“None of Them Will Be My Mother!” the Duke’s Son Declared — Until the Cook Brought an Apple Pie
Chapter 13
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But Lady Honoria was not satisfied with quiet: she was a woman who liked a lesson to be seen. And at noon the next day, she had every servant at Ashborne drawn up in the great hall in two straight lines—18 of them, from Mr. Weatherby to little Nell, with the vicar's wife and two village women delivering eggs staring in at the door.She read out Rosamund's offenses in a clear, carrying voice: familiarity with her betters, neglect of her station, corrupting the household's discipline. The cook stood at the end of the line with her hands folded and her eyes on the middle distance, and she counted the black and white tiles of the floor."Take your things and go," said Lady Honoria. "You will leave by the front door, so that every person in this house may see the end of such conduct."Rosamund curtsied. She walked 40 paces from the base door to the great oak front door with the whole household watching, her trunk carried behind her by a white-faced footman, and she counted every single one.Halfway there, a door banged on the upper landing, and a small figure came pelting down the great staircase, screaming: "No! You cannot! Papa will not allow it!"Master Edmund hurled himself at his great-aunt with both fists, and Mrs. Hollis caught him around the middle with tears running down her face."I will never forgive you!" the boy shrieked. "Never! Never! Never!"Rosamund stopped on the threshold. She had been told not to speak to him, and for a moment, she stood with her back to the whole hall. Then she turned, because she had told him once that she would never lie to him, and she was not about to begin now."Master Edmund," she said, clear and steady over the heads of the staring servants. "Look at me. This is not your doing, and it is not mine. I am going because someone I love has been threatened, and I must keep her safe. Your father will understand, and so will you when you are older."She pressed a folded paper into Mrs. Hollis's trembling hand. "Into His Grace's hand, and no one else's. Please."Then she walked out into the April rain, and the great door closed behind her, and she did not look back.The carrier's cart took her to Hertford, and the mail coach took her west, and the long gray road unrolled for four days beneath a sky the color of dishwater. She sat in the corner of the coach with her trunk at her feet and the soft, worn recipe card in her pocket, and she tried to count the milestones, and found that she could not count past nine. At every stage, she tried to feel the old, steadying clarity, and at every stage, it failed her.She had stood in front of a hall full of people and held her head up, and no one in all that hall had spoken a single word in her defense. She had never felt so entirely alone.