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.
December 1809
Isabella slipped off alone, the cheering laughter from Father’s many guests still a ring in her ear. Hopefully, Lord Livingstone would not follow. These past months, Father had invited him twice to Sharottewood, and after the noble rescue, how could Isabella gainsay the visits?
Besides, Lord Livingstone always brought word concerning the marauders who had attacked Rockingham Hall. As of yet, they had not been apprehended. She would rest easier when they were. Who was to say they would not strike Sharottewood next? Was anyone safe?
Despite such grave topics, the guests in attendance were in jovial spirits and quite enjoying themselves. Strange how everyone could be so merry and she so sober. Yet was it not always this way? Every dreaded Christmastide?
Lifting the white-beaded trim of her evening gown, she ascended the stairs in dim shadows. Halfway up, she paused. She sank to the step. A thrum started in her temples as she wrapped her fingers around the smooth wooden banister and squeezed.
Mother had been dying.
Everyone had told Isabella it was so a hundred times. The nanny. Father. Even Mrs. Morrey, with a gentler tone than usual.
But Isabella had not understood dying any more than she understood why Mother stayed in bed so often. Why did she stop wearing her pretty dresses and playing the piano-forte in the music room?
But Christmas Day, she’d done something wonderful. She’d come downstairs wearing a dress so bright and colorful it cheered the entire room. With Father smiling at her side and Isabella nestled next to her, they’d sat in the drawing room together and watched the Yule log burn, played games, and listened from the window as wassailers sang to them.
Nighttime came too quickly, and Isabella had been sent to bed. She’d waited several minutes, until her nanny drifted asleep in the chair next to her, then crept back to the stairs, too happy to slumber away the last hours of beautiful Christmas.
That’s when she saw them. Standing in the shadows, against the hall window, Mother half wilted in Father’s arms as if she’d fainted again. “I want to know.”
“Eloise, you are upset. The day has been too taxing. Let me help you upstairs.”
“I want to know now.”
“This is nonsense.”
“Edward …”She writhed out of his arms. Pressed herself against the window. Balled the drapery in her fist.“We have pretended very well, have we not?”
“I will not have you speak this way.”
