Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

M adeline found herself eating breakfast alone the following morning after a solitary canter through the woodland. There had been no sign of either Charles or his sister since she rose although there were three settings laid in the breakfast room. She did not know whether to be sorry or not, but she was certainly puzzled.

“Is Lady Cecilia likely to be up later this morning?” she asked the maid who brought in a pot of fragrant coffee. “I wondered if she might like to join me for a walk.”

“Lady Cecilia’s maid said that her ladyship had had a restless night and would be keeping to her room,” the young woman informed her. “She will not be taking breakfast.”

“And the Duke?” Madeline followed up in careful, neutral tones, not wanting to advertise the fact that she did not know her own husband’s movements.

Did the whole household know that she did not share her bed with the Duke? She supposed they must, but she would rather not directly advertise the full details of her private life.

“I’m afraid I don’t know, Your Grace,” said the maid apologetically. “Mr. Lonsley might.”

Madeline dismissed the servant kindly and drank the hot coffee. She had already spoken to the butler, and Lonsley had not known either. It seemed the Duke’s whereabouts were a mystery to all this morning. Perhaps he had gone out early with the gamekeepers and was somewhere distant on the estate. Why bother with the courtesy of informing your wife of your plans? She laughed humorlessly to herself.

Breakfast consumed, and an hour with the Huntingdon Manor housekeeper was enough to be assured that bedroom arrangements for the party were well in hand. However oddly Charles was behaving, she was glad that he had at least seen sense on this point and handed this very domestic responsibility over to his wife where it belonged.

Still, there were now several other minor logistical matters upon which Madeline wished to consult her husband as much to head off later clashes as to genuinely reflect his wishes. But until he chose to appear, she was stymied. Unwilling to sit around and wait passively for the Duke’s return, she decided that she might as well take her walk.

Upstairs in her suite, Madeline found Gabrielle sponging down one of her tea gowns in the dressing room, humming a French song to herself as she worked.

“You sing well, you sew well, and you speak well, Gabrielle,” Madeline said with a smile.

“It is not only English mothers who insist that young ladies must have accomplishments,” laughed the young Frenchwoman, pausing in her work. “French mamas can be twice as bad. My own mama, at least three times.”

“I suppose they usually have their daughters’ best interests in mind,” Madeline suggested, and Gabrielle nodded.

“Oh, yes. Especially after the Revolution. Then, accomplishments became working credentials for many young French ladies.”

“Your family fled from France?” asked Madeline. “That must have been very hard.”

“They lost everything,” Gabrielle said simply and without resentment. “But I am too young to know the times before, and it was all long ago. My parents were lucky to survive, and I am lucky to have good work. So, let us talk of more cheerful things than the French Revolution.”

“Yes, I was going to take a walk in the grounds if you’d like to accompany me? I can’t get on with the party preparations until the Duke reappears from wherever he’s vanished. Most irritating!”

These last words were uttered under her breath and more for her own relief than Gabrielle’s ears.

“You are sure you do not require this dress today?”

“No, it isn’t urgently needed as far as I can see. It’s better to take advantage of the good weather for a walk before it turns. Of course, if you would rather not go out, I can walk alone…”

Gabrielle laughed and put down her sponge.

“I am at Your Grace’s command which luckily coincide very much with my own wishes on such a pleasant day. It is a fine thing to work for a mistress of good sense.”

Madeline smiled back.

“I thought I would explore the old folly by the family tombs. I’ve only ridden past on horseback before, and I’m curious.”

“I shall ready our light cloaks and shoes downstairs, Your Grace.”

“Thank you, Gabrielle.”

“Maybe we will even come across the missing Duke of Huntingdon during our walk,” suggested the maid with a mischievous smile as she rehung the dress to return to later.

Evidently, she had heard Madeline’s little aside to herself and leapt to her own conclusions about her mistress’ desire for a walk.

“The Duke isn’t missing. It’s only that no one knows where he is. I’m certainly not going out to look for him, Gabrielle.”

Gabrielle didn’t argue with this point but stood back and regarded Madeline’s present outfit critically.

“Yes, your green muslin walking outfit is suited to such a meeting, should it arise. Yes, he would find you a most beautiful wife to encounter in the woods, I think.”

“I am not beautiful,” Madeline said quickly, turning away. “My sister Letitia is beautiful. I have always been plain. Everyone knows that, and I have never sought to be otherwise.”

“Non! I will not hear it! Letitia is very pretty, certainly; very lively and amiable. But it is you who has the deeper beauty, Your Grace. The beauty that lasts beyond youth and amiability. Your face is strong with good bones and real character. Your figure is perfection. You are like Diana, the goddess of the hunt, while your sister is Aphrodite, the goddess of love.”

Gabrielle’s fierce but half-jesting little speech made Madeline laugh although she didn’t believe a word about being beautiful. Of course, she wasn’t! Still, she quite liked the idea of being compared to a goddess like Diana, whom she remembered being the patroness of the countryside and natural world as well as hunting.

“You know exactly how to give compliments, Gabrielle. It is a skill almost as fine as your needlecraft.”

“I speak the truth, Your Grace, not merely compliments. Now, let me see your coiffeur … No, there is no need to re-pin your hair. Your husband likes it a little loose, yes?”

Madeline blushed slightly, thinking again of the previous day. Had Gabrielle seen something of their encounter through the slightly open door? Was Gabrielle correct in her judgement that, on some level, Madeline did hope to encounter the Duke on their outing?

Charles had stroked that one lock of Madeline’s hair with such strange absorption yesterday in his study…but then ignored her almost entirely afterwards. She told herself that this was simply another of his oddities that she could not hope to understand.

“I don’t know what you mean, Gabrielle,” she said light-heartedly. “But for a simple walk, just you and I, I am perfectly satisfied with my hair as it is, especially when it is under a hat.”

The folly was situated on a hill and turned out to be further on foot than Madeline had remembered. She had to slow down to allow the smaller and less-athletic Gabrielle to keep up. By the time they reached the top, her maid was noticeably out of breath.

“Do sit down,” Madeline urged, indicating the carved stone benches inside the folly, “or I am afraid I may have to carry you back.”

“One thing French mamas do not press as much as English mamas is outdoor exercise. French girls do not walk or ride so much as English girls, I believe.”

“But you sew far better than any English woman,” Madeline pointed out.

“I have spent many hours with my needle,” Gabrielle reflected with a nod. “Perhaps as many as you have spent with your horses. My fingers are very well exercised if not the rest of my body.”

They both laughed, and Madeline went outside to look at the view while Gabrielle recovered. The prospect from the hill was pleasant but not spectacular, rather like the folly itself. There were no statues, carvings, or inscriptions of note although she supposed that an architectural expert might make something of the shape of the pillars or structure of the small arches. There was also no sign of Charles Wraith.

At the bottom of the hill, to the west, lay the family tombs of the Dukes of Huntingdon, dating back several hundred years. Madeline had seen them before on her earlier visits to the estate. Today, a cloaked woman was standing beside one of the more recent monuments.

Despite the distance and the hood over her dark hair, Madeline quickly recognized Cecilia’s slim figure and noted that she was alone.

“She is visiting her mother’s grave, I think,” said Gabrielle, who had now caught her breath again and joined Madeline silently outside the folly. “Is it some special anniversary, perhaps?”

“I don’t know,” Madeline said with a shrug. “Duke Charles did not mention anything. But the maid said Lady Cecilia slept badly and would be in her rooms today. It’s unusual for her to be out unaccompanied, isn’t it?”

“This is why he spends so much time with her, la pauvre petite,” sighed Gabrielle, speaking of Cecilia as though she were a child rather than a young woman of her own age. “She would otherwise sit alone in her room all day, the servants here say.”

“It’s a bad situation,” Madeline observed circumspectly, cautious of adding unnecessarily to any gossip circulating in the servants’ hall on the matter of Lady Cecilia’s health.

“They are glad you arrived when you did for Lady Cecilia’s sake,” continued Gabrielle. “The Duke is devoted to his sister, but he is only a man. He thinks he makes conversation with Lady Cecilia when in fact he roars like a lion. He defends his sister admirably but maybe does not understand her.”

Madeline laughed and then nodded slowly, Gabrielle’s words making sense to her even though she knew they would have made no sense to Charles Wraith.

“Yes, for better and for worse, my husband certainly is a man, isn’t he?” she murmured, largely to herself. “He really should learn not to roar at people.”

“Do you wish to go down to Lady Cecilia?” Gabrielle asked then, and Madeline shrugged.

“I’m not sure. It seems wrong to leave her by herself, especially while Duke Charles is absent, but I don’t want to intrude either. It’s a very personal thing, isn’t it, visiting your mother’s grave?”

Her maid nodded, making no recommendation either way. Madeline’s mind was made up when Cecilia turned and saw them. After starting in surprise, she lowered her hood and raised her arm in a tentative greeting. Madeline decided to take this as an invitation. Waving back, she set off down the hill.

“Cecilia! I’m sorry if you were hoping for some privacy. I wanted to see the old folly, and then we spotted you.”

“Do not worry. I only wanted to be here for a short while. Now I shall go back to the house.”

Cecilia’s pale face looked even more tired and drawn than usual. It came to Madeline again that there was something weighing dreadfully on the young woman’s mind. She offered her sister-in-law an arm and set off in the direction of the house with Gabrielle following a little way behind.

“Do you miss your mother a great deal?” Madeline asked as they strolled and saw Cecilia look pained.

“I am sorry that I can never speak to her again,” the younger woman answered after a long pause, as though the simple question had required great consideration. “There is so much I wish I knew. So much unfinished between us.”

“I’m sure she’d want you to be living your life rather than worrying about such things unduly,” Madeline offered comfortingly, but Cecilia gave a short, strained laugh at this notion.

“You and my brother are both strangely sure of my mother in death. In life, I only know that I could never be perfect enough for her.”

The previously warm sun had now passed behind thick gray clouds, and Madeline shivered slightly both with the cool breeze passing through her light cloak and the pain audible in Cecilia’s statement.

“Our parents are only human, and sometimes they’re wrong,” she told Cecilia. “We’re truly adult when we accept that and learn to live with it.”

Her sister-in-law considered these words thoughtfully and then squeezed Madeline’s arm lightly.

“Thank you,” Cecilia said quietly.

“For what?” asked Madeline in surprise.

“For listening. For not making me feel guilty or wrong or telling me I imagine things or that my mother wasn’t the woman I knew her to be.”

“I never met your mother,” Madeline said simply. “I can only know what you and Charles tell me about her.”

“And if I tell you that I’m glad she’s dead?”

“Then I will think you must have good reason to say something so strong,” Madeline returned, not really shocked but wondering what the previous Duchess could have done to her daughter to merit such a bold statement.

“I think I do have reason, sometimes. Then other times, I wonder if she was right after all, and I am the one who is wrong, unfit, unworthy…”

“No,” interrupted Madeline quickly and firmly. “I didn’t know your mother, but I do know that’s no useful way of thinking. How could anyone live a useful and productive life with such thoughts in their heads? No, you must not think of such things, Cecilia. If your mother said otherwise, she must have been…ill or confused. It no longer matters. It simply isn’t true.”

Cecilia sighed, drooping a little as they finally approached the house.

“That’s what Charles says too but always so loudly. It’s easier to listen when you speak.”

“Charles does want what is best for you,” Madeline assured her. “I have never met such a devoted brother.”

“I don’t deserve him,” said Cecilia with another sigh. “I can never make him understand. If I could change myself back, for Charles’s sake, I would.”

“Back to what?” asked Madeline, halting at the bottom of the steps, sensing that she was getting close to something important with Cecilia.

“Who I used to be, I suppose. Before.”

“Before?” Madeline questioned as gently as she could.

The housekeeper had now appeared at the front door with Cecilia’s maid, the latter seeming relieved to see the two ladies safely back at the house.

“It doesn’t matter,” Cecilia said, shaking her head as she took in the audience nearby.

Whatever she had been close to telling Madeline would not be revealed in front of others.

“Your Grace, Lady Cecilia, shall I have tea brought to the drawing room?” asked the housekeeper as she held open the heavy doors for the women.

“Yes, please,” agreed Madeline, and she was glad to see Cecilia nodding in response to her inquiring glance.

The longer she spent in her sister-in-law’s company, the greater Madeline’s confidence grew. There must be a way to get to the bottom of Cecilia’s mysterious affliction and maybe even remove it.

Whether Charles recognized his emotional limitations or not, he would never succeed in this venture. He was both too close to his sister in affection and too distant from her in understanding. Madeline judged her own chances to be higher.

For the sake of her marriage, and Cecilia’s future happiness, she was determined to at least try.