Chapter 4
Chapter Four
The air outside was cooler than within. Greystone’s gardens stretched out in a haphazard sprawl of clipped hedges, overgrown borders, and ancient oaks that loomed like sentinels. Adeline walked fast, skirts brushing dew-wet grass, the thud of her own pulse loud in her ears.
He dared to silence me as one would a child! He dared to put his hands upon me!
Her stomach clenched. Her heart tripped. Her lips still tingled where the Duke had touched her. Her ear burned with the memory of his teeth. She licked her lips, tasting his skin, or so she thought. Adeline pressed her fingers against her temple, furious with herself.
How could anyone find such a man attractive? A bully. A man who enjoys intimidating. Throwing his weight around. That is not a man at all but a silly, little boy.
“He is arrogant, rude, unyielding and the very sort of brute I will never fall prey to,” she whispered to herself, a habit formed by life in a household where opinion was discouraged and voice was prohibited. She stopped, inhaling sharply. Arrogant. Rude. Intimidating and yet…
His presence had filled the room like thunder.
His gaze had seized her as though he could unmake her with a single look.
She had been ready to strike him, to wound him with words, but beneath her fury had lurked something else.
Heat. An awareness of his nearness that unsettled her more than his temper.
“Foolish girl,” she muttered to herself, resuming her stride. “The man is insufferable.”
Still, her thoughts betrayed her, circling back to the breadth of his shoulders, the roughness of his hand, the unexpected softness of his voice when he’d said enough.
Adeline shook her head violently, as if to rid herself of the images, and nearly missed the movement in the branches above her.
A small figure, halfway up the gnarled oak, spoke and disrupted her private thoughts.
“Of whom do you speak? My father?” came a voice from the mass of oak leaves above.
“Louisa?” Adeline asked, “Louisa Burgess, daughter of the Duke?”
She moved closer to the tree, under its low, spreading branches.
She looked up into an intricate maze of branches, some as conveniently arranged as a staircase, and found herself looking at a young, female face framed by disheveled dark hair.
Light blue eyes looked back. The color was the same as that of the open sky.
“Yes. And you are?”
“My name is Adeline. Miss Adeline Wilkinson. I am Lady-In-Waiting for your grandmother, the Dowager-Duchess.”
The girl frowned in a way that made Adeline see the Duke. But Louisa’s face was incapable of that kind of hardness. She frowned and then smiled.
“Welcome to Greystone. The house isn’t nearly as gloomy as the name suggests, and my father isn’t nearly as stony as his face suggests.”
Adelina laughed. The happy openness of the girl was refreshing.
“I am glad because they both suggest much,” Adeline said. She tipped her head to the side and examined the branch on which the young lady perched. “Are you supposed to be climbing trees?”
Louisa bit her lip, eyes suddenly wide. “Papa says it isn’t proper.”
“Does he now?” Adeline stepped closer. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I find most things that are proper quite dull.”
The girl blinked, clearly caught between suspicion and delight.
“You won’t tell?”
Adeline smiled. “I shall keep your secret if you make room for me up there.”
Louisa gasped as Adeline hiked her skirts and reached for the lowest branch, hauling herself up with the ease of someone who had done this often in childhood.
She scrambled until she was beside the girl, who giggled behind her hand.
Moss, lichen, and bark had rubbed against her skirts, making similar marks to those that marred Louisa’s clothes.
“You’ll ruin your dress,” Louisa whispered.
“It is impossible to climb trees in a dress and not have some mark of the tree left behind,” Adeline said. “Besides, I’ve ruined better.”
Adeline leaned against the rough bark, letting the breeze cool her flushed skin. For the first time since entering Greystone, she felt something like ease.
How long since I climbed a tree? Since I enjoyed the peace of the air sighing through laden branches. Felt the warmth of green-tinted sunlight.
It had been years. Before the shadow had fallen across her happy little family. Adeline forced her thoughts from the fog of the past. They sat in companionable silence for a while, the gardens sprawling beneath them.
“So, where is your governess while you are climbing trees?” Adeline asked after a beat.
“I do not have one. Nor will I. They are useless,” Louisa said with the certainty only a child could muster.
“Are they?” Adeline said, “I had an excellent one for a time when I was a girl.”
Louisa’s tone was sharp. “For a time? I have had many governesses for a time. Did yours leave?”
Adeline frowned, staring through the leaves and seeing something unreachably far away.
“Lady Adeline?” Louisa asked.
Adeline blinked, returning to the present.
“Yes. She left. I forget why. And she was not replaced. But I did miss her.”
Left because she could not bear to remain in my father’s house a second longer.
Adeline did not allow herself to slip into reverie again, not in front of the girl.
“What does your mother think of the absence of a governess?” Adeline asked.
When Louisa spoke, her voice was small and wounded.
“I don’t remember her. Not at all. She died when I was little.”
She hesitated and then firmed her lips, throwing back her shoulders and raising her chin. There was an obvious effort at work there to appear strong.
“So, I do not know what her opinions were on the subject. Or any subject for that matter.”
Adeline nodded thoughtfully. Now that she thought about it clearly, she could not recall the Dowager Duchess ever mentioning her son’s wife.
Moreover, she realized that in her explorations of the house, she had seen portraits that she now knew to be Louisa.
But none of any woman who might be Louisa’s mother.
There were many paintings of women, but all had the look of age, whether the fading of the colors or the fashion on display.
She decided that this child, who tried so hard to hide her pain, was not the best person to ask about this omission.
“I would like to know, I think. What she might have thought. Or what she looked like,” Louisa said.
Adeline felt a tug in her chest. She knew too well what it meant to be denied pieces of one’s own past.
“Perhaps your grandmother might tell you,” she offered with a smile.
“Grandmama says Papa wouldn’t like it.” Louisa’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I think she’s afraid of him.”
Adeline stored the thought away, a seed of curiosity she could not ignore. Later, she would ask Cordelia. For now, she reached across and squeezed Louisa’s hand.
Another little girl is afraid of her father. If I were not dependent on his goodwill, I should like to give that brute a piece of my mind.
“You deserve to know who she was,” Adeline said softly.
Louisa’s answering smile was tremulous but real. And then the branch beneath them creaked.
“Uh oh,” Louisa breathed, looking down but not daring to move a muscle.
Before Adeline could shift, the branch gave way. Both yelped as they dropped, thankfully only a few feet, to dangle from a tangle of smaller limbs. Then those young branches gave up, and Adeline and Louisa tumbled onto the mossy ground among the tree’s questing roots.
The breath whooshed from Adeline’s lungs as she landed, skirts tangled around her knees. Beside her, Louisa sat up, grass clinging to her curls. For a heartbeat, they stared at one another in shock. Then both burst into helpless laughter.
“You should have seen your face!” Louisa wheezed.
“Mine?” Adeline gasped, clutching her side. “I have never seen the color drain from a face so quickly!”
They laughed until their ribs ached, until the indignity of dirt and grass stains seemed glorious rather than shameful.
Adeline thought, not without surprise, that she had not laughed like this since.
.. Since before Harston Grange had become her prison.
But laughter could not conceal mud. It could not conceal grass stains and bark that became lodged in hair and hid away from the hands that sought to dislodge it.
“We must go back to the house and change,” Adeline said, practically.
Louisa glanced at the brooding sprawl of Greystone.
“If my father catches us, he will lock me away.”
Adeline forced a smile.
“No, he will not. Because he is your father and he loves you.”
“He will scold me. I can’t abide being scolded,” Louisa said.
And I wonder who that trait is learned from?
She could well imagine that the Duke also disliked being scolded. But who would dare?
Together they attempted to sneak back into the house, creeping along corridors, ducking behind a screen when a maid passed. Despite her earlier reservation, Louisa was soon stifling giggles, and Adeline shushed her with exaggerated severity.
They had nearly made it to the staircase when disaster struck. Louisa stiffened, looking back over her shoulder.
“It is Mr. Lavender, the butler. He will report us to Papa. Quick!”
Adeline dashed ahead, holding Louisa’s hand in her own.
They darted around a corner only to run into a wall of muscle.
The Duke. She released Louisa’s hand, but the impact sent both her and the Duke tumbling down the short flight of steps.
The world spun, Adeline cried out and then she felt his body twist, shielding her from the worst of the fall.
They landed hard, tangled together, his weight braced beneath her, his breath harsh in her ear.
For one dizzying moment, she was acutely aware of him. His strength, his warmth, the line of his jaw inches from hers. Then he pushed himself up, grimacing, and his eyes blazed.
“What in God’s name were you doing?” His voice was thunderous; his face a storm.
Adeline scrambled to her feet, brushing at a spot where her skirt had been pinned as they rolled and had torn. The Duke was slower, wincing as he flexed his shoulder. Wincing again as he put weight on his ankle.
“I hit every step on the way down.” He huffed indignantly. “Thanks to me, I doubt you’ll ever have a bruise. Running about with your eyes closed. What foolishness!” he muttered.
“I had my eyes open. I was not paying close attention. For which I apologize,” Adeline said diplomatically.
“What were you doing, Louisa?” the Duke asked.
Louisa had descended the staircase more sedately and now hovered near her father. But not too near.
“We were in the garden…” she began.
“Climbing trees by the look of you!” he thundered. “Dangling from a tree like a fool! You could have broken your neck!”
“She is a child,” Adeline shot back, her own temper sparking. “Children climb trees. They breathe, they laugh, they live. Would you have her locked away like a songbird in a cage?”
“Do not presume to lecture me on my daughter.” His chest heaved, his blue eyes contriving to seem dark as coals. “You, who have known her mere hours!”
“Hours put to the good use of talking to her.”
Louisa had slipped away as the two became focused on each other. Adeline was incensed by the way he spoke to Louisa.
He is smothering her. Perhaps out of love, but I believe he would be more than capable of simply wanting to control her for the sake of doing it.
Her anger surged. The Duke stood in for the father she could not reach. Could not remonstrate with.
“And yet I see her hunger for a mother’s face,” Adeline flung at him before she could think. “I see her desperation for the truth you deny her. Why is her mother’s name forbidden in her own home?”
The Duke’s expression changed. His fury sharpened into something raw and unfathomable. For a moment, she thought he might strike the wall or shout her down. Instead, he stepped closer, his voice dropping to a rough growl.
“You will not speak of Louisa’s mother.”
“I will speak of what I please,” Adeline snapped, refusing to flinch.
They stood nose to nose, voices rising, each too consumed by the other to notice the echo in the hall. Louisa returned with Cordelia at her side.
“My word,” Cordelia said dryly, surveying the scene. “I leave you alone for an hour and the house is in uproar.”
Louisa clutched her grandmother’s hand, eyes bright.
“Grandmama, Adeline should be my governess! She listens to me. She climbs trees with me. I like her. Please?”
Adeline blinked, still breathless, while Winston gave a bark of incredulous laughter.
“Her? A governess?” His tone dripped with disdain.
“Why not?” Cordelia countered, unruffled. “Louisa has rejected a dozen already. At least she might mind Adeline.”
Winston’s gaze cut to Adeline, still flushed from their quarrel, grass stains streaked across her gown. Something unreadable flickered in his eyes. Anger? Yes, but something else too, something that made Adeline’s breath catch.
“Very well,” he said at last, voice low. “But before I allow such madness, I will have a private interview with her. After dinner.”
He held Adeline’s gaze unblinkingly until heat rose in her cheeks.
“As you wish,” Cordelia said brightly, patting Louisa’s shoulder. “There we have it. Settled.”
Settled? Perhaps, matters were settled as far as Cordelia or Louisa were concerned. But as Winston stalked past, Adeline knew, in her heart, that nothing between them was settled at all.