Chapter 20
The young girl—Sarah was uncertain as to her actual position in the household—led them to a grand marble staircase that would have dominated any other structure, even Chavensworth. Kilmarin, however, was like a giant beast, and this marble-and-mahogany staircase seemed its spine.
Sarah kept her hand firmly in Douglas’s, telling herself it was only for balance. Unfortunately, she had to release his grip when she needed to pull her skirts up slightly in order to navigate the stairs.
“The family sleeps in that wing,” the girl said, pointing to a corridor lit by candelabra. Instead of heading to the left, toward the family wing, she turned right, to the rooms evidently set aside for visitors.
Very well, let Donald Tulloch consider her a visitor. She wouldn’t be remaining at Kilmarin long enough to feel slighted.
The girl stopped halfway down the corridor, opened the door, waiting for them to enter.
Douglas stepped to one side so she could precede him, and for once she wished he wasn’t so chivalrous.
As if he knew how loath she was to enter the room, he grabbed her hand again, and smiled at her, such a tender smile that her heart ached.
“I’ll have the lamp lit in a moment,” the girl said. “It’s a fine and dreary day, isn’t it?”
True to her word, the space was illuminated in only minutes. Had she not been trained so assiduously in decorum, Sarah might have gasped aloud at the sight that met her eyes.
This was a suite, not merely a bedchamber.
The sitting room was predominantly blue, the silk of the walls matching the upholstery of the two sofas arranged in front of the fireplace.
Between them was a low mahogany table with carved legs ending in lions’ paws.
A lamp sat at the end of each sofa, and another on the table beside the window, next to a high-backed chair and footstool.
A small bookcase next to the chair was filled with gilt-edged books.
“It’s the Queen’s Room,” the girl said. “One of our finest chambers.”
Perhaps she’d misjudged her grandfather after all. If Kilmarin showed its unwelcome visitors this beauty and comfort, she could only wonder at the rest of the castle.
She walked to the entrance to the bedchamber.
The bed was massive, oversized, as was all the furniture in the room.
Each piece of furniture was heavily carved, the relief stained a deep greenish blue, nearly the shade of Douglas’s eyes.
Gold curtains hung at the bed and the skirt of the vanity.
An intricately detailed gold screen sat half in front of a closed door—a bathing chamber?
The counterpane was white, but in the center, heavily embroidered in gold thread, was an unusual crest, dominated by the figure of a wolf, stalking, its nose low, its jaws agape. Hardly amenable to dreamless sleep.
“Does Tulloch mean wolf in Gaelic?” she asked.
“Actually, it means hill,” Douglas said from behind her.
“Shall I give you an hour, miss?”
She turned to face the young girl.
“An hour?”
“Donald eats supper early,” the girl said. “I’ll be back in an hour to take you to the dining hall.”
Before Sarah could think of a reason to refuse, she was gone, and Sarah was left staring helplessly at Douglas.
“It’s only a meal, Sarah,” he said, his tone absurdly kind.
She nodded.
“It’s only a meal,” she repeated, but that didn’t make her feel appreciably better.
Douglas began to change out of his wet clothing.
Not behind the gold screen, or in the room behind it, which did turn out to be a bathing chamber.
Instead, he simply peeled off his clothing, acquired a towel, and wrapped it around his waist. All done with the unselfconscious actions of a human who knows he’s quite attractive.
“Have you always been that way?” she asked, grateful to have a subject to discuss other than her mother or grandfather.
“What way?”
“Comfortable with being naked. Especially in front of a stranger.”
He folded his arms and regarded her, the expression in his blue-green eyes one she couldn’t decipher.
“I wouldn’t consider you a stranger, Sarah. It concerns me that you do.”
Perhaps this wasn’t a good topic of conversation after all.
She turned and walked to the bureau, removing her bonnet with its lone wilted feather. It had begun the journey so perky, and now it looked so bedraggled. While she couldn’t have said that the journey was begun with any perkiness on her part, she felt the same.
Those blasted tears were back. She blinked them away furiously, wishing that she’d been given her own chamber. If she had, she would probably have succumbed to a bout of weeping and felt better for it.
“You will get through this,” Douglas said, coming up behind her and placing his hands on her shoulders. Slowly, he drew her back. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to rest against him.
“You will get through this, Sarah. But you won’t get past it. You will always grieve, in your way, for your mother. You will always miss her. If I had the power of God, I would take away your grief, but in doing so I would have to take away your memories. Would you want that?”
“No,” she said softly. “It’s just so hard. How did you bear it?”
He pressed his cheek against her hair and didn’t quite answer her. “One day you’ll smile, then you’ll find yourself laughing. But the moments will always come when you remember. You’ll feel her loss forever, all the while you’ll know you were blessed by being loved.”
She was so tired, tired of fighting the pain, tired of being strong. Douglas wrapped his arms around her, and she turned her head, laying her cheek against his chest. For long moments they stood simply and quietly together.
Finally, Sarah pulled away, conscious of two things. Douglas was nearly naked, and she liked touching him.
She busied herself by investigating the bathing chamber.
The copper tub was a beautiful piece of art, deeply embossed with thistles and roses along the edge.
Two sets of taps sat on the edge, and when she opened one, she was shocked to find that hot water ran through it.
Evidently, Kilmarin had a boiler—more than Chavensworth could boast.
The drain in the bottom of the tub led to a series of pipes, and she could immediately see that the system was the same as at Chavensworth. She couldn’t help but wonder if they had the same problem of the drains occasionally becoming clogged, but when she mentioned it to Douglas, he only laughed.
“You are not the chatelaine here,” he said, “and you needn’t worry.”
“I know,” she said, “but habits die hard.”
He smiled at her, and she looked away. That was another thing she should caution herself about—she was becoming habituated to his smiles.
She had even grown to anticipate them, if not to encourage them.
She’d never been overly adept at womanly wiles, at least those practiced in her two London seasons.
She couldn’t flirt coyly, and she was abysmal with a fan—she kept knocking it against objects and people, or dropping the silly thing.
She didn’t bat her eyelashes prettily, and she really wasn’t interested in playing to a man’s vanity.
But Douglas brought out something in her that she’d never before identified, a certain wantonness of spirit.
She’d begun to think errant thoughts, improper thoughts, but that wasn’t the only sign that she was skirting impropriety.
Her body seemed to know when he was near, as if attuned to him in some odd way.
Her pulse raced, her breath tightened, and her heart beat louder.
Even in the midst of her grief, there was another component to it, something new and different and almost overwhelming.
Perhaps her life would have been so much easier if she’d remained unmarried, but then, what would have happened in the last weeks?
Once, she would have been confident enough to say that she could handle almost any situation, but now she knew there were some circumstances beyond her.
Sometimes, she needed other people’s assistance, and this time had proven that fact only too well.
What would she have done without Douglas?
Had she even thanked him adequately? Had she told him of her certainty that Chavensworth was a better place for his presence there?
Or had she simply assumed that he would know?
She walked into the sitting room, where he stood in front of a now-roaring fire, still clad only in a towel.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?” He turned to face her.
She kept her gaze on his face. “For being here,” she said. “For being at Chavensworth. For being kind.”
“I’d be a poor husband if I wasn’t at least kind to my wife.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
He walked back into the bedroom, and she followed.
Although her trunks had not yet been delivered, his solitary trunk had been, and he opened it now, gathering up his clothing.
“You really need a valet,” she said.
“You say that because you don’t like to see me naked.”
On the contrary, she was becoming quite used to it. Perhaps even anticipating it, actually.
He went behind the screen to dress, and when he returned, he wore a formal white shirt adorned with pins and tucks down the front, black trousers, and black leather shoes with silver buckles. He withdrew a jacket from the trunk and laid it on the rounded top before taking out a leather case.
“Are you going to work again?” she asked, as he walked into the sitting room and placed the case on the table between the sofas.
“Chavensworth has taken a great deal of my time during this last week,” he said. “I need to be about my own business.”
“Not diamonds,” she said.
“Not diamonds. I’m involved in a great many businesses.”