The Bride Price

Chapter Twenty

Emily held the box beneath her arm, clutched against her side. She reprimanded herself as a fool, and yet she continued on, the graveled lane before her curving gently as it led to a broad stone arch bridge that spanned the narrow end of an artificial lake.

Everything contained in the view before her gave off an air of meticulous planning and artificiality. The lake, most likely stocked with enough fish to satisfy the angling desires of several dozen men, drew her gaze beyond the water to an expanse of lawn decorated with rows of trees that framed the sight of Bexley Hall, the house that—for a short while at least—had belonged to her father. That is, before Marbley had taken over as proprietor.

"Well, I must say!" Mrs. Langley paused beside her, one gloved hand raised to shield her eyes beneath the brim of her bonnet. Above them, the sun chose to make an appearance between the clouds that had dogged their walk from Crowford for the last hour. "That is quite the prospect, don't you think?"

Emily did think. Unfortunately, she thought of too many things as she stood and gazed across the water at the three-storey edifice of red brick and limestone. She thought of how different things might have been had her father not chosen to sell the property to Marbley. She thought of the box currently held in her grip, containing a gown and various accessories she had not touched since she'd first opened the parcel two days before. And she thought of the imprudence of coming here with the same box still in her possession, no matter Mrs. Langley's assurances that Marbley had taken himself off to London and was not expected to return for another week, at least.

"It is a fine house," she said, and hoped her companion would not notice the slight quaver in her words. Now that she had come so far, she began to doubt if she could manage these last few steps. She blamed her curiosity for agreeing to accompany Mrs. Langley to the estate, the desire to see a home that could have seen her family installed beneath its roof, should her father had made an attempt at managing a large estate again. But she remembered all too well how his first effort had transpired, with the slow dismissal of servants as most of their belongings were sold off from around them.

No, her father might have acquired an estate, but that did not mean he had also acquired the funds or the wisdom needed to keep it.

"I never saw much of Mr. Percy," Mrs. Langley went on, both her voice and her steps moving forward again. "He was the former owner, you know. Took himself off to Teignmouth, I believe, when his wife became ill. She had family there, and I don't think he saw much reason to return after she died. They didn't have children, leastways none that survived long enough to be breeched, so I believe it was a cousin who inherited, but we heard nothing of him, and the place sat empty for nearly a decade before our Lord Marbley took on ownership."

"How fortunate," Emily said beneath her breath. She could have said more. Indeed, she had a wish to know how exactly Marbley had come to take the property off her father's hands. Had her father approached him with an offer, even while knowing that the man had been responsible for her disgrace in London, or had it been the other way around?

It was another question, she realized, that fueled her journey here today. But could the very walls of the place speak for the actions of the people who lived and breathed within them?

They walked on towards the bridge, pausing long enough to watch a group of swans float sedately on the water's surface. Instead of continuing in the direction of the house's main entrance, reserved for the owner, family, esteemed guests and the like, they veered their steps around to the rear of the building, into a vast graveled courtyard boasting a spiderweb of paths that led to various outbuildings and the stables. Mrs. Langley approached the servants' entrance—an unassuming door in need of a fresh coat of white paint—rang the bell, and held her chin high as she waited for her arrival to be noted. Hooked over one arm, she carried a basket filled with an assortment of delicate pastries and cakes she hoped would win enough favor with Marbley's housekeeper to win her a job filling a larger order for the upcoming ball.