by Meghan Sloan
***
That afternoon, the Duke took her on a long walk of the estate, her mother trailing behind. The grounds were extensive, with crisscrossing paths, flanked on either side by tall, white statues of Greek gods and goddesses. The gardens were glorious, too, tended to by a team of gardeners, all busy at work, digging and trimming.
It was hot, the air filled with the humming of bees that seemed to form a cloud above the flowers and bushes.
“What do you think?” he asked her, smiling. “Does Warwick Manor pass muster?”
She smiled back, cautiously. “It is truly beautiful. You must be very proud to be the owner of such a historic residence.”
“I am,” he said slowly. “Very proud. But it was touch and go for a while on whether I would be able to keep all of it intact.”
“Why?” she asked curiously.
He sighed. “My father was not a wise man when it came to money,” he said slowly. “He bled the coffers dry, with his extravagance.” He paused. “His legacy to me when he died was little wealth, and much debt. It took me years to pay it all off and recoup it. For a while, I thought I might be reduced to selling off portions of the estate, to keep afloat. It would have broken my heart.”
“How awful,” she said, in a quiet voice.
He took a deep breath. “Yes, well, I just had to get on with it.” He glanced at her sideways. “It was the reason that I never tried to find you and court you after we met at that ball. I could not offer for your hand when I was in such a precarious position. But I never forgot you, Hetty, not for a moment.”
She smothered her surprise at his words, remembering her father saying the Duke had been charmed by her but was unable to pursue her in the past.
“I did not forget you, either,” she said slowly, her heart beating fast. “I searched for you for months when I was out at parties and balls. But you were never there …”
He stopped abruptly, gazing down at her, a solemn expression on his face. “Is it true?” he whispered. “That you thought about me, as well?”
She nodded, her face burning. “You made an impression upon me,” she admitted. “But then Frank came along, and I thought that I would never see you again …”
He was silent for a moment, his green eyes glittering as he kept gazing at her. Her heart flipped over in her chest.
Desperate for reprieve from the intensity thickening between them, she forced herself to look away, her eyes trailing the grounds. She saw a small cottage in the distance.
“Is that house part of your estate?” she asked, to change the subject.
He jumped, a little, almost in alarm. “Yes. I own it …”
Curious, she stared at him. Why was he reacting this way to such a benign enquiry?
She was just about to keep walking when he laid a hand on her arm, stopping her.
“Hetty,” he said gravely. “There is something that you must know. Something that I must tell you.”
She felt herself grow cold, all over. She knew it. Her instinct had been right. There was something that he was hiding from her.
She gazed at him, feeling goose flesh breaking out on her skin, despite the heat of the day. He looked almost as if he was about to be sick. Pale, with beads of sweat, along his hairline.
Her heart fell to the ground. “What is it that you want to tell me?”
He looked away, for a moment, staring into the distance. But then, he took a deep breath and turned back to her.
“You must believe me that it is you that I always wanted,” he said in a strangled voice. “I fell in love with you, at first sight. I could not get you out of my mind.” He gave a short laugh. “I told myself it was ridiculous to feel such a way towards a lady I had barely spoken to. But the image of you was so strong, so powerful …”
She gasped in shock. “You claim that you have always been in love with me?”
He laughed shortly. “You must know. I told you, the day that I held you in my arms, that for me, there has only ever been one woman.” He paused, gazing down at her, intently. “But I was not in the position, as I just said, to court you. I told myself that I would do it when I had recouped my wealth. Only then, could I put in an offer for your hand.”
She was silent as the words sank in. Yes, it was true. She had always known that he loved her. She had just been running from the truth of it, not willing to admit it to herself. She had been too scared, too hurt, fighting him, at every turn.
“But it took longer than I expected,” he said in a strangled voice. “Much longer. And then I heard that you were engaged, to Frank Blackmore. That my chance was gone.” He blinked back tears. “I was devastated that I had lost you before I ever had the opportunity to have you. I made a silly mistake …”
She gazed at him, feeling another shudder fall through her.
“I … made love to a lady,” he whispered. “I was lonely, mourning that my chance with you had gone, and she looked like you … just a little.” He hesitated. “I regretted it the next day. But that one encounter had far-reaching consequences. Three weeks later, she arrived on my doorstep, claiming that she was with child …”
Hetty gasped, her head reeling. “What?”
He took a deep, ragged breath. “It was true. I was not in a position to marry her any more than I was in a position to marry you, but I set her up in that cottage that you just asked me about.” He paused. “I told her I would marry her when I was able to. She spent her confinement there, but she was not happy.”
Hetty was silent. She simply did not know what to say.
“She gave birth to my son, Benjamin, there,” he continued quietly. “But she did not believe me when I told her I intended to marry her when I could. She grew bitter, claiming that I was toying with her.” He paused. “One day, when our son was only months old, she disappeared, abandoning him.”
He gazed out towards the cottage with eyes full of sorrow. “Ben is the light of my life,” he said quietly. “I would never abandon him like his mother has. I can never legitimise him, now, but he is still my son, and always shall be. He lives with me here, at the manor.”
“You have an illegitimate child, who lives with you?” Her voice was thready.
He nodded. “Yes, I do. And I do not resent it, for it would mean that I regret his existence, which is impossible.” He hesitated. “When I heard that you had been deserted, Hetty, I seized my chance to court you. You must believe that it has always been you. You are the only woman that I have ever loved, or shall ever love …”
His voice was fading in and out, now. She staggered a little. He reached out to support her, but she snatched her arm away, quite violently.
“So that is what this has all been about,” she said, her voice bitter. “You need a mother for your illegitimate child. A disgraced, abandoned wife would not be fussy, would she? She would accept anything, and be grateful for it …”
“No,” he moaned, in agony. “No. I love you. I love you, body and soul. It was never about that.” His eyes pleaded with her. “I do not care if you are disgraced, Hetty. I would love you still, if the whole world rose up condemning me for it. I would still choose you, and it is not because I need a mother for my son …”
But she wasn’t listening to him, anymore. A fury had risen in her chest, so deep that she could barely contain it.
She knew he had been hiding something from her. And all of these mincing words about love, and the fact that he had always wanted her, were just lies. She should have known. She should never have opened up to him at all. She should never have let him hold her and kiss her, and do all those other things.
She should never have fallen in love with him.
Because she knew, at that moment, that she had. She had fallen hook, line, and sinker. She had been fighting it for so long that she had not been able to even admit it to herself. Desperately trying not to look out the window for him when he was about to return to Hillsworth House. Desperately trying to thwart her body’s traitorous reaction to him. T
rying so hard to keep her dignity and self-respect, after another man had trampled all over them.
She took off, running, down the path, back towards the house, desperate to get away from him. She heard him call her name but ignored it. It was imperative that she escape.
She flew past her mother, who gazed at her, shocked. But she didn’t stop to reassure her. Tears were already blinding her vision, and she could not have talked without sobbing, anyway.
And now she knew that she had not imagined that child’s laugh in the hallway. It had belonged to his son. His illegitimate son that he had been hiding from her this whole time.
All men were liars. She didn’t know why she had ever forgotten it.
Chapter 14
Hetty tore into the chamber that she was staying in, slamming the door behind her. The door thumped so loudly that a painting hanging on a wall adjacent to it suddenly crashed to the floor, lying awkwardly on the ground.
She stared at the painting, appalled that she might have inadvertently damaged it. Hastily, she picked it up. It was still in one piece, without a scratch on it. Taking a deep, ragged breath, she hung it back where it had been, her hands shaking as she adjusted it.
She was too upset and needed to calm down.
The tears that she had been holding at bay started to fall. Her hands in her face, she sobbed for a full minute, letting out all of her shock and sorrow. Eventually, she calmed down, just a little, enough to breathe easier.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, staring out the window at the grounds beyond. Why had he even brought her here? Had it been with the intention of telling her about his illegitimate son?
It was too much. The fact was, he had a bastard son, who he was raising in this house. If she were ever in a position to marry him, she must take that child on, as well. His morality, the essence of who he was, was murky, now.
He had told her that it had only been one time, that he had made love to the child’s mother, and that he instantly regretted it. But how did she know if that was true? How did she know that the lady was not actually his mistress that he had been keeping the whole time? How did she know that he didn’t have a string of them scattered around the countryside?
She took a deep breath. He was probably a lothario, a womaniser, who charmed the ladies and had his way with them, just like Frank. A man with no morals in that regard. How could she trust that he had told her the whole truth and had not coloured it, tweaked it, to make himself look better? Had the child’s mother actually abandoned the Duke and her child, or had he cast her off? He had told her that he intended to do the honourable thing and marry the lady, but he never had.
She took a deep breath. And the fact was he had a child. A child that she would be morally responsible for if she married him. A bastard child. How could she take on such a thing, especially with what she had just discovered, about Frank? How could he even ask it of her?
A mistress. A bastard child. It was all sounding too similar.
The Duke of Warwick, and Frank Blackmore, were cut from the same cloth.
She took another deep breath. She would speak to Mama and tell her that they had to leave Warwick Manor, immediately. Her mother would protest, of course, but once she told her about the Duke’s revelation, she would understand. They had all been hoodwinked by him.
Her heart lurched violently. She would never see the Duke again. That much was clear. And even though she knew it was the right, proper course of action, her heart was telling her a different thing, entirely.
***
Her heart was heavy, as she packed her trunk with shaking hands. It was late afternoon, now. The shadows were lengthening outside the window. Soon, it would be dusk.
Mama had knocked on her door demanding to know what was going on, but Hetty had not been able to speak to her. Not yet. She would leave it until the morning when she could speak calmly without breaking down, and then they could be away, straight after breakfast. She had heard nothing from the Duke.
But suddenly, there was a knock at the door, soft but insistent. Hetty took a deep breath, approaching it cautiously. “Who is it?”
“It is me,” said a deep voice on the other side. “Please, Hetty, will you open the door? There is something that I must show you.”
She hesitated. What was he talking about, now?
But before she could respond, the door opened. The Duke was standing there, a solemn expression on his face, holding the hand of a small child, who couldn’t have been more than two years old.
Hetty gasped, staring at the child. He was beautiful, with golden curls framing his head like a halo. He looked like a cherub that had just fallen from heaven. He had big, green eyes, the exact same shade as the Duke’s. And he had other similarities, as well. It was obvious that the man was his father.
“Benjamin,” said the Duke, squatting down to speak to his son, “say hello.”
“Hello,” said the boy shyly, ducking his head.
“Please, Hetty,” begged the Duke, staring up at her. “Can we come in?”
How could she refuse, with the boy on his hand tugging at her heartstrings? Slowly, she nodded her head, feeling once again that she was at risk of bursting into a frenzy of tears.
***
Benjamin hugged his father’s leg, peering up at her, hesitantly. She couldn’t help it. She smiled at the boy and was rewarded with a coy smile back before he ducked his head, burying it into his father’s leg.
“He is beautiful,” she said, in a trembling voice. “A credit to you.”
The Duke smiled wryly. “He is shy with you because he does not know you, but he can be a little tearaway,” he said, ruffling his son’s curls. “He runs rings around his nanny and all the other servants. And he is stubborn if he cannot get what he wants.”
She gazed at him sadly. “His mother wants nothing to do with him at all?”
The Duke shook his head. “I have not heard from her since she fled when he was only months old,” he said, his face twisting in pain, for a moment. “I made discreet enquiries, as to her whereabouts. She is safe, back with her previously estranged family.” He took a deep breath. “She knows where he is, and that I would never abandon him. But I shall not force her to have a relationship with him if she does not want it. It could do more damage to him in the long term than the clean break he has now …”
She sighed heavily, feeling so very sorry, for this little boy. “He is young,” she said, in as steady a voice as she could muster. “He probably will have no memory of her at all. That is a blessing, at least.”
He nodded wearily. “Yes, I console myself with that knowledge.”
The boy was looking at her more boldly, now, with open curiosity.
“You are pretty,” he said abruptly, in a high voice.
She laughed. The Duke laughed, too, nodding his agreement.
“Hetty is very pretty,” he said, gazing at her intently. “A pretty lady, and a kind one, too, Ben.”
The boy ducked his head shyly again, tugging at his father’s britches. “Want Nanny,” he said, looking woebegone.
“Of course,” said his father, scooping him up into his arms. He looked at Hetty. “It is very close to his bedtime. He has a strict routine, of tea, bath, and bed, at this time of night. I should return him to the nursery now.”
“It was very nice to meet you, Ben,” said Hetty, feeling as if she was going to burst into tears, once more. The sight of the small boy with the golden curls had touched her in a way that she had not expected.