Unveiled

And yet…Mark Turner, dangerous? The notion seemed laughable. Richard couldn’t have been talking about the Mark she knew, with his philosophical writings about chastity. He couldn’t have heard Mark’s quiet, careful, educated speech. Mark had been teaching her a few ways to avoid unwanted advances. He was the last man she might ever imagine as dangerous.

Or. Well.

Come to think of it, there were those lessons. She’d seen her brothers box together on occasion. There had been a strict code to the blows allowed—fists only, aimed at the torso and definitely no lower. She doubted very much gentlemen discussed the precise angle at which to punch a man, so as to most effectively break his nose.

How on earth had gentle, quiet Mark learned such ungentlemanly tricks?

She sat back, dissatisfied. At that moment, her father gave a quick snort; the tenor of his breathing changed from the even ebb and flow of sleep to the harsher arrhythmia of wakefulness. He gave a rasping cough.

Margaret stood and walked over to him. It took a few minutes to see to his physical needs—a little soup, some barley water—that was all he would take. As he ate he shut one eye and looked at her, a hint of confusion on his face.

Blink. Blink. He shook his head, and then blinked again.

“Is something the matter?”

“No. I feel delightful. I might be ten years old. I’m staying in my bed for the sheer enjoyment of laziness, don’t you know.” He let out a puff of breath. “Yes, something is the matter, you foolish girl. I’m dying, and it’s awkward and not particularly entertaining.”

There was no response to be made to that piece of impoliteness. He was still her father, but since the day he’d awakened and found himself unable to stand without assistance, he’d become more belligerent. Crueler, harsher. The same man, and yet vastly different. He’d always been so controlled; being bedridden likely didn’t agree with his nature.

“Besides,” he muttered, “it will pass in a few minutes. It always does.”

“Is that an indication that something is amiss, aside from the usual? Shall I fetch a physician?”

“Why put yourself to the trouble? The physician can have only two things to say: either I will continue to waste away at a predictable pace, or I have begun to perish faster. Neither possibility seems of particular assistance to me at the moment. I would rather not be poked and prodded if I am about to go on to my eternal rest.” He continued to blink his eyes, and then he began to wink with his left eye.

His behavior had become increasingly erratic, but there was little Margaret could do about it.

Margaret sighed. “Very well, then. I’ve a letter for you from Richard. Shall I read it aloud, or would you prefer to read it yourself?”

“From whom?”

“From Richard.”

He stared at her blankly.

“You do recall your eldest son, Richard.”

“Nonsense.” He snorted and waved a hand. “I haven’t got any sons.”

Margaret felt her hands clench around the paper. He’d been acerbic this past year, but this was the first indication she’d seen of the forgetfulness that sometimes plagued the elderly.

“Sons,” her father continued, “by definition can inherit. As Richard cannot, I must assume he’s classified as a daughter.” He met her eyes. “And that means he’s essentially worthless.”

Oh. So he was just exceptionally hurtful today, then. Not forgetful. Margaret’s jaw set. He was ill. He was unhappy. He was also being particularly cruel. But if she stood up and walked away now, nobody else would take care of him.

“Well,” she finally said, “let me pour some more of this worthless soup down your gullet. And then I believe I shall manufacture an answer to Richard’s letter and pretend it comes from you. I shall send him your love and affection. Perhaps I shall add—for myself—that as you spoke of him, a tear of remorse trickled down your cheek.”

“Remorse?” he groused. “That’s the best you can manage for me? A puny, girlish emotion like remorse? None of you have an ounce of spirit. You can write whatever you wish, so long as I needn’t listen to Richard’s endless hand-wringing.”

“I shall dot your i’s with flowers,” she told him without mercy, “and cross your t’s with a line of hearts.”

He stared at her a second, as if, after all this time, he had finally realized that there was a hint of rebellion behind her saccharine kindness. “That,” he said, with a shake of his head, “is the thirty-eighth reason why daughters are useless.”

It was going to be a long evening. And tomorrow was going to be a long birthday.

MARGARET HADN’T COMPREHENDED quite how long the night would be when she’d finally fallen, exhausted, into bed. She slept fitfully for hours. But then the clock rang downstairs, its chimes indistinct and muffled by distance. Margaret came awake counting: nine, ten, eleven, twelve. The stroke of midnight slipped past her with as little ceremony as the moment deserved. The end of one day, slipping into another. Nothing—and nobody—would set this day apart from any other.

It was August 22, and today was the first birthday that Margaret would spend without her mother. She breathed in air, heavy with summer heat. Still the same air as the day before. Nothing had changed in her endless, thankless service. Nothing was going to.

Her mother had not been given to elaborate ceremony. But every birthday that Margaret could remember, the duchess had spent a few hours with her daughter. When she was four, they had planted a rosebush together. Her mother had given her thick gloves just for the occasion and let her pat the dirt in place under the careful auspices of the gardener. Every year thereafter, they’d added to the gardens—a slim beech tree one year, a profusion of tulip bulbs the next. But usually it was roses. They’d planted a different variety each year, despite the oncoming winter. Her mother had always made sure that those plantings survived—even if they’d had to resort to moving the plant to the conservatory in autumn.

It suddenly seemed unbearable that Margaret was trapped in the dark on the third floor, in a servant’s room where she could not even smell the late-summer roses. Now that the clock had fallen into silence, the house seemed still and empty. Parford Manor had never seemed lifeless when her mother was in residence. But tonight the air was close and stagnant, and the house seemed utterly devoid of any animating presence. In a few years, no one here would even remember the old duchess. Margaret was the only one who couldn’t forget.

She stood up in the darkness and fumbled for a wrapper to pull around her shift. When she’d tied the belt around her waist, she slipped from her room.

She fumbled her way down the cramped, lightless staircase that led from the servants’ quarters to the main halls. After that, the moon lit the way before her, silver light gilding black walls. In the dark velvet of night, she could pretend the house was still her mother’s. She could walk through the halls as regally as if she were still the acknowledged daughter of the house. She found her way to the main staircase and started down it, spreading her arms wide in greeting. Every inch of this house echoed with her mother’s memory—from the wide sweep of the banisters, polished with a formula drawn from her mother’s repository of household knowledge, to the paintings lining the walls, painstakingly chosen from the family’s store in the attic.

Her mother had purchased the paper for the walls of the grand entry eight years ago. She had carefully picked out every piece of furniture that stood in the rooms on each side. And now that Margaret had reached the ground floor, she could smell the deep summer scent of roses in bloom. The aroma took her back to her childhood, to the years when her mother was well enough to trim the bushes herself.

The scent drew her not outdoors but to the conservatory in the south wing. The door squeaked slightly as she opened it; the wood had swollen in the heat.

Even in summer, when the gardeners had no need to force blooms, the glassed-in walls contained a few potted orange trees, a smattering of plants still too delicate to be exposed to the elements and, in the very back, among a jumble of trowels and hand rakes, the prize she had come here to find: buckets of cuttings taken from roses and encouraged to take root. They were nothing but little sticks of wood and thorn, but when she gingerly pulled one from the dark bucket of water where it stood, white threads of new roots glinted in the moonlight that filtered through the windows.

In the darkness, it was hard to locate the tools she needed—a pot, big enough not to cramp the roots that would eventually grow, and a trough filled with a mix of soil and lime. Her mother would have wanted her to don gloves, but she couldn’t find them in the cabinet without lighting a lantern. And if she did, someone might see the light shining through the windows.

The dirt in the bucket clumped in thick clods. She picked up a lump in her hands and then broke it apart into loose, dry soil in the pot before her. She could feel the dirt getting beneath her fingernails as she worked. She hadn’t realized why she had come here; she’d felt as if she were chasing some ephemeral spirit. But it felt right. If nobody else could remember her birthday, she would. She would have to transplant this new life, fragile and delicate though it was, in the dark of night.

It was a mindless task she performed, squeezing dirt into the pot. She worked methodically, two handfuls at a time. Squeeze and let fall; squeeze and let fall. There was a comforting rhythm to it. She felt as if her mother herself might have stood beside her, her hands covered with dust. Her body felt too rigid, her hands too small to contain the moment.

Her chest tightened with some inexplicable emotion, one that she didn’t dare name.

She crumbled dust into dust. And ashes…

The door to the conservatory squeaked open. She froze, but the dirt in her hand pattered into the pot. That rain of soil seemed immensely noisy in the silence of the night. Had someone heard it? Had someone seen her? Here at this little table in the back, nobody would find her, not without entering the room.

Footsteps came forwards, traversing the maze of tables and troughs and orange trees.

That tightness in her chest grew.

Please, let those footfalls belong to Mrs. Benedict—someone comforting, who would look at her, clad in this thin wool wrapper, covered in dust. Someone who would understand without her having to voice a word of explanation. Let it be someone who would know that she needed this moment, that on this day of all days, she needed to feel a connection with her mother. Let it be anyone but— But him. He came round the little break of potted oranges, scarcely three feet from her. The moonlight had smoothed away the fine lines on his face. In the dark, he looked younger and less dangerous. He wore a pair of trousers and a fine lawn shirt, and not much else. He’d not bothered to tuck the tails in, but he’d rolled the sleeves to show his wrists. Manly wrists, thick and strong, with a fine layer of hair scarcely visible. His feet were bare.

His eyes widened as they came to rest on her. He looked into her face for one long second before his eyes dropped down—down her dust-covered shift, the robe cinched simply at her waist. She felt naked before him.

His gaze felt as unwelcome as an invading army.

“Miss Lowell. What in God’s name are you doing?”

He spoke as if it were his home, as if she were the interloper here. Of course he thought it true, under the circumstances. Still, bile gathered in her belly, and the tight knot in her chest squeezed even tighter. Who was he to question her? Who was he to interrupt her? He’d already taken her mother from her once. How dare he do it again? Her hands clutched around the heavy clods of dirt.