Chapter 3 #2
He gave some thought to teasing her from her mood, but he didn’t know enough about her to gauge her sense of humor or what she considered amusing.
All he knew for certain was that the Duke of Herridge was a cruel and overbearing tyrant, and she carried so much pain in her eyes that when he’d first looked at her, he’d felt some of it.
He studied the documents from his case, finding himself quickly wrapped up in the formulas he’d written the night before.
His new carriage was remarkably smooth riding, and he didn’t experience the usual disconcerting dizziness when trying to read.
To this day, however, he couldn’t read aboard ship.
The rolling waves made him ill, and since he’d spent a decade traveling the world, his illness was a remarkable waste of time.
For those journeys, he’d employed a secretary, the young man’s main task to transcribe Douglas’s thoughts and musings so time itself wasn’t lost. Not that everything he thought was a gem of wisdom.
However, substantial progress had been made on a new astrolabe, the advancement resulting from a single question he’d posed after dinner one night.
He glanced over at Sarah. She studied the stars. Was that an idle boast? She hadn’t spoken of a telescope. Did she even know what a telescope was? He decided he wouldn’t test her knowledge. If she’d been boasting, he didn’t want to embarrass her.
The ceremony linking him to the Duke of Herridge’s daughter had been mercifully brief. He knew, however, that if he pressed his memory, he could recall the words, just as he could remember the listless sound of Sarah’s voice repeating the vows.
Sarah. A commonplace enough name, and one that garnered little attention.
Not unlike his bride. Still, there was something about her that intrigued him.
Not wholly, but slightly, as if it were a whisper of sound beneath a greater quietness.
Some difference that incited him to watch her without seeming to do so.
Was she given to long silences? Or did she, when freed of her father’s influence, laugh with abandon? He doubted the latter because her mouth fell naturally into somber lines. Yet there were faint lines at the corners of her eyes tempting him to believe she was amused often.
“Shall I commission a sculpture of me?” she suddenly asked. “Doing so will allow you to study my features with greater freedom. You needn’t be pressed to pretend otherwise.”
He smiled. “Why should I want to study a statue? Stone can’t reveal what flesh does, either in character or mood.”
She turned her head and looked directly at him. He abandoned the pretense and studied her openly.
“Very well, what have you gauged of my character and my mood?”
“I wouldn’t presume to discuss either,” he said, burying his smile. “I do not know you well enough. However, I do anticipate the journey of acquaintanceship.”
She looked as if she wanted to say something but then thought better of it.
“What were you about to say?”
She raised one eyebrow but didn’t answer.
“Have you always been so imperious?” he continued.
The second eyebrow joined the first.
“Have you always been so…direct?” she asked.
“Do you think so?” He leaned back against the seat, his papers forgotten. “Is it direct to want to know what my wife is thinking?”
She looked away, her attention on the landscape. “A ceremony occurred, Mr. Eston. It may convey the title of wife upon me, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve accepted it.”
“A month?” he asked. “A year? Or less? When do you think you might be able to accept it? Or will you be able to at any time, given that you’re a duke’s daughter, and I’m a mister?”
“I am not disdainful of others,” she said.
He didn’t reply.
She turned her head and regarded him with a frown.
“My antipathy to this situation is not personal, Mr. Eston. I do not dislike you. I do not know you. I dislike being pressured to marry, but my main concern is not suddenly having a husband. My thoughts are with my mother. It has been three days since I’ve seen her, and I frankly do not know if she has survived in the interim. ”
“Forgive me,” he said, a moment later. “I allowed my sentiments to overcome the facts of the situation.”
Her frown deepened, but she didn’t respond.
He returned to his papers but discovered that the formulas written there didn’t capture his attention as much as they should have. He flipped open the curtain over the window and studied the passing scenery instead.
“Good God,” he said, staring off into the distance. “What is that?”
He wanted to tell the driver to halt, to allow him to study the surprising view.
Instead, he remained silent as the carriage climbed the top of the next rise.
Here, the scene was even more improbable.
An arched bridge reminding him of structures in Italy spanned a roaring river.
Behind it, as if protected by the river itself, sat a house.
No, a castle. No, perhaps a combination of the two.
Three stories tall, of pale yellow stone, it was dominated by a white marble pediment stretching up to a roof surrounded by a railing and adorned with a series of statues.
“What is that?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.
“That, Mr. Eston, is Chavensworth.”
“It’s the size of a mountain,” he said. A two-story wing sprouted both on the left and the right of the larger section of Chavensworth, each wing disappearing into the forest of trees forming the house’s backdrop.
“Hardly a mountain, Mr. Eston.” A small smile formed on her lips.
“Chavensworth has always been one of the most famous of the stately homes of England,” she said, her tone back to being that of a duke’s daughter.
“Thomas Archer worked on the plans, and the waterworks in the gardens have survived two hundred years. The north front, the public entrance, of Chavensworth dates from the fourteenth century, when Sir Matthew de Baines was given license to crenellate.”
“And you cannot bear to be parted from it.”
She turned her head and regarded him again. Surprise rounded her gray eyes, but what was the reason for the sudden blush on her cheeks?
“It’s my home,” she said simply.
“People deserve that type of love, Sarah. Not structures.”
There was that look again, the one that prompted him to lean forward and place his hand on her knee. She flinched, but he didn’t relent.
“Right this moment, tell me what you’re thinking. It doesn’t matter what it is. Tell me.”
“You haven’t the power to command me to speak, Mr. Eston.”
“That’s a start, Sarah.”
“I have been in your presence exactly one hour, Mr. Eston. Bits of minutes gathered up together that probably totals one hour. Add this journey, and it’s two, perhaps nearly three. You have no knowledge of me.”
Nor would he, if she had anything to say about it.
The carriage rolled through the gates of Chavensworth.
Tall bushes and feathery trees sat amidst a closely cropped lawn sloping down to the river in the front of the house.
In the rear, a road led to the rest of the buildings of the estate, and the stables.
Chavensworth was set among prosperous farms and dominated the countryside like the regal house it was.
The placement of the many windows and large doorway always made it appear as if the house were smiling, and anticipating her return.
Sarah concentrated on the approach. The winter had been one of ice storms, and the road was pocked badly, necessitating that the gravel be replaced.
The paint on the shutters needed to be retouched, and the landscapers needed to finish smoothing out the winter mulch and removing the muslin from the smaller of the rosebushes.
The change of seasons always resulted in a myriad of chores, and by the time all the tasks were done, the seasons were changing again.
She made a mental list of things needing to be done as the weather warmed, not simply to take her mind from the man still watching her too closely but to keep her from thinking of her mother.
Still, a prayer crept into her thoughts.
Please, dear God, let her be well. Let her have wakened.
Let her be eating again. Let her recognize me.
She wished she’d thought to have hay spread across the gravel, but then, she hadn’t known how loud the wheels would sound.
The carriage rolled to a stop, and she took a deep breath.
Her husband was quite chivalrous, exiting the carriage before her and turning to hold his hand out to assist her down the folded steps. She took his hand and schooled her features so no one could see how much she feared the approaching moments.
After fluffing her skirts, and surreptitiously arranging her hoops, she straightened her shoulders and began to walk up the broad steps toward Chavenworth’s front door, praying as she went.