A Return of Devotion Read online

  Despite the order, though, the boy crossed the room to stand by the hip bath after filling the washstand basin, as if he wasn’t sure whether or not to actually leave the bath empty.

  “If it helps,” William said, trying to keep his voice low and steady, the way he would with a skittish horse, “you may leave the bucket.”

  The boy swallowed, his Adam’s apple jerking in his skinny neck. “As you wish, my, er, your, um, graceship?”

  William gouged his front teeth into his tongue and sucked his cheeks in until they pressed against his teeth. Do not laugh. Do not laugh. This is not an appropriate time to laugh, especially when you aren’t even sure why you want to laugh.

  There was humor, yes, in the boy’s fumbling statement, but it also inspired a bit of despair. This was what he’d chosen to subject himself to in the name of privacy, peace, and reputation? He darted a glance at the view behind him, free of avaricious family and peers intent on wasting their lives in between seeing to their responsibilities.

  Yes, it was worth putting up with a great deal for that.

  He wasn’t overly accustomed to feeling humor, so while the despair was easily pushed away to be considered later, the humor lingered, tempting him to grin. He managed a solemn nod in the boy’s direction, though. “I’m a marquis, lad. My lord will do.”

  “Of course.” The boy licked his lips. “Will that be all, my lord?” He lifted his head and his eyes finally connected with William’s.

  Then they widened, growing until they seemed to fill the round silver spectacle frames. He shuffled his feet and banged his knee on the half-empty bucket, inducing a small wince. His throat jumped as he swallowed once more before running his free hand across his face and dropping his gaze back to his toes.

  “All the stable renovations were completed last week, and your horses have been settled. I’m afraid the only feed we have is what we give the chickens and goats. I can go into town and make arrangements for more tomorrow,” he said quickly.

  Town, assuming Marlborough was indeed the closest town to this place, was at least two miles away on rather remote pathways that could barely be called roads. William had seen nothing but trees and the occasional animal pasture or farm field for at least a mile. Was this boy the only protection and manual labor around? “How old are you, boy?”

  “Nine, sir, er, my lord. I’ll be ten in a little over a month.”

  The ridiculousness of a nine-year-old being the highest-ranking male on staff made William want to laugh again, though this time without the tinge of humor. He couldn’t have been working here long, so what had the women done before that? Surely Mrs. Brightmoor hadn’t been seeing to the care of this entire estate completely on her own. “Are you the only, um, man working here now?”

  The lad’s chin shot up as his chest puffed out as much as it could. His face was a bit harder this time, the eyes a bit more narrowed. The swollen pride in his chest made his arms and legs look even thinner. If God was gracious, the boy would one day grow into the length of his limbs and become a rather imposing specimen. Right now, he just looked awkward. Determined, yes, but also very awkward.

  “Yes, my lord. I help see to the garden and animals. And I chop all the firewood.”

  Thus far his house had been in the hands of two young women—one rather slow-witted and the other barely taller than a child—and a boy who didn’t yet need a razor. That was assuming, of course, that the shorter woman was a maid and not the cook he’d had hired in preparation for his arrival.

  The thought was rather terrifying. “Who else works here aside from Mrs. Brightmoor?”

  William moved toward the dressing room to splash a bit of water onto his face, hoping the lad would feel more at ease if William were doing something other than staring at him. The boy had yet to answer, though, when William returned to the bedchamber.

  In fact, he looked confused, mouthing Mrs. Brightmoor to himself repeatedly. “Oh! Mrs.—yes. Well.” He cleared his throat. “My, er, um, sisters. They work here as well. Sarah helps with the house and Eugenia works in the scullery.”

  “Are your sisters older than you?” Please, please let them be older. Employing a nine-year-old stable boy was one thing. But an eight-year-old parlor maid? It felt . . . He wasn’t entirely sure how to put words to what it felt like, but it made his skin itch and his stomach threaten to reject the tea he’d recently finished.

  “Yes, sir.”

  William relaxed, and his stomach settled. Older. Good. That made sense if the older sisters were maids here and the younger brother came along.

  But the boy kept speaking. “Sarah is twelve and Eugenia is eleven, my lord.”

  Desperate to buy himself a moment to cover his reaction, William buried his face in the linen towel he’d grabbed from beside the washstand. He was employing two women and a family of children? That was what the solicitor claimed was a basic caretaking staff? While, granted, William had yet to see proof that they weren’t capable of taking care of the estate, the idea didn’t sit well with him. These servants had been under the care of the marquisette and they’d been left defenseless.

  A lot could happen to women and children who were this isolated with no protection, especially as young as Mrs. Brightmoor must have been when she came to work here. Who had helped her? Because it certainly hadn’t been this boy, who hadn’t even been born when William’s father had won the house in a card game. “Do your parents work here as well?”

  The bravery that had come along with the boy’s defiance and pride slid away and the awkward young lad returned. He shuffled sideways toward the door, grasping the handle of the bucket. “I’ve animals to see to, my lord. Will you be needing anything else?”

  Yes. Answers. Answers to lots of questions he’d have never dreamed needed asking. But William wasn’t about to press a nine-year-old boy for them. The housekeeper he’d met earlier, though, he was perfectly willing to interrogate.

  “Thank you for the water . . . what was your name?”

  “Reuben, my lord.”

  “Thank you for the water, Reuben. That will be all.”

  The boy nodded and loped his way toward the door.

  “Oh, and Reuben?”

  The boy stopped with one foot across the threshold, snapping his head around so quickly that his spectacles slid down his nose.

  William let the smile through this time, might have even pushed it a bit. “You don’t have to say my lord every time. Sir will do after the first. And remember to leave the bucket.”

  Another throat-spasming swallow preceded the boy’s solemn nod as he set the bucket on the floor. He looked serious, as if William were imparting a wisdom far greater than a social norm that had been taught to everyone else of William’s acquaintance since childhood. Did that say something telling about the boy’s upbringing or about the company William kept?

  The entire encounter replayed in William’s mind as he crossed to retrieve the bucket of water near the door. There was something strange about it. He shook his head. This entire experience was strange. Never had he walked into a house that wasn’t entirely staffed—usually they were overly staffed—with people trained and ready to do their jobs. He tried to remember to thank them—mostly because his father never had—but more often than not they were in and gone before he had the chance.

  When was the last time he’d had an actual conversation with one of his servants?

  The remaining baggage was soon delivered to the room, and Morris set on the task of scrubbing the travel dust and debris from William’s skin.

  “A bath would be considerably more expedient, my lord,” the man said, his mouth set in a thin line. Displeasure was the only emotion the man ever let show.

  “Arrange for one to be set up belowstairs until more staff is hired. For now, though, the dust in my hair is making my head itch.”

  Despite the hat he’d worn while traveling, dirt had worked its way through the thick strands. Morris brushed as much dirt out as possible before leaning W
illiam over the hip bath and pouring the bucket of remaining water over the hair.

  It wasn’t ideal, but it would do. William shook the wet hair out of his eyes with a sigh, already beginning to feel reenergized.

  “Will you be dressing for dinner, sir?”

  “No,” William answered, the freedom in making such a statement leaving him a bit more relaxed. “My normal day clothing will do.”

  Thirty minutes later, he was dressed in comfortable trousers, a linen shirt, jacket, and a simply tied cravat. It was an outfit he’d never have dared go to dinner in anywhere else, but if the house’s footboy—he refused to call Reuben a footman—didn’t even know proper forms of address, no one was likely to mention the master’s clothing.

  They might not even notice it.

  He ran a hand along the wall in the nearly empty dressing room before departing. The strange markings were on one of the walls in here as well. Scratches accompanied the dark grey streaks. They were rather evenly spaced across the walls of each room. Were there marks like this in other rooms?

  William didn’t know much about the house. His father had won it from the son of the man who’d built it. The man claimed his father had been strange, eccentric to a fault. Thus far, William was inclined to agree. The man had built himself a showplace, an oasis of calm far away from absolutely everything. Either he had thrown elaborate house parties or he’d spent his days wandering alone through his own personal art museum.

  Outside the bedchamber, a large glass dome allowed light to flood the square two-story gallery. He’d been so focused on following his housekeeper earlier that he hadn’t had time to give more than a glance to the enormous paintings decorating the tall white walls. The two staircases from the floor below met and entered the gallery in front of a set of plain wooden double doors. The middle of the gallery was open to the floor below, and across the span was another door William presumed led to another bedchamber and dressing room.

  He circled the gallery on the side away from the double doors, running his hand along the wall but finding no more grooves or markings of note. The solid wall across from the double doors sported an enormous painting of some sort of battle victory. He didn’t know enough about history to be able to determine the scene, but he appreciated the energy and vibrancy of the painting.

  The door directly across from his own did indeed open into another bedchamber, but this one was almost nondescript. Plain furniture sat on a bare floor and very little decoration covered the room.

  Considering that every other room he’d seen so far had been crowded with artwork, the starkness of the room was jarring.

  Two beds filled the bedchamber. Not mirroring sets of rooms for the mistress and master of the house, then. He could also discount the idea of elaborate house parties. It would seem the man hadn’t even wanted family to feel overly welcome.

  Odd.

  Not as odd as the chapel he found beyond the double doors, though. Benches sat in three short, neat rows in front of a carved wooden altar. A few straight-backed wooden chairs sat against the wall on either side of the doors.

  It wasn’t unheard of for older country manors to have chapels, of course. Dawnview Hall, the seat for the marquisette that sat just outside of Birmingham in Warwickshire, had a chapel, but it had been built at least a century, if not two, before this house. It also wasn’t still used as a chapel. Throughout his childhood, his mother had claimed it as her private salon, escaping there to read or do her needlework. Toward the end of her life, she retreated there to simply sit and stare at the alcove that had once held the altar.

  William wasn’t sure what the new Lady Chemsford had done to the space. The few times he’d returned to Dawnview since his father’s remarriage a mere three months after the death of his first wife, he had kept his visits short and wandered through the house as little as possible.

  This house, which he didn’t even know the name of, wasn’t even one hundred years old yet and was within two miles of a town that boasted two churches. Yet it had a chapel that was still set up as a place of worship.

  Just how reclusive had the previous owner been? Had he been a nonconformist who worshiped in here alone? Or perhaps with whomever used the beds in the starkly unadorned room? Perhaps one of those traveling preachers who went from small town to small town bestowing sermons and enlightenment on those who didn’t otherwise have spiritual guidance had stopped here and spoken to an intimate and limited audience.

  There was something serene and comforting about the thought, but also something unsettling. It made the house seem cut off from the world. As much as William craved privacy and a bit of distance, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be completely removed from everything.

  He shook his head as he ran a hand along the edge of one of the benches. Just because the house was built for isolation didn’t mean he had to accommodate the feature. Marlborough was an easy walk from here, an even easier ride, and the roads between there and London were in excellent condition.

  There was absolutely no reason he couldn’t manage the marquisette from here instead of the family seat. At least for a while. A desk was a desk, after all, and he wanted one that didn’t have proximity to his father’s second wife, Araminta, and her son, Edmond. William simply couldn’t bring himself to live under the same roof as the family his father had planned for even as his first wife wasted away from illness. The family his father had loved.

  William left the chapel and quickly explored the remainder of the first floor. Two more small bedchambers sat in the back corners of the house, each as austere and sparse as the first guest chamber.

  While the decor was a bit lacking, it appeared William had plenty of beds to offer anyone whom he wished to do business with at the house. There was more than enough art on the ground floor walls to improve the atmosphere of the guest rooms, but the house was also lacking in amenities. It hadn’t seen any of the new developments of the past sixty years. Even the chairs looked less comfortable than anything he’d sat in recently.

  He’d yet to see signs of the woodworking crew he’d instructed the solicitor to hire, so they must not have made it to this floor yet. It would be easy enough to turn the project into a more extensive refurbishment. Perhaps a bit more of a remodel. If he started making extensive renovations, though, it would be an indication he intended to live here for a very long time.

  As that had been his original intent, the sick feeling that accompanied the thought surprised him. Perhaps he wasn’t as ready to throw convention away as he’d assumed.

  Statues and paintings accompanied William’s journey down the stairs. There was no rhyme or reason to the layout that he could see, no similarity in style or theme. Just art. Stuffed in every corner and plastered across every wall.

  Well, every wall the master of the house was likely to see.

  Was any of it valuable? He hadn’t any idea. Nor did he think his father ever knew he’d won a hidden museum. If he had, anything of value would have been stripped from the walls and taken to Dawnview Hall. Perhaps one of William’s first guests should be an expert of some sort who could tell him what exactly he’d inherited.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he tilted his head back, looking up and up into the glass dome and the light streaming through it. The emptiness of the cavernous rooms hit him harder than he’d expected, or perhaps it was simply the quietness. He’d never lived anywhere that didn’t have a full staff. Though they all tried to be quiet as they went about their work, simply breathing would stir the air and bring a sense of life to a place.

  Yes, once there were servants roaming the halls, the distant sounds of footsteps or creaking floors, a door closing, or even the hum of a servant working in the yard, this place would feel more like a home. Once William knew all the nooks and crannies, recognized some of the art, became familiar with which floorboards creaked, he would feel comfortable.

  There was something freeing about the quiet, though. No one was expecting anything of him—whether good or bad.
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  There wasn’t the reputation of his father looming over one shoulder while the expectations of his mother dangled on the other.

  He could and would make a home here. At least, a temporary one. Eventually he would have to marry and decide where to start a family, and that may or may not be Dawnview Hall. The place was big and dark, with guilt and sorrow worked into the very stones and mortar that made its sturdy walls.

  A pleasant smell tickled his nose and distracted him from wandering the rest of the rooms on the ground floor. Instead, he tried to follow the aroma and found himself standing in front of a door beneath one of the main staircases in the central hall. It stood open, revealing smooth stone steps and plain white walls.

  The undefined rules of society William had grown up with dictated he stay on this side of the door that obviously led into the servants’ domain. But in a house that boasted not a single bell pull and didn’t have servants stationed at convenient intervals to run messages, the rules, by necessity, had to change. If he wanted to know when he could eat whatever he was smelling, he was either going to have to return to his room and interrupt Morris’s industrious unpacking or go down the stairs himself.

  It was odd how disturbing and yet exciting he found the idea of stepping over this threshold. He’d wanted stillness. He’d wanted to be a more modern sort of aristocrat than most of the ones he’d known. If those two things came with a bit of newness and discomfort, so be it. The result would be worth it.

  A clench of his stomach preceded a low grumble and he grinned. One thing was the same no matter where he went or whom he was with:

  Good food made everything better.

  Chapter five

  The air of dishevelment at the bottom of the stairs was surprising. Of course, William wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. The cleanliness of the rest of the house—despite the fact that there was a group of workmen supposedly somewhere on the premises—led him to expect the same belowstairs. There wasn’t any dirt or dust visible, but a crumpled pile of linen sat in one corner while a stack of buckets and a broom rested in another.