Page 41 of A Flaming Lady's Secret Valentine
The family carriages rolled into the drive around noon.
Raphael and the other members of staff met them before the house. The duke alighted his vehicle first, helping the duchess alight after him. Edward, Cecilia, and Daphne followed suit, having shared a carriage of their own.
Cecilia stopped for a second, only a second, to look at him. It was enough to drive him mad.
“Have you been manning the fort for us, Travers?” the duke said once greetings had been shared. “Very good.”
He stared up at the manor.
“The older I grow, the more I come to understand why our kind have become so sedentary. We have the world at our feet, men like you and I, yet we choose to remain where it is most comfortable. ‘Why?’ I have asked myself. Then I leave my home and I remember.”
“Remember what, Your Grace?”
“She is a part of me. Berilton, I mean. Her stone runs through my blood, and my blood runs through her stone. It is my earnest wish that you experience a love like this in your lifetime. The love of home.”
Raphael nodded. His gaze drifted back to Cecilia as she laughed with one of the footmen.
“That reminds me.” The duke turned to him anew. “You will dine with us tonight. We stewards of the keep should celebrate our return together.”
It was such that Raphael found himself at dinner with a duke.
They had called for him at around seven o’clock, but he had been agonizing over the meal for the better part of the day. He was ill-equipped to dine with nobility. He had nothing to wear for one, nothing interesting to say for another. It had tempted him to feign some sort of malady, until his fear had been supplanted by his excitement. Cecilia would be dining with them. With any luck, he would weasel his way into sitting beside her.
He strolled up to Berilton under the cover of night, outfitted in a suitable enough dinner jacket and trousers. The butler eyed him head to toe, toying with him in good humour at the door before leading him inside.
The Norberts had convened in one of the drawing rooms, presenting Raphel with a tableau of candid domesticity. Peaceful and dripping with wealth, it was like no domesticity he had ever known.
They showered him with warm greetings. Edward urged him to partake in a drink before dinner, pouring a tumbler of scotch for him before Raphael could refuse. He nursed his drink slowly, lapping up what he could of Cecilia’s presence.
At dinner, the duke suggested they seat themselves formally. Raphael was placed between Cecilia and the duchess. They served fennel and thyme soup first, then a course of smoked herring.
It was only during the third course, however, that the duchess diverted her attention to her husband, having eagerly gabbled in Raphael’s direction for the first third of the evening.
“I am glad to see you returned safely to Norfolk, Mr Travers,” Cecilia said. Her voice was lower than it needed to be, and Raphael suspected trouble. “For fact, I am glad to see you, full stop.”
It was an impossible feat to compose himself around Cecilia. Every word she uttered was like opium smoke blown directly through his ear. He could not look at her and see a stranger, though he knew he must act the part.
“How was your journey back, my lady?”
“Tedious,” she said through a smile. “You have travelled with both Lord Edward and Lady Daphne. You can imagine my dismay at having to entertain their combined force. My own personal purgatory.”
The duchess tutted and turned to Cecilia, scowling before returning to the duke. It was better to know that she was listening than to believe she was not and push his luck.
“Was your trip to London all you thought it would be?” Cecilia asked.
Raphael took a bite of his meal, relaxing in her company. The copious amounts of wine were not hindering him either. “All I thought it would be and more.”
“I should like to know more about your life in London, before you studied at university and came to work for my father.”
“There is not much to say on it.”
“Did you like it?”
He considered his answer. “I had no real opinion of it.”
“If I may be so brazen, what of your family? Do they still reside in London?”
“No.” He reached for his wine. Had his cravat always felt so tight? “My mother lives here, in King’s Lynn.”
