Page 12 of Centerpiece (Infinite Grace #2)

Her cloak was brown and reached the floor.

It looked to be warm indeed, though dirtied at the hem and with a sprig of greenery stuck in the cloth.

She had a length of shining blue fabric, almost the color a robin’s egg, around her head instead of a hood, and beneath the cloak, she wore a dark blue bodice with a white chemise peeking through—which also had a sprig of greenery in it.

The twig only drew more attention to the plump bosom that spilled over the top of the bodice.

The lacing there was intricate, but what drew Agreeable’s gaze down was when the Duchess moved and the wide, dark blue skirt split to reveal dark blue breeches.

As if she wore skirts and breeches together, or as if perhaps, she had wanted freedom to ride, though Holburn had said she preferred carriages.

Agreeable had seen one or two women in breeches in his life—that was, women who wore them when out in the public square or markets. To everywhere but church. But never anything that seemed designed to confuse a priest.

The Duchess had eyes only for Holburn and had nearly reached him before she stopped to stare at Agreeable.

She had light hair, not as pale as hay but more like honey, that spilled out from underneath the loose covering of blue, and big brown eyes, and... a streak of dirt across one cheek.

Between that and the twigs and springs of green, she had the appearance of someone who had been scrumping. But she was a lady. A lady wouldn’t need to steal apples or quince. A duchess certainly wouldn’t bother.

A duchess. Agreeable remembered himself and jerked away so he would not look as if he had been waiting for a kiss from her husband and then jumped to his feet.

Uncertain, he considered bowing before he remembered his skirt and tried to hop into a curtsy like some of the milkmaids did for people like the bailiff.

Then he remembered he wasn’t in his skirt and bobbed down in what he hoped was a proper bow.

“Did you have a good visit with Marie?” Holburn asked his wife, calm and unhurried, as though his good lady wife wasn’t staring at the strange lad wearing her husband’s clothes. “Where is Hilde?”

The Duchess swung her attention to her husband, pulling her lovely scarf back and brushing a few strands of hair from her eyes. Her hair had probably once been braided or twisted and pinned. It was windswept now, and... contained even more greenery.

“Hilde is downstairs getting a meal. I love Marie to bits, but her cook leaves something to be desired.” She said that with her gaze straying back to Agreeable, but then her focus was all on Holburn.

“And you? I was going to ask if your journey was uneventful, but....” She gestured gracefully at the air in front of Agreeable, or perhaps at the rumpled bed behind him.

“I suspect my grandfather would be amused.” Holburn’s answer didn’t quite make sense to Agreeable, but the Duchess gave Holburn a wry look. She was not beautiful, not as Agreeable would have expected from how Holburn had described her. But that how it was with lovers, or so Agreeable understood.

Agreeable would have said that she wasn’t beautiful in the same way that Holburn wasn’t handsome.

She was lovely enough to have been a village flirt, but the sharp, careful way she had stopped to take note of Agreeable and then how she’d teased Holburn probably made her too smart for many.

She had a keen eye, Holburn had said. That would scare many away.

Agreeable straightened his shoulders to hopefully make a better impression.

“I wasn’t expecting you at dawn,” Holburn remarked, stepping over to her to kiss her brow, then her cheek, and then her mouth. She took each kiss with a smile—and her gaze on Agreeable.

“It’s hardly dawn,” she chided Holburn, although, in truth, it was not long past it. “There was a view I wanted to see as the sun rose. The coachman was very obliging for a hired man. We might need to keep him on. He seems kind.”

“I will ask him,” Holburn agreed immediately, then began, with wondrous gentleness, to pluck the sprigs of greenery from her hair. “Did you find this view of the sunrise up a tree, by any chance?”

“A small tree. I wanted a quick sketch so I can attempt to draw it properly later.” Finally, the Duchess looked up at Holburn. “You needn’t worry. I wasn’t about to fall out again.”

“Again?” Agreeable whispered to himself, remembering the pain from broken bones in childhood only too well. “How tall was the tree?”

He slapped a hand over his mouth too late to stop the question, and the Duchess slid him a look that said she could have clapped a hand over his mouth for him.

Holburn merely clucked his tongue and rubbed the dirt streak with his thumb. “Did Hilde not notice this?” He presented his thumb to the Duchess to show her some of the dirt.

“Damn and blast.” The Duchess reached into her dress for a handkerchief. “She told me and I forgot. And I saw the innkeeper looking like this. They’ll never believe I’m their duchess. Perhaps that’s for the best.”

“It’s the country.” Holburn said it as if people in the country walked around with dirt on their faces.

Agreeable glanced to the table and his wash bowl from the night before and said nothing.

“It’s a shame you couldn’t linger to draw the sunrise and pretty view properly. She’s a skilled artist,” Holburn added, to Agreeable perhaps, who tried to understand fully what that meant.

“Like what’s inside the church?” he wondered aloud. That was mostly images of saints and dragons and long-dead kings, the paint chipping from the walls, or faded from time, or covered in soot from the candles.

“I don’t paint anything. I only draw it.” The Duchess considered Agreeable with her keen eye and then, added, “I use a pencil or a piece of charcoal, and I try to create what I see on paper. But I don’t add color, and what I draw wouldn’t end up inside a church.”

“Oh.” Agreeable again tried to understand, or to seem as if he did. Some of the church images had trees or the sun in them. “So no saints, then? Or miracles?”

“When I draw people,” the Duchess answered with her chin in the air, “they are not drawings fit for a church.”

Agreeable stared at her, wide-eyed, and thought of as many reasons as he could why a drawing of a person wouldn’t do for a church.

The most obvious one was that she didn’t draw priests and angels and the like.

The second was that the wife of someone like Holburn, with his capital parties and his ways, might not be interested in covering the bodies of saints with strips of cloth to hide their soft bits.

She swept a look over his face, and Agreeable imagined he must look an innocent, gaping at her and warm in the face over the idea of naked bodies drawn on a wall.

But her eyes narrowed. Grew sharper, he would have said, much like Holburn’s did.

She murmured, “But I’ve a mind to draw saints now.

Or an angel.” She peered at Agreeable as if she could see everything he’d been pleased to give Holburn in the bed behind them and everything he wanted to do if given the chance in the future.

“Holburn,” she said suddenly. She didn’t add anything else.

Agreeable finally tore his attention from her to glance to Holburn.

Holburn’s lips twitched as he met Agreeable’s worried stare. “Ali, this is... Remi, who might do for a page.”

“A page who doesn’t know whether to bow or curtsy?” the Duchess responded immediately, gaze unwavering on Agreeable.

Agreeable put his hands out. “I’m content to stay out of the way in the kitchen or even in the garden, my lady.” He winced, then quickly added, “Your Grace.”

The Duchess finally turned from him to look at Holburn with one delicate eyebrow raised.

Holburn’s lip twitched again, although Agreeable didn’t think of any part of the situation was funny. But as if he knew that, or worse, was apologizing once more to the likes of Agreeable in front of his duchess and wife, Holburn took the last piece of bread and offered it to him.

“Eat, Remi,” he said, and Agreeable took the bread in both hands and eyed him suspiciously as he nibbled the crust. “He needs a position,” Holburn added to his wife.

“Does he?” she returned, tart. But she wasn’t flushed or screaming or making a move to flee the room.

“Two nights I was at Marie’s. Three days you and Tomas and Von have had to travel as you believe your grandfather would have wanted, and I find you with a plum in your room.

” Her smile was brief and soft. “At least you found a way to pass the time.”

“Remi found me.” Holburn was all innocence. Remi coughed around a crumb. “It’s only been one night that I’ve known him, but he does need a place and he has been most helpful.”

Plenty of wives would have had something to say about that, but the Duchess only turned to study Agreeable again.

“I answered the questions he asked me, uh, Your Grace.” Agreeable stopped with the bread in front of him like a starving mouse. “He has been determined to find me a place. But if you mind, I’ll....”

He went quiet when she waved that off.

“Do you not know whether to bow or curtsy?” she asked. Dirt remained on her cheek, only more smudged now. Agreeable was not calmed by that fact. Like Holburn, she was permitted to be unusual because she was powerful. That meant she might do anything and not even realize she was being strange.

“I... bow,” Agreeable assured her, hoping she hadn’t heard the hiccup between the words, although Holburn would have. “I bow. But I know I will not do for a page. I did try to tell him.”

“Did you?” Her tone was mild as milk. Her glance to Holburn was knowing.

“I’m not anything.” Agreeable wanted that to be clear so at least Holburn would not be in disfavor with his wife. “A failed farmer, really. I’m not even a paid bedwarmer. I’m just agreeable.”