the kind men built and women merely visited.
Susie’s hand moved almost unconsciously to grip Pearl’s forearm. “We’re nearly there, Mother,” she whispered, as if afraid her voice would shatter the moment.
Pearl made her mouth curve in what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Indeed. Do remember to address Her Grace as ‘Your Grace’ until she tells you otherwise. And Alice—”
“Yes, Mama?” Alice’s boots swung in rhythm with the carriage’s shudder.
“No pinching. No matter how much your sister annoys you. Lady Rettendon has never tolerated—”
“A lack of discipline. I know, Mama. I shall behave, I promise.” Alice’s face, which could not help but betray every thought, shifted from mock gravity to giddy anticipation in a breath. Pearl pressed her lips to the top of Alice’s bonnet, then squeezed Susie’s hand once.
The carriage pitched to a halt. A footman yanked open the door.
Cold rushed in, hard and clean, smelling of smoke from the Abbey’s hundreds of grates.
Susie was the first to descend, her movements careful.
Alice stumbled a little, righted herself, and squared her shoulders in imitation of her sister.
Pearl followed, one gloved hand gathering her skirts.
She felt the eyes of the staff on her and in that moment, she was again the vicar’s daughter, an impostor wearing her beauty and her borrowed name as armor against the world.
The Duchess of Rettendon waited at the threshold, her formidable girth draped in velvet and furs.
The years had been kind to her, not diminishing her in the least. If anything, the old lioness had grown only more splendid with age, the white of her hair an explicit challenge to any would-be rival matron.
“My dear,” the duchess intoned, her voice a contralto that seemed to vibrate the very air, “how very good of you to come. I know it must have been a trial, with the girls, and in such weather.”
Pearl bent her head in something between a curtsy and a bow. “It is an honor to be received, Your Grace. The journey was perfectly tolerable. My daughters have been looking forward to your hospitality with the keenest anticipation.”
“Have they?” The duchess’s eyes flicked to Susie and Alice, weighing them as she might a brace of pheasants on market day. “And which is which?”
Susie stepped forward, performing a curtsy, her gaze never dropping. “I am Susie, Your Grace. And this is my sister, Alice.”
The duchess’s smile was thin but not unkind. “Good bone in the older one,” she murmured, as if Pearl could not hear. “And the younger will break hearts by the dozen. I hope you have the fortitude for it, my dear.”
Pearl almost said, “I have little choice these days,” but instead, she replied, “They are my greatest consolation, Your Grace.”
The girls looked at her, Alice with open delight, Susie with a more wary skepticism.
Pearl felt a flick of old guilt. It was easier to play the role of the serene widow than to confess the chaos that sometimes swallowed her whole, particularly at night, when even the most perfunctory company was gone and she could not escape her thoughts.
A throat cleared from inside the hall.
Victor stood at the far end of the marble vestibule, half in shadow, his posture so rigid he might have been carved there to guard the family crest over the fireplace.
In the dimmer light, his hair seemed almost black, though she remembered it as dark brown with an occasional glint of copper.
His eyes, even from a distance, found hers and held. The force of it was almost physical.
He inclined his head in greeting. Not a smile, not even a hint of one, but a silent recognition.
Her own lips parted as if to answer, but nothing emerged.
The last time she had seen him—really seen him, not glimpsed across a ballroom or read about in some gossip column—had been nearly twenty years ago.
The afternoon he came to tell her of Percy’s death was another matter entirely.
Grief had made them strangers in their own skins.
Pearl forced her attention back to the duchess, who was already marshaling the staff into a flurry of purposeful movement.
Cloaks were whisked away, trunks taken upstairs, and Alice’s bonnet, perpetually askew, was gently but firmly righted by her governess with a motherly touch.
The air inside the Abbey was thick with the mingled scents of pine boughs and lemon wax.
Pearl surveyed the entryway as she entered. The hall was alive with Christmastide splendor. Evergreen garlands draped the stair rails, red ribbons knotted with near-military precision. Between the two windows, a stag’s head looked down, majestic and unblinking.
Alice tugged at her mother’s sleeve, whispering, “Will we see the peacocks, do you think?”
Pearl brushed her cheek with a gloved hand. “If the snow permits, darling. But first we must greet our hosts properly.”
The duchess drew Pearl aside for a private word. Her eyes softened, just for a moment, as she surveyed her old friend’s face. “How are you, truly?”
Pearl let the question settle. “I manage. The girls give me purpose. They force me to go on.”
The duchess nodded, lips pursing. “You have done well, Pearl. Percy would have been proud. Victor is much changed, as you will see. The years have not made him softer. If he is brusque, forgive it. The house weighs on him.”
Pearl nodded. She didn’t say that it was the very quality that once drew her to him, before life made such things impossible. She kept her daughters close as they followed the duchess.
The duchess settled into a chair as if she might never need to rise again in her life. She gestured for them to sit. “Do be at ease,” she said, though her tone made clear that ease was an aspirational quality, not an immediate state.
Alice was quickest to comply, flinging herself onto a spindly chair and setting it to creaking as she swung her legs.
Susie sat on the settee, composed as ever, hands folded and eyes flicking between the adults.
Pearl herself perched at the settee’s edge, back impossibly straight, as if the least deviation would precipitate a slide into disgrace.
Victor entered with that peculiar grace men acquire when every room is a potential battlefield. His glance paused on Pearl before settling on the fire, where he stood, one hand braced on the mantel, as though he might need to steady himself for whatever came next.
After the usual polite small talk, Her Grace asked, “Pearl, have you considered what you will do, now that your mourning year is nearly up?”
Pearl’s hands gripped her saucer. “We are to remain at the dower house. The trustees are… generous, and there is no need to disrupt the girls’ routines.”
The duchess’s mouth pursed. “You could always do better. There are connections yet to be made in Town. And you must think of your daughters. Two beauties in one household—why, it will be open season for fortune-hunters.”
“I am well aware,” Pearl said. She tried to smile, but it felt like something she had borrowed from someone else. She didn’t know whether Victor was listening, or if he had simply learned to exist in rooms where his name was a chess piece, moved by other hands.
Alice fidgeted. Susie, bored with the adult back-and-forth, studied the spines of the books lining the shelves behind the duchess.
Pearl suppressed the urge to scold her for inattention, but then Her Grace said, “Why not take the girls upstairs? The nursery has been prepared—there’s even a new doll’s house. ”
Alice’s eyes widened. “May we, Mama?”
Susie was already half-standing.
Pearl nodded. “Yes, but mind you thank Her Grace before you go.”
They chorused their thanks, then vanished after the waiting governess, leaving a sudden, lopsided quiet in the room. The duchess watched after them fondly.
Pearl tried to breathe. Without her children as a buffer, the drawing room felt smaller, the air denser. She noticed the seams of her gloves, the faint tick of the clock, the way Victor’s reflection flickered in the polished brass of the fender.
Victor finally spoke, not to Pearl, but to his mother. “You’ve done well bringing them here.”
The duchess shrugged, the gesture making her look younger, almost girlish. “It is the right thing, Victor. One does what one can for old friends.” Her eyes shifted slyly to Pearl. “And it is the season, after all.”