Page 55 of His Unruly Duchess
Max walked up onto the porch and knocked, his back to Caroline.
Holding onto Powder Puff, she could not help but admire the height and breadth of him as he stood there, remembering how he had looked at the Grayling Ball, hair mussed with sleep, blinking in alarm at his state of undress. Regret formed as she wondered how many times she would have to see that broad back leaving her, for the rest of their marriage.
The door opened to reveal a relatively young woman, no older than five-and-thirty, standing there with a smile on her face.
“You must be the Duke and Duchess of Harewood,” she said in a lilting accent. “It’s a pleasure to welcome you to Cedar House. I hope it’ll be to your liking, though I can only apologize for the lack of staff. I got a girl in from the village who’s a mighty cook, but if you need aught else, you just let me know. I’m Mrs. Bowman.”
Max dipped his head. “I doubt we shall need much.”
“Would you like me to show you around?” Mrs. Bowman gasped at the sight of the cat. “Goodness, what a precious creature!”
Caroline warmed to the woman immediately, as she followed Max’s lead and proceeded on into the house.
The tour was brief, for the house was not excessively large—two floors of bright, airy rooms with exceptional views of the surrounding forest and countryside and gardens. There was a drawing room, a smaller parlor, a library, and two studies on the lower floor, with six rooms on the upper, and a glorious belvedere to the rear that would make a perfect music room or leisure room.
“I doubt I have seen gardens so lovely,” Caroline cooed as they paused in the belvedere for a while, and she let Powder Puff loose to explore.
She went up to one of the window seats and perched on it, admiring the coiling, curling patterns of the hedges below, like a miniature version of Versailles. In the distance, she glimpsed the glitter of a river through a thin line of trees, and meadows beyond.
“But how is it that there is a cherry blossom in bloom?” she added, noting the tree down below. The petals were still fluttering down, swirling with the stormy gusts.
Mrs. Bowman came closer. “Oh, that!” She clasped a hand to her chest. “The story goes that a former master of this house had it planted for his wife a year after they were first married. A ‘weeping cherry’ they call it, and, my goodness, that beautiful thing blooms in the autumn as if it were spring! Cheers the heartwhen it’s dismal outside. Not every year, I’ll grant you, but more often than not.”
“It chose a bad day to blossom,” Caroline mumbled to herself, watching the petals drift and whirl, eddying with the current of the wind.
“Well, I’ll just leave you up here while I prepare some tea,” Mrs. Bowman said with a curtsey. “The pair of you must need refreshment after your journey, and I won’t be responsible for you being parched and ravenous. Do you care for cakes?”
Caroline nodded. “There are few things I care about more.”
“That’s what I like to hear, Your Grace!” Mrs. Bowman cheered, laughing.
With that, the pleasant young housekeeper stepped out of the belvedere and closed the door behind her, leaving Caroline and Max alone. To more stilted silence, Caroline imagined, turning her attention back to the gardens, searching the flowerbeds and bushes and hedges for any sign of a butterfly. It would be a brave one, to be flying out in such inclement weather, and in the wrong season, but she looked regardless.
“This would be a fine room for reading and drawing,” Max said, coming to sit beside her. “You would be at liberty to decorate everything to your taste, of course, but the light is wonderful in here.”
Rain began to spatter against the windows in a steadytink, tink, tink, while the trees on the near horizon seemed to dance as they were thrashed this way and that by the fearsome wind.
“Mr. Forster told me that you used to dream about traveling across the world,” she said, not knowing why.
Max stood sharply. “It was not his place to tell you that.”
“He said that nothing should have stopped you from continuing on with your plans, but you changed overnight,” she continued. “Rather, your plans did. He told me that there was a member of the family who had offered to look after Anna and Dickie, but you did not accept.”
“It was no one’s responsibility but mine,” Max replied, his back turned to her once more.
Caroline smiled sadly. “Mr. Forster said you used to be more like Dickie.”
“All young men are like Dickie, until they grow up,” Max said, his shoulder slumping. “That is the part that Dickie has never quite understood.”
She resisted the urge to get up and go to him, to put her arms around his middle and hold him from behind. He looked like he needed someone to hold him, but she could not bring herself to do it, not without knowing what they were—what she meant to him, if anything at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“May I ask why you feel as if every responsibility is yours to bear?” Caroline asked. “You did not need to be a parent to your siblings. You did not need to marry me. You do not need to exhaust yourself, working on securing a legacy for your siblings. What makes you feel as if you have to… save everyone?”
Max’s hands curled into fists. “If not me, who else?” He shook his head slowly. “Has Anna ever spoken to you of our parents?”
“Not really,” Caroline admitted.
