Chapter 4
When she finally awoke, it was to find herself laying in a large and comfortable bed. Her head was throbbing horribly, and she had no idea where she was.
With that sense of dread that one gets when waking in a strange place, Isabella determined not to open her eyes fully and, instead, simply peered through the tiniest gap. She did not want anybody present to know that she had awoken, at least not until she had her bearings and her memories intact once more.
When she realized that she was alone in the room, Isabella let her eyes fly wide open. She tried to sit up in the bed, despite the throbbing pain. She reached up to touch the back of her head and could feel a pronounced lump there. She must have hit her head surely, or been hit.
Slowly, her memories began to glide back in.
“Oh, dear Lord,” she said, remembering everything with such a sense of desolation.
She was a married woman; that much she knew. And she had not married the handsome man with the green eyes and the dark skin. No, she truly had been married away to the monster.
With a shudder, she recalled the sight which had finally made her succumb to unconsciousness. Once again, beads of cold perspiration erupted on her back as she remembered the sight she would never forget.
When the Duke had turned to face her in the chapel, the ruination of the right side of his face was plain. The skin was a mixture of angry red and purple with raised lines of silvery white, shiny skin. He had been burned; that much was clear.
The burn had taken almost all that side of his face, and she could see that it would continue down his neck, somewhere beneath his smart necktie. Perhaps the scarring had taken all that side of his body, there was no way of knowing.
His hair seemed largely intact on that side, barring a small, shiny patch of skin by his left temple. Apart from that, the only other part of that side of his face still intact, still as it ought to have been, was his other eye. It stood out starkly, beautiful and green, against the dark and angry skin of his face.
Isabella remembered that in those last moments before the world grew dark, she had stared into those green eyes, and they had fixed her with such a look of pain that she could not bear it.
The door to the chamber opened suddenly, and Isabella gasped.
“Who are you?” she said in a high-pitched voice which gave her away for being almost overcome with fear.
“My name is Kitty Smith, Your Grace. My master sent me in to take care of you,” the woman said and closed the door behind her before walking into the room.
Kitty Smith was an extraordinarily thin woman in late middle age. Her silvery gray hair was pulled back into a harsh bun at the back of her head and her dark gown covered by a brilliant white apron silently informed Isabella that Kitty was a maid.
“Your Grace?” Isabella said, sounding startled.
“You are the Duchess of Coldwell now, Your Grace.” Despite having a thin, almost gaunt face, Kitty Smith’s smile was full of warmth.
“Oh yes, of course,” Isabella said absentmindedly. “But I do not want to be called Your Grace.”
“There is no other way for me to address you, not respectfully.”
“Yes, I suppose that is true.” Isabella tried again to sit up in the bed. “I just feel that I am never to hear my name spoken aloud again. But perhaps a prisoner does not need to hear her own name. Perhaps she does not need to be reminded of the person she once was.”
“You must not see yourself as a prisoner.” Kitty Smith hurried over to the bed and hastily rearranged the pillows before helping Isabella to sit up a little straighter and lean against them.
“Forgive me. I am being melancholy. I ought not to have said such a thing before you,” Isabella said apologetically.
“Not at all, Your Grace,” Kitty said kindly. “I daresay it can be an unsettling thing to become suddenly married.”
“Married to a man one has never met before.” Isabella knew she was saying too much, especially to a maid, but she felt she had no choice.
She did not know where she was within the walls of Coldwell Hall. The mansion had looked immense from the outside, almost like a castle, and she thought she could have been anywhere. She could have been behind any of the windows that she had seen from the outside or a hundred more that were undoubtedly around the back.
It was a thing that she could hardly have worked out, given that the heavy brocade curtains were firmly closed. Despite the fact that two large oil lamps lit the room very well indeed, Isabella had the impression that it was not full night outside. Perhaps she had not been unconscious for very long at all.
“How long have I been here?” Isabella said, keen to change the subject.
“Some three or four hours, Your Grace. And you have been unconscious for that whole time. You must have hit your head very hard indeed, although the physician says that you will recover completely; he is sure of it.”
“Oh, I shall live,” Isabella said, making it sound like a terrible prospect.
“Oh, Your Grace.” The older woman’s eyes showed most plainly that she felt terribly sorry for Isabella. “You must not think like that.”
“Forgive me, but I feel so very lost.”
“It is understandable, but you will soon grow used to it. Coldwell Hall is a beautiful place, a wonderful home for you.”
“This room certainly seems very nice, Kitty.” Isabella fought hard to make ordinary conversation. “Not at all what I had expected.”
The room was very large and the immense four-poster bed its central feature. The bed was ornately made and wider than any place she had ever slept in her life.
She could not quite discern the colour of the walls by the light of the oil lamps but thought that they were of a light hue. No doubt, in the daytime, the room seemed very light and bright indeed, especially when the curtains were pulled back from what promised to be very large windows.
“Is it not, Your Grace?”
“No, I suppose I had not imagined that Coldwell Hall would be so well looked after. You see, I had this idea that it would be …” She paused, seeing a look of sadness on Kitty’s face. “Sorry, you must forgive me. I must have hit my head harder than I thought.”
“You need not apologize, Your Grace,” Kitty said. “I am sure that you would not be the only person in the county to think that Coldwell Hall was an old ruin of a place, sinister and decrepit.”
“In truth, that is precisely what I had thought.” Isabella was too exhausted to find some way of successfully denying it. “And there is, of course, much unusual talk of Coldwell Hall and its master about the county. I suppose it is unavoidable, given that the Duke would seem to be something of a recluse.”
“He was never a recluse by choice, Your Grace,” Kitty went on sadly. “But merely circumstances.”
“Yes, I am quite sure.”
“He is a good man, really he is. I know that he is not easy to look upon in the beginning, but you soon come to forget it all.”
“Surely not!” Isabella regretted her words immediately. “I mean, forgive me, but the Duke’s disfigurement is so very extensive.”
“It is, but I promise you there will come a day when you will look at him and not even see it. You have only to give him a chance, and that is all.” There was wisdom in Kitty’s thin, lined face, and it gave Isabella a feeling of safety.
However, despite her polite smiles and nods, Isabella could not for a moment imagine ever looking upon that face and not seeing the scars. How could one look upon such devastation and not see it?
For a moment, Isabella was almost overcome with the desire to find out exactly what had happened to the Duke of Coldwell. She almost asked the maid outright before stopping herself, knowing that her curiosity at such a time was truly inappropriate.
“Have you worked here at Coldwell Hall for a long time, Kitty?” Once again, Isabella deftly changed the subject.
“Longer than I care to remember, Your Grace.” Kitty chuckled as she made her way to a great mahogany dresser and opened one of the drawers. “I have been here more than thirty years since His Grace was nothing but a boy.”
“Then you must be very happy here, Kitty.”
“I could not imagine being more settled anywhere else. But perhaps that is because I do not know anything else anymore. I was but one and twenty when I first came here as lady’s maid to the last Duchess, His Grace’s mother.”
“You had done well to have such a position by that age, Kitty.”
“I had always wanted to be a lady’s maid; to fix a fine lady’s hair and attend to her wardrobe. When I first came to Coldwell Hall, it was my dream come true.” She turned from the dresser holding an immaculately white nightgown.
She seemed to have drifted off into thoughts of the past, to the days when she was a busy lady’s maid to a fine Duchess.
“How wonderful,” Isabella said as she tried to find some normality in the conversation.
“But it has been more than eighteen years since I have been able to undertake my old duties,” Kitty spoke sadly.
“I am terribly sorry.” Isabella realized that that must surely have been when the old Duchess had died.
Of course, she did not think she ought to ask for any further details until she had come to know Kitty Smith a little better. She was still so very out of sorts and most uncomfortable to be living in Coldwell Hall that she did not want to alienate her potential ally.
“Perhaps when you come to think about your own lady’s maid, Your Grace, you might consider me?” Kitty said a little shyly. “I realize that I am not a young woman anymore, but I have kept myself well informed of the current fashions and hairstyles.”
“I should be very pleased, Kitty,” Isabella said genuinely. “After all, you have done much to put me at my ease on a most difficult day.”
“I know it is difficult for you, Your Grace.” Kitty laid the beautiful nightgown out over the foot of the bed. “But things will settle down, I promise you. All will be well.”
As Kitty spoke, Isabella could feel her warmth. It was almost as if everything truly would be well, despite the fact that Isabella could see no evidence of it.
“Kitty, is my father still here?” The sudden thought made Isabella sit bolt upright, her pillows tumbling left and right behind her and her head throbbing painfully.
“I am afraid he is not, Your Grace,” Kitty said, and Isabella could see the hint of disapproval in the woman’s eyes. It was disapproval that made Isabella warm to her all the more.
“If I were to hazard a guess, Kitty, I would say that my father was already stepping back into his carriage as I lay unconscious on the flagstones of the chapel.” Isabella heard the bitterness.
“I could not say, Your Grace. The Duke and Mr Maguire brought you straight over to the hall. His Grace carried you himself.” Kitty smiled as if the idea was most romantic. “And then he sent immediately for the physician. There was much hustle and bustle, and I cannot say that I saw your father in the hall at any point.”
“Quite so; my own experience tells me that I ought not to have assumed that he would have waited long enough to discover if I was even to live.” Isabella’s voice faltered, and she felt suddenly tearful and extremely sorry for herself.
It was not that she missed her father, nor even did she want him there. It was just the idea that she was genuinely uncared for in this world. At least uncared for by anybody who could do anything to preserve her circumstances. If only Esme were there with her; if only she could hold her friend’s hand for one last time. The thought of it finally made her cry. And it was the first time she had cried in all of it; from the moment her father had declared she would marry, these were the first tears she had shed.
Her resolve to remain steadfast had finally broken.
“There, there, my dear,” Kitty said, and Isabella was relieved that she had chosen an endearment rather than Your Grace. “Just because you have left behind a family of little care does not mean that you have walked into another just the same. You will find people here who cared greatly, really you will. There is little wonder that you are afraid, what young woman would not be? And I shall help you in any way I can, and you will find that I am not the only one. You will be cared for, my dear, really you will.” Kitty had perched awkwardly on the side of the bed and had reached out to take Isabella into her arms.
Whilst she was the maid, she was still an older woman with much more idea about the world and its goings-on than Isabella had. And, in the style of many an older woman, she could not bear to see a younger woman so distressed, so wanting for affection, and not provide it.
And, for her part, Isabella could not have been more grateful. She needed a friend more than anything in the world.