Page 78 of The Duke
She poured herself a fresh hot cup of tea and went to stand by the window to allow Louise the privacy she herself had longed for the first few times she ate a proper meal. Down below, the gardener moved slowly along the border hedge with his shears, and beyond, the river was restored to its noisy flow.
Louise’s arrival felt like a blessing, like a sign. It was the only thing she could have wished for to make her happiness more perfect. Her blessed good fortune would now be shared. She could offer Louise safe harbour, as no one had been free to offer it to her.
“You can taste that the butter they used in this pastry had already started to turn,” Louise said peevishly. “It’s sour and lingers in the mouth.”
Celine broke into a smile. How she preferred a world with Louise’s unpleasantness in it!
She returned and sat with Louise. “I’ll let the pastry chef know.” She wouldn’t. “Here, have the soup instead.” She couldn’t help touching Louise again, stroking her hair. Louise pushed her head into the caress and for a moment, they were silent.
“Was it the duke’s agent who found you?” Celine asked. The duke had said she would keep looking until they knew for sure whether Louise was dead, though Celine had been convinced it was pointless. Gratitude squeezed painfully into her heart.
Louise nodded, and fresh tears began to fall from her eyes. “The woman who found me was real rough around the edges, she scared me. At first I thought she wanted a fuck and I was so grateful. That was two days ago.” Louise looked away sharply, as though the idea of two days ago was too painful to share. Celine squeezed her hand.
Louise frowned suddenly, then looked up at Celine with exhausted eyes. “She didn’t work for a duke, though. She was a friend of yours.”
Likely the duke had kept her own name out of it, not wishing to arouse any more interest than necessary. “It’s not important. Here, I’ll pour you some tea, and then I’ll ring for a bath and have a room prepared for you.”
Louise gripped her hand. “No, but your friend said you would wish to thank her in person. She insisted. She wouldn’t shut up about it, even when I was vomiting into the Channel.”
“Don’t worry about it. The duke will pay enough for all the thanks in the world.”
“Celine, stop being difficult! She didn’t want to be paid. She found me as a favour to you, and all she asked in return was that you thank her.” Louise stood and said in a thin, shrill voice, “Shall I go back to the harbour? Find return passage on my back? It’s obvious you don’t want me here. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve been through, what it cost me to come here, but you can’t even stir yourself to give a measly little word of thanks!”
Celine went cold, as Louise’s miraculous appearance took onan altogether more sinister cast. If the duke’s agent in Paris hadn’t found Louise, then who had? “What was the name of this friend?”
Louise sat again, limp and listless. “Oh, what was it? I can’t be expected to remember. I was so sick on the way over, Celine, so sick.”
She was real rough around the edges, she scared me.
“It wasn’t…” But it was, she already knew it was. “The name wasn’t Markham, was it?”
“Yes!” Louise said in a relieved rush of air. “That was it. Markham found me. You always treat what I say with such suspicion, but you see, you do know her after all. You will thank her, won’t you? You won’t make a liar out of me? I told her you would.”
She thought, stupidly, of the duke. The tender and playful care the duke had shown her during her convalescence, how the duke had spun her round and round the ballroom, making her laugh, the arguments, the nightmares, their one glorious trip to the countryside. How they had held hands in bed while the duke told Celine what she’d never told anyone. How that was all done now.
“Yes, Louise,” she said. “Don’t fret. Of course I will.”
Twenty minutes later, as she was leaving, she stopped to throw her letter to Lord Burnley into the fire.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Celine stood before Wroth House, a subdued figure in a servant’s hat and cloak.
The grey stone facade that loomed over her was so old it had the texture of hoary dragon hide, marked with slitted windows and bookended by two blunt towers. Directly before her was the dark maw of the gate—a long stone passage with a workmanlike arch scored by grooves where a portcullis once would have been let down.
In the end, it had been simple to leave Howard House unquestioned and come to Wroth House unobserved.
Before, she had imagined introducing Louise to the duke in the manner of introducing the only kind of family she had left to the woman she loved. But the rude shock of Markham’s involvement had put an end to that. A bucket of cold water to wake her from a fever dream.
In fact, she felt amazed that she could have entertained such an idea. Introduce the dirty, unpleasant, uneducated Louise, fresh from the streets of Paris, to the most powerful woman in Britain? As though such an introduction would be anything other than a mortification to all concerned?
She knew she had felt secure this morning, as though love had made a place for her, but she could no longer recall the feeling. It was an insanity that had passed. She didn’t belong, and Markham knew it.
It might have been simple to leave Howard House unquestioned, but it had not been easy. The price had been the tenderfeelings of Adele, the red-haired maid who had been so kind, and sweet, and accepting from Celine’s first morning in her new life.
But her new life had been stripped from her, and she couldn’t risk the smallest rumour making its way back to Kate about a French woman visiting her. Kate and Louise must never meet. And so, she had sought out Mr. Hill, the steward, and apprised him of her plans to hire a new French lady’s maid. In fact, this very hour she was conducting her first interview and would allow a hopeful young woman to accompany her to the library on a trial basis. The duke wouldn’t be bothered with news of a potential hire, but it would get back to Adele soon enough.
The tender feelings of one maid would pale in comparison to what was to come, but Celine still felt sick about it.
