A Return of Devotion Page 33

  “No,” William answered as he started for the door.

  Daphne cut him off with a hand to his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  He blinked down at her and then looked at the door. He’d been going to answer the door. He’d never answered a door in his life. Living in this strange house had definitely gone to his head.

  With a bow he waved Daphne ahead of him. “After you, of course.”

  She rolled her eyes and smiled. That felt like such an accomplishment after the tears of this morning, and he smiled in return.

  Her smile didn’t last as she opened the door.

  His didn’t either.

  Because standing on his front porch, framed by the rain sheeting down beyond the portico’s shelter, were his stepmother and her son.

  Daphne knew the woman at the door. Well, she knew who she once was. The chances of a woman like Miss Araminta Joysey remaining unmarried for fourteen years were nonexistent.

  Miss Joysey hadn’t been someone Daphne saw very often, usually only when Kit managed to finagle an invitation to a ball or party far above their normal social circle. Those times had been enough, though, to see that Miss Joysey was only nice to those who could gain her something.

  And Daphne had never been one who could help anyone attain anything.

  So while the woman stood in Daphne’s doorway, looking her up and down as if someone had left a pile of garbage in the foyer and asked her to clean it up with her bare hands, the chances of her actually remembering the two or three encounters she’d had with Daphne were zero.

  With a blink, the woman dismissed Daphne and tilted her head to look over Daphne’s shoulder.

  Daphne’s tongue seemed to swell in her suddenly dirt-dry mouth. She was supposed to say something here. That was her job, after all. She finally managed to croak out a very pitiful, “May I help you?”

  “Yes.” Araminta’s cultured voice was smooth and rich in comparison with Daphne’s stuttering. “You can let me into this house and then bring tea.”

  “What are you doing here?” William appeared at Daphne’s shoulder but didn’t touch her. Given the way he’d been rubbing her arms and holding her hand every time he’d seen her today, the absence of that touch when he was so close left her cold. Even as she understood he couldn’t do anything in front of this woman while they were unsure where they stood—and probably wouldn’t even do anything in front of her if their relationship were settled—the moment sent a pang of unease through Daphne. Regardless of William’s pretty words, he was still very aware of the gulf between them.

  “You invited Edmond at the end of the term.” She waved a hand at the boy beside her. “Here he is.”

  “And here you are,” William said, his voice flat.

  “If I go visit anyone else yet, it will look bad. Are you going to move aside and let me in, Chemsford?”

  It was the title that finally broke through Daphne’s stupor and got her moving. She let go of the door and stepped to the side, carefully avoiding touching William or making eye contact with the other woman.

  If Daphne were a gambler, she would bet Araminta was the stepmother who had sent William over the edge after his mother’s death. Edmond would be the half brother who shared Benedict’s age and part of his lineage but whose life had been ever so different.

  A bite of jealousy attacked Daphne from out of nowhere. She’d never been envious of girls like Araminta, other than their ability to greet their hostess for the night without having to practice the words fifteen times in the carriage on the way over. But on her son’s behalf, she was more than capable of feeling the emotion.

  What was Daphne supposed to do with these people in the house? What did William expect of her? Both of their roles were muddled. Did he expect her to go back to acting the perfect, unemotional housekeeper? She hadn’t been good at that even before they’d kissed.

  Jess would know what to do. She’d survived a dangerous world by pretending to be people she wasn’t. Surely she could help Daphne be some other version of herself.

  Feeling a bit bad about abandoning William to the mercies of a woman he couldn’t stand, she fled down the stairs to the kitchens, almost tripping on the bottom one.

  Jess wasn’t in the kitchen, but angry voices were coming from one of the small storage rooms where they stored utensils and dishes.

  “I don’t care what you think you saw, you can’t just come down here and start moving things around in my kitchen.” Jess’s voice was low and cold.

  Daphne rushed a little faster toward the storage room. If Jess was that angry, whoever she was talking to might be about to find a knife skewering their shirt to the wall whilst they were still wearing it.

  “But the platter I saw last night could very well be a piece of Iznik pottery. If there’s more of that here, it would be an extraordinary find.” The other voice was Mr. Thornbury. The last time Daphne had seen him he’d been scribbling in his notebook in the portrait gallery. When had he come down here?

  “Then you can come find them sometime when I’m not preparing a meal because I do not need these dishes spread out across every available surface.”

  Daphne got to the door of the storage room and saw Jess with her arms crossed over her chest—no knife in sight, thankfully—and her eyes narrowed into thin, angry slits. Derek Thornbury was across the room from her, a plate in each hand and three more in a stack by his feet.

  He angled his head and gave Jess a blank look. “But you’re never not preparing a meal. You never leave this kitchen.”

  “Sounds like you have a problem,” Jess said.

  He considered the plate and then set it and the rest back on a shelf. “I’ll ask Lord Chemsford to request a particularly simple meal. That way your time in the kitchen will be lessened. You’ll get a bit of a rest and I’ll get to look at the plates.”

  The grin that spread across his narrow face was that of a little boy expecting everyone to be proud of his problem-solving skills.

  Jess muttered something in another language. Daphne thought it might be Italian, but she wasn’t entirely sure.

  Bizarrely enough, Mr. Thornbury answered in the same language, though his words were very stilted compared to Jess’s easy flow of words. A flush stole up the petite woman’s neck.

  When was the last time Jess had blushed?

  Everything about the entire encounter was strange and Daphne wasn’t sure she could handle more tension right now. She looked at Mr. Thornbury, then at Jess, and blurted out, “I just opened the door to a prettier version of myself.”

  Both people in the storage room swung their gazes in her direction, the foreign words dying on their lips.

  “I’ll be back when that meal has been arranged,” Mr. Thornbury said, shuffling out of the room with his gaze averted.

  Jess didn’t say anything until the man’s steps could no longer be heard echoing in the stairwell.

  “Do you want to repeat that?” she asked.

  Daphne hadn’t even realized what had bothered her so much about Araminta’s presence—aside from the fact that it was another intrusion, of course. “She has dark hair and dark eyes and she’s my height and my age and her dress looks like it was made sometime this decade and her skin has obviously never been submitted to the sun while working in a garden or hanging laundry.”

  “And she’s on the porch?” Jess asked.

  “I don’t know where she is now, but I doubt it’s the porch. William either sent her away or invited her in.”

  It was to Jess’s credit that she didn’t take the opportunity to tease Daphne about the use of William’s Christian name. Instead, she tackled the problem at hand. “Who is she?”

  “Miss Araminta Joysey. Well, she used to be Miss Araminta Joysey.”

  “Then she’s the current Lady Chemsford.”

  Daphne blanched. One knee locked while the other gave way and she careened sideways into the doorframe. It was one thing to suspect and another thing to know. “His stepmother is th
e same age as I am. I don’t want to be old enough to have married William’s father.”

  “You’re old enough to have married his grandfather, if the man had been alive and unattached. The old aristocrats marry the young blood every year.” Jess gently guided Daphne back to the kitchen. “You’ll need to take up some tea.”

  “I’m not taking it.” If William saw Daphne next to Lady Chemsford again, he would realize how wrong they’d been to even consider a future together. That was who Daphne would be following if she married and accepted the title?

  The situation was even worse than Daphne had imagined. Did they allow marchionesses to stand in the corner, wearing dresses just fashionable enough to be ignored?

  She nudged Jess in the shoulder. “You take it.”

  Jess nudged back, hard enough to send Daphne turning on her heel and catching herself. “I’m not about to risk her having seen me or some other such nonsense because you think she has better hair than you do.”

  “And clothes,” Daphne mumbled. “I’ll send Sarah.”

  “She’s in your office.”

  Daphne blinked. “My office? Why?”

  “Because you told her to take an hour and study some of those books you brought down. But by all means, interrupt her. I think she’d thank you.”

  Jess returned to the storage room and came out with a tray and dishes. “Has it occurred to you,” she said as she plopped the tray on the table, “that everyone has better clothes than that dress you chose to wear today? If that ugly thing hasn’t bothered him yet, seeing it next to a traveling wool isn’t going to either.”

  Jess was right. Again. But Daphne didn’t want to go back upstairs. She would give almost anything not to have to deal with that situation.

  Was she even willing to abandon the idea of William?

  His world outside of Haven Manor was filled with people like Lady Chemsford constantly having tea and interrupting others’ lives because they could.

  If Daphne couldn’t handle a woman like that, how could she ever hope to stand by William’s side?

  Chapter thirty-six

  The rain continued the next day. It was the sort of rain Daphne knew from experience was going to last for days on end.

  So they did what she’d been avoiding. They all moved into the house.

  Jess made a run down to the cottage for clothing and supplies, and soon the housekeeper’s room Daphne had tried to forget existed held her clothes, her brush, and most of her other personal necessities.

  She’d moved in.

  As expected, the next day brought more rain, and the day after that even more.

  It was that soaking sort of rain that made even stepping out onto the porch a drenching experience. So everyone stayed inside.

  Everyone.

  Daphne spent each day trying not to drop whatever she was carrying as she went about her duties with arms weak as wet linen and lungs that could never quite seem to fully inflate.

  She spent each night lying alone in her bed in the housekeeper’s room, holding her pillow over her face because even though she let the tears come, they refused to be silent. Eventually she would fall into an exhausted sleep that never left her feeling rested.

  The house, which had never seemed too small to her before, now felt like the most confining space she’d ever been in. Lady Chemsford’s lady’s maid, a horribly snippy woman named Miss Partridge, made Mr. Morris’s early days in the house a faraway dream. Her requests only added to Daphne’s burden, mostly because Daphne hadn’t the slightest idea how to accommodate them.

  Haven Manor was not equipped to entertain ladies. As far as Daphne was aware, it never had. There were no painting supplies or embroidery needles. While there had at one point been an extensive collection of quills for doing paper-filigree work, all of those had been taken down to the cottage. Even if Daphne had been inclined to find a way to transport the paper through the rain, she wouldn’t have. Those quills had been used by her beloved children.

  There were no cards, and while Edmond and William engaged in several games of chess, Lady Chemsford was not so inclined. Her boredom sent her strolling through the halls until Daphne spent every moment in a sense of heightened anticipation that she would turn and find the woman standing like a specter sent to warn Daphne of her possible future.

  If Daphne had only had to worry about herself, it would have just been mild agony. But the rain had trapped Benedict at the house, too, when Mr. Leighton had taken the wagon back to his shop to load it up with more moulding.

  Daphne, Jess, and Benedict knew this type of rain well enough to know it would have made the river flood. The bridge from Marlborough was going to be impassable for days.

  The boy had taken to whittling wooden figures in the scullery since it was the only place Miss Partridge wasn’t likely to go. After three days, he’d created a small army of people who largely resembled Daphne, Kit, and the other children. It was enough to rip a mother’s heart to shreds.

  “The tray is ready.” Jess wiped sweat from her brow with her sleeve and sighed before turning back to the bread dough that had been set aside to rest.

  Daphne glanced around but quickly realized the maids and even the footmen were nowhere to be seen. Unless she wanted to send Sarah or Eugenia with the tray, she was going to have to take it herself. Even if going up into the main house had started making her feel ill, she wasn’t about to subject her children to Lady Chemsford’s toxic presence.

  “I’ll take it.”

  She scooped the tray from the table and started up the stairs. It was a short walk to the library. She’d be back downstairs before her heart had a chance to stop.

  Edmond and William were bent over the chessboard, talking in low tones. Daphne crossed the room and set the tray on a table next to them.

  “Please tell me there’s something other than blackberry scones today,” moaned Lady Chemsford from the sofa across the room.

  Daphne nearly dropped the plate she’d been arranging. How had she not noticed the other woman in the room when she’d walked in?

  Lady Chemsford crossed the room and frowned at the food offering. “How can you live out here, Chemsford? This place is dreadful. Edmond, we’re leaving as soon as this horrid rain ceases.”

  “You can’t,” Daphne blurted.

  Three sets of eyes swung her way. Edmond’s looked merely curious, while Lady Chemsford’s were narrowed slits. William appeared as lost as Daphne felt in this whole situation. Despite what some of the books Kit used to talk about said, it didn’t look like love could actually conquer all.

  “Why not?” Lady Chemsford bit out.

  “The rain, my lady.” Daphne swallowed and ran a dry tongue across her lips in a futile attempt to wet them. “When it rains this much, the bridge between here and Marlborough tends to flood.”

  Daphne braced herself for the woman’s disapproval. When it turned on William instead of Daphne, it still hit like a punch in the stomach. “Your father would never have let himself be in a place that could leave him so easily cut off from the world. You are a marquis. People need to see you, know you. How can you establish the title if you can’t actually get to anything besides a cow and a tree?”

  Part of Daphne wanted to rush to William’s defense, but the other part of her, the part that was insisting on being realistic about her future, agreed. How indeed?

  “Goats,” William corrected as he dropped his gaze and moved his bishop. “I have goats. Not cows. And the title is already established. I received my writ of summons months ago. My Parliament seat is secure.”

  This woman couldn’t have arrived at a worse time. He couldn’t boldly claim Daphne in front of her because Daphne had never gotten a chance to decide if she wanted to be claimed or not. And every day that went by without him having a chance to talk to her or spend time with her felt like a knife to the heart because he knew he was losing her. He could see her struggle in having Araminta and Edmond in the house, stealing away the security these walls had
brought her.

  “The title is more than Parliament. You’ve an obligation to show others the proper way to live.” Araminta picked up a scone and frowned at it. Since William knew Jess hadn’t sent up anything that wasn’t perfect, he could only assume Araminta was upset about not being able to find fault with anything other than the choice of fruit.

  “Perhaps I think others should burrow themselves into the country for a while and gain some perspective. It might even do you some good, Araminta.”

  William stared at the chessboard, hoping Edmond would make a move, but a glance up revealed the boy was looking from his mother to William and back again, with eyes wide enough to show white around the brown centers. Had he never seen anyone not immediately give in to his mother before?

  “How can this place possibly do me a bit of good?” she grumbled. “There’s nothing to do here.”

  “Read a book.” Since Edmond wasn’t making a move, William couldn’t really continue staring at the chessboard, so he turned his attention to the tea tray instead.

  “I was reading a book. It was dreadful. This place is dreadful.”

  William looked up, surprised Daphne was still standing a few steps away. He’d have thought escape would have been her priority. She looked pale and pinched, and her eyes had that glazed look she’d worn when he first arrived. Worry crept in, crowding out other thoughts. “You’re in an incredibly well-stocked library, Araminta. Pick something else.”

  Then he stood, intending to go to Daphne, no matter what the others would think, no matter what Daphne would think. She wasn’t well and he refused to sit by and not see to her care.

  But his movement shook her from whatever had been holding her there, and she fled the room before he could do more than look in her direction.

  “At the very least,” Araminta said as she returned to the sofa and her book that was terrible but apparently not terrible enough to exchange, “you should live somewhere that can provide a decent staff. Yours is deplorable.”

  Daphne had thought the worst part about moving into the housekeeper’s room was going to be the sense of loss not having her own space would bring. It wasn’t. It was having the space completely to herself. Jess was in a room on the other side of the kitchen instead of a bed on the other wall. The girls were three floors away instead of right across the landing.