The Duke (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 6) by Mary Kingswood

Author:Mary Kingswood [Kingswood, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Sutors Publishing
Published: 2020-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

16: Considerations

The duchess summoned the maid back into the room, instructed her to find the blue muslin with the fluted sleeves and told Ruth to change, before sweeping regally out of the room. Obediently, Ruth changed, and allowed Pinnock to dress her hair a little more elaborately. Then, too agitated to stay in her room, she made her way to the head of the stairs.

She was alone. This was the first day in her life when she had been quite alone, with neither nurse, nor maid, nor chaperon with her. It had not occurred to her when she had sat at the instrument with Ger, and although they had been unchaperoned, the door had been open with all the bustle of arrival going on in the entrance hall just beyond. But now, no one was watching her. Her mother was in her own room. Aunt Maria was watching over Susan at Crosby Hall. Cousin Patience had gone off to play the poor relation with a different branch of the family, for a change. Pinnock was busy in the dressing room. Ruth was utterly alone.

Before her mother or her maid should realise, she set off with quick steps down the corridor, but when she came to the Grand Staircase, where a footman stood immobile, waiting for a summons, she turned into the Long Gallery. She had no plan except to find a quiet corner where she could hide away, but when she came to the end of the Gallery, she saw the portrait of Ran and Ger. There she stopped, sitting on the sofa conveniently placed directly opposite and gazing at the two familiar faces, the one to whom she was still betrothed, and the one she was expected to marry.

It was peaceful there. Occasionally voices drifted up from below, or footsteps sounded on bare boards somewhere. Once a footman walked past without noticing her, but mostly there was nothing to disturb her thoughts. She could not settle her swirling mind. To marry Ger would be the culmination of many years of gentle contrivance, and would please her parents. Yet he had a mistress… Could she cope with that? And if she did not marry him, what was to become of her?

There was no making sense of any of it, so she sat and looked at the two brothers and wallowed in the pleasure of solitude. At some point, slow footsteps brought Brent to stand before her.

“Is there anything I may bring you, my lady?”

“No, thank you. I am… just resting.”

“Her Grace is taking tea in the Queen’s Room, my lady. When Her Grace enquired for you, I suggested that you might have gone out for a walk in the gardens, the weather being so balmy.”

She looked at him in surprise, unsure whether he truly thought she had gone out or was defending her against her mother, but his expression was inscrutable. “Thank you, Brent. I shall join her in a while. When I have rested.”

“Very good, my lady.”

He walked off again, his measured footsteps fading away down the Gallery.

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