Garden of the Midnights by Hannah Linder

Author:Hannah Linder [Linder, Hannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781636094397
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2023-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

November 1809

He did not know what it was he missed. Perhaps the long rides on a steed he knew belonged to himself. Or shutting the door to his own chamber and drifting asleep atop feathered mattresses. Or passing Miss Ettie in the hall, with her smile falling on him or her hand grasping his.

All things he wished to forget.

Needed to forget—if he was to keep his sanity.

Dumping the contents of the last chamber pot into one of the slop pails, William hauled the buckets outside into the biting morning air. The wind cut through his livery, stirring his stained apron. He held his breath as he emptied the buckets into the cesspool, but the stench clung to him as he turned back for the house.

Just like the shame.

Another day of polishing cutlery. Blackening boots. Opening doors, trimming lamps, serving trays, sweeping fireplaces. He’d even lost his pallet in the servant chamber.

For the past month, they’d moved him into the butler’s pantry at night, with instructions to guard the silver in the event a thief should prowl upon them unawares.

He slept so little he found himself drifting to sleep on his feet, as he stood like a statue behind Lord Manigan’s table at mealtimes.

No matter. The work meant nothing to him. The lack of sleep meant nothing to him. Indeed, he was glad for it. At least amid duties, he had not time to think of his aunt.

Awake, she could not taunt him.

Her prune, wrinkled, lifeless face stared back at him in every window he looked through or every silver pot he polished. She infested him. Crawling into the deep places, stinging where it already hurt, until a bitter poison festered through him. Would she ever stop torturing him?

“Say, Kensley, an errand needed of you.” Joseph, the footman who matched William in height, was the only servant who ever conversed with William—though it was usually only orders or obscenities concerning all the fair-faced maids.

The other servants avoided William or treated him with a cautious indifference. Perhaps because they all knew of Rosenleigh, what he had come from—that he had once been above them.

Whatever the case, he endured the tedium of each day without more than a nod or word to anyone. Indeed, he had not met eyes with Lord Manigan in months.

Not that he blamed the earl. Or even the servants.

He blamed no one for what he was, where he was, except the woman who had purposed to destroy him. “Just have to forgive dem.” Mrs. Shaw came back to him. Words he resisted. Words he didn’t want to remember, or believe in, or accept. “Even if you got to do it over and over again … just got to forgive dem.”

He doubted he could, even if he wanted to.

And by all that was holy, he didn’t.

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