Chapter 9
Sarah went first to her own bedchamber and gathered up those belongings she needed for the night. Then she walked down the hall to the Duke’s Suite, opened the door, and closed it behind her. Instead of going into the bedchamber, she walked into the bathing room.
Her grandfather had built this addition to Chavensworth.
Long fascinated by all things medieval, her grandfather had raided a French castle, appropriating from it a bathtub that had been hewn from solid rock.
He’d brought it back to Chavensworth and had it erected in this room, on a wide platform atop a series of steps.
She lit a few beeswax candles, brought three of them into the bathing chamber, and stood for a moment marveling at the faint, almost indiscernible scent. The flickering light from each candle, such a small yet perfect illumination, caused the stone to glow golden.
This small thing, lighting a few beeswax candles, reminded her that she did not often spare touches of luxury for herself.
The bathtub was massive, a rectangular shape heavily carved around the edges with a pattern that had always reminded her of a Grecian key.
She turned the tap to allow cold water to pour into the tub.
Her father’s house in London had hot-water taps, but here at Chavensworth there had never been enough money to install a boiler.
When the tub was half-filled, she left the chamber, glancing at the clock on the mantel as she walked to the door.
Just as she had ordered, two footmen stood there, each bearing a hot water urn in each hand.
“Good evening, Lady Sarah,” the taller one said.
“Very punctual, Jamison.”
He smiled, which wasn’t an approved response, but she didn’t chastise him for it.
Instead, she stood by the door as the two young men deposited the urns in the bathing chamber and returned.
She closed the door after them and returned to the side of the bath, where she emptied three of the urns into the tub.
Only then did she undress, taking care to place her clothes in a tidy little pile on the pediment beside the steps.
Naked, she mounted the steps and put first one foot into the tub, then the other, sinking down into the warm water, wishing she had some scented bath salts.
Another touch of luxury, but one she could not afford.
She laid her head back against the hard stone, wondering as she did each time she bathed in this room about the inhabitants of that faraway French castle.
Who had they been? Who had used the stone tub before?
Had they only taken pleasure in a luxury of being clean?
Or had they mulled over their lives as she was doing right now?
She sat up and bathed her face, reaching for the dish of soap. After soaping her feet and ankles, she made her way up her body with diligence and precision. Habits were a reassurance.
She wrapped her arms around herself and bent forward and laid her cheek against the top of her knees.
When she wept, when she allowed herself to do so, it was often here, where no one could see her tears or hear the sound of her sobs.
No maids would interrupt her solitude. No servants would think to enter the Duke’s Suite without express permission.
Tears, however, would not come tonight. They were pushed aside by annoyance and perhaps just a tiny bit of curiosity.
She had not wished for a husband. What did she care that he’d abandoned her so quickly? Perhaps he was not returning after all. Perhaps he had gone straight back to London, to tell her father that the bargain was not well-done. He did not want to spend the rest of his life with someone like her.
Where was her husband? And just how long was she not to worry?
She lathered her hands and began to wash her shoulders.
Her right hand slid down her left arm to her wrist, then back up again.
Her muscles hurt from lifting the heavy feather beds, but the work was healing.
She didn’t have time to think or to worry during the day.
Only at night, when her activities ceased, did the thoughts cascade into her mind.
Her left hand soaped her right arm. After lathering her hands again, she began cleaning her breasts. He wanted to see her bare breasts, did he? Was that why he’d left her? Because she’d not played the harlot?
They were quite nice-looking breasts, if she had to judge. A little on the large side, perhaps, but they didn’t droop. The nipples were pink more than coral, and tended to point upward, like now. She brushed soap on one experimentally, then smoothed it over the crest of her breast.
Was she supposed to feel wicked?
Her chest was simply part of her, like her nose or her ears. She didn’t feel anything unusual when she placed her finger on the tip of her nose. Was she supposed to feel something different when touching her chest? Well, she didn’t.
Would she feel something different if he touched her? As if she would let him. Good heavens, did he want to suckle her? What on earth would she do if he did? Why on earth was her heart racing?
She stared at the far wall. Perhaps it was a good thing her husband had left. Better he abandon her than she abandon her good sense.
Sarah hadn’t had time to visit with the carpenter today, so when she finished her bath and returned to the bedchamber, she looked at the cot in resignation.
Her husband was not here. For that matter, she had no idea if he was going to return. Why should she sleep on that uncomfortable cot? Why should she even sleep in the Duke’s Suite at all? She could be just as happy in her own chamber.
She told herself that, but her feet did not make the journey to the door. She’d learned early in her childhood not to disobey. Still, who was Douglas Eston to order her about? The answer came swiftly enough: her husband, legally acquired, if not morally so.
Very well, she wouldn’t return to her own chamber. But she wasn’t about to sleep on that miserable cot, either. Instead, she would be the one to sleep in the ducal bed tonight.
Sarah walked to the door and took the precaution of engaging the latch, just in case her husband did return. He would find the door barred against him, an indication of her displeasure, if nothing else.
She removed her dressing gown and arranged the folds of her nightgown so that when she sat on the edge of the bed, it wasn’t twisted around her legs.
In truth, there were times when a nightgown seemed almost a strangling garment.
Once or twice, she’d even thought of what it might be like to sleep entirely naked, without clothes of any kind.
Now, that would truly be decadent, and decidedly wanton.
Still, it was a thought, a temptation to which she’d almost surrendered once or twice.
At the last moment, however, reason always returned.
What if Margaret summoned her to her mother’s bedside in the middle of the night?
It would not do for Lady Sarah to be thought of as immodest and abandoned.
She sat on the edge of the bed and dangled her feet. A moment later, she leaned over and extinguished the lamp on the bedside table.
In the gap between the curtains, she could see the pale moonlight.
She slid from the bed and opened the curtains wider until the room was bathed in a bluish white glow.
She bent and opened the windows, not believing the night air noxious.
The lavender fields perfumed Chavensworth’s air even in spring, and the early-blooming roses added a note of fragrance of their own.
Chavensworth was silent tonight. She wished she could hear something, anything, other than this unearthly quiet.
Even the owls’ calls seemed muted, and she couldn’t hear the sound of the foxes in the nearby woods.
Birds were normally silent at this time of night, but she found herself straining to hear them nonetheless.
Nor were there any sounds from inside the house. Normally, she could hear a snatch of conversation as a footman would pass another in the hall or the faint, far-off, sound of laughter.
Sarah returned to the bed, sliding her feet beneath the covers.
She laid her head on the pillow Douglas had used the night before.
Even though the sheets had been changed—there were sufficient linens in the press that she’d given the order that sheets were to be changed each day—she could smell him.
He was not here, but somehow it felt as if he occupied half the bed. Annoyed with herself, she rolled over and stretched her hand across the expanse of sheet until she felt the edge of the mattress. There was no one there. Not even the ghost of Douglas Eston, wherever he was.
Did he chafe under the restrictions of marriage? Was there someone in his life whom he loved? He’d married Sarah simply for expediency’s sake, and had come close to admitting that to her. Did he regret it now, enough to leave her?
How very odd that he seemed to have a presence even when he was gone. Once more, she found herself wondering where he was.
She lay flat on her back and stared up at the tester above her head, now only a dark shadow. She knew that her family coat of arms was embroidered there, but she couldn’t see the delicate needlework in the darkness.
It was time for her prayers, time to implore the Almighty to look after her mother, to bless Chavensworth, to grant Sarah the wisdom to adjudicate those disputes falling to her, and to help her care for those within her keeping. Her prayers done, she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep.
Five minutes later, she sat up, punched the pillow into shape, and lay back down again.
Tomorrow was going to be another busy day; she needed her rest.
Why was the mantel clock so loud?
She rolled to her side, bunched up the sheet beneath her chin, and stared into the darkness.
As a child she’d always loved the dark. It seemed exotic, somehow, an exciting land only as far away as extinguishing her lamp.
She had never been frightened of the idea of monsters.
There was, actually, nothing quite as frightening as the Duke of Herridge when he was angry.
Any other monster simply paled in comparison.
In the dark, almost anything could happen.
Chavensworth could become an enchanted fairy castle.
She could be its princess. Or it might be a foreign land, someplace she’d only read about in books, or heard of in stories her mother told.
The dark always seemed to be safe, surrounding her like a warm, soft, woolen blanket.
Sounds were more entrancing in the night. Scents seemed stronger, more powerful.
She’d never before considered that emotions might be heightened in the darkness as well. She was never lonely, never had an occasion to be lonely. Then why did she feel adrift now? She did not feel so much connected to Chavensworth as simply within it.
Very well, she was lonely. Even more disconcerting was the fact that it felt almost painful.
Was this what marriage had brought her? The sensation of being truly lonely, the experience of feeling abandoned?
Ever since her two disastrous seasons, she’d given no thought to marriage.
Oh, when she’d first gone to London, yes.
She’d entertained romantic notions of suitors.
More than one handsome lord had attracted her attention, but all for naught, as it turned out.
None of them were acceptable to her father.
Not one. They didn’t have enough money, and the one man who’d been wealthy enough to be acceptable to the Duke of Herridge ended up offering for another.
And so, she’d been put back on the shelf, until the following season, at which time she was dusted off, dragged away from Chavensworth, and paraded among London’s elite once more.
Thank heavens her father had refused to pay for another season.
Nor had she allowed herself to think about a potential husband since that announcement.
Instead, she’d busied herself with those tasks that occupied her days.
There were always things to do, chores to accomplish.
Each day had its purpose. She’d filled her life, given it meaning, one day after another.
She had no need to dream of the future or to wonder about it.
What she did today would need to be replicated for ten years or twenty years or even thirty.
Nothing would essentially change, and in her routine, there’d been contentment.
Douglas Eston had ruined that.
Instead of contentment, now she felt only uncertainty and this curious loneliness that she’d never before experienced.
She didn’t know the man, and there was no certainty that she would even like him once she became acquainted with him.
Yet irrationally, unbelievably, she found herself thinking about him.
Where was he? What was he doing? Why was he doing it? Was he safe?
Why did she care?
What if he came back while she slept? What if, somehow, he unlocked the door and came to the bed? Would he touch her? Would he place his hands on her, divest her of her twisting nightgown? Would he disrobe her in silence, expose her to the cool night air?
Would he be able to see in the dark? Would his eyes have been so accustomed to the shadows of night that he could discern her shape?
Or would he touch her with his hands, his fingers, sliding over the curves of her shoulders, down her arms to rest at her wrists?
Would he press his fingertips against her breasts and cup his hands to measure their fullness?
And through it all, would he whisper decadent things, shocking things to her?
Or would this perusal of her be done in silence, as if the darkness demanded it?
It was all his fault, of course, that she couldn’t sleep. Not only was he not there, and he should very much be there since he’d married her, but he’d set into motion all these thoughts by saying what he had last night. Dear heavens, was it just last night?
I want to see your breasts.
Oh. He had said nothing about touching her. Those had been her thoughts alone. Now, that wouldn’t do.
She sat up again, punched her pillow once more, then flounced back on the bed, drawing the sheets up to her chin. She closed her eyes, determined to fall asleep and dream of pleasant things, and not of Douglas Eston.