Page 8 of The Lady Who Left (The Flower Sisters #4)

“ I ’m assuming the china would go in the china room, but what about the silver? Is there a silver room? How would I know which one it is if there isn’t any silver in it?”

Marigold’s jaw slackened as she held out her hands to slow the torrent of words escaping her new housekeeper. Beatrice Addington went by Bea, presumably because that’s as much as anyone could get in before she cut them off. “Mrs. Addington—”

“Also, could you call me Bea?” The woman hardly looked old enough to be employed as a kitchen maid, and Marigold was beginning to understand why her butler at Harrow Hall had been hesitant, then profoundly relieved, when she agreed to hire his daughter in her fledgling home. “Mrs. Addington is my mother, and this—” She gestured towards her drab black dress, the standard for English housekeepers, and winced. “Well, I have some suggestions.”

“And I appreciate them, and you, Mrs. Addington, b-but why d-don’t we wait until we’re more settled? And the silver room is connected to the p-p-pantry. The excess china will go there once you’ve finished with the silver.”

Bea’s head cocked to the side. “Oh, milady, I’m so sorry about the lisp. A friend of mine from school had the same. The boys teased her something awful for it.”

Marigold’s lips flattened into a thin line. She was already rattled by the horrible encounter with Archie the day before—

Archie. Pain and regret slashed across her chest.

But before she could breathe, she needed to rid herself of her loquacious new housekeeper. “It’s a st-st-stutter, but thank you.”

“And thank you,” Bea said with a deep curtsey. “For some reason, I can’t hold down a post anywhere. Da says I need to keep my mouth shut and get to my job, but that doesn’t seem so friendly, does it?”

Bea may not last long in this post either. “Mrs. Addington,” Marigold hazarded, “I must warn you. I d-don’t intend to remain in England p-past this autumn. There may not b-be a p-position for you for long.”

“I understand,” Bea said. “But I’ll watch out for you while I can, and maybe you can write a letter for me if I do well?” She punctuated the request with a wide smile and a bob on her toes, and Marigold smiled despite herself.

“I expect you will d-do a lovely job.”

Bea grinned. “Da said you were one of the good ones.” She curtsied once more before darting towards the silver room, and Marigold sighed. Perhaps her garrulous Matthew could keep up with the housekeeper once he and Reggie returned.

She’d received a small package that morning, and remembering the contents made tears burn in her throat. A long missive from her mother, detailing the journey to Boston and every detail of her youngest sister Fern’s life with a new baby. A quick note from Alexander, her brother-in-law and a mathematics professor at Harvard. He wished her well and expressed how much he enjoyed showing her boys around American Revolutionary War sites.

Matthew had written a few lines about visiting Boston Common and the Old North Church below a sketch of what must have been his interpretation of the Boston Tea Party, although he’d substituted what looked like vegetables for tea.

Reggie had included a series of mathematical equations that made Marigold’s head ache. Fern, herself a mathematics graduate student, wrote in her sloping handwriting just below.

Reggie worked out this proof for himself in one afternoon! I’m going to teach him derivations next!

Beneath her message was a line drawing of Reggie bent over a desk, scribbling furiously. Fern possessed multiple gifts, mathematics and art being only two of them, though English society had overlooked them because of her sometimes alienating behavior. How lovely for Reggie to find a kindred spirit in his aunt.

How devastating it would be for him to be thrown to the wolves at Felton College if Marigold was unsuccessful .

While Marigold had always preferred solitude, the isolation of her last several years made her crave the family she’d left behind. Aside from her most recent visit, she rarely saw Lily. Violet had fled to Hampshire over a scandal and broken heart, and Rose and Fern, her youngest sisters and twins, had both fallen in love and moved to America. If her children were taken away as well, what would she have left?

She couldn’t entertain that thought, not if she wanted to maintain her sanity. Even if she failed in obtaining her divorce and remained legally married, she could sail to American, sell the jewelry her husband had given her over the years and use it to start a life in hiding. The thought caused a fresh knot of anxiety to tie in her chest. But the prospect of remaining in England, where the marquess could find new ways to humiliate her and torment their children, was untenable.

She jolted at the unfamiliar—a knock on the front door. Her fear fed her ample reasons someone might call upon her at the early hour, none of them pleasant, the least of which being her husband demanding she return to Harrow Hall, as though he could hear the rebellious path her thoughts had taken.

But she’d heard nothing from him since the day she asked for the divorce, and she expected she wouldn’t until papers were delivered to his solicitor.

The door slammed, shaking the windows in their panes, and light footsteps scurried down the hallway. “Pardon, milady,” Bea gushed from the threshold, her palm pressed to her chest. “There’s a gentleman here to see you, and may I say—”

“You may not say—” Marigold hissed.

“—he’s deliciously handsome.” Bea fluttered her hand in front of her face. “His name is…” She pulled a card from her sleeve and squinted. “Mr. Grand?”

A throat cleared behind her. “Um, Mr. Grant .”

Marigold froze. So did Bea. “Oh dear,” the housekeeper whispered. “I was s’posed to ask you before I let him in, wasn’t I?”

She could only nod, as her mouth was dry and her lungs seized like she’d been dunked beneath icy water.

Bea fluttered her lashes at Archie and waved him forward. “Mr. Arthur Grand!” she cried like he was about to be introduced to the queen, and Archie caught Marigold’s gaze over the housekeeper’s shoulder.

A lopsided smile, the same one that had sent her insides bubbling like champagne on that night that seemed a lifetime ago.

But now, uncertainty weighed her down, rooted her heeled boots to the floor.

“Shall I prepare a tea tray, milady?”

Christ, Bea was still here? “No, thank you,” she managed.

Bea sighed in relief. “Good thing. I’ve no idea what goes on a tea tray. Besides tea, I suppose, but then…” The rest of her musings were lost as the girl snapped the door shut behind her.

“May I?” he asked gruffly, gesturing towards the settee beneath the window overlooking the square, and Marigold gave a quick nod before sitting gingerly in a spindly chair opposite him. Were she able to pull a sofa into the hallway and lock the door between them, she would have .

So much for the brave woman she’d been that night at the hunting lodge.

Archie’s lips flattened. “We have a lot to say to each other, I suppose. I’ve been trying to think what to say first, but—”

“You lied t-t-t-to me.”

His eyes widened. So did hers. “I beg your pardon?” Condescension dripped from his words. “I lied to you? You’re married! ” He hissed the last word like it was something profane.

A lump settled in her throat and pressed on her larynx, nearly robbing her of speech. “You said you were a farmer.”

“A farmer?” He shook his head, then laughed, a low, humorless chuckle from deep in his chest. “Of all the things we said to each other that night, all the things we did that night, you’re worried about my profession?”

“You never asked me about b-b-being married.”

“Or being a mother.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and the lump broke apart into a million shards of shale, each one slicing at her insides as she swallowed it. “I should have said that first, b-b-because I am. So sorry. Everything got out of hand, and I…”

“You ran.” His tone lacked judgment, as though her cowardly flight from the party was a mere historical fact. Perhaps, to him, it was. “You didn’t want me to know about your husband, I take it?”

“I p-p-panicked.”

Something dark passed over his expression as he scrubbed his hand over his mouth. Despite remaining in his seat, Archie hadn’t stopped moving the entire time he’d been there. His fingers tapped on his knee, his feet shifting on the Aubusson rug below his boots. That wide mouth, those lips she’d loved kissing mere weeks ago, moved like he wanted to say something, but he checked himself every time.

“That night was a revelation,” she said when the silence became too heavy to carry. “You’d just met me and acted like I was the most fascinating woman in the world.”

His expression remained stoic, and her stomach lurched.

“I chose t-to forget what awaited me outside. I never p-planned on what happened.” She rolled her lips between her teeth. “My sister—”

He raised one brow. “Your sister was there? What other relations should I know about?”

“My sister is the c-c-countess,” she said, her cheeks heating. “Lily.”

“Wonderful!” He scoffed and shook his head. “Any more family members you’d like to include in this debacle? How about your parents? Some cousins?”

Her nostrils flared as her frustration shifted to hostility. She didn’t tell him everything that night, but if this was his true character, he hadn’t been honest, either. “I should have t-told you, b-b-but I hadn’t expected to see you again. I thought you’d never learn the t-truth. I’m sorry, Archie. Mr. Grant.”

His jaw clenched. “I wrote to your sister, everyone I could think of. Did you know I was looking for you? Did you come to my office today just to mock me, to spite me? ”

Her vision clouded as she jolted to her feet. “I would never sp-sp-sp—”

Marigold bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood and shut her eyes. Her fingernails dug into the fleshy heel of her palms as she forced herself to breathe. She loathed the moments when her emotions overcame her and her stutter grew too powerful for her to control. Words, a conglomeration of consonants and vowels, syllables and sounds jammed at her tongue like logs in a dam, allowing nothing through until she brought herself away from the brink.

After a slow, deliberate exhale, she opened her eyes. Archie sat on the edge of his seat, his brows furrowed and one hand extended, as though he were reaching for her. Seeming to realize his posture, he pulled his hand back and fisted it on his lap.

“I would never sp-spite you,” she said, focusing on each sound as it left her lips. Perhaps if she focused on the letters, she could ignore how much they hurt her to say. “I truly d-didn’t know who you were. I never meant to cause you harm.”

He nodded grimly, looking away at his feet. “So this was all a coincidence.”

She sat once more, one ankle tucked under the other. Her hands trembled as she laced her fingers together. “You were the only solicitor in Yorkshire who hadn’t already rejected my case.”

His snort was derisive. “I’m thrilled to hear my reputation precedes me. The last solicitor in Yorkshire?”

“Several in London refused as well. ”

He leaned against the back of the settee with a wince. “This has been humbling.”

Marigold wanted to collapse into herself, to allow her rib cage to devour her shoulders, to disappear from the shame of what she’d done. But hiding from the marquess had not made her marriage more palatable, and Archie still held her fate in his hands.

He shook his head. “You must be at the end of your options. I’m not even a solicitor.” Her brows furrowed. “I primarily argue in court. For the best, as paperwork isn’t my strong suit.”

Her insides crumbled. He wouldn’t help her, not that she expected him to after what she’d done.

“Do you have any savings,” he asked in a frigid voice, interrupting her thoughts, “any plans for what you’d do if you were successful in divorcing your husband?”

Her head tilted at his question. Was he concerned for her? “I have jewelry I can sell, enough to p-pay a solicitor and start over somewhere else. I can’t st-stay in England. I have no need for society’s acceptance, b-but I won’t have my children b-be subjected to gossip or the interference of their father.”

He studied the carpet at his feet, and her heart thundered. As stunning as it had been for him to arrive on her doorstep, how humiliated she was by her actions, the thought of sending him away, of never seeing him again, made something in her chest twist in displeasure. But what choice did she have but to shut him out?

She swallowed, her throat raw. “Will you tell the marquess what happened b-b-between us?”

“No. ”

“You won’t?” She searched his face, waiting for the catch, some hidden agenda he’d make known as soon as she was vulnerable. She’d shown him her soft underbelly, and certainly he would strike the moment she was weakest.

That’s what men did, after all.

“I have no intention of telling the marquess,” he went on, “but there is something you can do for me.”

Her gut twisted as understanding dawned. “Once I sell my jewels, I can pay you to keep this a secret.”

“I don’t care about your money,” he said, leaning forward and bracing his forearms on his thighs. “I want your case.”