Chapter Three
“You cannot possibly expect me to remain in this bed for the entirety of my convalescence.”
Mrs Blackley, who had kept Thornwick Castle in admirable order for many years and survived the tempers of three successive Hales, regarded Fiona with the composed patience of a woman well versed in aristocratic obstinacy.
“I expect nothing, miss. I merely convey His Grace’s instructions.”
“His Grace’s instructions.” Fiona propped herself higher against the pillows, resolutely ignoring the twinge in her ankle. “And what, precisely, are those instructions? That I am to moulder away in this chamber like some forgotten piece of furniture until the roads clear?”
“His Grace believes rest would materially assist your recovery.”
“His Grace may believe what he chooses. I am not one of his tenants to be directed at will.”
Mrs Blackley’s lips curved—just perceptibly. “No, miss. You are a guest. Which is precisely why His Grace is solicitous of your comfort.”
“My comfort,” Fiona declared, casting back the covers with unnecessary emphasis, “would be greatly improved by a change of prospect. A short walk—assisted, supervised, conducted with due solemnity if required. Anything rather than lying here studying the ceiling and debating whether that water stain resembles a rabbit or a particularly malevolent cloud.”
“A rabbit, miss. The late duchess was of the same opinion.”
Fiona blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“The water stain. The late duchess—His Grace’s mother—occupied this chamber during her final illness.
She maintained it was a rabbit.” Mrs Blackley’s voice softened, almost imperceptibly.
“She had a fondness for discovering shapes in unlikely places. Said it kept the mind engaged when the body would not oblige.”
A faint thread of long-contained sorrow ran beneath the words.
Fiona found her indignation faltering. She pictured the Duke in this vast, echoing house, and wondered how long it had been since his mother’s voice had filled these corridors.
Whether anyone had ever sat beside him and searched the plaster for rabbits.
“Mrs Blackley.” She moderated her tone. “I do not wish to be troublesome. But I am ill-suited to idleness, and another day confined to this bed will try my composure beyond endurance. Might there be a room—some small parlour or library—where I could sit without being entirely entombed?”
The housekeeper hesitated.
Fiona pressed on. “I give you my word: I shall conduct myself as the very model of a patient. I will not attempt the stairs without assistance. I will not invade His Grace’s study armed with fireplace implements.
I shall sit quietly and read—or gaze pensively from a window, if that is the approved occupation of convalescents. ”
“You accosted His Grace with a fireplace implement?”
“Only once. And it was employed more as a walking aid than as an instrument of assault.”
Mrs Blackley regarded her steadily for several moments. Then, with the air of a woman making a decision she suspected she might later reconsider, she inclined her head.
“There is a small sitting room at the end of this corridor. It overlooks the gardens—such as they may be in this weather—and a fire can be laid. If you will permit yourself to be carried—”
“I will permit myself to be assisted. By Molly, if you please. I have taxed His Grace’s arms sufficiently for one acquaintance.”
Another faint curve touched Mrs Blackley’s mouth. “Very good, miss. I shall send your maid at once.”
***
The sitting room was, Fiona discovered, rather lovely.
Small by the standards of a castle—which rendered it merely expansive by ordinary measure—it boasted tall windows overlooking a rain-lashed garden and walls dressed in faded silk the colour of buttercups.
The furnishings were of an earlier generation: elegant once, now settled into the dignity of comfortable age.
A fire burned steadily in the grate, and a pot of tea had been set upon the table beside the settee where Molly had carefully installed her mistress.
“There now, miss.” Molly tucked the blanket more securely about Fiona’s legs. “Is this not preferable to that gloomy bedchamber?”
“Immeasurably.” Fiona accepted her tea and leaned back against the cushions. Her ankle throbbed, but no longer viciously—an aggravation rather than an ordeal. “Though I suspect I shall incur His Grace’s displeasure when he discovers I have absconded.”
“Mrs Blackley says he seldom comes to this wing. Something about memories.” Molly lowered her voice. “The servants say his mother favoured this room before she passed. He has not set foot in it since.”
Fiona glanced about with altered perception. The silk, the arrangement of porcelain upon the mantel, the careful preservation of every detail—nothing had been disturbed. It was not neglect, she realised. It was reverence.
“How long ago?” she asked quietly. “His mother.”
“Ten years, they say. Maybe twelve. She was ill for a long time before the end.” Molly glanced toward the door. “They say she loved him dearly, though she had her own way of showing it. She cared for him more than most, at any rate. She was the only one who learned to look at him without… well.”
“Without screaming?”
Molly coloured. “I did not mean—”
“I know.” Fiona stirred her tea absently. “It is not unjust. I can hardly claim superior conduct.”
The rain battered the windows without mercy. Fiona found herself imagining the gardens in summer—whether they softened under sunlight, whether order had been coaxed from their present desolation, whether the Duke ever walked among them at all.
She was contemplating a particularly bedraggled rose bush when the door opened.
“Mrs Blackley, I specifically instructed—”
The Duke of Thornwick halted in the doorway.
He was more formally attired than before—coat fastened high, cravat arranged with exactness, every inch of revealing skin concealed. His hair remained tied back, though several strands had escaped, lending him the look of a man who had passed his hands through it more than once in vexation.
“Miss Hart.” His tone was level. “You are not in your chamber.”
“How perceptive of you, Your Grace.” Fiona set aside her teacup. “I found the ceiling insufficiently diverting.”
“I gave instructions—”
“I am aware. Mrs Blackley conveyed them with admirable clarity.”
His jaw set. In the wan light, she could see tension drawn along the line of his cheekbones, through his shoulders, into the hands curled at his sides. He appeared less angry than unsettled—like a man confronted by a door he had firmly resolved never to open again.
“This room,” he began, then stopped.
“Belonged to your mother.” Fiona gentled her tone. “I was told. If my presence here causes you discomfort, I shall return to my chamber at once. I had no wish to trespass upon memory.”
Something crossed his expression—swift and unguarded. “You do not trespass. It has stood unused for years. I simply… did not anticipate finding it occupied.”
“And yet here I am.” She gestured lightly toward the chair opposite. “Since I have already committed the impropriety, you may as well sit. The tea remains warm, and I am in need of conversation. Molly has endured all my philosophical reflections upon convalescence at least twice.”
“Thrice, miss,” Molly muttered from her corner.
The Duke did not move. He stood in the doorway like a man poised for flight, every line of his body radiating discomfort. Fiona watched him and wondered what it must be like to live in a house full of ghosts, to walk halls that echoed with memories of people who had flinched from the sight of you.
“I do not—” He stopped. Started again. “I am not fit company, Miss Hart. I have spent too long in solitude to remember how civilised people behave.”
“Then consider this an opportunity to relearn. I promise you I shall refrain from shrieking this time.”
For the briefest instant, something flickered at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile—but its ghost.
“You are persistent.”
“Determined,” she amended. “Persistence suggests obstinacy. Determination implies intention.”
“And what is your intention, Miss Hart?”
She considered, then answered plainly. “I am stranded under your roof through mischance. You have extended me kindness without obligation. I should like to know the gentleman responsible, rather than the legend others prefer.”
He held her gaze for a long moment. Then, with the air of a man conceding ground he had no strength to defend, he crossed the room and seated himself opposite her.
He looked absurdly large in the delicate furniture—a wolf attempting to fold itself into a teacup. His knees nearly touched the edge of the settee, and he seemed unsure what to do with his hands, eventually settling them on his thighs in a posture of rigid formality.
“The gentleman behind the legend,” he repeated. “I fear he is unremarkable. No dramatic secrets. No hidden virtues awaiting revelation. Merely a man born with a conspicuous mark and an unfortunate talent for driving people away.”
“You have not driven me away.”
“You cannot depart. The roads forbid it.”
“A technical impediment only.” She poured tea into a second cup and placed it firmly in his hands. “If I truly wished escape, I should contrive it. I am told you possess a donkey; I might make my bid for freedom astride him.”
“Bartholomew bites.”
“Then we should suit one another admirably.”
A pause—then the faintest curve of his mouth. A fissure in granite.
“You are...” He paused, searching for the word. “Unexpected.”
“I shall accept that as a compliment.”
“It was not offered as one.”
“And yet I shall receive it as such. That is the advantage of interpretation, Your Grace—we are each at liberty to assign meaning as it suits us.”
He accepted the teacup she pressed into his hands, looking down at it as though he had never seen such an object before.
His fingers wrapped around the delicate porcelain with surprising care, and Fiona found herself noticing, again, the size of his hands.
The way they dwarfed the cup. The way they had felt against her arms, her waist, her shoulders, when he had carried her through the storm.
She looked away quickly, heat rising to her cheeks.
“You said you were travelling to Whitby.” His voice cut through her wandering thoughts. “To your aunt.”
“Yes. My aunt Prudence. She is arranging a match for my cousin Adelaide—or attempting to, at any rate. Adelaide is very beautiful and exceedingly trusting, and I am meant to provide ballast.”
“Ballast?”
“The sensible one. The practical one. I prevent her from accepting the first compliment as a proposal.” She shrugged lightly. “It is my role in the family. I am too plain for advantageous marriage and too clever for domestic contentment, so I am put to use managing everyone else’s affairs.”
The duke’s brow furrowed. “Too plain? Who conveyed such folly to you?”
“You describe yourself as though it were established fact.” His voice remained steady, but something in it sharpened. “It is not.”
“Your Grace—”
“Your eyes are the colour of a winter sky before snowfall. Your hair catches light like burnished copper. You possess a countenance that compels attention—not for conformity, but for intelligence.” He paused, as though stating nothing more controversial than the weather.
“If others have failed to perceive this, it reflects upon them.”
She found herself momentarily without language.
No one had ever spoken to her like that. Her mother had pronounced her “handsome enough.” Her father had settled upon “sensible.” Her cousin Adelaide, in a moment of affectionate thoughtlessness, had once assured her she possessed “a face that would improve with age.”
And here sat this man—this so-called beast, this solitary duke, this terror of the northern cliffs—regarding her as though she were not merely adequate, but remarkable.
“You are staring,” the Duke observed evenly. “Have I misspoken?”
“No.” Her voice sounded unlike her own—quieter, unsteady at the edges. “You have spoken very well indeed. I am simply… unaccustomed to hearing such things.”
He frowned faintly. “Then you have been surrounded by fools.”
“Perhaps I have.” The admission escaped her with an unexpected lightness.
She found herself smiling despite the rain at the windows, despite the persistent ache in her ankle, despite the singular strangeness of her circumstances.
“Perhaps I have been in the company of fools for a great many years—and it required a storm and a broken carriage to make the discovery.”
He did not answer. Yet he did not withdraw, either. He did not retreat behind hauteur or silence. He remained where he was, meeting her gaze without flinching, without apology.
Time slipped by almost unnoticed. The tea cooled; the fire settled into a gentler glow. And still they sat opposite one another—the formidable Duke of Thornwick and his unexpected guest—speaking quietly of small things and serious ones alike.
Beyond the windows, the storm continued its assault.
Within the small buttercup-hued room, something altogether gentler had begun to gather strength.