First, dinner.
She sat in a dress embroidered with leaves to cover a tear at the right sleeve which resisted mending. Platters stretched before her: poultry, greens, root vegetables, and a tower of sticky buns. Lady Blackwell sat at the other end of the table, chatting with the other ladies. She had changed into a glorious silver wig for the occasion. Lady Marigold was still wearing yellow. Lady Beatrice, in a dark blue gown, resigned to sitting between two exotic birds who might render her blind.
“Tell me, Your Grace, how did you come to inherit the Ladies Marigold and Beatrice?” Lady Blackwell asked, sipping her wine.
Lady Beatrice barked a laugh that was more smug than cheerful. “We refused to go.”
“We haven’t left the house since my brother died,” Lady Marigold admitted.
“We weren’t sure how the new duke might take to us,” Lady Beatrice added, narrowing one eye at the new duke in question.
“As if I’d toss two old—er, that is, ladies,” he muttered at his buttered peas. “Out on the street.”
“Oh, well done, you,” Lady Blackwell toasted him with her goblet. “We’ll have you polished up in no time.”
“He doesn’t need polishing,” Charlie snapped. Dougal shook his head almost imperceptibly. Charlie mutinied. “Well, you don’t.”
“Of course, he does,” Lady Blackwell returned, not at all bothered by Charlie’s somewhat vehement manners. She was used to Meg and the others running wild when they were younger.
And sometimes still.
“We all get a little polishing, whether we like it or not,” she continued. “Life rubs at us and we can let it grind us down and make us rough, or we can decide to shine.”
The Black siblings stared at her. They would come to learn that Lady Blackwell’s sugary froth hid more salt than sweet.
Dougal and his family did not speak much as they continued to eat, only shifted uncomfortably on the velvet chairs, and tried to smile when someone happened to catch their eye. She spread butter on a roll of heavy dark bread and Dougal turned to her apologetically. “There’s softer bread at the other end of the table, if you’d like,” he said. “We can’t get used to it, I’m afraid.”
“I like this bread,” she assured him. She was as accustomed to eating it as she was to the lighter, whiter bread that flirted with being a pastry more than bread. She wished she knew how to put them at their ease.
She’d dismiss the footmen behind each chair, for one. And Mrs. Hill, who came in once to speak to the butler and sniffed at Charlie’s hair slipping its pins in a way that rose Meg’s protective hackles. Especially when Charlie lifted her chin defiantly. The small rebellion was not enough to hide the tightening of her shoulders.
The formality was underlined by the dining room itself, which was long and cavernous, owing to its former abbey-related needs no doubt. She could perfectly picture monks praying in rows or tending to well-born visitors in padded doublets and hose in this space. The mural marching across one wall was definitely newer, considering the Roman gods reclining in leafy bowers and the sheer number of bare breasts. There were more stars spilling across the ceiling, as in every room she’d been in.
Dougal must have noticed the way she kept sneaking glances at the one mural. “You do not approve?” he asked.
“I like it fine. But I want to fix it,” she admitted.
“Fix it?”
“The paint is peeling in the corner and that faded gray with a hint of beige? Those leaves used to be a vibrant green with bright yellow to mimic sunlight.”
“I assumed it was always this… vague.”
“Certainly not.” Because she suddenly sounded as offended as Mrs. Hill, she smiled to soften her immediate and prickly reaction to badly treated art. “It might have originally tended towards the garish, in fact. But art needs care, like anyone else.”
“Anyone?” George inquired. “Or anything?”
“Anyone,” she said firmly. “Art has a soul, I think. Though your village vicar I’m sure would disagree.”
George smiled. “I sometimes think this house has a soul.”
“George has appointed himself the Abbey historian,” Charlie said, with more than a hint of pride. And warning. “He’s read nearly every book in the library on this house and the family.”
“Hardly a historian,” he protested, sounding a touch embarrassed. “It’s not like I had much schooling. I just like to read. And I like to know where I am.”
“Mr. Williams,” Meg said earnestly. “I grew up around a great many antiquarians and historians. Believe me when I tell you all you need is a passion for history.”
His soft smile grew softer still. “You are kind, Miss Swift.”