Page 47 of A Highly Unlikely Duchess
His butler appeared at his elbow. “Welcome home, Your Grace. Shall I have tea prepared in the —”
“Yes,” Theodore said. “Do that.”
He handed his hat to the butler and walked toward the stairs, his movements uncharacteristically heavy. The adrenaline that had sustained him through the week had finally evaporated, leaving a dull, bone-deep exhaustion in its wake.
Perhaps, he reasoned as he gripped the polished banister, he simply needed a good sleep to stop the incessant worrying. It was entirely unlike him to overanalyze a woman’s silence or a child’s fear, and the sheer effort of trying to reconcile his old life with this new reality had drained him.
Sleep sounded like a great idea, a temporary sanctuary. He would close his eyes, let the silence of the estate settle aroundhim, and hope that by morning, the world would feel like it belonged to him again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Ihave gathered some very interesting information today, My L — Your Grace,” Peggy announced, settling herself gently into the chair by the window. “About the Duke.”
Emily did not look up from the ledger in her lap. She turned a page, noted something, turned another page, and thought that if she sat very still, the day might agree to be over.
She let out a long, weary sigh as the weight of the last twenty-four hours finally settled into her bones. She was tired in a way that went beyond the body. She was exhausted, her feet aching from hours of navigating the sprawling, labyrinthine corridors of Carrowell. Since the moment they arrived a day ago, she had been a whirlwind of movement, driven by a restless need to understand the terrain of her new life.
She turned another page.
“Did you know there are thirty-two guest chambers in the west wing alone?” Emily said without looking up.
Peggy blinked. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”
“That doesn't even account for the three separate ballrooms or the music gallery in the wing. I spent three hours just trying to map the path from the morning room to the library without ending up in the kitchens. It is a city unto itself, Peggy. I feel as though I could walk for a week and still find a corner of this estate that hasn't seen the light of day in a decade.”
She rubbed her temples. “I have been going around with Mrs. Holt since this morning. She has been telling me everything, and I have been writing it all down because I knew I would not remember otherwise.” She looked at the page. “Fourteen bedrooms in the family wing alone. Another twelve in the guest wing. Four state rooms on the principal floor. A ballroom. A library. A music room. A billiard room. A chapel.” She paused. “There is a chapel, Peggy.”
“Yes, there is, Your Grace,” Peggy said.
“In the east wing.” Emily turned the page. “Three drawing rooms. Two dining rooms. A morning room. A study. A conservatory. A picture gallery that takes approximately eight minutes to walk through at a reasonable pace.” She set the list down. “Don’t even get me started on the gardens. Six distinct sections. A kitchen garden, a rose garden, a topiary garden, a cutting garden, a walled garden for the hothouse flowers, and something Mrs. Holt called the wilderness garden, which isapparently a large area where they have made a decision not to intervene and have called it a design choice.”
Peggy pressed her lips together.
“Do not,” Emily said.
“I was not going to say anything, Your Grace.”
“There is also a home farm, four tenant cottages, a coach house, a stable block that houses sixteen horses, and an indoor staff of fifty-three.” Emily picked up her tea.
“You have been busy,” Peggy said.
“I have been overwhelmed,” Emily said, which was more honest than she had intended, and she said it into her teacup so the full weight of it was somewhat absorbed by the china.
“You are doing wonderfully, Your Grace,” she said, simply and directly, because Peggy had never been the sort of person who dressed things up when the plain version would do more good.
Emily looked at her over the rim of her cup. “I haven’t done anything yet, Peggy.”
“I know it’s a different scale, Your Grace, but you are competent. I cannot think of a better duchess.” Peggy said.
“It is an entirely different scale.” Emily set her cup down. “I know I wanted to marry a man of influence and power, but I did not think about what that would actually mean in practice. Standing in a house with over eighty rooms and a staff of fifty, and realizing that all of it is now my responsibility to manage.” She shook her head slightly. “Mrs. Holt went through the weekly household budget with me this afternoon. The quarterly accounts. The arrangement with the home farm. The standing orders with the butcher, the wine merchant, and the linen supplier.” She paused, then tried to speak again, but only a sigh came out.
“Perhaps I might cheer you up with some information I gathered about the Duke,” Peggy said, her eyes dancing with a familiar, mischievous light.
Emily closed the ledger, set it on the side table, and looked at Peggy with a smile. She could use a little distraction. The guilt that had been a dull throb in the back of her mind for weeks was now a sharp, insistent ache.
They had been at Carrowell for five days, and she had not sat across a table from Theodore for a single meal. She had seen him in passing, twice in the corridor and once at the foot of the stairs, and they had exchanged the kind of brief, polite acknowledgments that people exchanged when they were both pretending to be busier than they were. She had been busy. She was genuinely, thoroughly busy. But she was also aware, in the part of herself she was not currently examining, that busy had become a convenient thing to be.
They were supposed to be on their honeymoon.
