XV
Mildred nervously fiddled with the hem of her skirt. She took a sip of tea and then quickly put it down. She'd never drank out of fine china before. "Seventy pounds?"
"Just like we agreed," Diana said patiently. She and one of the Earl's servants were in the drawing room of Fleurs Castle. She gestured to satchel on the table. "It's all there, dear."
Mildred's eyes flicked to the purse before looking away. "I normally wouldn't," she began. "It's just that my mother is so sick..."
"Of course." Diana didn't believe her, but it didn't matter.
Mildred bit her lip for a few seconds. "Might it...might it be eighty, ma'am? It's just that if the Earl ever found out..."
"Eighty then." Diana said. "But I can't give you a shilling more." The girl was getting selfish.
"Yes, sorry," Mildred said flusteredly. They sat for another few seconds in silence.
"It's alright to begin," Diana said, with the faintest sliver of impatience.
"Right, sorry ma'am. Er...I was...um I was talking to Miss Redwood a couple days ago."
"And?"
Mildred's lip quivered before continuing. "I noticed that her wrist was bruised."
Diana was silent. She could not speak. Finally, she croaked—"What happened to her wrist?"
"Miss Redwood said that..Lord Hawthorne was responsible."
Diana felt like she'd been hit by a stampede. Angry, heartbroken hooves clattered in her ears. She pictured her daughter bruised and beaten at Hawthorne's hands. For a split second, Diana seriously believed she would shatter. She must've looked a fright, because the maid visibly recoiled.
"I'm so sorry, my lady," Mildred whispered.
Diana stared directly into that poor maid's eye. And then, in a very unhuman voice said–"I'm going to kill him."
***
PENELOPE had a very perplexing conversation with the butler one Saturday evening. At noon, a large portrait from the Duke of Fordham arrived. Anything that arrived from the Duke was to be burnt, Lord Hawthorne had expressly said this for the past couple weeks. Letters were one thing, but were they really going to burn a huge painting?
She, the valet, and the butler stared at the painting as it lay in the vestibule. The Earl had business in the village, and he wasn't due back for another couple hours.
"We should hide it," the butler said finally.
Penelope laughed, but then the valet nodded gravely in agreement. "Hide it? Why?"
"So, we can burn it once we have the resources. It'll take a lot of manpower to burn this without the master noticing, but it must be done," the butler said.
"It's a painting. It's not as if it's paper."
"If that painting is what I think it is, it's better our master never sees it," said the valet.
"Why?" Penelope asked. "What's on the painting?"
"You mean you don't know?" asked the butler.
"Know what?" Both men pursed their lips. "Know what?" Penelope repeated.
"If you don't have an inkling, then it should stay that way," said the butler.
"Reginald, please." They'd taken to calling each other by their first names. There was a degree of comfort between the three.
"No."
Penelope turned to the valet. "Winston?"
"Not a chance."
"Then I better have a look," Penelope said impishly. She ignored their grunts of disagreement and began to remove the tarp. Just then, the door burst open. Penelope turned around to meet the Earl's eye. She also noticed that Reginald and Winston had vanished into thin air. Lord Hawthorne's gaze shifted from her to the portrait. His features immediately hardened. "I didn't mean to pry, Sir."
"But you did," he snapped.
Penelope was a little embarrassed about her indiscretion, but she bristled at his tone. "It's from the Duke of Fordham. It also came with a note." Penelope stretched her hand. The Earl snatched the paper before promptly tearing it to shreds.
"We might as well have a look at it," he said drily. Lord Hawthorne undid the tarp with a dramatic flourish. It was of a gorgeous young woman with a waterfall of black dreadlocks. She was wearing an incredible green ball gown with an emerald ring to match. She gazed out of the picture with a warm smile.
"It's beautiful," Penelope remarked. She couldn't help herself.
"It's a portrait of my mother," Lord Hawthorne said. His words were laced with grief.
"She passed when you were quite young?"
"When I was ten."
"I'm so sorry," she whispered. Penelope didn't think he heard her. He was transfixed with the portrait of his mother. "Why would the Duke send this now?"
Lord Hawthorn smiled thinly. "To try and control me."
"Why would a portrait of your mother control you?"
"Because it works," the Earl said coldly. "Why do you think I came to your ball?"
Penelope blinked. She'd been so surprised when he'd come to the engagement ball. Now she knew why. "He promised this?"
"Yes," Lord Hawthorne replied acidly. "And he didn't deliver it till now."
"It's a carrot," Penelope murmured. She watched his sad gaze with unease. "There's more of them, isn't there?"
"When my mother died, he took every memory of her away," Lord Hawthorne said. His voice oozed pain and bitterness. "And now he's willing to give her back, piece by piece, if I dance to his tune."
Penelope wished there was something she could say to ease away all the pain. She wanted to hold him and take it all away. But somehow, she feared her touch might only make it worse. She had promised to stop any flirtations since their moment in his rooms.
She opened her mouth to say something just as he said—"See that this is hung in the Main Hall."
"Sir."
In the next coming days, Penelope would learn why the butler and the valet wanted to burn the painting. The cook, usually opinionated and lively, was uncharacteristically silent. The maids did not gossip or titter as much as they usually did. A thick, gloomy blanket hung over Hawthorne, and fat chilly drops rained on all of them. Mildred, her newfound favorite, told her the story about the cook. Lord Hawthorne had given him a humiliating dressing down.
"Why are you incapable of cooking a bloody meal?" Mildred had paraphrased. To be fair, their cook was not a good one. He couldn't prepare anything beyond fish or beef or veal and all of it was rather poor. However, in the past, Penelope knew the Earl had had the restraint to keep such criticisms to himself. If the cook left, who would replace him? It seemed that Lord Hawthorne no longer cared. He prowled the halls and servants quarters, searching for imperfections to chastise. Interestingly, he kept Penelope at arms length, but everyone else bore the brunt of his anger and pain. One day, he called her into his study to go over a perceived mismanagement, and Penelope tried her courage.
"Lord Hawthorne, I would not be doing my due diligence if I did not speak on behalf of my staff."
The Earl gave an ugly little laugh. "Oh?"
She did not let his sarcasm deter her. "I can understand your frustration and your pain, Sir. Honestly, I cannot begin to imagine how you feel."
"You don't know the first thing about how I feel," he said with venom.
"No, I imagine that I don't have the first clue," she said patiently. "But you are the one who hired me here in order to find a proper replacement." She braved his eyes. "You will not be able to find one if you continue to act like this."
He took a gulp from a crystal glass that Penelope hadn't noticed when she'd walked in. It looked like water, but Penelope knew better. Was that gin? "Look at you lecturing your employer," he sneered. "Your audacity never ceases to amaze me."
Penelope kept her face impassive. If he needed to be mean, so be it. "I'm only being honest. No one else will."
"Because no one else is a spoiled brat that has been handed absolutely everything their entire life."
"I understand that you're hurt—"
"You don't understand anything." His voice was low poison. "You don't know tragedy or sadness or pain. You're here because you think that marrying a duke is a hellish nightmare."
Penelope bit her lip. She was on the edge of her patience. "You said yourself that you employed a skeleton crew. You could lose everyone if you continue like this." His lids were low with day-drunkenness and fury. Penelope tried another tack. She lowered her eyes and bent her head in an effort to look demure. "I'm only saying this because I care about you.
A chilly laugh cracked from his lips. "The only person you care about is yourself." There were layers underneath of that sentence that made Penelope lose all her restraint.
"You are not the only person who has known tragedy and loss and pain," she seethed. "If you don't attend to your wounds, Sir, you will regret it.
***
HARRY knew that he was being horrid. He didn't need Penelope to tell him so. He didn't feel an ounce of regret about the cook, though. If the man was stupid enough to leave, then let him. Harry was really only proficient with soups, salads, and stews but it was much better than anything that hack had ever made. Who cared if he left? Who cared if they all did? Of course it matters, screamed Sensibility but Harry quieted it with another sip of from his glass. The gin was muddying his brain, but Harry happily embraced the haze. It was better than the maddening helplessness that had been tormenting him ever since he saw his mother's painting. He knew that her diaries, portraits, paintings, and the like were mementos. They were just things. But why did they feel like parts of her? When he saw her likeness in pencil or paint, when he imagined touching her rings or necklaces, he felt her kiss. He heard her voice and her smile. He felt her warmth. Harry let another sip of gin sting sweetly down his throat.
He was nine and twenty and on the cusp of having children himself. Why in the world was he still so affected? In more ways than one, he was still that boy of ten and fifteen and twenty that couldn't shed his grief. And, he hated it. He hated that his emotions were the strings his puppet father was anxiously pulling to get him to do his bidding. All motherly devotion had gotten him was heartache.
Harry hadn't realized he'd fallen asleep until he woke up to a dark room. His mouth was sour and dry and a terrible headache parasitized every inch of his skull. It took a couple moments to realize that it was nighttime, and his pathetic, drunken slumber had claimed his entire day. He got up from his desk, exited his study, and ventured outside. He'd found that cold air and light exercise did wonders for hangovers and melancholy. As he took his turn around the grounds, he was put off by a sharp, distinct scent. He followed the aroma, scarcely believing his nose. Who was smoking on the castle grounds?
He shouldn't have been surprised at the source. He found his housekeeper sitting with her back against stone, half shrouded in darkness and illuminated by milky light, with a pipe between her lips. To her credit, Miss Redwood did not even flinch when she saw him. She exhaled three cloudy rings and matched his incredulity with cool indifference. "Sir."
"Miss Redwood."
She took another drag from the pipe before taking it from her lips and raising it up in the air. An offering.
Harry didn't think twice. He took the pipe from her and joined her against the wall of the castle. They took turns silently passing the pipe between them. Harry tried his best to replicate her intricate rings and clouds and found he could not. "You're very good at this." He didn't mean for reverence and surprise to bleed into his voice, but it did anyway.
She did another smoking trick and Harry knew she couldn't help showing off. "I've had a lot of practice."
He didn't bother to try a trick when it was his turn. "Of course, you have. You never cease to amaze me," he murmured.
"I'm only a spoiled brat," Miss Redwood said. "I didn't think there was anything amazing about me."
Harry tingled with humiliation. He knew he shouldn't be soothing his pain with one form of intoxication instead of the other, but he wished he tried the herb before gin. He was still hurting, there was an order to his thoughts now, a comfortable clarity. "I've been a nightmare, Miss Redwood. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean what I said."
She laid the pipe in the grass. It seemed that they'd smoked through however much she had brought with her tonight. "Yes, you did."
Harry wet his lips. "You're right," he admitted. "I'm bitter and hurting. I shouldn't have said it."
His housekeeper sighed. "I'm not saying you're entirely wrong, because you're not. I just...It hurts hearing you say it." Harry distractedly observed that he'd never seen her hair loose. It was undone in a curly cloud of rich brown. She turned to face him, and in that moment, Harry had never seen someone more beautiful.
"It's not true," he sighed. "I'm the one acting big and entitled. You've done so much growing up these past weeks."
"Have I?" Harry could make out a grin in the sparse light.
"You have."
"Thank you." Miss Redwood was having her rare moments where she sounded vulnerable and shy. Harry drank it in.
"You're welcome." They lapsed into comfortable silence. Harry turned his attention to the moon. It looked so full and beautiful. "I wonder which one God made first. Which do you think?"
"I'm sorry?"
"The moon and the sun I mean," Harry clarified. Which do you think was first?"
Liquid brown eyes squinted at him in the moonlight. Then, Penelope smiled. "Oh, Christ. You never told me you've never smoked before. I wouldn't have let you have so much."
"Of course I've smoked before." Harry scoffed. His eyebrows furrowed. "Why, what are you implying?"
"Mmm.." Miss Redwood had a wicked gleam in her eye and he had no idea why. "I think you might be over the moon, Sir." He stared at her. "Figuratively, speaking," she clarified.
He rolled his eyes. "I am asking a serious philosophical question," he pronounced each word slowly so that she might understand. Penelope pursed her lips. He could tell she was trying not to smile. Harry wanted to kiss seriousness into her. "Well?"
She pondered over this for a few moments. "The Sun, I think."
The moon gleamed magnificently in its fold of dark velvet. "Impossible. Look at it." She wasn't looking at the moon, she was looking at him. "Look at it!" Harry exclaimed, gesturing upwards. Her eyes finally followed his arm. "Can you really tell me something that pretty wasn't made first? Can you?"
There it was again, that restrained smile. "No, I don't think so."
"If you keep smiling like that, I'm going to kiss you." His voice was grave.
Penelope laughed. "You wouldn't forgive me if I let you kiss me in this state."
"What state? I'm probably more sober than you are."
"Right." She tucked a stray coil behind her ear. He wished she would've let him do that instead. "I wish you would too," she said. Harry frowned. Had he said that bit out loud? He hadn't mean to.
"You wish I could do what?"
Miss Redwood sighed longingly. "I have to get to bed, Sir. I have an early day tomorrow."
"But—" Harry didn't get to finish. She was already on her feet with her pipe in her palm.
"Goodnight, Sir."
Harry sullenly bade her goodbye. He sat there for a little longer, gazing into the heavens. Everything was twinkly and bright. The stars were smiling at him. "Huh," Harry wondered. Maybe he was over the moon.