“I will be with you in mere moments, my darling,” she said to the child, who was dazed and silent, and then looked to Nathaniel as the boy was carried away. Nathaniel was still bowed above her, where she knelt upon the ground. “You must stop, good sir,” she said, and began to stand. He reached for her in a fluster, offering his palm.
He saw, just as she did, that it was black with dirt. And yet, before he could withdraw it, the Duchess lay her hand in his and allowed him to assist her to her feet. “I am surely in your debt,” she said. “What is your name, sir?”
As Nathaniel watched her fingers slip free of his, he felt that his name had entirely abandoned him. His skin felt branded, truly scolded by her. And all he could think of was that sensation. That feeling of her.
He looked to her face. She was cut from ivory, with the finest features he’d ever seen. Her eyes were emerald gems and her complexion was so fair, so flawless that he imagined God sculpting her by hand.
“Sir…?” she said, and he watched her lips move like two ribbons whipping in a gale.
He blinked, and his neck warmed. “Your Grace?”
“Your name, sir?” she said again, watching him with furrowed brows. “Are you well, sir? Perhaps you have caught a chill. Miss White, find some clothes for the gentleman.”
Miss White, the servant, hesitated in the hallway until the Duchess added, “I am sure the Duke’s will suit him well.”
Miss White’s eyes widened a little, but she scuttled off quickly nevertheless. Nathaniel was equally astounded. “Your Grace, you mustn’t bother the Duke. I will take my leave now, for I am quite warm and well.”
“The late Duke,” the Duchess said with strange calm. She then touched her hair, a few strands of which had come free.
“You must forgive me,” she said, and begins to seem suddenly tired. “We have been riding all afternoon looking for him.” She offered him a soft, grateful smile that made his gut do a somersault.
“No, you must forgive me, Your Grace. My condolences. I did not know.”
She smiled again, though less freely.
“I will take my leave now. I do hope you will give the little Lord my best.”
“But you have not told me your name, good sir?”
He smiled and bowed once more. “Lord Sterling,” he said.
Her fine brows rose a little. “The acting Earl of Comptonshire.”
“You know of me?”
“Your late brother was a friend of the Duke’s. My condolences to you too, Lord Sterling.”
Nathaniel offered a similarly reserved smile in response and inclined his head in thanks.
“You will not change before you leave, my Lord? Miss White will be but a moment.”
Nathaniel shook his head. “No need, Your Grace. My estate is but a short walk from here.”
“If you are quite certain,” she said with obvious reluctance. “Then I thank you, sir, most sincerely and heartily, for finding Ezra. Where did you find him?”
Nathaniel opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a soft call from the gallery.
“Mother? Please come, Mother.”
The Duchess looked up towards the gallery. “Forgive me,” she said, and he could see that she was eager to follow the call. Her feet shifted in her riding boots, and her eyes continued to flicker towards the gallery.
“There is nothing to forgive. The boy wants his mother.” Tipping his head in farewell, Nathaniel stepped out of the estate.
Before a servant closed the door behind him, the Duchess said, “Perhaps we will meet again, and you might tell me how you came to find him. That is a story I would like to hear.”
He paused on the cobblestone and looked back at her with a small smile. “Certainly, Your Grace.”
“My thanks go with you. Farewell.”
“Farewell.”
Before the door shut, he heard her turn heel and briskly climb the staircase towards her waiting son.
As he walked back to his estate, looking like a grand fool, he thought of the dirt on her skirts, the softness of her fingertips, the ivory hue of her skin and how the shape of her lips had said a great deal more than her words had.
Nathaniel knew nothing of her, and wanted to know all.
***
Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe
“My little prince,” Margaret said to him. She held him across her lap, wrapped in a towel with heat coming off his skin from his time spent in the bath. The doctor had come. It was a minor break in Ezra’s left leg.
Ezra’s eyelids were heavy, but he was awake and coherent. He laid his cheek against her chest and breathed deeply.
She pushed his damp hair back in soft, repetitive strokes, timed to the beat of her own heart. “Why did you leave, Ezra?”
There was a slight catch in her throat as she spoke, but she did not cry again. She had spent all her tears in search of him.
Ezra closed his eyes and said, “I missed home, mother. That is all.”
She put her cheek against the top of his head. “And me? Would you not have missed me in your absence?”
She felt his little body go taut and he gripped her about the waist as though this was the first he had thought of it. “Oh, but I would have come back, mother. I would have.”
Her lips quivered as she smiled. “And what would you have done?” She wondered aloud. “In London?”
He paused, while he thought, growing noticeably sleepy. “I would have gone to the estate,” he said, quietly. “Sit in father’s study a while, play in the grounds…”
“Would that not have been rather sad, my darling, to do so alone?”
Ezra was quiet, before nodding tentatively. “I suppose it would have been rather sad,” he acknowledged, in a voice so full of melancholy that she felt a deep pang in her chest.
“Perhaps we will go soon,” she suggested. “Together?”
He mustered the energy to lift his head and look at her. He started to smile, hopefully. “Would you?”
Kissing him upon the head, she murmured, “Yes, Ezra.”
With a hefty sigh, he settled once more. She could feel his smiling mouth against her neck. With a great yawn, he said, “Perhaps the gentleman can come too.”
It was barely an audible mumble, but Margaret heard. She was surprised, but said, “The Earl?”
He spoke around a second yawn and said, “Nathaniel. The kind man who…” His words faded into a murmur, which softened into silence. His breaths became lighter, slower, and she knew him to be asleep.
“Shall I take him, Your Grace?” Miss White asked from the doorway, but Margaret merely shook her head.
“I will take him, Miss White. Thank you.”
She then stood and carried her child to bed, thinking all the while of the man who had come to her door.
A monster of mud, with kind eyes. She had to wonder if, beneath all that dirt, he was a handsome man.
***
Lord Nathaniel Sterling, the Earl of Comptonshire
It was late by the time Nathaniel reached his estate, and he was bone tired. Upon returning, he retired immediately to his bed chambers and felt entirely grateful that his parents no longer inhabited the estate.
They had retired prior to Nathaniel’s brother inheriting the title of Earl, and resided in an only slightly more modest estate just one mile north.
Had they remained in residence at the estate, Nathaniel could scarcely imagine how they would have taken to seeing him as he was in this moment. He looked like a creature of the swamp, and had given even the servants quite an obvious shock.
“It is but me,” he had said, as he’d entered, to spare poor Miss Halloway an attack of the heart. She had been all in a fluster and had seen to bringing him fresh clothes, preparing him a bath and fetching him a glass of his favorite single barrel whiskey.
He was grateful for her assistance, now more than ever. As he lay in the bath, soaking his tired body, he thought of the boy and hoped that he was well.
He’d seemed rather lonely.
As small boys raised by men and women of rank often are, he thought, bitterly.
And then he thought of the mother. Nathaniel had known of her husband, in passing, though he hadn’t had the disappointment of meeting the man.
According to his brother, the Duke had been a dashing fellow with quite a fair bit of charisma under his belt. And Nathaniel knew well what that meant.
A man who worked for nothing, but was given it all. It was no wonder he had secured the hand of the Duchess.
The Duchess. Even speckled with dirt and stood in riding boots, with hairs amiss from her bun, she had looked the part of a woman of rank.
It was not in what she wore, but in the pallor of her skin, the lightness of her eyes and the way she held her shoulders as though she could bear the fiercest of storms.
It was unlike Nathaniel to think so much on a woman. Particularly a woman of her rank, who he’d only met for a mere few seconds.
But the Duchess had piqued his curiosity, in a peculiar way that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He wanted to know her, in whatever way he might.
And as the Earl of Comptonshire, it was certainly his responsibility to welcome her into the township and to discern what part she might play in his plans – if she were to play any part at all.
He was reminded of something his father had said, on a number of occasions: It is not what you do, but who you know.
This was not a sentiment that rang true with Nathaniel’s character, and yet he suddenly thought rather well of it. Perhaps because it suited his hope to learn more of her.
But was he such a man? Using false political sentiments as an excuse to pursue some misguided fascination?
He thought to himself – with conviction - as he lay in the quickly cooling bath, that he would not see the Duchess again.
He had sworn off women of her type many years ago.
Yet, his mind was a pendulum. And as he went to bed, he persuaded himself again that he must know her. That it was his duty to.
Yes, he would maintain his political sincerity, but strive to understand her so that he could assure himself that she would not disrupt his intentions in Comptonshire.
After all, a woman of her rank with no husband to steer her could wreak havoc upon a man like Nathaniel’s authority in the township.
Yes, he would know her, if only to assure himself of her allegiance.
But alas, the pendulum swung again. As he lay, doing his utmost to sleep, he thought how terrible a thing it would be to know a woman like her. A duchess.
He’d met a few in his time, and none of them had made the best impression upon him. They’d been haughty, entitled and – frankly – they’d repulsed him.
And he did not want to be disappointed, if he were to indulge his curiosity enough to know this woman. He had made mistakes in the past, where beautiful women were at hand.
Nathaniel thought of Tessa, the last woman to toy with his heart, before shutting her firmly out of his mind.
Yet as he thought of the Duchess in her riding boots, holding her son… he found it impossible to imagine her being so terrible as the women of his past.
And there lay the danger. A danger he simply could not risk at this time, when the township was his priority.
At last, just as his eyes started to close, Nathaniel thought that it was a shame - a true shame - that he would not be able to know more of the child, or to visit to ensure that he was well. But he could not put his concentration at risk, nor would he overstep his rank by visiting the Duchess’ estate unannounced for a second time.
But as he slept, he did not dream of the boy and the horse and cart.
He dreamt of the Duchess.
Chapter 5
Lord Nathaniel Sterling, the Earl of Comptonshire
“Is my presence a hindrance or a blessing?” Mr. Clark Bennet, a bachelor and military man who also was a stud breeder, asked with a crooked smile.
At once, open-hearted and impeccably mannered in good company, and Nathaniel’s closest companion. They’d met in the army, and had been fierce friends ever since.
“Does it matter a great deal?” Nathaniel answered.
Clark was munching on an apple and walking with an eye for everything and everyone they passed. He was a curious fellow and, though he knew the town well, always behaved as if everything was new to him.
“Not in the least. I only wondered.”
Nathaniel smiled, albeit somewhat distractedly.
“Are we saving a damsel today?” Clark asked. He had never been able to bear silence for long. There were nights during the war when Nathaniel hadn’t been able to sleep for all Clark’s talking.
“Not quite.”
“Then what?”
“We are doing nothing. I am speaking to the school’s headmaster.”
“To what end? Some barbaric thing?”
Nathaniel shot him an exasperated look. “Regarding the curriculum.”
“The curriculum?”
“Yes. I do not believe it is entirely in keeping with the times. Comptonshire needn’t lag behind London as it does.”
“That sounds rather dull.”
“Were you hoping for something more daring when you paid me a visit?”
Clark smiled, big and broad and crooked. “We were quite the daring pair during the war.”
“We are no longer at war.”
“And you are an earl.”
It was spoken in such a way that Nathaniel stopped walking. His jaw tightened slightly and he said, “I am no more a fan of the title than you are.”
Clark also paused and nodded in acknowledgement. “Yes, I am certain you hate it. But, it is I that is suffering for it.”
“How do you suppose?”
“It dismays me that the very thing that made fast friends of us has become complicated.”
It was true that Nathaniel and Clark had bonded over their shared disdain for the peerage. And, in truth, he had worried that their friendship would suffer for it when he inherited the title of Earl. Yet here his friend was. Come to see him.
“You are a clever man,” Nathaniel said. “You can bear the complex.”
Each of them smiled, and they walked on together. “I can,” Clark agreed. “And I will for a friend such as you. You are not like the Earls I have known before, but very much like the man I served with.”
Nathaniel felt a phantom pang in his gut. “I thank you for that.”
Clark inclined his head and said no more until they approached the school house. It was there that they spotted Miss Hannah Wilde, the school’s teacher, leading a small cluster of children inside.
“Who, pray tell, is that?” Clark murmured, with raised eyebrows.
“Miss Wilde,” Nathaniel answered, as they came within earshot. “Is the good Mr. Windsor with you?”
“My Lord,” Miss Wilde said, with an awkward curtsy. Miss Wilde was a fair woman, with strawberry curls and light blue eyes.
Though clever, she had a sweet and innocent manner about her. “I-I am afraid that he is not well.”
“A shame,” Nathaniel said, dubiously. “I saw him just yesterday.”
“You did?” Her eyes shifted, before she spoke again. “Yes, well, it came on quite suddenly.”
Nathaniel inclined his head. “Well, you must send him my best wishes. I do hope he recovers promptly. You must be inundated with work without him.”
Indeed, she appeared quite frazzled, and tired. A child tugged on the hem of her dress and gestured to his chest, where one of his coat buttons was hanging off.
She assured him that she would fix it in just a moment, and returned her attention to Nathaniel and Clark. “I can manage well enough, my Lord. Though I will certainly give him your best.”
He thanked her, knowing well enough t
hat Mr. Windsor could be an idle blaggard when it suited him. He also knew that young Miss Wilde was too kind to say a bad word about him, though she knew as well as Nathaniel that Mr. Windsor was anything but unwell.
An Earl for the Broken-Hearted Duchess Page 3