Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
An ancient Roman philosopher named Seneca wrote that happiness is enjoying the present without worrying about the future. I wouldn’t have believed myself capable of that feat. It seems I am.
By the time four days had passed, life in the abbey had taken on a rhythm. Without discussion, Burnsby and I had divided the abbey into two parts: He took the drawing and dining rooms, the music room, and the breakfast room; I took the kitchen, the small parlor, and the library.
I met with Miss Wellington every morning and then breakfasted in the parlor.
Ophelia, Godric, and I would eat luncheon together; the newlyweds were never seen until the afternoon.
After the meal, Ophelia would retreat to her new bedroom to curl up by the fire and read one of the books I had brought with me.
“I feel as if I’m living in a novel,” I told Godric a week before Christmas. “Unfortunately, it seems to be a dark one, like The Monk.”
“I haven’t read it.”
“Rape and murder,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “Thrilling on the page, but not in real life.”
“In my opinion, Burnsby is not a murderer.”
As I saw it, a man capable of rape was capable of murder. Thankfully, my husband had made no further attempts to enter my bedchamber at night.
Godric and I went to the library to search for a copy of The Monk, which would prove my point, since the evil monk Ambrosio is not only a rapist but a murderer (not to mention a sorcerer).
When we couldn’t find one, Godric tried to persuade me to read the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, announcing that my literary tastes were deplorable.
I confessed that I’d taught myself French not to peruse salacious novels (or to read Rousseau), but to follow the work of the mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace.
No one other than my bookseller knew of my secret collection of books addressing celestial mechanics. Godric insisted that I had a mathematician’s brain, an idea that made me laugh.
“You don’t see yourself as you are.”
I enjoyed his flattery, but: “No woman is a mathematician.”
“There’s no law against it.”
“I suppose you know every law in the country?” I asked teasingly.
“I know which books to consult. I might become a judge in the new year.”
I gave him a huge smile. “How marvelous!”
Inside, my heart sank. No judge could have a scandalous wife. Unladylike though it was, I couldn’t help hoping that . . . well, that Godric might consider taking a scandalously divorced wife. But if he became a judge? Impossible.
“Do you know what the lord chancellor does?”
I nodded. “He is the keeper of the king’s conscience. You would be an excellent lord chancellor.”
“He presides over his own court, the Court of Chancery. And yes, he should be the king’s conscience-keeper.”
“What’s wrong with the current Court of Chancery? Your scowl suggests it’s corrupt.”
“The lord chancellor must swear to ‘apply the law of equity’ with evenhandedness and fairness. A judge in a criminal court ought to adhere to the law, whereas the chancellor can reach more creative conclusions in pursuit of equity. The current chancellor ignores both fairness and legal precedent.”
“If the chancellor doesn’t follow the law, he’s like a second king,” I said, thinking it through. “A power unto himself. Yes, you must become lord chancellor, because you could never be bought.”
Only scandal would bring down Godric’s career, never corruption. I decided then and there that I would never allow his future to be marred by association with me.
At twilight, we ventured outside, walking around and around the snowy cloister, marveling at the way a down quilt seemed to have been thrown over the apple tree’s shivering branches. Falling snow created a white haze through which I could only dimly see the other side of the cloister.
Godric’s hand rested on my back, warming me through my cloak. Once it accidentally slipped down and touched my bottom. The feeling of that caress, no more than a brush from his fingers, lingered in my body, simmering in my belly and even lower.
As we turned into the colonnade that led to my bedroom, I jerked to a halt. A man wearing a black cloak had just slipped through my door.
“That wasn’t my maid!”
“I saw him,” Godric said, as calm as ever. He strode away from me, threw open the door of my room, and disappeared inside.
I ran after him, trying not to slip on the snowy bricks. What would Burnsby use as his excuse this time?
But it wasn’t Burnsby; it was his valet.
“What are you doing in my room?” I demanded.
He eyed me, an insolent gleam in his eye. “The master told me to check whether your windows were rattling.”
“Get out,” Godric ordered. “Do not come back under any circumstances. Do you understand me?”
“I go where I’m ordered,” the valet said, whining.
“Enter Lady Burnsby’s chamber again, and I shall do you an injury,” Godric said. He stepped forward, masculine rage filling the room.
“Right,” the valet said, scuttling around him and pushing past me.
I couldn’t manage more than a hoarse whisper. “Surely Burnsby wouldn’t have ordered him to—to do me an injury?”
Godric shook his head, closing the door. “The man thought to find an empty room. He had every reason to believe that you were in the library, where you’ve been all day, and that your maid is presumably in the kitchen.”
I shivered. “Then what was he doing here?”
“I have no idea,” Godric said, his eyes furious. “He might be a petty thief. From now on, the door between our rooms will not merely be unlocked, but left ajar.”
“I hate this abbey,” I said, shivering.
The next morning I awoke to find Tess opening the curtains. “Sunshine,” she remarked, “but so much snow.”
That was unsurprising, given as it had snowed steadily for days.
I climbed from my bed, my toes curling on the chilly floor.
Fitful light shone on pine trees blanketed in snow as far as the eye could see.
When we first arrived, I had giddily imagined besieged marauders climbing the stepped roofs, daggers in their teeth.
Now silent, humped giants seemed to be drawing close, encircling the abbey on all sides.
“Can you imagine living here the whole winter?” Tess asked.
“Absolutely not,” I said (yes, my voice was fervent). I planned to leave as soon as the snow would allow, taking Ophelia with me.
“Me neither,” Tess said, turning away from the window. “Miss Wellington is waiting for you.”
An hour later, I encountered Burnsby on the way to the kitchen. My eyes passed over my husband as if he were a scrawny chicken, a wizened plum, a scorched slice of bacon: something no reasonable person would appreciate.
When I took leave of the housekeeper, I lured Ophelia from her room to take a brisk walk around the cloister before we curled up to read until luncheon.
In the library that evening, candles flickered against mullioned windows piled high with snow, rather than glinting on silver platters or servants’ brass buttons.
We passed dishes around the table ourselves, since the footmen had been assigned to stand against the walls in the dining room.
No ghost dared to make an appearance—perhaps because specters aren’t brave enough to float through a room echoing with laughter.
After we finished eating, we moved closer to the fire and played weathered children’s games rescued from the nursery: knucklebones and checkers, followed by card games of commerce and whist.
I particularly enjoyed playing cards. I could keep a whole deck in my head, and unless luck went against me, I calculated odds well enough to win groans from Lance, French oaths from Colette, and complaints from Ophelia.
As well as frowns from Godric as he tried (in vain) to beat me. “Gambler,” he said, under his breath. “Mathematician.”
I felt like myself sitting around that table, laughing and dealing out cards, showing off the four different ways I know how to shuffle while blithely doubling down on Colette’s saucy insults.
As I put down my cards after winning another game, Ophelia scowled. “I think you do it deliberately.”
“Winning? Absolutely.”
“No, appearing docile while winning,” she complained. “Ladylike. Cultured and modest. But secretly smart.”
“That’s a false syllogism,” Godric said.
“What’s a syllogism?” Ophelia inquired.
“A three-part logical argument,” I said. “Major premise: Ladies are docile and ignorant. Minor premise: I am a lady. Ergo—which means ‘in conclusion’—I am ignorant. Since, in fact, I know something about cards, that was a false syllogism.”
“You are far from ignorant. Do you puzzle over riddles while waltzing?” Godric asked.
“Sometimes.” I found myself turning pink at his expression.
We spent the rest of the night making up syllogisms.
“Peacocks are gaudy and do not waltz,” Lance offered. “Frenchwomen love to waltz; therefore, Frenchwomen are not gaudy . . . except for my wife.”
“As a bird, I would marry within my species.” Colette laughed, smoothing her ruby-colored gown. “An ostrich is six feet tall and detests mince pies; Lance is six feet tall and detests mince pies; ergo, I am married to an ostrich.”
“Hedgehogs cannot read,” Ophelia put in. “I’ve never seen my father open a book or newspaper; ergo, my father is a hedgehog.”
She was angry at Burnsby, for good reason. Most of her comments about him were improper, but I said nothing. Perhaps I could raise her to be a lady, in the best sense of the word—able to dance, go to the theater, flirt with a man—without muting her emotions with a polite mask.
Why should Ophelia look and act like everyone else?
“Time for my peacock to go to bed,” Lance drawled, bringing his wife to her feet.
“Slugs can’t read, either,” Ophelia said to me, as we left the library. “Ergo, you married a slug, Evie!” she squealed, with a sudden girlish shriek of laughter.
Evie.