Page 18 of The English Duke
Breakfast had already been brought to Gran on a tray. Someone had put a bright summer flower in a small vase and Gran and Amy were discussing whether or not the roses should be pruned at Griffin House.
Her grandmother didn’t look the least bit ill, but Martha didn’t remark about the color in her cheeks or the fact that the empty plates revealed her appetite was healthy.
After Josephine joined her, they were led by one of Sedgebrook’s maids down the grand staircase.
Josephine was looking around, taking in the expensive appointments, the brass-and-crystal chandeliers, the curiosities set inside the niches along the wall. She seemed to note the thickness of the carpet beneath her feet, the gilded frames of the portraits lining the hall. Martha could almost see her tallying up the cost of everything in her mind.
She truly wished the doctor hadn’t prescribed three days of rest for Gran. The quicker they left Sedgebrook the better.
Their breakfast was to be served in the Morning Parlor, a sunny room on the east side of the house. The walls were hung with a patterned yellow silk replicated on the cushions of the chairs around the mahogany rectangular table.
The gold-framed sketches hanging on the wall caught her eye. At first she thought the artist duke might have drawn them, but they seemed to date from the time of Sedgebrook’s construction, each detailing a section of the great house and the gardens as they were being built.
Breakfast was served buffet style, the silver chafing dishes placed on the sideboard along the wall. She wondered if the leftover food would be going to the staff or to the poor. As it was, it looked as if Sedgebrook’s cook thought she would be feeding a small army this morning.
She and Josephine helped themselves before taking a place at the dining table. Despite the fact that her sister kept glancing toward the doorway, they weren’t joined by anyone. They might have been guests in a luxurious but empty hotel.
Josephine kept up a running commentary about Sedgebrook, her enchantment with the house not only evident but troubling. When their breakfast was finished, Josephine stood.
“I’m for a walk,” she said, placing her napkin on the table and standing. “It’s a beautiful day.”
“I’d prefer you sit with Gran.”
Her sister didn’t say anything, just gave her a faint smile. She knew what the look meant—Josephine was going to do what she wanted. She also suspected Josephine wasn’t going walking as much as exploring.
“It would be rude to wander through Sedgebrook without permission, Josephine.”
“Of course it would,” her sister said. “You don’t need to lecture me on manners, Martha. I’m not the one who seems to annoy the duke.”
She hadn’t annoyed him, not personally. No doubt he’d been irritated at the situation, but not at her. At least he shouldn’t have been.
There was only one thing she needed to do today—ensure the duke understood where her father’s notes were located and how to translate his journals. In addition, if the duke had any questions about the remainder of her father’s inventions, she wanted to be able to answer them.
She needed to find Charles and let him know about the change of plans. Plus, she might as well go ahead and send the wagon driver home.
She found one of the maids industriously cleaning a carpet runner in the hallway not far from the Morning Parlor and asked for directions to the stables. She found her way outside only after navigating a series of corridors, getting lost, and asking for guidance again.
The stables were located some distance away and built of the same yellowish stone and tiled roof as the main house. She was surprised at the size of the complex, but then everything at Sedgebrook was a little larger than it needed to be. A large fenced paddock was to the right of the building. Beyond was a grassy valley where a few horses were grazing.
Their carriage and the empty wagon sat in a graveled area to the left of the main building. Inside, she stopped a curly-headed stableboy and asked for the stablemaster only to be told he was taking breakfast at the house. When she asked if he knew Charles or their wagon driver, the boy was willing to go in search of both men.
“Does the duke have a workroom nearby?” she asked before he left.
“A workroom, miss?”
“A place where he works on his torpedo ship,” she said. At the boy’s blank glance, she realized she needed to rephrase her request. “I need to know where they put the contents of the wagon we brought.”
He surprised her by turning and walking to the end of the row of stalls, pointing to one.
“Right there, miss.”
She walked to where he stood and glanced inside.
To her shock, all her careful planning and packing had been for nothing. Her father’s journals were stacked every which way on top of the crates. Cards with notes in his handwriting spilled out onto the packed earth floor. Bessie, the last prototype of the York Torpedo Ship, was propped up in the corner, the crate buried in hay. Two of the other crates were half-open, their contents spilling out.
Had the pendulums been damaged? What about the gyroscope that had been her father’s last purchase?
She stared at the destruction, her anger building. She’d spent hours packing everything, worrying about the damage that might occur to the delicate scientific instruments. All for nothing. Only for the Duke of Roth to take her father’s work and treat it like so much manure.
