When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,4
when in the out-of-doors.”
“Tell me what brings you here from London.”
“How can you tell I’ve come from London?”
Oh…piffle. “You arrived last night from somewhere. Your attire—but for your hat—is exquisite. One assumes your clothing came from London even if you did not.”
She had all but admitted that she recognized Bond Street tailoring—woefully foolish of her.
“I originally hail from Yorkshire,” he said. “Several years ago I moved to London to be with family, and until last month I considered London my home.”
They emerged from the trees into the park that stretched from Brightwell’s back terraces. The formal gardens were a wreck, separated by overgrown hedges and punctuated with toppled statuary and cracked urns. For several mornings past, Matilda had found peace behind these hedges.
“A metaphor of some sort,” Mr. Wentworth said, surveying his gardens.
Despite the sunshine, the scene was melancholy. Dead leaves carpeted overgrown beds, lichens encroached on the walls, and the scent of wood smoke hung in the air. Winter approached with the relentlessness of a funeral cortege.
“Some would say these gardens are romantic,” Matilda replied. A lady’s attempt at conversation.
“Some would be idiots. The cost alone…but one doesn’t discuss finances. I promised you a meal. This way.”
He set a brisk pace down the gravel walk, no pretense of matching his steps to Matilda’s or offering an unneeded arm for her to lean on. She had no grasp of foul language. Mr. Wentworth, she concluded, had little gift for social dissembling.
A fine quality in a man. She’d learned too late to appreciate it.
He led her to a door that opened onto a wide stairway landing. A flight of steps descended into what Matilda knew to be the kitchens, cellars, and pantries; another flight led up to the floor that housed many of the public rooms—parlors, library, music room, gallery.
Between the sun beaming through the tall windows, and the heat wafting up from the kitchens, the space was blessedly, wonderfully warm.
“May I take your cloak?” Mr. Wentworth asked.
Matilda did not want to part with her cloak. Her dress was decent enough—she’d traded away her Paris finery within a week of leaving home—but with every item of clothing she removed, she became easier to describe. A purple velvet cloak was simple to identify. Pair that with a gray wool dress, plain cuffs, half boots with frayed and knotted laces, and she became a specific woman, with specific people looking for her.
Mr. Wentworth’s steady gaze suggested he knew all of that, and lying would be pointless. Matilda unfastened the frogs of her cloak.
“One does wonder how Brightwell came to be yours,” she said. “The house has good bones, and the locals recall it as a lovely property.”
“The locals who claim more than their threescore and ten years, perhaps. The estate was imposed on me. The dining room is this way.”
An evasive answer, which cheered Matilda. A man with secrets was less of a threat to a woman with secrets. She followed Mr. Wentworth down a corridor free of dust and cobwebs, and equally devoid of art, furniture, or flowers.
“The previous caretaker all but looted the place,” Mr. Wentworth said, ushering her into a small parlor. “The excuse of record is that assets were liquidated to pay expenses, but what expenses does an empty house incur? Fortunately, the thieves hadn’t grown bold enough to help themselves to larger items of furniture, and they were too ignorant to steal the best of the art.”
What would Mr. Wentworth think of a woman who’d helped herself to apples, eggs, beans, and other overlooked produce?
That question was rendered irrelevant by the scent of fresh bread, beef stew, and cloved ham. Hunger had made Matilda’s senses sharper and turned Mr. Wentworth’s “humble table” into a feast.
“Ladies first,” he said, pouring water from an ewer by the hearth into a porcelain basin on a side table. Linen cloths had been arranged in a quarter-fan beside the basin, and for the first time in weeks, Matilda prepared to wash her hands in warm water.
“I ought by rights to send you to a guest room for this ritual,” Mr. Wentworth said, “but my staff wasn’t expecting company.”
While Matilda washed her hands and surreptitiously patted a warm, damp cloth against her cheeks and brow—bliss without limit—Mr. Wentworth went to the door and addressed somebody who remained in the corridor.
Matilda’s host washed his hands, as a footman set a second place, bowed, and withdrew. Mr. Wentworth had no sooner seated her than a maid bustled in carrying a quilted shawl lined with flannel.