Thrown Out on Christmas Eve, She Took Shelter in an Empty House — Unaware the Duke Was Coming Home
Chapter 19
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The house was waiting for her with its shutters open—all of them: every window on every floor, front and back, flung open to the winter dusk. And in every window, on every sill, stood an empty holder: silver and brass and pewter and plain tin, whatever the house had left after Mr. Pike, set out in rows like a choir waiting for the music to start.Edmund was waiting at the front door. "I didn't know how to do it properly," he said. "I thought the chandler should light them. It's your light."So Hannah lit them.She went from room to room with a taper, Sam behind her with a basket, Edmund setting each candle in its holder before she lit it: the dining room, the library, the long gallery where eight dead dukes looked down at a chandler's daughter and did not seem to mind, the great staircase, the bedrooms, the attics.Down in the valley, the people of Lower Ashmere came out of their doors one by one, stood in the snow, and looked up: they saw the dark house on the hill begin to glow—one window, then three, then ten. They saw the light travel along the front of the house like a slow river, floor by floor, until the whole great building stood golden against the night sky, every window shining for the first time in nine years.Old Mrs. Tibbs, standing in the bakery doorway, put her apron to her eyes.The last room was the small sitting room on the first floor: the Duchess's room. Hannah stopped at the door; she had not been in it since Christmas Day. Edmund opened the door for her, and she went in.The room had been dusted, the fire lit, and the embroidery put away. But the small table by the window was just as it had been: on it stood the silver holder with the old Duchess's candle stub, burnt nearly to nothing; and beside it, in a second holder, stood the stub of Walter Lowe's Christmas candle, with its ring of red wax just below the wick.Hannah looked at the two candles side by side for a long moment."I didn't know where else to put it," said Edmund quietly behind her. "It seemed to belong here.""It does," said Hannah.She lit her father's candle. It took on the first try, and in its clear, honey-colored light, the Duke of Ashmere took her hand."I said there was something I wanted to ask you," he said.Hannah's heart, which had been behaving quite well all evening, forgot entirely what it was supposed to be doing."You told me to ask you again," said Edmund, "when I'd done something about the valley. I've done what I could. I'll keep doing it, whatever you say tonight. That was never meant to be a price." He took a breath. "But I would like to ask now—not as the Duke, as the man you found in your kitchen with snow on his coat, if you can still see him."