Chapter 6
After two days of travel with one overnight stop at a respectable coaching inn, the carriage rolled to a stop before the great house at Bath, a stately spread of pale honeyed stone and manicured lawns that sloped gently toward the crescent road.
A line of servants stood in precise formation before the steps, livery immaculate, features schooled in polite curiosity.
Everything around her felt meticulously arranged, the kind of ordered luxury she appreciated.
Beatrice’s neck ached from the journey, her nerves from everything else. The footman opened the door, and Edward stepped out first, straightening his coat as though shrugging on a familiar mask. He turned back to offer his hand.
She hesitated only a moment before taking it. His fingers were warm and steady around hers. The baby stirred softly in the basket at her feet. The housekeeper stepped forward and lifted the basket, carrying the baby into the house.
“Welcome to Wrexford Hall,” he said, his tone neutral, almost brisk. “It’s less ostentatious than the properties in London, but it serves.”
“I’m not difficult to please,” she replied, gathering her skirts as she stepped down. “Only tired.”
“I sent word ahead,” he added. “Your rooms have been prepared, and the servants have been briefed.”
“Efficient of you,” she murmured as she stepped through the great doors.
The drawing room was bright and elegantly furnished, sunlight glinting off polished wood and pale drapery. Beatrice stood just inside the doorway, taking in the quiet precision of a house that ran like clockwork. Of course it did. Her husband looked like one who ran his house efficiently.
Edward shrugged off his coat and began speaking briskly. “I trust my letter arrived in time,” he said, glancing toward the butler, who bowed deeply. “The Duchess will take the east rooms. A wet nurse has been engaged from the Crescent, and the nursery—”
“The nursery,” Beatrice cut in, her tone light but firm, “will be near my chambers.”
The servants hesitated, looking between them.
His gaze held hers a moment too long, something unreadable behind the glint of humor. Then, with a short, ironic bow, he said softly, “As you wish, Duchess.”
He turned to the servants.
“You heard her,” he spoke crisply. “The nursery will adjoin Her Grace’s rooms. Ensure that everything is prepared before evening.”
The servants scurried away.
Edward inclined his head, one eyebrow arched. “I see,” he said mildly, though the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth betrayed his amusement. “You’re already revising the household arrangements?”
“If we’re to appear as a proper couple, we must at least behave as one,” she replied, lifting her chin. “I am the Duchess, after all. I believe that gives me a say in household matters.”
Beatrice stepped back into the entrance hall with Edward right behind her.
For a moment, the vast hall was quiet save for the soft crackle of the fire.
Beatrice glanced toward the staircase, then back at him. “You had everything arranged in advance,” she remarked quietly. “You think of everything.”
“Habit,” he replied, with that half-smile. “I prefer not to leave things to chance.”
Beatrice took her time taking in her surroundings. Firelight flickered across polished marble and gilded portraits, illuminating the staircase’s graceful curve. Everything here spoke of authority and permanence.
The last of the daylight slanted through the tall, arched windows, turning the air to pale gold.
Beatrice stood in front of the mirror. Behind her, her lady’s maid, Alice, worked deftly at the clasps of her gown, a soft blue silk piece that caught the light each time she moved.
Three other maids hovered behind her. The most talkative ones, Martha and Nell, stood beside her, brushing her hair and pinning it up.
“Hold, Your Grace, just a moment more,” Alice murmured, fussing with a stubborn clasp. She clicked her tongue in frustration. “Dresses today are made by people who never have to wear them.”
Beatrice’s lips twitched. “One could almost accuse them of sabotage.”
“Oh, they could do far worse,” Nell piped up, carefully arranging the fall of her skirt. “Some ladies insist on corsets so tight you could snap them in half.” She stepped back and gave an approving little nod. “But not you, Your Grace. You look—well, you look like you can breathe.”
“How reassuring,” Beatrice replied dryly.
Her gown was not meant to dazzle, but to command respect. The neckline curved modestly, the sleeves gathered just enough to flatter her figure without vanity. A string of pearls—her mother’s—rested at her throat, their sheen faint against her pale skin.
This gown, however, was new. One of several that had arrived earlier that afternoon in large, tissue-lined boxes bearing the Wrexford crest. Edward had not delivered them personally, but his signature was everywhere in the form of precise measurements, impeccable quality, and not a single odd color.
Martha had held up the gowns as though they were relics. “Commissioned, they said,” she had whispered, impressed despite herself. “His Grace sent word ahead.”
Beatrice wasn’t sure what to feel about that. She felt mostly irritated, as if they were all reminders that this marriage had been arranged with the efficiency of a business transaction.
She smoothed her palms down the silk, feeling the unfamiliar weight of it all.
Alice stepped back at last, inspecting every button and every fold with a critical eye. “There now,” she declared. “As fine a duchess as any in England.”
Beatrice met her reflection in the mirror, studying it as though she might divine something new there. The woman who gazed back at her was composed, every hair pinned in place, her expression calm.
Yet beneath the composure lay a flicker of uncertainty she could not quite smooth away. The first night of her marriage, she would dine with a man she could scarcely look at through the vows.
She drew a slow breath, smoothing her skirts. The silk whispered as she turned. “There,” she said softly, forcing a smile. “That will do.”
The maids curtsied, murmuring, “Yes, Your Grace,” before retreating quietly toward the door.
For a moment, Beatrice stood alone in the pool of late sunlight, her fingers resting lightly on the back of the chair. The quiet was thick—too thick.
A duchess’s house, a duchess’s standing, a duchess’s future… yet it all felt borrowed, as if at any moment, someone might walk in and say there had been a dreadful mistake.
She lifted her chin, catching her own gaze again in the mirror. “You’ve trained for this. Besides, you’ve endured worse,” she whispered.
Then, gathering the folds of her skirt, she turned toward the door, ready to face whatever awaited her downstairs.
Wall sconces cast golden pools of light across the hall, throwing deep shadows against dark wainscoting. Portraits of Wrexford ancestors watched from gilded frames—unbending faces, thin lips, eyes that seemed to stare and follow her every movement.
At the dining room doors, footmen stood at attention. They bowed as she entered.
The room was elegant and imposing. A long, polished table stretched nearly the length of the chamber, a glittering expanse of silver and crystal and too many empty chairs. The candles flared high, a hundred flames burning at once.
A footman hurried to pull the chair at the head of the table back for her.
“Will His Grace be joining me for dinner?” she asked, her tone light.
A footman nearby hesitated. That single beat of silence was enough to chill the air. “I-I believe not, Your Grace.”
Beatrice’s hand stilled on the arm of her chair. “No?”
The maid’s gaze dropped to the floor. “He is on his way to London and will be absent for dinner..”
The words landed softly, yet they seemed to echo through the large room, shattering what little composure Beatrice had gathered.
“Left?” she said, turning sharply. Her skirts caught the light as she moved.
“Yes, Your Grace,” the footman murmured, shrinking under the weight of Beatrice’s disbelief. “Mr. Davens said that His Grace had urgent business to attend to. He departed shortly after your arrival. The carriage was readied before anyone knew.”
For a moment, Beatrice only stared—at the footman, her maid, at the half-drawn curtains, at her faint reflection in the silverware. Her image wavered in the flickering candlelight: composed, lovely, and utterly foolish. Needing some sort of distraction, she picked up the napkin.
“Business to attend to,” she echoed, the words dry as dust. A brittle laugh nearly escaped her, but she caught it just in time. “Of course.”
The maid, one of the ones that dressed her up, hesitated again, twisting the fabric of her apron. “The butler would like to know if you wish dinner to be served now, Your Grace.”
Beatrice nodded, her fingers tightening around her napkin. “Yes. Thank you.”
The footman withdrew, but the maid lingered, her small figure hovering by the candlelight, her hands knotted in her apron. Her uncertainty was almost a physical thing, filling the space where Edward should have been.
Beatrice felt the silence pressing against her ribs. She drew a slow breath, schooling her features into composure.
“Jane — your name is Jane, right?” she said softly.
The maid started, bobbing a quick curtsey. “Yes, Your Grace?”
Beatrice kept her eyes on the table, because looking at anyone right now might undo her.
“That will be all.” She cleared her throat, steeling her voice just enough to sound human and not like hollow porcelain. “Thank you, Jane.”
The maid’s relief showed in the loosening of her shoulders.
“Of course, Your Grace.” She bobbed another curtsey, then retreated quietly after the others.
When the door closed behind her, the silence pressed in, heavy and absolute. Beatrice let out the breath she had been holding, her shoulders trembling despite her stillness.
She turned toward her reflection in the gleaming silverware. The woman staring back at her wore the expression of someone who had expected little and still managed to be disappointed. Her fingers brushed the pearls at her throat.
“Foolish,” she whispered to her reflection. “You truly thought a rake could bear to stay even one night.”
She pushed back her chair and stood abruptly, needing to move—anywhere, away from the suffocating emptiness of the grand dining table set for two.
The soft rustle of silk followed her across the room, the hem of her skirt whispering over polished floors that felt far too large beneath her feet.
Her hands curled into fists by her sides, her fingernails biting into her skin. “You fool,” she breathed again, but this time she wasn’t sure whether she meant him or herself.
A rake does not change. A rake never does.
Her throat ached, though no tears came.
He could not even pretend. Not for an evening. Not for the sake of propriety. Not for me.
Her jaw clenched. A rake did not become responsible simply because circumstances demanded it.
London likely had its claws in him already, its cards and champagne and painted women more alluring than a duchess he barely knew.
While she—his wife—sat beneath chandeliers and pretended not to notice the empty chair across from her, and his child slept upstairs.
She paused at the foot of the staircase, her hand gripping the banister until her knuckles ached.
A soft shuffling broke the silence. The servants had entered with quiet efficiency, lighting candles and laying out the last of the dishes—a perfectly prepared dinner she had barely noticed.
“Your Grace?” the butler called tentatively. “Dinner is served.”
Beatrice didn’t turn. Didn’t move.
Mrs. Hart, the housekeeper, swept her gaze over Beatrice’s rigid figure, and understanding flashed in her eyes. She waved a hand to the footmen. “No,” she murmured. “Clear it away.”
The butler hesitated. “Shall we send a tray upstairs instead?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Hart replied gently. “Something light. And… a calming tea.”
The footmen began clearing the plates, and Beatrice began the long climb to her room. By the time she reached the landing, her breath trembled, but her resolve had hardened.