Chapter Five
“The blue ribbon, Cecilia. Not the white. I specifically said the blue.”
Cecilia counted silently to three before replying. “The blue ribbon is in your hand, Georgiana.”
Her cousin looked down, blinked at the length of silk clasped between her fingers, and flushed—slightly. “Oh. So it is.” She did not apologise. She never apologised. “Well. Proceed, then.”
They had been at Fairholme Park several days now.
Cecilia proceeded, weaving the ribbon through Georgiana’s golden curls with the practised efficiency of long experience. Morning light streamed through the windows of the guest chamber, gilding dust motes, costly fabrics—and one young lady’s increasingly elaborate coiffure.
“Lady Marchmont has arranged a walking tour of the gardens,” Georgiana said, studying her reflection with critical care. “All the young ladies will participate. And the gentlemen, of course.”
“How pleasant.”
“The Duke of Ashworth will be there.” A pause, heavy with meaning. “He was seated near me at dinner on our first evening here. He asked about Thornfield.”
“Did he?”
“Yes. I told him about the gardens—how I prefer the wild sections to the formal. He seemed interested.” Georgiana’s reflection smiled. “Mama says I must build on the foundation. Establish common ground. Make myself memorable.”
“Sound advice.”
“You do not sound as though you think it is sound advice.”
Cecilia secured the final pin and stepped back. “I think your mama knows far more about these matters than I do. There. You look perfect.”
Georgiana considered herself a moment longer, turning her head to judge the effect from every angle. Whatever she saw satisfied her; her expression softened into pleased assurance.
“I do, rather.” She rose, smoothing her morning gown—a confection of white muslin and blue ribbons that matched her eyes precisely. “Wish me luck, Cecilia.”
“You do not need luck. You are beautiful and accomplished—and exactly what everyone expects.”
It was not, Cecilia reflected after Georgiana had swept from the room, quite a compliment. But Georgiana had taken it as one, and that was what mattered.
She tidied the dressing table, gathered stray hairpins, returned discarded choices to the wardrobe. The maid would complete the task in due course, but Cecilia had learned that busyness kept one from thinking too much.
Thinking was dangerous. Thinking led to wanting, and wanting led to despair.
She thought instead of the hours ahead: mending to complete, arrangements to confirm with the housekeeper regarding Georgiana’s preferences for tea. Small things. Manageable things. The architecture of a useful life.
The walking tour would occupy Georgiana until luncheon. That afforded Cecilia several hours of relative freedom—freedom to accomplish her duties, yes, but also freedom to move through the house without constant oversight.
Freedom to visit the library.
The thought rose unbidden; she pushed it down with practised discipline.
She had been borrowing books from Lady Marchmont’s collection since their arrival—slipping in during quiet hours, choosing volumes that interested her, reading them by candlelight in her small room, and returning them before anyone noticed.
It was a small theft. A tiny rebellion against the circumstances that had reduced her to this half-life.
She chose the books no one else would miss: treatises on practical matters, works of agricultural and economic theory—the sort of reading a lady of leisure would deem incomprehensible, and a gentleman beneath consideration.
But they reminded her of who she had been. Of the education her father had given her. Of the mind that still worked, even when her circumstances did not permit it to matter.
She had two books currently in her possession. She ought to return them today, before someone noticed their absence.
Decision made, she retrieved the books from their hiding place beneath the mattress and made her way toward the servants’ stairs.
***
The corridors of Fairholme Park were designed for discretion.
Cecilia had mapped them within a day of arriving: servants’ passages running parallel to the public halls, back staircases that allowed the staff to move unseen, side doors granting unobtrusive access to principal rooms.
She used them now, moving like a ghost through the house, avoiding the public spaces where she might encounter guests—or worse, her own family.
Lady Ashwood had arrived from Bath the previous day, her sister apparently recovered, and her presence had altered the household at once.
Where Cecilia had enjoyed a measure of benign neglect, she now endured active supervision.
Lady Ashwood had opinions about how Cecilia ought to spend her time. None of those opinions involved reading.
The library’s servants’ entrance stood at the end of a secondary corridor, half-concealed by a decorative screen. Cecilia paused, listening. Silence. Most guests were out of doors; those who remained would be in the drawing room or their chambers, not browsing books.
She eased the door open and slipped inside.
The library was magnificent in daylight. Sunlight poured through tall windows, warming the colours of carpet and binding alike. The air still held the faint sweetness of last night’s fire, now reduced to pale ash in the grate.
Cecilia allowed herself a brief moment of wonder.
This room was everything she had lost—beauty, learning, the quiet pleasure of knowledge pursued for its own sake.
Here, surrounded by books, she could almost believe she was still the girl she had been—Sir Edmund’s daughter, a young woman with a future.
Then she remembered why she had come, and the illusion slipped away.
She crossed to the shelves where she had found her borrowed books and slid them back into their places with practised care. She had memorised their exact positions. No trace must remain.
She ought to leave at once. She ought to return to the servants’ corridor and forget that this room existed.
Instead, she lingered.
Her fingers drifted along the spines—titles familiar, titles unknown. So many books. A lifetime’s worth of thinking, gathered in one room. She could spend years here and never exhaust its possibilities.
Her hand paused on a volume she had long wished to examine: a recent work on the economics of rural improvement, spoken of but never seen. She hesitated, glanced towards the door, weighed the risk against the reward.
A small theft. A tiny rebellion.
She drew the book free and opened it, scanning the first pages. The prose was dense but clear; the arguments promised substance. She would take it back to her room, read it by candlelight, return it on the morrow—
The main door opened.
Cecilia’s heart seized. She had been so absorbed that she had forgotten to listen—forgotten every rule of survival she had learned over five years of navigating hostile territory.
She looked up, already shaping an apology, already arranging her features into the blank composure that invited dismissal.
And found herself face-to-face with the Duke of Ashworth.
***
He had not expected to find anyone in the library.
The morning’s walking tour had been everything Sebastian anticipated: pretty gardens, prettier young ladies, and conversation that skimmed the surface of subjects without ever daring depth.
He had escaped at the first acceptable moment, claimed correspondence, and sought refuge in the one room where he was least likely to be pursued.
The library; a place where he could be alone with his thoughts without anyone demanding he perform.
Except he was not alone.
A woman stood near the shelves at the far end of the room, a book clasped to her chest, her expression arrested in startled guilt. She wore a plain grey dress—the same he had noticed from the window on the day of her arrival—and her dark hair was arranged simply, without ornament.
Miss Cecilia Ashwood. The cousin.
For a moment, neither spoke. He could almost see the calculation in her eyes—the swift weighing of risk, the instinct to apologise, retreat, vanish.
He ought to let her go. It would be kinder. Safer. Appropriate.
Instead, he said quietly, “You need not be alarmed.”
She blinked. “Your Grace—I beg your pardon. I did not expect— I will withdraw at once.”
He moved a fraction closer. “You needn’t flee on my account.”
Her fingers tightened on the book. “I ought not to be here.”
His gaze dropped—unintentionally—to the volume she held. A familiar title. One of the works he had noticed set aside on the small table days earlier—marked, annotated, studied.
His heart gave a small, inexplicable jolt.
“May I ask,” he said gently, “whether that is a volume you have borrowed before?”
She hesitated. It was answer enough.
“I thought as much,” he continued, with care. “Some of the books in that section bear marginal notes. Intelligent ones. I wondered… whose hand they belonged to.”
Her face went still. “I should replace this at once.”
“I am not accusing you,” he said, more softly than he intended. “Only observing.” He moved closer, drawn by curiosity despite every rational instinct telling him to keep his distance. “Lady Marchmont’s collection is available to her guests. You have as much right to read as anyone.”
She drew in a breath. “I am not a guest, Your Grace. And I have no leave to use the library. My presence is… tolerated, when unnoticed.”
The words were quiet. Unsparing. Without self-pity.
They struck him more sharply than any reproach.
“You are a member of the Ashwood family,” he said carefully.
“I am a dependent of the Ashwood family,” she replied, with steady composure. “There is a distinction. Forgive me. I will return the book and trouble you no further.”
“That is not necessary.”
“I think it is.”
She turned toward the shelves with careful dignity, every movement precise—as though habit had taught her to make herself unimpeachable.
He should have let her go.