Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
“Driven out already? That was quick, even for you.”
Diana had one foot on the carriage step when the words reached her, and she did not trouble to look up. She knew the voice. It had a laugh underneath it that never came anywhere near being a laugh.
Her father made a sound of protest — “Octavia” — but it was a soft sound, and it did not mean anything, and Diana had learned long ago exactly what her father’s protests were worth.
Then the Duke came down behind her.
The change was quite something to watch. It went across Octavia’s face like sun across a field; the mouth softened, the eyes warmed, the woman rearranged herself between one breath and the next.
“Oh, dearest Diana.” She came down the steps with both hands out. “We have missed you so.”
Diana scoffed. She could not help it and did not much try.
She looked her stepmother over as the woman came closer, and what she saw did not surprise her, though it made something tighten under her ribs.
Octavia was done up like a duchess herself.
The gown was new, and French, and cost more than the whole of Diana’s trousseau; there were pearls at her throat and a bracelet on each wrist and a shawl of Norwich silk over her arm that must have run to thirty guineas.
Beside her Levi looked like a man who had been dressed by somebody else and not recently.
His coat was three years old. His wife was wearing the difference.
And she is beautiful, Diana thought, with a flat, tired honesty.
Octavia sank into a curtsy before the Duke. It was about four inches deeper than was called for.
“Your Grace. What an honor.”
She looked up through her lashes as she rose. Diana watched her do it.
“Madam,” said Valentine, and he looked away.
Her father led them to the drawing room. When the Duke sat, he reached out his hand toward her without looking. Diana took it and sat down beside him. Across the room, Octavia’s face crumpled. It lasted no longer than a blink, and it was gone before her husband could see it. Diana saw it.
“Your Grace.” Her father cleared his throat. “Might I ask the reason for the visit?”
“May a man’s wife not call upon her own family?”
“Of course — of course she may. I meant no—”
Octavia laughed. It came out of nowhere and filled the room like a spilled cup.
“He is only anxious, Your Grace. Diana is our pride and our joy — but we did so worry that she should not know how to serve. She was never taught it properly, poor lamb. It is not her fault.”
Valentine did not appear to have heard her.
“We have come for something more,” he said. He glanced at Diana. Then he turned to her father. “My Duchess has asked that the child come and live with us.”
“Indeed she did!” Octavia’s hands flew to her breast. “Such a sweet soul, our Diana — she frets over her sister so, it is quite touching, truly. But we could not dream of imposing so upon Your Grace. It would be most improper.”
There.
Diana kept her face perfectly still, and inside her something clicked shut like a lock.
She wrote the letter after all; Diana confirmed that her suspicions were not wrong.
Valentine turned to her father.
“Do you think the same, Westleigh?”
Her father shifted. “You have been married barely a week. It is not proper. A new marriage wants privacy. The child would be underfoot.”
“I do not mind.” He said it easily. Then he looked at Diana, and held the look a moment, and turned back. “If my wife wants it, she must have it. It is an unlucky thing, a dissatisfied wife. Would you not agree?”
Her father looked away.
“Your Grace.” Octavia’s voice had climbed half a step. “I am sure I do not know what she has told you—”
“She has told me nothing.”
The room went quiet.
“I confess I am at a loss.” Valentine’s tone had not altered at all, which was somehow worse. “Twice now, madam, you have supposed that I am acting upon the promptings of my wife. Do you take me for a man of so little will? Or for a puppet, perhaps, with somebody’s hand up the back of my coat?”
“No — Your Grace, of course not, I only assumed—”
“Then I would bid you be cautious with your assumptions.” He let it sit. “You do not appear to have goodwill enough to spare on them.”
“She meant no harm, Your Grace,” her father said quickly. “None at all. She only—”
Diana laughed inwardly, where it could not be heard.
He has not looked at me once since I came through that door except to find fault. Not once. His daughter, married off in a week to a man he was told was a monster, and he has not asked me a single question about how I do. Yet he leaps to her defense so fast he nearly falls over.
She had expected it. She had told herself in the carriage exactly what to expect, and had thought herself quite prepared.
And I am disappointed anyway—every single time.
Valentine cleared his throat.
“Then let us leave the decision with the child,” he said. “If she chooses to return with us, she comes. If she does not, she stays. I take it no one here objects to that.”
Diana saw the smirk come back into Octavia’s face, satisfied and quickly hidden.
“Very well,” said her stepmother, and turned and signaled to the maid at the door.
Diana’s stomach turned over.
Then there was a warm weight over her hand. The Duke had covered it with his own, there on the settee, in front of everyone, and he did not look at her; he only patted it once and left it there.
That warmth. She felt her breath come back.
Across the room, Octavia was staring at their hands.
There were footsteps in the passage. Betsy came in with Arabella by the hand.
Diana rose halfway out of her seat before she knew she had moved.
Her sister was dressed as a servant. Plain gray stuff, coarse and shapeless, a white apron over it, the exact match of Betsy’s own. It did not fit her, and her hair was scraped back, and she was looking at the carpet.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Her father blinked. “What—?” He turned, and squinted at the child as though she had only just come into focus. “Bella. Why are you dressed so?”
Diana stared at him.
“Why is she dressed so?” She heard her own voice climbing and could not get hold of it. “Do you not live in this house? Do you not sit at table with her? Have you not laid eyes on your own daughter?”
“Oh, this is all my fault.”
Octavia’s voice went soft and grieving and folded neatly over the top of everything.
“The poor child had outgrown every stitch she owned. She has shot up so much this year that I could not keep pace with it. So I had the old things given away to the parish, as one does, and I fully intend to have new ones made up for her. I have been so busy, Your Grace. There is so much to do in a house like this.” She pressed her fingers to her lips.
“I shall never forgive myself. She must have been so ashamed to be seen.”
Diana’s fists closed in her lap.
Busy. Busy with what? What in God’s name have you been busy with? You do not keep this house. You do not raise these children. You have not done one hour’s honest work since the day you came.
“Duchess.” Valentine’s voice came. “Take the child out. Ask her what she wants.”
“Why on earth would she want to?” Octavia began.
“Madam.” He did not raise his voice.
Octavia sat straight.
Valentine turned to her father. “Have you any objection to the girls speaking privately?”
“Well — I hardly think it—”
“Unless there is something you would rather she did not say. What is the crime in a child speaking to her sister alone?”
Her father’s mouth worked.
“Indeed,” he said. “Indeed. No objection at all.”
Octavia said nothing. Her hands were perfectly still in her lap, her face perfectly pleasant, and Diana, crossing the room, could feel the heat coming off her like a stove.
The moment the door was shut Diana was on her knees.
Arabella flew at her. Diana caught her and held on and shut her eyes hard and would not let the tears come, would not, and pressed her mouth into her sister’s scraped-back hair.
“Bella. Oh, my darling—”
“I am fine.” The small voice was muffled against her shoulder. “I am fine, Diana, don’t cry.”
Diana pulled back and took the child’s face in both hands and looked at her. She was not thinner. That was something. Her cheeks were warm, and her eyes were clear, and she did not have the pinched look of a child who is not being fed.
She looked up at Betsy.
Betsy’s face was tight. “The lady sent word all of a sudden, Your Grace, that the little miss’s clothes were to be brought down—every one. I hid what I could, two frocks, and her good boots; they’re under my own bed this minute. She took the rest.”
“She said it was given to the parish,” said Diana.
“So she said.” Betsy’s voice dropped. “But those were good fabrics, miss: good muslin, and the velvet spencer your mother had made her. I’ve heard it about the kitchen she sold the lot. Sold his lordship’s old coats too, and there’s some of your own gone from the press upstairs.”
Of course she did.
That was the part she could not get past. Her father was under the woman’s thumb entirely; Octavia had only to look sad at breakfast to have whatever she liked by luncheon.
She could have had ten new gowns for the child by asking.
She could have had a hundred. Instead she had stripped an eight-year-old’s press and sold the clothes off her back for what — forty pounds?
Fifty? For the pleasure of it. For the small mean pleasure of it.
Diana knelt again and took her sister’s hands.
“Bella. Do you want to come with me?” She said it as steadily as she could. “There is a room ready, and it is next to mine, and we should be together, and you should never have to see her again. Will you come?”
Arabella looked at the floor and shook her head.
Diana did not move.
“What?” she said. “Bella, why?”
Her sister would not look up.
Betsy let out a long breath.
“The lady got your letter, Your Grace,” she said quietly.
“She read it out at the table. And then she was at it the whole day, up and down the house — how the child was trying to ruin your marriage, how she was a burden and a bother and had no gratitude in her. How His Grace would send you back to us the moment he was sick of the pair of you.” Betsy’s jaw set.
“The little miss heard the whole of it. There was no keeping her from it.”
The rage came up so hard and so fast that Diana saw herself perfectly clearly, walking back into that drawing room and telling the woman her mind in the most unpleasant way. She breathed out.
“Bella.” She kept her voice very gentle. “You must not listen to her. Not to one word. She is unwell. There is something the matter with her, in her mind. It makes her say cruel things that are not true. You are not a bother. You have never been a bother in your life.”
“I am, though,” Arabella said, and it was to the carpet, and there was no self-pity in it at all, which was what made it unbearable. “I don’t want to make the Duke angry. He might be mean to you.” She scrubbed her nose with her wrist. “I’m fine here. I’ve got Betsy.”
Diana shook her head. “Bella—”
But the small face had set. Diana knew that look. She had put it there herself, years ago, teaching a four-year-old how to be brave.
A tear got away from her. She wiped it off fast with the back of her hand.
“Your Grace.” Betsy’s voice, low and firm. “I’ve my eyes on her every hour. I keep her out of that woman’s path most days, and what I can’t stop I can soften. She’s loved in this house, whatever she’s wearing.” She paused. “You mustn’t take the whole of it on yourself. You’ve enough.”
Diana sniffed hard, and got her face back, and made herself smile. She cupped Arabella’s cheek.
She could not force her. That was the plain fact of it. She could not throw a screaming eight-year-old into a carriage and call it rescue.
“Bella,” she said. “Should you like to play?”
The whole face lit up. “Yes!”
“Then go up. Betsy will take you.” She kissed her forehead. “I shall come to you directly. I promise.”
Betsy dipped and led the child away; there in the passage, coming toward them, was Octavia.
Betsy bowed her head and went past her with Arabella held close on the far side, and did not slow.