Somewhere in the background, a wooden spoon clattered against the stone floor. Mrs. Abernathy was making a strange, high-pitched wheezing sound.
Genevieve didn't speak. She stared at him, her chest heaving. She looked like a trapped animal, calculating the distance to the nearest exit. He saw her eyes dart toward the back door that led to the kitchen gardens.
"No," Richard said. It wasn't a request.
He closed the distance between them in three long strides. He didn't care about the watching staff. He didn't care about the absurdity of the situation. He reached out and grabbed her upper arm. Her flesh was warm, solid, bone and muscle beneath the rough fabric. She flinched violently at his touch, pulling back with a sharp gasp, but he tightened his grip.
"Let go of me," she said.
Her voice. It was raspy, deeper than he remembered, lacking the refined aristocratic cadence she had been taught, but it was unmistakably hers. The sound of it hit him like a physical blow to the stomach.
"You're dead," he said, his voice entirely devoid of inflection. He was staring at her jawline, at the pulse fluttering frantically beneath her skin. "I buried your casket. I stood in the rain and watched them put an empty box in the ground."
"I am not a ghost, Richard," she said quietly.
She wasn't looking at his eyes. She was staring fixedly at the top button of his damp wool sweater. "Please let go of my arm. You are hurting me."
He dropped his hand instantly as if he had been burned. He staggered back half a step, hitting his hip against the massive prep table. A cloud of flour puffed into the air.
"You are here," he stated, trying to anchor himself to the physical reality of the room: the smell of the onions, the heat of the stove, the flour dust settling on his dark trousers. "In my kitchen. Peeling potatoes."
"Turnips," she corrected automatically, a ghost of her old dry wit flickering in her eyes for a fraction of a second before dying out.
"Where the hell have you been?"
The shock was receding, leaving behind a cold, rising tide of absolute fury. It began in his hands, which were shaking so badly he had to curl them into fists at his sides.
"7 years. 7 years, Genevieve. They found parts of the ship. They found bodies. I spent a month walking the shoreline, waiting for you to wash up."
"Sir," Mrs. Abernathy stepped forward, her hands trembling. "Your Grace, I didn't know. Her name is Jane. She's been here for 3 months. She answered an advertisement in the village."
"Get out, Richard."
He didn't look at the cook. He kept his eyes locked on his wife. "Everyone, get out of this room immediately."
The staff scattered like mice. The door to the servants' hall swung shut, followed by the heavy thud of the scullery door. Within seconds, the massive kitchen was empty, save for the two of them and the bubbling stockpot on the stove.
Genevieve reached up and pulled the linen cap off her head, letting the heavy dark hair fall around her shoulders. She looked exhausted, bone-weary, in a way that had nothing to do with kitchen labor. She walked over to the nearest wooden stool and sat down heavily, wiping her dirty hands on her apron.
"How long were you going to stay down here?" Richard asked, his voice dangerously quiet now. He walked toward her slowly. "Were you going to salt the pork, bake my bread, watch me rot from the ground floor up?"
"アクセサリー I needed money," she said flatly. She finally met his gaze. There were dark circles under her eyes. "The harvest failed in the north. I was out of options. I didn't plan to come back here, Richard. I knew you never came down to their kitchens. I thought I could work for a few months, save my wages, and leave before winter."
"You needed money." He repeated the words as if they were in a foreign language. He let out a harsh, broken laugh that scraped against his throat. "You are the Duchess of Ashbourne. You have a fortune sitting in a trust that hasn't been touched in 7 years."
"That money belongs to the Duchess of Ashbourne," she said softly, looking down at her rough, scarred hands. "And she died on those rocks, Richard. She had to."
He stopped 3 ft away from her. The anger abruptly drained out of him, leaving him hollowed out and shivering. He looked at the scar on her jaw. He looked at the cheap, practical boots on her feet.
"Why?" he asked. It was a pathetic, broken sound. "Why did you let me believe you were dead?"
Genevieve looked up. Her hazel eyes were wet, but no tears fell. "Because," she whispered, "if I had survived, the man who sabotaged the ship would have just tried again."
The word hung in the humid air of the kitchen, heavier than the smoke rolling off the cast-iron stove.
"Sabotaged?" Richard felt a cold, dull ringing start in his ears. He stared at her. He looked for a sign of madness, of hysteria. He found neither.
Genevieve sat on the rough wooden stool, her posture slumped, her expression utterly devoid of theatrics. She looked like a woman stating the price of a sack of flour.
"Someone tried to murder you," he said. The words tasted like ash.