A Return of Devotion Read online

  “. . . spend my time redoing the public drawing rooms.”

  William blinked. He’d completely missed what Araminta had said. He never missed what people were saying. Even when they annoyed him he paid attention.

  Working with that flighty woman was doing something to his mind.

  He pushed thoughts of her aside and focused on what Araminta was saying, boring though it was. How long until Morris could have them ready to go?

  Chapter twenty-three

  Daphne’s idyllic world of pretending everything was as it used to be didn’t last very long. Even though Lord Chemsford was gone, work on the estate continued, a constant messy, noisy reminder that everything was changing.

  The new groundskeepers snipped away at the hedges beneath the windows, while a steady pounding came from the expanded woodworking crew fixing the roof and making the garret rooms inhabitable.

  The lack of living space for servants was likely the only reason that Lord Chemsford had not yet hired a full staff. Once those rooms were completed, having a space of her own would be a thing of Daphne’s past.

  Once that occurred, learning how to truly manage a household would keep Daphne extremely busy. Right now, though, she wasn’t busy. Without anyone in the house, the cleaning was minimal, and for the first time in over a decade she had time on her hands.

  Time in which to think.

  Time in which to worry.

  Time in which to bitterly regret the fact that Benedict had been avoiding her since the revelation of his father’s identity.

  It also, however, gave her time to deal with the situation. She’d been sending Sarah, Eugenia, and even Reuben to talk to him each day, to try to get a feel for how he was handling everything. He wasn’t rude to them, but in what Daphne imagined was typical older sibling fashion, he politely ignored them.

  She understood his need to deal with the emotions in his own time, but every glimpse Daphne had gotten and every report from the other children pointed to Benedict being a hollow shell of his usual determined, energetic self.

  As his mother, she could not allow that to continue.

  She slammed a tray onto the worktable and began scouring the kitchen for items to load on it.

  “What are you doing?” Jess asked, jumping out of the way as Daphne cut across the room.

  “I’m going upstairs.” Daphne dug around in the icebox to find some of the meat and cheese left over from the previous evening’s meal and added them to the tray. “Have we any fresh water?”

  “No,” Jess said slowly as she reached out to stop a small pile of meat slices from toppling onto the table. “I could go pump a pitcher.”

  Daphne beamed at her friend. “That would be lovely, thank you.” She grabbed a loaf of bread, then returned to the table and found a bowl of biscuits underneath a linen cloth. “Aha!”

  She placed both of her finds on the tray, rearranging the food so it would be easier to carry. Jess still stood by the table, staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  Maybe she had, but she wasn’t going to lose her son along with it. “Jess? Water?”

  “Right.” The woman grabbed a pitcher and walked toward the door, still eyeing Daphne carefully. “Water.”

  Once a pitcher of water and selection of cups had been added to the tray, Daphne hefted it off the table with a grunt. Then she smiled at Jess. “Wish me luck!”

  One eyebrow rose, but Jess dutifully said, “Luck.”

  Daphne nodded in return and slowly climbed the stairs. She hadn’t thought through the fact that she would have to carry the loaded tray up three sets of stairs, all the way to the attic. Her arms were shaking by the time she reached the uppermost level of the house.

  Perhaps her peace offering hadn’t needed to be quite so heavily laden.

  Mr. Leighton saw her first and rushed to help her before she dropped the tray.

  “Thank you, Mr. Leighton,” she said between heavy puffs of air. Her eyes wanted to fly to Benedict and inspect every inch of him for some sign of how he was doing, but she made herself look at each man on the expanded crew in turn. When she finally got to her son, he was inspecting his fingernails, as if the answers to all his problems lay in the dirt and dust that had collected there while he worked.

  Daphne forced a smile through the pang of despair. “I thought you might need a bit of refreshment.”

  “Much appreciated,” Mr. Leighton said, gaze flitting from Daphne to Benedict and back again.

  “We found a passage that goes out onto the roof earlier.” The lanky Irishman ripped off a chunk of bread—of course Daphne had forgotten to bring a knife—and piled a bit of meat and cheese atop it before taking a cup of water in his other hand. “I think I’ll take this out there and enjoy the breeze.”

  The other men, who Daphne had to assume didn’t know what had transpired in the dining room a few days ago, looked around a bit before taking the master woodworker’s subtle hint and following him out the door with their own refreshments.

  Then it was just the two of them in the room. Many years ago it had been just the two of them in Mrs. Lancaster’s small bedroom. In some ways it seemed that was when Daphne’s life had truly begun, when she’d looked at her son and known she had to find a way to survive.

  Looking at him now, she felt a bit of that same determination. She poured a glass of water and held it out.

  It was a small victory when Benedict reached out to take it, but her heart jumped anyway.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed hearing his voice until he uttered the first words he’d spoken to her in days. Relief made her want to hug him in gratitude, but she kept her arms firmly at her sides.

  They stood in silence while he sipped the water. Finally he turned to set the cup on a windowsill.

  She took a deep breath, afraid he would leave now that the water was gone. “Benedict, I want you to know—”

  Daphne didn’t get to finish her sentence because a large blur of nearly grown boy suddenly launched at her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders while burying his face in her neck. Her arms lurched up to return the embrace with all the strength she could muster. Right then, she felt like she could have carried that tray up another hundred flights of stairs if she’d known this was waiting for her at the top.

  “I’ve always known I had a father out there somewhere,” he mumbled into her shoulder. “But somehow knowing who he is makes it worse. It makes me wonder who I am.”

  Daphne’s elation melted into a pool of dread and regret. Would telling him the rest make it better or worse? She’d hoped acting as his mother would be enough, that being the same as the other children in the house would give him a sense of normalcy.

  But she’d never imagined him doubting who he was simply because of where he came from.

  She rubbed a hand over his back, as she’d done every time he’d ever been upset, every time he’d gotten hurt. “You are who you’ve always been. As you said, it isn’t as if the man hasn’t always been out there somewhere. He just has a name now.”

  Benedict pulled back and dragged his sleeve across his eyes. “And a family and . . . and . . . I look just like him, Mama Daphne. There’s a man walking around with my face—or I suppose I’m walking around with his since he had his first—but his life is nothing like mine. He’s important and I’m . . . I’m . . .”

  Daphne grasped Benedict’s hands in hers and pulled him around to face her. “You are important, too. Even if you don’t have a title or know where you came from, you’re important. You matter. You matter to God. You matter to me.”

  She stopped to swallow down the overwhelming truth of that statement. Benedict had changed her life and she loved where it had gone. The fact that it was changing again didn’t matter. He had, in a strange way, given her the best thirteen years of her life. That was more than some people got to enjoy.

  She lifted her gaze to his, marveling a bit at how far she had to look up now, and
said, “Just because you don’t live in this house anymore doesn’t mean you get to forget everything I taught you.”

  One side of his mouth lifted a bit in a shaky grin. “Yes, Mama Daphne. I am created by God and He loves me.” He took a deep breath and his voice got a bit steadier. “Jesus didn’t come only for the perfect and accepted; He died for the lonely and forgotten, too.”

  Not exactly the way she always said it to the children, but the meaning was close enough. It was better that he say it in his own words anyway.

  “That’s right.” Daphne squeezed his hands. “And you don’t get to go around telling God He made a mistake by creating you. You have a purpose in this world and you’re going to live it.”

  “Yes, Mama Daphne,” he said with a full smile. Then his gaze shifted to the tray. “Did you bring up any biscuits?”

  “He could be home tomorrow,” Daphne said as she ran a brush through her hair. She was still in her day dress, but the pins had been gouging into her head, so she’d taken her hair down as soon as she’d walked into the cottage.

  “Could be,” Jess said with a yawn. She was already in her night rail with the blankets pulled up to her chin. “Means more cooking.”

  “Hmmm.” Daphne twirled the brush in her hand. “I think his presence changes a bit more than that.”

  Jess groaned. “He is not Graham and you are not Kit.”

  Daphne frowned. She was well aware that Graham’s unconventional desire to do more than the normal aristocrat and Kit’s spunk and heart were a rare combination. Their love story was wonderful, though. It was the thing of fantasies, but it had truly happened. That made it difficult not to, occasionally, plant a spark of hope in her own imaginings.

  She’d never expect something like that to actually happen, though. Even when Daphne’s reputation had been pristine and she’d trotted about London, she hadn’t entertained visions of finding a match above her station. She certainly didn’t expect one now. She wasn’t Kit.

  And Lord Chemsford wasn’t Graham. It hadn’t escaped her notice that he’d thought, for a moment, that Benedict could be his. It was possible he’d left a woman to pick up the pieces at some point in his life.

  There was no evidence that he still behaved in such a manner, so she could hardly hold someone else’s past indiscretions against them, but it was more proof that the two of them, with all their flaws, were not the sort of characters found in romantic tales. At least not real-life ones.

  And if she found it all too easy to imagine herself as the rightful mistress of Haven Manor, it was simply an attachment to the home and he happened to come with it.

  She cleared her throat and tried to sound bored with Jess’s observation. “I know that.”

  “Good,” Jess mumbled. “Then all his presence will mean to you is another bed to make.”

  “Two beds,” Daphne said. “Mr. Morris will be returning with him.”

  Jess propped herself up on her elbows. “You make Mr. Morris’s bed? The man’s a servant, Daphne! He can tuck his own blankets in.”

  “Oh.” Daphne would know that if she were a true housekeeper. It didn’t quite make sense, though. “I always thought the lower servants served the higher servants. You mean valets make their own beds?”

  Jess snorted. “I haven’t the faintest idea. The Duke of Marshington’s valet always did, not that he was a conventional servant either. It proves that it can be managed, though, and it will do the man good.” She flopped back onto her pillow with a huff. “And don’t take him tea either. He can come down and eat with the rest of the lowly plebeians. In fact, I’m considering making him eat with Reuben in the stable. That will really burn his toast.”

  Daphne gave a soft chuckle and ran the brush through her hair again. She would never have Jess’s gumption, but it was fun to listen to.

  Tonight she could pretend that she would have the strength to stand her ground like her friend, but tomorrow, she knew everything was likely to go right back to the way it had been. She would sneak up to the house and try to be a proper servant, hoping that by some miracle Lord Chemsford had had a lapse in memory and forgotten who she was.

  Since that wasn’t likely to happen, she could at least take comfort in the fact that her relationship with Benedict was on the mend. Work crews were bringing the house she loved so much back to its former glory. Both of those were good things.

  But they weren’t what she’d had. Living in the cottage instead of the house felt like a loss, but it was really the loss of her freedom that made her feel like the consequences of her past were finally catching up to her.

  Her London life hadn’t included an abundance of friends or popularity. All anyone had known of her was that she could and would play the piano at any social gathering. But here in the country, she’d been needed. The children had become her family, their relationships had grown slowly and comfortably, and she’d been able to breathe in the space that the country air provided.

  She’d been able to find herself. Yes, Haven Manor was a lot of work, but she’d been free to roam it as she wished. Go out or stay inside, eat dessert first if she wanted—as long as she hid it from the children—and play the piano whenever she wished.

  She turned on the stool and glanced out the window. From her seat by the dressing table, she couldn’t see the house, but she knew it was there. Empty. For one more night.

  Jess’s breathing was deep and even. Even if she knew Daphne was slipping out of the cottage, she wouldn’t have cause to worry.

  And it would be nice, just one more time, to do whatever she wished.

  Chapter twenty-four

  William startled awake and stared at the ceiling in confusion. It was still dark outside his window and there was little question that he was still tired, so what had woken him?

  After the long day of traveling, they’d arrived at the house very late and William had simply told everyone to go to bed. He’d considered going down to the cottage to let Daphne know they were home, but he, Morris, and Pasley were all so exhausted it hadn’t seemed worth it.

  As the sleep cleared from his brain, he realized that he could hear . . . music?

  He squinted at the ceiling, waiting for the shadows in the room to solidify into shapes so he could make his way around them without tripping, then he rose from the bed and reached for his dressing gown. No sounds came from the dressing room or Morris’s chamber beyond, so the muted music wasn’t disturbing him.

  That or the valet was even more tired than William had been.

  He didn’t feel very sleepy now, though, as he stepped into the gallery and made his way to the grand staircase. The music grew clearer as he walked quietly down the stairs, keeping a hand on the cool wood banister so he didn’t trip in the dark room. His steps slowed as he approached the music room, not because he was worried he’d trip over something in the nearly empty front hall but because the music was more powerful than anything he’d ever heard before.

  He stopped in the open doorway of the music room. On this side of the house there was hardly any moonlight coming through the windows, so the room was in near complete darkness, except for a halo of light created by a candelabra on top of the piano.

  In the center of the glow was Daphne. Her brown hair was tied back at her neck, with a few locks escaping to trail down over her shoulders, her eyes closed as she played the beautiful, mournful tune.

  There were moments in life when a man knew he was standing at the precipice of enormity, when he knew his next steps would change the course of his life forever.

  This was one of those moments.

  Obviously Daphne didn’t know he’d returned. She would never have dared play the pianoforte in the middle of the night unless she thought the house empty.

  So he had a choice.

  He could slip back up the stairs, lie in his bed, and listen to the echoes of music more brilliant and emotional than any he’d ever heard, and in the morning pretend that none of this had ever happened. He and Morris could stag
e a noisy return without Daphne being any the wiser.

  He could do that.

  Or he could not.

  The alternative was, of course, that he stay where he was, perhaps even ease farther into the room and into one of the chairs behind her. She wouldn’t notice. She was lost in a melody so haunting it made William’s middle clench. Her head dipped and her shoulders swayed as her fingers traveled back and forth on the keys, willing the mournful tune from the wires within.

  If he stayed, though, it would change everything. Rather, it would be an acknowledgment of what had already changed.

  If he stayed, he would never be able to move Daphne back into the role of mere servant. He would never be able to dismiss her as someone who simply worked for him and wasn’t his concern beyond her health and well-being. He would have to admit that she wasn’t a country maiden who’d managed to mimic her betters to sound refined enough to muddle through a high position in service.

  She would be exactly who she was: the daughter of a gentleman, a woman who had been raised to excel in speech and music.

  To stay would be to experience that, to face the talents she possessed and where they’d come from. To experience that would mean opening himself up to the complexities of her story, a story he barely knew but would feel compelled to explore further. Curiosity would drive him, but treating her with the respect she deserved would mean waiting for her to tell him everything of her own volition.

  He wouldn’t be able to hold her to the promise that she would tell him everything. That had been a promise made to an employer. And despite the fact that he wasn’t going to remove her livelihood, he couldn’t quite see himself as merely her employer anymore. The natural societal divide between them had blurred.

  Daphne had never really acknowledged that divide, had she? She’d never been one of those who only told him what he wanted to hear. In fact, she almost never told him what he wanted to hear. She’d maneuvered him and ordered him around from the moment he’d arrived, barreling ahead with her ideas and notions and pushing and pulling until he went along. Even knowing that it had all been an effort to hide Benedict from him didn’t diminish his respect for it.