Marchioness Divine | A Regency Romance

Chapter Ten: Porridge

He made her feel warm everywhere. She had not felt that in a long time, and never in a way that was not quickly forgotten. When Edward had run his fingers into her hair, he'd pushed a piece of himself into her mind, something she had to bury.

That was the truly wicked thing, the choice she made herself make. She could live forever with the temptation, the desperation to find him and lead him to a dark corner and never act on it, or she could return to him and lie to him for the rest of her life. He could recover from his infatuation, but he would never look at her the same way again if he found out the truth. The first option may hurt more, but instead of feeding on his attention like a parasite, she could live on her dreams of him.

"I would sacrifice all of this to make you happy," Judy muttered as she drew circles into her daughter's palm.

Her daughter surprised herself when she replied, "So would I," because she knew it was true. If giving up everything she had worked for was enough to make this pain go away, she would do it, but she knew she would always carry it with her.

Judy flicked her head back and grinned. "I would have liked to have met some of the friends you met out there. The new Lord Warstone seemed...gentle enough. And I like the sound of your Lady Maldon. Though I'm not sure about this Lord Herriot – he seems a bit too involved in the Warstones if you ask me, probably looking to make mischief with one of the young ladies. Or the maids."

Her daughter stilled immediately and her eyes bore straight through her as though Judy didn't exist. She wondered if she might say something to defend him or lash out from exhaustion, but she said nothing and instead rose to her feet.

Judy felt like a true fool when, after she had spent the day preparing the mistress' bedroom to be perfect for her baby's arrival, her daughter whispered a 'Goodnight' and slumped off into her old bedroom in the servants' quarters.

*

The Howells did not have a normal routine anymore, but whatever life they had crafted, their daughter slotted into it nicely. They lived to look after themselves. They completed chores at a far more leisurely pace – Paul only took the laundry down to the river when he was in the mood for a walk, and Judy happily left furniture crooked until she felt up to correcting it.

Eventually they convinced their daughter to move into one of the guest rooms in their wing of the house, and they fell into the habit of using the kitchen for dining and the small parlour for sitting together by the fire in the evenings, or sometimes wasting away the whole day with novels, naps, and card games. Every other room in the vast manor was well-maintained by Judy, but they had no use for it.

The Howells had started venturing into town more often, which their daughter did not join them in. Every three or four days, an errand would call for one of them to go to the shops and the other obligingly accompanied them. They bought bread on one day and fish and meat on another so they had more opportunities to enjoy their time outside of the hall. They had even started to make friends with the villagers and were invited over for dinner by the milliners. They would never be accepted by everyone, but at least they could step out into the world more than they had in the past decade.

Their daughter was more enthusiastic to do housework than ever. They wondered at first whether owning her own house had instilled a sense of duty to the manor, but when they watched her scrubbing the same floor over and over and over again with a determined glare, they realised that she needed distraction.

As she scrubbed the floors, she tried to understand how she had let it all go so far. Not just the lies, but the greed. Why had she needed so much control? Was enough no longer a feast? Did she need an empire around her for nothing but to say that she had one?