Page 33 of How to Ruin a Duke
“Ah,” said Nanny again.“So the temptation was removed, then.”
“Temptation?”She lifted her head, looking up at Nanny curiously.
“Yes.Temptation.”The comfortable old face smiled.“The temptation to invest in something when its time was past.The temptation to give too much of yourself to something you don’t love.”
“To Fairweather’s,” Rowena realized.“As it is now.”She hadn’t thought of it as a temptation, but as a burden.Perhaps those were two sides of the same coin—a coin no one wanted to receive, as it represented unbearable obligation.
Nanny nodded.“How long have we before we need to leave?”
“A few days.Lifford said he’d give us until week’s end.”
“Not long,” mused the old woman.“But not impossible to work around.What will you do?”
Rowena looked around at the familiar parlor, with its worn furniture and scattered family portraits.She thought of the workspace—its grand table, its racks of wood, its tidy tools.The smells she’d known all her life—the sweet cut wood and the oils for her tools and lamps.She’d never lived anywhere else.She’d never wanted any other life.
In a few days, all of it would be gone.
Her father would have hated this, grieved this.He had wanted her to persist, for Fairweather’s to survive just as he’d known it.But she was the last Fairweather, and she was alone, and she couldn’t manage anymore as she had when there were two of them.
But just because all would be gone didn’t mean all was lost.Now that change was forced upon her…it was fine.In a way, she was relieved.
“I have an idea,” she told Nanny.“Even though I’m on my own, I think it will be all right.”
“That’s my girl.”Nanny smiled, resting a hand on Rowena’s head.“And you’re not on your own, you know.You have me and Alice and your friend Edith.And a sometime cook.”
“And Cotton,” said Rowena.“Five women and a hedgehog.How are we not ruling the world already?”
She laughed, because the alternative was crying.
In truth, there were blessings on the reverse of most misfortunes.If Rowena had not been born with a little hand, Nanny might not have fought so fiercely for her to learn the family trade.
If Edith had never been left to her own devices, she’d never have come to work for the Duchess of Emory as a companion—and Rowena would never have met the truest friend she’d ever possessed.
If Simon Thorn had not been blackballed as a horn player, he would never have returned to Fairweather’s.
And if Lifford had never raised the rent beyond Rowena’s ability to pay, she would never have attempted to live a life other than the one laid out for her ninety-nine years ago.
Simon had been wrong, after all.Sometimes giving up was the right thing to do.Sometimes trying a different approach wasn’t the answer; walking away was.
Because sometimes an ending gave way to the beginning of something even better.
Chapter Eight
“It is a duke’s privilege always to be in the right!While you or I, gentle reader, cannot navigate the cataclysmic currents of life without often pleading for pardon.”
FromHow to Ruin a Dukeby Anonymous
After four long, jolting, weary days, Simon descended from the coach on a street that seemed hardly to have changed in thirteen years.There was the grocery, there the butcher, there the dressmaker and milliner.And the church at the far end of the main street, its steeple freshly painted white.
Simon had spent his early years in the small vicarage behind the church, the only child of his parents.They were buried in the churchyard, and he strode in that direction to pay his respects.
Was he postponing his visit to the tinsmith’s workshop, or to Howard’s house?Probably.But he also owed his respects to Father McCrone, the widower who now served Market Thistleton as vicar and who had been Simon’s only correspondent in the village for years.To Father McCrone, he sent money for Howard.From the vicar, he received bits of news.
He was pleased, as he pushed open the gate to the churchyard, to see the vicar there.The churchyard was peaceful and green, with headstones both new and worn with age.Flowers adorned many graves, while ancient trees shaded the space, leaves whispering comfort in a slight breeze.
McCrone was clipping at a vining plant and didn’t notice Simon until he’d drawn near.The old man, still hale and strong, squinted at Simon from beneath an unruly thatch of white hair.“Help you?”
“You already have,” Simon replied.“I’m Simon Thorn, Father.”
