An Earl for the Broken-Hearted Duchess

by Lucinda Nelson

  “And what if she has written in that time?”

  When Nathaniel answered, he almost shouted. “What does it matter! She is in love with another man!”

  Clark crossed the room to stand over him. “Open the damn letters, Nathaniel.”

  He looked down at the letters. There were several. He knew that he should have opened them, but he’d been unable to bear opening them only to find that they were not from Margaret, again and again.

  He tried to ready his heart, but couldn’t muster the strength.

  “Pass me the letter opener,” he said to Clark.

  Clark did so and Nathaniel started opening them.

  The first three were from local officials, asking him if he was well. Two were from his parents. He lost all hope by the fifth, but when he opened it and saw her hand, his heart ground to a halt in his chest.

  “It is from her, isn’t it?”

  “It is.” Nathaniel said, in a tight voice.

  “What does it say?”

  The room felt like it was shaking. He put the letter on the coffee table beside him and shook his head. “I do not want to read it.”

  Clark expelled a big, impatient breath and snatched the letter. Nathaniel made a grab for it, but Clark was faster on this occasion.

  “Do not read it, Clark.”

  But his friend didn’t listen. He started reading.

  “Dear Lord Sterling,” he began.

  Nathaniel frowned. “Lord Sterling? Not Nathaniel?” Such a small thing, but it hurt him so terribly. “Please Clark, I do not want to hear anymore.”

  “But you must my friend,” he said, with a stern but kind face. “Dear Lord Sterling,” he read again. “I beg of you to visit soon, for Ezra’s sake, not mine.” Clark paused, then said, “Lady Baxter.”

  “That is all?”

  Clark handed the letter back to him. “That is all.”

  Nathaniel took it and read it himself, quickly, several times.

  “For Ezra’s sake, not mine?” he read aloud, with a deep furrow between his brows. “What does she mean?”

  “I expect the boy’s health must have declined.”

  “So she calls on me as she calls on a nurse?” Hurt was the catalyst to his temper. He crumpled the letter up and threw it aside. His hands were shaking. “How dare she. She toys with my heart but hopes to benefit from my kindness nevertheless?”

  “You will not go?” Clark asks, with a surprised countenance.

  “I will not go,” he resolved.

  There was a moment of silence before Clark shook his head. “You will go, my friend. We both know you will go.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because you care about the boy. And he has done you no wrong.”

  ***

  Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe

  She hadn’t wanted to contact him. In fact, Margaret missed him almost as much as she didn’t want to hear from it.

  It was a queer combination of feelings that made her feel as if she would never recover from Nathaniel Sterling. How could she, when she wanted him as much as she didn’t?

  She’d been through her fair share of tragedy. She didn’t need another man playing her like a fiddle to entertain himself.

  Nathaniel played the game well. He’d convinced her that he was the kindest man she’d ever known.

  He had well and truly fooled her. She’d never met another man or woman so skilled at pulling the wool over someone’s eyes.

  But she was seeing the truth now and with every day that passed, she hated him a little more. She thought the feeling of hatred would make her feel better.

  It had certainly helped her cope with Joshua’s loss, at least a little. But it also complicated her feelings.

  Because she still felt loss. Such profound loss.

  Yes, she hadn’t wanted to reach out to him. But when Ezra’s mood had declined even further, she hadn’t had a choice.

  It might have been difficult for her to put her pride aside and ask the man who’d scorned her for help, if it hadn’t been for her son.

  Watching Ezra wither like a dying flower convinced her.

  One morning, she went into his bedroom to find him sitting on the floor beside the bed. He wasn’t doing anything. Just following the grooves in the floor with his finger.

  “Wouldn’t you like to play with some toys, my love?”

  Ezra didn’t answer. He’d stopped crying days earlier. Now, he only stared blankly. It was the sort of sadness that wasn’t made for children.

  It was a sadness she thought could only accompany adulthood. A hopelessness that came with age.

  Seeing it on her son terrified her.

  When he stopped eating, her mind was made up.

  She wrote to Nathaniel. When she put pen to paper, nothing happened. No words. How did she even start? He wasn’t her Nathaniel anymore, so she couldn’t very well call him by his first name.

  But then they hadn’t resolved anything either and she didn’t want to seem cold when she was asking him for help.

  Nor did she want to seem affectionate, like some smitten fool, when he’d tossed her aside. She did have some dignity left in her.

  It took her a couple of hours to decide how she would write the letter. She wrote several drafts and wound up crumpling them up and tossing them away.

  At last, she kept it short. She hoped she’d struck a middle ground and sounded distant, but not entirely apathetic. After all, she wanted him to say yes.

  She needed him to say yes.

  What if he didn’t? Where would that leave Ezra? And if Nathaniel truly wasn’t the man he’d seemed, could she bank on the kindness he’d shown Ezra in the past? Was that all a ruse too?

  When she’d sent the letter, she waited in anxious anticipation, wondering what it would feel like when she saw him again. How it would hurt.

  Nathaniel didn’t come. When a day passed, she thought he must be busy. That he would surely come once his schedule cleared. She couldn’t expect him to prioritize them anymore.

  He was probably with Miss Wilde.

  The thought alone confined her to her bedroom for an entire morning, before she mustered the will to go and see Ezra. It was difficult to draw him out of his shell when she needed someone to draw her out of hers. But she tried. She always tried.

  He did not come the second day. By the third, she’d lost hope. It was on that day that she went to her son’s bedroom and watched him sleep through the morning.

  He’d been so tired recently, though he slept almost constantly. When he was not sleeping, he lay in bed staring at the wall.

  She did not wake him, but softly slipped into the bed with him. Very carefully, she bound him up in her arms and held him against her chest.

  Still, he didn’t wake. In time, she felt assured enough that he wouldn’t and she can let herself cry. She stroked his hair and cried, letting her tears pour into the pillow.

  Margaret didn’t know where they’d go from here, or what they’d do. She didn’t know how to fix this. She only knew that if she’d been good enough for Nathaniel, if she’d managed to truly steal his heart the way he’d stolen hers, her son would have been okay.

  For a moment, she let her mind go blank. She pretended that this was it.

  That there was no future. Only this moment holding her son. She tried to forget that eventually she’d have to get up.

  She closed her eyes.

  ***

  Lord Nathaniel Sterling, Earl of Comptonshire

  When he arrived at the estate, everything was silent. He knocked, but no one answered. Where were the servants? He knocked again, but heard nothing in return.

  After several moments, with a thumping heart, he tried the door handle. It was open. He pushed it and walked inside. He didn’t call out. The house was too eerie.

  Had they left? Were they truly gone? His heart gave a strange pang. He knew that he shouldn’t care, but he did. The thought of them having abandoned the estate, gone forever
, made his chest feel tight and sore.

  He peeked into the drawing room. Empty. Then he went to the servants’ quarters. He cracked the door of the kitchen and came across a strange sight.

  Miss White sat in the kitchen, weeping quietly. The governess was beside her, rubbing her back, but she too was crying.

  He ducked out of sight before they saw him and stood with his back against the kitchen door.

  He took an unsteady breath and felt a ghostly tremble in his gut. He had a terrible, terrible feeling.

  Why hadn’t he opened his letters? What disaster had befallen them that he could have prevented?

  He knew that it was entirely out of line to be sneaking around the house, but Nathaniel went upstairs.

  He was careful not to make a sound, but he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because the house seemed like a graveyard and disturbing it felt like sacrilege.

  Nathaniel heard a soft sound. He turned left at the top of the stairs, following the noise until he came to a bedroom door. It was ajar.

  He looked through the crack in the door.

  And saw her.

  In the dim light, her tears were glistening. She had her hand over her mouth, muffling the sound of her crying. In her arms, Ezra was sleeping. His face looked pale and there were deep purple rings beneath his eyes.

  Nathaniel didn’t think. He pushed the door open. “Margaret?”

  He’d resolved that he would call her Lady Baxter, as she’d called him Lord Sterling in her letter. But the sight of her and Ezra, looking so desolate, had broken through his pain. He forgot everything, for a moment, except how much he loved them.

  Margaret’s face lifted from the pillow and her bloodshot eyes went wide.

  They stared at each other. His lips were parted in shock.

  She moved quite suddenly, sitting up in bed and wiping at her tears quickly. The motion woke Ezra a little, who frowned. Margaret froze before his eyes opened fully.

  Once he settled again, she eased out of the bed very carefully.

  She put her finger to her lips as she left the bed and walked towards him. Then, she ushered him into the hall and let the door close softly behind her.

  The hallway felt narrow and closed, though it wasn’t. But they were chest to chest, barely an inch apart. Her cheeks still looked wet, but she didn’t look sad anymore. There was a sudden brightness in her eyes.

  He didn’t know what he expected her to say. Perhaps she would accuse him of sneaking about.

  She didn’t.

  A single sob croaked through her lips and she embraced him. She went up on her bare tiptoes and gripped him tightly about the neck. “You came,” she whispered beside his ear.

  Nathaniel blinked, his hands limp by his sides.

  He wanted to hold her. So much.

  But he didn’t.

  After several moments, she let him go. When he looked at her face, she was blushing. She cleared her throat and made another attempt to wipe the wetness from her cheeks. “You came,” she said again, in a more measured voice.

  “I did.” His voice sounded raspy with emotion. “I came as soon as I opened the letter. I’m sorry I did not do so earlier.”

  This seemed to take her aback, but she didn’t ask him why he hadn’t opened it earlier. She only nodded. “Thank you.”

  “What is going on?” He looked at Ezra’s door. “Is he unwell?”

  Margaret pursed her lips, as if she wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Margaret?” he pressed.

  “He misses you,” she blurted. “At least, I think that is it. Since last we saw you, his health has declined. It is worse by the day. He stopped eating and he won’t leave his bed. And I… I…”

  She started to cry, fitfully, but still struggled to get the words. “I don’t know what to do, Nathaniel. I am so sorry to have called on you. I shouldn’t have, I know, but he can’t bear it without you. I can’t-” She stopped.

  He would have killed to know what she’d been about to say. For a naïve moment, he’d thought she was going to say that she couldn’t bear it without him either.

  Nathaniel swallowed and looked between her and Ezra’s door. So this was the truth of her letter. She needed him, whether she liked it or not.

  “Please do not cry,” Nathaniel said, in a measured voice, as if he wasn’t watching the woman he loved cry her lungs out. “I will speak to him.”

  Chapter 26

  Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe

  He was here. He was truly here.

  For a second, she’d thought it was all a dream, seeing him standing him in the doorway. But when the vision didn’t vanish, she was shocked into motion.

  They stood together in the hallway. She hadn’t meant to cry. Truly, she hadn’t. She’d told herself that if he did come, she’d keep it together.

  But seeing his face. His concern. It broke her apart. And she was so full of need that she couldn’t keep the tears from flowing.

  When she embraced him, he did not return it. He did not even lift his hands. They were hanging by his side like dead, cold things.

  She was so desperate that he might have begged her to hold her. But she summoned what was left of her dignity and did her best to quell her crying.

  When he said that he’d speak to Ezra, she nodded shakily. Before she could thank him, he opened Ezra’s bedroom door again and disappeared inside.

  Margaret waited in the hallway for a long time. She didn’t listen in. Only waited. Knowing that if anyone could draw her son from his haze, it was Nathaniel.

  Nathaniel.

  Seeing him again was fresh pain, but it was also a balm. Though he was a great source of hurt, he was also the only individual who knew how to soothe her other sores. And she had plenty of other sores.

  It felt like forever before the door opened again. In that time, she’d chewed her fingernails until the skin around them felt raw.

  The door opened and she sucked in a breath.

  Together, hand in hand, Nathaniel and Ezra stepped into the hallway. Ezra still looked tired, but there was a little sparkle in his eyes.

  Margaret’s eyes filled with tears again. Her chest ached with tightness, but it didn’t hurt. It was wonderful. She started to smile, through the tears. “Hello, my darling,” she said.

  He smiled back at her. A small smile, but still a smile. She hadn’t seen him look anything close to happy in weeks, so the sight felt like seeing the sun after a long and dark winter.

  “Hello,” he said, in a voice that was croaky from disuse. “Is it okay if we go outside?”

  Nathaniel smiled softly and looked up at Margaret too. “Yes, is it okay if we go outside?”

  “Of course,” she answered. She led them outside, but didn’t stay with them. She wasn’t sure if she was welcomed and wasn’t willing to risk Ezra’s happiness at this time. Not even for her own.

  Margaret had felt so desperately lonely. A loneliness that was swallowing her up. But she hadn’t been able to draw Ezra from his sorrow. Nathaniel had.

  She didn’t feel like she had a right to his company anymore. And she wasn’t even sure if Nathaniel would want her around. He’d been so distant that she felt quite convinced that he didn’t care about her anymore. If he ever had.

  Margaret went to the kitchens and spoke to Miss White. She looked shocked to see Margaret and wiped at her cheeks quickly. “Oh, my dear,” Margaret said, with a sad smile. “Please do not feel so forlorn.”

  “Your Grace,” she said. “You are awake.”

  “As is Ezra,” Margaret replied. This made Miss White’s face brighten. “They are in the garden.”

  “They, Your Grace?”

  Margaret nodded. “Ezra and Lord Sterling.”

  She had come to the kitchens to ask Miss White to have the cook prepare some food, but she didn’t need to say a thing.

  Miss White quickly bustled off to have it all prepared, chattering about cakes and sausage rolls.

  Margaret smiled to herself and w
ent to the drawing room windows. She opened the curtains, for the first time in weeks, so she could watch her son.

  His happiness was mounting so quickly. Nathaniel was sitting in the grass with him, with a listening face. And Ezra’s lips were moving, faster and faster, as they always did when he got chatting about something he enjoyed.