When Suzanne returned to her room, she bathed and then changed into another dress, black silk with ruffles on the bodice and sleeves. Now she quickly surveyed herself in the mirror, put on her mourning ring, and forced a smile to her face for Emily’s sake.
“Are you sure you’re feeling well, Your Grace?” Emily asked. “I was so sad to hear that you were ill. I should have been with you. Was it because of the accident, do you think?”
Suzanne met her maid’s eyes in the mirror and held up another hairpin. Emily was exceedingly talented at doing her hair. The girl was skilled in a great many things, plus she was much more amenable than Ella.
“You mustn’t worry, Emily,” she said. “I’m feeling much better, thank you. Mrs. Ross is very kind.”
No one was to know that Adam maintained lodgings outside of his role as majordomo. That would require too much explanation. Thankfully, Emily didn’t continue to question her. Nor did anyone look at her, point their finger, and declare that she was now a fallen woman, one of those despicable creatures who engaged in sin.
Not that it felt like sin. She could still remember every bit of last night. She couldn’t get over how wonderful making love was with Adam. Despite his many women, it was entirely possible that George had been bad at that skill, too. Or it could be that she and George hadn’t suited at all, in any way.
She and Adam certainly did. She liked talking to him. Or discussing things, even arguing with him.
“. . . told him that I’m certain you would be fine.”
She met Emily’s eyes in the mirror. Whatever had her maid been talking about? She could feel her face warm. She’d been thinking of other things.
“Oh, I am,” she said. “I’m feeling absolutely wonderful,” she added, so brightly that Emily’s eyes widened in surprise.
Had she never sounded happy before? Evidently not. She’d not only been grieving, but in the past six months she’d been drugged, too. She must have been like a gray cloud moving through Marsley House, ready to rain on anyone who said a word to her.
“How long have you been working here, Emily?”
“Since I was fourteen, Your Grace. It’s been six years now.”
Six years. Six years and she couldn’t remember seeing Emily in the past. In fact, she’d thought that Emily had been recently hired. What did that say about her?
“So you knew Georgie,” she said.
“Oh, yes, Your Grace. Such a beautiful little boy and such a tragedy. We were so sad about him. And for you, too.”
Another thing that she hadn’t noticed. She’d been so immersed in her own anguish that she hadn’t seen anything beyond her own pain.
Don’t neglect today in your longing for yesterday. Had Adam said that?
She had given up today, hadn’t she? She’d been determined to be a martyr to grief. Perhaps she’d been Marble Marsley after all. A creature who was cold and hard and entombed in her own emotional grave.
Could she be as strong as Adam? He’d remade his life. No, she didn’t have his strength. Yet the minute she had that thought, something within her rebelled. She’d endured being married to George. She’d never let anyone know how much she’d disliked her husband. She’d also recently stood up to her father.
Maybe she was stronger than she once believed herself to be. Maybe even strong enough to live in the present.
“There, Your Grace,” Emily said.
The maid stepped back as Suzanne looked at herself in the mirror again. “You’ve given me a new hairstyle,” she said.
“I thought it would favor your face, Your Grace. But I can change it back if you don’t like it.”
“I do like it,” she said, surprised.
She looked a little different. Her hair was drawn up on both sides, pinned back and tucked up into an assortment of curls.
“I really do. How did you become so skilled?”
“I used to practice, Your Grace. With the other maids.”
She could almost imagine those nightly events, a few girls in one room giggling and talking.
“I think your practicing paid off well. Thank you, Emily.”
The young girl looked surprised again. Had she not thanked members of the staff before now? Surely that wasn’t right. She had the horrible thought that that was exactly what she’d done. She couldn’t blame her actions on Ella’s potion. For five out of the six months she hadn’t fought against taking it. Had she wanted to escape the grayness of her life? Or had she wanted to escape herself?
“Oh, Your Grace, I forgot.” Emily rushed into the sitting room and returned a moment later holding an envelope. “This came for you yesterday by messenger.”
She recognized the handwriting of one of her father’s two secretaries and wanted to refuse to take the envelope. Emily didn’t deserve her sudden irritation so she opened it, reading the invitation that was a barely masked summons to her father’s next luncheon.
She abruptly stood, stuffing the invitation into her skirt pocket.
“Thank you, Emily,” she said, leaving her bedroom for the sitting room. If she followed her usual routine, she would go down to dinner, taken in the family dining room. Her meal would be attended by a plethora of people, from the footman stationed behind her chair to the maids who would offer her a selection of courses.
Most of the time she motioned for all of them to leave. She remained at the foot of the long mahogany table in the room designed to show off the lineage of generations of Whitcombs. The walls were adorned with a portrait gallery of previous dukes, all of them looking prosperous and more than a little portly. They stared down at her from their framed perches in studied disapproval. A lone woman dining in stately and aloof elegance.
She wished she was free enough to seek Adam out. They would talk as they had today. Or last night cuddled together in bed. She’d told him secrets she’d never divulged to another soul and he had reassured her that she wasn’t terrible for hating the life foisted upon her. Or that it was natural to think that she sometimes heard Georgie call her name.
So much had happened in the past four weeks that her head whirled when she thought of it. She had changed since that night on the roof. Perhaps she hadn’t grown or altered her life until now because there had been no impetus to do so. All it had taken was a man of mystery. Someone who’d dared to question her actions, give her advice, and challenge her.
She’d taken him as her lover. Her lover. Even the words were scandalous.
Rather than worry Mrs. Thigpen and Grace, she went ahead and ate a quick dinner, but instead of dismissing the staff, she conversed with them. She learned that one of the girls had been born in Wales, another had a married sister due to make her an aunt any day, and one of the footmen had a talent for mimicry. Afterward, she thanked Grace for a lovely meal before finally going in search of Adam.
She couldn’t go to his rooms. Marsley House was settling down for the night. Half of the staff was retiring to the third floor and would see her. Nor could she send a footman to him with a note. Her only hope was that he would come to the library. If he didn’t she’d simply brazen it out and go to him.
She hadn’t wanted to read George’s journal, but she needed to know the answer to the mystery. That was not, however, the only reason she wanted to see Adam. She liked being around him. She liked herself when she was with him. Besides, she missed him. Even a few hours without him made her want to seek him out, speak to him for a moment or two.
She loved him.
Love made her feel silly and foolish and youthful and filled with joy, all at the same time.
She needed to tell him. He would no doubt counter with reasons why they couldn’t be together. He would say that she was the Duchess of Marsley, the chatelaine of one of the largest houses in London. She would just have to marshal her arguments, explain that she would gladly trade having a title for being with him.
He wasn’t exactly her servant. She wasn’t exactly his employer. Those were just roles they had to play for a little while. When it was over he would be Adam Drummond and she would be Suzanne Whitcomb.
Titles didn’t matter one little bit. Hers certainly hadn’t made her life easier. Nor had it bestowed on her great happiness.
They would be free to spend as much time together as they wanted. They could discuss anything they wished for as long as they wished without worry as to appearance or staff gossip. She could share her life with him and he could confide in her. They would laugh about silly things and counter the sadness that had enveloped both of them for so long.
She could hold him and tell him how sorry she was about Rebecca. She would tell him that her death wasn’t his fault. He’d never said, but she knew he felt that way. People like Adam took on the responsibility that others sometimes shirked.
Adam, with his military background, had been pressed into a mold as rigid as the one used to form her. If they stepped outside of the person they had been reared and trained to be, would the world collapse? Would society take a deep breath and suddenly vanish? Would London crumble around them?
No one would notice. No one had noted the death of an innocent child and an unwise duke. The world had gone on as if nothing had happened, as if there hadn’t been a rending in the fabric of her life. The world had barely noticed when hundreds of women and children had been killed in a senseless massacre.
Now she pressed her hand against the library door. The last time she’d entered this room she’d encountered someone who wished her harm. Perhaps it had been a stranger. Or even worse, it had been someone living at Marsley House.
Until now she’d never been all that brave. Or perhaps she’d never been in circumstances in which she needed courage. The double library doors loomed as a test.
Pushing open one of the doors, she stepped inside. The moonlit night was the only illumination as she made her way to the desk and lit the hanging lamp. The silence surrounding her should have been absolute, but it was accompanied by memories.
She could almost hear George pontificating on some subject, correcting a member of the staff guilty of an infraction, or commanding the servants as if they were a battalion. Georgie’s laughter sounded faintly from those times when she’d brought him to see his father. George had always spared the time to hold his son, bounce him on one knee, and admire how fast Georgie was growing.
The faint light from the lamp illuminated only the surface of the desk. She glanced up to the third floor. Again, her courage was being tested. All her life she’d been protected, guarded, and cosseted. Even her grief had been sheltered.
Until Adam. Until she was forced to realize that her loss wasn’t special or unique, that there were other people who had suffered in their lives, too.
She took one step up the curved iron staircase and then another, her hand clamped to the banister. At the second floor landing she hesitated. The shadows were deeper here, the darkness absolute. The faint light from the desk surrendered to the moonlight for dominance.
One more flight and she was on the third floor. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been here. If she recalled correctly, a small reading nook was at the end of this row of shelves. Beside the love seat was a table and lamp. She reached out with her right hand against the books, her breath shallow as she made her way even farther into the darkness.
When she lit the lamp, she blew out a breath filled with relief. Nothing greeted her but rows and rows of books. No, not books. Journals. George’s journals that he’d kept since he was a child. She walked to the end of the row. Each one was marked with a notation, but it wasn’t a date. She selected one of the journals at random and took it with her to the love seat.
Did she really want to read George’s words? She never had before. Even this afternoon she’d given Adam the journal, unwilling to learn about George’s children.
Courage again, that’s what she needed.
Sitting, she opened the journal to the first page, beginning to read.