Dukes to Fall in Love With: A Historical Regency Romance Collection

by Bridget Barton

  “Not for many years. My mother did not take much interest in my performances. She simply thought I ought to know how to play.”

  “And did you not play for your family? I mean, in the evenings and what-have-you?”

  “No, I am afraid not,” Isabella said with a sigh. “My father rarely sat with us in the evenings, and my mother thought my practice ought to be restricted to my lessons or the solitude of private practice in the music room.” She laughed also, but it was a less jolly sound.

  “I am sure that you play very well indeed.”

  “I could not say,” she said awkwardly. “My younger brother took to the music room to learn the violin, and it became a place for him to enjoy.”

  “You could not enjoy the music room together?”

  “My brother is some years younger and much used to getting his own way in things.”

  “That seems awfully hard.” Elliot’s voice held some concern for her, and Isabella was not sure how she felt about it. She did not want to be pitied.

  “I grew accustomed to the way of things.”

  “Your mother favored your brother?”

  “My father did, and so, by default, my mother did. She did not have much choice although I never perceived any effort on her part to try.”

  “Your father spent his own efforts on his heir, I presume.”

  “Well, I daresay it is the way of all fathers, is it not?”

  “No,” Elliot said gently. “My own dear father was very fond of Eleanor.”

  “Your sister?” Isabella asked.

  A chasm of silence opened up between them and, when Elliot did not reply for some minutes, Isabella wished she had not spoken. Involuntarily, she thought of the doll in the tower, its porcelain face blackened with smoke.

  “He was a fair father to us both,” he said finally.

  “That is a very fine thing.” Isabella hoped that it would seal that particular conversation.

  More than anything, Isabella had wanted to know Elliot’s history; the history of Coldwell Hall and the Covington family. But she felt suddenly afraid of pursuing it. She felt sure that Elliot had not meant to venture so far along that conversational path and was even then thinking of some other route.

  “Did you never enjoy the piano?” he asked, and she was pleased he had turned the conversation back onto less dangerous ground.

  “In truth, I did,” she said with a forced brightness. “I had always wanted to play nicely, and I was if I am remembering true, quietly proud of my little achievements. But as I said, I was hardly encouraged. Or, at least, not encouraged for the right reasons or in the right direction.” She was quiet for a moment. “But if I think about it, I wish that I had, perhaps, persevered with it. It is a nice amusement, and it might well have spurred me on to play other instruments. Who is to know now?” She laughed dismissively but realized that she had spoken the truth.

  It would be very easy for her to blame her mother and father for so much that seemed to have been missing from her life. Whilst she would not choose to spend her time in such negative musings, still, she could not shake the feeling.

  In the time since she had been at Coldwell Hall, Isabella had not mourned the loss of family contact. Whilst her father was the tyrant, she did not wonder about her mother either. The woman had looked on and done nothing for Isabella’s entire life. Isabella knew that there were few options for rebellion for women like her mother in such a marriage as hers, but there had been no secret comfort either.

  Isabella had always hoped for a quiet camaraderie between mother and daughter. She had always wanted to be embraced and to be quietly assured that her mother truly loved her, even if there was nothing she could do to stand up to the Earl.

  But that had never come.

  “Perhaps you might care for the violin one day?” He broke through her murky thoughts.

  “I cannot imagine I would be so good a player as you, Elliot.”

  “Do you need to be good at it? Or at the piano for that matter?” he said, and she was taken aback. “What I mean is that perhaps enjoyment is the thing, rather than technical attainment. Perhaps that is what music should mean to us.”

  “Perhaps it should.” Isabella smiled into the darkness.

  There was something in what Elliot said which seemed to resonate with her. What did the appearance matter if the love of the pastime was there in one’s heart?

  “Unless you intend to play to large audiences, of course.” And there it was again; a very real humor.

  “One step at a time, perhaps.” Isabella was pleased to hear Elliot laugh.

  “And you have other amusements too? I believe you like to walk in nature.” Elliot seemed to be more comfortable with her.

  “I do. And I have greatly enjoyed walking the grounds here. You really do have a beautiful estate.”

  “It is yours to wander freely.”

  “Thank you,” she said and was reminded of the moment the two of them had come face to face earlier that day.

  It had been that very meeting, sudden and unplanned, that had seen Elliot cancelling their evening meeting. Or at least that was what she had assumed.

  “The woodland is so extensive,” Isabella went on. “It is so full of interest and so thick. It feels quite magical to be inside it.”

  “It has been so for many years. The woodland is very old and well established. The perimeter is not quite so well established.”

  “Leylandii are not easy to walk through,” she said in total want of anything else to say as she thought of the thick natural barrier to the outside world.

  “But they grow tall and thick very quickly,” he spoke quietly again.

  “Which means they make very fine fencing. Good barriers.” Isabella felt back on a path to the unknown.

  “They were not always here. I had them planted myself eighteen years ago.”

  “They are very well kept.”

  “Yes.” His voice trailed away to such an extent that she could hardly hear him.

  In the darkness, his demeanour seemed to have changed again, and Isabella could not read it at all. Perhaps he was no keener on the conversational path than she.

  “The grounds are very well kept too. The gardens are so neat, and the rose bushes look set to provide many blooms when the weather warms.”

  “Thank you. I have several gardeners and under-gardeners.”

  “You must enjoy the estate greatly yourself.”

  “It is a great comfort to be so fortunate in my surroundings. The grounds are ever changing and a source of much interest to me.”

  More than anything, Isabella wanted to ask him about the tower. She knew he would not bring it up himself.

  “You did not seem pleased to see me today, Elliot,” she began nervously.

  “Forgive me.”

  “Please, there is no need. I was simply concerned that I had walked into the woods unwanted. What I am trying to say is that I should not like to spoil any enjoyment or contentment of your own, Elliot, with my presence. I am happy to walk only where directed.”

  “I would not banish you from any part of Coldwell; it is your home now,” he said in a low voice. “And my surprise at seeing you was unwarranted. I had known that you might well be outside, but had not truly thought you to be in the woodland. Still, it is of little matter.”

  “Are you quite sure?”

  “Daylight is not my friend, Isabella. I am sure you can understand why. But I shall be more careful in my dress in future.”

  Isabella felt a dull ache in her chest; he meant to cover his face in future.

  “No, you must not change your way of things. It is for me to adapt to a new life, Elliot, not you.”

  “Well, I daresay it is late.” Elliot shifted in his seat, and Isabella knew she had caused him embarrassment. “Will you manage, or shall I light a candle for you?”

  “I can see to the door.” Isabella rose awkwardly to her feet. “Well, goodnight, Elliot.”

  “Goodnight, Isabell
a.”

  Chapter 10

  As Isabella walked into the church she had attended her entire life, she was taken aback by just how many people openly stared at her. She realized immediately that none of them had expected to see her there. None of them had ever expected to see her again.

  “Ignore them, Your Grace,” Kitty whispered quietly into her ear. “You must take your place down at the front of the church, the most forward pew.”

  “Kitty, I do not want to go to the front of the church.”

  “You are the Duchess of Coldwell, and there is allotted seating for the Duke and his family. You have every right to take it, Your Grace.” Kitty quickly and secretly squeezed her hand as the last of the staring congregation returned their attention to the front of the church.

  “If I walk, they will simply stare at me afresh.”

  “If they wish to stare at you, Your Grace, they will take any opportunity no matter where you stand,” Kitty said in hushed tones. “So, you might just as well take your rightful place and let them stare and be damned.”

  The moment Kitty had finished speaking, she cast her eyes heavenwards, clearly remembering that she was in a church. She looked at Isabella with a comical, wide-eyed expression which almost caused her to laugh out loud.

  “Oh, Kitty.” Isabella was surprised at how quickly her tone had turned from one of embarrassment and panic to one of amusement. “But you will sit with me, will you not?”

  “I shall sit there with you if you wish.” Kitty smiled at her, her dark eyes brimming with warmth in her thin, pale face.

  Isabella walked down the central aisle with Kitty in tow as she made her way down to the front of the church and the Duchy of Coldwell pew. As she did so, she realized that her movement had caused many of those present to turn and look at her once more. Quite what they were expecting to see, she could not say.

  What she could say was that many of those who stared were the very people who had greeted her warmly week in week out throughout the years she had attended the church. It was as if, by nothing more than a simple marriage, she had become not just a different person, but almost a different species of being.

  She had become a curiosity, and she knew it. Isabella also knew that when a person became a curiosity, none would dare to enquire after her outright. None would ask the questions that they wanted to ask and would simply hope that they would find it out at some later date in the tried and foolishly trusted method of gossip.

  Isabella mused that nothing had changed about her appearance; there was nothing new about her to stare at. Even her clothes were not different, for she had chosen to wear one of her old gowns, rather than one of the new ones that the Duke had commissioned for her.

  The only thing that had changed was her circumstances. As far as the congregation was concerned, she had been sold to the monster by a father who thought absolutely nothing of her. Well, that was in part true. She had been sold by a father who thought absolutely nothing of her. But now, after her first few weeks of married life, Isabella was quite sure that the man to whom she had been married away was not a monster.

  Despite her newfound defiance, by the time she had gained the safety of the front pew, Isabella felt greatly relieved. It was not an easy thing to have all eyes on you, and she suddenly had a dreadful sense of what it must be like to be Elliot. She understood now exactly what it was that might induce him to dress differently when he was out and about on the grounds in daylight. He did not want to be seen; he did not want to be stared at. And in his position, worst of all was likely the idea that someone could not bear to look upon him and would, instead of staring, cast their eyes immediately away.

  What a great effect something as simple as the look of another could have upon the soul. How it could make one feel so many things; embarrassment, defeat, anger, resentment. Not one of those feelings was good.

  Isabella had hardly heard a word that the Reverend had said that morning. She was so distracted by her own cacophony of mixed feelings that she could not concentrate.

  It was her first visit to church since she had been married and, ordinarily, Isabella had always enjoyed the services there. However, she had enjoyed them from the comfortable position of not feeling at all resentful towards any other member of the congregation.

  If only Esme had been there, Isabella felt sure she would have felt very different indeed. Esme would have warmed her heart and strengthened her resolve, but Esme had returned her letter some days before to tell her that she would be away with her family in the Midlands visiting relatives, and very likely was, at that moment, attending a church service more than a hundred miles away.

  Still, Isabella had Kitty for support, and she was very grateful for her.

  Despite the fact that Isabella and Elliot had been able to converse a little more freely of late, Isabella had not expected that she would be free to attend the church.

  Elliot and everybody who worked on the estate attended private services in the little chapel where Isabella and Elliot had been married.

  The services were a little later in the day and were performed by the same minister who had presided over their marriage. From what Kitty told her, the Minister came from a small chapel somewhere east of the Coldwell Estate and routinely performed a service at the Coldwell Chapel as soon as he had finished ministering to his own little congregation.

  But as much as she missed Sunday morning services, Isabella could not bring herself to accept spiritual guidance from a man who had behaved as the Minister had. He had known that she had been married against her will and he, a man of God, had done nothing to help her.

  She knew, of course, that no man of God would have done. There was not a reverend, a priest, or a minister anywhere in the county who would have gone against a Duke and an Earl. Apparently, they found it very much easier to go against their own God, the God they claimed to serve unequivocally.

  “We have a service here at Coldwell every Sunday if you care for it,” Elliot had said to her when the subject of church had been touched upon during one of their evening meetings in the drawing room.

  “I used to attend the church down in the village, Elliot,” Isabella had said by way of explanation.

  Of course, it was not any loyalty to her old church which was holding her back from attending family chapel, and she knew it. But what else could she say to him?

  “You may attend the Coldwell Chapel with me if you wish it. If you do not, then I shall not force you. You might think that you have very little to give thanks for currently or very little to pray for. I daresay that is quite natural. But you may attend any time you wish, anytime at all.”

  “I am afraid that I do not wish to be preached to by a minister who would…” Isabella could not finish.

  Although she could only see the perfect side of his face in the gloom, she felt sure that she could see enough to see the sadness there.

  “You would not wish to be preached to by a minister who would see a young woman fainted away at the sight of her husband and continue on as if everything was well?”

  “I realize that men of God oversee the marriage of many a young woman who has been forced into it, and they do nothing. It is the way of things; I know this,” Isabella began cautiously. “And it would seem almost impossible to give you an explanation of my feelings on the matter without also causing some insult to you. I would not wish to cause such insult, and all I can do is give my explanation as truthfully as possible.”

  “Of course,” he said flatly.

  “I do not think that a man who can perform such a ceremony when he is under no illusion about the young lady’s part in it is a man that I can accept spiritual guidance from. That is not a true man of God, in my opinion, and I would not be able to concentrate on my prayers in his presence. I hope this does not offend, Elliot, and I realize that if you say I must go, then I must, but I would rather not.”

  “You need not do anything you do not wish to do.” Elliot reiterated his earlier sentiment. “But y
ou need not go without spiritual guidance altogether. Perhaps you would prefer to go to the church in the village again? I used to attend myself and can understand your attachment.”

  “You would have no objection to my going there?” Isabella was entirely surprised.

  “No, I would have none.” As he spoke, Isabella had studied his perfect left side in the gloom. “All of the servants on the estate attend the chapel here, but you may take Kitty with you if you wish for the company.”

  “I would be very pleased to attend the church in the village Elliot, and if Kitty is willing, I shall take her with me. Thank you.”

  As Isabella sang with the congregation who had stared at her and made her feel so uncomfortable, she wondered if she was as pleased to attend the church in the village now as she had been previously. Perhaps she would have been better off simply putting up with the guidance of the Minister who had seemed to her so morally redundant.