The Duke's Heartbreaking Secret: Historical Regency Romance

by Kate Carteret

  Chapter Five

  Elliot watched as his father, his appearance improved if not immaculate, made his way out of the front of Darrington Hall and approached the waiting carriage.

  The old Duke had been in good spirits all morning, leading Elliot to wonder where it was his father was going for the afternoon. He had remained curiously tight-lipped about it all and Elliot did not have the patience to ask, for most conversations seemed to be conducted in the spirit of pure antagonism of late. Instead, he decided to leave his curiosity unrequited.

  Despite the apparent good mood, Elliot could see his father barking instructions at the driver as the poor man tried to help his overweight, unfit master up into the carriage. Elliot stifled a laugh as he watched the ungainly man, seeming years older than he really was, heaving his cumbersome frame into the carriage, his face red with annoyance and the sheer exhaustion of the simple exercise.

  “Pity the poor woman.” Elliot muttered under his breath.

  He felt sure that his father was setting out to meet a woman. The good mood and the half-hearted attempt at hygiene could suggest nothing else to Elliot. But despite his father’s seeming efforts, the man was still going to be a hard sight to reconcile if the lady in question had any taste at all.

  Having seen enough, Elliot wandered away from the window and back into the drawing room. Although it was a warm and bright day, the cold stone and high ceilings of Darrington Hall always cooled the rooms and he wondered if he would pull the bell to have the fire set.

  Perhaps he would wait an hour and ask for tea and a fire all at once. Elliot smiled as he dropped down into the wide pale blue armchair in front of the huge and empty fireplace. He liked to have the drawing room to himself knowing that his father was away from the hall and not likely to return any time soon to disturb his peace.

  In truth, Elliot found the room a little too gaudy to be entirely relaxing. The ceiling was high and there was a mezzanine above, its railing running the full length of the room on two sides. It had always given Elliot a feeling of being watched, even though it was a part of the house through which the servants rarely traveled.

  There were portraits in oils hanging everywhere in heavy gilt frames. Elliot had always marveled at how so many of his male ancestors had chosen to wear red for their portraits and he always felt as if he was simply regarding the same painting over and over again. Not that he studied them a great deal anymore; they were of little interest to Elliot if he was honest.

  Still, he had decided that he would himself wear green or blue when his time came to sit for a portrait that would hang somewhere in the immense room. When he became Duke and his father was no longer on the earth.

  Elliot sighed; it was a theme he often revisited in his mind and one that was unsettling. He could not abide his father, and yet he wondered if he loved him. To think of him no longer being at Darrington Hall was pleasing and upsetting in equal measure and Elliot wished that the emotional life of a human being could be a much simpler affair, if only occasionally.

  And so, he chose instead to think better thoughts. The sort of thoughts that would make him smile and forget the life he was so ill at ease with.

  His mind gave him a very pleasing image of the young woman he had met at the cabin just a day or two before. What a very unusual thing to have happened upon her right there in the middle of the enclosure.

  Over the years, Elliot had wondered if he might see someone else in that place, but he had imagined it to be the owner or an adventurous young boy. He had never thought to meet such a beautiful young woman in there, never thinking that such a divine creature would care to crawl through the thick undergrowth. It was so deep from front to back that he knew most people would simply walk past without wondering if there was something to be seen within.

  Elliot had to admit that he liked the idea of a young woman who was so inquisitive and adventurous that she would take on the physical challenge with no promise of anything to be found on the other side. That was exactly how it had been for him when he had been a boy of fifteen who had just lost his beloved mother and was looking for an escape from his pain.

  Elliot laced his hands across his flat stomach and wondered if the young woman had pain of her own that she wished to escape. Perhaps that was where a spirit of adventure was truly born, in a need to free oneself from something else.

  And the lady had been very beautiful. Some years younger than himself, but she had a confidence that he found attractive. She was not overbearing by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, he had thought her very gentle and rather sweet. But her inquisitiveness had taken a hold of her and she spoke without any shyness or coyness when she had questioned him about the cabin.

  Elliot laughed to himself as he thought how refreshing it was to meet a woman who was entirely herself. Women were never, ever themselves around him, always trying to impress him in some way or another.

  But the beautiful, fresh-faced young lady with the thick, straw-colored hair and the pale blue eyes had been just about the most natural woman he had ever come across. It was as if she were untainted by the world around her; as if society had not poisoned her soul with its ideas and expectations.

  If only he had thought to introduce himself, at least then he would have her name and be able to make some little inquiries of his own.

  But then she would have known him to be the son of the Duke of Darrington and then, perhaps, he might have seen a very different side of her. The idea of her was so enticing, so new, that Elliot could not bear to sully it by imagining how she might have behaved, how she might have spoken, had she realized he was an heir to so great a title.

  No, he would not think of that. He would imagine her just as she was and enjoy the pursuit. And he would, without a doubt, make his way to the old cabin with such regularity as he might one day find her there again. Above all things, Elliot wanted to lay eyes on her once more.

  With a contented sigh, he rose from his seat and made his way to the fireplace to pull the bell rope for tea and a fire. If he was to have an afternoon of pleasant imaginings, he would do so in comfort.

  Frinton Manor had been a hive of frenetic activity all morning and Lady Eleanor looked taut and anxious. The color was high in her pale cheeks, given that she had spent a good deal of her day so far shouting at the small household staff in a most unladylike manner.

  The drawing room had never looked as immaculate, and yet Lady Eleanor sighed and tutted and shouted. The Baron had made himself scarce, having almost walked into the room when his wife was on the verge of a furious vent.

  Rowena stifled a laugh when she saw him over her mother’s shoulder as he backed slowly away from the open door and disappeared in the direction of his study. If only Rowena could disappear too and hide away from her mother’s critical gaze.

  “He will be here any moment.” Eleanor hissed as she looked all about the drawing room once more, scrutinizing every part as if something might have changed in the moments since she had last looked.

  “Why are you so anxious, Mother?” Rowena asked and knew in her heart that there was much her mother had not told her.

  “Why do you ask so many questions?” Her mother bit back waspishly.

  “Because I always feel as if I am not being told everything. Almost as if there is a secret.”

  “A secret?” Lady Eleanor whirled around to glare at her. “What do you mean by that? What secret?”

  “I cannot say exactly. It is just something I feel.” Rowena felt a little upended by the look on her mother’s face.

  There was something there; a little fear, perhaps? Whatever it was, Rowena knew she had seen something of note. Something that should unsettle her greatly. But, as always, Rowena knew that she would get no answers from her mother or her father.

  “I hear a carriage!” Eleanor’s watery pale green eyes flew open and her angular features, suddenly animated, gave her a look of a bird of prey.

  The Baroness hurried over to the drawing-room door and p
eered out to see that the staff were doing just as they ought to. Rowena followed her, peering around her mother’s shoulder. When Lady Eleanor raced into the entrance hall, Rowena realized that the servants were not doing things just as their mistress had wanted. Still, Rowena could not imagine what it was they could be getting so very wrong.

  She had been about to make her way back into the drawing room to sit daintily on the couch, just as her mother had been instructing her all morning, when she saw a look on the housekeeper’s face which stopped her in her tracks.

  Miss Harcourt had been at the side of the houseman-come-butler Mr. Tunney, ready to solve any little problem that might come their way. Again, Rowena could hardly imagine what problem might arise whilst a Duke simply made his way into the house, but her mother had been most determined that all possibilities should be considered.

  But there had been something in Miss Harcourt’s look, something almost angry, and Rowena found herself staring at the housekeeper.

  “Get back into the drawing room.” Eleanor hissed and she took Rowena’s arm firmly and sped her back towards the couch. “He is approaching and we cannot hover in the entrance hall, you silly girl!”

  Finding no response that would be fitting, Rowena simply sat on the couch as instructed and held back from pointing out that her mother had been the one hovering in the entrance hall, not her. But the angry look on Miss Harcourt’s face came back to her and Rowena found herself wondering what on earth it had been in aid of.

  The housekeeper had been looking out of the partially open door at the time, the door which gave out onto the front of the house. Had she seen something outside which had angered her? But what?

  Miss Harcourt, whilst pleasant, had always been rather a distant figure as far as Rowena was concerned. Certainly, for her to look so incensed was something that Rowena had never seen before. In all respects, she was a very mild-mannered sort of a woman.

  Hearing the approaching footsteps and the sound of her father, who had likely just darted out of his study, greeting the Duke in the hallway, Rowena was drawn back into the present moment.

  “How very nice to see you again, Your Grace.” She could hear her father’s voice growing louder as he and the Duke came closer to the drawing room. “And welcome to Frinton Manor.”

  “Yes.” Came a bluff voice. “Yes, indeed.”

  Lady Eleanor had been about to roll her eyes in exasperation at her husband’s non-compliance in the whole staging of a contented family life in the drawing room when the two men came in.

  The butler seemed very much wrong-footed, likely because his mistress had not covered a situation in which her own husband would make the whole entrance very awkward. Rowena groaned inwardly and wished her mother and father could simply be more natural, more genuine.

  “His Grace, the Duke of Darrington.” The butler said and looked flushed.

  Lady Eleanor rose to her feet and Rowena did the same. As the Baroness inclined her head graciously and began to speak to the Duke, Rowena stared in horror at the man before her.

  He paid little heed to her mother, instead fixing Rowena with a relentless stare that, after a moment or two, traveled up and down her entire body without any hint that he was trying to study her surreptitiously.

  In that awful moment, everything became horribly clear to Rowena. So clear, in fact, that she could hardly hear her mother’s words at all.

  “And please allow me to introduce my daughter, Your Grace. This is Rowena.” Eleanor turned towards her daughter and waved a thin arm in her direction as if she were a merchant trying to entice a potential buyer with fine wares.

  “Well, well, well.” The Duke said and Rowena felt her mouth fall open. “So, you are Rowena Lockhart, are you? Yes. Very good.” He looked her up and down once more and Rowena felt her flesh go cold. “Very good.” He said again and ran his tongue over thick, ugly lips.

  “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Grace.” She said hurriedly when, after some moments of stunned silence, she had become aware of her mother’s intent glare.

  “As I am your’s, my dear. Very pleased indeed.” Still, he did not take his eyes off her and Rowena could feel her cheeks blushing.

  Worse still, she realized the Duke had seen it too and he looked gratified, as if he truly thought that she might be behaving coyly just for him.

  “Please do take a seat, Your Grace,” Eleanor said and waved her thin arm once more. “Tea shall be with us shortly.”

  As they all took their seats, Rowena caught her mother’s eye. Lady Eleanor had the good grace to look just a little embarrassed and that in itself was enough to make Rowena want to run away and never come back.

  If Eleanor Lockhart looked embarrassed, then Rowena must have been right in her initial estimation of the situation. The Duke of Darrington was not at Frinton Manor for a simple visit. Rowena knew, with certainty, that her mother and father had made a promise and that the Duke, old and savage to look at, had come to have a look at his prize.

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