Chapter 4

Chapter Four

" W ould you like to go for a walk with me?" Violet asked her sister, glancing over her shoulder to where she was reading on the settee. "I am beginning to feel suffocated. I'd love to get outside, get some fresh air."

Rosalie lazily turned another page in her book. "No, thank you, but feel free to go ahead," she muttered, without even looking at Violet. "I want to stay in here and read."

Violet sighed. "You can't read all day," she protested. "A young lady needs to have multiple interests and pursuits. She should not be so singular."

"Why not?" Rosalie looked up at her now, her eyes narrowed.

"Because—"

"At least I have a pursuit. What's yours?"

Violet balked at her sister's question, but she tried not to let it show. She forced a smile. "I suppose that's something I will have to find out."

"What is it you would most like to do, Violet?"

James's question had been persistently echoing in her mind since he's asked it. In truth, she had never let herself want anything before.

Rosalie returned to her book, unaware she had offended her, and Violet turned back to look out the window. Her sister's words had stung. She still didn't know what her passion was, especially when most of her time was now taken up by managing the Duke's household—a task she wasn't entirely certain how to carry out.

"Though I cannot imagine staying in this room, not even for the most thrilling novel."

This caught her sister's attention. "Whyever do you say so? It's beautiful?—"

"Of course."

"—and large."

"Yes, Sister, but don't you think it's a bit… cluttered, as if no matter how well you clean it, it will appear dusty? And even though the rooms are big, they are filled with mismatched decorations, likely passed down from a whole hoard of dukes before James."

Violet didn't understand how her husband lived this way, with paintings seemingly stacked on top of one another on the walls. They made the rooms feel small and claustrophobic.

"I barely feel like I have the space to breathe," Violet muttered to herself.

"It's not that different from Carfield House," Rosalie pointed out before flipping open her book once again.

"I suppose not," Violet sighed. She knew her sister was happiest when lost in a book, and she didn't want to disturb her. "I think I'll take that walk now."

"Have fun!" Rosalie responded without lifting her head from her book.

The moment the fresh air hit her face, Violet felt as if a weight was lifted off her shoulders.

A place that was warm, comfortable, where children would love growing up…

Her heart clenched. She had momentarily forgotten that she and James would not have any. And while she was trying to make peace with it, even see the upside, there was still a part of her that felt as if something very important had been taken away from her.

Just then, her skirts caught in some thorns, and a loud ripping sound rang out in the air. She looked down and was horrified to see that her beautiful yellow morning dress, one of the few she genuinely loved, was torn right across the hem.

"Blast!" she swore, even though it was unladylike for a duchess to swear. "Even the gardens here are cluttered! Can nothing in this house be orderly?"

She reached down and grabbed at the stems of several dead roses, but the thorns were sharp, and they sank through her thin gloves to prick her skin. Letting out a yell of pain, she released them at once. She would have to be more careful if she wanted to clean up these bushes.

And that's when an idea struck her.

Bending down, she took off the scarf around her shoulders and wrapped it around her hands. Then, she grabbed the rose stems once more. This time, they didn't prick her. Smiling to herself, she yanked, and the extraneous stems came loose from the ground.

"Can I help you, Mrs. O'Riley?"

Violet rose and saw an elderly gardener approaching. At first, she wasn't sure if he was speaking to her, as he had called her by the housekeeper's name. She peered at him more closely. His face was weathered and lined from years out in the sun, a few of his teeth were missing, but his eyes looked cloudy.

"It's the Duchess," she said as he drew nearer.

"Oh, my word!" The gardener reddened with embarrassment. "Of course it is. Forgive me, Your Grace. My sight isn't what it once was…"

"Don't worry at all." Violet glanced again at his cloudy eyes. "I was… er, I was wondering when was the last time these roses were tended to?"

"Not long ago," the gardener responded, smiling benignly. "Why, I tended to them myself just last week."

Violet looked down at the overgrown bushes, then back up at the gardener. This was clearly not the case. And was it just her imagination, or was he not quite looking at her, but instead glancing over her right shoulder? She checked to see what was there, but there was nothing.

A suspicion began to grow in her mind.

"I see," she said slowly. "Well, I should like very much to help cut them down. You see, they made it difficult for me to continue my walk today."

"Please don't bother yourself, Your Grace," the gardener insisted. "It is beneath you."

"Never mind that," she said, waving an irritated hand. Was no one in this house going to let her have a purpose? "Fetch me a spade and some rawhide gloves. I'm going to do this myself."

"Your Grace!" The gardener looked thunderstruck. "You cannot!"

"Why not?" Violet asked, her hands on her hips. "I want to be useful, and the roses need weeding."

"But you are a duchess!" the gardener protested. "I can do it!"

"And I shall certainly welcome your help," Violet offered. "But I want to adopt a hands-on approach to the improvement of the estate. Otherwise, how else will I know what is needed most to have it in tip-top shape?"

"But your dress—and your gloves! You'll dirty ‘em!"

"That's why you're fetching me new rawhide gloves." Violet couldn't help but smile at the look of utter shock on the gardener's face. "Besides, they're just clothes."

"A-alright, Your Grace," the gardener sputtered. He bowed quickly and scurried away, leaving Violet to kneel in the mud and continue to pull at the weeds, with her scarf wrapped around her dainty gloves.

To her pleasant surprise, she liked weeding. Never before in her life had she kneeled in the grass and used her hands to tend to something, and the feeling was exhilarating. She felt useful for the first time in a long while.

Violet reached for a particularly large clump of weeds and pulled hard. The weeds resisted—they must have been deeply rooted. Violet scrunched up her face and pulled even harder. All of a sudden, the weeds gave way, ripping up from the ground without any warning, and the force propelled her backward.

She landed on her backside on the soft, damp earth. There was a squelch, and she knew that she had landed in mud.

"Blast," she cursed under her breath.

For all her talk of the unimportance of clothes, she hadn't wanted to soil her dress completely. It was a lovely frock, after all. Besides, it would mean more work for her lady's maid, who would now be up all night trying to get the mud stains out.

If only James had kept his house in order, instead of neglecting it—as typical of his sex—then none of this would…

A bark of laughter sounded from across the garden, and Violet looked up to see the devil in question walking towards her, his walking stick out and a wide grin on his face.

"Well, well, well!" James called out as he approached. "First, you were a viscount's daughter dressed as a maid, now you're a duchess lying in the mud. Tell me, my dearest wife, why is it that I keep finding you in positions that are entirely unbecoming of your sex and station?"

"You know why I was dressed as a maid," Violet snapped, unable to keep some of the irritation out of her voice as embarrassment coursed shot her.

"You better have an equally perilous reason this time," James teased. He leaned against his walking stick and grinned down at her.

"I don't. I was simply trying to garden."

This amused James far more than she thought it would.

He let out another bark of laughter and shook his head. "You are as unpredictable a wife as I could have hoped for, Violet. Although, considering your reputation as a quiet and serious young lady, I had rather low hopes."

"Can you stop teasing me and help me up?" Violet huffed.

She was cross now, and the last thing she needed was to be teased by the man whose garden she'd been trying to improve.

"Of course, of course," James said.

He held out a hand, and she grasped it and then pulled herself to her feet, leaning against him to keep from falling. Even in her embarrassment and annoyance, she couldn't help but appreciate how very strong he was. He didn't so much sway as he took her entire weight.

Once she was up, she released his hand as quickly as possible and tried to smooth down her skirts and adjust her hair, which had come loose from her coiffure as she'd been weeding.

"Thank you," she said, with as much dignity as she could muster.

James peered at her, still smiling. "I must say, I like this look on you—disheveled, covered in mud and twigs, with grass stains on your dress."

"Don't make fun of me," she said. "I know I look ridiculous right now."

"Indeed, I am in earnest."

Violet narrowed her eyes at him. She didn't believe that for a second. But to her surprise, James looked surprisingly sincere.

But then he ruined it by saying, "As a boy, I always wished I could marry a dryad or a fairy. I thought it impossible until now."

"You are utterly infuriating!" she scoffed and all but stomped away from him and the rosebushes.

But before she could get away, her husband called after her, "May I ask why exactly you are weeding my garden?"

"Well, someone ought to clean this garden up," Violet said, gesturing to the overgrown weeds everywhere.

James cocked his head. "I have a gardener for that."

"Yes, I just met him. And he told me that he is keeping a strict eye on the gardens—which I would have believed if they were not in such a poor state."

"Ahh…" James sighed, and his expression became more serious. "It's not what you think. I'm not a villainous tyrant of a duke who won't let my kindly gardener tend to his flowers. It's simply that the gardener is practically and cannot for the life of him manage to tend to the gardens by himself. I have offered him the opportunity to retire and a generous pension, but he is a proud man, and he insists that he cannot accept pay without work. And of course, I cannot dismiss him and hire a new gardener—it would break his heart. So I let him carry on here, thinking he's gardening."

"Well, that is… surprisingly generous," Violet conceded.

His eyes snapped up to hers. "Is that a compliment I just heard from my wife? Does that mean you are no longer irritated with me?"

"Of course, I am still irritated with you," she snapped. "Just because you do one kind thing for your gardener does not mean I have forgotten all your insults."

"Perhaps you will forgive me once I tell you it has always been my dearest wish for my wife to revive these gardens and grow beautiful plants in them."

"I suppose your wife must have something to grow if she cannot grow a child."

James gave her a hard look, but she merely raised her eyebrows, as if challenging him to contradict her. He didn't. Instead, he sighed and ran his free hand through his hair.

"These gardens were my mother's dearest project," he admitted. "She used to be out here often, making sure they were in order."

If Violet wasn't very much mistaken, she thought she detected a melancholic look on her husband's face. James had never spoken of his mother before, but she pretended not to notice.

"And I suppose she never weeded?" she asked coolly. "She was above such endeavors?"

James laughed. "She did not weed, no. But I think she'd have admired your attempt to do so. She took a great interest in maintaining the estate. I'm afraid it has been in disrepair ever since her death. My father, of course, did not care for the gardens at all, and I have little time…"

"Well, you're probably going to find my ideas for the garden wanting compared to hers," she snapped.

Violet didn't like the tone of his voice. It was surprisingly sincere, and it made her nervous. She suspected he was luring her into some sort of trap by getting her to lower her defenses and feel sorry for him. She wasn't going to let that happen.

"Isn't that the way with lords? You all find your wives wanting compared to your mothers?"

"I'm sure your ideas will be lovely."

Again, it was such a moment of earnestness that Violet had the strong urge to change the subject.

"I ruined my dress." She looked down at the yellow frock and sighed. "Poor Sarah—my lady's maid. It's going to take her ages to get the stains out."

"Then just throw it out."

Violet looked back up at James, startled. "But that is so… wasteful."

"Usually, I am not the kind of person to be wasteful," he explained, "but I also don't like the idea of your lady's maid working overtime simply because you were trying to improve my home. Our home."

Violet's heart thudded loudly and painfully in her chest. Our home. All of a sudden, she felt overly conscious of how terrible she looked. How her hair was disheveled and her dress was dirty.

What must he think of me?

The feeling, however, only lasted a moment, as the next second, James was back to his usual teasing ways. He sighed as he looked her over, affecting the air of a benevolent savior.

"Although judging from the way you've defiled this dress, and the fact that you like to dress in maid's rags, I suppose I should send you to the modiste to redo your entire wardrobe." He smiled sardonically. "I can't have people saying that the new Duchess of Attorton isn't the height of fashion."

"I know how to dress myself as befits a duchess," Violet said, defensive once again, although she wondered if she might not feel quite so defensive if he hadn't just gone from sweet to sarcastic in two seconds.

It was jarring, to say the least.

"I'm not so sure about that. But, fortunately, you have me. I am, after all, as dapper and debonair as Beau Brummell himself, according to the gossip sheets." He tapped his finger on her nose, a childlike gesture she didn't like one bit. "Don't worry, Violet, we'll have you trained up as a duchess in no time."

He winked, then strode off towards the house, leaving her fuming behind him.

Next time he's going to see how competent I am. No more maid's dresses, no more mud. I'm going to prove I'm worthy of being a duchess and wipe that stupid self-assured smirk off his face.