"Send the Plain One, He'll Reject Her," They Laughed — But the Duke Could Not Take His Eyes Off Her
Chapter 10
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"Most of you knew my father. Some of you knew his father. You have trusted this family for 200 years, and I'll not repay that trust with a lie. So, I'll tell you plainly: I came home from Spain with a fever that has been taking my sight a little at a time. In a year, the physicians tell me it will be gone altogether." He paused. "I'm sorry for the men I passed in the street without a word. I'm sorry to the ladies whose curtsies I never returned. It was not pride. I simply did not see you."In the front pew, the Dowager Duchess sat bolt upright, with tears running silently down her powdered face.And three rows behind, quite clearly in the hush, Lady Delphine Marchbank whispered, "Arabella, we leave first thing in the morning."Half the church heard it. A farmer's wife turned around in her pew and gave Lady Marchbank a look that could have curdled milk.The Duke heard it, too. Something almost like a smile touched his mouth."But the harvest lesson must be read," he went on. "And there is someone here who has been my eyes these three weeks. She has asked nothing for it. She has had nothing for it except, I'm afraid, a good deal of unkindness."He turned his face unerringly down the aisle—not towards her face quite, just a little to the side of it."Miss Larkin, would you read it for me?"Three hundred heads turned. Hester stood up. Her aunt's hand shot out to grip her sleeve, and Hester, for the first time in six years, gently took it off.She walked up the long aisle of St. Michael's, past the sheaves and the marrows and the staring faces, and every step felt like a mile. When she reached the lectern, the Duke stepped aside to make room for her, but did not go back to his pew. He stood at her shoulder, close enough that she could hear him breathe.She looked down at the old Bible, at the faded, familiar words, and she began to read.She read of Naomi, widowed in a strange country; of her two daughters-in-law; of Orpah, who kissed Naomi and went home; and of Ruth, the foreigner, the one with nothing, who would not leave.And then she came to the verse she had known since she was a little girl, and her voice began to shake. She read Ruth's answer aloud to the whole church:"Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."She stopped. She could not go on. Because standing there at the brass eagle, with his shoulder almost touching hers, she understood that every word was true. She did not want to be useful to him. She did not want to be his eyes. She simply wanted to go wherever he went for the rest of her life, in the light and in the dark.