They Mocked Her When Her Groom Arrived In A Farmer's Cart — He Was The Duke In Disguise
Chapter 12
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Old gold, its surface worn smooth with age, engraved with a crest she did not recognize: a hawk in flight over a tower, wrought with the kind of careful, expensive detail no farmer's family ring had ever possessed.Matilda sat very still, the ring resting in her palm, and felt the last of the evening's peace give way to something far more restless. She turned it over once, twice, watching candlelight catch along the worn engraving of the hawk's outstretched wings. A ring such as this was not the kind of thing a poor steward tucked away and forgot about in a drawer full of correspondence; it was the kind of thing kept close, guarded, passed down through generations of men who had never once needed to wonder where their next meal might come from.She thought of the fine violin gathering dust in the corner, of Mrs. Ashby's suspiciously perfect posture, of the magistrate's nervous apologies, and felt each small piece settle a little closer toward some shape she still could not quite see whole.She did not confront Callum that night. She returned the ring to its drawer exactly as she had found it, and lay awake instead, turning the mystery over and over in the dark, unable to decide whether the unease coiling in her chest was fear or something closer to anticipation.Who exactly, she wondered, had she married?News of the wedding traveled faster than any carriage. Within a fortnight, the story of the farmer's cart bride had become the favorite joke of every drawing room between Kent and London. And Lady Violet, now comfortably settled as Viscountess Holloway, seemed determined to keep the story alive for as long as it could serve her amusement.She found Matilda at church that first Sunday, standing near the churchyard gate in a gown clearly chosen to outshine the modest gray wool Matilda wore."Sister," Violet said, drawing the word out as though it tasted of something faintly unpleasant. "How does farm life suit you? I do hope the mud has not ruined your only good pair of shoes."The small cluster of ladies near her tittered obligingly.Matilda folded her gloved hands and said nothing, though the old, familiar heat of humiliation crept up her neck all the same. She had spent a lifetime perfecting silence as a shield; it had never stopped being heavy to carry.At the garden party the following week, hosted by one of Vivian's oldest friends, Violet found new ground to till."I understand your husband keeps only two rooms," she said, loudly enough for half the lawn to hear. "How very cozy! Though I confess I cannot imagine how one manages with only one housekeeper and no lady's maid at all."