When the Duke Returns(73)

“I came to ask you to join us in the Dower House,” Isidore said. Truly, she did feel a bit faint at the odor. “Supper is being sent from the village. You can’t possibly eat here.”

“I doubt that I could eat.”

Isidore realized that the dowager was distinctly white, with patches of rouge standing out like poppies on her cheeks. “Your Grace, I insist that you accompany me out of this house. You are faint from lack of air.”

“I am faint from the stench,” the dowager said. But she put out a hand to the back of a chair. “I thought I would—”

Isidore took her arm. “You may return to your chambers as soon as they are habitable,” she said coaxingly.

“You needn’t treat me like a child!” the dowager snapped, but she did take a step toward the door. “I can’t leave my jewels.”

“They’ll be—”

“I go nowhere without my jewels. No one understands my attachment to them.”

Isidore nodded. “We’ll take them with us.”

“And I was working on letters,” the duchess said. “I must have them as well. I must finish my correspondence.”

Isidore glanced over at the table stacked high with sheets of stationery. “We can’t carry those. Is this your jewelry box?” She picked up an exquisite little box, rosewood with silver hinges.

“One of them,” the dowager said. “The other is there.” She nodded toward a much larger box, made of leather and trimmed with faded velvet.

“Goodness,” Isidore said a moment later. “It is heavy.”

“I shall carry the smaller one,” the dowager announced. “Give it to me. I suppose all the footmen have fled the house.”

“They’re in the barn,” Isidore explained.

“Stuff and nonsense,” the dowager said, taking the rosewood box. She opened the door of her room and the smell came to meet them, like a blow. The dowager fell back.

“Steady,” Isidore said. “Your Grace, why don’t I fetch your son? Footmen could carry you outside.”

“I am tired of being old,” the dowager stated. “I shall leave this room under my own two feet.”

They started down the stairs. When they reached the bottom, the hallway held a couple of men so filthy that Isidore had never seen the like. Dirt was caked on their legs and splattered on their shirts. Their faces were partially covered with red kerchiefs, but their hair and skin was caked with excrement.

The one closest to the bottom stair grinned, his teeth startling white against the kerchief covering his nose.

The dowager made a strange gulping noise, and her grip on Isidore’s arm weakened. “Your Grace!” Isidore said sharply, pulling her mother-in-law off the final stair.

The dowager opened her mouth, like a fish out of water. “This is—this is—”

“I agree, but we must continue.”

“Oh dear, oh dear, ladies as is seeing what they shouldn’t,” a cheerful voice said.

Isidore looked up and met the eyes of a third man, who had just emerged from the water closet. She knew in an instant that this particular member of the Dead Watch was an utter rogue, due to the peculiar flatness of his eyes, and the way he was smiling without smiling. “Jack Bartlebee, top of the Dead Watch,” he said to her. “And you two must be duchesses. I’ve a tenderness for the nobility. Really I do. When the king passes in his carriage of a Sunday, I always bobs me knee. Don’t I, lads?”

“That you do, Jack,” one chimed in.

“Ain’t it a shame, yer duchess, but Mr. Honeybutt went down the hillside to deal with a little problem with the pipes. We’ll have to help you.”

The closest man held out his hands, caked with brown.

The dowager made a choking sound and clutched her jewelry box.

“Tush, tush,” Bartlebee said. “You’re affronting the ladies, Wiglet. You was always too forward in your approach. Ladies like the gentle word, the sweet tongue, ain’t that right?”

“Sir,” Isidore said, “if you would move to the side, I would be grateful to take my mother-in-law into the open. She faints for lack of air.”

“I’ll help you,” Bartlebee said genially. “Of course I will. I’ll take that wee little box that the lady is holding—”

“Don’t touch it!” the dowager said, her voice a strangely airy version of her normal peremptory tone. “I can’t have you touch my—”

All three of them had their hands stretched out. Isidore took a step to the side, dragging the dowager with her. She could leave through the ballroom, rather than out the front door. The men were enjoying causing fear. Their faces were alight with some sort of strange pleasure.