Chapter Eight

Thus, the meal passed, albeit slowly, with conversation limited to ‘please,' ‘thank you,' ‘pass the gravy,' and so on, interspersed by the sounds of eating and silverware scraping porcelain. Pudding, a fruit tart with custard, went the same way. But when they had eaten their fill—he could not help noticing how little she had eaten and wondered if nerves were affecting her appetite—the awkwardness of the silence that fell had Malcom itching to bolt to his study. The pressure upon him to make hated small talk was becoming almost unbearable, and his resentment of her flared up again.

It is all her fault that we are here at all. She has stolen my life! Well, I am not responsible for entertaining her. Let her do as she pleases without me.

Silently, he plotted when he could best make his excuses and leave. But when he looked at her, about to make the excuse that he had a lot of work to do, he once again saw fear in her eyes. It then hit him like a ton of bricks: It is our wedding night! She is expecting me to . . . Oh, Lord!

Panic rose within him, for he had no idea how to broach the subject with her.

"I trust you find your chambers comfortable," he began, wondering if he could find some oblique way of making her understand that he had no thought of accosting her in the conjugal manner.

"Yes, they are very nice indeed. Very large. I am not used to having such a lot of space all to myself," she replied, her voice trembling a little as she lowered her eyes.

"Good. And you have everything you need?"

"Oh, yes, I think so."

"Excellent. I have my own apartments down the hall. We need not trouble each other if we do not wish to. I am very busy indeed with estate affairs, and I often work into the night. I hope I shall not disturb you" He hoped he had made it plain and tried to gauge her understanding without being too obvious. He thought he glimpsed a look a relief cross her face. She knows what I am saying all right! He too breathed a sigh of relief. He was just about to announce his departure when, to his surprise, she beat him to it.

"If you do not mind, I am rather tired after such a . . . busy day. I would like to retire early to my rooms if I may."

It rather took the wind out of his sails. She wishes to escape me as much as I wish to escape her! For some peculiar reason, the realization stung him a little. But since it meant they could go their separate ways, he nodded in agreement.

He got up and pulled out her chair so she could leave. "Very well. Good night," he said, bowing formally.

"Good night." She curtseyed and glided away, a footman rushing to open the door for her. Malcom had turned away, thankful the ordeal was over, when she suddenly stopped and turned back to him on the threshold.

"Will it be possible for me to ride tomorrow?" she asked. "I should like to ride around the park and see my new home."

Malcom felt a twinge of guilt, for he knew this was the moment when he should offer to take her on a tour of the place. But he did not, fearing that once he started attending to her every whim there would be no end to it, and his privacy would be shattered.

"Ride? Why, yes, of course. You will find one or two mares to your liking in the stable, I am sure. The stable man will assist you." To his consternation, she seemed surprised, and then she gave a small smile. Something about it told him that she was actually pleased he had not offered to accompany her, that she was as glad to be relieved of his company as he was hers.

"Wonderful. Thank you, and good night again." With that, she left, and he heard her light footsteps tripping up the staircase.

Malcom stood staring after her for a few moments, deeply confused by his own emotions. For some inexplicable reason, it stung him to realize that his new wife found him so objectionable. A stream of contradictory thoughts rushed through his mind: Why should I care if she despises me? But why does she despise me? I am duke, am I not? Should she not be falling over herself to please me, grateful to me for the sacrifice I have made to save her reputation? But is it not good that she finds your company objectionable? Is that not what you want, you idiot?

Pushing the confusion aside, he returned to the table and poured himself another glass of wine, drinking it down in one go. After some thought, he resolved to keep as much distance between them as possible without being outright rude to each other.

Wife or not, I am determined she shall not disrupt my solitary existence. I shall carry on with my life just as before, remaining in the country, keeping clear of the Ton and their social shenanigans, and she will just have to make the best of it.

***

The next day dawned fine and fair, and Cassandra was at the stables in her riding habit before the breakfast hour. With a friendly brown mare saddled, she was soon perched atop its back and following the stable man's directions as to a circular route around the park. As she rode along at a steady walk, enjoying the sunshine and surveying the beautiful countryside—which, she supposed, all came within her husband's domain—she felt surprisingly free, considering the circumstances.

There were no parents and no Maggie to frown at her and tell her what she should be doing. And much to her delight, there was no Duke either. She was alone and at liberty to do as she pleased, for the time being at least. The only person she found she missed was Diana, hoping it would not be too long before she saw her friend again. But she intended to write her a long letter that afternoon, telling her news.

"Come on, Brownie, let us go a little faster," she told the horse, using her whip to gently steer the steed into a canter along a bridleway that skirted some pretty meadows and woods. She rode for a couple of hours quite contentedly, taking in all the pretty sights and spectacular views that Lindenhall estate offered. It was breathtakingly vast, with lawns and pastures, its own lake, a boathouse, and a series of scenic, man-made waterfalls that funneled into a large fishing pond. It was the sort of place she would usually have loved to explore.

But look what happened last time you decided to explore a garden on your own. Best to stick to the bridleways.

Later that afternoon, just as she was finishing the letter to Diana, Anna arrived in another carriage, along with all her trunks and other paraphernalia that she had not had time to get organized before the hasty wedding.

"Oh, I am glad to see you here safely, Anna. It is such an enormous place, I feel a little lost on my own," she admitted on greeting her maid. While the footmen brought in all the trunks and boxes, she showed Anna up to her chambers and gave her a short tour.

"What a lovely set of rooms, My Lad-I mean, Your Grace," the maid said with an approving smile, peeling off her gloves, unpinning her hat and laying them on the bed. "So, His Grace has his sleeping quarters elsewhere, I take it?" Cassandra understood her meaning at once and felt her cheeks flushing.

"Um, yes, down the hall. I do not know exactly where. That is, as you seem to have guessed, Anna, a blessed relief." She gave a small, tense laugh. "But I am glad to have my own private chambers, and it is not really to be wondered at that he has arranged things so, since His Grace and I are hardly on the best of terms." Anna had witnessed a lot of her crying bouts during her last days at her parents' house and so knew all about her mistress's thoughts on the subject of being summarily wed to the Beast of Lindenhall.

"That is something, Your Grace, as you say," the maid said tactfully, venturing to explore the rooms a little, to see the facilities. "But I am sorry to hear you are not on better terms yet. Everyone at home is hoping you have settled in well."

"In one day? Oh, I suppose I shall, eventually. As well as can be expected in the circumstances. The estate is very beautiful, to be sure. But I am much happier now you are here. I have met all the servants, and I must say, the butler and the housekeeper have been very kind to me. I hope you will get on well with everybody here."

Anna turned and smiled at her. "I'm sure I shall, Your Grace. I can hardly believe I am now lady's maid to a duchess. The other girls back home are rather jealous of me."

"Are they really? But I am still the same person, even though I have a different title now. To be honest, Anna, I do not feel at all like a duchess, and I do not think I will ever get used to it. And I wish you would still call me milady or Lady Cassandra instead of Your Grace. It sounds so stuffy and formal, quite unlike me. I do not even know what a duchess is supposed to do all day. "

"If that is what you wish, milady," Anna instantly agreed, "although I had better address you correctly in front of others or they will think me above my station."

"Of course. Thank you, Anna, it will make me feel a little less homesick. It shall be our secret. I am just so glad you are here, and that I have one true friend to keep me company."

And in the coming days, she would find herself falling back on her maid for company, since her husband seemed to have reverted to his reclusive ways. She caught rare glimpses of him during the days, as one might an elusive animal in a forest, and they dined together in the evenings. She had learned that he was not a talkative man. Apart from that, when Anna was busy elsewhere, she was alone. She tried to amuse herself by having a routine. Riding in the mornings, then breakfast in her chambers and dressing for the day.

Then, she would write letters to her family and Diana, or she might go to the library and find a book to read, or go for a walk, or sketch some scene outside, or find some other pastime that consumed the long hours. But by the end of the first week, though she tried to keep her spirits up, the Duchess of Lindenhall found herself feeling rather lonely and cut off from all the people she loved and all liveliness of London that she so enjoyed. And the thing she missed most of all was the music.

For a newcomer, Lindenhall Manor itself was intimidatingly vast. Cassandra guessed that hidden beyond the grand salons, the drawing room, the smaller parlours, the dining hall, the library, morning room, and so on, existed a veritable rabbit warren of other rooms, unused by herself or her husband or the servants. That tribe had their own clearly demarcated territory below stairs and in the attics and would only venture elsewhere to clean or mend where instructed.

However, one room she had expected to find in such an imposing mansion and sought out from her earliest days after arriving there, was a music room. Yet this vital component of daily life was conspicuous by its absence, which struck her as extremely odd if not to say upsetting. In fact, she had yet to find so much as a pianoforte in any of the occupied rooms. There appeared to be not a single musical instrument in the entire place.

Since she knew that music would have eased her lonely hours, the lack of the means to make it was increasingly distressing and frustrating to her. Every night at dinner she almost asked her husband about it, but every time she looked at his stony countenance, about to speak, she lost her nerve and ended up by resenting him even more than she already did.

One afternoon though after she had been at the mansion for around a fortnight, Cassandra, in dire need of human conversation beyond that of Anna or Hannah Brown. In the course of their talk, she had ventured to ask the housekeeper the whereabouts of the music room or, at the very least, a piano. At this point, she would have been happy with a tambourine to pass the hours.

"Oh, there isn't one, Your Grace," Hannah had told her.

Cassandra had been taken aback. "No music room? Not even a single piano? In a house this size?"

"No, Your Grace. It is unusual, is it not? But there it is," Hannah had replied. "Unless there's one in the east wing. But that has not been used for years, I'm told."

"What! You mean there is a whole wing that is closed off?" Cassandra had asked, shocked but feeling a scintilla of hope that the unused wing might house what she sought.

"Indeed, Your Grace," the housekeeper had confirmed.

"Is there something wrong with it?" Cassandra had asked her, puzzled. "Is it damp, perhaps, or in need of repair in some way? Has the roof fallen in somewhere as the result of bad weather?"

"No, Your Grace, not as far as I know. I have been here for five years now, and it has never been used in all that time."

"Do you think it could be . . . haunted?" Cassandra asked, feeling slightly foolish for asking. But to her relief, the housekeeper did not laugh but answered matter-of-factly.

"Possibly, Your Grace. Many of these old houses are, but I have heard nothing to say so, not even from the servants who have been here for years."

"Good Lord, it is certainly strange. I wonder why it is unused then."

"Well, Mr. Carlton says His Grace shut it up after he inherited the dukedom because he said the house was too big and it was too expensive to keep it open. I know no more than that," Hannah admitted .

"Is that so?" It seemed a spurious explanation to Cassandra, for the Duke was reputedly as rich as Croesus and would hardly baulk at the expenditure of heating and maintaining that part of the historic house. He was a recluse, but she had seen no evidence yet that he was also a miser. But then again, with no guests coming to stay, the extra bedchambers were only standing empty, she supposed.

"We are not even allowed there to clean," Hannah told her with an expression of mild horror, for Cassandra already knew she was a lady who liked everything in her domain to be just so. To have a whole wing languishing uncleaned and disorderly, she imagined, must be like a form of torture to the meticulous housekeeper. "There'll be all sorts up there, I've no doubt, cobwebs, inches of dust, mould even since the windows have not been opened for years," the poor woman added, visibly shuddering at the very idea.

Cassandra thought for a moment, wondering if mayhap her reclusive husband might use the entire east wing as another of his bolt holes. She assumed he had several, for he managed to avoid her, except at dinner, almost all the time. Could he be a secret drinker? Or worse?

"Does his Grace go there at all?" she asked tentatively. Even though she knew her miserable situation with her husband had to be apparent to the servants, she was a little too proud to admit it outright to Hannah.

"Not that I know of, Your Grace. He stays mainly in his study when he's home, which is most of the time, or sometimes in the library."

"Well, it is a mystery, to be sure," Cassandra mused, feeling the urge to inspect the east wing right away.

"If you don't mind me asking, Your Grace, has the master not given you a tour of the place yet?" Hannah asked. Cassandra looked her in the eye but saw no sign of guile or spite in the question, only a flicker of kind concern.

"No, he, er, he has been so busy, with his work, you know," she said, furious with herself for defending the wretch. "But perhaps I shall do a little exploring on my own while I await his guidance."

"Indeed, Your Grace," Hannah replied with a smile. "If you decide to do so, I hope you will tell me what you find there. Mayhap there will be a good reason for the place to be opened up and thoroughly cleaned."

"I shall certainly report back to you, Hannah, with a list of all the dusty, dirty horrors I can find," Cassandra assured her, secretly determined to spend the next few hours until dinner uncovering the secrets of the forbidden east wing.

"As you wish, Your Grace, but may I suggest covering your gown, for it is bound to be very dusty up there, and I should not like it to be ruined?"

"Sage advice, Hannah, which I shall take directly. Thank you," Cassandra told the housekeeper as they parted ways. Hannah went about her business, while an excited Cassandra sped back to her chambers. Within a few minutes, she had changed into an old gown and wrapped her hair in a scarf on top of her head. Feeling equipped to brace the cobwebs and dust, and more cheerful than she had been since before the fateful Collins ball, she set off downstairs at a brisk pace. She made her way down the long hallway studded with Locksley family portraits that led to the shuttered wing, her heart beating a little faster in hope of finding a pianoforte or something very similar there.

Oh, Lord, please let me find at least a piano. If I must be stuck at Lindenhall for the rest of my life in this miserable, lonely existence, if I cannot find the means to make music soon, I am sure I shall end my days in the insane asylum!