Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

C ecilia woke languidly, stretching and savoring the newly awakened awareness of her body. The bedclothes felt luxuriantly decadent against her naked skin, and there was a pleasant ache in the muscles of her legs, arms, and loins, a remnant of the passion from the night before. Sunlight gently seeped under closed eyelids until she opened her eyes. She looked at the window first, unshuttered and with curtains open. There was a blue sky visible beyond, decorated with tufts of clouds. It was a welcoming day and she felt ready to embrace it.

Then she turned her head and frowned. The bedside was empty. There was no indication that Lionel had shared it with her. For that matter, she now realized that she was in her own room in the south wing. Surely, Lionel would have carried her to his own chambers now that they were truly man and wife? Yet that side of the bed was cold, the sheets undisturbed by anybody but her own. A cold feeling coalesced in her stomach, reaching out to close itself about her heart, rising into her throat with steely fingers. Perhaps last night had not been the glorious culmination of their marriage. Perhaps Lionel's reservations had not been swept away on a tide of passion, as she had thought.

Suddenly, Cecilia felt foolish. Lionel was a man after all. A man who had been offered what all men want. She had stood before him, practically naked and inviting. He had taken what she had offered but that did not necessarily mean that he intended their marriage should become real. It did not mean that he had feelings for her.

Tears pricked her eyes and she angrily blinked them back, running a hand through hair tangled by Lionel's rough hands. She could still feel those hands on her body. On her breasts and her hips. She could feel the grip of his fingers against her rear and his skillful touch in other places, a touch that had sent Cecilia into delirium. Such sensations she had not dreamed to be possible. Such pleasure she had not previously imagined one person could give to another. It seemed that she was deceived. Hard on the heels of grief came anger. She could not very well accuse her husband of taking advantage of her.

But that did not change the conviction she now felt that he had done that very thing.

Reaching out, she gave a sharp tug on the bellpull, the silk rope that hung beside her bed. She drew up her knees, wrapping her arms about them, chin resting on them. Lionel could not expect to at one and the same time experience all the pleasure that came with being a married man and keeping his wife at arm's length. She would be a wife to him in the fullest sense of the word or she would be nothing. If he could not be persuaded of her good intentions, that she was not part of a plot to entrap him, then he must release her from the marriage.

And if, as she wished, he intended to try and make their marriage work, however unsatisfactory its beginning had been, then he must embrace it. There could be no halfway. Her heart would not stand it.

Even thinking that sent a chill of fear through her. What if he were to reject her? In a few weeks' time, she might be returning to her aunt and uncle, returning to their resentment. Part of her did indeed want to give Lionel what he desired, in order to experience more nights like the one she had woken from. Even if those nights were followed by days or even weeks of loneliness...

She shook her head. It would not be. Better a lifetime of loneliness than a moment of pretense.

Presently, there came a knock at the outer door of her rooms. She called out permission to enter and Peggy came into the room. She was a young girl, not yet eighteen, and pretty with a fresh, innocent look. Her face was round and her cheeks red with a smattering of freckles across her nose. Dark hair was tied neatly away. Her mother was Mrs. Hardcastle, the housekeeper of Thornhill, her father the groundskeeper, and she had grown up at the castle and in service to the Grisham family.

"You rang, Your Grace?" she began politely.

"Peggy. I wish to wash and dress, but…"

Cecilia suddenly realized that she was unused to being a lady who was waited on by servants. At Hamilton, she had taken care of her own needs and had dined with the servants.

"I confess that I am ill-prepared for the rank of Duchess. I grew up in a house very different to this one. Where I lived with my brother Arthur… well, it was a rather informal household. I usually dressed myself. But here, I don't know where to find anything and am not even sure that I should be dressing myself, doing my own hair. I do not want the Duke to be disappointed or feel that I am not representing my new rank appropriately," Cecilia said.

She felt embarrassed now that her maid was here, feeling as though she should be giving commands and knowing precisely what she was about. She felt sure that showing such indecision in front of a servant would be taken badly—would affect how the staff saw her and ultimately how Lionel saw her. But Peggy smiled kindly.

"Your Grace, I had this very conversation with my mother just this morning while I waited for you to awaken. She told me that you are new to the title and to the household and I must take great care of that. To ensure that you are happy and content with your new position and that the world sees you as Duchess of Thornhill. May I speak frankly, Your Grace?"

"Of course! And while we are in private, I should very much like you to call me Cecilia. I had a very close relationship with the servants at my aunt and uncle's house and at Penrose. I do not think I could simply go back to being referred to by an honorific all the time."

Peggy beamed, her face glowing. "Oh my, Your… I mean Cecilia . That is an honor. Thank you. I think Mother would be very unhappy if she caught me, but I shall call you by your name when it is just the two of us, if that makes you feel more comfortable."

"It does, Peggy. Very much so." Cecilia returned the smile.

It did give her some ease, she realized. The burden of constantly being the Duchess before the staff was inescapable. That is what she now was and she must step fully into that role. But, knowing that she could be a simple person in front of her maid, when it was just the two of them—that made her breathe easier. Peggy would be a confidant, one that she so desperately needed.

"Well, you have a dressing room where all of your wardrobes are. I will show you and help you dress for the day. But first, I have water heating downstairs for your bath, for which you have a room dedicated to nothing else!" Peggy enthused.

She seemed very excited by the novel notion of a room just for bathing. Cecilia found the notion somewhat decadent but it reminded her of the sheer scale of her new chambers. Thornhill was huge and sprawling. There were rooms aplenty, so why not have one to be used for nothing but bathing?

"My, I feel like royalty. What a change compared to my previous circumstances," Cecilia murmured.

Peggy was well-trained enough not to pry, but Cecilia glanced a quick, questioning look. She smiled.

"I do not mind telling you, Peggy. I think we are going to be friends. My aunt and uncle quartered me in the servant's wing of Hamilton Hall, their home. Or at least in a room adjoining it. I think it used to be a storeroom actually, until I came to live with them."

Peggy looked positively aghast, halting in the act of opening a door in a corner of the bedchamber, opposite the one she had entered through.

"It is not as bad as I make it sound! My friends were those same staff, good people and kind. I don't think I would exchange my circumstances even if I could go back in time. Not for that reason, anyway."

"But you would for another reason?" Peggy asked.

"I live with my aunt and uncle because my brother was killed. Here in fact. In a hunt. I would change that if I could and still be living at Penrose with him," Cecilia murmured somberly.

Peggy flushed. "I'm sorry, Your… Cecilia. I was prying."

"Not a bit of it, Peggy. I was being open and honest with you. You will find that is my preferred way to deal with people. If I don't wish to talk about something, I will say so." Pulling the bedsheets up to her chin, she added, "Now, do I have a dressing robe, I seem to have misplaced my night clothes."

Peggy giggled and Cecilia wondered if she took the jest at face value, a silly joke about her mistress somehow losing her clothes during the night, or if she understood the subtext. Namely, that Cecilia had been stripped of her nightclothes which had been abandoned somewhere, likely in the throes of passion. The question was soon answered.

Peggy hurried across the room and lowered her voice. "It is my habit to take tea in the Fairy Garden, and I found your nightclothes there this morning. I have put them to be laundered."

Cecilia blushed and impulsively reached up to catch Peggy in a hug. "I did not know it was called the Fairy Garden," she whispered.

"That's my name for it, since I was a child. It is a magical place when the flowers are blooming. The fragrance of them is almost as beautiful as the colors. His Grace used to carve little figures of fairies for me and leave them in the Fairy Garden for me to find. I still have them all in my room."

Cecilia felt a pang in her heart, a sensation of wonder. The towering, brooding man that she knew. The man whom her brother had joked rarely cracked a smile. That man entering a child's world of magic and wonder, just to please her. Such a man was truly a husband to be proud of. She became determined to see more of that side of him, to get past the walls he cast up between them and get to know the man that Peggy and her family had the privilege of knowing for so long.

"I shall fetch you a robe and then bring up your bathing water," Peggy added, blushing furiously from the hug but smiling happily.

She went through the door she had opened and returned with a long, silk gown. Then, her nakedness covered, Cecilia was given a tour of her rooms. There was a dressing room with three full-length mirrors and an enormous dressing table. Three large wardrobes stood against one wall into which her old clothes were placed as well as many more new garments. The bathing room was tiled on floor and walls, and dominated by a large bathtub on clawed brass feet. It looked large enough to accommodate at least two people. That led Cecilia to think of sharing it with Lionel, which made her blush. There was a study attached to a library and a sitting room that looked out over part of the castle grounds.

As Peggy left to bring hot water for the bath, Cecilia stood at the windows of her sitting room, looking out over the vast gardens. Many were still in shade, the sun not yet reaching over the castle's bulk to caress them with its rays. Her eyes followed winding paths between rose beds and towering rhododendrons. There was a fountain, tinkling merrily amid a large pond on which lily pads floated. The path disappeared into a grove of trees at the garden's furthest point. As she watched, she saw Lionel walking along the path towards the trees.

He limped, favoring his right leg, and walked with head bowed as though lost in thought. Before he reached the trees, he stopped and turned. She could not tell where he looked because of the distance between them, but it felt as though he looked at her.

For a long moment, she looked back, wondering if he could see her. If he was thinking about her.

Then he turned away and was swallowed up by the trees.