Chapter Nine
“Mistress of Cadfael House!”
Mama was in a tizzy, her writing desk strewn with ink and paper and her mind and mouth working like a whisk through eggs.
“Now that you are to marry a man of quality, we must have a much larger affair to celebrate your wedding! We shall not just invite our friends and relations who live nearby, but all of your father’s family and mine. Of course, some of them could stay at Cadfael House.”
“My dear, Sir Edmund is not overfond of company. Let us not foist our friends and relations upon him at so early a stage.” Her father sat calmly, a heavy volume on one knee and his leather-bound notebook on the other. He scribbled away complacently as his wife cantered merrily from one room to another, always returning with some other thought about the wedding arrangements.
“And he shall return tomorrow! Should we not perhaps pay a visit to him at his estate? Rose must see the house she will manage after all. And I suppose you will have to familiarize yourself with managing a larger staff, my dear. A housekeeper and a cook, not to mention the footman and the maids. I wonder how large a staff Sir Edmund employs?”
Rose had sat quietly throughout her mother”s frantic conversation and her father”s calm replies, letting their words fall on her with as little notice as a blade of grass takes of the dew. But now she felt she must speak, if only to remind her mother that Sir Edmund hadn”t changed personalities merely because he was desirous of taking a wife.
“I am sure that Sir Edmund will assist me in learning my wifely duties.” Rose paused and shot a nasty glare at Ivy, who was giggling into her embroidery. “ That is to say, that Cadfael House often stands vacant for months at a time while he travels abroad. We both have expressed a desire to live a quiet life in the country. As long as he gives me some land for my garden, we shall be quite content with each other.”
Lily spoke up, looking up from the piece of piano music she was supposed to be studying. “But how do you know that you will be content with him, Rose? Everybody says that Sir Edmund is never home and doesn”t care for company. How can you tell that he will care for yours?”
“Hush!” Mama waved a frantic hand at her youngest. “Rose is young and pretty. She is not silly, nor given to foolish whims like many young women. She will please Sir Edmund.”
“But she didn’t know him! How can she be sure that he’ll love her?” Lily insisted, not put off by her mother’s clucking.
“Because he is a gentleman of property and good standing. He will be duty-bound to ensure his wife is comfortable and happy.”
“That’s not love.”
“Lily, my darling,” Rose went to her sister’s side and pulled out a simple duet from the stack of sheet music resting on the table next to the piano, “we are not in love—yet. Give things time to grow. Be a patient gardener, and any plant well-tended will thrive and bear fruit.”
Ivy snorted out another giggle.
It pleased Rose to no end that her mother rounded on Ivy with her hands on her hips and a scowl to begin a lecture on deportment.
“Come. Play this piece with me. And when I am married, I shall send a carriage for you every week so we can take tea and play piano, then wander the garden arm-in-arm like fine ladies,” Rose whispered in her little sister’s ear.
“I shall miss you so!” Lily whispered back, hugging her hard around the waist. “But I will like the carriage ride. Will Ivy come, too?” she whispered back.
“Not every time. Sometimes it will just be us.”
“But not right away. You will want to have time just to be with Sir Edmund, Mama says.”
Rose swallowed. Being alone with him was a thought that made her stomach curl into a ball of tension. She couldn”t quite describe the feeling, but she knew it wasn’t the feeling of dread she’d had when anticipating being alone with Captain Bryce. “Yes, that’s true. Oh! You will soon get to call him Edmund, for he will be your brother-in-law.”
“Fancy! And Charles will finally have another boy to play with.”
“So he will.” Rose laughed softly and played an opening chord. “After four, Lily.”
EDMUND SAT IN THE CARRIAGE, leaning back one moment and then rocking forward the next, cane clasped under both hands and his chin resting on top of them in an attitude of intense concentration. As the carriage turned up the steep, winding drive to Cadfael House, he could remain silent no longer. “Jacobs?”
“Yes, m’lord?” The driver turned his head toward his passenger as best he could.
“I have decided to take a wife. I will not be traveling abroad as much—or at all, in the future. I suppose it will depend on her tastes to some extent.”
The driver seemed stunned to silence for a moment, then burst out, “Congratulations, m’lord! That’s joyous news.”
“Unexpected news. Shocking news, you mean. Yes, I suppose it is.”
“It’ll be nice to have you home more often, sir. Cook and the rest will be dead pleased to have a lady in the house. Bit of excitement.”
“I hope not,” Edmund muttered. “You were not here when Lady Catherine was mistress of the estate, Jacobs, but things will not be as they were with her. My future bride is a quiet woman, given to gardening and study.”
Jacobs hesitated a second as if trying to formulate the appropriate response. “That suits you, m’lord.”
Edmund laughed, and Jacobs started in his seat. “You’re absolutely right, Jacobs. That’s just what I said.”
brEAKING THE NEWS TOthe rest of the staff brought Edmund unexpected pleasure. Once his staff got over their shock, they were full of excitement and eager to plan.
Mrs. Taylor, the cook, was following him as he limped through the great hall and over to the library, vying for her attention with Mrs. Brown, the housekeeper.
“Which rooms shall we prepare for the young lady, sir?”
“Have you and your betrothed fixed a date yet, your lordship?” That was Clark, the butler. His voice was still somewhat hollow with shock.
“June is the time for a wedding, I always say. Marry in May, rue the day, but a June wedding would be lovely, my lord.” Mrs. Taylor clasped her hands to her rounded middle, motherly face beaming. “We’ll have such a wedding breakfast, sir, one the likes of which Surrey has never seen.”
Edmund nodded along, his face tightening. When he and Catherine had married, it was a grand affair, clearly meant for her to showcase her gown, her flowers, and the handsome young man she married.
Intendedto marry.
No, he was no handsome prize—not now, and certainly not then. He’d stood leaning on a cane as Catherine sailed up the aisle like an angel—an angel who made it quite clear that marriage to him was nothing heavenly.
The voices around him were missing. Edmund blinked himself out of his old reflections and looked at his faithful servants, most of whom had known him as a young groom, then a young widower, and most recently, a bitter recluse. They were waiting for him to speak.
They should expect nothing but gloom and ashes—but they all seem quite excited.
His voice came out more smoothly than he expected, calm and collected, belying the storm of nerves and disbelief inside of him. “Miss Rose Lycombe is the lady whom I will wed. The banns must be read out three Sundays in church, and if she is agreeable, we could conceivably marry this last week of June, Mrs. Taylor. I expect the wedding breakfast will be as sumptuous as one could wish. For how many guests, I could not say. Miss Rose deserves every luxury a bride could have, but...” he shrugged suddenly and let himself fall back into the comfortable, worn leather chair by the fireplace, a chair he would not part with for love nor money. “She is taking a rather decrepit widower as her husband. Some will say that it should be a small and somber affair.”
“Nonsense, sir. It has been beyond a suitable period of mourning. It is time for new life in the house, and no one will begrudge it. Nearly a month,” Clark mused. “That’s enough time to prepare the house. The rooms for your wife, sir?”
Wife. Wife.
Edmund let his chin droop to his folded hands atop his cane again. “Would it be proper to give her Lady Catherine’s old rooms?”
There was a delicate pause from Mrs. Brown, who then asked, “Her rooms when she first arrived, sir, or the ones at the—at the end?”
For a moment, pain smacked him, slicing open a scarred-over wound. “The ones she first used. They are near my own. And Mrs. Brown—I know you are used to running this household. I suspect Rose will accept your suggestions readily. It is Mr. Allen she will likely frustrate.”
“The gardener, sir?” Mrs. Brown frowned. She was a trim woman with brown hair in a severe coiled bun worn neatly on the back of her head. Though she looked formidable, Edmund had always found her very quiet and devoted to his needs. Edmund thought she would assist Rose in her new role—one he could not believe she’d accepted.
“Yes, the gardener. Send Allen to me when he’s near the house. He is to take his orders directly from my wife in the future. The garden and grounds are hers to do with as she likes.”
If Edmund caught his faithful retainers looking at one another, he didn’t remark upon it.
“Very good, sir.” A perfect chorus, and then they were gone, their modulated voices giving orders to footmen and housemaids, creating a swelling sea of noise around him while he sat on his little leather island.
“What have I done?”
I don’t quite know.
But... I’m happy. It’s odd. Unfamiliar. But yes, I daresay that’s what this feeling is.
Edmund ignored the paperwork on his desk and even ignored the nagging thought that he ought to make sure Bellerophon was back in the stables and that the blacksmith had been called.
Instead, he went to Catherine’s rooms—the rooms she’d had at the very end of her life.
THE ROOM WAS CLEAN, looking expectant as if some new occupant would soon rest on the snowy bed with its dark crimson cover and lush hangings, and some fair maiden would take a seat at the dressing table lined with powders, perfumes, and more. A well-bred lady didn’t use such things, or so he’d heard, but Catherine was fond of them. She often received them as gifts.
Gifts from who?
Years too late to be jealous, you fool.
He supposed he had always known they were trinkets from the men she flirted with.
She wore their scented gifts, but his modest collection of jewelry was never displayed. She wore her betrothal ring and wedding band, and the diamond-studded combs with the gold backing.
Was it me she was spurning, or my simple taste? What good is it to dress like an empress out here in Starkstead or Puddlesby? Edmund moved slowly into the interior of his late wife’s room. There were pockets of Surrey that were more metropolitan, certainly. Some might even be called fashionable in a modest way, but the parishes of Starkstead and Puddlesby were distinctly agrarian.
He had qualms about the propriety of giving the family jewels he had bestowed upon Catherine to Rose.
“And I have no idea where they are...” he muttered, looking at the dressing table and writing desk.
It was remiss of me not to have found the jewels and put them away for safekeeping. For all I know, some housemaid pinched them years ago.
A knot formed in his stomach. His mother had a very pretty garnet ring, red like a rose, and all he could think of was how it would look on Rose’s finger. He’d never seen Catherine wearing the small, simple stone.
He opened the drawers around the room and in the grand old wardrobe. It was still full of Catherine’s dresses. Some faint, imagined scent of her perfume assaulted his nostrils and brought back confusing waves of grief and relief.
Emotions that I have no business feeling.
Perhaps it was the anger at the unwanted pangs that made him jerk the drawers out more hastily, slamming them back more sharply than was necessary. The bottommost drawer stuck, then slid out completely, landing with a clatter on his good foot. “Blast it!”
“My lord? Are you all right?” Rushing footsteps soon yielded the sight of his valet, who was quite elderly now, but who had served him unshakably since adolescence.
“I’m fine, Walters. I’m sure you’ve heard the news.”
“I did, sir! It was a surprise, but a pleasant one. I confess I was quite put out with myself that I was not present when you first arrived so I could have heard the news directly from your lips, but I took personal charge of your horse.”
“That’s quite right. You and the groom are the only ones I’d trust with him, especially with his limp.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Well, then. How are you keeping? How was Bellerophon in the smith’s opinion?” Edmund sat on the bed, rubbing his foot.
Walters bowed. “I am well enough, sir. As for Bellerophon, the smith is attending to him as we speak. He seems only slightly lame. The groom says a few days of rest without any rides or exercise will see him right. I am sorry I wasn’t able to attend you during your overnight stay with the Lycombes—but it seems as if you were well looked after.”
“I was, indeed.”
“Very good, sir. My lord, I was given to understand by the footmen and housemaids that Mr. Clark had directed the suite of rooms adjoining your own to be prepared for your future wife. Miss Rose Lycombe?”
“Yes, Walters. No, no, I’ll manage it.” Edmund held up his hand to prevent the elderly valet from retrieving the drawer.
“Then, my lord, may one inquire why you are—erm—rearranging this room?” Walters asked with a mild cough into his fist.
“I was hoping to find some jewelry of my mother’s, Walters. You know I haven’t ventured in here since... No. There was no point.”
“I see, sir. May I help you with your search?”
“No, no. Go and draw a bath, lay out one of my good suits for the morning, and see that I have paper and ink in my room. I’ll be writing to the vicar of St. Ann’s directly.”
“Very good, my lord.”
As Walters shuffled quietly away, Edmund knelt, taking a momentary pride that he could still do some physical tasks on his own, like riding, bending, and struggling to put the long, heavy drawer back in the wardrobe. He supposed he really ought to have Mrs. Brown pack everything of Catherine’s up in terms of her clothing and toiletries.
But not the gems. Those were my family’s, and she... She wasn’t proud to be a Locke, after all.
The painful realization was nothing new, but it was very clear.
It might have been his newly “opened” eyes that were so keen, or his clear head, fresh with happiness, or simply the fact that he’d never ventured into Catherine’s rooms after her death—but whatever the cause, Edmund suddenly noticed that one drawer was not filled with soft, lacy undergarments, but instead had a few items placed over something with neat, thin lines and square edges.
Clever place to hide a jewel case. Edmund reached under the smooth, white fabric and frowned when his fingers found a stack of envelopes.
Instantly, Edmund realized that the letters he’d found were secret. Meant to be hidden.
But why? Why are these not for my eyes?
He turned the stack over. They weren’t bound with ribbon like some precious set of love letters. They were not in any handwriting he recognized.
“Other suitors? From before we were wed, I’ll be bound. Vanity, I suppose, to keep them, but—” Edmund’s murmur died away as he realized several of the envelopes bore her married name and title—Lady Catherine Locke.
It felt wrong to look at her letters, to invade the walls that Catherine erected around herself, walls he and his disappointing leg and quiet attitude could not breach.
Walls he had resented during their marriage. Walls that were covered with creeping vines of suspicion, jealousy, and doubt.
It will do no good to pry. She is long gone, and I cannot ask her about the contents. Some innocent correspondence, no doubt. Catherine craved attention and admiration, but she was always—
The thought dwindled. What had Catherine been constant in? Her affection? No. Her wifely devotion? Or duties? No.
Not that he made much of a case for her to give him her attention. He had not dissuaded her from balls and flirtations.
Or affairs?A dark, malicious voice inside his mind hinted.
Jealousy spiked and stabbed, those creeping vines of doubt seeming to seize his hands. He slid a letter from its envelope.
I must know. I may give myself more questions than answers, but I must know what this says, and who it’s from.
Edmund’s eyes scanned the letter, noting the signature was simply “L” and the note was addressed to “My Dearest C.”
That was very intimate. Edmund reassured himself that the note could have been from a woman or a man, but after skimming its contents, the sharp, masculine lines on the paper and the discussion of a trip abroad for business led him to think it was from a male correspondent.
One letter gave way to another, then another. His eyes seemed magnetically drawn to certain phrases.
Long to see you again.
You make me heedless.
Meet me as you did last time.
Edmund swallowed hard, feeling winded despite sitting still.
They could all be simple matters of interpretation. They are not all signed from L or P or any particular author.
Is that more or less concerning?
Another envelope, another note. He could picture Catherine secreting them away, trophies that she must not display like the stags and mallards on a hunter’s wall. The tone of the letters was decidedly flirtatious, but that didn’t mean anything. He could understand, even excuse these harmless words on paper—to some extent.
She was unhappy. She expected a life with a young, healthy man who would show her off at balls and the theater, who would let her turn his home into the site of endless summer house parties.
Instead, she got a stiff, bitter man still learning to walk, still learning to deal with the pain, learning to ride again, learning to do everything again—or for the first time as in the case of being a husband and a lover.
I did so poorly that she allowed herself to smile and beguile, turning men’s heads, lapping up their flattery.
Edmund put the papers down, ignoring the slight shaking in his fingers. He had much happier things to think of. Rose. A wedding. A garden where she would spend her days and he would look out from his study and see her content. She would wave. He would smile. Marriage would be different this time. Edmund stood and swayed for a moment before resuming his search for the jewels.
They were not in her wardrobe. Perhaps the small, shapely writing desk with its cunningly carved springs and sprays? It had been his mother’s, and it was fitted with cunning little shelves and drawers on the sides.
Opening the central drawer, Edmund stopped short.
Another letter, tucked under one of Catherine’s. Hers was unfinished.
She must’ve been taken ill while writing. She never recovered. Never thought to hide it—or perhaps it is nothing to hide.
Pride goeth before a fall. I wonder what curiosity goes before?
Well. I shall find out.
Edmund picked up the note, somewhat relieved to find it only took up a few lines. The author did not gush over his late wife’s charms, thank goodness.
But the words were far more damning.
I received your note, and though I will be at the ball at Pennington’s, I will be with Miss H., whom I am to marry in a few months’ time. I beg of you to say nothing of our previous encounters. If it is in your power to avoid the ball, I would ask you to do so if for no other reason than I am a former friend you held in some esteem.
Do not try to convince me down that path again. ‘Twas a sin and error on my part, but I say doubly so on yours.
I do heartily wish you and Sir Edmund all the best. May he continue his steady recovery and soon have lasting health.
I remain, sincerely yours,
F.
With cold fingers, Edmund turned to Catherine’s reply, hoping for some innocent explanation.
His hope was in vain.
You will not preach reconciliation and redemption to me. You may pretend to be pious on paper for I know your Miss H is the ward of a bishop. If it weren’t for her coffers, you’d be well willing to slip into mine.
I call you a coward. I say to you that you are weak, even more so than poor Edmund, who at least is learning to ride again and may one day be worthy of the title of “husband.”
Still, I will not leave you fretting over the ball. I have found one who suits me far better and does not creep about. He
The letter ended abruptly. Edmund supposed she had been interrupted.
It didn’t matter now.
“My lord? Are you—”
Edmund looked up, mouth slack.
Walters was standing in front of him, his lined face wrinkling further in worry. “My lord? What is it?”
“It is nothing, Walters. I haven’t found the jewels yet, but I must go. I... I fancy a cup of tea by the fire. I’m suddenly quite cold.”
“I hope you are not ill, sir.”
I am beyond ill.He clutched the letters to his chest and tottered violently in his haste to grab the others he’d found. In a frenzy, he pulled open all the drawers in the desk and the wardrobe, yanking them out and slamming them back if they were empty. Any scrap of paper he found immediately went into the pile of delicately penned refuse under his arm.
“My lord, please. Let me assist you.”
“I do not wish to be assisted,” Edmund snarled. Words raced out of his mouth as his leg gave way. He fell to the chair beside the vanity with a cry, papers flying and floating to cover the handsomely woven rug on the floor.
Walters hastened to pick them up, his eyes moving in the way that the best valets have—so that he seemed to see only the papers, not the words on them. “Rest, my lord. I’ll lay the fire in your room. Shall I send for the doctor? Shall I send for your betrothed?”
“No, Walters, you needn’t. Oh, God. Oh, God, no, Rose.” Edmund buried his head in his hands, groaning.
What had he done? He’d proposed on a whim, and his feelings toward the girl had rushed upon him and overwhelmed him like a wave sinking a ship. In only a few hours, he felt his heart breaking free of its old chains and beating freely.
Before I knew that Catherine defiled our marriage. That she blamed me for it. Was I truly so horrible that she—
Words flew again. “Did you know Lady Catherine had a lover, Walters?”
Walters gasped, and his cheeks were ashen. “She what, my lord?”
“Had a lover. Or at least committed some sort of matrimonial indiscretion. The letters tell a sordid tale, and I am the laughingstock in them. Poor, crippled Edmund, too trusting and naive. Poor Edmund, who did not realize his wife was doing so much more than dancing and flirting.”
Walters, the man who had the right words for every occasion, seemed stuck dumb for a moment. When he spoke at last, it was in a quiet, firm voice. “You were trustworthy and true, sir. Lady Catherine was young and impetuous. She was a woman who longed for attention and excitement. I am very sorry to say, sir, that her actions do not surprise me. She was a beautiful and charming woman—but she was not in the least a good wife. Most unsuitable for a serious man of substance and sensitivity like yourself. Forgive me, sir, for speaking plainly. I did not say such things when she was alive, nor after she passed, for it would have been disrespectful. If you are angry at me, my lord, you have every right. I am speaking very much out of turn.”
Edmund nodded listlessly. Words filtered in, but made little sense.
“What is Miss Lycombe like, sir?” Walters asked in a soft voice.
“Young. Lovely. Scholarly. Bold and meek by turns.” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he pictured her telling Bryce about the realities of childbirth and sending the braggart of an officer fleeing.
“Ah, sir. She makes you happy even now. She knows you at your worst, if you’ll forgive the term, sir, and she accepted your proposal?”
“Well, yes, I suppose that much is true—on both counts. I am older and no less crippled than I was, although I move about much better. When I met Catherine, I had a reputation for being a quiet, bookish sort who was better in the saddle than in the ballroom. Now, my reputation is that of a widowed recluse who it is just as well to avoid.”
“Facts that Miss Lycombe, who must be quite intelligent to have attracted your notice, sir, is well aware of. When I heard you lamenting, calling her name, I could not discern whether you were wishing to see her or fearing that you were somehow less desirable to her because of someone else’s sins against you.”
Edmund looked up in surprise, startled by the suggestion. “I say, Walters. You are quite erudite for a valet.”
“Thank you, sir.” He bowed with a slight smile.
“I knew Catherine was unhappy. I had no idea she was acting in such a manner. Am I a fool for not realizing it?” Edmund asked, one hand restlessly raking through his hair.
“No, indeed, sir. You assumed the very best of your wife, which is a credit to you and a boon to Miss Lycombe.”
“What if I fail her, too?”
“Sir, you did not fail Lady Catherine. She failed you. She did not take her marriage vows seriously, but then again, she was never a very serious-minded woman, was she?”
“That much is true,” Edmund was forced to admit. “Miss Lycombe is.”
“Excellent news, my lord.”
“I... I may tell her this shameful secret, Walters. I don’t want there to be secrets between us. Funny, for all that she is younger and of more modest means, the moment I conversed with her, I felt as though I was talking to my equal.”
“Ah, yes, as the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge penned, ‘a soul-mate.’”
“The very same. Well, if one can judge on the strength of a few hours.”
Walters bowed again and finished collecting the last letter. “I think these would do well in the fire in your room, sir.”
“My thoughts exactly, sir.”
“Sir?” Mrs. Brown appeared in the doorway, her arms full of slender leather cases. “One of the maids found these in Lady Catherine’s rooms. The ones that will soon belong to Lady Rose.”
Edmund sprang up and used the wall to steady himself as he walked with his uneven gait. He eagerly took the boxes. “These are what I was looking for.”
“It seems they weren’t moved from her original rooms. Untouched,” Walters murmured.
Locke’s heart lightened. “Unspoilt. Some things sadness cannot touch.”
“Sadness?” Mrs. Brown clasped her hands. “All those jewels found, and you about to be married to a lovely young woman of good family? It’s cause for celebration and happiness all around, sir, if I may say!”
“Indeed you may, Mrs. Brown. Go tell Mrs. Taylor that she can start planning a fine dinner for tomorrow evening. I shall court my bride tomorrow morning and host her family in the evening. But for now... A fire and a strong light, Walters. I must find the finest pieces to present to Rose.”
Even though I think she is the choicest gem of all.