“The crumpets. What happened to the crumpets?”
“I ate them all.” Stepping out from behind an open cupboard, balancing a stack of white serving plates trimmed with delicate pink roses, Miss Dianna Foxcroft–Abigail’s beloved niece and apparent devourer of sweets–smiled guiltily at her aunt.
A remarkably pretty young woman with blonde curls, shoulder-length curls, a heart shaped face boasting two matching dimples, and cornflower blue eyes, Dianna lived on the other side of the park with her parents, but frequented Abigail’s townhouse more than she did her own. The two shared a close bond, one that had been forged during Dianna’s childhood when her parents had dedicated more time to their various social causes than to their only child.
Since her best friend Lady Charlotte Vanderley (Graystone now, following her impromptu and rather scandalous wedding to Gavin Graystone, a handsome entrepreneur) had decided to spend the Season in the country, Dianna had been calling upon her aunt more often than usual. Normally Abigail would have welcomed the extra attention, but not at the expense of her beloved crumpets.
“Did you truly eat them all?” she said, aghast.
Dianna giggled. “No, Aunt Abigail, I did not eat them all. Calm yourself,” she said with a disapproving cluck of her tongue. “You know too much excitement is not good for your digestion. I put them by the window to cool. They will be ready to eat in a moment or so.”
“Brat,” Abigail said with great affection. “I thought I raised you better than to play practical jokes on poor old women.”
Dianna set the serving plates down on the table and pulled a chair for Abigail and a chair for herself before she went to the window to fetch the crumpets. She set them down in the middle of the table, then sank into her seat with a graceful flutter of green muslin.
“First of all, you are not old,” she scolded, wagging her finger. “Second of all, you are the one who used to encourage my pranks! Do you remember when you coaxed me into putting a frog in Mother’s drawer of unmentionables?”
“I am certain I have no idea what you are referring to,” Abigail said with a sniff even as she hide a smile behind her hand. Dianna may have inherited her poise and perfect manners from her mother, but her mischievous nature came purely from her aunt.
On days when she was feeling particularly melancholy (which, thankfully, were not very often), Abigail believed she would have very much liked to have had a daughter just like Dianna. As it so happened, destiny hadn’t seen fit to make her a mother. But she was an aunt to the most wonderful niece in the world, and surely that was the next best thing.
“Mother was cross with me for weeks,” Dianna said as she served out the crumpets. “Although not quite as angry as when we put some of my father’s scotch in the lemonade at the picnic–”
“Eat your food dear,” Abigail said primly. “It is getting cold.”
They ate in companionable silence, and when their plates were empty and the dishes wiped clean, they retired to the parlor for a spot of tea. Dianna sat in front of the pianoforte and began to play a soft, lilting tune that brought to mind flowers in the springtime and rolling fields covered in sparkling dew.
“You have been practicing,” Abigail observed with no small amount of pride. Crossing her legs at the ankle, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes on a little sigh, letting the music wash over her in a tinkling wave of notes.
This was what a part of her had always secretly wanted. A house filled with music and children, light and laughter. She’d been blessed enough to have gotten two of the four. But the pianoforte was for Dianna’s benefit, as Abigail had never been able to play a note, just as she’d never had children.
She had considered it, of course.
The children.
But try as she might, she could never imagine having them with anyone else but Reginald. And so the years had slipped by, one after the other, until she was too old to try. But she remained content in the knowledge that she’d never settled for less than what her heart desired.
“Aunt Abigail, I have been thinking about what you said all those weeks ago in the carriage,” Dianna said suddenly.
Abigail opened her eyes to find Dianna had stopped playing and was watching her, a troubled expression marring her fair countenance.
“Oh?” she said, her brow creasing as she struggled to recall what conversation her niece was referring to. As Dianna’s chaperone, she accompanied the younger woman on nearly every outing, and they often discussed a myriad of topics ranging from the weather to the latest gossip to Dianna’s tenuous relationship with her parents. “What did I say?”
“Charlotte was with us,” Dianna began, “and we were on our way to Twinings Tea Shop.”
That hardly helped to narrow it down.
“I am afraid you will have to be more specific.”
“You told us about your engagement. To the Duke of Ashburn.”
Reginald.
Abigail drew a sharp breath. She had never meant to tell Dianna and Charlotte about him, but given Charlotte’s predicament at the time, it had seemed like a rather fitting story to share.
“I was engaged to a duke once, you know,” she had said, setting aside the book she had been reading on the carriage seat beside her.
“A duke, Aunt Abigail?” Dianna had repeated dubiously. “Are you certain?”
“Am I certain who I was once engaged to?” She’d smiled, amused by her niece’s incredulous expression. “Yes, I do believe I am. I may now spend my days with my nose buried in a book, but it wasn’t always so, my dears. I once led quite the exciting life.”
“What was his name?” Charlotte had asked.
“And what happened?” Dianna had piped in.
Taking a moment to gather her thoughts, Abigail had smoothed her skirt into place before resting her hands across her lap. She’d gazed out the window, her countenance softening as she’d recalled a time long since passed.
“His name was Reginald Browning the Third, Duke of Ashburn.” The corners of her eyes had crinkled as she smiled. “I called him Rocky. We grew up next to each other and as a result became fast childhood friends, even though he was destined to inherit a dukedom and I was the third daughter of a Baron. He asked me to marry him on my seventeenth birthday. He was the impulsive sort. We both were.”
“Oh, how romantic,” Dianna had sighed.
“Romantic, yes. Practical, no. Rocky’s father was furious with him, and with me. He demanded he break the engagement. By then it had gone public, of course.”
“Oh dear,” Dianna had murmured.
“Yes,” Abigail had agreed, “‘oh dear’ sums it up nicely. Rocky said he loved me, and I trusted him at his word. But we both knew the engagement could not continue, and he ended it a week later. We fell out of touch after that. I saw him occasionally in London, but after his father died and he inherited his title, he ran with a more exclusive set than I did. He ended up married to the daughter of a marquess, and moved to France to be near her family, leaving his mother in charge of all his holdings here. I have not seen him since.”
“Were you heartbroken when it happened?”
Dianna’s question, bluntly spoken, drew Abigail out of the past and into the present. Had anyone else asked her about Reginald she would have changed the subject, but if Dianna wanted the truth, then that’s what she would receive. Abigail had always made a point of being honest with her niece, and she wasn’t about to betray the trust they’d spent a lifetime building between them. Besides, if anyone knew what it felt like to be left by the one they loved, it was Dianna.
“I was,” she confessed, her hands twisting together. For a fleeting second her gaze flicked to her left ring finger where the Ashburn crest had once rested. And she wondered, as she had wondered then, how different her life might have been if she’d never taken the ring off. But she banished the wayward thought with a shake of her head, chasing away all those pesky ‘would haves’ and ‘should haves’ that had a habit of rearing their he
ads at the most inopportune moments.
“I do not mean to pry.” Dianna bit her lip. “But I have been thinking about my own engagement lately. I don’t know if I ever loved Miles as you loved your Rocky, but it still hurts.”
The Mannish women, Abigail reflected sadly, were quite unlucky in terms of love. Of all three sisters, only Martha, Dianna’s mother, had ever married, and it was not precisely what one would call a happy union.
Rodger Foxcroft, a baron of some wealth and property, had swept Martha off her feet in a matter of weeks, and she was married before the Season’s end. But by the time Dianna was born, the passion between Rodger and Martha had cooled considerably, and they lived completely separate lives; a sad, albeit not uncommon, occurrence within the ton.
Unfortunately, that had not stopped them from forcing the same fate upon their daughter, and Abigail’s mouth flattened in anger as she thought of the ridiculously outdated betrothal contract her sister and brother-in-law had entered Dianna into at the young, impressionable age of nine.
Despite her reservations, however, it had seemed–at least for a few years–that the engagement might actually have a happy ending. Dianna and Miles Radnor, the future Earl of Winfield, had gotten along splendidly in their youth, forming an unusually close friendship that had continued on into young adulthood.
Until the day they were supposed to wed…and Miles had disappeared.
In four years, no one had heard from him.
Not even Dianna.
To lose Reginald had been horrible enough, but at least Abigail knew what had happened to him. To go through her life never knowing…it was unbearable to even consider, and a sign of Dianna’s quiet strength that she’d managed to keep her chin up through it all.
“It must be positively dreadful for you,” Abigail said sympathetically. “I cannot imagine. I don’t want to upset you, darling, but…do you know how much time must pass for one to be declared legally deceased? Surely the contract cannot hold forever.”
“His mother claims she still receives letters from him,” Dianna said, a rare sliver of bitterness creeping into her tone. “I fear she lies, but what proof do I have?”
“What proof indeed,” Abigail murmured. She sighed and straightened in her chair. “I feel for you. At least when I lost Reginald, it was a decision we came to together.” More or less. “We were truly foolish to ever think we could be married.”
Dianna’s blue eyes darkened. “You were not foolish, you were in love.”
“Stupidly so,” Abigail agreed.
“Do you…do you still think of him? After all this time?”
Every day.
“Once in a great while.”
“You must despise him for what he did.”
“Oh, no,” she said honestly. “When I remember him and our time spent together it is with great affection and fondness. We were little more than children, Dianna, and were both forced to pay the price for our impetuousness. But that part of my life is long over.” Reaching blindly for her cup of tea, she took a long sip. “Best not to dwell on the past, my dear. Memories are what they are. You cannot change them.”
One of Dianna’s shoulders lifted and fell in a hapless shrug. “I suppose. It is curious, though, is it not, that you never married?”
Something tightened unpleasantly in Abigail’s stomach. Now she knew why she never spoke of Reginald, nor of the history they’d shared. Despite popular opinion, it seemed time did not lessen the pain of all wounds, and the ones she had sustained all those years before were still slowly trickling blood.
“I did not marry because I had no wish to do so,” she said firmly, hoping her tone would put an end to the subject.
“So you have no lingering feelings at all,” Dianna persisted.
“For Reginald?” Abigail took another sip of tea. “No, none at all.”
Maybe she could lie to her niece after all.
“Then it will not matter to you, then.”
Abigail peered at Dianna over the curved rim of her cup. “What will not matter?” she asked suspiciously.
“It was in all of the papers yesterday morn. I am surprised you have not heard already.”
“Heard what?”
“The Duke of Ashburn. He is returning home.”
Abigail’s teacup slipped from her hand and shattered on the floor.
Chapter Two
The article in the London Caller was really quite straightforward. Having recently suffered the death of his wife, the Duke of Ashburn would, at long last, be returning to his ancestral home. It hinted that his finances were in ruin, but Abigail knew the coy assumption was a farce intended solely to stir the winds of gossip. Reginald had always been mindful of money, even as a boy.
The article went on to reference his two daughters, both fully grown with families of their own, before it began to ramble at great length about one of Reginald’s old suspected flings who was now married to a marquess but rumored to be carrying on a liaison with an earl.
Abigail set the paper aside. She did not need to finish the article. She hadn’t even needed to read past the first sentence.
Having recently suffered the death of his wife…
Suffered the death of his wife…
Death of his wife…
Her shoulder blades snapped together and she stood up with enough force to send the chair she had been sitting in scraping against the floor. Hugging her arms tight to her chest, she began to pace the length of the parlor, her eyes downcast and bottom lip tucked between her teeth.
Outside the unframed windows that ran the length of the room–Abigail despised curtains–the sun was just beginning to spill across the peeked and pointed rooftops of the city. Beneath the soft, rosy glow, the streets were quiet the hour too early for even vendors to be out hawking their wares. Everyone was still abed, enjoying their last precious moments of sleep before a new day began. It was where Abigail should have been. Where she would have been, if not for that blasted article.
Glaring at the tattered copy of the London Caller she had borrowed from Dianna, she plucked it off the side table and crumpled it into a ball, as if by making the words illegible she could strike them from existence. But what was read could not be unread, and with a small, regretful sigh Abigail smoothed the paper back out and tucked it beneath a vase.
Reginald was coming home.
How many hours, days, weeks, months had she spent desperately wishing for his return?
And how many years had she spent hoping he never did.
Too much time had passed. If for some reason he thought of her now at all, she would rather have him remember the girl of his youth, not this old woman she had become.
Abigail did not consider herself vain, but as she crossed to the mirror hanging on the wall and studied her reflection, she could not help but notice the changes that the passing years had brought to her face and body.
Where the skin had once been smooth it was now creased. Where her hair had once been thick and tawny, it was now thin and dulled to a shade alarmingly close to gray. As a young woman she had worn it in a variety of styles, proudly showing off the gleaming color that Reginald had once compared to the “sun on a fine summer’s day”. Now she wore her hair coiled into a bun and tucked beneath a simple lace cap, a spinster’s hairstyle if ever there was one.
She knew, overall, that she had little room for complaint. At fifty seven years of age she was still healthy as a horse, and if she had grown a bit pudgy around the middle who could blame her? She walked, didn’t she? Three days a week, if it wasn’t raining. It was the crumpets, Abigail decided as she sucked in her belly before letting it fall out again with a loud whoosh of air. It was always the crumpets.
Thankfully, she was past the age where the opinions of others were of any consequence to her and heavens knew she wasn’t about to go husband hunting. Those days were long behind her, passed by in the blink of an eye and recalled every now and then with a vague fondness. She was content with what she had. C
ontent with where she was.
But if that was completely true, then why had she reached into the very back of her armoire this morning and plucked out a pretty dress of lavender blue?
“Because I like blue,” she said aloud, hoping the sound of her voice in the empty parlor would drown out the real answer. The answer that burned under her skin, like a sliver of wood she couldn’t quite pluck free. The answer that shouldn’t have even been an answer at all, not after all these years.
Why had she gone through all the trouble of finding this dress, dusting it off, and nearly dislocating a hip in an attempt to squeeze it up over her thighs? It was quite simple, really. And so utterly complicated all at the same time.
Blue was Reginald’s favorite color.
Ashburn House was exactly as Reginald remembered it.
Dark and imposing, the sixty room estate sat ostentatiously atop a long sloping hill, the windows glittering out at the front lawns like the many faceted eyes of a spider. White columns flanked the main entryway and extended out to either side, as imposing and grand as they were structurally useless. Slapping his palm against one of them now, Reginald leaned into the cool stucco and breathed in the memories of his childhood home.
He thought of his mother, sweet and gentle. Living in her own little world, so far removed from the one she’d been placed courtesy of a betrothal contract that had bound her to Reginald’s father before her third birthday.
Once it was discovered how addled her mind was, Reginald’s grandfather had tried everything in his power to break the contract, but it had been of no use. The marriage went through as planned, and after Reginald was born, a squalling, healthy baby boy with his mother’s eyes, the Duke and Duchess of Ashburn went on to live completely separate lives.
Not unlike the life Reginald had sentenced himself to when he’d married Theresa.
As he walked into the front foyer with its vaulted ceiling and covered furniture, he could not help but wonder how his life would have been different if Abby had worn his ring these past forty years instead of Theresa.
London Ladies (The Complete Series) Page 26