“Where have you been, Your Grace?”
At her entrance into the sitting room, Ella stood. She’d been occupying Suzanne’s favorite wing chair in front of the fire. A cup of tea sat on the table beside her. Where was the footstool and a pillow, perhaps, for her back? Suzanne was only surprised that her maid hadn’t ordered a tray of cake and biscuits.
But Ella had always made herself at home in the duchess’s suite, hadn’t she?
As she walked into the bedroom, Suzanne held up her hand. “I really don’t need your help tonight, Ella,” she said.
She wanted to be alone, to think about the surprising events that had just transpired. Tonight, she’d acquired a friend. A strange and unexpected friend in her majordomo. His words had been so welcome and his understanding so complete that she couldn’t help but be grateful.
She turned to see Ella standing in the doorway. Evidently, she was not going to get rid of the maid until she performed her duties.
“I still haven’t found your hair clip, Your Grace. I’ve gone through both armoires and the carriage and I haven’t been able to find it. It’s very valuable, Your Grace. Your father will not be happy that it’s missing.”
“Then we don’t need to tell him, do we, Ella? Unless, of course, you insist on reporting to him every week. Or is it more often than that? I noticed a flurry of correspondence leaving the country for London. Do you write him every day?”
Ella didn’t wilt under her questions. Instead, the maid got a mulish look on her face: flat eyes, clenched lips, and a silence that dared Suzanne to question her further.
“Tell him what you want,” she said. “I don’t care. Tell him I threw it in the Thames. Or out the carriage window.”
“I should have accompanied you, Your Grace. I think I should do so in the future.”
“That won’t be necessary,” she said, walking into the bedroom.
She began to unbutton the bodice of her dress. Ella came to stand in front of her, but Suzanne turned.
“You’re dismissed,” she said. “I don’t need help undressing.”
“Of course you do,” Ella said, coming to stand in front of her once more. She pushed Suzanne’s hands out of the way and finished unfastening the row of buttons.
When had she lost all authority? Or had she ever possessed it?
She stepped back, away from Ella.
“Will you please leave me?”
“Your Grace, don’t be unreasonable. Let’s get you ready for bed, shall we?”
The maid picked up the nightgown draped across the end of the bed. “We don’t need to have an argument about this, do we?”
“No, we don’t,” Suzanne said.
Grabbing the nightgown, she walked into the bathing chamber and closed the door. Tomorrow she would ask Drummond—Adam—to have someone install a lock on this door. Ella had never disturbed her privacy here, but she didn’t have any faith that the maid would continue to leave her alone.
She undressed, unfastening the busk of her corset, her shift, and the rest of her undergarments before washing and brushing her teeth. After removing her hairpins, she threaded her fingers through her hair before braiding it loosely. George had always liked her hair long, and maybe it was for that reason that she now kept it trimmed to just below her shoulders. He wouldn’t have approved, but George was no longer here to issue his pronouncements.
She couldn’t help but wonder what he would have thought about Ella.
Her previous maid had been from India, coming to England with George and several other people who were added to the staff at Marsley House.
Her father hadn’t approved.
“They’re damn sly, Suzanne,” her father had said. “Always plotting and planning.”
Although she didn’t agree with her father’s words, she understood why he said them. He’d been horrified at the rebellion in India. Because of that, he’d pulled out of the East India Company, severing both financial and personal ties with men with whom he’d done business for decades.
It was in India that he’d met George, a penurious duke who had been giving some vague thoughts to marrying and producing a legitimate heir. At last count George had seven children scattered around London and India. He hadn’t cared enough to learn their names, but at least he’d known whether they were sons or daughters.
She had never imagined anyone like George. He was proud of his libertine nature. He made no apologies for the fact that he liked women and had no intentions whatsoever of remaining true to his marital vows. The very thought of having to lash himself to one woman for the rest of his days was an idiotic notion. Once, he’d even gone so far as to attempt to explain his philosophy to her.
“You might think of me as a stallion, my dear. Would a stallion be restricted to one paddock and a single mare? Of course not. He would be given freedom to roam and attract any likely mate.”
She could recall the exact moment of his stallion soliloquy. She’d been sitting in the Blue Parlor on the second floor. It had been a spring evening and the windows had been open to let in the air, cooled from an earlier rainstorm. A moth had found its way in to circle the lamp on the table to her left. She’d been reading, a fascinating lurid novel that would have been forbidden to her a few years earlier.
George had come into the room to say good-night. The carriage was waiting. No doubt his fellow revelers were also becoming impatient, waiting for him to arrive. When he’d finished speaking, he had looked at her expectantly, almost as if he wished her approval, which was ludicrous. George required no one’s approval, not even God’s.
She hadn’t been surprised at his words. What had startled her was the fact that he thought it important enough—that he thought her important enough—to hear his personal philosophy. Of course, it might have been because she was the mother of his heir. Georgie was only a few months old at the time.
She’d returned to her book without speaking and he’d left a moment later. That night was a turning point, something she’d realized looking back. Once Georgie had been born, his father absolved himself of any further marital responsibility. The stallion speech was just a formal announcement of that fact.
For the great honor of becoming a duchess she was supposed to ignore George’s peccadilloes and be a supportive and silent wife. Since their marriage had never been based on mutual affection she’d pushed any thoughts of developing respect for her husband out of her mind and kept quiet about his various women.
She and George had lived separate lives. The only times they were together were when her father invited them to one of his innumerable gatherings.
When she left the bathroom, she encountered Ella standing there, holding the tonic out for her to drink.
The detestable tonic, something her father and Ella decided was important for her to drink. She loathed the taste and the effects.
“No,” she said. “I won’t take it.”
“You must, Your Grace.” There was that implacable tone in Ella’s voice.
“Why, Ella? Because you say so?”
“It’s good for you, Your Grace.”
“No.”
That’s all she said. Just no. She didn’t argue or take the glass. Instead, she skirted Ella and climbed the steps to her bed, bending over to extinguish the lamp.
“You can stand there until dawn, Ella. I’m not taking your bloody tonic.”
Ella gasped. Was she shocked because of Suzanne’s profanity? Or simply because she’d refused and this time she hadn’t backed down?
When she heard the sound of the door closing behind the maid, she took a deep breath and banished any thoughts of Ella. Instead, she was thinking of Drummond and his revelations. Or how she’d felt when he’d so gently taken her into his arms.