she could not find that positivity today. Nothing could be done to fix the awful place where she found herself perched.
And beyond that, her horrible fall from grace hadn’t even helped her find what she needed. Imogen was still gone. There was no word of where she might be. All that sacrifice had been for nothing.
There was a light knock at her door and she looked up to see her housemaid, Jeanette, standing there, her cheeks flushed. There was limited staff for her here, thanks to her lack of funds. Just Jeanette, Mrs. Swan to cook for her, and a footman.
“Yes?” Aurora whispered, girding herself to hear which party she had been uninvited from this time.
“You have a visitor, Lady Lovell,” Jeanette said, looking over her shoulder with an expression of concern. “And I wasn’t sure if you were in residence.”
“I can only imagine who would come here to gawk at me in my current state,” Aurora said.
“It is…” The maid’s voice dropped lower. “It’s the Duchess of Roseford, my lady.”
Aurora pushed to her feet and stared in shocked silence at Jeanette. “What?”
Jeanette stepped into the room and handed over a beautiful calling card, one swirled with gold filigree, the Roseford crest on the back. Aurora didn’t know the woman well. They had spoken a few times many years ago, but hadn’t maintained the acquaintance. She knew about the path the duchess had taken, of course. Society had whispered loud and long when her first husband died in their bed in an indelicate way. Louder still when she returned to Society and landed herself the biggest rake in the kingdom.
Aurora could admit, if only to herself, that she had made a quiet study of that situation. After all, the Duke of Roseford was the brother of…
She cut off those thoughts. Thinking of him during these troubled times only made everything harder. She would not do it.
“I…I do not think of the duchess as one to refuse,” Aurora whispered. “And I admit my curiosity about her reason for being here outweighs almost all my hesitance.”
She looked around the room, and humiliation made her cheeks hot. “I…you know, send her in. My shame can hardly be any higher than it already is. At least this offers some kind of entertainment.”
Jeanette gave a small curtsey and stepped into the foyer. Aurora heard her speaking softly and another voice answering, though she couldn’t make out the words. And in less than a moment, the door to her parlor opened again and Jeanette said, “The Duchess of Roseford, Lady Lovell.”
The woman who entered the room could not have looked more out of place in the shabby parlor. She was tall and beautiful, dark hair done in an elaborate style. Her gown was impeccable, flowing over her like some kind of pink waterfall. Her presence made Aurora catch her breath. This was not the same uncertain young woman she had been acquaintances with a lifetime ago. Before the duchess lost her first husband. Before she married the duke.
“Your Grace,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t tremble. “Welcome to my home. Such that it is.”
The duchess smiled at her, and in that moment Aurora was struck by something else in her. Kindness. For all her power and beauty and confidence, the duchess looked kind. When she didn’t so much as look around at the horrible parlor, Aurora nearly wept at the gentleness that had been missing from her life for what felt like forever.
“I should have sent word around first, rather than so rudely appear on your doorstep. But I felt compelled to come and I…” She smiled again, still so gentle. “I thought it might be easier for you to refuse me if I wrote you. An unfair act, I suppose, but I did so wish to speak to you.”
The kindness still existed in the other woman’s eyes, but Aurora’s chest tightened with anxiety nonetheless. There was no reason for the duchess to wish to see her so desperately. At least, no good reason that came to mind.
“Please sit,” she said, and moved to the sideboard to pour tea into the mismatched cups there. She gave herself the chipped one and handed over the other before she took a place on the settee across from the duchess. She cleared her throat. “Was there some reason you wanted to see me so badly?”
The duchess pushed her shoulders back and nodded once. “Will you call me Katherine?”
Aurora blinked at the question. “You—you came all the way here to