Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Johanna
“This house is amazing!” Bridget whispered, pulling Johanna down the hall by her hand.
“You’re going to marry a duke? Did you meet him at that house party?
Is that why you came to London, to beg him to marry you?
How did you convince him to say yes? Did you know that Charlotte and I get our own maid?
And mama gets one! And Rose gets one! And Micah has a footman now!
His own footman! What are we supposed to do with them?
Do you have your own maid? Do you have more than one since you’re going to be a duchess?
Will I have to call you ‘Your Grace’ or can I still call you Johanna? ”
The rapid pace of questions was normal for Bridget, and Johanna did not even attempt to answer them. There was no point; Bridget would just keep talking over her even if she did. Besides which, most of it was Bridget working through her nerves.
Her grip on Johanna’s hand was very tight. She was nervous, and it was coming out in the barrage of questions, which she was using to distract herself.
Johanna got quieter as she became unsettled, while Bridget got louder.
Her questions came to an abrupt halt when they turned the corner and saw Lady Stark and Rose in the corridor, speaking with their heads together.
Johanna’s heart stuttered for a moment. Not everyone was accepting of Rose as part of their family, given that she was illegitimate, even though she was obviously acknowledged.
Someone as high on the instep as Lady Stark…
She had been kind to Johanna, but would that extend to her cousin when she’d been born on the wrong side of the sheets?
To her relief, when Rose looked up, there was a slight smile on her face. Rose did not smile unless she meant it. She must like Lady Stark, and she would not like Lady Stark unless the lady was treating her well.
“There you are,” Rose said, brightening even more when she saw Johanna. She hurried forward with her arms outstretched in front of her.
The hug Johanna gave her was even tighter than those she’d exchanged with her siblings.
Though Micah was her brother and Bridget her sister by blood, Rose was her sister of the heart.
The two of them had leaned on each other over the past few years, and Johanna did not know how she would have gotten through them without Rose.
“Everything is well?” she whispered in Rose’s ear.
“Everything is well.”
The sigh of relief Johanna exhaled left her feeling like a stiff wind could knock her over. Rose would not say that unless it was the truth. She always spoke the truth, no matter how unpleasant.
Mother was in no worse condition than Johanna had left her in; otherwise, Rose would have said something.
Hopefully, that meant it was not too late.
Bridget pulled on Johanna’s arm.
“Johanna! Mama!”
“Ladies do not pull on people,” Lady Stark announced, giving Bridget a gimlet eye, though there was no malice in her gaze.
“They might gently touch someone on the shoulder or hand to give a wordless reminder. Come along, dear. Your sister will see your mama, and I will see to you and your sister. We have work to do.”
Looking somewhat bewildered, Bridget immediately followed in Lady Stark’s wake, much to Johanna’s astonishment. There was just something about the duke’s grandmother that made it impossible to say no to her, even for a normally rebellious and rambunctious thirteen-year-old girl.
“I never thought I would see the day,” Rose whispered, clearly thinking along the same lines, as Lady Stark and Bridget went around the corner.
“Neither did I.” Johanna gave herself a little shake. “Has mama eaten… anything?”
“She has.” Rose’s gaze shifted slightly. “Montagu brought us food for supper when he arrived, after he realized what we had to offer.”
Even though what they had to offer would have been extremely sparse and not up to snuff for a duke, Rose obviously took exception to the duke’s rejection of it.
Or maybe it was just because it was that particular duke who had shown up on the Falmouth doorstep.
Montagu had rubbed her the wrong way from the first.
“She is eating, but…” Rose’s voice trailed off, and she frowned before shaking her head.
“Something is upsetting her since we arrived. I do not know what. But she was also, well… she was not able to speak much before we arrived. Regular meals have helped bring her back to herself, so it’s possible she was unsettled before as well, and I did not realize. ”
“She will not tell you why?” Johanna asked with a frown. In some ways, her mother and Rose were closer than she was with her mother. It was unheard of for Johanna’s mother to insist on only speaking of something with Johanna, especially because she knew that Johanna would tell Rose.
Rose shook her head, and a little thread of tension wound its way through Johanna’s stomach. An extremely unwelcome one.
Something very dire must be afoot.
“Very well. I should go see what she wants from me then,” Johanna said, mostly because she could not imagine what her mother would wish to tell her but not Rose. Not knowing was going to drive both of them batty.
“Do. I will find Lady Stark and the girls.” A ghost of a smile lit Rose’s face again. “I am most curious to hear what she thinks they’ll need to learn to become ladies.”
Quite a bit, Johanna would imagine. Their mother had been too ill to give them lessons, and Rose and Johanna too busy to have time to spare for such things. Rose strode off down the hall as Johanna squared her shoulders and went into her mother’s room.
The room itself was beautiful, very much like Johanna’s, but decorated with soothing blues and creams. Just stepping inside helped to calm some of her nerves.
Her mother lay in the huge four-poster bed, looking impossibly small on such a large piece of furniture.
Pillows were piled up behind her, helping to prop her up in a sitting position.
“I told you, I want— Oh, Johanna,” her mother said, her tone going from peevish to relieved. Her eyes widened. “I almost did not recognize you.”
Johanna glided forward.
“Lady Stark, the duke’s grandmother, took me shopping,” she told her mother, settling down on the bed beside her and taking her mother’s slim hand into her own. The fragile bones felt sharp against her palm. “I believe she plans to outfit me as a duchess by the end of this week.”
Rather than smiling back, her mother looked more agitated at this pronouncement.
“It is the Duke of St. Albans whose house we’re in, yes?” she asked. Johanna nodded, and fear lit up her mother’s eyes. “You cannot marry him.”
Johanna just stared at her mother for a moment, aghast. This was literally the answer to all of their prayers, and her mother was telling her not to marry him? Her mother stared back at her, her grip tightening on Johanna’s hand, as though willing Johanna to say that she would not.
“What? Why not?” Her mother could not just make such pronouncements, given the circumstances, and expect Johanna to fall in line. She’d always done her best to be a good and dutiful daughter, but her mother had literally been starving herself to death. What else was Johanna supposed to do?
Exactly what I had been about to do, and if mother knew that…
“You cannot marry him.” Her mother’s voice dropped to a whisper, eyes darting this way and that, as if seeking to see whether they were alone…
but there was no one in the room but the two of them.
The fear and worry in her mother’s expression was the only thing that kept Johanna from growing angry with her.
“But why not?”
Her mother’s gaze met hers again, terrified, quelling Johanna’s impatience.
“Because I killed his father,” she whispered.
Matthew
Watching the young earl pacing back and forth, muttering under his breath, Matthew wondered if he should interrupt. Surreptitiously, he pulled his coin from his pocket and gave it a quick flip.
No. This was something the young man needed to work through on his own.
Matthew did not envy him the task.
Hard enough to feel as though he was too young to be much use at his own position, and that he was ill-trained for it, hard enough to see his elder sister shouldering more than her fair share of the burden, but to discover that it might not have been necessary?
While Matthew did not have proof—yet—he had a gut feeling about Mr. Blash, and he would be shocked to discover he was wrong.
“That bastard.” Falmouth punched his fist into his palm, likely in lieu of being able to plow it into his guardian’s face.
“I asked him—I asked him—to show me the accounts. Even if they were failing, I thought that I could learn from them. He kept putting me off or forgetting them, and the last time I insisted…”
His voice trailed off.
“What happened then?” Matthew asked, spurred on by pure curiosity.
Falmouth’s shoulders slumped.
“He has not returned since.” He raked his hand through his hair. “I am so stupid. I should have realized he was doing it on purpose.”
“You are not stupid at all; you trusted him. He turned out to be unworthy of your trust, but you could not know that at the time.” Matthew gave his coin another flip.
Ah, yes, good. He got up from his seat, sliding the coin back into his pocket, and went over to clap the young man on the shoulder.
He was not even a young man, truly, still more a boy on the cusp of manhood.
He had his title and the responsibility that came with it but without the control he would one day have once he reached his majority.
“It was not your fault that your father left your guardianship to the wrong man. Nor was it his, if he had no reason to think that this man was anything other than honorable.”
“I suppose that’s true. But what do I do now?” The young earl turned to look at Matthew, pleading for guidance in his eyes.
Which was the first time in Matthew’s life that he’d ever found himself in such a position.
Would it disturb Falmouth if he pulled out his coin and flipped it?
Then again, Matthew had no proof that his coin worked for anyone else’s life.
Though it had predicted Nathanial and Kalina’s happy marriage.
But that was just one instance. While Matthew was happy to rely on his for himself, he did not want to reassure anyone else that they could live their life by his luck.
Especially someone who was so down on their luck as the Earl of Falmouth already was.
“I ah… well. I have someone investigating Mr. Blash. Well, I have a friend who has sent an investigator after him. Drake. The Duke of Ormonde. He’s got the right sort of contacts.
And, well… give me a moment.” Matthew turned around so he could flip his coin in front of him, with his back to Falmouth, so he could not see exactly what Matthew was doing.
He would learn soon enough, Matthew was certain, but right now did not seem like the time to try to explain, especially when no one was there to vouch for the explanation.
He turned back around. “Yes, we’ll search for Mr. Blash and look into his activities, and in the meantime, you can stay here and learn from me. ”
“You’ll be my tutor?”
“Well, in certain things. We should hire a real tutor for you, though, as well.” Matthew eyed him. “And you’ll need to attend university. Grandmama will know what to do.”
If she did not already have a tutor in mind, she would ask one of her myriad contacts to suggest someone, he was sure.
“Grandmama will know what?” As if mentioning her had summoned her, his grandmother swept into the room with the younger two girls trailing after her.
Matthew was not certain of their ages, but the one with honey-wheat hair was a little older and a little bigger.
That would be Bridget. The youngest, Charlotte, was like a wraith.
She was dressed in all white, which nearly matched her white-blonde hair, and her eyes were a lighter violet than either of her siblings, making her appear even more washed out, almost ghostly.
The somber expression on her face did nothing to dispel the impression.
“Where to get a tutor for the earl.” Matthew gestured at his soon-to-be brother-in-law, who appeared both eager and hopeful.
“Ah, yes. A tutor for Micah and a governess for Bridget and Charlotte.” Grandmama tapped her lower lip as she went to sit on one of the chairs.
“We do not need a governess,” Bridget protested immediately, crossing her arms over her chest. Beside her, her younger sister shifted silently back and forth on the balls of her feet, swaying slightly in a wind that no one else felt.
It was more than a little eerie, and Matthew felt keenly uncomfortable looking at her.
“You need what I say you need, and you certainly need a governess. And a dancing instructor. We should discuss what instrument you’ll learn as well.” Grandmama pointed at the chair next to Micah. “Sit.”
Unsurprisingly, despite the mutinous expression on her face, Bridget went and sat. Charlotte trailed after her like a silent specter.
Matthew hoped his bride was having a less fraught discussion with her mother than he was with the rest of her family.