Page 49

“Pickle,” she called out, “be good, and do not ruin Mr. Carrick’s lovely flowerbeds.”

“Oh, he is most fine, Your Grace.” Mr. Carrick, the head gardener, chuckled as he looked out at the happy puppy. “If anything, it’s nice to see him bringing such life around here. You and him both.”

Eloise smiled at Pickle, who was trying to paw at the soil. She clucked her tongue at him, beckoning him closer to her with the trowel she was digging with. She carved a small hole into the patch of soil she was working with and planted what would become a tulip. Already, she’d made a small row of them.

“Thank you,” she answered, glancing up at the mansion. “Does His Grace not come out here often?”

Mr. Carrick shook his head, wiping sweat from his brow, which was slightly tanned from working in the sun. “If he is not in London, or the mansion, he mostly stays on the beachfront.”

“Not even the cliff paths?”

“Rarely,” the gardener answered. “You must see him often, though, with all his time spent indoors. It is good he has taken a duchess. The place needed a good mistress, and I hear you are already proving yourself.” He gave her a kind look. “And you’re clearly adept at gardening.”

“Ah.” Eloise looked down at her potting. “I like being outdoors, so I picked up a few skills from my parents’ gardeners in my former home.”

“They taught you well.”

He nodded at how she scooped just the right amount of soil back inside the hole, tucking it tightly around her new flower.

Eloise thanked him and handed back her trowel as she beckoned Pickle to join her to go back inside. Despite having not made any plans, she had preparations of her own to see to—firstly, changing her dress from the soiled one she had worn to go into the garden.

As she walked through the main hallway, trying not to look at the presents that had been sent from Nancy and Gideon. Gideon had bought her flowers and had teased on her card, that had been instructed by Nancy, and asked her to write back what Dorian had gifted her. Nancy’s own gift was a beautiful, silver bracelet with a pendant of an anchor on it.

It was sentimental and lovely from both of them, but Eloise could not help realizing she would have to write back to Gideon that she had not received a gift from her husband. In fact, she hadn’t seen Dorian all morning.

She had hoped that her birthday breakfast would not be spent alone.

Hope, though, was an unsteady thing here, and she hadn’t quite figured out how not to feel it day after day.

Her husband was tending to his own duchy errands, speaking with tenants and conducting some meetings. He had left her a short message with Mrs. Hale to let her know he would be back shortly, but he had said nothing of her birthday.

He had not even left her a card.

Eloise turned her attention away from her disappointment, knowing that she had no right to expect anything from Dorian, or even acknowledgement.

“Besides,” she murmured to herself, “who would I have told him? I certainly didn’t.”

A burning settled in her chest; she felt selfish and foolish.

“Go on, Pickle,” she sighed, urging him forward. “Go and hound the cook for some leftover bacon from breakfast.”

At the word bacon, Pickle bounded off.

Eloise drew away from the parlor where Gideon’s flowers were displayed in a vase, and Nancy’s gift awaited. The absence of anything from her parents shouldn’t have hurt her or even been noticeable. She had achieved what they had primed her for, and now they had washed their hands of her regarding anything personal.

They did not have to celebrate her any longer, only what social improvement she had given them, and she had no doubt that was being extensively celebrated.

Bitterness coated her throat as she approached her chambers. Emily entered her chambers up ahead, carrying towels no doubt for her bath, but before Eloise could reach her doorway, she paused at the sound of hushed, female voices from an open guest room.

She peered around the door, watching as a maid cleaned the fireplace, the other one tossing down a crinkled piece of paper. Eloise immediately recognized the silhouette signature on the top of the sheet as London’s most popular scandal sheet.

“It doesn’t do anyone any good to be gossiping like this,” the maid who threw down the paper murmured, and Eloise drew closer at the sound of crinkling paper. “Honestly, it’s like those ton ladies have nothing to do but write about others. I quite like Her Grace. She’s brought… change, I think.”

“I agree,” another maid sighed. “But we aren’t any better, what with reading it.”

The first maid shrugged. “What else do we have to entertain ourselves?”

“True, but this is about our mistress now. It seems different when the stories revolve around her and the duke. It feels wrong to have even read⁠—”