Chapter 14
UNWANTED VISITS
Dinner the night before had gone surprisingly well.
It was some milestone in her life as a duchess because it was the first time she accepted a guest, even if it was Owen and somehow especially because it was him.
He was the Duke’s best friend and now, somehow hers too.
Sharing jokes and teasing the Duke made her feel more at home, more part of the Duke’s life, than the title and the wedding.
She was now overseeing the renovation of the ballroom since Owen decided that they should host next season. The Duke grunted and reluctantly agreed, so the ballroom opened again, and Marigold had almost a year to bring it back to its former glory.
“I think we should replace the chandelier,” Mrs. Hodgins suggested.
Marigold thought of the cost that this would be, along with new furniture, cleaning and scrubbing the amazing marble floor, and replacing some of the windows. The costs were astronomical.
“I believe you are right,” the Duke’s voice was heard.
Marigold almost jumped up to see him outside of the usual hours. They had just had breakfast, and he was ready to go out.
“It’s been years since I stepped in here,” he said, looking at the disused room. “I am sure you will do an amazing job with it, Your Grace.”
Marigold didn’t know what to say because she was surprised to see him there and a little too dazzled to recover. The ballroom, him in his dark clothes, his hair naturally styled into perfection, and those dark eyes looking down at her.
“It is a considerable cost,” she managed to mutter.
The Duke moved closer, looming over her with a teasing smile, enough to make Mrs. Hodgins take a discreet step back. Marigold looked up at him, completely bewildered.
“Should I remind you, Your Grace,” the Duke said with a smirk, “that you are the Duchess of Voss and have a considerable amount of allowance that you are not spending. You are making modistes, shoemakers, and jewelers quite disappointed.”
Marigold realized that she had retreated to her old habits: penny-pinching, calculating, rethinking every little expense.
“I believe a grander chandelier would compliment this big hall,” she said finally.
“Good,” the Duke said, and Marigold felt a shiver down her spine upon hearing him utter that word. “I have business to attend to in the Parliament, but I will be back for dinner.”
He bowed casually to her and departed, leaving Marigold standing pinned in the middle of this ballroom. This was the first time that the Duke informed her of his schedule. She couldn’t help but smile.
* * *
Marigold later retreated to the drawing room with a new book. Fiction. It was almost a luxury to read something that was not exactly useful during the day when there was no additional work to be done, no creditors to appease, no debt to worry about.
She was sitting in an armchair with her feet tucked beneath her, Duck on the carpet snoring, when Beth appeared.
“Your Grace, you have a visitor.”
Marigold sat up and frowned. Apart from Owen, no one else would visit her. She was never popular at the ton, and neither was the Duke. And of course, even if they were, people would think twice about disrupting a newlywed couple.
“It is your mother, Your Grace,” Beth added.
The book slipped from her fingers and landed on the carpet with a soft thud that woke Duck. All the lightness and contentment Marigold felt were drained. It was as if her mother knew the exact moment she started feeling happy to come and sour it.
“Bring some tea and escort my mother here,” she said, almost stammering.
After a few minutes, Claire swept into the room. She stood there for a moment and took the whole place in, as if appraising it to be sold.
“You look rather well,” Claire finally said. “Money does agree with you.”
“Mother, please sit.”
Two servants brought in the serving trolley with tea, biscuits, and sandwiches. Somehow, this assortment made her mother darken.
“And to think that you had me survive on simple, old biscuits for days at a time,” Claire commented.
“It was all that we could afford,” Marigold felt the need to clarify.
The servants served the tea and left the room. For a while, all that could be heard was the clicking of spoons against porcelain.
“Your house is really magnificent,” Claire said. “It is a little palace, exactly as the rumors suggested.”
“It is the Duke’s house.”
“And now, yours.” Claire smiled, but no warmth reached her eyes. “While I am living in a crumbling ruin.”
Marigold commented nothing although she would have loved to clarify that Claire could have used the money from the loan for repairs instead of shoes.
Abruptly, her mother stood up. She roamed the little room, touching almost everything she could. She felt the heavy fabric of the silk curtains, she ran her finger along the gilded mirror frame, she took in her hands even the Belgian porcelain vase on the mantel.
“We used to have beautiful things like this back in our home before you started selling them off.”
“If it comes as a surprise to you,” Marigold tightened her jaw, “one cannot feed on porcelain vases.”
Claire seemed to be irritated that she couldn’t provoke a reaction out of Marigold. The features on her face that could have made it lovely distorted into something malicious.
“And to think that I could have been enjoying the same privileges as you while I am now forced to endure in our old home.”
“The privileges were never yours to enjoy.”
That seemed to trigger a feral response from her mother. She eyed Marigold with spite but schooled her expression quickly.
“How ungrateful for you to say so, after all that I have endured and sacrificed, so you could marry above your station.”
It seemed that within the little time that Marigold had left her paternal home, she herself had changed, but she saw no such change in her mother. Perhaps it was exactly this stillness and calmness that made her mother seethe even more as she was taking her place back onto the couch.
“Tell me, how is married life for you?” Claire asked with fake interest.
Marigold knew enough of her mother to realize that this conversation would soon be steered to something her mother requested.
“I am adjusting,” Marigold said and drank from her tea.
“Adjusting.” A small laugh was her mother’s first answer. “I suggest you should start adjusting better.”
Her mother looked at her, her chin down, her eyes still fixed on hers, a true predator prowling the jungle for undefended victims.
“Men lose interest, Marigold,” Claire said. “All of them do, no matter how sweet they might be talking to you. A woman must secure herself in her household before that happens.”
Marigold and her mother had seen the dark side of life, one that many privileged ladies and gentlemen of the ton had the luck never to experience, and somehow, that experience brought out in them who they truly were.
It hardened Claire, made her cynical and selfish.
As for Marigold, she held on to her optimism and innocence as much as she could.
“And regrettably, the only way to establish yourself in the household when you are a woman is a child.” Claire leaned in with a sharp look in her eyes. “Are you with child yet?”
Marigold nearly choked on her tea, and she grabbed a napkin to press her lips, avoiding answering the question.
“I see,” Claire read her reaction clearly. “Men wander, and only a child keeps them tethered. Have a child, and you will have secured that allowance for life. Make sure you do that before it’s too late. Preferably a boy. Girls are useless, especially to a duke.”
Marigold pressed her lips together, deciding she would not give her mother the satisfaction of an answer. She had long learned to expect the worst from her mother, and she had yet to disappoint.
“You really did one good thing in your life, and that was accepting the Duke’s proposal. Now, what I need you to do, Marigold, is to make sure you keep this position for both of us.”
“As I have said before, Mother, I am the Duchess. You are not.”
“And I am still your mother!” Claire raised her voice. “I will not allow you to disrespect me like that again.”
“Mother—”
“Your cousin Charlie is coming from the colonies,” Claire cut her off. “He will take his place as the Earl, claiming his title and his inheritance. And I am asking you is where does that leave me?”
“You are without debt in a house where food is being paid for the whole year and servants too. You are a lot better off than when I lived with you.”
“You seem to forget how the world works. Before he comes, I need to establish myself, so he doesn’t kick me out of the house. I need to show him I am not destitute and that I haven’t depleted the family’s fortune.”
“And yet that is precisely what you’ve done.”
“Silence!” Claire demanded. “What I need from you is not empty words. I need something tangible.”
Marigold knew exactly what that was. It was as if the whole of Claire’s existence boiled down to one thing, simple and almost irresistible. Money. Coming into her house, seeing her in this opulent lifestyle did not make her happy, and it didn’t even make her jealous. Claire was simply greedy.
“I need you to secure some funds for me,” Claire said, barely drinking her tea as if nothing had happened.
“I do not have such funds.”
“You are lying.”
“This is not my money. This is His Grace’s money. I do have some allowance regarding the house, but that is it.”
“So, you mean to tell me you will leave me impoverished?”
“I am telling you, I do not have any money to give you.”
“You are so selfish, Marigold.”
Marigold was inclined to explain to her mother the exact definition of the word, and then, perhaps, she would understand the irony of that statement, but Marigold decided to drink her tea instead.
“You are sitting here in this luxurious home, drinking tea from porcelain cups that cost more than my entire month’s expenses, and you will not spare any of that money to save your mother?”
“Are you sick, then, Mother?”
“Do not mock me and do not speak back at me,” Claire hissed. “I am still your mother. I carried and gave birth to you, and I raised you in the most terrible and difficult of situations, and you do not have the right to talk back to me like that.”
Marigold recognized her mother’s strategy. It was the same as before, the same old drill to get something out of her, to think only of herself.
“I am sure you will find a way to secure me the funds I want,” Claire demanded. “Unless you want me to keep circulating rumors about you that would ruin this perfectly idyllic life you have built for yourself.”
Marigold shouldn’t be surprised. It was, after all, her mother, and she knew well what she was capable of. But it was a totally new thing to see her own mother threatening her daughter’s happiness in exchange for money.
“I will give you some time to find a way to gather the funds before your cousin gets here.”
That is all Claire said, and she excused herself, leaving the house.
Marigold stood there, cup still in her hands, mid-air, suspended between anger and sorrow.
She felt her hands shake, so she put the cup down and pressed them against her skirts.
The room suddenly felt smaller, as if her mother had sucked the very air out of it.
Duck, as if sensing her distress, rested her heavy head on Marigold’s lap. Marigold was grateful for that small gesture and pet the dog’s head. She still struggled to tackle all her mother burdened her with and most of all, the threat.
Marigold didn’t care so much about herself. She was used to being pointed at, to having whispers follow her, and insults casually murmured as she walked by. But back then, she had only herself to worry about. But now such a rumor would affect the Duke.
“What am I to do, Duck?” she asked the dog.
She knew very well that her mother would come back for the money, that she would make good on her threats, that she would always ask for more. Even if she managed to give her some from the allowance that the Duke gave her for the house, that would just whet her appetite.
* * *
Marigold was on her bed, knees to her chest, that night. She still couldn’t get what her mother had said and demanded out of her head. And on top of it, the Duke hadn’t been back for dinner as he had promised.
Despite all her turbulence and her anxiety, it was the one thing that she was looking forward to that day. For some strange reason, her body kept holding on till he came back, and she told herself that when he did, everything would be better.
Just looking at him would make her feel better. And she could always ask for the money for herself. He had told her that if she talked to him, he would listen, and now, she really needed to talk to him.
That’s when she heard the carriage outside their house.
Finally, he was back. She grabbed her robe quickly and put her feet into her slippers.
She knew it was not very appropriate to meet him at this hour of the night, and she would hate for him to think that she was interrogating him, but she really needed to put this behind her.
Marigold ran down the extravagant stairs to the lobby of their house, waiting to see the Duke coming in from a late night. What she saw stopped her in her tracks. Owen was carrying the Duke back into their house, and both of them were in bad shape.
“What happened?” she demanded as she rushed to them.
Up closer, she could see that Owen was beaten, but it was the Duke who was in worse condition. His nose was obviously broken, and there was blood on his face and down his hands.
“Marigold, go back to your room,” the Duke demanded.
Marigold completely ignored him and sprang into action. She called upon her maid and instructed for medicine, clean water, and towels to be brought to His Grace’s room.
“Can you carry him upstairs?” Marigold asked Owen.
“Marigold, you should—”
“Your Grace, you should keep your strength,” Marigold said in a strict tone, “and save your breath.”
The Duke looked at her with wide eyes while Owen chuckled, carrying him up the stairs.
“I would suggest, Brandon,” Owen said, smiling, “you listen to your wife unless you want worse things to happen to you tonight.”
Marigold would have appreciated the joke and perhaps teased back, but seeing the Duke in such condition made her heart plummet and her whole body coil with concern.
Her troubles with her mother seemed insignificant. She just really had to help her husband. For now, that was all that mattered.