“Maybe you’re too young to remember what it was like before father died, or what happened in those years afterwards. You might not remember the day Mother decided to take to heart the Biblical command that one should sell everything one had and give it all to the poor. Nice, in principle; in practice, it leaves your own children starving, housed in rat-infested penury. We lost everything we should have had—modest comfort, education. She traded a secure competence for some stupid words she didn’t even understand.”
“You’re the one who never understood Mother,” Mark said.
“As if I could. She was mad, Mark. Plain and simple.”
Mark’s lip curled. “There was nothing plain or simple about her insanity.”
“Maybe it doesn’t seem that way to you. But I was supposed to protect you—all of you. Her principles killed Hope. They almost killed you and Smite. And throughout it all, Mother clung to dead words in a dead book, paying no attention to the living around her. Maybe you can understand why I mislike the notion of my youngest brother clinging to more dead words. Maybe you can understand why I wince, knowing that my little brother, who spent his childhood with a woman who quite literally went mad with her principles, is spending the summers of his youth practicing the same sort of abstemious insanity that he grew up with. Do you want to know why I’ve failed you? Because I haven’t been able to save you from a woman who has been dead these past ten years. I haven’t saved you from anything.”
Mark stared at him, his hands curled into fists. “You don’t know anything,” he spat. “Not about me. Not about Mother. You can be such a great oaf sometimes.”
“Oaf? Is that the best insult the brightest student in thirty-five years of philosophy can muster? Call me a damned bastard. Curse me. Consider a little blasphemy, Mark. It would make me feel a great deal better, knowing you were capable of even a little sin.”
“Far be it from me to leave you unsatisfied. Ash, you can go to bloody hell. It is the height of hypocrisy for you to criticize what I choose to do with my time, when I know for a fact that you haven’t even bothered to read my work. Not one word.”
Despite the finality ringing in his voice, he looked at Ash with an expectant hope in his eyes. And Ash knew what his brother wanted. He wanted to be contradicted. Wanted Ash to spit out that he’d read the carefully bound essays his brother had so proudly sent to him over the years.
But Ash’s best effort—“I stumbled through the introductory paragraph, before I threw up my hands in despair”—would hardly mollify his brother. The truth choked him, and if it were to come out, it would destroy Ash’s last chance of forging any sort of connection with Mark.
When he remained silent, Mark shook his head. “I don’t know why I bother. Some days, I think Smite has the right of it.”
The final sally, and Ash had nothing to say in response. Mark swept his gaze around the room at his books, stacked in neat arrays along the table near the window. Finally, he picked the top two from the pile and walked out.
He didn’t even stamp his feet as he left.
CHAPTER FIVE
MARGARET ENTERED THE room where her father stayed. His breathing, thin and reedy, echoed. He lay on the bed, his eyes closed, his skin as translucent as bone china, and looking nearly as fragile. It made her feel breakable herself, to see him so vulnerable. She closed the door behind her, and the curtains at the window fluttered weakly.
In her pelisse, she had tucked the letter that had been brought up from the vicar’s wife this morning. Richard had finally written her, and until this moment she hadn’t had a chance to look at the missive in private. Not that he’d been in any rush to communicate with her; it had taken him a full week and a half to send his first message.
She could hardly have broken the wax seal standing in the marble entry, after all. She might have run into Ash Turner. He might have simply plucked the pages from her hand. And then he would have known that she was one of the Dalrymples he so hated.
And then…
And then her imagination well and truly carried her away. It had been nine days since she’d so forcefully told him to leave her alone. And in that time, he’d subjected her to an ardent, soul-grinding, will-destroying campaign of…nothing. No attempted kisses. No conversation. No endearing little compliments, designed to erode her will into submission. It was almost enough to make her grant the man a grudging sort of respect.
She saw him daily. She could hardly help it; he’d taken over the suite of rooms off the gallery on the second floor, and she passed by his chambers several times each day on the way to her father’s sickroom. But he was so often surrounded by the men he’d brought up from London. The estate was aswarm with them; she supposed that diligence was necessary when a man was in trade.
It was discomfiting, to say the least, to discover that he so diligently performed his responsibilities.
Margaret shook her head and broke the seal on her brother’s letter. It separated into two sheets of paper. One page, covered in both sides, written in a dense hand, was labeled as information for her father. She set it to the side.
The other was addressed to her, and she felt a small thrill of pleasure at being remembered. Richard was a handful of years older than she. He’d always been kind. He, no doubt, knew how difficult it was for her to pose as a servant on the estate where she had once been in charge. He knew how irascible their father had become. And perhaps he had waited so long before writing because he remembered that tomorrow was her birthday.
The very thought brought a wash of loneliness. This year, after all, there had been no stream of birthday wishes from friends. It would be nice to know that one person in the world besides Ash Turner did not take her for granted.
She unfolded the sheet. It was depressingly void of content, except for a few short lines.
M—
Received your letter. A. Turner’s presence is bad enough. But I am alarmed to hear M. Turner is present. Beware. He’s a dangerous beast. Don’t spend time alone with him.
He’d signed with a flourish. She stared at the words, her lip curling in dismay.
That was all he had to say? No words of encouragement, nor of thanks? No other response to the missives she’d sent his way? She could have read him quite a lecture. But it was pointless remonstrating with a man who was many miles distant. Richard was busy and no doubt just as taken over by worries as she was. He’d focused on what he thought was the most important point: her welfare. She couldn’t fault him for that.
And yet…Mark Turner, dangerous? The notion seemed laughable. Richard couldn’t have been talking about the Mark she knew, with his philosophical writings about chastity. He couldn’t have heard Mark’s quiet, careful, educated speech. Mark had been teaching her a few ways to avoid unwanted advances. He was the last man she might ever imagine as dangerous.
Or. Well.
Come to think of it, there were those lessons. She’d seen her brothers box together on occasion. There had been a strict code to the blows allowed—fists only, aimed at the torso and definitely no lower. She doubted very much gentlemen discussed the precise angle at which to punch a man, so as to most effectively break his nose.
How on earth had gentle, quiet Mark learned such ungentlemanly tricks?
She sat back, dissatisfied. At that moment, her father gave a quick snort; the tenor of his breathing changed from the even ebb and flow of sleep to the harsher arrhythmia of wakefulness. He gave a rasping cough.
Margaret stood and walked over to him. It took a few minutes to see to his physical needs—a little soup, some barley water—that was all he would take. As he ate he shut one eye and looked at her, a hint of confusion on his face.
Blink. Blink. He shook his head, and then blinked again.
“Is something the matter?”
“No. I feel delightful. I might be ten years old. I’m staying in my bed for the sheer enjoyment of laziness, don’t you know.” He let out a puff of breath. “Yes, something is the matter, you foolish gi
rl. I’m dying, and it’s awkward and not particularly entertaining.”
There was no response to be made to that piece of impoliteness. He was still her father, but since the day he’d awakened and found himself unable to stand without assistance, he’d become more belligerent. Crueler, harsher. The same man, and yet vastly different. He’d always been so controlled; being bedridden likely didn’t agree with his nature.
“Besides,” he muttered, “it will pass in a few minutes. It always does.”
“Is that an indication that something is amiss, aside from the usual? Shall I fetch a physician?”
“Why put yourself to the trouble? The physician can have only two things to say: either I will continue to waste away at a predictable pace, or I have begun to perish faster. Neither possibility seems of particular assistance to me at the moment. I would rather not be poked and prodded if I am about to go on to my eternal rest.” He continued to blink his eyes, and then he began to wink with his left eye.
His behavior had become increasingly erratic, but there was little Margaret could do about it.
Margaret sighed. “Very well, then. I’ve a letter for you from Richard. Shall I read it aloud, or would you prefer to read it yourself?”
“From whom?”
“From Richard.”
He stared at her blankly.
“You do recall your eldest son, Richard.”
“Nonsense.” He snorted and waved a hand. “I haven’t got any sons.”
Margaret felt her hands clench around the paper. He’d been acerbic this past year, but this was the first indication she’d seen of the forgetfulness that sometimes plagued the elderly.
“Sons,” her father continued, “by definition can inherit. As Richard cannot, I must assume he’s classified as a daughter.” He met her eyes. “And that means he’s essentially worthless.”
Oh. So he was just exceptionally hurtful today, then. Not forgetful. Margaret’s jaw set. He was ill. He was unhappy. He was also being particularly cruel. But if she stood up and walked away now, nobody else would take care of him.
“Well,” she finally said, “let me pour some more of this worthless soup down your gullet. And then I believe I shall manufacture an answer to Richard’s letter and pretend it comes from you. I shall send him your love and affection. Perhaps I shall add—for myself—that as you spoke of him, a tear of remorse trickled down your cheek.”
“Remorse?” he groused. “That’s the best you can manage for me? A puny, girlish emotion like remorse? None of you have an ounce of spirit. You can write whatever you wish, so long as I needn’t listen to Richard’s endless hand-wringing.”
“I shall dot your i’s with flowers,” she told him without mercy, “and cross your t’s with a line of hearts.”
He stared at her a second, as if, after all this time, he had finally realized that there was a hint of rebellion behind her saccharine kindness. “That,” he said, with a shake of his head, “is the thirty-eighth reason why daughters are useless.”
It was going to be a long evening. And tomorrow was going to be a long birthday.
MARGARET HADN’T COMPREHENDED quite how long the night would be when she’d finally fallen, exhausted, into bed. She slept fitfully for hours. But then the clock rang downstairs, its chimes indistinct and muffled by distance. Margaret came awake counting: nine, ten, eleven, twelve. The stroke of midnight slipped past her with as little ceremony as the moment deserved. The end of one day, slipping into another. Nothing—and nobody—would set this day apart from any other.
It was August 22, and today was the first birthday that Margaret would spend without her mother. She breathed in air, heavy with summer heat. Still the same air as the day before. Nothing had changed in her endless, thankless service. Nothing was going to.
Her mother had not been given to elaborate ceremony. But every birthday that Margaret could remember, the duchess had spent a few hours with her daughter. When she was four, they had planted a rosebush together. Her mother had given her thick gloves just for the occasion and let her pat the dirt in place under the careful auspices of the gardener. Every year thereafter, they’d added to the gardens—a slim beech tree one year, a profusion of tulip bulbs the next. But usually it was roses. They’d planted a different variety each year, despite the oncoming winter. Her mother had always made sure that those plantings survived—even if they’d had to resort to moving the plant to the conservatory in autumn.
It suddenly seemed unbearable that Margaret was trapped in the dark on the third floor, in a servant’s room where she could not even smell the late-summer roses. Now that the clock had fallen into silence, the house seemed still and empty. Parford Manor had never seemed lifeless when her mother was in residence. But tonight the air was close and stagnant, and the house seemed utterly devoid of any animating presence. In a few years, no one here would even remember the old duchess. Margaret was the only one who couldn’t forget.
She stood up in the darkness and fumbled for a wrapper to pull around her shift. When she’d tied the belt around her waist, she slipped from her room.
She fumbled her way down the cramped, lightless staircase that led from the servants’ quarters to the main halls. After that, the moon lit the way before her, silver light gilding black walls. In the dark velvet of night, she could pretend the house was still her mother’s. She could walk through the halls as regally as if she were still the acknowledged daughter of the house. She found her way to the main staircase and started down it, spreading her arms wide in greeting. Every inch of this house echoed with her mother’s memory—from the wide sweep of the banisters, polished with a formula drawn from her mother’s repository of household knowledge, to the paintings lining the walls, painstakingly chosen from the family’s store in the attic.
Her mother had purchased the paper for the walls of the grand entry eight years ago. She had carefully picked out every piece of furniture that stood in the rooms on each side. And now that Margaret had reached the ground floor, she could smell the deep summer scent of roses in bloom. The aroma took her back to her childhood, to the years when her mother was well enough to trim the bushes herself.
The scent drew her not outdoors but to the conservatory in the south wing. The door squeaked slightly as she opened it; the wood had swollen in the heat.
Even in summer, when the gardeners had no need to force blooms, the glassed-in walls contained a few potted orange trees, a smattering of plants still too delicate to be exposed to the elements and, in the very back, among a jumble of trowels and hand rakes, the prize she had come here to find: buckets of cuttings taken from roses and encouraged to take root. They were nothing but little sticks of wood and thorn, but when she gingerly pulled one from the dark bucket of water where it stood, white threads of new roots glinted in the moonlight that filtered through the windows.
In the darkness, it was hard to locate the tools she needed—a pot, big enough not to cramp the roots that would eventually grow, and a trough filled with a mix of soil and lime. Her mother would have wanted her to don gloves, but she couldn’t find them in the cabinet without lighting a lantern. And if she did, someone might see the light shining through the windows.
The dirt in the bucket clumped in thick clods. She picked up a lump in her hands and then broke it apart into loose, dry soil in the pot before her. She could feel the dirt getting beneath her fingernails as she worked. She hadn’t realized why she had come here; she’d felt as if she were chasing some ephemeral spirit. But it felt right. If nobody else could remember her birthday, she would. She would have to transplant this new life, fragile and delicate though it was, in the dark of night.
It was a mindless task she performed, squeezing dirt into the pot. She worked methodically, two handfuls at a time. Squeeze and let fall; squeeze and let fall. There was a comforting rhythm to it. She felt as if her mother herself might have stood beside her, her hands covered with dust. Her body felt too rigid, her hands too small to contain the moment.
> Her chest tightened with some inexplicable emotion, one that she didn’t dare name.
She crumbled dust into dust. And ashes…
The door to the conservatory squeaked open. She froze, but the dirt in her hand pattered into the pot. That rain of soil seemed immensely noisy in the silence of the night. Had someone heard it? Had someone seen her? Here at this little table in the back, nobody would find her, not without entering the room.
Footsteps came forwards, traversing the maze of tables and troughs and orange trees.
That tightness in her chest grew.
Please, let those footfalls belong to Mrs. Benedict—someone comforting, who would look at her, clad in this thin wool wrapper, covered in dust. Someone who would understand without her having to voice a word of explanation. Let it be someone who would know that she needed this moment, that on this day of all days, she needed to feel a connection with her mother. Let it be anyone but— But him. He came round the little break of potted oranges, scarcely three feet from her. The moonlight had smoothed away the fine lines on his face. In the dark, he looked younger and less dangerous. He wore a pair of trousers and a fine lawn shirt, and not much else. He’d not bothered to tuck the tails in, but he’d rolled the sleeves to show his wrists. Manly wrists, thick and strong, with a fine layer of hair scarcely visible. His feet were bare.
His eyes widened as they came to rest on her. He looked into her face for one long second before his eyes dropped down—down her dust-covered shift, the robe cinched simply at her waist. She felt naked before him.
His gaze felt as unwelcome as an invading army.
“Miss Lowell. What in God’s name are you doing?”
He spoke as if it were his home, as if she were the interloper here. Of course he thought it true, under the circumstances. Still, bile gathered in her belly, and the tight knot in her chest squeezed even tighter. Who was he to question her? Who was he to interrupt her? He’d already taken her mother from her once. How dare he do it again? Her hands clutched around the heavy clods of dirt.