Cecily nodded.
“I understand,” she said. “It has been ages since I have been to the country. I cannot wait to see it again.”
Val fell silent, but Cecily felt him move. Did he nod? She couldn’t tell.
She tried twice more to engage her husband in conversation. Each time, he said very little, and they fell back into silence. Cecily wanted to keep herself occupied by talking to Greta, but she didn’t know if their chatter for the next four hours would bother Val. So instead, she let the remainder of the first hour pass in silence.
At the start of the second hour, Cecily could feel her eyelids grow heavy. She realized that the events of the day had caught up with her, and she was suddenly very exhausted. She turned toward Greta, who she could hear breathing deeply and regularly. Apparently, she had already fallen asleep. Cecily smiled fondly at her and decided to do the same. She had just barely nestled her head against the back of the seat before she drifted off.
Chapter Eighteen
After their exchange before the wedding celebration, Cecily had high hopes for her marriage. However, it soon became apparent that things were still very awkward between her and the Duke. For the first few days after their wedding, she felt all but ignored by her husband.
And within another week, she felt almost as though she was an inconvenience to Val. He had said that he would take care of her, and that, he was. But otherwise, he tended to avoid her. Was he uncomfortable with her blindness, after all?
One day, a fortnight after, Greta was helping her dress. She had been the one saving grace for Cecily since moving away from her family. She tried to never complain. She was grateful to Val for giving her the chance to remove the burden of her disability off her family; particularly, Agnes.
However, without Greta, Cecily felt sure that she would be sick with heartache. It was hard to not feel like the Duke didn’t want to be around her at all.
“Your Grace,” Greta said as she finished dressing her. “You look sick with worry.”
Cecily smiled. Her intuition was just another reason why Cecily was so grateful for her maid.
“I suppose I am,” she said. “This is a very difficult adjustment.”
Greta patted her shoulder to acknowledge what she had said.
“Would you like to take tea in the pink parlour this morning?” Greta asked.
Cecily smiled gratefully at her friend.
“That would be lovely,” she said.
Greta helped her down the stairs and to the pink parlor. That would make it only the second time in a fortnight that Cecily had skipped breakfast with her husband. She was glad that Val had given her the freedom to take her meals in her room or elsewhere in the mansion.
Part of her felt guilty, as she felt she should at least join her husband for meals. But that morning, she was so dejected that she didn’t think she could face him with a brave smile.
Greta ordered a maid to fetch them tea and cakes as she helped Cecily get comfortable on the parlor’s sofa. Cecily wished she could see the décor in the manor. Her family had once described unfamiliar surroundings to her.
Greta still did sometimes, as she did with her bedchambers. But she knew she would never ask Val to do the same. She felt like enough of a burden to him. Having him describe the manor to her would make it more so.
When the tea and cakes arrived, Greta prepared her help. Cecily smiled and sipped her tea.
“What is it that bothers you most, your Grace?” Greta asked after they had had a moment to enjoy the treats.
Cecily put her teacup and saucer in her lap and sighed.
“It has been a big enough adjustment to being a Duchess,” she said. “I feel like I have no idea what I am doing.”
Greta touched her arm, and Cecily imagined her smiling sympathetically at her.
“I do not think that his Grace expects much of you so soon,” she said.
Cecily sighed.
“That’s the other trouble,” she said. “I do not know what he expects of me right now. We do not see each other at all, apart from meals. And even then, the conversation is so stilted that nothing important can be discussed.”
She could hear Greta sipping her tea, so she waited patiently for the maid to answer.
