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Page 6 of A Duchess Worth Stealing (Saved by Scandal #2)

Chapter Four

T he study was, by design, the most orderly room in Mason’s home.

Dark walnut paneling embraced it like a solemn old friend.

Books were arranged by subject, language, and height.

The fire crackled precisely as it ought to crackle: not too low, not too loud.

And Mason sat at his desk precisely as he ought, with his back straight, his brow furrowed, and his quill poised over a ledger that contained far too many numbers and far too little patience.

He paused, feeling overwhelmed by the numbers. Then, he slowly laid the quill aside. What he needed now was a drink.

This was not an unfamiliar impulse. The ledgers had that effect on him sometimes. But this afternoon, the need carried an edge to it, for there was a restless, prickling tension in the back of his neck, as though some thread in the household had been pulled slightly too tight.

Perhaps it was the sound of humming that had been drifting through the corridors for the past two days.

Or perhaps, it was the faint smell of lavender and scorched flour from the east wing.

Whatever the cause, he had the distinct sensation that his household, once a bastion of cold efficiency, had been compromised.

He rose, crossed to the sideboard, and uncorked the decanter with the ceremonial reverence of a man about to recover his sanity. The scent was familiarly reassuring. He poured two fingers into a cut-glass tumbler and brought it to his lips. Promptly, he spat it back out.

He stared at the glass in horror. “What in God’s name?—”

The taste was something between olive oil and soap with a whisper of… rosemary? He held the glass aloft like an artifact from a cursed tomb.

“Hargrave!” he called out loudly, knowing that his butler was never too far away.

The door opened with spectral promptness, and the butler appeared as unruffled as ever.

“Your Grace?”

Mason held out the glass. “Am I being poisoned?”

“Unlikely, Your Grace.”

“Then explain this.”

Hargrave took the glass, sniffed it with grave attention, and did not even blink. “I believe this is a result of Miss Cordelia’s enthusiastic cleaning regimen, Your Grace.”

Mason blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“She was quite insistent upon expressing her gratitude for your hospitality,” the butler said blandly. “It appears she took it upon herself to clean your decanters.”

There was a long pause.

“She… cleaned them.”

“Yes, Sir. Thoroughly.”

“With… soap?”

“The kitchen maids attempted to intervene, but Lady Cordelia assured them she had developed a superior method. Involved lye, olive oil, and vigorous humming. I believe there was a folk song involved, something regarding harvest goats.”

Mason lowered himself slowly into the nearest chair.

“She also introduced the staff to the concept of singing during tasks,” Hargrave continued, evidently seeing no reason to spare his employer the full report. “The scullery maids are currently harmonizing during root vegetable preparation. It has improved morale. And tempo, if I may add.”

Mason stared at the decanter. The decanter, in turn, gleamed innocently.

“Tell the staff,” he said at last, “that if anyone sings in my presence, I will have them reassigned to the smokehouse.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“And as for Lady Cordelia…”

He trailed off while Hargrave waited. There were a dozen things he could say.

As for Lady Cordelia, she is a menace.

As for Lady Cordelia, I want her gone by the sunrise.

As for Lady Cordelia, why do I know precisely what she smells like when she is three corridors away?

But none of those statements made it past his throat. Instead, he stood, brushing invisible dust from his coat.

“Have the kitchen prepare a fresh bottle. Preferably, one that hasn’t been laced with artisanal detergent.”

“Very good, Your Grace.”

Hargrave bowed and retreated, leaving Mason once more alone with his ledgers, his wounded pride, and the faint echo of distant singing which was off-key, joyful, and completely out of place in a house that had not known laughter in years.

He poured himself water instead with every intention of returning to his ledgers.

Truly, he did. But the taste of soap lingered unpleasantly at the back of his throat, and the room, once his sanctuary and his stronghold, had now taken on the feeling of being ever so slightly lived in which was not a quality he welcomed in a study.

He paced over to the window. The panes were newly polished which was probably another likely consequence of Cordelia’s industrious rampage.

He pushed it open but not wide. He just needed… ventilation. He most certainly didn’t do it for the purpose of eavesdropping.

From his vantage point, he could see the garden below. The roses, though utterly neglected, were in late bloom. The fountain murmured with idle elegance. And on a bench near the edge of the box hedge sat two figures: his mother and her .

He frowned at the sight, not because they were speaking.

After all, that was why Cordelia was there, was it not?

No. It was because they were laughing. And it was not the soft, demure sort of laughter women produced in drawing rooms when someone said something moderately clever, and they felt socially obliged to reward it with attention.

No. It was not that at all. His mother was laughing the way she used to, expressing that sort of laughter which surprised even herself into dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. He hadn’t heard that sound in years, not since what happened with Isabelle.

Fighting the urge to do so, he leaned nearer to the window. The breeze, obliging and curious, brought with it fragments of conversation.

“…and I told him,” Cordelia was saying, her hands animated in some reenactment, “that if he wanted a wife who obeyed him without question, he should have proposed to a hat stand.”

His mother burst into laughter again, the sound muffled but unmistakably genuine. Mason felt the corner of his mouth twitch.

“I hope,” Cordelia added grandly, “never to marry anything duller than a hurricane.”

This was rewarded with another peal of delighted amusement on part of his mother. His chest tightened at the sound. He had grown used to the quiet sadness that had taken up residence in his mother after Isabelle’s… disappearance.

It was not overt. She still dressed elegantly. She still held court at dinner. She still raised a brow with practiced precision. But the music in her had gone silent. And he, who had never admitted aloud how much her silence had cost him, had made peace with it in his own quiet, bitter way.

Now, however, in the garden, with Cordelia by her side, his mother glowed, and Mason found himself watching the scene far longer than was reasonable.

Cordelia leaned forward to pluck a sprig of mint from the hedge, holding it aloft with great ceremony.

“This,” she declared, “is what I shall use to defend myself the next time I am pursued by villainous guardians. Mint in the eyes. It may not kill, but it will refresh!”

His mother let out an undignified snort.

And, blast it all, Mason chuckled.

It was a truth Cordelia had discovered only recently that some gardens possessed an atmosphere entirely inappropriate to brooding.

The Dowager Duchess and she were seated together on the garden bench for perhaps an hour now. And this was an hour filled with idle chatter, occasional laughter, and the sort of quiet understanding Cordelia had long ago decided was reserved for people who wore pearls with ease.

The Duchess was not as Cordelia had expected. She was older, yes, and elegant in a way that made one feel slightly rumpled by comparison, but there was a vitality in her, something fierce and wounded that shone through her polished exterior like the flicker of a lantern in the dark.

But that was not all. She was also the sort of mother Cordelia had always wished for but was never fortunate enough to have.

The Dowager deeply cared for her son, and she showed it in every gaze and every word, for it was a love that transcended anything tangible, and it merely was pure and unadulterated.

Cordelia liked her immensely.

“I do believe you’ve managed to wake up the house, my dear,” the Duchess said, sipping her tea with that particular kind of amusement that made Cordelia feel simultaneously flattered and accused.

“Well,” Cordelia replied, plucking a leaf from the mint shrub beside them and examining it as though it might offer legal counsel, “someone had to. It’s a beautiful house, but if you don’t mind me saying, it had all the cheer of a mausoleum when I arrived.”

The Duchess gave a soft, genuine laugh.

Then the older woman glanced toward her, a little more solemnly. “And what of your own house, my dear? Where did you come from before fate or a rather reckless horse brought you under my wheels?”

Cordelia faltered.

“Oh, I… well, I come from all sorts of places,” she hedged, folding the mint leaf into smaller and smaller pieces. “But most recently, I was staying in Surrey. Before that, Bath. Before that, London, of course, when I was a child.”

“And your parents?” the Dowager asked gently. “Were they kind to you?”

Cordelia hesitated. She always did when that question arose. The world seemed so fond of placing people into neat little categories: loving childhood, tragic loss, distant father, doting mother. But her reality had been something more complex and more quietly painful.

“My mother,” she began, tone lighter than the words that followed, “was the diamond of her season.”

The Duchess nodded but said nothing. That, somehow, encouraged her.

“She was… stunning. People used to speak of her beauty with actual reverence. It was how she measured her worth, I think… her power, her purpose. And then she married. And then I happened.”

There was a bitter twist to her smile now, but she kept it.

“She didn’t take well to the… effects of childbearing.

Particularly when the ton began to whisper about how she had faded.

I suppose they were jealous in their way.

But she listened to them. And once I grew old enough to resemble her, well, it became rather difficult to know whether she despised me or simply could not bear her own reflection. ”

The Duchess was very still.

“She never struck me,” Cordelia added quickly.

“She wasn’t cruel in that way. But she had a gift for words…

sharp ones. Always about my appearance or my manner, or my laugh.

” Her fingers twisted the mint leaf into a crushed little heap in her lap.

“I always wanted her to be proud of me. Even when I swore I didn’t. ”

A long silence followed. Cordelia dared not look up. At least, the Dowager spoke. “My children,” she said softly, “that is… my child has always been my pride and joy.”

Cordelia lifted her head, blinking. “Child?”

The Duchess’ face didn’t change, but something behind her eyes did, something resembling an old sadness that flickered and settled like dust resettling in an abandoned room. She did not correct herself.

Cordelia, despite her curiosity, did not press. She knew too well the kind of grief that required guarding.

Instead, she said, “Your Grace, I must say… if I had known there were women like you in the world, I might not have been so determined to shun the ton.”

The Dowager chuckled. “We are a rare breed, my dear, but not extinct.”

The warmth between them settled into something more lasting, something steady and soft, like a shawl placed over cold shoulders without asking. Cordelia breathed deeply, feeling safe for the first time in a while.

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