Chapter Twelve #2
“You may think what you like of me. But you will not purchase entertainment with Miss Winthrop’s name. You will not turn a woman injured in this house into a servants’ hall story. Do you understand me?”
Both maids whispered, “Yes, Your Grace.”
“If I hear one more word of this matter from either of you, I will dismiss the speaker without character.”
Lucy’s head jerked up in horror. “Without character, Your Grace? Please. My mother depends on my wages.”
“Then remember your mother before you endanger another woman’s livelihood.”
Lucy dropped her eyes. “Yes, Your Grace.”
He looked towards Bess, who was crying more openly now. “You will both go to Mrs Holroyd. You will tell her exactly what was said, and by whom. You will accept whatever duty she assigns.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Bess whispered.
“And you will be grateful,” he said, “that I am giving warning before consequence.”
Lucy covered her mouth with one hand.
By the time Mrs Holroyd arrived, summoned by a footman who had seen enough of the Duke’s face to seek higher domestic authority, Edmund’s anger had settled into something colder.
The housekeeper took in Bess’s tears, Lucy’s white face, and Edmund standing in the middle of the stillroom.
“Your Grace,” Mrs Holroyd said carefully. “May I know what has occurred?”
“Gossip,” he said. “About Miss Winthrop.”
Mrs Holroyd’s eyes moved once to Lucy, then to Bess.
“I see.”
“Bess will tell you what she heard and did not challenge. Lucy will tell you what she said. Neither is to be dismissed today.”
Lucy made a sound that was almost a sob.
“Do not mistake that for pardon,” Edmund said. “It is management. I will not have angry servants carrying pieces of this story into the village because they were turned out before the matter was contained.”
“That is wise, Your Grace.”
“It is late,” he said. “It should have been done sooner.”
Mrs Holroyd’s expression shifted, very slightly. “Late is not useless, Your Grace.”
He did not answer.
“They are to remain under your eye,” he said. “If either repeats one word, she goes without character. Until then, they work where you can see them.”
“As Your Grace wishes.”
He left before the maids could begin pleading again.
The anger did not relieve him. It did not unsay what had been said. It did not make Mary’s accusation less painful or Declan’s quieter judgment less deserved. It did not change the fact that Petalia Winthrop was upstairs, injured and exposed to gossip because he had understood the danger too late.
His boots carried him to the kitchen before he had properly decided to go there.
Cook straightened at the sight of him, flour on one cheek and a wooden spoon in her hand.
“Your Grace?”
Edmund looked around the kitchen. There were covered dishes, cooling pies, sacks of flour, and rows of jars whose contents he could not have named under threat.
“I require something,” he said.
Cook waited.
The trouble was that he did not know what.
Flowers would be too pointed. A note too formal. Books required calm. Jewellery would be madness. Money was impossible unless attached to necessity. Another order sent through servants would only make care sound like administration.
His gaze fell upon a plate near the hearth.
Muffins.
“One of those,” he said.
Cook followed his gaze. Her expression tightened with professional pain. “Your Grace, those are from breakfast.”
“I can see that.”
“They will be stale.”
“Then wrap the least stale one.”
Cook hesitated. “There are fresh seed cakes cooling, Your Grace. Very nice ones. If this is for Miss Winthrop, she might find a seed cake more agreeable.”
The fact that Cook knew, or guessed, should have stopped him.
“No,” he said. “A muffin.”
Cook pressed her lips together, selected a muffin with grave disapproval, and wrapped it in a clean napkin.
“It is… not my recommendation.”
“Noted.”
“If Miss Winthrop asks, I did offer seed cake.”
“I will not implicate you in the muffin.”
Cook looked briefly relieved. “Very well, Your Grace.”
Only halfway up the east stair did Edmund realise the full absurdity of what he was doing.
He was carrying a stale muffin to a woman he had nearly ruined.
He stopped on the landing and looked down at the napkin in his hand.
He should turn back.
He should send a proper message through Mrs Holroyd, as he had done till now.
He should ask after Miss Winthrop’s health with formal restraint.
He should remain where propriety placed him, at a distance, behind closed doors, spending money invisibly and preserving what remained of her name by removing his person from the vicinity of it.
Then he imagined her upstairs with his expensive salve and his absence.
The muffin remained ridiculous.
His absence had become intolerable.
He went on.
Mrs Holroyd was seated at a small table outside Petalia’s chamber, folding linen with the transparent intention of guarding the door. She looked at the napkin in his hand. Then at his face. Then back at the napkin.
“Your Grace.”
“I wish to speak with Miss Winthrop.”
Her eyes sharpened. “In her chamber, Your Grace?”
“No,” he said at once, irritated that the correction was necessary and grateful she had forced him to make it. “In the small sitting room, if she is well enough. With the door open. You may remain in the corridor. Lady Maria may be summoned if Miss Winthrop prefers it.”
Mrs Holroyd’s gaze rested once more on the napkin. “Shall I inform her that you have brought something?”
“No.”
“Very good, Your Grace. I shall ask Miss Winthrop to receive you in the sitting room.”
***
A few minutes later, Petalia entered.
The sight of her struck him so hard that for a moment he could not speak.
She wore a loose morning gown, plain and pale, with a shawl drawn high over the shoulder where the dressing lay beneath.
Her hair had been arranged simply, softer than usual around her face, and the absence of her usual severe neatness made her look both younger and more unreachable.
She was pale but upright. Tired but composed.
Hurt, and therefore more visibly human than his conscience could endure.
She had always carried herself as though dignity were a discipline rather than a gift. Injury had stripped away the illusion that dignity meant invulnerability.
She was beautiful.
Not in the manner Eleanor had been beautiful.
That thought arrived at once, cruel and necessary.
Eleanor had filled rooms with warmth and laughter.
Petalia steadied them. Eleanor had been sunlight through an open window.
Petalia was lamplight in a hard season, smaller, closer, more dangerous because one found oneself moving towards it without intending to.
He wished she were not beautiful.
He wished noticing did not feel like faithlessness.
“Your Grace,” she said.
“Miss Winthrop.”
They stood in silence while Mrs Holroyd remained just beyond the open door, an audible chaperone in the form of folded linen.
Petalia’s gaze lowered to the napkin in his hand. Her mouth moved by the smallest degree.
“I brought this,” he said.
“So I see.”
He held the bundle out, then realised a wrapped object, presented without explanation by a scarred duke who had caused enough rumours already, might not recommend itself. “It is a muffin.”
Her eyes lifted to his. “A muffin.”
“From the kitchen.”
“That is generally where muffins begin, I believe.”
“This one began at breakfast.”
For one moment, she simply looked at him. Then the corner of her mouth softened. “I see. Is this a traditional offering after scandal, or have you invented a custom for Wrenfield’s private use?”
“It is not traditional. I believe flowers are traditional. I had none that were not drenched, dead, or attached to memories best left undisturbed.”
Her expression shifted at that. Not pity. He could not have borne pity. Understanding, perhaps, which was worse because it asked nothing and still reached him.
“And so, you chose a muffin,” she said.
“I did not choose in an orderly fashion. Cook attempted to intervene. She recommended seed cake.”
“Fresh seed cake?”
“She made that point very clearly.”
“And you refused it?”
“I had already committed to the muffin.”
“A difficult position to abandon.”
“Evidently.”
Petalia stared at him for one suspended moment, and then she laughed.
The laugh hurt her. He saw it at once in the way her hand moved towards her shoulder and her breath caught.
He took half a step forward before stopping himself.
He had no right to touch her. No right to steady her.
No right to put his hands anywhere near the woman whose reputation had already been scorched by his nearness.
“Do not laugh,” he said, rougher than intended. “Mrs Holroyd forbade it.”
“Mrs Holroyd forbids many necessary things.” Petalia pressed her hand carefully near the dressing until the pain passed.
“Forgive me. I do not mean to mock your gift. It is only that I have received recommendations, warnings, medicine, reputational advice, expensive ointment, instructions from Lady Maria on how to breathe respectably, and now a stale muffin. The variety is overwhelming.”
“I can take it away.”
“Pray don’t,” she said, reaching for it. “You have carried it through the house with what I can only imagine was considerable ducal suffering. It deserves an audience.”
Their fingers did not touch. He had made certain of that. She accepted the napkin, unfolded it upon her lap, and inspected the muffin with grave attention, as if it were a diplomatic gift from a small but earnest nation.
“It is a little firm,” she said.
“Cook warned me.”
“Cook is honest.”
“She was also relieved not to be implicated.”
“Then we must protect her. She has suffered enough.”
He should not have enjoyed the exchange. It was absurd, and the absurdity sat in the middle of danger like a candle in a storm. Yet the room felt less airless because of it. Petalia broke off a small piece, tasted it, and composed her face with such care that he nearly smiled despite himself.
“It is stale,” she said.
“I warned you.”