“You certainly look well enough,” Clark interjected, with a lopsided smile.
Miss Wilde blushed starkly and inclined her head. “I thank you, good sir.”
“Forgive me. This is Clark Bennet. We served together.”
“A pleasure, Miss Wilde.” Clark tipped his hat as he spoke, and Nathaniel felt sure that Miss Wilde would scarcely be able to bear the attention any longer.
“We will take our leave now and wish you a pleasant day. Do tell Mr. Windsor that I called. Tell him that I think it such an awful shame that he is unwell.”
She smiled a bit nervously and bid them good day.
“She is quite the woman,” Clark said as they walked. He looked as alert as a bloodhound on a hunt.
“Yes, she is rather lovely,” Nathaniel said.
“Rather lovely. And suited, perhaps, to your father’s requirements?”
Nathaniel felt his mood dip and wished Clark hadn’t spoken.
“Must we talk of it?”
“You cannot postpone forever.”
For some reason unknown to him, he thought of the Duchess before banishing her from his mind with a jerky shake of his head. He had no business thinking of her. A stranger whom he cared not a jot for.
He picked up the pace, forcing Clark to trot a couple of steps in order to catch up with him, and said, “I can damned well try.”
***
Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe
“You needn’t sit here with me all the time, mother,” Ezra said. His voice startled Margaret awake.
Shepard sat upright in the rocking chair beside his bed all night long and had fallen asleep some time during the early hours of the morning.
Blinking quickly, she looked at where he lay and put her hands against the rocking chair’s arms suddenly, as though she meant to rise.
When the fog of sleepiness cleared from her mind, she slackened back into the seat. There were deep purple rings under her eyes, which were bloodshot and heavy. “How do you feel, my darling?”
“Well enough,” he said. His eyes, usually so striking and jovial, seemed dull and despondent.
“Do you have pain?”
“No,” he said, though she saw him wince slightly when he tried to move. “I am only uncomfortable. I want to be out of bed.”
“You must rest.” Margaret stood and passed him the glass of water from his bedside table. He turned it away with the flat of his palm and Margaret frowned.
The night before, Ezra had been quite eager for her company. He had even let her hold him, as he hadn’t since the day of his father’s death.
But now he seemed determined to be alone again and it gave her heart such a terrible ache to see him so. “Will you drink please, my love?”
He shook his head and fixed his eyes upon the wall. “I do not want to drink.”
“Ezra-”
“Perhaps I could be alone,” he said, curtly.
Margaret was taken aback. She stood there a moment, unblinking, before nodding a little unsteadily. “Very well. But if you want me, you must call for me. I will not be far.”
He nodded, if only to hurry her departure. She could see it in his features. He did not want her there.
With a heavy feeling in her body, Margaret returned the untouched glass to the bedside table and took her leave.
The days that followed were truly terrible. Ezra did not want to see her. Did not want to see anyone.
His injury seemed to swallow him whole, as injuries often did with men and boys alike. He was largely confined to his bed, with infinite hours to think on his plight, to miss his home, to miss his father.
By the third day following his injury, Margaret was taken by such a fit of worry that she considered returning them to Lowe, if only to please him. But the doctor insisted that he mustn’t be moved. “It would not be good for his leg.”
“And what of his feelings?” Margaret had said, curtly.
The doctor had clearly been accustomed to women speaking to him in such a way. His mouth had gaped open for a moment, speechless, but he had held his tongue. He knew better than to reprimand a duchess.
Margaret had not apologized. She had tersely bid him a good day and was pleased to see him go.
She was not a woman who was typically prone to temper, but she was growing so terribly tired of men telling her what was best.
And yet she was too unsure of her own judgement at this time to do anything but listen to them.
Perched in a window seat, watching the doctor depart from the grounds, Margaret bit at the corner of her nail.
And felt truly lost.
Chapter 6
Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe
“Lord William Brandon,” Margaret said, as she slowed her horse into a gentle trot. She had ridden out early that morning, in a desperate attempt to free her mind from the drudgery of sadness lurking in the estate.
It lightened her heart, at this heavy time, to see William. “My dear friend, what brings you to Comptonshire?”
Lord William Brandon, the Marquise of Wiltshire was as impish as he was handsome. He was the sort of man who walked as though he’d prefer to run, who had a smile for every soul he passed, and who was – most miraculously – above gossip of any sort.
He was among the very few Margaret could wholly trust.
“Why, to see you, Your Grace.” His horse slowed alongside hers as he spoke, and he inclined his hat towards her with a sweeping gesture of his arm. “Bonsoir.”
Margaret laughed, as she hadn’t in days. Seeing him made her giddy with relief. So much so that she might have cried from the force of it. “You have been learning French then?”
“Oh yes, dear. From the very best, you know. A purebred Frenchman in Paris. I could not settle for less than the best.”
“Certainly not,” she agreed, beaming like a fool. Her time since the funeral had felt so entirely friendless, and the time since Ezra’s injury even more so. “Then I suppose they cannot be blamed for your mistake.”
He balked. “My mistake, Madame?”
Margaret gestured towards the sky. “It is the morning. But you might leave me now and greet me this evening with ‘Bonsoir’.”
“Leave you? I could not, when I have come so far to see you. And when it brings me such joy to see you.”
She had not thought her smile could grow, and yet it did. “Then ‘Bonjour’ would suit.”
Once more, he tipped his head. “Bonjour, Madame. You have put my tutors to shame.”
“Perhaps they have a difficult student.”
His grin almost reached his ears. “A terrible student, as you well know. I prefer living to learning.”
“I know that to be true.”
“Will you ride with me, Your Grace?”
Margaret gave a gentle knock of her heels against her horse’s sides. “You had me at ‘Bonsoir’, my Lord.”
They rode for a time in comfortable silence and, for the first time in many weeks, she did not feel quite so alone. At length, she asked, “Truly, what brings you here, my Lord?”
“As I said. I was riding for your estate in Comptonshire.”
“And what inspired such a visit?”
His smile softened, and he cast her a sidelong glance. “I have missed a dear friend of mine.”
“Be candid.”
He laughed, infectiously. “Is it so difficult to believe?”
“Entirely.”
He shook his head, with a quirk of amusement on his lips. “It is the truth, though perhaps not the whole of it. I have not seen you since the Duke’s passing. I have come to offer my condolences. You know how dear he was to my heart.”
Margaret flashed him an arch look and, after a moment of meeting her stern eye, he exhaled audibly.
“Oh, very well. Perhaps he was not so very dear, but only because he found me entirely abhorrent.”
She almost laughed again. “He did dislike you so.”
“Well I know it. A
nd I could not blame him for it. A handsome fellow like myself lurking about his wife? Not to be trusted. But I have come because it was his wife that was dearest to my heart. And I feel that she needs a friend at this time. I came from France as soon as I heard of his passing.”
“A friend like you, my Lord, is always needed.”
“Then be true with me,” he said, and his voice had gentled so that time seemed to slow. His face was so tender that it made her breast ache. “How do you fare? I suppose you miss him terribly.”
This had been said to her many times since Joshua’s death. And, in truth, she did miss him at times. In moments of extreme loneliness.
But that longing for him was so short lived, because it would always strike her anew that his death – and her own mourning – was overcast by what he had done.
She tried to smile, but did not know what to say.
“I am quite well.”
“Quite fierce, you are. You could weather a storm with naught but the gown you wear. I have the utmost confidence in your survival, Margaret. I had hoped to know of your heart.”
“It is unlike you to speak with such sentiment.”
“And it is entirely like you to deflect my rare moments of it.”
“I often think you know me far too well.”
Once more, a silence fell. She knew that he was waiting for something more from her, but was mustering the courage to speak it aloud.
After some time, she turned her mare back towards the estate so that they could begin the journey back.
“You have heard then,” she said. “How he was found.”
She watched him. He was a man who was not often prone to discomfort or any feeling like it, but she saw his hands twitch on the reins as though she’d prodded his ribs. “I have.” His voice was stiffer.
“Then you know of the shame that follows me.”
He whipped his face towards her. Such a brazen face he had, full of emotion. “The shame is entirely his to bear, even as he lies in his grave.”
William’s righteous anger was a sizzle between them, but she was not afraid.
She listened to the clump of hooves.
“Forgive me, Margaret,” he murmured. “I should not speak ill of the dead. Least of all the man you mourn for.”
“No,” she said. “There is nothing to forgive. In truth, I wish there were more who thought as you do, so I would not have to hear them tear my name – and Ezra’s – through the dirt. How callous men and women can be.”
William nodded. “And how is Ezra?”
“Missing his father.”
“He does not know.”
“He suspects.”
William shook his head, and cast a look up at the sky. “What a terrible thing for a boy to suspect.”
“You think it best that he never know the truth?”
“Certainly not. He is as entitled to the truth of it as you are, but at six-years-old? What boy could cope with such a truth?”
“Then I will count on you to help me protect him from it.”
William tipped his hat once more and offered her the sweetest of smiles, which looked strange upon his impish face, but was not a rare thing to see.
He was the sweetest man she knew, though he shrouded it in humor and mischief. “With my life, my dear friend.”
“I do hope he will be pleased to see you,” Margaret said, as the estate came into view. She was full of hope, but raw from disappointment.
“You doubt it?” He hid his offence well, but she heard it. Ezra was as dear to William as Margaret was.
“Forgive me, William, of course he loves you dearly.”
“Then what troubles you?”
“He has not been himself.”
“He is mourning,” William said, his expression softened by understanding.
Margaret nodded. “And since his injury-”
“His injury?”
“Be at ease,” she said. “He is well enough. Only recovering from a minor break. It is his heart I worry for.”
“He will not be consoled?”
“His grief has turned to anger. He will not be seen willingly.”
“How does a mother bear that?” He said, with a crinkle in his brow.
“She does not,” Margaret sighed.
“Then I must do my best to draw him out of it,” he said, with promising conviction. “How did he come to be injured?”
“I hardly know. He will scarcely speak to me, let alone answer my questions. I only know that he hoped to return to Lowe. He took a horse and cart and returned with a broken leg.”
“Alone?”
“No,” Margaret said. “A gentleman found him.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And you have not thought to ask this gentleman how he came to be injured?”
In truth… no. In here fear and desperation, Margaret had been so awash in her own sadness that she hadn’t thought to contact Nathaniel Sterling.
Though he had certainly made quite the impression upon her, kind and muddy as he had been, Margaret had scarcely had a moment to think of him.
Now that she did, she recalled the brightness of his eyes shining through the dirt. Her stomach did a queer flip.
“I am not sure I am in any state to receive guests,” she said, with barely concealed nervousness. Why she should be nervous, she did not know. But at the prospect of seeing Lord Sterling again, she felt somewhat nauseous with anxiety.
“Am I not a guest?” William said, with a smile.
She returned it, and said, “You are part of the furniture.”
He laughed. Such a contagious sound that she felt keen to get him to the estate. If any man could draw Ezra from his melancholy, it was William.
“You ought to invite him for a dinner. At the very least, you must thank him.”
Margaret gnawed on her lip until it felt sore. They dismounted and their horses were taken to the stables. As they stepped into the estate, she said, “You are right.”
“As I often am.”
“I will invite him.”
“I wholly recommend it,” William said, as his coat was taken. “Now, where is my dear Ezra?”
***
Lord Nathaniel Sterling, Earl of Comptonshire
Nathaniel had read the letter perhaps twenty times and for the life of him, he could not understand it. “I cannot imagine why she would like to see me.”
“My word, what a smell,” Clark exclaimed. He was rifling through Nathaniel’s liquor cabinet, sniffing various whiskeys. “The smoked oak is divine.”
“Are you listening?” Nathaniel snapped.
Clark pulled out another bottle and sniffed so deeply that his eyes rolled back. “I am hoping that if I remain silent, you will begin to see reason on your own,” he said, as he poured himself a glass. He poured one for Nathaniel too, but he turned it away with the flat of his palm. “I do not understand what has you so flustered.”
“The prospect of spending an evening with the Duchess of Lowe.”
“Is that not the sort of thing Earls must do?”
“Yes, but-”
“And you rescued her child, yes?”
“Well, yes, but-”
“Then I suspect her motives are entirely motherly. She only wants to thank her knight in shining armour.”
Nathaniel cast him a disapproving glance.
“I am not sure what ulterior motives you think she might have. She is but a poor widow with an injured son. And do you not want to see how he fares?”
“Certainly, I do.”
“Then join her for dinner. I suspect the food will be rather fantastic.”
“Do you only think with your gut?”
Clark shrugged and took a seat, swirling the whiskey around his glass and watching it ripple. “It suits me. My stomach’s desires are largely black and white.”
Nathaniel read the letter again and Clark fell silent. He could feel his eyes on him.
“It is not like you to be so taken aback,” Clark mused. Nathanie
l could hear a smile in his voice. He looked back at his friend, who had an arched brow and a pressing look in his eye.
An Earl for the Broken-Hearted Duchess Page 4