Page 11 of The Lady Who Left (The Flower Sisters #4)
M arigold released the door knocker—a hideous depiction of a lion with a colossal brass ring hanging from its nose—and waited, shifting on her feet. Sweat unrelated to the afternoon heat stuck her dress to her lower back. How odd to be made to wait at what should be her home, and she felt like her skin was going to crawl off her body, some insidious wrongnes s climbing up her spine.
Of course, she’d insisted she would be fine without Archie’s assistance. Bringing an unknown man to her husband’s ancestral dwelling would only cause aggravation among the staff. But she missed him now, the steady presence that challenged and soothed her in equal parts.
Best she not think of him too fondly. Archie was clear that theirs was a professional relationship, nothing more, nor could it be for the sake of her children. But her body remembered his, how he drew pleasure from her as easily as breathing. More and more often, she found herself returning to those golden moments they’d shared to pull herself out of the swirling anxiety that consumed her.
She rapped on the knocker again to ground herself in the moment. They’d spent the hack ride from King’s Crossing to Mayfair planning their next steps. Marigold would gather the letters from the marquess, and then Archie would track down the mind doctor he’d mentioned could help them. She didn’t understand this portion of the case, but she trusted his expertise, even as it wound her anxiety into a tighter ball beneath her sternum.
Just as she reached for the lion for the third time, the door swung open. Mrs. Graney stared down her long nose at Marigold as though the mistress of the house were a beggar seeking kitchen scraps. “Milady,” she said, her voice pinched. “We weren’t expecting you today.”
Of course not. She hadn’t set foot on this doorstep in nearly three years. She’d hated the dark interiors covered with portraits of her husband’s scowling ancestors, spindly furniture that wouldn’t withstand Matthew’s rough play, bedrooms so cold she spent her nights curled in a ball praying for dawn to come.
And worst of all, her husband passed most of his time there.
“I won’t st-stay long,” Marigold managed as she moved to cross the threshold, but the housekeeper scowled and shifted to her left, blocking Marigold’s progress.
“His lordship isn’t here, milady,” she said.
Precisely. Archie had deployed a small army of teenage sentinels he’d found near the train station, armed with shiny pound coins and a description of her husband. No less than a quarter hour later, they received word that the marquess was taking a long luncheon at White’s.
Marigold lifted her chin. “I have some items I need for the country.”
The housekeeper shifted, threw a quick glance over her shoulder, and the knot of tension seemed to pulse.
“Of course, milady,” Mrs. Graney finally said, the three words lacking all hospitality, then stepped aside.
Marigold hurried past her, shivering as her heels clicked on the marble flooring. She refused the tea tray Mrs. Graney offered, her knees shaking as she mounted the curved staircase towards her bedroom.
“The room isn’t made up, milady!”
But she’d already shut the door, sliding the lock in place. She leaned her back against the solid wood, her pulse racing and breath sawing in and out. Opening her eyes, she saw her bed first. Certainly a layer of dust covered it now. The romantic, gauzy canopy she’d thought was exquisite when she’d been a virgin bride now seemed funereal, as though it were to be laid over a corpse before burial. Appropriate, as her hopes of a loving marriage had died there on her wedding night, when her husband declared he couldn’t couple with her until she learned to manage her stammer so she wouldn’t embarrass him.
She shook her head. There would be plenty of time to mourn her girlish dreams of romance once she became a free woman, and that would never happen unless she found the letters .
Her writing desk was one of the few aspects of Croydon House she missed, a gift from her mother and father that she’d put beneath a wide window overlooking the mews behind the townhouse. She had spent hours of her early married days staring over the mercilessly pruned gardens, wishing for the lush green of Oxfordshire and her family home at Boar’s Hill.
When she was divorced, she’d pay whatever it cost to take this desk with her to start her new life in America. Fueled by this resolve, she opened the small drawers and withdrew the stack of correspondence from her husband, tied with a piece of faded yellow ribbon, and shoved it in her reticule. Every letter was brief, a carelessly scrawled reply to some request of hers, typically a refusal. Missed birthdays, Christmases, promises broken again and again.
After the letters, she opened her wardrobe and the drawer stuffed full of jewelry. She winced at the sight, remembering the perturbation of their weight on her ears and neck, the discomfiting scratch of hard, cold metal and gemstones against her flesh. Yet every year, a new piece arrived at the end of December, wrapped in pretty paper with a handwritten note wishing her the happiest of Christmases.
The notes were never in his hand. Nor had she worn any of the pieces he’d given her in years. But now, they could pay for Archie’s fee.
She scooped them unceremoniously into her reticule and, when it wouldn’t close, pulled out a second bag to carry the rest. One necklace was still in its box, and as she tipped the string of silver and pearls into her hand, a slip of paper came with it. She turned it over.
Garrard she’d never set foot inside and had only caught glimpses through the open doorway.
Perhaps she’d expected some immediate sign of her husband’s mental state, his rampant infidelity, but the chamber was remarkable in its sterility. No personal items sat at his bedside, no family photos on his desk—
The desk.
She rushed to the writing desk, larger than hers but far smaller than those in his downstairs office or at Harrow Hall. Her trembling fingers tugged at the drawers, finding cufflinks and a broken watch fob, some gambling notes and personal cards from his colleagues in Parliament.
And a paper with the same logo from Garrard & Co.
A series of heavy knocks sounded on the door to her bedchamber. “Milady? Are you well?”
She didn’t even take the time to read the receipt, shoving it inside her bag with the jewelry that suddenly became so weighty she wondered if she’d be able to make it downstairs. Her pulse thundered, her palms slick beneath the leather of her gloves, and she tugged them off and pushed them in the reticule like a thief as she hurried through the adjoining door, shutting it as quietly as she could.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she called back, hoping the housekeeper didn’t hear the labor in her breath. She was certain the woman sent a messenger to find her husband the instant she arrived, meaning he could arrive at any moment. What if he found her like this? Would he confront her?
With one last glance at her bed, Marigold fisted her hands on the handles of the reticules and thought of Archie. He’d promised to be standing by in a hack around the corner, and knowing he was there, waiting and believing in her, made her throw the door open and meet the pinched, suspicious expression of the housekeeper. “Is there anything I can help you with, milady?”
She gave the woman the widest smile she could manage. “No, thank you. I have everything I need.”