Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Johanna
Staring at her mother, Johanna shook her head.
She could not have just heard what she thought she heard, but just in case her mother said it again…
She got to her feet, snatching up one of the blankets on the foot of the bed and hurrying over to the door to press the material against the crack along the bottom.
The last thing she needed was for someone to overhear her mother confessing to murdering a duke.
That was a hanging offense.
Turning around, she stared at her mother, who was still looking back at her with fear in her eyes.
“We have to escape here, Johanna,” her mother whispered. “You have to gather your brother and sisters, and we have to escape.”
“And go where, mother?” Johanna wrung her hands in front of her and shook her head, swiftly returning to her mother’s bedside so they could speak quietly. The fear that was in her mother’s eyes shook her, yet she worried about far more than what her mother had just said.
There would be consequences if she was overheard, but she also now worried that the lack of food and the condition of the family had driven her mother to madness.
Johanna was not sure which would be worse—if her mother was overheard and believed, in which case she would be hanged or if her mother was overheard and declared mad.
She would be sent away to somewhere Johanna could not help her, if that was the case.
Either way, there would be a stain on the family.
“Anywhere but here.” Her mother reached for Johanna’s hand and closed her claw-like fingers around it, her grip surprisingly strong in her desperation. “You cannot marry a man whose father I killed. He’ll find out.”
Johanna reached up with her other hand and pressed it to her mother’s forehead. She was warm to the touch, but not feverish. Still. Whatever her mother was thinking, she was not in her right mind at the moment.
“You are imagining things, mother. The former Duke of St. Albans died in a fire,” she said gently. “Did you ever even meet him?”
She knew her mother had not. How and where would she have met a duke?
“No, it was the Duke of Clarence’s steward,” her mother said, her voice going higher with stress and fear as she spoke.
“Remember that winter when I suddenly had money? It was because I sold my sleeping potions to the Duke of Clarence’s steward.
He sought me out, and I did not care why.
I did not ask. We needed the money. But a few weeks later, the dukes were dead. They were all dead.”
“In a fire,” Johanna said soothingly, repressing a little shudder. It did seem a terrible way to die, but that had nothing to do with her mother or sleeping potions. “It was a horrible, tragic accident, not murder.”
“I thought the potions must be for the duchess or perhaps for the steward himself, as he looked unwell, but he never came back for more.” Mother gripped Johanna’s hand tighter, pulling her forward.
“He must have given the dukes the sleeping potions to ensure they slept through the fire. To ensure they died.”
First, she claimed she’d killed the dukes, now a murderous steward?
“It was an accident,” Johanna said firmly.
She’d heard enough comments today about the former dukes to know that not one soul suspected any kind of foul play.
The loss of so many dukes at once had been a shocking accident.
If there was more to it and no culprit caught, the gossip would have been rampant.
“You are imagining guilt where there is none, mother. Perhaps the potions did not work, and that is why he did not return for more.”
Of course her mother immediately looked affronted.
“My potions always work.”
They did, as far as Johanna knew, when her mother had been able to make them. That did not change the facts, though. And the fact was that her mother was making up an utterly fantastical story in her head and feeling guilt for no reason. Though the emotion behind it was real, it was also misplaced.
“I will let you rest,” she said gently. There was no point in arguing with her mother when she was like this. “We will speak more tomorrow.”
“You cannot marry him, Johanna.”
Holding back her arguments—because she had to marry the Duke of St. Albans, no matter what her mother said—Johanna got to her feet and pressed a kiss to her mother’s forehead.
Thankfully, it seemed as though her mother was running out of energy now that she had spoken to Johanna.
Her eyelids drooped, even though she frowned.
“We will talk more tomorrow,” Johanna said.
Hopefully, a good night’s rest and a full belly would help her mother’s mental state. Otherwise, Johanna was going to have to find some way to hide that her mother was losing her mind from the duke and his grandmother, and neither of them seemed feeble-minded.
At least her mother had had the sense not to blurt out such things in front of the others. She’d waited for Johanna.
Going to the door, Johanna picked up the blanket and draped it over the arm of a chair that was nearby.
She glanced at her mother, who was watching her through half-lidded eyes.
The expression on her face said she was unsatisfied, but she did not speak up to stop Johanna from leaving.
Her slumped shoulders spoke of her exhaustion.
Opening the door, Johanna jolted when she realized there were people on the other side of it. Rose and a young man with brown hair and brown eyes that were framed by spectacles. He was neatly dressed, obviously not aristocracy by the quality, but well-to-do. There was a large black bag in his hand.
As his gaze met Johanna’s, he smiled.
“My lady,” he said, with a short bow. “I am Dr. Syme.”
Johanna tried not to let her conflicting feelings show on her face—her worry that he and Rose had overheard some of her conversation with her mother, her dubiousness over the doctor’s youth, or her surprise that someone was in the hall at all.
“Lady Johanna,” she said faintly. “Um…”
“The others went to the library,” Rose told her. “I wanted to accompany Dr. Syme.” The warmth in her voice with which she said his name was all Johanna needed to know about how Rose felt toward the doctor. She approved of him, which assuaged most of Johanna’s worries.
Rose clearly intended to supervise Dr. Syme’s visit, but if she was already so warm toward him, Johanna could rest easily that it would not be a fight about how her mother was to be treated.
“Yes, and when we are done, I would like to keep speaking to you about the poultice.” Dr. Syme beamed at Rose with interest in his gaze—not the kind of interest a man might have for a beautiful woman, but the interest of knowledge.
He might be young, but he was clearly energetic and excited about his craft.
The fact he was willing to speak to Rose about such things, and learn from her, spoke well of him. That Rose seemed pleased with him meant he was competent and clever.
“I am happy to.” Rose smiled back at him. “Come, I will introduce you to the countess.”
She gave Johanna a nod as they walked past. Rose would take care of Johanna’s mother, leaving her free to go find her siblings. Johanna let out a long breath as she held still for a moment in the hallway, trying to soothe her fraught emotions.
It did not sound like her mother was immediately blurting out a confession to murdering a duke to the doctor and Rose, so there was that at least.
The library.
Johanna strode down the hall, stopping a maid to point her in the right direction. Instead, the maid immediately abandoned her duties and showed Johanna herself, which she had not meant to have happen but was grateful for. She made a mental note to remember that maid for the future.
Johanna was not certain what she could do for her, but once she was the duchess, surely there would be something.
Lady Stark had made it sound as though she would have dominion over the household.
A daunting thought, but one which was made more appealing by knowing she could reward the staff when it was deserved.
“No.” Bridget’s voice drifted out of the open door, stubborn as always.
“Yes.” Lady Stark’s response was unbothered but firm.
Oh, dear. Bridget was arguing with Lady Stark? Johanna rushed into the room, pushing a smile that she did not feel onto her lips.
Lady Stark and Bridget appeared to be in a staring contest, while the duke and Micah watched with fascination but also appeared to be sitting as still as they could so as not to draw attention.
Charlotte, as usual, was staring off into space, in her own little world.
She was perfectly still on the large chair she and Bridget were sharing, her legs hanging down, feet hovering several inches above the floor.
“Hello,” Johanna said brightly. “What are we talking about?”
“French,” Bridget and Lady Stark said at the same time without breaking their eye contact, as if that explained everything.
Johanna looked at Micah.
“Lady Stark says we’ll need to learn some French,” he said tentatively, with a wary look at Bridget, whose scowl deepened.
“I am already going to have to learn dancing, embroidery, an instrument, math, reading, and geography; the line must be drawn somewhere,” she said dramatically, breaking her gaze away from Lady Stark so that she could look at Johanna.
“You are going to be the duchess. Tell her I do not have to learn French.”
“That… is not… I am not…” Johanna fumbled over her words.
It was a good thing Bridget was not old enough to marry; she was already in the works to be a tiny despot. The last thing she needed was a duke as a husband to give her a taste of real power.
“Every young lady needs French, unless they wish for others to be able to speak about them without knowing what they are saying.” Lady Stark arched her eyebrow.
Bridget’s mouth opened. Closed. She frowned even more fiercely.
Then her chin tipped up.
“I will learn French,” she declared. “But that is it. No more lessons.”
“No more lessons for now,” Lady Stark agreed.
Bridget did not seem to pick up on the significance of the last two words, thankfully. She relaxed, pleased.
“I am going to learn the flute,” she told Johanna. “What instrument do you play?”
“Ah… well.” Johanna cast her mind back to her childhood. “I believe I mostly sang. Mother would play the piano, and I would sing.” That was before their father had died.
“Oh.” Bridget tilted her head. “I think I remember that. You do have a nice singing voice.”
“Thankfully, you do not have to take singing lessons,” Micah teased her. “You will sound much better with a flute instead. She has the singing voice of a donkey.”
“Micah,” Johanna said reprovingly as Bridget’s face flushed hot. “That was ungentlemanly.” It was true, but it was not gentlemanly to say so.
Micah looked at the duke, who raised his eyebrows at him.
“Sorry, Bridget,” Micah said immediately, rather than arguing. As annoying as it was to have Micah listening to the duke rather than to Johanna, at least the duke had agreed with her.
Bridget sniffed and turned up her nose. Charlotte hummed under her breath, still staring into space, hands folded neatly in her lap.
“What instrument is Charlotte going to learn?” Johanna asked, hoping to turn the subject.
Everyone looked at Charlotte.
She blinked. Focused. Smiled at Johanna.
“Violin,” she said, then her eyes unfocused again, and she went right back to humming. Which was very Charlotte.
Both Lady Stark and the duke appeared mildly concerned, but they would become accustomed to her ways.
Or not. Charlotte had a tendency to fade into the background, something Johanna suspected she did deliberately.
It allowed her to do as she pleased without being bothered most of the time.
Bridget drew focus; Charlotte avoided it.
Except for when she was trying to deliberately unsettle someone, which she was very good at and which also assured they would leave her alone.
“Well, then, that’s settled.” Johanna smiled again, trying to hide her worry that the duke might change his mind now that he’d met her family and realized everything he was taking on. Lady Stark seemed up to the challenge, but it was… a lot.
Her, her siblings’ educations, her mother’s health…
What was he getting out of this that he could not get from another young lady? One with fewer burdens accompanying her?
“Tomorrow we will go shopping. You all need to be properly outfitted,” Lady Stark said. “Then, the day after that—”
“The wedding,” the duke said.
Johanna could have melted into a puddle with relief. Whatever his reasons, he was not changing his mind. Could he really be that determined to follow a course set forth for him by a coin? Perhaps it was truly her lucky coin and not his because she could not see how any of this was lucky for him.
His grandmother glared at him.
“That is too soon.”
“Her family is here, are they not? We do not need to waste time. The dress should be ready by then.” He shrugged.
“Besides, the faster we move, the more the gossip will be about the wedding and not about why the entire Falmouth household is living in this house. Or why Lady Johanna arrived before them. Or—”
“Enough.” Lady Stark cut him off with a wave of her hand. She scowled at him. “I imagine you have a reason for that day?”
The duke’s hand brushed over the pocket where Johanna had realized he kept his coin. He touched that pocket a lot, even when he was not using the coin.
“Yes.”
“Very well.” Her clipped tone said she was displeased, yet she did not argue with him, which Johanna found fascinating. Lady Stark did not seem the type to indulge fancies, but she indulged the duke and his coin. “The wedding will be the day after tomorrow.”
“Will we have our new dresses by then?” Bridget asked, making Johanna groan softly.
Her mercenary little sister. Though she supposed she could not blame her for asking. They truly did not have anything appropriate to wear to a duke’s wedding.
“Yes, you certainly will.” Lady Stark and Bridget somehow looked very alike in that moment, despite their features being entirely different, and Johanna had a flash of what Bridget might be like in the future.
God help them all.