Once Upon a Tower

“Yes, we do,” Gowan replied. “There was a great deal of waste on the various estates before we established a system by which to see the balance between what is put into the land and what is taken out.”

“Are you trying to control theft?”

“That is one goal. But more importantly, by ascertaining whether a certain technique was successful in one field, we can make an informed decision about whether to carry it over to different locations.”

Edie nodded and lapsed back into silence. Numbers flew past her ear, and Bardolph turned page after page with his whispery fingers. She started to loathe the factor’s voice. It was curt and dry, and emerged from a mouth so tight that she never saw his teeth.

When he began enumerating the eel traps at one estate and contrasting them with the eel traps at another estate, she broke in again.

“Gowan, will we stop for the midday meal?”

He had been listening to Bardolph, occasionally putting in a directive or command, even though he was perusing a different ledger at the same time. “Of course. We should be in Stevenage, our first stop, in precisely an hour and a half. We will take three-quarters of an hour for luncheon.”

“His Grace makes the trip from London so frequently,” Bardolph elaborated, “that we have devised a precisely timed itinerary for the entire journey.”

“A timed itinerary?” Edie repeated.

Bardolph nodded like a nutcracker. “We take the Great North Road, rather than the Old North Road, as it is in better condition and fewer carriages have accidents there. His Grace dislikes being detained for any reason. The inns we regularly frequent stable our horses, so we will switch to fresh livestock.”

“I am sorry for the tedium,” Gowan said, with a paternal solicitousness in his voice that grated on her nerves. “Are you dreadfully bored?”

“Bored by the recitation of eel traps? Not I,” she said. “Do go on. So one estate set their eel traps by night. Did timing have any effect on the eel harvest, if one might use the word?”

Bardolph recommenced from where he had left off, without seeming to notice the sarcasm in her voice. Edie stared out the window at the passing fields, because if she faced her fellow travelers she could not help watching Bardolph’s lips shape words without seeming to open.

When they reached the Swan in Stevenage, they were escorted into a private parlor where a hot meal awaited them. Some forty minutes later, just when Edie was contemplating whether she would shock Gowan by dismissing the footmen attending them, Bardolph stepped back into the room. A moment later, the plates were whisked from the table.

“I wasn’t quite finished with that trout,” Edie said, but it was too late; the plates had been lifted in a beautifully synchronized motion and were gone. A tea service was being brought in.

Gowan looked concerned. “Bardolph, it seems your order was precipitous.”

“Never mind,” Edie said, selecting a piece of fruit.

“In future, Her Grace is to be consulted before anything is removed,” Gowan pronounced.

Edie would have thought that went without saying, but it seemed she was being introduced to life in a monarchy. Where there was only a king and no consort. Bardolph’s bow made that clear enough, as did his remark, some three minutes later, that in order to keep to schedule, they should return to the carriages.

She considered volunteering to ride with Gowan’s solicitor, Jelves, who seemed like a nice man, but it emerged that he was joining them in their carriage.

So Edie kept to her corner while the three men talked among themselves for the remainder of the afternoon’s journey. By the time they reached the designated stop in Eaton Socon where they would be laying over for the night, she felt as if she’d been pummeled, her private parts both numb and sore, which was quite a feat.

Gowan took her arm to lead her into the George and Dragon, but she stopped him. “Just look at that,” she breathed, pointing to the roof.

The sun was setting, and its rays spread like copper wires from the horizon, painting the shingles a dark mulberry.

“No sign of rain,” Gowan remarked.

She tried again. “See how the sun is turning the roof that beautiful color and the swallows are swooping through the light as if . . .”

“As if what?” he asked.

“Well, as if they were listening to Mozart. As if the rays were staves of music. It would have to be Mozart because of the way they swoop up and down—” She tightened her grip on his arm. “There! Did you see that one? He’s dancing.”

She looked up. Gowan was smiling down at her rather than looking at the swallows. His eyes were dark and hungry. “You’re right,” he said, clearly not meaning it. “The swallows are dancing.” He put a finger on her lower lip, and Edie felt that odd quiver in her middle that she felt whenever he looked at her like that, as if she were delectable. As if he wanted to lick her from head to foot, the way he had promised to do, back at the wedding.

Standing there in the fading, coppery sunshine, Edie thought it would be a fine thing to be licked by a man who looked like her husband.

She was about to say it aloud when Bardolph stepped forward, making a scratching noise in his throat. At home, Layla had always handled the servants, and Edie had had little role other than to listen to her stepmother complain about the staff. Even given years of listening, she had no idea what Layla would do in this circumstance.

If she objected to Bardolph’s presence in the carriage—and in their life—it seemed likely that Gowan would simply overrule her. She didn’t have a sense that the servants were hers, as much as she had somehow just joined the ranks of Gowan’s retainers. In fact, she had an uneasy feeling that Bardolph outranked her.

So she stood there in the courtyard of the George and Dragon, staring blindly at the sunset, while Gowan listened to Bardolph’s recitation of how the best rooms were already made up with ducal linen (because it seemed the duke traveled with his own linen as well as his own china).

By the time Gowan turned back and offered his arm to escort her into the inn, the swallows had swooped below the roof and flown off straight as arrows into the fields, heading into the setting sun.

In contrast to the Royal Suite at Nerot’s Hotel, here they had separate rooms; presumably there was no suite grand enough for the both of them. Feeling human again after a hot bath, Edie descended to the private dining room. She could not help but feel a creeping anxiety. What if it was still painful tonight? Perhaps she should tell Gowan her fears before he even came to her bed.

As soon as she was seated, Gowan’s butler launched into an interminable disquisition of something that looked to Edie exactly like a ham pie, although Mr. Bindle had a far fancier name for it. When Bindle was done, Rillings took over, describing the first wine that would be served during the meal.

The footmen standing against the wall behind her seemed to have little to do but to fill her glass, so one of them would lunge forward after she’d had two sips. It was so disconcerting that when the second course was served and Rillings solemnly opened a bottle of Tokay wine, Edie declined.

“I would prefer some water,” she said.

Rillings frowned. “Water in an establishment such as this is likely to be unhealthful, Your Grace.”

Edie sighed and accepted a glass of wine. It was sweeter than she liked.