An Earl for the Broken-Hearted Duchess

by Lucinda Nelson

  “Very, very well. William came to see me today.”

  “Delightful,” Nathaniel said, spending a great deal of effort to keep himself from sounding surly. Was Ezra infatuated with William too?

  They walked in the garden together that afternoon. When Ezra ran ahead of them, Nathaniel touched his fingers against Margaret’s. They twined and he felt his heart lift.

  “It surprises me that you have taken to the title of Earl so well,” Margaret admitted.

  “You think I have done so well?”

  “Very well indeed.”

  “I have stepped on many toes,” he said, with a small smile.

  “Just so. Good men should step on toes. How else can anything be fixed?”

  He couldn’t agree more. He nodded. “Well, there is certainly a great deal to be fixed in Comptonshire. Perhaps you can help me with it?”

  Her face lost its expression and she stared at him, unblinking, as they walked.

  “Have I upset you?” he wondered, with a deep frown.

  “No, no,” she said, quickly. “I am only shocked.”

  “By what?”

  She hesitated, before saying, “The Duke did not let me contribute to his affairs.”

  “Then he was a foolish man,” Nathaniel replied. He squeezed her fingers with his. “A very foolish man. He did not see the exceptional resource sitting under his nose.”

  Her cheeks flustered. She smiled as they walked. He thought to himself that he could live his entire life with the sole purpose of trying to make her happy. And he would never tire of it.

  “It seems as if your father was the same.”

  “In what sense?” Nathaniel answered.

  Margaret looked at him. There was such a wealth of affection in her eyes that it seemed to swaddle all his sores of the past. “He did not see you for the resource you were.”

  He swallowed. He didn’t think anyone had ever said that to him.

  Nathaniel tried to smile for her, but he was suddenly awash in the memory of asking his father if he could help and being brushed off in favor of his elder brother.

  Time and time again, until he’d felt like nothing more than a pest in his own home.

  “I did not want to be a resource,” Nathaniel said. An old defense mechanism that kept him from feeling quite so cast aside.

  But he felt that Margaret saw through it. She released his hand so that she could touch the small of his back. He felt her palm moving in soft circles.

  “That is why you went to war,” she deduced.

  He nodded.

  “Are you glad that you did?”

  “There was no place for me here,” he answered. He looked at her, with an intense countenance. “Until now.”

  “Until now,” she agreed.

  “How I wish I could kiss you, Margaret,” he breathed.

  They looked ahead of them, to Ezra. He was picking wildflowers. Margaret wasn’t sure he could cope with such a sight as his mother kissing his dearest friend, not so long after his father’s death.

  As though he could feel their stares, Ezra started to turn around. Margaret and Nathaniel stopped touching each other, before his bright face came into view. “Did you see?” he called.

  “What is it, my darling?”

  “I can run!”

  So he could. He was a little stiff, but he managed to half-run back to them. When he reached them, Margaret kissed his forehead.

  As Nathaniel watched them, his heart was so full of warmth that he thought it might burst.

  ***

  Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe

  The next day, Nathaniel, Ezra and Margaret went to the schoolhouse as they’d discussed. They spent the morning helping Miss Wilde remedy what was broken.

  It wasn’t much. A few flower pots. They then began to replant what had been torn up and salvaged as much of the fruit and vegetables as they could to give to the villagers.

  Ezra seemed to rather enjoy the experience. He would pull up carrots and potatoes and show Margaret with a look of utter exuberance. But when he found one that had been stamped on, he looked terribly sad.

  “What is the matter, my love?” Margaret asked, when he looked so forlorn that he might cry.

  “Why would someone do this?” he wondered.

  Margaret kissed his face and offered him a small bag of seeds. As he took them and started planting, she said, “I do not know, my darling. I imagine that they are greedy people.”

  He frowned. “Greedy how?”

  “They want to keep all the joy to themselves,” she said. Then she softly cupped his cheek and added, “But you know better don’t you? You want to share the joy with boys and girls who aren’t as lucky as we are.”

  He started to smile and nodded.

  When Margaret resumed her work, she felt eyes on her. She peeked back over her shoulder to see Nathaniel knelt behind her in the soil.

  He’d stopped planting to stare at her. There was a twinkle of fondness in his eyes that made her feel warm and tingly.

  “Nathaniel,” came a voice from above them.

  They all looked up. A gentleman and a lady were standing over them. While the lady had a rather kind, though anxious face, the gentleman looked surly as a bear and his voice was terribly stern.

  Before Margaret could ask them who they were, Nathaniel stood. “Father. Mother,” he said. “This is the Duchess of Lowe, Lady Baxter.” Nathaniel looked to her and added, “These are my parents. Lady and Lord Sterling.”

  Margaret felt anxiety shoot through her belly. She stood up abruptly, but didn’t say anything. She inclined her head in greeting. She didn’t know what to do with herself. She wondered what they must think of her. With muddy hands, kneeling in the soil.

  “What a surprise to see you,” Nathaniel said. His voice was stiff and he was looking at his father.

  “You have not answered our summons.”

  “As I said, I have been busy.”

  “Busy doing what?” his father snapped. “Planting daisies? You are an Earl.”

  Nathaniel’s jaw hardened but his countenance remained calm. “I am. And I do not need to justify myself.”

  Margaret watched Nathaniel’s father’s cheeks start to redden. There was a purple vein in his forehead that started to bulge. “Every man must justify himself.”

  Before his father could speak on, the mother spoke up. She stepped in front of her husband like a physical wall between them and took Nathaniel’s hands in hers. “My dear, we are only concerned. We have heard such terrible rumors.”

  Rumors.

  “What rumors?” Margaret expected Nathaniel to say it. But he didn’t. She did.

  The words hurtled out of her in a thoughtless rush. Once they were out of her mouth she felt all her bravery slither out right alongside. She swallowed, but would not look away from Nathaniel’s mother.

  The father answered. “Rumors that he has been spending time with a woman he ought to have nothing to do with. A duchess in mourning!”

  So it had reached Comptonshire. Margaret felt her stomach sink and her face burn a fiery shade of red. But she didn’t feel fiery. She felt like stamped out ash.

  Nathaniel’s father was going to say more. She could see it in his face. He was staring at Nathaniel, trying to get a rise out of him. “The Duchess of-”

  Before he could say her name, Nathaniel cut him off. “Do not speak another word.” His voice was like steel. Frighteningly cold.

  Margaret had never been more grateful for anyone. She’d protected her son from the scandal for this long. She couldn’t bear him being hurt by something so small and petty as unjust rumors. He didn’t need to hear his mother’s name trampled on.

  But the fight was not over. Margaret could see that Nathaniel’s father was losing his temper. His hands were practically shaking at his sides.

  While Nathaniel and his father stood eye to eye, Margaret whispered a quick word to Miss Wilde, asking her to take Ezra aside.

  Miss Wi
lde did so, swiftly and quietly. She took Ezra to see another part of the garden, where he would be out of earshot.

  Margaret stayed.

  “So it’s true then,” his father said. “You have no regard for our good name. Worse, you openly disregard it by going public with a widow above your station.”

  She wanted to speak up. To make her presence known. To make them see her as she truly was. Not as some faceless, scandalized widow.

  But as a woman with a heart, with feelings and a very real connection with their son.

  Yet when she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came. She was pale beneath the force of Nathaniel’s father’s derision. So stung by it that she was rendered speechless.

  Her lips closed and she looked down at her feet.

  She imagined what Nathaniel must be thinking. That she was more hassle than she was worth. That was the truth of the world. A world that wouldn’t make it easy for them to be together. Not even close.

  She’d told him. She’d told him so many times that they shouldn’t be doing this. And he’d said that he didn’t care about reputation, rank or titles.

  Now he was faced with reality. That he might well think himself above those things, but that did not mean he was free of them. They would follow him wherever he went, haunting his every happiness.

  Haunting them.

  “You make a mockery of our good name,” Nathaniel said, in a voice that was bursting with feeling. With sincerity. He sounded like a judge delivering a sentence. For the first time since he had arrived at the school, Nathaniel’s father wavered.

  He blinked and stared at Nathaniel with parted lips. “You spit on our good name by suggesting that a woman as good and kind as the Duchess of Lowe is anything but worthy. She puts you to shame.”

  Margaret did not know Nathaniel’s father, but she’d always been a good judge of character. And she did not imagine that he was often at a loss for words.

  His anger seemed to abandon him and he was left looking rather young as he stared at Nathaniel.

  He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Beside him, Nathaniel’s mother was equally tongue tied.

  “Good day,” Nathaniel concluded, in a tight voice that left no room for argument.

  “Nathaniel, we-” his mother murmured, but Nathaniel raised a hand to silence her.

  “I said good day. We will speak of this another time.”

  They stood still a moment, still gawping at their son, before his mother took his father by the arm and pulled him away.

  Margaret and Nathaniel watched them leave, in absolute silence. Without even a breeze to disturb the haunting quietness of their departure.

  *** Lord Nathaniel Sterling, Earl of Comptonshire

  In the face of open, public scorn, she did not cry as other women might have. Margaret was upset, but she wouldn’t let it show. He turned towards her in his parents’ absence and said, “I am so sorry, Margaret. I did not know they would say such things.”

  She only shook her head, her lips sealed tight and reached out to squeeze his hand. “It’s no matter now. Shall we continue? We have a great deal of work to do today.”

  Margaret knelt back down in the soil and pulled a trampled plant up from the roots. He stood over her, perplexed and upset on her behalf. “Will you not speak to me?”

  “What is there to speak of?” She didn’t stop pulling at the roots.

  Nathaniel crouched down beside her in an effort to force her to meet his gaze. “You are upset.”

  “I am not upset.”

  “Then why will you not look at me?”

  “I am working.”

  Nathaniel put his finger beneath her chin and she froze. He felt some resistance in her, but when he applied pressure she was forced to turn her face towards his.

  When she did, he saw that her eyelashes were glistening with unshed tears. “Oh, my darling duchess,” he whispered. He touched the tip of his finger to the space beneath her left eye, catching a tear before it fell.

  “The world has been so unkind to you. And now my parents too.”

  She gave him a wobbly smile. “I understand their concerns.”

  “Because your heart is too kind.” He took her by the hands and stood. “Come. Let us go. I want to be somewhere I can hold you in my arms so that you are able to feel all that you feel.”

  “Perhaps I do not want to feel?” she said, with a sad smile and a shake in her voice.

  “We all must give ourselves the time and space to feel, my darling. All of us.”

  She looked at him as if he’d shared some sacred secret, and nodded softly. “Very well. On the condition that you feel with me.”

  Nathaniel smiled. “I can do nothing else, Margaret.”

  Chapter 22

  Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe

  “You must go? Truly?”

  “I must,” Nathaniel said. They were sitting in her drawing room, having tea while Ezra played with some toy trains between them.

  “But, why?” She knew how she must have sound. Like a needy, pining adolescent. But she had not been without Nathaniel since he’d first kissed her.

  Not for more than a few days. And the prospect of him being gone for a full week was almost too much for her to wrap her head around. What would she do without him? What would Ezra do?

  “I wish I could stay. You know I do. But I have been called directly by the Duke of Sallingworth, who has been investing a great deal in towns all across the country. The town would benefit from his patronage.”

  Margaret chewed her lip, but nodded. “I will miss you,” she said.

  They both looked at Ezra, playing happily. They had kept their relationship secret from him for several weeks now, but it was becoming more difficult. When they were together, Margaret was so often overwhelmed by affection that it sometimes felt impossible to keep herself in check.

  Even now, she wanted to touch him.

  To hold his hands.

  To kiss him.

  To show him how terribly she would miss him.

  How lonely she would feel in his absence.

  But being alone wasn’t the trouble. She could be surrounded by a hundred friends and still feel alone without Nathaniel.

  Had she come to depend on him so much?

  “Ezra,” Nathaniel said. The boy stopped making train noises and looked up at him with a goofy smile.

  He was almost entirely recovered now, in body and spirit, thanks to Nathaniel. “Have you heard that I will not be here next week?”

  His face fell. “But… where will you be?”

  “London, dear boy.”

  “London? Can I come with you?”

  Nathaniel shook his head sadly. “I would treasure your company, but this is strictly business. No time for fun between us. You’d be best off here, so that you can continue your archery lessons.”

  If anything could have convinced Ezra to stay, it was his archery lessons. He’d become more and more obsessed with them every day.

  Margaret had worried that when Ezra heard that Nathaniel was leaving for London, he wouldn’t be able to keep himself from begging to go with. But Nathaniel knew her son well. So very well.

  “I will bring you something special back,” Nathaniel added, when Ezra still didn’t appear entirely persuaded. “How does that sound?”

  This swayed him. Ezra smiled and nodded, but said, “I will miss you. But if you must go, you must go.”

  Sometimes he sounded like a grown gentleman. A frightening thought to any mother.

  They spent the remainder of the day together, playing with Ezra, but all Margaret longed for was a moment alone with Nathaniel. Just a moment.

  They so rarely spent any time alone. It was tricky, after all, to achieve a moment of solitude. Everyone was watching their every move.

  They couldn’t go into the town together and they certainly couldn’t be seen to be behaving intimately with Ezra around.

  Margaret didn’t think he was ready to know the truth,
not with his father’s death being so recent.

  So they stole what precious moments they could and did their utmost to keep their hands to themselves, as they’d promised they would.

  It was not easy. When she was alone in her bed at night, the thought of Nathaniel kept her from sleeping for many hours.