“But…but why?” Adrian asked.
“It was that awful eye,” the Duchess said. “She would never have been accepted among the ton. She would never have found her way socially. She would have been a laughingstock, an outcast. We did her a favor by removing her from public scrutiny.”
Lenora’s cheeks reddened, but she refused to look down. Adrian felt a swell of admiration for her.
“She would have grown old, unmarried, a burden on her father,” the Duchess continued. “She would have brought nothing but shame and scandal to Brackhill Manor, and to herself. It was much better to claim her dead, and to let her reenter the world as an anonymous maid. Someone no one would ever notice or think about.”
“But you were wrong,” Adrian said. “Someone did want to marry her. I did.”
“And as soon as you said that,” the Duke said. “I knew I had been wrong. I knew I had allowed myself to be swayed by my wife’s words. I had allowed her to erect a barrier between myself and my firstborn child.”
“Why would you want to do something like that?” Adrian asked the Duchess.
It was Samuel who answered. “She did it so that her own children would live without competition. Of course, her son is the Duke’s only male heir, so that would not have been a problem anyway. But her daughter, Lady Katherine, would lose status if the truth came out.”
“Meaning that people would be more eager to marry the firstborn daughter than the second,” Adrian said slowly. He turned to the Duchess. “So you did think Lenora was a threat.”
“Any woman would have done what I did,” the Duchess said. “Any mother would want to provide the best possible life for her children. It was an act of love.”
But the Duke shook his head. “I married you because I wanted a mother for my little girl,” he said. “I wanted a mother for Lenora. And you took advantage of the fact that I was grieving and turned me against her.” His voice was hollow, pained. “And I let you. I can’t absolve myself of blame. I allowed it to happen.”
“It almost worked, too,” Samuel said. “The public record holds that the Duke’s first daughter died within a few months of her birth. It was only the blinded eye that gave it away. When you told me the chambermaid you were looking for had the same feature, it seemed too much of a coincidence.”
“Did you know?” Adrian asked Lenora. “All this time? Did you know that he was your father?”
“Yes,” she said, “I’ve known all my life.”
“And the rest of the household? Do they know?”
“No. I was forbidden at a very young age to discuss my parentage with anybody.”
“I knew that if the truth came out it would cause trouble for you,” the Duke said. “The servants would never see you as one of their own if they knew who you really were. You would never belong. You needed to have a community somewhere.”
“But I didn’t belong to them,” Lenora pointed out. “I never did. They were afraid to be kind to me, or to include me in anything, because they knew how hated I was.”
“Hated?” the Duke frowned. “I never hated you, Lenora. Of course not.”
“Not you, Your Grace,” Lenora said. “I’m referring to Lady Katherine. She never made any secret of how she felt about me.”
“You shouldn’t have existed,” Lady Katherine said. “You were a blight on my life. My father’s daughter from a previous marriage. The shame of it!”
“I was your sister,” Lenora said quietly. “We could have been sisters, Lady Katherine. We could have been friends.”
Lady Katherine folded her arms across her chest and looked away.
“So…” Adrian struggled to keep up, “so Lenora was declared dead?”
“They said the baby had become ill and died,” Samuel reported. “Nobody questioned it. What cause could the Duke have had to lie? And he had just lost his wife, after all. Members of the ton may have gossiped behind closed doors, but publicly they expressed sympathy for the Duke. And when he remarried, of course, the wedding was well attended.”
“Where was Lenora while all of that was going on?” Adrian asked.
“She spent her early years in the care of a wet nurse,” Samuel said. “I was able to track that woman down, and while she didn’t know Lenora’s true identity, she did tell me that the Duke seemed unusually interested in the orphaned baby of a servant. He had chosen to let her stay at the manor, she said, to serve the family when she was old enough.”
“And in the meantime?” Adrian asked. “He educated her, didn’t he?”
“He did,” Samuel said. “He felt it was important that his daughter receive an education, even though her social opportunities would be curtailed.”
“I wanted to give you everything I could,” the Duke said to Lenora. “I know it wasn’t much. It wasn’t nearly enough.”
“It was more than you know,” Lenora said. “I could read, and because I could read, I could visit places I knew I would never see in real life. I could live between the covers of books. It was a gift…Father.”
He squeezed her hand.
“She may have learned to read,” Lady Katherine interrupted. “But she never learned how to comport herself like a lady. She doesn’t know how to behave at a ball, or how to act properly at supper.”
“Those things can easily be learned later in life,” Adrian said.
Lady Katherine shook her head. “You’re asking to marry someone who knows nothing about our world, Lord Galdhor,” she insisted. “She won’t know how to behave at the wedding. She won’t be able to impress your guests the way I would.”
“I don’t need that kind of thing,” Adrian said. “A marriage is about more than just the wedding day. I need someone who can make me happy for all the days that come after.”
And that’s not you, Lady Katherine, he thought. It felt too cruel to say it aloud, but he couldn’t keep the thought away. Lenora makes me happy every time I see her. I can’t imagine having that reaction to anybody else.
“To keep her concealed,” the Duke said, “we sent her to the servants’ quarters as soon as she was old enough to work. That way we could be sure that she wouldn’t be spotted by outsiders visiting the manor. That she wouldn’t be noticed.”
“Except that didn’t work out,” Adrian said. “Because I did notice her. Did you honestly believe that if you put her in servant clothes, no one would ever realize how special she was?”
“I didn’t realize it myself,” the Duke said. “It’s been the greatest mistake of my life. I allowed myself to believe that my daughter’s blind eye ruined her, and that the only choice for us was to let her find a life as a servant. I should have known better.”
“So you sent her to live and work with your household staff,” Adrian prompted. “Even though she was your own daughter.”
“She had to earn her keep,” the Duchess said. “She wasn’t part of the family, not really. Not at that time. Our family, our real family, was His Grace, myself, and our son and daughter. Lenora was an interloper, a remnant from the past.”
“I loved her mother,” the Duke said. “I loved her dearly. And I know that was a hardship on my wife. I know it plagued her, every time she saw Lenora, to be reminded that I had loved another. But what could I do? I did love your mother,” he said to Lenora. “I love her still, even though she’s gone. I always will.”
“You loved her, but you refused to claim her daughter as your own,” Adrian said. “Your Grace, forgive me. I know you regret the choice you made. You’re very clear about that. But can’t you see how your daughter’s life has been shaped by this?”
The Duke nodded. “I can,” he said. “I’ve been aware of it all these years. But I’ve told myself you were happy, Lenora. I allowed myself to believe you weren’t suffering.”
“I was happy,” Lenora said. “I’ve had a lovely life, Father. Truly. I’ve had a home. I’ve had an education. I’ve even had friends, although they were few and far between. But I’ve never been alone, and I’ve never bee
n afraid.”
And then she glanced at Lady Katherine, and something Adrian didn’t recognize was written across her face.
“You may not have thought of your life as missing anything,” the Duke said. “But now a Marquess is here, and he wants to wed you, Lenora. And you’re turning him down. You’re telling him a servant’s life is all you deserve. And that isn’t true.”
“She doesn’t have what’s required to live a noble life,” the Duchess said.
“Be Quiet,” the Duke said. He focused his attention on Lenora. “Daughter, if you don’t wish to marry this man, your choice will be respected. But please don’t turn him away because you don’t think you’re worthy. You are.”
“I don’t understand how you can do this to us,” the Duchess bleated. “After all this time. After all the work we put in. I thought our family was healed.”
“Healed?” Adrian asked.
“Healed, of course,” the Duchess snapped. “Imagine the rift that girl tore in our family. Imagine how hard it was to find peace and love knowing that she existed, that my husband had loved another.”
“But you knew of her existence when you came to Brackhill Manor,” Adrian protested. “You knew the Duke had married another woman, and that he was a widower. If you didn’t like the idea of it, you didn’t have to marry him.”
The Duchess was silent.
Adrian thought he could hear what she was leaving unsaid. She did it for the money, he thought. She married him for his wealth, for his title, for his beautiful house. And she wanted her children to have all of those things too, but she knew that Lenora would be a threat to that.
The Duchess tried again. “Our Katherine has spent her entire life learning to be a proper lady,” she said. “Any man would be lucky to have her hand. She will represent you well. Lenora, though…she doesn’t have Katherine’s training. She doesn’t have Katherine’s experience. She will disgrace you.”
“No,” the Duke countered. “I have disgraced her. She deserved a father who would care for her, not a man who would merely provide from a distance.” He turned to Lenora. “Lenora, I always loved you. In my heart you were always mine. Please know that.”
“I know,” Lenora said.
Lady Katherine laughed. “How could you?” she asked. “You don’t know what a father is, Lenora. In every way that matters, you are an orphan. You have no real parents. He may be your father by blood, but what do you know of each other? Have you even spoken to him since childhood?”
“Of course.” Lenora sounded baldly surprised now. “Of course, we’ve spoken.”
“When?” the Duchess sputtered.
“I speak to her every time I’m home,” the Duke said. By his tone, it was clear that this was an admission of something his family had not known. And yet, he did not sound ashamed. There was a hint of pride in his voice.
Good for him, Adrian thought.
“You kept that a secret from me?” the Duchess exclaimed. “I thought we were in agreement that Lenora was to be treated like the rest of the staff.”
“I’ve long thought you were too cruel with the staff,” the Duke said. “We can be friendly with them. The fact that they serve us does not mean we must never speak to them.”
“But you weren’t talking about exchanging pleasantries, were you, Father?” This from Lady Katherine, who looked now as though she might burst into tears. “You were talking about something more than that with Lenora. You were talking about an actual relationship.”
“Yes, I was,” the Duke agreed. “She is my daughter, Katherine. Just as you are. I love her, just as I love you. And when I return to the manor between trips, I like to speak to her. I like to learn about her life and how she’s doing.”
“How she’s doing? She mops our floors, for God’s sake!” the Duchess cried. “You told me you had renounced her. You told me Katherine was the only daughter you had, in your eyes.”
“No,” the Duke said. “I never said those things. I said that Katherine was the only daughter I would claim publicly, but I never stopped thinking of Lenora as mine.”
“But how could you do that?” the Duchess asked. “How could you deceive me so?”
“What would you do if I asked you to renounce Katherine?” the Duke asked. “What would you expect me to do if someone asked me to claim she wasn’t my daughter? To forfeit my love for her? How could either of us do such a thing? We couldn’t. She is ours. We will always love her.”
He reached out and rested a hand on Lady Katherine’s arm, but she jerked away from him.
“And my feelings for Lenora are just the same,” he went on. “She is my firstborn daughter. I will always care for her. I gave up my claim to her because I thought it would make her life more peaceful, not because I didn’t want her. Of course, I wanted her.”
He narrowed his eyes at the Duchess. “But now I see what I was blind to before,” he continued. “You were never worried about what was best for Lenora. You would have been happier if she had never existed.”
“Of course, she would have,” Adrian said. “She hates Lenora. She always has. It was obvious to me from the moment I arrived at Brackhill.”
“I suppose we see what we want to,” the Duke said. “I wanted to believe I had made the right choice when I remarried. I wanted to believe I had made the right choices for Lenora, that her mother would approve of what I’d done. And I love all my children. I love Lenora, of course, but Katherine and Robert are mine too.”
Adrian didn’t want to feel sympathy. He wanted to dwell on his anger about what had been done to the woman he loved. But he found he could understand what the Duke was saying.
It must have been hard, he thought. The poor man was grieving. And…much as I don’t like to admit it, it’s possible that some people would have thought less of Lenora because of her blind eye. I don’t believe she would have been an outcast from society, the way the Duke seemed to fear. But she might have found it hard to fit in.
And he had kept her. He had cared for her.
By all accounts, he had given her as much as he thought was possible.
“What I don’t understand,” the Duke went on. “Is what happened tonight. Why did you believe her to be dead?” he asked the Duchess. “Why did you think she had been kicked by a horse, when she hadn’t?”
“She didn’t think I had been kicked by a horse,” Lenora said. “It was a lie, Father.”
“Nobody was talking to you,” Lady Katherine snapped.
The Duke held up his hand. “Let her speak, Katherine,” he said softly. There was something ominous in his voice, and Adrian was very glad he was not on the receiving end of those words.
“It was a lie?” the Duke asked Lenora. “What do you mean? How do you know?”
But Lenora seemed to have reach the end of what she could comfortably say. Her gaze darted around the table, landing on Lady Katherine and then on the Duchess. She pressed her lips together.
“You can tell me, Daughter,” the Duke urged. “What happened yesterday? Were you down at the stables?”
“No,” Lenora said. “Well, I suppose I was, early that morning. I’m friendly with the stable hand. But after a brief visit, I returned to the manor. Nothing of note happened while I was there.”
“You were missing all day long,” Adrian spoke up. “I was looking for you. I had hoped to speak to you about my feelings for you privately, to discover whether you would be willing to consider a marriage.”
Lenora looked down at her feet. “I apologize,” she said. “It was never my intention to lead you on.”
“You didn’t,” he assured her. “I don’t mean that. I’m glad to have met you. I’m glad to know you. I only meant…if you came back from the stables so early, where were you all day? Why couldn’t you be found?”
“I was…” she hesitated.
“Tell us,” the Duke said.
“I was in the cellar.”
“Why were you down there?” he asked. “The cellar is no place for
a young lady to be all by herself. Did you have someone with you?”
“The housekeeper accompanied me down,” Lenora said.
“Mrs. Durian?”
“That’s right. And once there…she had me tied to a chair.”
“She what?” the Duke exclaimed.
“She wasn’t acting on her own accord,” Lenora said. “She had orders. Don’t be too harsh with her, Father. She was doing as she had been told. You don’t know what the life of a servant is like. The footmen assisted Mrs. Durian, as well, but they have families they’re thinking of.”
A Game 0f Chess With The Marquess (Historical Regency Romance) Page 24