Wild Lily (Those Notorious Americans Book 1)(78)
After the woman had heard her husband pronounced dead in the parlor in London, she’d fainted at her departed husband’s feet. Lily and Marianne had run into the room to see the duke upon the carpet. Julian had caught up his mother and put smelling salts to her nostrils. The duchess struggled up from the floor. Then in a manner Lily understood most staid ladies of the upper crust would eschew as the lowest form of crassness, she wailed as Julian pronounced her husband’s death.
Like a dervish, she’d ordered the service in the Broadmore family chapel and burial in the family mausoleum. She’d moaned, dabbed her cheeks and told tales of how happy she and her husband had been. “Until…” she said with malice, mystery and a dab of melancholy. “Until…”
On, she’d ranted and raved as if she’d lost a cherished partner. To have torn at her hair like ancient mourners might even have been in character for the woman, had she indeed cared for the man. But Lily had seen no devotion between them. For the greater realm of the duke’s and duchess’s social circle, the woman’s drama may have convinced them of her anguish. To Lily however, the lady’s actions were a play. A tragedy. A lie.
Nor had she stopped. One day after the duke’s demise, the woman had led a procession of the family up to Broadmore with the body of the duke leading the way in a black bunting-draped caisson. The dowager rode with Julian and Lily in the Broadmore coach. Elanna and Carbury, their honeymoon cut by the death, followed in Carbury’s carriage. Those two had stayed only two days and at Carbury’s insistence, had departed for the coast of France. If Lily thought that Elanna might be pleased to have some solitude with her groom, she might have envied the young bride’s escape. But that was not the case. As the couple left for Dieppe, Lily witnessed a new resentment take hold of the dowager. Indeed, the woman added another note to her repertoire. Suddenly, she concentrated less on mourning and more on making Lily’s life miserable.
Lily was to do her correspondence in a room upstairs. Tiny, airless and without a fireplace, the room had once been—Lily was certain—a closet. Plus the only chair was wooden, minus upholstery. Extremely uncomfortable.
Lily’s lady’s maid, Nora, whom she’d brought with her after her marriage, was to take on other household chores. None of them was usual for Nora’s stated position.
Furthermore, Lily was not to plan the meals. That was the dowager duchess’s job. Always had been.
Nor would Lily help plan for tomorrow’s reading of the late duke’s will in the library. The dowager had claimed that duty as her own. Elanna and Carbury were to arrive today. So, too, Julian’s cousin Valentine Arden, Lord Burnett. And all the servants of Broadmore would attend. Lily had suggested tea for everyone, but she’d been vetoed because of the expense of feeding the staff tea and cakes. If the dowager pinched any more pennies, they’d all be eating gruel three times a day.
If her mother-in-law had her wish, she could wave her magic wand and Lily would disappear from her house and even this dining room.
“Of course, I’ve eaten.” The woman marched toward Lily, her presence more forbidding than the man on the wall who peered over them. “It is most unbecoming for the mistress of Broadmore to take her breakfast anywhere else but in her bed.”
I take my husband in my bed, not my meals.
“I prefer to dine here.” She tucked into her eggs.
“It’s most, most unladylike. What will the staff think of you? I forbid it.” She took hold of the bell pull, ready to summon a servant.
Lily froze her with a glare. “As I see it, madam, you can forbid me nothing. If I wish to eat here, I harm no one.”
“You know nothing of harm. Nothing of procedures or traditions.”
Lily put down her fork and knife. “I know that if I dine here, I relieve the staff of work they need not do.”
The lady clasped her hands together so tightly, her knuckles went white. “Servants are here to work. They are paid. They have their keep. That is sufficient.”
Lily had no idea what each person earned, nor what their keep cost the estate—and she’d correct that lack. However, she did know that the reason she’d seen so little of her husband of late was his worry over money. For the past ten days or so, Julian had spent long hours with the estate manager to examine the records. He’d told her no financial details. Each day, he worked and each day, he became more vexed, his temper short, his attention wandering, his passion for her dulled. What little time he did take to talk with her was riddled with concern over the incessant rain, the drowning crops and the disgruntled tenants. His preoccupations with the welfare of those on Broadmore, as well as reports of more tenants at Willowreach down with croup and bronchitis, had pushed her aside. She disliked Julian’s aloofness. Feared it might erode what intimacy they’d begun to build. Money, which she’d always taken for granted, might buy comfort and splendor, but it did not contribute to contentment.
“You must finish your meal quickly.” The dowager waved a hand at her.
“This is my house, madam.”
“No, it is mine.” The woman preened, her thin nose reminding Lily of a bird of prey.
Lily itched to be so crass as to remind this lady of those benefits that she owed her. Or rather her father. “You will not chase me off, madam.”
“I am chatelaine here, you presumptuous chit. You come to England to throw your father’s money at us. You are an American spawn of a pirate, spreading your legs for Chelton so that he—”