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

by Bridget Barton

  “I do not think you ridiculous at all,” Fleur said firmly. “I think you most kindhearted and a very fine friend to offer such a thing. And you must allow me to help you where I can, even if it is only to use me as a sounding board for your ideas.”

  “I am very grateful to you.”

  “Does the Duke know that I know?” Fleur said cautiously.

  “He asked me if I had told anybody, and I could not lie to him. He has been lied to enough.”

  “And how did he bear that news?”

  “Not very well at first, but he quickly realized that I could not have made my way out to him without your help today. And then it was an easy thing to assure him of your confidence in all regards, so you must not worry about any of it.”

  “Did you ask him about the lady?” Fleur said suddenly. “The lady you saw, the ghostly lady who was so pale and delicate.”

  “I did not think to ask him, Fleur. I must admit that my own emotions were so very fluid that I had quite forgotten about her. And, in truth, I think it might be too early for such things. We were both greatly shaken by our conversation, even if it did bring us a good measure of relief after so many years. I think that we covered as much as we could today; there was not enough left of either one of us to go on in the end.”

  “Quite so,” Fleur agreed. “So, how will you begin? How are you to help him?”

  “In truth, I do not know where to start. I was so determined to say something that would ease him just a little that I had offered my assistance before I had really thought about whether or not there was anything that I could do.”

  “Your grandmother seems to be a very good starting point.”

  “Do you think so? Goodness, if only she were still alive.”

  “Why? After all, it seems unlikely that she would part with any secrets if she were,” Fleur said and shrugged.

  “Yes, and in truth, she might make more trouble than she would solve,” Georgina said firmly. “Yes, you are quite right. My grandmother is the starting point, but not one who would ever help us, alive or dead.”

  “And what of your parents, perhaps they might know something?”

  “My father was very cowed by his mother, it has to be said. My mother was too, although I am certain that she never liked her mother-in-law for a moment. Perhaps I could make some secret inquiries with my mother, carefully worded, of course, to see if she can shed any light on the matter.

  “And perhaps we ought to find out what your grandmother was like, really like, from the person who knew her the longest,” Fleur said with a bright smile.

  “Of course, Great Aunt Belle,” Georgina said, feeling that all was not lost and that, if nothing else, she at least had a sense of direction.

  She would start with great Aunt Belle; she would find out anything of note that that dear old lady could tell her.

  “Right, that is where we must begin, with Great Aunt Belle,” Georgina said, happy that she finally had a plan. “We must start tomorrow.”

  Chapter 12

  Great Aunt Belle’s senses were by no means as blunted as Georgina had hoped. That alert and hawk-eyed lady clearly suspected her two great-nieces of searching for information with a purpose.

  She did not believe for a moment that they were simply trying to make comparisons between Mirabelle and Elizabeth as sisters all those years ago. It was not idle curiosity, but curiosity with a very determined point and Great Aunt Belle made no mystery of the fact that she was suspicious.

  However, it had not stopped her from speaking a little about her sister and their upbringing at Winton House all those years ago.

  Armed with some minor information, the two young cousins set off a day later to repeat their performance of going into the town of Rowley for the afternoon. Once again, Georgina made the rest of the journey traveling post-chaise, this time happy in the knowledge that she would be driven back into town by one of the Duke of Calder’s drivers, just as she had been on her last visit.

  As the post carriage made its way along the great gravel driveway to Calder Hall, Georgina spied the Duke himself out on the grounds from her window and called up to the driver that he should stop just there and let her out.

  The driver did just that, and the sound of the carriage turning, spraying gravel here, there, and everywhere, finally caught the Duke of Calder’s attention. He looked over at her from a distance and waved enthusiastically.

  Georgina hurried through the pathway lined with immaculate box hedging and then took one of the gravel paths to the sundial where he waited for her.

  “I have come a long way since Ashdown Manor, have I not?” he said and looked at the immense sundial.

  “You most certainly have,” Georgina said with a smile, pleased that he seemed to be glad of her sudden and unannounced presence once again.

  “The only problem is, I do not know quite how or why or even if I have a right to it.”

  “From everything you have told me, Sammy, I am sure that you have a right to it. I am certain that the previous Duke was your father, for I can see no other reason for him to go to such lengths. But I can also understand why you might not be quite so ready to trust him, especially since there was so much of importance that he did not tell you.”

  “And not only was he a very ready liar, Georgie, but he made one out of me also.”

  “No, I do not think you are a ready liar, Sammy, but the most reluctant one. The little boy who did not have any option or say in the matter.”

  “Then you are still determined to help me, Georgie?” He smiled at her, and a light breeze lifted his thick and unruly silvery ash brown hair.

  She wondered if his hair was quite that colour when he was a boy. It had been brown, she knew, and very likely a little dirty at times, probably too dirty for her to see its finer lights.

  “Of course I am, and I have already begun. At least I have tried, at any rate. In truth, I do not know what help it is yet, but it is a start.”

  “And would you like to go inside, or would you care to stay out here in the grounds and enjoy the sunshine? I am very mindful of the fact that your health must be protected, Georgie.”

  “I think I would prefer to keep outside. My father’s cousin is still so anxious for my health that I am indoors more than I am out, and so it would be a great treat for me to take a walk around the grounds.”

  “Well, then we shall do just that,” he said and held out his arm for her to take.

  “I think that you and I both realize that it would be necessary for us to discover how it was you came to be at Ashdown Manor in the first place. It is the only starting point I can think of which would satisfy everything.”

  “By everything, do you mean to find my mother?” he said quietly and looked suddenly so sad that Georgina could have cried.

  “It would be wonderful, would it not, to find her?”

  “It would be wonderful, but my father told me that she had died.”

  “Oh dear, I am so very sorry,” Georgina said truthfully.

  “I suppose it is a fact of life which exists,” he said and shrugged. “But I am bound to say that I would have given almost anything to have at least met her just the once. Even just to have seen her.”

  Quite without warning, thoughts of the frail and pale lady of so many years before flooded Georgina’s mind.

  “Many years ago, I think I could not have been more than six, I remember seeing a lady, a young lady, out in the front grounds of Ashdown Manor,” Georgina began tentatively.

  “Right,” he said and narrowed his gaze in confusion. “Who was she?”

  “I do not know, nor did I ever see her again. And if I am honest, I am not entirely sure that she is not simply a phantom of a childhood dream.”

  “Well, tell me anyway,” he said and smiled before they turned to resume walking arm in arm once again.

  Their conversation fell to silence as they walked through the open archway in the west wing of the building, just as she had done on her first visit
to Calder Hall with her family. They did not resume speaking again until they had reached the rear gardens and were buried deeply in amongst so many roses and camellias, all of which were now beginning to show off their late spring blooms.

  “She was very pale and thin and quite young, I think. She looked forlorn, and I remember hiding behind my mother’s skirts and peeking out to watch her pace back and forth across the lawn. She did not say anything, at least nothing that I heard, and then my grandmother appeared and took her harshly by the arm and walked her away. And I never saw her again.”

  “Did you ask who she was?”

  “No, but I was so little. But you would have been eight years old then, I am sure. Can you think if you saw her on that day?”

  “You forget I was a servant, Georgie. I was so rarely at the front of the house, and certainly nowhere in sight of the great entrance door where I might be seen by guests.”

  “I am so sorry,” Georgina said and felt suddenly embarrassed to have reminded him of his position. “You were always more than that to me.”

  “I know I was, and I do not need an apology from you. I do not need an apology from any of them, for they did not treat me badly. They simply treated me as a servant, which is what I was at the time.”

  “Then you did not see the lady at all?”

  “No, I did not,” he said and suddenly reached out to pluck an early pale pink rose from the bush. “Here, this is for you,” he said with a smile as he handed her the bloom.

  “Oh Sammy, thank you,” she answered and smiled, thinking how like the old Sammy White it was to be so spontaneous, to suddenly have his attention drawn away by something else altogether and to act upon it.

  It was that very quality which had drawn her to him when they were children, the idea that anything might happen next because Samuel White could not concentrate fully for more than two minutes together.

  “But I can tell that you think her appearance significant,” he said, quite suddenly returning to the conversation at hand.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said, drawing the rose to her face and taking in its delicate scent.

  “The pale young woman on the lawn of Ashdown Manor. I can tell you think her presence that day was significant.”

  “If she truly was there, Sammy, yes.”

  “I cannot think that so young a child would clearly remember a dream, or even a nightmare, so many years later. Let us work on the idea that you really did see her, that this distraught woman really did attend Ashdown Manor that day.”

  “Yes, let us keep that in mind,” she said gently. “Even though I cannot yet say if it helps us or not.”

  “And did you have other news? Other things you had discovered?” he said and looked politely hopeful.

  “Yes, yes, but again I do not know how it helps. But at least it is something.”

  “I am grateful for anything you discover, Georgie. And I want you to know that if there is no answer to be found, I shall be grateful to you nonetheless. I will never regret for one moment allowing my tongue to slip that day and give me away, for I am so very pleased to have you back in my life.”

  “As am I, Sammy. I really have missed you all these years.”

  “So, tell me the rest,” he said with a smile. “I can tell you still have more to say.”

  “I made a few gentle inquiries with Great Aunt Belle,” she began.

  “Great Aunt Belle?” he said with a broad smile. “I am certain that I have never met her and yet, at the same time, I already have a mental image.” He laughed.

  “And it will undoubtedly be the right one,” Georgina said and laughed also. “She is a fearsome and yet kindly lady of advancing years with a shrewd mind, a sharp wit, and an even sharper memory. And she is also the older sister of my grandmother.”

  “Do you know, I can still remember your grandmother’s face, every line of it, as clearly as if I had looked upon it every day of the last ten years,” he said, and she could tell that it was not a fond memory.

  “I had very little care for my grandmother, it is true. I warmed to her a little as she aged, but I never forgave her for her treatment of you, and of me.”

  “Yes, I remember well that you were often a victim of her cruelty, and almost always in connection with your defense of me. And here you are all these years later, once again doing your very best to help me.”

  “Because we are friends, Sammy. Or should I call you Emerson now? I really am a little confused about it all.”

  “I would prefer you to call me Sammy, just as you always did. It reminds me who I really am, even if I still do not know who that was.” He laughed. “But it is as close to the truth as I can get, for to talk about those times does not involve a lie of any kind to pass my lips when I am with you.”

  “Then I shall call you Sammy and think of you as Sammy. But I shall be very careful to address you properly as the Duke whenever there are others in our presence. I will never do anything to give you away, Sammy. I will never do or say anything that would hurt you or put your position here at risk.”

  “I know,” he said, and they set off again, with Sammy leading her towards a beautiful old wall covered in the most sumptuous green rhododendrons.

  The rhododendrons looked as thick and as comfortable as a mattress, so springy and lush. The closer they got, the more she could see that the great sprawling foliage was covered in buds ready to open as the summer progressed. She could see through the pale membrane that the buds, when they finally flowered, would be the deepest shade of blood red. She truly hoped that she would still be in Devonshire when the time came for them to open so that she could stare upon them in wonder, a wall of red and green.

  “I think if there was anybody on this earth who could have told us exactly of your origins, Sammy, it is true to say that it was Baroness Elizabeth Jeffries. And so, I thought it might be informative to find out as much as I can about my grandmother, for I am not so sure that I knew her particularly well myself, given that I spent much of my childhood hiding from her.”

  “Understandably.”

  “Anyway, Great Aunt Belle, or Mirabelle, and Elizabeth were not the best of friends as sisters. Elizabeth, I believe, was a very hard young woman whose ambition knew no bounds. As my great aunt tells it, Elizabeth was going to marry a man of title come what may, whether she liked him or not, and that was her only goal.”

  “A type that still thrives today, I believe.”

  “Indeed.” Georgina laughed and wondered just how many young women of the type had thrown themselves at the new Duke of Calder in the last months. “Anyway, Elizabeth had only one friend in the world, and that was Beatrice Ellington. They were, as my aunt describes them, as thick as thieves, neither girl to be trusted, at any rate. Of course, that might simply be Aunt Belle’s sentiment rather than a particular fact.” She laughed. “For it is very clear, even all these years later, that there was no love lost between my grandmother and my great aunt.”

  “And did they keep friends? Your grandmother and Beatrice Ellington?”

  “Very good question, Sammy.” Georgina smiled in approval. “And one that I asked myself. And yes, they maintained a friendship for the rest of their lives, predominantly in written correspondence, since my grandmother moved to Hertfordshire and her friend to Cornwall.”

  “If they were so close, then there is a healthy chance that Beatrice Ellington would know the details of my birth. At any rate, she might know your grandmother’s involvement in all of it and how I came to live as a servant at Ashdown Manor.”

  “Yes, if she is still alive. She would, of course, be only a little younger than Great Aunt Belle herself. But still, it is an inquiry worth making. After all, Aunt Belle looks set to go on forever, and there is no reason why this Beatrice Ellington might not still be alive somewhere.”

  “And how do you propose to discover it?”

  “When the dust has settled a little, and my great aunt has given up suspecting me of something she cannot quite put her f
inger on, I will sneak up into the attics with my cousin and see if we can find any of this correspondence. I realize that it will be extraordinarily dated, but it might give us some further indication of the closeness of the women and if there was anybody else in their circle who might be of use to us.”

  “Good heavens, it is hard to imagine it, but you are cleverer than ever.”

  “I have been very lonely at Ashdown Manor since you left, Sammy, and so I took great refuge in improving my mind since there seemed to be little else to do.”

  “Did you have no friends at all?”