“She Can’t Understand Us,” They Laughed — Then the Duke’s Bride Silenced Them in Fluent Italian
Chapter 18
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"No, Your Grace." Then, because she had spent the last three hours giving orders and could not stop: "The coachman's wrist is broken; I have splinted it. The old lady is the coldest, and she must not sleep. The wool merchant has a broken arm, I think, or a bad sprain. There is a soldier's wife and a clerk, and they are frightened, but they are doing well. I have sealed the window and banked the snow on the north side. We have one lamp and half a bottle of port. Did you bring anything?"The Duke looked up at her in the lantern light and did not speak. Then something in his face gave way."Blankets," he said. "Brandy, a spade, a second lantern.""The lantern first, then. And the blankets. Pass them up to me."He passed them up to her.For the next hour, he did exactly as she told him: he held the old woman in his arms under his own greatcoat because he was the warmest thing on the heath; he cleared the snow away from the door again when the drift crept back; he sat with the coachman and talked about horses and the Peninsula until the man stopped shivering. He did not once give an order. And when the wool merchant, recognizing him at last, began to babble about what an honor it was, the Duke said, "Do as Miss Carew tells you, sir. We all do."At last, when they were as warm as they were going to be, and the old lady was awake and scolding him, and the wind outside had begun at last to drop, he climbed down beside Thomasina in the lamplight.He looked at the pocket board, open on her knee. "May I?" he said.She did not answer. She took the pegs from the old lady's lap, and with fingers that were still stiff and still stained violet, she set them back in the holes where they had been three nights ago, one by one, from memory. White had just given up a castle to open the file; Black had not yet answered.The Duke looked at the position for a long time."You posted your move," he said quietly."Three nights ago, to your house in the north. I did not know it was your house; I only knew the direction.""I have not had it.""No. It will be waiting for you.""I do not need it." He touched the white castle she had given up, lightly with one fingertip. "You gave me the castle so that your queen could come down the file. In four moves, you mate me. I would have seen it by the fifth. I would have sat up all night over it and sworn, and then I would have laughed.""I know," said Thomasina. "You always do. You wrote to me about it once.""I wrote to you about everything.""Yes.""And you answered." His voice was not steady. "Every letter for three winters. You paid for every one of them out of that woman's wage, did you not?"She said nothing; that was answer enough.