Not Even For a Duke

by A. S. Fenichel

  Aurora even had a notion that her monstrous husband’s death may have been orchestrated by Mercy, but the idea was so ridiculous she brushed it aside each time the thought occurred to her.

  Looking at her friend, Aurora shrugged. “It’s nothing. Garrett said something when he drove me home from the ball the other night, and it’s been niggling at my mind. I should forget it. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  Those clear green eyes of Mercy’s took in every nuance before she asked, “What did he say, or was it in confidence?”

  “Since it was more what he did not say than what he did, I cannot imagine I’m to conceal what I don’t know.” Aurora’s heart ached at the worry she’d seen in Garrett’s eyes. Eyes that for her had always held joy and laughter.

  “Now you have me intrigued as well,” Wesley said and put down the book he’d been reading.

  “I don’t know why it has me so out of sorts.” Aurora had examined it since stepping into her home after the ball. Whatever secrets Garrett kept could not be terrible as he was the best man she knew. He was kind and thoughtful in every way. But why did he look so full of guilt?

  “Gracious, Aurora, you look very bad. What did he say?” Mercy squeezed her hand.

  “That he was keeping something from me and whatever it was made him feel dishonest.” It sounded so simple when she said it aloud, but the way he’d looked nagged at her.

  “But he didn’t tell you what he’d been holding back?” Mercy asked.

  Aurora shook her head. “We arrived at West Lane, and we couldn’t create a scandal by remaining in the carriage or both going inside the house.” She shrugged. “He said he would see me in Cheshire, and we said goodnight.”

  “How frustrating.” Mercy sat back and pursed her lips.

  Wesley smiled and gripped his book. “I’m sure it is nothing of such consequence as to have you so wrought up, Aurora. You don’t know what he has to say, and he had no time to report it. Let it go. The Duke of Corwin is a good man. I’m sure you’ve nothing to concern yourself about.”

  “You’re right, of course. Still, something in his manner was out of character.” With a sigh, Aurora tried to let go of any negative notions she might have conjured.

  “Did you not speak to him during the ball? I saw the two of you dancing.” Mercy took the book from Wesley, read the spine, frowned, and gave it back.

  “We talked in private and also danced a waltz. He said nothing about a secret to tell. We made our apologies for the unpleasantness after the dinner party and spoke of plans regarding this journey.” Aurora had already told the Wallflowers about the small disagreement over her unwillingness to speak of Radcliff or her marriage.

  “Maybe he has learned the truth and gathered the information in a way he is not proud of.” Mercy nodded, seeming content with that explanation.

  It had merit. “Perhaps. I suppose it is possible.”

  “Of course it is.” Mercy folded her hands in her lap. “However he learned it, he must be ashamed of himself. He will admit his error, you will forgive him, and that will be all.”

  Shame settled inside Aurora. She hated the notion of Garrett knowing how she had been a victim in her marriage. It was stupid, but she was weak in her own eyes for not being more clever than Radcliff. Well, if Garrett knew, there was nothing to be done about it. She would let him tell her and, Mercy was right, it would be over. She’d never remain angry with him. It was a bit of a relief to not have to conceal the truth anymore.

  Wesley picked his book back up and began reading again.

  Mercy leaned on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

  Staring out the window, Aurora considered how she would handle Garrett’s knowing her terrible secret. Brushing aside a tear, she steeled herself. It could not be harder to speak to her friend about her suffering than it was to endure marriage to a monster.

  Chapter 6

  Garrett watched from the carriage as Whickette Park came into view. The open iron gates were a friendly welcome after the three-day journey to Aurora’s new school. Two large stone pillars held the gates in place. Vines grew around the door of the sand-colored house. An oblong yard had a garden in the middle, and a path for carriages wrapped around the small wilderness. The manor and outbuildings followed the arched drive of the enormous home. It was manicured and lovely, making it difficult for Garrett to picture the shambles that Aurora had originally found the estate in.

  While Garrett’s traveling companions were delightful, his own worries had made the travel torture. He wanted to be strong enough to put his impending admission of romantic feelings for Aurora out of his mind, but he was not a magician and that’s what the task would have taken.

  Even with his growing trepidation, seeing her as they drove up the lane was like coming home. His heart beat faster and excitement churned in his belly. It didn’t matter that he knew he was ridiculous, he couldn’t help that the sight of her shot joy through him like a lightning bolt.

  Aurora and the small staff met them at the front door along with a large gray cat with tufted ears. The stone lions and stately columns led to a grand entrance.

  Garrett tried to take it all in because it meant so much to Aurora, but he couldn’t help noticing how lovely she looked even with the smudge of exhaustion under her eyes.

  After the initial hellos, they were taken on a short tour of the house’s main rooms. He longed to drag Aurora away and declare his intentions or at least his feelings.

  “I was thinking that most of the parlors might be turned into classrooms without too much trouble. I’m uncertain about the ballroom as you may wish to hold a ball at some point, Helen.” Aurora walked them into the enormous room with sun streaming through the tall windows and French doors highlighting the parquet floors.

  Another cat, this one orange, purred and curled around Poppy’s skirts. She bent down and scratched the happy beast behind his ear. “I cannot believe the size of this house. I think the school is the only good use for such a castle. I can’t imagine you would ever live here, so far from town, Aurora.”

  Brushing the dust away from her nose, Aurora led them out of the uncleaned parts of the house down a gallery with the most ornate fireplace Garrett had ever seen. They stepped through a music room with an elegant white pianoforte. They passed the grand entry again and stepped into a parlor, which gleamed with a fresh cleaning compared to the rest of the house. “I’m afraid, I’ve only had time to have the new maids clean this room, the dining room and the bed chambers. They are doing their best, but the house stood empty for so long, we’ve had to have men in to make repairs as they go.”

  Helen had quietly watched and studied all they had seen so far. “I’m impressed, my lady.”

  “Aurora. Please. There are only friends here. We don’t stand on formality.” She pulled the cord as it was approaching the hour for tea.

  Garrett waited for the ladies before he, too, sat. “It is very large.”

  With a cry of delight, Mercy and Wesley rushed into the room.

  Garrett rose again while the Wallflowers hugged in greeting.

  Helen looked at him in surprise. “I have never had such comradery with female friends or anyone besides my sisters.”

  The warmth in Aurora’s face shot a bolt to Garrett’s heart. She sat and looked with sympathy at Helen. “Has it been a long time since you have seen your sisters?”

  “Several years. I should go to Sussex more. It’s not as if it’s far, but somehow time has created a great distance.” Helen shook off her thoughtfulness and smiled.

  Wesley sat next to Mercy on the royal blue settee. “Time has a way of doing that, but I’m sure your family will be pleased to see you, and the distance will fall away in a moment.”

  “Perhaps it is the fear of that not being the case that keeps me from returning,” Helen admitted.

  The tea arrived and relieved Helen of having to say more on the subject. Aurora poured, and they chatted of travel and learned that the early arrivals had spent three
nights in the town of Plumbly while repairs were completed and rooms were cleaned.

  After tea, Poppy and Helen went to their rooms to rest. Mercy and Wesley retired to the music room, and strains from the pianoforte wafted through the house.

  Garrett and Aurora sat in silence for an uncomfortable minute before he broke the spell. “Are the grounds too wild to view or can you give me a tour?”

  Relief bloomed on her lovely face, and laughter sparkled in her eyes. “I thought we would be estranged for a moment.”

  “Never.” Rising, he walked to the high-back blue and cream floral chair she made into a throne just by sitting there.

  She took his arm.

  They took the main hall toward the back of the house. Large supports and a grand staircase gave the hall elegance. “It’s a very striking house, Rora. Are you sure you wish to give it over to a school?”

  With a nod, she said, “It is far too big and far away from town for my liking. I shall come once or twice a year as the school needs me, but I would never retire here. Besides, this way, Wesley’s family name is again connected with the estate.”

  “It is very pretty country.” Garrett held open the door at the back of the house and waited while Aurora went through. He offered his arm again and his heart pounded as she took it easily.

  The grounds were a bit of a wilderness, but a stone path had been cleared for walking.

  “I hired a gardener and three men to help him. They have a long cleanup ahead of them, but this path was not passable a week ago, nor was the front of the house so appealing. Then there are the cats. I’ve had most of them removed from the house to the barn and convinced several townspeople to take some as pets or mouse hunters. They’re friendly, but we have an abundance. No rats or mice though.” Aurora laughed and turned her face up toward the afternoon sun. “It is lovely, but I could never live here. Let it be useful in some way.”

  Confused by her distaste for what was a fine house, he stopped at a high point where they could look out over the sprawling land. “I don’t think I understand. I agree it is far from town, but the roads are good, and this is a beautiful place.”

  She colored and looked away from him. “I imagine the secret you keep...the information you’ve gathered... I cannot live here.”

  It was so rare to see Aurora’s composure slip, he nearly missed the oddity of what she’d said. Touching her shoulder, he left little room between them. If she needed someone to lean on, no matter her stress, he wanted to be that person. “My secret?”

  “When last we met, in the carriage the night of the ball, you said you had kept information from me. It doesn’t matter how you found out, Garrett. I should have told you myself long ago.” When she turned her face up to his, her cheeks were splotched with red, and those beautiful blue eyes swam with tears.

  Garrett looked back at the house to see if anyone might see them. As they were still in sight of the large windows, he gently wrapped his fingers around her arm and led her around an overgrown stand of rosebushes. When they were blocked from the house, he pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “Rora, I have no idea what you are talking about, but if there is something you should have told me, you may tell me now. My secret was nothing I might have surreptitiously discovered. It’s really no secret, just something I have hesitated to share. I think it important we speak plainly so that whatever has gone amiss in our communication might be cleared up.”

  She pushed away, wiped her tears, and narrowed her gaze. “Then you did not discover the truth about my marriage to Radcliff?”

  “I am aware that it was an unhappy match.” The snap of her voice and her stern expression warned him that there was much more to know.

  Ferocity flashed in her eyes, but then sorrow and resignation returned. He preferred the anger but waited for her to speak without his interruption or by voicing the torrent of questions building inside him.

  Glancing around, she shivered despite the warm weather. “Might we walk a bit farther away from the house?”

  “Is this something Poppy and Faith do not know?” He couldn’t fathom that to be the case with his knowledge of how close the Wallflowers were.

  She took to the path and hurried away. On a breath, she said, “They know.”

  Following her, he kept his distance. She was spooked. While he might not know why, he knew tears and outward emotion were out of character for Aurora. Whether it was the information she would impart or that she planned to tell him, he didn’t know, but the idea that it might be him hurt. He pushed it aside. This was not about him, and he had pledged long ago to be whatever Aurora needed him to be.

  She finally paused under a grove of walnut trees. The full green leaves formed a canopy over them. She leaned on one trunk, tilted her head back and closed her eyes.

  At a distance of only a few feet, Garrett stood in front of her. “May I ask, what is your hesitation in telling me?”

  Those bright blue eyes popped open and a crease formed between them. “You will never look at me the same. You will see me as I am instead of as the girl who you played with as a child.”

  “Rora, I have not seen you as a little girl in a very long time.” His gut tightened on the admission. “You are a bright, brilliant, and beautiful woman and have been for several years. Any man would be a fool to not see that.”

  “You are not just any man.” She stared at her feet, her voice low.

  Stepping close, he tipped her chin up. “I hope not, but there is nothing you could tell me that would change my feelings for, or about, you.”

  The urge to kiss the sorrow out of her and soften her full lips, was too great. Fighting with all his will, he dropped his hand, and stepped away but didn’t look away from her pleading eyes.

  She swallowed several times and sat on the sparse grass under the trees. Once Garrett joined her on the ground, she began. “You may already know that Whickette Park, this magnificent house and the property was part of a marriage agreement between my father and Radcliff. I’m not exactly certain why the deal was struck. Perhaps Radcliff owed my father money, but Father got this property and unloaded an unwanted daughter while Radcliff received thirty thousand pounds. That was the agreement as I know it.

  “Father was completely delighted on my wedding day. It might have been the kindest he ever was to me. Radcliff was titled and handsome. I was young and idealistic. I assumed all would be well, and he would love me as a wife should be loved.”

  For several minutes, she tugged on bits of grass next to her lavender skirt.

  When it seemed she was in the past so deeply that she might not continue, Garrett said, “I had some notion of this from Rhys, though not with so much detail.”

  Lifting her head, she met his gaze. She chewed her bottom lip for a moment before her eyes filled with strength. “It began on our wedding night when my new husband beat and raped me.”

  And just like that, bile rose in Garrett’s throat. “What?” More words were building inside him. It was ridiculous to want to dig up a dead man so that he could kill him, but there it was. He held his tongue and his temper and waited for her to tell the rest of her story.

  “I thought perhaps he was just drunk and that it might have even been my fault. I was only eighteen and inexperienced. I must have disappointed him in some way.” Her voice became flat and dispassionate even as sorrow filled her crystal eyes.

  “Not possible.” His voice grated even to his own ears.

  A hint of a smile pulled at her lips. “I learned over the three years that followed, Radcliff was a monster and nothing I could have done would have made him happy. He certainly made no attempt to assure my contentment. The notion of him loving me became a cruel joke. My dear friends did what they could. They came and took care of me after each beating. They called the surgeon on a few occasions when my injuries were more severe, and they made my excuses when bruises kept me from attending the theater or a ball.”

  “You didn’t tell your father or Rhys?” G
arrett hated himself for leaving the country. He’d been selfish in his desire to put distance between himself and the potential of love between Aurora and her new husband. What an ass he’d been.

  “I told my father during the first year of the marriage. He often told me a wife was the property of her husband, and I would do my duty to my family. Mother seemed less informed. Rhys didn’t know. If I had told him, he would have killed Radcliff and been hanged for the deed. I couldn’t risk my brother’s life.”

  Air wooshed back into Garrett’s lungs. “Rora, you could have written to me. I would have found a way to help you.”

  She huffed a laugh. “Do you think I would risk your life any faster than I would risk my brother’s. No. I couldn’t let you be harmed on my account.”

  Trying to clear his head, he remembered something she’d said. “Did Mercy have something to do with how Radcliff died?”

  With a shrug, Aurora smiled. “I don’t know, but I suspect she may have somehow informed the gaming hell of his cheating ways. I can’t quite figure out how she managed it or even if it was really her. I’ll never ask. If Mercy did have a hand in it, she saved my life, and I’ll not put her in a position where she has to either lie or admit responsibility for the death of a man. Even if the man deserved to die.”

  “I would applaud her.” He said it through gritted teeth. His hands were fisted so tightly they ached, and he had to force them open.

  “So, you see why I cannot, or rather, will not, live here. Even though Rhys gave it to me as some kind of compensation for my troubles, it is not a home for me. I want it transformed into something good, something special.” Her expression turned back to the familiar serenity he associated with Aurora.

  He rose, moved closer and sat beside her. “I’m so angry. I don’t know what to do with those feelings, Rora. But I am also a bit hurt that you felt you could not tell me of your troubles. I suppose I shouldn’t tell you that, but we’ve had too much hidden between us for too long.”