The man hesitated, wringing his hands. “Your Grace, I cannot say,” he finally replied.
“So you have,” she concluded, her voice firm. “Does His Grace ask you to come here often?”
The coachman looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “A few times a week, aye,” he admitted.
“I see,” Arabella murmured, her suspicions confirmed. “And when he has business in town, this is where he comes?”
“Most times, aye. But he also goes to the club or his solicitor’s office. When he comes here, it’s usually on the way to or from somewhere else. He doesn’t stay long, most times,” the coachman added, as if that would somehow lessen the blow.
“How long does His Grace usually stay?” she pressed.
“It depends. Sometimes only a few minutes, other times longer. But when it’s longer, he usually tells me to go home and return later.”
“And who lives here?” Arabella asked, her voice quiet.
“I do not know, Your Grace. I’ve never seen anyone come out besides the housekeeper—a white-haired woman. I assume she lives here alone,” he replied, though he looked uneasy, as if he wished he could be anywhere but here.
Arabella sighed. The coachman’s discomfort was palpable. She decided not to press him further; it wasn’t his fault, and he likely didn’t know anything more. Besides, what good would it do to make him feel worse?
“Thank you,” she said, leaning back into the carriage. “Take me home.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” he replied, and with a nod, he climbed back into his seat.
The carriage lurched forward, the wheels clattering against the cobblestones as they began the journey back. But it wasn’t taking her home. It was taking her to the house where she lived, a place that felt increasingly like a gilded cage rather than a true home.
Arabella snorted softly, remembering Hanna’s warning. She had gotten exactly what her eldest sister had said she would—she had married a man she did not truly know, and now she was forced to live in a house that would never feel like home.
The desire to leave, to escape this miserable situation, gnawed at her, and she could not wait for the day when she could finally be free.
CHAPTER 29
Arabella was still making up her mind when the door opened and the white-haired woman she had seen the night before stepped out. She gasped and turned around, grabbing her sister’s arm. “We must get back inside the carriage, Emma!”
“Do not be such a scaredy-cat. You wanted to confront her? Here is your chance. Walk over there, grab her by the shoulders, shake her, and tell her,I am the Duchess of Sheffield, and I will not have you?—”
Emma paused, and her mouth fell open.
“What is it?” Arabella asked, confused by the sudden change in her sister’s mood.
“Bella,” Emma whispered, “that can’t be her, can it?”
Arabella looked over her shoulder and then slowly turned around. Her mouth also dropped open, for coming out of the house behind the old woman was a middle-aged man carrying a young woman in his arms. She had blonde hair and wore a pale blue dress that was almost white. There was something almost angelic about her, but what was most surprising was not just that the man was carrying her, for that in itself would have been quite shocking, but the fact that standing in front of the old woman was a wheelchair.
Their great-uncle had used one because of gout, but it was a rare sight.
Arabella stared as the young woman was placed into the wheelchair, the man disappeared, and then the older woman pushed her down the sidewalk.
“That can’t be Helen, can it?” Emma muttered, her voice quivering.
Arabella shook her head. “I think not. Perhaps her sister?”
“Perhaps,” Emma said, biting her lip.
The two sisters fell silent and watched as the young woman and her companion made their way toward the park.
“What do you want to do? Follow them or knock on the door?”
“I am not certain. Do you think that perhaps this woman is Helen’s sister, and her condition is the reason why Harry could not marry her?”
