Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

A ll their lives, Diana had always known what to do.

Even if she was not completely certain, she acted as though she was, and somehow, they scraped through. She had gotten it down to a fine art, and Samantha both admired and envied her for it as everything had gotten more difficult when she married the Duke and left her sister behind.

Samantha was not as good as her older sister had been at making everything work. She was fine, and she had gotten herself as far as her sister had gotten, but she couldn't help but think she had needed more luck than Diana had.

"Is it luck to have been blackmailed into marriage with a good man?" she asked when her sister visited.

Her sister, usually one to be present in a conversation, was playing with the curtains and turning up her lip.

"Diana?"

"Yes?" she asked, her attention snapping back to Samantha.

"Did you hear me?"

"I… No. My apologies, Sister, but this household is…"

"A work in progress?"

"You could say that, yes."

The two sisters laughed gently.

"I asked you if it was luck that got me into this situation. I was blackmailed into marriage, but it is a marriage with a good man."

"Well, when you speak of luck, it is not necessarily good, but I like to think that your fortune comes from the choices you make."

"I certainly did not choose to be threatened."

"No, but you chose to be in your cups and enter the Duke's bedchambers."

"Diana!"

"It is the truth! And whilst you may not have chosen to be threatened, you chose how to respond to it. You chose to marry the Duke, even though you could have ruined yourself at any time and spared yourself from being his wife. Therefore, this is a choice that you made, and there is hardly any luck about it. Why do you ask?"

"Because it has all been so sudden. I thought that the Duke hated me, but after it had all happened, I realized that he did not, and I thought that you would hate him, given how protective you always were over me, and then…"

"And then I liked him. Is that what you mean to say?"

Samantha thought back to the evening they had all spent together and the burning she felt when her sister liked Graham and how it had felt even worse when those feelings appeared to be reciprocated.

"Please do not be angry with me," Samantha began.

"I do not have it in me to be angry with you. It all left when you ran away. Why would I be angry with you anyway?"

"Because… when you met the Duke, it seemed as though the two of you liked each other more than either of you liked me. It is perhaps the most childish that I have ever felt, but it is the truth. I was unsure of how the Duke felt towards me, and he had been cold at first, but with you, it was so easy to make him laugh and enjoy himself."

She waited for Diana to give her a look or even laugh at her, but all she seemed to do was stare back at her.

"Samantha," she said carefully, "did you see how the Duke was looking at you?"

"No. I could not bring myself to look at him."

"Then you are a fool," she said at last, laughing. "Sister, it was only because he looked at you so longingly that I dared show him any kindness. Well, that and the fact that my husband and I had to promise each other to show him some grace, even if we felt as though he had been plotting something."

"Plotting something?"

"We had to think of every possibility. I knew how against marrying you were, and I wondered if he knew that but wanted to marry you regardless and did not know any other way to convince you."

"He certainly did not do that," she laughed. "He couldn't stand me."

"Well, that must have changed quickly because he looked at you almost in adoration. Have you truly never noticed it?"

Samantha tried to think back to a time when he had done so, but she could not. He had been friendly with her, but nothing more that she had seen. She shook her head, and Diana laughed once more.

"You still have things to learn, I suppose," she sighed, and Samantha leaned forward.

"If this is too personal, you do not have to answer."

"There is no question too personal, Sister. What is it?"

"Our father was not the best."

"That is possibly the most polite way of wording it, yes."

"But besides our aunt, he is the only parent we have ever had. The only example of what a parent should be. Your husband had much the same treatment. How did the two of you know how to be a good mother and father?"

"It was easy for me as we had our mother and our aunt. We have both learned a great deal from them, more than you know before you have children."

"And the Duke?"

"He learned how not to be, and so the rest of it came quickly enough. Why do you ask?"

"Graham told me that he would be willing to have children if I wanted to, but it concerns me. What if we do not know what to do?"

"Would you like to know a secret?"

Samantha nodded, expecting to learn some sort of magical way to be the perfect mother.

"You will never know. There is no way to know everything, especially when you haven't had the best example, but you can do your best, and then the rest will follow. When the time comes, you'll know what to do. It is an instinct."

"But what if I don't? It will be too late to do anything by then."

"Samantha, you are worried about something that is not even happening. You are not with child, and you are not planning to be. There is no need to be so concerned about it all."

"But I am because I want to be prepared should we decide to have children."

"If you do, you will be fine. What is important is that you learn from what happened in the past. As long as you do that, you will know what to do. I promise."

Samantha trusted her sister, and even though she didn't know whether or not she was right, she wanted to believe she was. It seemed to have been the case for her, at least, and so there must have been some truth to her words.

"So…" Samantha said after a while, "do you truly think the Duke likes me?"

"Sister, it astounds me that you have not noticed."

"Well, it is just that he asked me yesterday if we were friends. I was starting to believe that we could have been something more, but now that he has asked me that, I do not know what to think."

"I feel as though he did not mean it the way that you think."

"How else could he possibly have meant it? That was exactly what he asked, and there are only so many meanings of the word."

"I think he is every bit as confused as you. Tell me, do you look at him the way I saw him looking at you?"

"I might. I do not know."

"Perhaps you do, and he has noticed. If this is the case, how would you expect him to react?"

"If he reciprocated it, I suppose he would ask me. It is because he has not that I am at a loss."

"But did you not both agree to maintain a friendship and nothing more? I believe he is conflicted because you have both made it quite clear that neither of you shall ever want anything more, and now…"

And now, Samantha couldn't help but think that she did.

"He is a good friend, at least," Samantha observed. "Although I do not think that friends act the way that he does."

"What does he do?"

But Samantha did not know how to explain it any further. All of the slightest things he had done to make her feel that way seemed too small to have any meaning, and so she didn't wish to say them.

"I cannot explain it, but something has changed of late, and I do not know how to feel."

"As your sister, I know you very well. Would you agree with that?"

"Of course. Sometimes I think that you know me better than I know myself."

"Then I want you to listen to me very carefully. Trust him."

"But I —"

"Samantha, you need to listen to me. Trust him, and all will be well. I promise you that he has your best interests at heart, and if that means you have to wait a short while for his intentions to be clear, then so be it, but know that they are good."

Samantha wondered how her sister could possibly know that, but she had to admit that it was a talent that she had always possessed. Reluctantly, she nodded and forced a faint smile to show that she was at least willing.

"Wonderful," Diana smiled, "now, might we discuss these curtains?"

"Oh, do not start," she huffed. "I am reminded of them each and every time I enter the room. I have everything ready to change this room, but I have been rather reluctant to do so."

"Why? The drawing room should be the priority. After all, it is where you host your guests, such as me, and they are bound to comment on it or at least think about it."

"Which is why my wonderful sister that never passes judgment over me has been my first guest here although she may be my last for a while."

"Nonsense, you are far too good a host to waste away because you do not want to redecorate."

"I do! I am very much wanting to do this, but the Duke… This is the only room he seems to like at all. He told me he spent a lot of time with his mother in here, and she passed away when he was a boy, and I do not want to change it so drastically that it no longer feels like she has been in the room before."

Diana sighed in thought, placing the curtains between her fingertips and playing with them again.

"What color did you choose for these?"

"Powder blue. It was his mother's favorite."

At that, Diana smiled.

"So you have chosen things that his mother would have loved?"

"Yes. The housekeeper and I decided on it all together. She knew the late Duchess well."

"Then you and I have some work to do today."

"Diana, no. You are my guest, not to mention a duchess. It is not right that I put you to work when you visit me."

"What is not right is that you insist on forcing me to languish in here when we could make it so much prettier. Not only that, but it would be a wonderful surprise for your husband, would it not?"

"Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try."

"Wonderful. We can do it right now."

Mary was quickly summoned, and the three of them began working. Mary gave Diana a look of surprise, but she seemed to understand soon enough that they had been raised in the same manner, and so the work ethic that Samantha had was also instilled in her older sister.

The black curtains became pale blue, the walls became white with floral paper, and the pianoforte was turned so that it was facing the wall. Diana pulled a face and looked at Samantha incredulously.

"So we have spent all of that time decorating, and now, you would rather look at the wall rather than the room when you play?"

"It is not for me," she laughed. "It is for the duke. I had an idea, and Mary agreed that he would love it. You will see."

Mary then appeared with a painting, placing it on the wall and adjusting it so that it was perfectly straight.

"Oh, that is beautiful," Diana said gently. "Who painted that?"

"The late Duchess," Mary sighed wistfully. "It is the Duke's favorite of hers. It was stored away as the staff knew what the late Duke planned to do when she passed. He instructed us to destroy them as his failure of a wife could have no place in his home."

"I have never met the man," Diana sneered, "and I never shall, but I loathe him entirely."

"That is more than understandable," Mary agreed. "And we could not bear the thought of doing it, so we all risked our work and hid them away. We have not yet told the Duke this as there has been so much happening, but we think he will like it."

"It was brilliant of you all," Samantha observed. "I cannot wait for him to see it."

Samantha stepped back and looked at what they had done. At last, it felt like a room that the late duchess would have belonged in. Samantha wished that she could have met her, but with Mary's assertion that it was perfect, she knew that it had been the right thing to do.

As the three of them had tea (a welcomed reward for their work), Samantha noticed how her sister seemed more at ease. It was then that she noticed that she felt the same way. It was no longer the late duke's drawing room, it was theirs.

As Diana was leaving, she gave the room one final glance before embracing her sister.

"I shall have to broach the subject with my own husband," she smirked. "I have been so thoroughly inspired."

"Then you simply must invite me to help you! It is only fair."

"You need not ask, dear sister. As you say, it is only fair that I receive help in return for my efforts."

"So long as I receive tea!"

The two sisters laughed, and Diana left. Samantha missed her as soon as she was gone, but she felt far better about her prospects. Diana was right — she did not need to know everything then and there, and the Duke would take care of her. They were a team now, and she liked him a great deal, even if she was not yet ready to tell him.

But she wanted to be ready. Perhaps, she wondered, it would be the right time when her husband saw what she had done with the drawing room. He would thank her for her efforts, tell her how much he appreciated it, and she would tell him how much she appreciated him in return.

And so, she waited for him to see it.