Page 32 of Taming a Beastly Duke
“Are you certain he is dead?” he asked. The harsh whisper of his inquiry made Adelaide’s heart tighten. There was desperation in his question, and she knew there would be terrible grief at the response.
Mr. Jenkins nodded slowly, his features pained and nervous.
“I am certain, Your Grace,” he said softly, as if murmuring the words could extract the impact of the news. “He was discovered several paces from the debris of the carriage. It was already too late.”
The Duke’s face went from its sickly pale to ashen at the confirmation. The tremor in his hands doubled in nature, his massive frame curling inward as if an invisible weight had just been placed on his head.
Adelaide ached to go to him and comfort him, but she was as stunned as everyone else in the room. No one seemed to know what to say, and the dowager duchess and Edith both had silent tears running down their faces.
The butler did not need a formal dismissal. He turned and left the room, walking as though he had lost a dear friend. Adelaide felt helpless as she watched the people she had come to care about in such distress.
Tragedy sure strikes at the oddest times, she thought.
“Mr. Morrison was here just yesterday,” Lord Thomas said, his words seeming too loud in the stunned silence. “It seems dreamlike that this could happen in such a short time.”
Edith nodded, her face pale and her eyes suddenly tired and fearful.
“The conditions on the roads should have been fine,” she said, pained. “There was no storm yesterday. There was not even a sprinkle of rain.”
Adelaide looked at her friend with wide eyes. Edith's statement was true: there had been no bad weather in Bath the previous day. Besides, how had the butler known without doubt that the physician was deceased?
Before anyone could respond, Marcus pushed back from the table, the chair scraping harshly against the floor. His barely contained anguish showed in his features as his dark eyes met Adelaide’s for one searing moment. Then, he marched out of the room, not bothering to excuse himself.
“Marcus,” the dowager duchess said as she called after him. “Darling, come rejoin us. Please, dear?”
The Duke did not return, however. He continued walking as if he could not or would not hear her. The tension present in his body filled the room, which to Adelaide felt as though it were growing ever smaller.
“I shall go after him,” Lord Thomas said, quickly following behind his friend. He left the room behind the duke, leaving the women sitting in silence. How had this happened so suddenly? Why did a horrible accident evoke such dread and uncertainty within her?
Helena squeezed Adelaide’s hand beneath the table, but Adelaide’s mind could not be comforted. She watched the liquid within Marcus’s abandoned teacup tremble, still reacting to its owner’s abrupt departure from the table. Meanwhile, Miss Potter hovered near the sideboard, her expressionunreadable. She was watching everyone at the table so intently that she might have overheard any conversation, had anyone been speaking in that moment. She was so focused on observing everyone that it took her a minute to notice that Adelaide was watching her.
When she did realize, however, she quickly busied herself silently clearing the Duke’s place setting. Adelaide dropped her gaze so that she was watching the maid through her lashes and she noticed how Miss Potter’s hands trembled as she removed the plate of food the duke had barely touched. Was she simply upset by the news, just as everyone else was? If she was not, why would she be acting so strangely? Adelaide suddenly recalled how the maid was always too attentive to the Duke. Was it a coincidence that her behaviour was so odd now?
***
Edith’s lips were unsure what to say, but her thoughts did not know how to fall silent. She had said the thought aloud, but only once silence fell upon the table again did it truly dawn on her that no storm the previous day meant that weather could not have been responsible for the physician’s death. Yet she could not make sense of that thought.
The butler, who had been with their family almost as long as Mr. Morrison had, seemed certain of the cause of the accident. Mr. Jenkins was as loyal and dedicated as Mr. Morrison, and he had no reason to lie about such an affair. Could he simply have been mistaken, too bereaved by the news of the physician’s death to understand the announcement properly?
That must be it, she thought, trying to shake the seemingly unfounded skepticism from her mind. Or perhaps there was a small storm while I slept last evening, and I simply did not wake to hear it.
She repeated her thoughts to herself over and over, hoping to ease her mind if she could find merit in them. Yet instead of comfort and logic, she felt dread and mistrust. She could not understand precisely why, but there was something about the situation that continued to bother her, no matter how hard she tried to explain it to herself. She could not quite discern it, but it troubled her greatly.
“Edith, you have hardly touched your food,” Augusta said, sounding more cheerful than the somber mood deemed worthy. “You must eat if we are to depart for the gardens soon.”
Edith looked at her grandmother with wide eyes.
“You still wish to go?” she asked. “Do you not think that we should postpone our visit, in light of what has happened?”
Augusta shook her head, holding it high and looking resolute.
“I do not,” she said firmly. “In fact, I believe that we need to go now more than ever.
Edith shook her head slowly, glancing toward the long empty doorway to the breakfast room.
“I believe that Marcus is terribly upset,” she said. “And I worry that this upset might worsen his sickly episodes. Perhaps, we should wait until at least tomorrow, when he has had more time to rest.”
Augusta was shaking her head again before her granddaughter finished speaking.
