Chapter 4
Four
If you ever have the opportunity to attend a house party with your spouse and his mistress, consid— Scratch this one. The guidance is irrelevant. Your husband will have eyes only for you.
Godric had excellent manners. He rose the moment I did, whereas Burnsby had to wrestle free the hand he’d concealed under Sophonisba’s bottom.
Back out in the cloister, Burnsby led me around the colonnade to the left. He identified doors leading to the buttery and the breakfast parlor before I lost patience.
“Why the devil didn’t you tell me about your . . . about Sophonisba Ainsworth’s place in your life?”
He gave me an affronted stare. “How extraordinarily rude of you to curse, Lady Burnsby. Why would I? Such matters are beneath your notice.”
“The fact I just encountered the woman in question—and am spending Christmas in her company—makes her difficult to overlook!”
“You are a maiden. I didn’t raise the subject out of concern for your innocence,” he said piously. “Years ago, I solemnly promised to visit Sophie for at least a month every year of my life, a vow that I consider as honorable an obligation as any other.”
Sophie?
“You adore her,” I said slowly.
Burnsby stiffened. “Adoration is not an emotion experienced by gentlemen, certainly not for a woman of that type.”
“The type being fallen or vulgar?”
“I did once contemplate marrying Sophie, until luckily my father brought me to my senses. Vulgarity can be transmitted in the blood, you know. I owed more to my name.”
I had never considered my husband cruel, but seeing his chilly expression, the way his jaw wrinkled around his pursed lips?
I had been wrong.
He moved his cane to his right hand so he could pat my shoulder. “A gentleman’s private affairs have no relevance to his wife. Such a woman has uses that you could not understand. You deserve and receive all my respect.”
I shied from his touch and decided to change the subject. “I was startled to hear that you own a kilt.”
“My mother designed the tartan,” Burnsby said, trading his cane again. I had noticed that his left side was weaker than the right.
“Will you carry a claymore?” I inquired.
Burnsby frowned at my less-than-respectful tone. “I shall wear a dagger tucked into my hose. In public I occasionally wear a dirk, a longer blade. I assure you that I cut a fine figure in skirts.”
He threw me a vexed glance when I missed the cue to affirm his appeal. Yesterday I would have complied. Today I narrowed my eyes.
“The tartan will complement your green evening gown,” Burnsby said before launching into “Joy to the World.”
Halfway around the second side of the cloister, he pushed open the door to a cozy chamber.
Its walls were draped in thick woolen tapestries depicting pastoral scenes.
Opposite the bed was a wall cupboard large enough for a queen’s wardrobe.
A tin tub and a petite dressing table stood to one side of the fireplace and two comfortable chairs to the other.
“Here we are. Your chamber is not of a size with those in our other establishments, but the fireplace keeps it warm, even in the depths of winter. The lodge can be chilly.”
I nodded.
“The bell to the left rings in the servants’ hall, the former rectory, and will summon a footman. The bell to the right will summon your maid during the night.”
I assumed Burnsby would leave directly, since I had taken some pains to train him not to linger in my private chamber. Instead, he posed himself in the middle of the room, both hands on his cane, his face grave.
“While I was startled by your unladylike profanity, Lady Burnsby, I forgive you, since your affection for me runs so deep. Your heart is bruised.”
I sank down on the bed and repressed any number of unhelpful comments.
“When I am here, I am particularly attentive to Sophie, to make up for my absence eleven months of the year. After the holiday, my devotion will be entirely yours once again.”
Without waiting for my response, he said, “I wish to mention one other extraordinary circumstance.”
“Your daughter?”
He blinked, and said, “Ophelia? You needn’t bother with her. I’m afraid that my daughter has grown up so obstinate and peculiar that governesses have been reluctant to remain in my employ.”
Burnsby’s face took on an expression of pained resignation. “My daughter is a blemished offshoot of the family tree. I would never sully another gentleman’s lineage by dowering her.”
Then and there I decided that Burnsby would give his daughter the same generous dowry that he had bestowed on Rosie.
“No, the issue I wish to discuss,” my husband continued, having blithely consigned his only daughter to the life of a nun, “relates to phantasmic apparitions. I’m sure you have heard reports about my previous wives haunting Burnsby Lodge.”
I nodded, still wrestling with the question of whether Ophelia and Rosie might debut together. Perhaps her half-brother would assist, if Burnsby proved reluctant to allow Ophelia to move to London.
“Alas, it is true,” he said heavily. “As you know, all three of my wives died here, and astral bodies do wander the abbey. I myself have witnessed my second wife traversing the library, most often as a flutter of skirts from the corner of my eye, but once in full garb, her hair tossed by an invisible breeze.”
I straightened up. “You have seen Hecuba? In the library, not on the ramparts?”
“She was very fond of reading.”
“You— You recognized her?”
My mind boggled. I enjoy a ghost story as much as the next reader, but in my heart of hearts, I don’t believe in them. Yet I would have sworn that my husband had no imagination at all. If he saw a phantom, she must have been there.
“Unmistakably,” Burnsby confirmed. “I entreated her to speak, asked if any good thing might be done to ease her passage to the next world, but she melted into the shadows like the last ray of light as dusk falls. My second wife is now an uneasy spirit, forced to walk the night.”
Perhaps I’d underestimated his imagination. No, he must have stolen that description from a novel. Except he had never read a book, to the best of my knowledge. He didn’t even read the newspaper.
Could he truly have met a ghost?
“I am proud to have kept my countenance,” he added. “It isn’t every day that one communes with a spirit, but my Etonian training proved useful.”
“Eton trained you to address ghosts?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism from my voice.
“Etonians are taught to keep their countenance no matter the riffraff they encounter, whether beggars or highwaymen.”
(Burnsby was associating his dead wife with “riffraff,” but I sensed he wouldn’t be pleased if I pointed that out.)
“In light of your ladylike response to meeting Sophie, I have little fear that you will succumb to hysterics.” He gave me an approving smile.
“Have other people encountered Hecuba?” I asked.
“My third wife also met our resident ghost. Reportedly, she, too, haunts the library. Since my encounter with Hecuba, I never enter the room.”
I resolved to find the library at the earliest opportunity.
“Where is your bedchamber?” I asked.
“I reside on the far side of the second garden, in a chamber known as Abbot’s Hall.”
That sounded reassuringly far away.
After he left, I kicked off my shoes and walked to the window. A wintery sky cast silvery light over a large garden bedded down with straw. Past the garden lay the cemetery Godric had mentioned: eight mausoleums lined up against the thick outer wall.
A fearful idea occurred to me: Did Burnsby’s three former wives lie together in one of those tombs? Or was each wife interred in her own sepulcher? My hand clenched on the thick curtains before I abruptly yanked them closed, blocking the sight.
This was ridiculous. I was at risk of confusing life and literature, as absurd as comparing Burnsby’s neglected daughter with Hamlet’s jilted beloved simply because they shared the name Ophelia.
I padded over to the bed and lay down, staring up at its canopy. My heart was thudding a sickening rhythm in my chest. I tried to comfort myself with thoughts of Rosie’s dowry, but this time it didn’t help.
I had assumed that Burnsby was kind, respectful, gentle.
As a young girl, I had memorized the rules that governed life before and (supposedly) after marriage, the ones promising that a gentleman’s wife is respected above all others.
That a gentleman devotes his life to sheltering her delicate soul from encounters with bastards and courtesans.
Those books lied.
Burnsby lied.
He had blithely introduced three wives to his mistress and an illegitimate relative. He had discarded his daughter like a spoiled apple. His surface propriety slicked over utter disrespect for the women in his life.
Had I been too foolish to understand that the “polite” world didn’t exist?
Why had I believed the twaddle about propriety and respect?
The “rules” were no more valid than marriage vows.
I drew in a shaky breath. Now I knew what Burnsby was like.
I knew who he really was. He wasn’t my partner nor my friend.
What an idiot I’d been. Godric’s compassionate gaze came into my head. He’d grasped how blind I’d been. I felt like screaming from rage and, frankly, from loneliness. I had never felt more isolated in my life.
My only friends were my maid, my sister, and a possible ghost.
It felt like hyperbole to include the ghost, but considering how much we had in common? I claimed her.
Oh, and a pig.