Chapter 14

CHAPTER14

Edwin stormed through the hallways to the entrance hall, where a gaudy vision in red and royal blue silk assailed his eyes. She was dressed for a ball, looking even more out of place among the faded manor with its peeling walls and warped floorboards.

“You were told not to visit,” Edwin growled, smoothing down his waistcoat and checking his cravat, for he knew she would remark upon his shoddy appearance otherwise.

“I am your family, Edwin. I do not need to be told when I can visit,” the older lady replied, making a quick observation from top to toe of Edwin. “And as you hurried so swiftly from your wedding and had me shepherded home like a wayward child, I had no opportunity to give you your wedding gift.”

Edwin’s jaw clenched. “You were not supposed to attend the wedding, either.”

“I refer you to my previous remark. I am your family; I do not need an invitation,” the lady insisted, with a mischievous smile.

Edwin’s aunt, the Dowager Countess of Rowley, knew precisely what she was doing. Indeed, he knew he should have anticipated a visit such as this, for she liked to know everything about his rather humdrum life. He still did not know how she had managed to discover the location of the wedding, nor how she had arrived without him being made aware of her presence until he was already in the church, but that was the thing about the dowager—she was crafty and could not be stopped once she had a mind to do something.

“Now, where is she?” Edwin’s aunt clapped her hands together excitedly, peering down the adjoining hallways in the hopes of spotting the new duchess. “I have been dying to meet her. She looked so beautiful at your wedding, Edwin, and I would have told her so at the time, but that wretch denied me!” She jabbed a finger toward Golding, who had been given strict instructions to keep Edwin’s aunt away from Joanna.

Golding flushed bright red. “Apologies, My Lady.”

“Do not ‘My Lady’ me!” Edwin’s aunt scoffed. “You have tried to keep me prisoner in my own home for days, when all I have desired is to meet my nephew’s bride. Is that so heinous a crime?”

Golding bowed his head, his shoulders sagging as he repeated, “Apologies, My Lady.”

“Although, I suppose I cannot truly blame you,” she continued at a clip, narrowing her keen blue eyes at Edwin. “Your manservant only acts upon orders, and I am fully aware that you orchestrated my house arrest. What I should like to know is why? You have an exquisite wife! Why should you be ashamed?”

At that moment, a creak of old floorboards splintered through the air like a pistol shot. Everyone turned in time to see Joanna stepping cautiously out into the entrance hall. She glanced at Edwin, then at his aunt, her expression flitting between confusion and relief.

“This is… my tenacious aunt, the Dowager Countess of Rowley. Aunt, this is my wife, the Duchess of Bruxton,” Edwin introduced her reluctantly, as his aunt barged past him and pulled Joanna into a tight embrace.

“Call me Peggy!” his aunt urged. “You must call me Peggy.”

Joanna’s lips cracked into a smile. “And you must call me Joanna, for if someone were to call out for the Duchess of Bruxton, I would not remember that I am supposed to answer.”

“Oh, she is charming too!” Peggy whirled around to flash a triumphant grin at Edwin. “Did you know that he has been keeping me from you? I had thought he might be ashamed of you, but I fear it is me that he is ashamed of. Terrible, really, but no matter—I am here now, to end your brief days of boredom.”

Joanna chuckled. “You attended the wedding, did you not?”

“Perceptive girl,” Peggy winked. “He would have prevented me from attending that too if he had known I intended to be there.”

Edwin cleared his throat. “How did you know to be there?”

“That is my secret, and I shall take it to my grave.” Peggy tapped the side of her nose and weaved her arm through Joanna’s. “Where is that darling housekeeper? We must have tea and conversation and I must know everything there is to know about you! Oh, and do not fear; I am not meddlesome. I plan only to remain here until Lord Rotherham’s ball, when I shall return to my manor with a cheered heart, knowing my nephew is in the hands of a fine woman.”

Edwin’s mouth parted in shock. “How do you know we mean to attend Lord Rotherham’s ball?”

“Who do you think garnered you the invitation?” Peggy grinned and, with that, she led Joanna away while shouting at the top of her lungs for Mrs. Hislop’s assistance.

Just then, the front door opened, and another figure came stumbling in, laden down with hat boxes and two thin, long trunks. Two footmen followed the young woman in front, carrying the heavier portion of Peggy’s cargo.

“Where is the countess?” the young lady asked abruptly.

“Who is asking?” Edwin replied accusingly, incensed by the quantity of luggage, for it was not the luggage of someone who intended to stay for just a week.

The young lady set down the hat boxes and trunks, panting. “I am her companion, Your Grace.”

“Then, why are you carrying her luggage?”

The young lady shrugged. “She asked me to.”

“They have gone… somewhere down there.” Edwin waved a hand toward the hallway on the right. “I do not doubt that my aunt’s raucous laughter will guide you.”

The young lady sketched a brief curtsy and took off after her mistress, leaving Edwin with a pile of hat boxes and trunks to contend with, as the footmen also began to stack the luggage in the entrance hall. After all, they could not take the belongings to his aunt’s bedchamber if one had not been assigned, and though he was tempted to make them put everything back on the carriage outside, he knew it would not be worth the earache.

“I will show you where to take everything,” he said to the footmen as they entered for a second time. He marched up the stairs while they followed with as much as they could safely carry. “Watch for those red marks—you will fall right through if you do not.”

At the landing, he paused and peered down, his gaze flitting toward the hallway where his aunt had dragged Joanna. And as he stared into the darkness, his heart twinged as if something had cracked, for he found himself wishing that he could be where she was, instead of booted to the periphery once again.

* * *

“I must apologize for arriving at such a late hour,” Peggy said, settling onto the settee in the drawing room as if she had lived in Bruxton Hall all of her life. “I had intended to arrive this afternoon, but Golding was running rings around me. To my shame, I did have to trap him in the cellars so I could make my escape, but I hope you will forgive me. I was so eager to meet you properly.”

Joanna smiled, wondering if it was her good fortune to befriend every lady over the age of fifty. She truly welcomed it, for older women were wise and past caring for the opinions of society, which always made for a refreshing exchange.

“How did you trap him?” she asked, as Mrs. Hislop brought in the tea.

Peggy winked. “It was not difficult. I asked if he might fetch my finest bottle, so we could share it as an afternoon treat, and closed the door behind him.”

Another lady by the name of Jane Russell had joined their small party, and Joanna suspected that the newcomer’s presence was deliberate, for Peggy’s companion was closer in age to Joanna. Perhaps Peggy had guessed that Joanna might be missing her sister, or might, at the very least, need a friend.

Indeed, Jane seemed to be precisely the sort of lady whom Joanna would befriend. She was extraordinarily beautiful, with a willowy stature, pale blue eyes that twinkled when she smiled, not a single blemish upon porcelain skin, and golden hair that had been twisted into a full bun, though two long curls came down to frame her face. At first, Joanna had mistaken her as the dowager’s daughter, considering her beauty, until she had been informed that Jane was a very distant relative who now served as a companion.

“How deliciously wicked,” Joanna whispered, hoping that she would have even a sliver of Peggy’s vitality when she was older.

Peggy nodded, “I thought so.” She gestured to Jane. “I could not have done it without dear Jane, mind you. Indeed, I do not know how I lived before she became my companion. I would be quite lost without her. She keeps me young in spirit, you see.”

“You are not a vampire are you, Peggy?” Joanna teased. “I confess, I did wonder when I saw your beauty and immaculate complexion. I must know your secrets!”

She had been informed that Peggy had recently turned sixty years of age, yet she did not look more than forty, with plump cheeks, a barely lined brow, and fair hair that bore only a few strands of white.

Peggy shrieked with delight. “How lovely of you to say, but I am afraid there are no secrets—I was blessed by my mother’s similar refusal to age. My sister…” she trailed off for a moment. “My sister would have been the same, if she was still with us. From childhood, she was the beauty. Why, I do believe she once held the renowned position for the greatest quantity of proposals in one season. Of course, that was before she chose Edwin’s father. I must have been boiling with envy, though I was already long wed to the earl by then. She was several years younger than me, you see.”

Joanna put the missing pieces together, for she had not quite known which side of the family Peggy hailed from. Looking at the dowager with renewed eyes, Joanna had to wonder what Edwin’s mother might have looked like. There were no portraits of the former duchess anywhere in the manor, or none that she had yet found, but judging by her sister and her son, she must have been a beauty indeed.

“You must not mind Edwin,” Peggy continued. “He is strange, I admit, but he was not always peculiar. When one suffers, it changes a person, and Edwin has suffered more than most. I have done my best to be as near to him as often as I can, but, as I am sure you have already learned, he is not comfortable with tenderness or anything he might mistake as pity.”

Jane nodded. “It was a terrible business, or so I have been told. I must have been no older than ten when it all happened.”

“Then, you know more than I do,” Joanna admitted. “Edwin has told me nothing, nor has anyone else.”

Peggy hesitated. “All I shall say on the matter is that, whatever you have read or heard, it is not the truth. I have seen all of those awful rumors, splashed across the scandal sheets, and they do not have the first notion of what occurred.” She tutted loudly. “That poor boy has lost so much. But, on a brighter note, he has gained you and I do believe that is something to celebrate. Mrs. Hislop, might you fetch something stronger than tea?”

The housekeeper smiled and bowed her head, “Of course, My Lady.”

“Marriage is not a simple thing,” Peggy went on, “especially if it is not a match of love. I should know; I thought I would die when I was newlywed.”

Jane leaned forward, her eyes wide with intrigue “You did?”

“I thought my husband despised me, for he was so terribly cold toward me and would not offer so much as a kind word,” Peggy nodded, keeping her attention on Joanna instead of her companion. “But, in time, and with great persistence on my part, he began to warm toward me. I suspect he had loved another that he was forbidden from marrying, but once I made him understand that it was not my fault, and I was as uncertain as he was, the rest of our lives began. And the years with him were happy ones, when all is said and done.”

“You believe I should do the same with Edwin?” Joanna asked, thinking back to his misty eyes when he had stared up at his painting.

Peggy tilted her head from side to side. “Every couple is different, but if you can find common ground and if you can mutually decide to be lenient and patient with one another, I am certain you will find happiness.”

Joanna contemplated mentioning Edwin’s insistence that she could do as she pleased, including taking lovers, as long as she was honest about it. But she doubted it was the right audience for such a conversation. Indeed, she doubted there was anyone she could mention such a thing to, considering the obscenity of it.

And I do not want a lover, she knew, bristling inwardly as her thoughts turned to her father. She did not want to be like him, even with permission. She did not want to betray the vows she had made, even if she had made them to a gentleman she did not love and feared more than she cared to admit.

“Truthfully, I never thought I would be anyone’s wife,” she confessed, looking away toward the terrace doors. “I understand that marriage is complicated, but I believe in loyalty and fealty. I also believe that once you have made a choice, you should honor it.”

Peggy raised a curious eyebrow. “You sound angry, Joanna.”

“Not angry, but… weary, perhaps. Or disappointed,” Joanna swallowed the lump that formed in her throat.

“You have not witnessed a good example of marriage?” Peggy asked sagely, no doubt guessing the root of Joanna’s disappointment.

Joanna shrugged. “I suppose not. All I know is that I have made my choice, and I do intend to honor it. I will not make a hypocrite of myself.”

Her voice caught, her heart hurting as her mind sifted through every memory of the indignity that her mother had been made to endure. Even if Edwin never warmed toward Joanna, she would not stray. She was incapable of it.

“I knew I liked you, the moment I set eyes upon you,” Peggy commended. “I have faith in this marriage, and I am rarely wrong.”

Jane pulled a face as if that was not quite true, which brought a subtle smile to Joanna’s lips. Evidently, though mistress and companion were inseparable, the latter knew more about the former than Peggy might have liked.

At that moment, a loud creak snapped Joanna’s attention toward the drawing-room door. Though no one stood there, she noticed a retreating shadow and the glint of gold cufflinks as the figure turned and stole away into the dark.

Edwin, it seemed, had overheard everything, and Joanna did not know if that would be a blessing or a curse. After all, he had not declared his fealty. And though her fears about encountering a lover or a secret wife had not come to fruition that night, the mention of Peggy’s husband once loving another gave her pause. Perhaps, that was why Edwin had told her they would have a marriage in name only, without physical relations. Perhaps, she would not be a hypocrite, but would be destined to repeat her mother’s humiliations instead.