Chapter Ten
“The linens in the blue room require airing.”
Cecilia looked up from the breakfast she was not eating to find Mrs Patterson observing her with the particular severity of a housekeeper newly vested with authority over one she was not entirely certain how to manage.
“I shall see to it directly.”
“And the silver wants polishing. Sir Horace remarked that the candlesticks were quite tarnished.”
“I shall attend to that as well.”
“And the—”
“Mrs Patterson.” Cecilia set down her fork, abandoning the pretence of appetite. “I am acquainted with my duties. I have performed them these five years. You need not enumerate each task as though I might forget.”
The housekeeper’s lips thinned. She was unaccustomed to interruption—least of all from the household’s ambiguous dependent: too gently bred for a servant, too reduced for a lady. “I was merely endeavouring to—”
“I understand. Thank you.”
Cecilia rose and left the breakfast room before Mrs Patterson could continue. It was rude, perhaps—certainly unlike her usual careful deference—but this morning she could not summon the energy for such performances.
She could summon the energy for very little.
It was the second day since her return to Thornfield: the second day of grey skies and grey walls and grey gowns that seemed to leach the colour from her very soul; the second day of attempting to resume her invisible existence, and discovering she had quite forgotten how it was done.
The linens. She would air the linens. It was a task that required movement and attention, the honest engagement of muscle and bone. Perhaps, if she worked hard enough—if she exhausted herself sufficiently—she might cease to think.
She might cease to remember.
I love you, and I cannot pretend otherwise.
His voice echoed in her mind as she climbed the stairs to the blue room. She could still feel the pressure of his hands upon hers; still see the desperate honesty in his grey eyes; still sense the ghost of his kiss—that brief, devastating contact which had expressed all that words could not.
And then she had walked away—had left him standing in the library, had watched Fairholme Park recede like a dream dissolving in the morning light.
She had done the right thing. The sensible thing. The only thing a woman in her position might do.
Why, then, did the right thing feel so very like dying?
***
The blue room had not been used in months.
A fine film of dust dulled every surface, and the linens—when Cecilia drew them from the bed—bore the stale scent of neglect.
She opened the windows despite the chill, admitting the keen air, and set about the methodical labour of stripping the bed, beating the mattress, and replacing everything with freshly laundered sheets.
It was good work—honest work—the kind that occupied the hands and left the mind free to wander.
Her mind wandered straight back to Sebastian.
What was he doing now, at this very moment?
Sitting in the library, gazing at the chair where she had been accustomed to sit?
Walking the gardens at Fairholme, recalling their conversation in the rain?
Performing his ducal duties—speaking with Georgiana and the other eligible young ladies—and slowly forgetting that she had ever existed?
The last thought was a knife to the heart.
She knew it was irrational—knew his feelings had seemed genuine, his declaration marked by a raw vulnerability that could scarcely have been feigned.
Yet she also knew that feelings changed; that time and distance could erode even the strongest attachment; that dukes, in the end, married suitable women and learned to be content.
He would forget her—if not today, nor tomorrow, then by and by. He would attend balls and house parties; he would meet women beautiful and accomplished and perfectly appropriate. He would dance, converse, and at length discover one whose company did not feel like a performance.
And Cecilia would still be here—airing linens, polishing silver, being useful.
She attacked the mattress with more force than was strictly necessary, beating out dust and vexation in equal measure.
***
By the third day, she had established a routine.
She rose early, before the household stirred; dressed in her grey muslin—always the grey; there was nothing else—and went down to the kitchen, where the cook shared tea and toast without demanding conversation.
Then the work began. Mrs Patterson, clearly resolved to profit by Cecilia’s return, assigned every task neglected during her absence. The silver must be polished, the china inventoried, the linen-press set to rights, the household accounts reviewed.
Cecilia performed each duty with mechanical precision, grateful for the distraction. So long as her hands were busy, her mind could not so easily wander to libraries and grey eyes and words she was striving to forget.
She burnished a candlestick until it gleamed like new, and tried not to dwell upon the possibility that he might truly have been willing to surrender everything for her sake.
***
The letter arrived on the fourth day.
Cecilia was in the stillroom, taking inventory of the preserved fruits and pickled vegetables that must see the household through winter, when a maid appeared in the doorway with a folded paper in her hand.
“Letter for you, miss. Came in the afternoon post.”
Cecilia’s heart stopped—then recommenced twice as fast. She accepted the letter with trembling fingers, studying the direction in desperate hope.
The hand was unfamiliar. Feminine. Not Sebastian’s.
The disappointment was so sharp she was obliged to grasp the edge of the shelf to steady herself. What had she expected? That he would write to her here, where Lady Ashwood might, by instruction, contrive to have the correspondence intercepted? That he would hazard scandal for the sake of a letter?
She had told him she needed time to think. He was respecting her wishes.
She should be grateful.
She broke the seal and unfolded the paper.