An Untitled Lady (12 page)

PART TWO

{ 13 }

It was supposed to be a mid-morning wedding, but that was before the sudden downpour, the trouble with the front axle, and the driver’s having forgotten that Saturday was produce day, plunging them deep into the throngs along Market Street.

Trying to avoid the crowd, the driver got turned around again, taking them on a sodden tour of Manchester, a dank town reeking of wet cinders. Already, Maddie missed the open, warm fields of the country. When they finally landed at the church, shortly after one o’clock, Nash’s face wore a rictus welcome. Of course, he’d been on time.

He’d said not a word to her on the church steps and even in the sanctuary, even during the ceremony his “I do” was more a grunt. He’d even signed the register in silence. Finally, outside the church, he spoke. “I must return to the warehouse. Mama will escort you home.”

To say Lady Shaftsbury was displeased at that information was an understatement. She did not hide her further displeasure when Maddie did not immediately follow her into the carriage but instead sloshed about the cemetery in search of her mother. She could wait; Maddie wasn’t about to leave empty-handed.

Back along the far wall, she found it a simple white slate with
Moore
in capital letters, and below it
Richard, 1777—
and
Mary, beloved, 1780—1799
.

No death date for her father meant he must still be alive.

She touched the stone. Cold and slick, it offered little comfort, it was solid, and permanent, and she had found it at last. Her secret mother. At least there could be no more surprises now.

She unclasped the gold necklace her Wetherby father had given her. Kneeling, but careful not to soil the dress, she tucked the gift into the clay dirt beside the marker. It was all she had to give. She’d received a new one from Nash as a bride gift, a single black pearl on a white-gold chain.

She turned away from the grave. It needed ornament, perhaps some lilies. She’d arrange for it. She needed to arrange for pin money and discover how Nash managed his household’s expenses.

Trudging across the muddied path, she smiled grimly to herself. She’d need to learn to live at the whim of another stranger. It wasn’t as if she’d never done it before.

Lady Shaftsbury had spread her skirts across the entire bench of the carriage. “Found your old Mama? I’ll be your new Mama now.”

Maddie settled on the back-facing bench. “I appreciate any advice you wish to give me.”

“Ask away. But be quick about it. Deacon tells me we depart for London on Monday next. Of course, you may write me. Once a week is plenty.”

Maddie touched the solid band on her finger, a slight weight that suddenly seemed to grow heavier. “What would make him happy?”

The duchess didn’t smile, but her blue eyes shone kindly. “Don’t aim too high, my dear. He’s chosen to live in this noisome, sooty town, amongst its poorly dressed, ill-mannered citizens. The best you can hope for is contentment. Relieve him of his worries and cares. He always chooses the heaviest burden.”

Like you, Maddie heard, though the the lady hadn’t say it aloud.

* * * *

Maddie had not seen many detached houses as they drew into the town. Most of the folk in this gloomy, wretched place seemed to live in a darker cousin of the rowhouses she'd grown up among in Bath. But there were no seaside prospects here, and precious few hills. As they turned away from the river, the stench from the tanneries beside it seemed to chase after them. They had passed the worst of the smell by the time the coach came to a stop.

Lady Shaftsbury rolled down the glass on the carriage door to get a better look, and shuddered. “As I remembered. I'll say my farewells here. I'm sure you'll wish to have your new home in order before playing the hostess.”

Maddie's throat burned. The woman was deserting her on the doorstep, like an unwanted infant? As the outrider turned the latch, Lady Shaftsbury leaned over to pat Maddie's knee. When the door opened, she leaned back quickly, pulling a handkerchief out of her sleeve to drape against her nose.

Maddie stepped from a spray of the lady’s talcum powder into a sooty drizzle. The red-brick house before her had at most three stories, two main floors, a cellar kitchen, and perhaps an attic. At least it was on the end of the terrace, so the door could be set to the side, allowing the windows to be in alignment. Maddie wasn't sure what she'd expected, but it certainly wasn't this.

The slick cobbled street was quiet at mid-afternoon, save for the Shaftsbury coach clambering away back to its gargantuan home. Maddie stood at the base of the five steps leading to her new front door, and turned away. This prospect was slightly better. The soldier’s row of housing did not face another regiment, but a small meadow housing a miserly flock of sheep. The roadway was not dirt but stones, and there was a sort of walk on the side for pedestrians.

This would never be mistaken for a neighborhood of great houses. Nash Quinn was not the man high in business she’d been led to believe. And Mrs. Nash Quinn, while not a nobody, was not so great a somebody, either. She would need new clothes.

She heard the door open behind her. “Mrs. Quinn, ma’am?”

“Mrs. Willis?” The housekeeper, small and tidy, carried a worried frown, but at the sound of her name, the creases beside her eyes and mouth deepened in displeasure.

“Oh, dearie, come in. Just like him, that is, depositing you like a bag of grain. Mr. Willis said a carriage come, but I was up in the back with your trunks. You’ll be used to his ways soon enough, I expect. Oh.” As if she’d just remembered, she bobbed a proper curtsey for someone who had rheumy limbs.

The dried-apple face pursed its lips and scanned her as she came up the stairs. Maddie imagined her counting the extra hours it was going to take to keep her linens white. Mrs. Willis wore cream and gray. “We’ll be sending out to laundry, I expect.”

It took less than a half-hour to view the entirety of the estate: Two rooms on each of three levels, plus an attic room for the Willises, though Mrs. Willis often stayed in the larder off the kitchen when her joints were acting up. She slowed more with every stair step they took, and Maddie’s spirits sank in proportion. After managing a staff of eighteen at the girls’ school, she wouldn’t need more than an hour or two a week to manage a steady two lodging and one day-worker. She’d need to find something beyond this home to be of service to. She hoped Shaftsbury had the right of it, and her new husband would not mind taking a wife to work.

Showing Maddie the outbuildings in the minuscule yard took less than five minutes. Everything seemed to be run on a rigid scheme, or what Maddie had started to refer to as ship-shape. No room served fewer than two purposes, aside from the water closet, which while one could scent its purpose was so bright and clean, with a manner of window in its roof, that Maddie rather suspected it was also used as a reading room.

Nash Quinn had taken the lessons learned in his majesty’s Navy to heart. She wondered if she would be made to serve multiple purposes, as well.

Returning from the attic, they stopped at the second-floor landing. The front room held a rowboat-sized bed, but had only hooks on the wall, no presses for clothes. He apparently kept most of his apparel in a battered sea chest. Was she expected to do the same?

She trailed Mrs. Willis into the smaller room, off the tiny hall. Maddie’s trunks, doubled up, crammed the space to the fireplace. The men had moved the writing desk downstairs this morning. The dormer window gave on to drizzling rain.

“We’ll need a press, and a bureau. We can squeeze in with the linen closet for now.” Mrs. Willis went to the first trunk on the right, lid open. She pulled out Maddie’s winter cape, and shook out the folds. Maddie sank onto the lid of the trunk closest to the door. This was too impossible.

Mrs. Willis turned at the sound, and nearly dropped the cape. “Poor dear, you must be famished, and here I prattle on about presses.” She patted Maddie’s shoulder. “I’ll just go down and do up some tea.”

As soon as she heard the older woman’s careful tread on the step, Maddie buried her face in her hands. Her eyes and throat already burned from the foul air of this town. She was acting all missish in front of the help, and it was so clear to her, and surely to Mrs. Willis, how poorly she would fit into their ship-shape lives.

She had too many clothes, and yet not enough. Nothing of hers was appropriate for either this town or her new station in life. But how did one go about obtaining presses, and frocks, and matronly hats? She had no capital, and her husband’s interests all lay elsewhere. Not a fortnight ago, she had thought her possessions perfect, herself exactly what was wanted—even what was needed. Now, she was a wife, as she’d expected, but of the wrong man, in the wrong place, for the wrong reasons. Forever after.

The heavy step on the stair reminded her of Miss Marsden’s. What would the headmistress say if she were to look at her now? “Tears are fine in moderation, but deciding what to do will help you more.” Maddie smiled at the memory, at the idea that Miss Marsden’s lemon-sour face could bring her solace.

She sat up straight as Mrs. Willis came in with a tiny tray laden with pot, saucers, and a plate of scones. “Very nice. Thank you, Mrs. Willis.”

“Don’t I remember my first day away from home.” She sat the tray on a small foldable stand Maddie hadn’t noticed before and started the tea steeping.

“No need to unpack all these. We’ll take just what’s needed and sent the rest of it back to the castle for storage. My wardrobe was rather—ambitious.” She didn’t wish to face that mistake every morning as she walked into her new boudoir.

Afternoon stretched into dusk, and then evening, and Maddie was still alone with the help. She had her books, and letters—the few still remaining. She’d written to Miss Marsden with all her news, as promised, already. She convinced herself that she was not lonely, but the truth was she’d thought the castle a bit bare of people. She missed the bustle of the girls’ school, and the chatty ways of small-town Bath.

This was just her first day here, she reminded herself. Of course she would make friends. Who would those friends be? Gentry? Wives of men of commerce? Working people? She must take Nash’s lead. She was an extension of him, in society’s eyes at least. Where was he?

At the warehouse, Mrs. Willis said, always at the warehouse. He might then go directly to some merchants’ meeting scheduled for tonight. He could have sent a message. He might have called for her to come and meet him. Why had he insisted they marry today when he had no time to spend with her?

What performances would he force upon her, when he did arrive home? Her wifely duties, of which she had heard much but understood little.

By eight o’clock, despite her best intentions and the best efforts of the ghost of Miss Marsden, Maddie had built herself up to a fever pitch. Nonetheless, when she heard the outside door open and his voice in the hall, she forced herself to sit still, not to run to him. Surely she was stronger than that. When he passed by the half-open door and went upstairs, though, she cracked. By the time he returned, and did open the door, greeting her with a grin and some faded bloom of a compliment, she barely heard it.

“I didn’t realize you wanted a potted plant for a wife.”

“What is wrong?”

“Why am I here?”

“This is your new home. Supper at nine?” He sat in the armchair opposite her, eyes wary, and then straightened out the afternoon newspaper and started reading.

Maddie bit her lip. Her hands busied themselves twining in her lap. Why wouldn’t he understand? Her foot stomped softly.

He looked up. “Do you wish to read the paper first?”

“No.”

“I should have brought you a posy?”

“No. Yes. No. I don’t know. I need something to do. A place.”

He sighed. “An assignment. You consider yourself an employee.”

“You are master and commander.”

“Do you believe that?”

She didn’t, but she was beyond thinking clearly and wouldn’t be made happy. “I don’t know.”

He stood and sat on the armrest of her chair, taking one of her hands in his.

“You’re freezing. You should have called for a fire.”

“It’s nearly June. I’m just an ornament, I don’t require accommodation.”

“Nonsense, and you know it. What is really wrong, Maddie?”

If she knew, she would have told him. All she knew was she was full up unhappy, dissatisfied with the mess she had found herself in.

Nash absently rubbed her hand. The rhythm of the touch sent soothing waves up her arm, calming her stupid nerves. Still, the thought niggled: Why hadn’t he been here to do this earlier?

“You wanted me home to welcome you.”

“I felt like a stranger.”

“I apologize. I intended to, but there was a problem at the ’house, and I thought I needed to fix it. But you are right, there are often problems at the ’house, and a man brings a wife to his home only once in his lifetime. I should have been here.”

Maddie’s shoulders eased. She leaned into his side. Who knew the power of his touch, his scent?

“Could I help you fix the problems? I’m a quick study.”
Please
, she almost begged, but held herself in check.