The Shadow of Albion by Andre Norton & Rosemary Edghill

Author:Andre Norton & Rosemary Edghill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780812545395
Publisher: Tor Fantasy
Published: 1999-01-02T02:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

A Singular Duchess

It was exceedingly fortunate, the Duchess of Wessex told herself on a fine June

morning precisely one week after her wedding day, that her husband had been called

from Town on Royal business of the most urgent. Fortunate because if he were not

there to see it, he was not there to rebuke her for removing back to the comfort and

familiarity of her own home – fortunate, too, that his absence carried with it a

ready-made justification for such a move that even the highest sticklers must accept.

The move back into her own house gave her a breathing space while she

considered how she was now to manage her life. For King Henry and the

still-unknown Princess Stephanie of Denmark’s sake, Sarah must present the world

with the illusion of a happy marriage. And that meant that she must see Wessex

every day. They must live in the same house.

But not yet, Sarah told herself with craven relief. Her husband was off to the fen

country, and she was left in Town, to sample the delights of being Wessex’s

Duchess without suffering the inconvenient presence of the Duke.

Those delights were both powerful and pervasive, but Sarah possessed a sense of

standing apart from the pleasures of Society. Others might desire these things, but

she did not.

The puzzled looks of her servants and of her acquaintance told Sarah how very

much she had changed from the Marchioness of Roxbury that they had known. But

she was not that woman, and in her troubled, restless nights, Sarah wondered if she

ever had been. Only Mooncoign seemed real, and not the ritual and the pomp that

surrounded it – and certainly not this London life of endless revelry.

At least she had made one true friend in her time here. And Sarah had discovered,

to her delight, that a ducal coronet seemed to carry enough weight with Meriel's

wicked uncle to overcome his prohibition against Mend’s going forth into any form

of society whatever – for Miss Bulleyn had been granted permission to call upon the

Duchess of Wessex today to drink tea.

Nervously, Sarah fluttered about the drawing-room, as if Herriard House’s small

army of servants had not already engineered all domestic matters to perfection, and

as if Cook did not have an array of tasty dainties prepared in the kitchen, awaiting

Sarah’s call. She paused to peer out the window, inspecting the carriages that

passed on the street below. A glance at the clock upon the mantlepiece told her that

she could not expect Miss Bulleyn for a quarter of an hour yet, so there was no use

looking out for her carriage.

It occurred to Sarah that she was not even sure where Miss Bulleyn lived. They

had always met in secluded public places, by arrangement, each new meeting fixed at

the close of the previous. But that near-clandestine arrangement would cease as of

today, Sarah vowed. If Meriel’s uncle could afford to set at naught the wishes of a

mere Marchioness, he would find the desires of the Duchess of Wessex a different

matter entirely.

The sight of a familiar figure in the street caused Sarah ‘ to emit a highly

unduchesslike squeak.

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