That furious refusal to marry him had been nothing but shock and reaction, she knew it perfectly well and she suspected that Cal did too. She loved him, she was certain of that now. Loved him, was in love with him, desired him. Rejecting him out of pique because he was angry with her, did not appreciate her motives, would hurt only her and would punish him simply because he had felt deceived and lied to.
She felt uneasy too about her motives for refusing to make love fully before their wedding day. The suspicion that she had not fully committed herself to this marriage kept nagging at her. She had no virginity to lose, and she had been as intimate with Cal as it was possible to be, without that final act of joining, so had she insisted on holding back until the wedding night in a pretence that the fiasco with Jonathan had never happened? It felt like hypocrisy to have insisted on denying them both, as though respectability and doing the “right thing” were more important than their feelings for each other.
Restless, Sophie abandoned the small drawing room, leaving the older ladies to a hushed discussion of the latest crim.con. case and the younger ones to a thorough dissection of the latest issues of La Belle Assemblée, and went in search of the housekeeper.
She found Mrs Fairfax in the Chinese Drawing Room, arranging great bowls of red and white roses. ‘I was hoping you might have time to talk to me about the management of the house,’ she explained. ‘Not detail yet, of course, but to give me some idea of what is involved for the mistress of something this large, and with an experienced housekeeper such as yourself on the staff.’ It was a declaration, a commitment, that she knew she had been avoiding making.
The housekeeper beamed. ‘Of course, Miss Wilmott. I would be only too happy, if you do not mind me putting the finishing touches to these.’ She snipped a few stems, adjusted some fern fronds and stood back. ‘What do you think?’
‘They are a very striking colour combination.’
‘One of our Calderbrook traditions.’ Mrs Fairfax swept the trimmings into the basket that had held the roses. ‘It is such a joy to have the Duke back in residence and to observe them all again. These are for the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York that were combined into the Tudor Rose to mark the end of the Wars of the Roses. The first Earl of Calderbrook was ennobled by King Henry VII and the family always displays red and white roses in tribute to the Tudors whenever they are in bloom.’
‘What other traditions are there?’ Sophie rescued the flower snips and the unwanted fern fronds and followed Mrs Fairfax out into the hall.
‘There’s the garland of ivy from the old castle that decorates the coat of arms up there.’ The housekeeper pointed to where an ancient and battered shield hung high on the wall, wrapped in fresh green strands of ivy. ‘The venison roast from the park herd on the first Sunday of every month, the fetching of water from the Duke’s Spring, the raising of the flag whenever the Duke is in residence and the annual Duke’s Bounty which is a great celebration on the anniversary of the creation of the Dukedom on the first day of September, 1662.’
She opened the door hidden under the curve of the staircase. ‘Those are the main traditions. If you’d like to come down, Miss Wilmott, I will show you below stairs. Of course, there are other things that are special to this house, like the spice cakes Chef makes for the Duke, the great scale on which members of the family are weighed annually, the strewing herbs I stuff the Duke’s pillow with to promote sleep…’
Mrs Fairfax bustled through the labyrinth, invading Chef’s domains, the butler’s territory, all with a courteous greeting and the news that the new mistress was with her. Sophie grew dizzy with names and posts, the intricacies of the pasty room and the confectionery cupboard, the boot boy’s lair and the coal hole, the silver vault and the wine cellar and had to be revived with cowslip wine in the housekeeper’s own sitting room.
‘I am very impressed, Mrs Fairfax, as I expected I would be, considering how well the house is kept above stairs and how efficiently everything runs.’
The older woman beamed and demurred, praised Lady Peter’s oversight of the house and murmured about the pleasure everyone had at the return of the Duke. ‘And to know that we will be welcoming a new Duchess so soon, now that really puts the cream on top of the cake!’
Sophie was slightly tipsy on the effects of two glasses of powerful cowslip wine and the head-full of information when she finally climbed the stairs with the sound of the dressing gong still reverberating around the hall.
‘Where have you been?’ Toby enquired, falling into step with her half way up the flight.
‘Indulging in a surfeit of domesticity.’
He wrinkled his nose. ‘Sounds dull.’
‘Actually it was surprisingly soothing.’ It had certainly helped her to decide what to do about Cal’s threats of seduction that night. She would meet fire with fire and discover whether they could heal the breach that had opened up between them.
Sophie allowed Mary to undress her, then, when she had bathed, she dismissed the maid.
‘But your hair, Miss. Don’t you want me to take it down and brush it for you?’