Page 47 of The English Duke
“I’ll take you through the Duchess’s Garden,” he said. “It cuts down the distance back to the house.”
She didn’t say anything, merely joined him on the path.
The back wall of the garden was brick, with hornbeam hedges forming the other three walls. The entrance to the Duchess’s Garden was through an intricate trellis arch. He stepped aside for her to precede him.
“This is one of the gardens featured in the prints in the Morning Parlor,” she said.
He was surprised she knew that. Most people didn’t notice what was around them, but he should have known Martha wasn’t like most people.
“The garden was begun in the late seventeenth century as a kitchen garden, but now we grow our vegetables in the Potager.”
At her look, he explained. “It’s an ornamental vegetable garden closer to the kitchen. Here the area is set aside for roses, in honor of my mother. She was fond of roses, I believe.”
She glanced at him and he answered her unspoken question.
“She died when I was three months old,” he said.
“I always thought bringing you into the world led to her death,”his father stated once. His offhanded remark had been like a weight around Jordan’s neck for years, until he learned his mother had died of influenza. It wasn’t the first time he’d experienced his father’s casual cruelties and unconscious insults.
“It’s like a separate world,” she said, looking around her. “All these colors. And the scent of roses is almost intoxicating.”
“It clings to you,” he said. “If I spend any time here I can smell roses on my clothes hours later.”
“How many types are there?” she asked, walking slowly down the path.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Once, there were over a thousand. I don’t know if my brother added or subtracted from the number.”
“Was he duke for long?”
“Ten years.” Long enough to do his damage to the family coffers.
His father and brother evidently believed money was a natural province of a dukedom. Inherit one and the other magically appeared. It didn’t.
“My mother died when I was a baby,” she said.
Another commonality between them. He wanted to ask, but didn’t, if she often found herself feeling adrift in her own family.
“Will you be joining us for dinner this evening?” she asked.
Had she noted his difficulty in walking? Or had his face revealed the degree of his pain?
“Yes,” he said. Whatever it cost him, he’d be there, if for no other reason than to prove he wasn’t an invalid.
He left her at the back entrance to Sedgebrook, claiming a need to speak with his housekeeper. In actuality, he was going to use the servants’ stairs to get to his room. That way, his painful ascent wouldn’t be witnessed by his guests.
He wasn’tlame, damn it.
Chapter 14
Martha was worried about Jordan, a fact she hid from her grandmother when she visited her. She hoped he’d been able to get some relief for his leg and was eager to go down to dinner to ask him how he felt.
Josephine, however, was running late again when she left Gran and went to get her sister.
This time, she was preening in front of the mirror attired in a dark blue patterned dress that was beautifully made with swaths of material in the train. Even though Josephine occasionally annoyed her, there was no disputing the fact that her sister was a beautiful woman.
When she complimented Josephine on her appearance her sister only smiled.
“Am I beautiful enough to be the Duchess of Roth?”
