They Mocked Her When Her Groom Arrived In A Farmer's Cart — He Was The Duke In Disguise
Chapter 11
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A stable boy hurrying to take the cart horses bowed so low and so quickly that he nearly stumbled over his own feet, before catching himself and offering an awkward, hasty bob more suited to a farmhand.A rider passing on the road touched his hat to Callum with a deference that seemed entirely out of proportion to a passing steward, murmuring something that sounded almost like "My lord," before correcting himself into a mumbled "Sir."The local magistrate, calling briefly on some minor matter of the parish boundary, apologized twice for interrupting Callum's afternoon, his tone so deferential that Matilda found herself watching the exchange with growing confusion long after the man had gone.An elderly butler, engaged only for the evenings when a guest or two were expected at their table, very nearly undid the whole careful arrangement on his first visit to the cottage: he bowed low over Callum's hand at the door and began in the automatic formality of 40 years' service, "Will Your Gra—" before catching himself in a sudden, violent fit of coughing that left him red-faced and apologizing for a full minute about a tickle in his throat no amount of tea seemed able to soothe."Poor Mr. Wickham," Callum said afterward, pouring Matilda more tea with perfect composure, as though nothing at all curious had occurred. "He has served old families his whole life. I believe certain habits of address simply linger, whatever a man's current station happens to be.""He very nearly called you 'Your Grace,'" Matilda said, watching him carefully."Did he?" Callum asked, with the mild, untroubled surprise of a man remarking on the weather rather than a secret nearly spilled across his own dinner table. "How curious."She let it go that evening, the way she had learned to let so many curious things go since her wedding day. But she began quietly, and without quite admitting it to herself, to keep a small mental ledger of every strange moment that crossed her path, waiting for the day the sum of them would finally add up to something she could understand.None of it added together into anything she could name. And yet, lying awake that night in the small, honest quiet of the cottage, Matilda found herself turning the pieces over in her mind, the way a child turns over a puzzle box, searching for the seam that would finally let it open.It was nearly midnight when curiosity—and perhaps something else she was not yet ready to call by name—led her to the small writing desk in the corner of their bedroom. She had only meant to find a spare candle. Instead, tucked inside a shallow drawer beneath a stack of correspondence, her fingers found something cold and heavy: a ring.