Of Moths and Butterflies (32 page)

“At least I know what you would try to convince me of.”

“Imogen, please,” he said with a great breath, and approached her once more.

He did not stop this time until he was directly before her. He raised one hand and with the back of his fingers gently brushed her cheek. The bruise her aunt had inflicted, though disguised, was there nonetheless. He saw it. He could not help but see it. He could not help but regret—everything. No. Not everything. For she was his. She was here, where he would have her. In a room of her own designing. Her bedroom. How badly he wanted her!

As if she had read his mind, she turned from him, drawing that wretched paisley shawl about her and veritably shutting him out. Perhaps it was too soon.

Uncertain what to do, he watched her in silence for a moment or two before asking the question he dreaded most to ask. “Shall I leave you?”

“Yes,” she said without a second’s hesitation.

“Very well, then,” he said and crossed to the adjoining door. His hand was on the knob when he stopped again. “I’ve taken over the use of your sitting room. Until my own room is finished I’ll have to make do in here. I hope you won’t mind.”

She did not answer at first, but the look on her face was not a pleasant one.

“I suppose it is an inconvenience.”

“You may come and go whenever you wish. It’s only an inconvenience for one of us.”

His gaze hardened and shoving his hand in his pocket, he approached her. In a few long strides he stood before her once more. He withdrew his fisted hand and watched as her expression changed from one of defensive challenge to one of fear. He regretted what must have gone into the shaping of so much apparent pain and distrust. He knew. He knew part of it, at any rate. Angry a moment ago, he found himself relenting. He took her hand and placed within her palm the key to the adjoining door.

“I’m no monster,” he said. “You needn’t worry I’ll so much as touch you if you don’t wish it. Neither will I oppress you with my company. Goodnight, Imogen.” And he left her once more to the solitude she seemed to want so badly.

Having retired to his own room, he began preparing himself for bed. His heart was heavy with the knowledge that this, which should have been the happiest night of his life, promised now to be the gloomiest. He couldn’t blame her and he didn’t, but he was nonetheless frustrated to think of her alone and glad to be, and he alone and sorry to be. The door had not been closed many minutes before he heard the click, and then the grating of metal against metal as she fastened the lock. The sound sent a chill through his frame.

MOGEN AROSE THE
following morning to find Archer in the breakfast room, a plate before him and a letter in his hand. He stood as she entered.

“Mrs. Hamilton,” he said rather stiffly. “I trust you slept well.”

She had slept well. Very well. Her conscience pricked her as she looked at him. Clearly he had found little rest.

“Yes, thank you,” she answered with a repentant smile.

He seemed to relax somewhat in return for her effort.

“Will you?” he said and motioned for her to be seated.

While the footman helped her with her chair, a wave of Archer’s hand summoned one of the maids. Hesitantly, Imogen glanced up to gauge the girl’s reaction to her return, but, to her surprise, she did not recognise the face. She turned to Archer with a puzzled look.

“Ah,” he said, laying his letter down. “Becky has been dismissed.”

“Dismissed?”

“Harriet too. I did not want it to be more unpleasant for you than necessary.”

“Thank you,” she found herself saying, and though she was a little sorry to hear that a former friend had lost her position, she was nevertheless grateful. How awkward would it be had they remained? Having to face Mrs. Hartup again was difficult enough.

“There will be a great many changes. You realise that, of course.”

“Yes, I suppose there will be.”

“The Abbey is to be restored, for one thing,” he went on. “And we’ve been desperately understaffed for too long.”

“Yes, I see,” she said.

“It’s Sir Edmund’s intention,” he continued warily and picking up the letter once more, “that you should direct the rest of the improvements, as you did in the upper rooms.”

“The entire house?”

“We’ll begin in the state and public rooms first. Those that will be seen. Of course you won’t be doing the work yourself, simply directing, supervising, making the decisions. Do you mind?”

She considered this for a moment, trying to decide just what she should make of such a request. Was she truly returning to work, or was it under another guise altogether, an exalted one, that she would be carrying out her labours?

“If you object, of course something else can be arranged.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t mind.” And she realised then that she didn’t. At least she would not be left alone with nothing at all to occupy her time. A purpose would serve her well. “When shall I begin?”

“Soon, I’m afraid. The workmen have already been engaged. They’ll arrive tomorrow.”

“As soon as that?” she said. There was no need to waste time, she supposed. Now they had the money for such long overdue improvements, it was perhaps wise to begin at once. Only…

“It is a great deal to ask.”

“It will keep me busy. I would much rather be busy. I believe you said there is much for you to do as well.”

She arose from her place.

“Gina.”

She turned sharply upon hearing the name she had used as a servant.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Old habits die hard. Now you’ve returned...”

“I suppose you may call me what you like.”

“Don’t go,” he said, standing. Glancing at her place, he added, “You’ve not eaten.”

“I have much to do to prepare, and I’ve not yet unpacked. The workmen come tomorrow, I think you said.”

“Yes, but–” He faltered. “Will you let me show you?”

“The house?”

“Yes.”

“I think I’m familiar enough with the house,” she said with the faintest hint of laughter.

He smiled, and laying down his napkin, he arose. “Come,” he said, and took her hand.

He led her first through the great hall, then the east wing of the ground floor, examining the state of the sitting rooms, and then on into the ballroom. It was here her materials had been arranged, vast quantities of fabrics and wallpapers, blocks of wood with various paint colours, and catalogues of furniture designs and window treatments were provided for her to choose from.

“There is no hurry, I presume,” she said as she realised the monumental scale of the task before her.

“I don’t believe so.”

“And I shall make my choices, as I did before, and present them to Sir Edmund?”

“You are your own agent now. You needn’t trouble him over it.”

“Ah,” she said, understanding. So she was to return to work, after all. The first and foremost task at hand being to keep out of the way. Well that suited her well enough.

She smiled stiffly and then looked about in wonder. Much of her work seemed already to be dictated by the house itself. At least here in the ballroom she could take her cues from what had been done before. She would not be improving so much as restoring. A mural upon the ceiling would be the most challenging but, again, she need only direct. A simple matter really. The floors would need polishing, but the black and white marble required little more attention than that. The chairs must be reupholstered, and the curtains must be replaced. Yes, there was much to do, but with some considerable organisation, with a helper or two—or half a dozen—she would manage well enough.

“Charlie?” she found herself asking. “How is he? Where is he?”

“I expect you’ll see him soon. I know he’ll be pleased to see you.”

“He does not know?”

“About our marriage?”

“Yes.”

“It happened so quickly.” He shook his head to say the rest.

So he didn’t know. Perhaps no one knew. And what to make of that? She looked then from the ballroom into the room beyond. Here was at once a conservatory and a music room, divided from the ballroom by nothing more than a series of glass doors. Opposite these, the room terminated in another gallery of glass doors, providing a sort of transition between the conservatory and the garden beyond. She had never been in this part of the house before, and she found it both enchanting and forlorn, as though it represented some great happiness never before realised. A grand piano stood not quite in the centre of the room and she approached it, though warily.

“Do you play?” Archer asked her as she stroked the dusty keys.

“No,” she said. “That is, I used to.”

“But no more? Why not?”

She paled with the answer impossible to give—the visions and memories invoked by the very sight of the instrument, the face of he who had formed the ill association was recalled to her, he who had first called her Gina, and the reason she both detested the name and had taken it as her own after having been lowered, defiled by him. Closing the piano’s lid, she closed her eyes to the memories and returned to the ballroom. Here she began to acquaint herself with all that was available in comparison to all that must be done. The ballroom might not take much, but there were the sitting and state rooms to consider as well.

“The week is ours,” he said, recalling her attention once more.

“Yes, but as you said the workmen will be here tomorrow and there is much to do.”

“There is the removal and the cleaning. Plaster to be repaired, that sort of thing. None of that requires anything more than your occasional observation and approval.”

She was uncertain of this.

“The day at least,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “Will you give me that much?”

She turned a full circle, looking about her at the myriad choices before her, all representative of the work that lay ahead. Facing him once more, she saw a look, both pleading and pained.

“Yes, all right.”

Yet they remained, the question hanging between them,
what now
?

“Shall we walk out of doors?” Archer suggested.

Imogen, nodded and followed, maintaining a distance of a few feet between them, always keeping just beyond his reach. Back through the music room they walked and out onto a sort of patio that led into what once must have been a formal garden, rank and weedy now.

“It must have been beautiful once,” she said, when they stopped to examine it.

“I imagine it was. It will be again, now. You might direct that too, you know.”

More work! And yet there remained something in his manner, in the gentle way he spoke, and in the way he presented his home to her that made her feel as though she were quite mistress of the place, indeed. Or might one day be so, should she manage to prove herself worthy of the distinction.

Archer turned toward the house, a contemplative look upon his brow. From here alone it was apparent that the oldest part of the Abbey was that from which they had exited. The cloisters which lined the courtyard were all new and disguised the transition, but here the aged and weatherworn stonework was quite plainly of an earlier age than that which she’d seen elsewhere.

“I’m not familiar with that part of the house. The upper floor particularly.”

“My parent’s rooms,” Archer answered. “Hers were there, at any rate. Are still. It’s just as it was when she died.”

“Will you tell me about her?”

He seemed suddenly reluctant. “There isn’t much to tell. At least, I know very little.”

“Have you no memory of her?”

“None.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and truly she was. She could relate to his loss, after all, though she remembered her own mother very well.

“You needn’t be,” he said with a look that was both dismissive and grateful.

She longed to know of the one woman who might have been everything to him and could not understand his indifference. “Do you never think of her?”

“What good can it do?”

This was not really an answer and she accepted it reluctantly. “And your father?”

“Of him I know even less. Neither will Sir Edmund speak of him, for all he was his brother.”

“You must wonder how different your life might have been had they lived.”

“Better to let sleeping dogs lie, as they say,” he answered stiffly.

“Is that what Sir Edmund says?”

“What does it matter if it’s true?”

“But to know… I would think it might be a comfort to you.”

“There is nothing to know,” he said, clearly tired of the subject. “My parents were not married. He was killed. She died alone in this house, and my uncle then raised me.”

“If you do not wish to speak of her—”

“I don’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should not have insisted.”

He released a great breath of air and relented, though his manner was still impatient. “She is never spoken of. By me or anyone. You asked if I think of her. Of course I do. But she is never mentioned, in certain company, especially. Do you understand?”

“But why should Sir Edmund take exception to your mother’s name?”

“That is one of the impenetrable mysteries of my life, Gina. I imagine it isn’t the only one. You have a mystery or two of your own, I think.”

“Yes, I suppose I do,” she answered.

“Perhaps it’s best to leave it at that, for now.”