Loving Tales of Lords and Ladies

by Abigail Agar

  “A bit old?” the Duke demanded. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  “She couldn’t play with us,” Lottie said then. “Papa, she was SO old. She was a million years old.”

  The Duke felt his stomach curdle with apprehension. Now, with yet another governess gone, he would have to drag his children to the musical instrument shop for the day. Perhaps they could rush around the back lot, get up to foolish games—anything to keep them away from the expensive instruments and the craftspeople who were working on them.

  The children peered up at him, expectant, their eyes almost glittering with promise. They knew, beyond anything that a result of their getting the governess to leave was that they could go with him to work. It had happened frequently at this rate. And always, it filled them with promise—knowing they could follow him, their last link to their mother. But it added to the Duke’s seemingly endless stress. In just a few months, he had a large shipment of instruments, to be brought to the King and Queen, in London. It was to be the first major shipment since his wife’s passing. He couldn’t possibly mess it up. Messing it up would mean that he was unhinged, a “lost cause” after the death of Marybeth. “Just another widower who couldn’t handle the loneliness.”

  Chapter 2

  The carriage pulled up at the front of the estate mansion, with the driver, Montgomery, stationed at the top—a whip in-hand. He beamed down at the Duke, his eyes glazing over the four children, waiting expectantly. In front of him, two mighty stallions stood, huffing and flaring their nostrils. They would cart the Duke—and the rest of his family—all the way to the instrument shop.

  “I suppose this means you’ve lost another governess?” Montgomery asked, his voice almost cockney in style, bouncy and agile. He certainly wasn’t from Leeds. Although, he’d been working for the Duke since he and Marybeth had married. He couldn’t imagine another stableman.

  “I don’t think it’s something we’re terribly willing to discuss, Montgomery,” the Duke said, almost chuckling. But he held it back, guiding his children into place at the back of the carriage. The Duke ambled in after them, seating alongside Claudia. As he sat, he watched Christopher tug at little Lottie’s hair. “Christopher!” the Duke cried.

  Christopher’s face lost its blood, appearing pale and frightened. But before the Duke could make another move, the stableman shot his whip across the horses, and they began to clop towards the centre of town. The ride was over twenty minutes—ambling them out of the deep countryside and into Leeds: a city lined with cobblestones, with bustling townspeople, with horse and buggies darting to and fro. As they entered, the Duke’s children pressed their noses out of the carriage openings, their eyes alight with promise. They loved the chaos, the colour of the city.

  The Duke half-wondered if they’d only rid themselves of their governess for another day of pleasure in Leeds. He wouldn’t have put it beyond them, his munchkin children.

  “Papa, look!” Lottie pointed her little white needle-like finger out the window, towards a woman wearing a grand, maroon gown, and a black cloak. Her chin was raised high, her hair pulled back into a gorgeous, fashionable up-do.

  In fact, the Duke recognised the woman as someone he’d courted, for a brief time, prior to meeting Marybeth. As they crept along beside her, his dark eyes met with hers on the corner. She brought her chin upward, and they exchanged an almost soft greeting, despite how much time had passed. The Duke assumed that now the woman had a husband and probably many children. She looked fine and regal as if her husband conducted a great deal of business. How her mother had yearned for her to marry the Duke!

  Yet, when he’d met Marybeth, he hadn’t been able to see another.

  “She’s very beautiful,” Claudia said, eyeing the Duke.

  “I’m quite sure I used to know her before,” the Duke offered. He blinked several times, wondering at the kind of life he and this woman might have had if he hadn’t met Marybeth. His children—these four chaotic demons, whom he loved with his entire beating heart—might never have existed.

  And with a jolt, Montgomery forced the horses forward. The tyres of the carriage clucked over the cobblestones. Lottie drew back, placing her cheek on the Duke’s chest. “Papa, I’m glad she’s gone,” Lottie whispered, probably speaking of the governess.

  The Duke felt sure that he would never get to the root of what had happened between his children and the governess. All he knew was: he had to push forward and find another one, as it wasn’t appropriate for him to bring his children to work every day. Not with this big approaching sale. Not as, it seemed, his company continued to lose money in the wake of his wife’s death.

  When the Duke arrived at his business, the children scampered from the carriage. He walked after them, his boots falling into the mud and dredging it up against the cobblestones. Jeffrey, his assistant, appeared in the doorway. He was a rotund gentleman, his white and grey beard flickering around his thick neck. He held a ledger book in his arms and scowled down at the four children as they rushed towards him. His eyes searched the Duke’s for a moment, rueful.

  “You know you can’t possibly get as much work as needs done with the children here,” Jeffrey said, almost reprimanding the Duke.

  The Duke arched his back, forcing his chin higher. He glared down at Jeffrey. In the back of his skull, his headache was a constant shadow over everything. It was one of those headaches he felt sure he couldn’t escape with a simple lay-down.

  He decided not to reprimand Jeffrey, as it felt too difficult—coming up with some sort of punishment. Instead, he decided to belittle him, ensure that he knew that, without the Duke, he would be out of a job. Just a meagre man, cast out. Jeffrey had never married and had been working as the Duke’s assistant for the previous three or four years. He’d been appropriately loyal. But, the Duke had noticed, Jeffrey had grown increasingly sloppy in taking stock of the dealings of the company—leading to some minor cash losses.

  The Duke reached for the ledger book. His children scampered down the centre of the musical instrument store, their laughs echoing from wall to wall. Lottie nearly toppled into a massive harp before Claudia reached her little hand and yanked her back. The Duke blinked at the mad tornado of the four of them before turning his gaze back to the ledger. It was time to focus on the work. This was their livelihood.

  The Duke strutted into his private office, with Jeffrey ambling up behind him. His finger traced over the dealings in the ledger, marvelling at the fact that they’d lost nearly two hundred pounds that month. How was that possible? They’d had a hefty dealing with a boarding school that had purchased quite a few harps for their orchestra. They’d also been contacted by the Duke of Earl, as well as several rich Lords in the Midlands, who’d enquired about their selection.

  But as the Duke read over the ledger, he recognised that Jeffrey, himself, had made a miscalculation in his dealing with the Duke of Earl. It seemed that Jeffrey had given him an incredibly irresponsible amount of money back—leading to a loss of nearly one hundred and fifty pounds.

  “Jeffrey. How is this possible?” the Duke asked, his voice gritty.

  “What?” Jeffrey asked. His cheeks shook as he spoke, making him appear childish. “What are you talking about?”

  “Jeffrey, it’s clear to me that you’ve made a massive mistake in your dealing with the Duke of Earl. You’ve cost the company a great deal of funds …”

  Jeffrey’s cheeks grew bright pink. He blubbered again, trying to articulate his feelings. But the Duke rose up from his chair, towering over him. He felt another wave of anger. It felt impossible to see through this anger. It was bright red, making his eyes flash. “Jeffrey, if you think for a moment I won’t throw you out on the road, right this moment …”

  “My Duke, I don’t suppose you think I did this on purpose, do you?” Jeffrey said. He stretched his fingers over his cheeks, dragging them downward. “You don’t think …”

  Outside, an incredible crash resounded from
wall to wall. The Duke bolted towards the door, rushing towards the collection of harps, pianos, cellos, and violins near the back of the shop. Another crash rang out, echoing wildly. It was the crash of strings falling into boards falling into keys. The Duke strutted more quickly. As he blinked, his eyes were filled with more and more red and black. It was the very colour of anger.

  Behind him, Jeffrey skipped along, trying to keep him. “Oh, my goodness, Duke. It’s just horrible what your children do when they’re here,” he tittered, tossing the full blame upon the only humans the Duke loved in the world.

  To this, the Duke balled his hands into fists. He wondered what kind of man he might have to be to spin back and blast those fists directly into Jeffrey’s skull.

  When the Duke finally did reach the chaos, he was unsurprised to find Christopher in the centre of it all: with violins and cellos and even half a piano smashed around him, his body strewn back, and his eyes blinking up. Claudia was still poised next to him, her hand across her mouth. Lottie was nowhere to be found. Neither was Max.

  “What the hell happened here?” the Duke cried. He felt his anger bubbling up from his stomach, like acid. He might vomit.

  Christopher tried to pop up from the rubble, but the Duke rushed forward, placing his hand on Christopher’s shoulder. If they moved him carefully, perhaps they could spare some of the instruments. The Duke snarled down at his son—this kid he didn’t quite understand, the volatile and alive one—saying, “Why can’t you ever leave well enough alone, Christopher?”

  “Father, it was my fault …” Claudia began from above. Large tears slid down her cheeks. She reached for Christopher’s other shoulder as if she might be able to tug him from the instruments.

  But the Duke swatted her hand away. His brain swirled with anger. He spun back towards Jeffrey, who sneered at Christopher. “You’ve really made a mistake now,” he told Christopher. “Consider yourself all but shipped off to boarding school …”

  This had been something the Duke had mentioned to Jeffrey in private: the concept of sending his children off since he struggled having all four of them, hopping from governess to governess, all on top of managing the musical instrument shop. But the fact that Jeffrey brought this up, as a kind of threat to his child, scalded the Duke. He shot back up from Christopher, preparing to howl at Jeffrey.

  But as he moved to speak, he blinked, and then blinked again, feeling the world teeter around him. He felt like he was perched on the edge of it, unable to find his grip. And suddenly, he fell to his knees, crashing into a part of the busted-out piano.

  His body bolted back, and he lost consciousness—seeing only darkness; hearing nothing but another crash and bang of instruments, as Claudia, Christopher, and Jeffrey came to his aid.

  Chapter 3

  When the Duke awoke, the world was dark.

  He could feel his eyelashes blinking, could feel his eyes opening and closing. Yet, when he felt that they were fully open—his face stretched out wide to accommodate the sight he was normally accustomed to seeing—he saw nothing. He stuttered, his tongue searching over his teeth.

  “Would someone please turn on the light?” he asked, marvelling at how weak he sounded.

  “Duke, sir. The light is on. It’s only the middle of the day.” It was the voice of his doctor, a textured, grizzly voice, which reminded him of the week his wife had spent in bed prior to her death. He remembered that same voice telling the Duke he wasn’t sure Marybeth would make it.

  That seemed like a lifetime ago.

  The Duke didn’t have an answer to what the doctor told him now, just as he hadn’t had an answer then. He pressed his lips together, waiting. He heard another voice: this time, the voice of Jeffrey. “Doctor, what’s wrong with him?” he asked. “One moment, he was very much upright. And the next …”

  “Duke, have you been getting enough sleep?” the doctor asked him, a question he surely knew the answer to. The Duke had confessed to the doctor that he’d been a victim of insomnia over the previous several months. That, since his wife’s passing, he hadn’t spent a single night—from dusk till dawn—in bed. Usually, he spent hardly more than an hour or two.

  The Duke felt petrified. He shook his head, continuing to blink wildly—as if the blinking might lead to light. He imagined his blinking like rattling the shutters of a window, trying to open up the room to light during a winter’s day.

  “I really can’t see,” the Duke heard himself say. He reached for his throat, feeling his vocal chords as they vibrated.

  “My God. He’s gone blind,” Jeffrey stammered. “Doctor, what could have caused something like this?”

  The Duke inhaled slowly, trying to calm his racing thoughts. He placed his hands over his ears to create a kind of cone, trying to decipher where he was, what was going on. In the distance, he could hear his children—Christopher, wildly screeching that something was all his fault. Claudia, trying to calm him.

  “It’s not you. It wasn’t you …”

  “I made him so terribly angry, Claudia. It’s like I can’t help it. I just …”

  “Shhh.”

  The smell of coffee, of stew, of the lavender that Marybeth had littered around the bottom of the wardrobe, assured the Duke that he’d arrived safely home, in the wake of his fall. He imagined Margaret at the kitchen stove, stirring up goulash—a recipe she’d taken from her German ancestors, which she frequently fed to him and the children. Marybeth hadn’t liked it much; had pushed the bowl to the side so that Christopher and Max could gobble it up, instead.

  Perhaps he should have pushed her to eat, more. Perhaps she wouldn’t have fallen so ill. Gotten so thin …

  “I’m sure it’ll come back,” the Duke said, his nostrils flared. “I’m sure it’s just a momentary lapse in sight. This sort of thing happens all the time …”

  The door sprung open, the familiar, rusty door of his bedroom. He recognised the steps of Sally, the head maid. “Doctor, what is it?” she cried. “I came back from the market as soon as I heard…”

  “It’s unexplainable at this time,” the doctor said, his voice firm and resolute. “Currently, we’re operating under the assumption that our dear Duke hasn’t been taking proper care of himself, in the wake of his wife’s death. As is to be expected, given he’s had the children, the affairs of the business …” The doctor trailed off. The Duke could hear him scrawling something with a pencil, perhaps making notes so he could remember what had happened later.

  “His children have been absolutely unbearable, truth be told,” Sally said, her voice high-pitched. It caused another headache to begin to brew in the back of the Duke’s brain. He felt it like a kernel, or a seed. He groaned, tossing his head deeper into the pillow.

  “You’re going to need help, Duke,” the doctor said, placing his hand on the Duke’s shoulder. It felt heavy, yet oddly affirming. The Duke realised that nobody had touched him in quite some time. Of course, he reasoned that someone had probably had to lift him into the carriage, take him back to the estate, carry him all the way back to his bed …

  But he didn’t want to envision that. It made him feel so powerless, knowing that his children had seen him so weak.

  “I will hire one more governess,” the Duke said with a sigh. “I will give the children one more chance. It’s required, now, as I’m very literally … disposed.”

  “It’s a temporary problem, sir. Definitely temporary,” Jeffrey said. He sounded eager, his voice too bright, like a schoolchild’s. “I shouldn’t think you’ll be on your back for much longer. Right, Doctor?”

  “It’s hard to know, Duke. I’ll recommend that you remain in bed for the rest of the day. Give your body what it truly needs—which, as you know by now, is rest. And after that, well. We’ll monitor the situation. All right?”

  “I want to speak with my children,” the Duke said. He stretched his hands over his stomach, linking them. “I wish to speak with them, alone. Sally, could you please fetch them? And Doctor. Thank you for
all you’ve done. Jeffrey …” he trailed off, hoping to make Jeffrey understand that he hadn’t forgotten that problematic ledger—and the fact that Jeffrey had lost them two-hundred pounds. Just because he was blind in both eyes and flat on his back, didn’t mean he wouldn’t continue to operate the business.