Chapter 9 #2
Marigold realized she was hungry. Her nerves didn’t allow her to have a proper breakfast. But after such a long time of making her own meals, it still felt weird to be asking someone else to prepare one for her. Still, she was now a duchess, and she would have to act like it.
“I would like some tea and a light breakfast. I will have them in my own drawing room, please.”
Mrs. Hodgins seemed to be surprised by the soft command. Marigold didn’t even have to guess that the Duke may never be cruel, but he was not an easy lord to serve.
“It will be brought to you promptly, Your Grace.”
And just like that, Marigold was left alone in the middle of a vast room that she now had to consider hers in a house so weird and yet one that would host the rest of her life.
She lay down on the bed, letting out a soft moan at the thickness of the mattress and the cool counterpane beneath her cheek. Someone must have stuffed the pillows with lavender. She lay on her back, staring at the canopy above her, letting the reality settle.
“Marigold,” she resorted to her favorite habit of talking to herself since she had always been alone, “a quick rundown of the current situation in a coherent list. You are married. You live in this house. This house is now yours to manage. Please keep in mind you are not a penniless spinster anymore. You are the Duchess of Voss.”
And yet these words seemed like someone else was uttering them.
She closed her eyes and inhaled. She had survived far worse than a beautiful house and loving staff.
And yet it seemed like an out-of-body experience.
Just this morning she was in her plain, bare room, and now…
here. Marigold couldn’t help but sigh into the stillness of her room.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a noise outside. She frowned since she didn’t hear anyone ask to speak to her and ask for permission to enter. Before she had time to process that, the door burst open, and Duck pounded into the room.
Marigold had no time to prepare herself as the massive English Mastiff launched herself onto the bed. Marigold yelped as one hundred and fifty lbs of enthusiastic dog landed on her.
“Duck!”
It was exactly the thing Marigold needed. How could she have forgotten the one member in this house who knew and liked her?
“Where is my good girl?” she petted the dog.
Duck responded enthusiastically. She flopped down on the carpet, exposing her belly, asking shamelessly for a rub. Marigold, without hesitating, sat down on the carpet, petting and scratching the dog behind her ears while her other hand rubbed her belly.
She was so devoted to the task that she hadn’t realized the maid was standing at the door, mouth gaping, holding a tray.
“Please leave it on the table,” Marigold said. “The true lady of the house demands belly rubs.”
The maid entered the room, wide eyes on Duck, and did as told.
“Your Grace,” the maid said with a brittle smile, “you seem to have tamed the beast.”
Marigold snorted.
“Duck is not a beast.” She got up and took her place at the armchair, the dog at her heels. “She is a playful little princess.”
“Perhaps to you, Your Grace. She’s never like this with anyone around the house,” the maid said and then lowered her voice to add, “not even His Grace.”
Marigold served herself some tea and smiled into the cup. Here, one hand still patted Duck on the head, and the massive dog sat down at her feet. But that peace was short-lived. Soon Duck was on her feet, bouncing around the room.
“Fine, let’s take a walk out to the gardens,” Marigold said and made her way down.
She took the way out through the big drawing room, and the footman there rushed to escort her, but she waved him off gently.
The gardens matched the house: immaculate with manicured hedges and a reflecting pool.
Rows upon rows of roses trained to climb up arches.
She took one gravel path with Duck running ahead.
She thought of her own garden back in Cove Manor, the one she had built with her own hands that kept them from starving.
She had no practical use for it now, but she still missed it, the only thing of her old life that she did.
She wandered out to the gardens, depleting Duck’s inexhaustible energy until it was almost dinner time. She returned to her room, and the maid, whose name was Beth, showed her to the dressing room and helped her into a dinner dress and gloves.
She went down to the dinner hall with four footmen and staff running around. Mrs. Hodgins was also there, hesitating.
“If you are worried about my dietary restrictions or preferences,” Marigold assured the older woman, “please refrain from doing so.”
“His Grace is out on business, Your Grace,” Mrs. Hodgins said in the current manner Marigold was not used to. “He said not to wait up.”
Marigold managed to maintain her smile and thanked her.
Very gracefully, she sat down at the dinner table, and at least seven people watched her do so alone, none of them daring to talk to the Duchess.
She braved through all courses, sure that the kitchen staff had outdone themselves for that first wedding night.
And while all the cutlery echoed through the empty room, Marigold was overwhelmed with thoughts.
It seemed that the Duke had already grown bored with her. He didn’t even inform her himself on the first night, leaving her to eat alone. And she hadn’t even given him the information he needed from her. How would things be when she had exhausted her use?
She went back into her room and endured while Beth helped her into her nightgown. Once she was alone, Claire’s words echoed in her mind, the ones she told her at the church right this very morning, as if some dreadful omen was becoming real.
“If you do not take all that you can before you have outrun your use, you will regret it.”
Marigold was not one to steal, snatch, and exploit others, but she would not sit around waiting to be discarded. And the only way to do that was to remain useful. Information was the one thing that the Duke wanted from her. There was still another part of the deal that she was required to fulfill.
Marigold looked at herself in the mirror.
She never saw herself as a great beauty, but the Duke did not seem completely appalled by her appearance if she were to judge by the way he had kissed her twice.
Marigold inhaled decisively. She sat down at the vanity and fixed her hair.
She would make herself indispensable, and she would start by doing what a wife should do.