‘I don’t have the option to be selective,’ she muttered.
‘You do now.’
Eighteen months later
Beth strode towards the stable. As always, she counted her steps, tapping the path with her cane. She lifted her face to the sky, enjoying the warmth of the sun’s rays and the soft whisper of breeze. She enjoyed spring. She liked the smell of grass and earth. She liked the rustle of fresh leaves, so different from the dry, crisp wintery crack of bare branches. She liked that giddy, happy sense of renewal.
Even better, she welcomed the ease of movement which came with drier weather. Country life at Allington was dreadfully dull.
Worse than dull, it was lonely. Her beloved sister-in-law was dead. Jamie seldom conversed. Edmund had left. Ren never came. Her maid chattered of ribbons.
For a fleeting second, she remembered childhood winters: walks with Ren, afternoons by the fire’s crackling heat in a room rich with the aroma of cinnamon toast. Sometimes Edmund would read while Ren painted and Jamie pored over a botanical thesis.
Beth pushed the past away, recognising her brother’s footsteps on the rutted path. She lifted her hand in greeting.
‘Field’s ready for planting,’ Jamie said without preamble, satisfaction lacing his tones.
‘You are trying new crops this year?’
‘New variety of beans. They will be hardier.’
‘In Edmund’s fields as well as our own?’
Jamie grunted assent. ‘As I doubt your husband plans to do so.’
‘He’s in London,’ she said flatly. ‘Besides, Edmund left a manager in charge.’
Edmund, or rather Lord Graham, was Ren’s brother. Her husband’s brother...husband. Even after eighteen months her mind stumbled over the word—it wasn’t surprising since she had likely conversed more with the village blacksmith, a man of guttural grunts and limited vocabulary, than her spouse.
‘I am also trying a new variety of peas,’ Jamie said.
She nodded. ‘By the way, do we have any surplus supplies? I went to the Duke’s estate yesterday. The people are starving so I asked Arnold to take grain.’
She heard Jamie’s quick intake of breath. ‘You should not go there.’
‘Arnold was with me. Besides, the Duke is away. He hasn’t visited me since I turned down his proposal.’
‘One good thing about your marriage. But he has been at his estate on occasion. I also saw him on our own grounds once. Said his hound had strayed.’
Beth felt a shiver of apprehension. Dampness prickled her palms and her lungs felt tight as if unable to properly inhale the air. She pushed the feeling away. ‘The important thing is to get his people food.’
‘It is that bad?’
‘Yes.’ Beth’s fingers tightened on her cane. Her jaw clenched at the thought of yesterday’s visit. She remembered a mother’s desperate effort to soothe her hungry child. She’d held his hands and felt the thin boniness of his tiny fingers pressed into her palm like twigs devoid of flesh. ‘The Duke’s treatment of his tenants has worsened. I worry that it is a form of punishment.’
‘Punishment?’
‘Yes, for avoiding marriage to him.’
‘The tenants were hardly responsible and I see no evidence for such an assumption.’
Beth nodded. Jamie’s world was so wonderfully black and white. ‘Sometimes human nature defies science.’
She felt his confusion and could imagine his skin creasing into a pucker between his eyes.
‘I’ll send some root vegetables as well,’ he said. ‘Are you going there now?’
‘No, but Arnold will later.’
‘We will send what we can,’ Jaime said, in his steady way.
That was Jamie all over. Steady, scientific, kind but without sentiment.
In contrast, Ren had married her in a wild, crazy, heroic gesture, disappearing after their wedding into the capital’s giddy whirl of brandy and women.
She tried to ignore that quick, predictable flicker of pain and anger. Obviously, she had not expected anything close to a regular marriage, but to be so abandoned and ignored was painful to her. For some ludicrous reason, as she had stood beside him in the still air of the tiny church, she’d imagined that they might become friends again.
Instead, they had ridden back to Graham Hall in an uncomfortable silence broken only by the rattle of carriage wheels and a discussion about the weather. Within half a day, Ren’s carriage had been loaded and he had disappeared as though he could no longer bear his childhood home or those associated with it.
Still, she had no reason to complain. He had paid off her father’s debts, Allington was profitable and the Duke remained largely in London. Thank goodness. She still shivered when she remembered their last interview.
‘I must go,’ she said to Jamie, diverting her thoughts. ‘I promised Edmund I would look in on a few of his tenants during his absence.’
She sighed. Mere weeks ago, Edmund had gone to war. She wished desperately he had not done so and knew he had been driven more by grief than patriotism. His father, his wife and their unborn child... Too many losses crammed into too few years.
‘A sight more than his brother will do,’ Jamie said.
‘His life is in London,’ she said. ‘We always knew that.’
* * *
The road to Graham Hill was a winding, meandering path through shaded woods and across open pasture. She had brought Arnold today, but even without her groom Beth knew her way. She could easily differentiate between sounds—the muted clip-clop of hooves on an earthy path was so different from the sharper noise of a horse’s shoe against a cobbled drive.
In some ways, her father had lacked moral fibre. In others, he had been remarkable. He’d helped her to see with her hands, to learn from sounds and scents and textures.
But it was her mother who had taught her independence and, more importantly, how swiftly such independence could be lost.
Lil, short for Lilliputian due to her small stature, slowed when the drive ended. Beth leaned forward, stroking the mare’s neck, warm and damp with sweat. Arnold swung off his mount to open the gate. She heard its creak as it swung forward and, more through habit than need, counted the twenty-one steps across the courtyard.
Lil stopped and Beth dismounted. She paused, leaning against the animal, her hand stretched against Lil’s warm round barrel of a ribcage. She heard the horse’s breath. She heard the movement of her tail, its swish, and Arnold’s footsteps as he took Lil from her, the reins jangling.
Except... She frowned, discomfort snaking through her. There was a wrongness, a silence, an emptiness about the place. No one had greeted her; no groom or footman had come. She could hear nothing except the retreating tap of Lil’s hooves as Arnold led her to the stable.
The unease grew. Dobson should be here opening the door, ushering her inwards, offering refreshment. Beth walked to the entrance. The door was closed. She laid her palm flat against its smooth surface, reaching upward to ring the bell.
It echoed hollowly.
Goose pimples prickled despite the spring sunshine. Pushing open the door, she stepped inside.
‘Dobson?’