Duke of Sorrow

by Blake, Whitney

  Lady Jane had not fabricated a whit of what she’d told Augusta. He hid a generous heart, though he preferred that nobody knew of it. And he was a man hurting, yet hiding his hurt from the light of day. She knew what a talented physician he was and could be, still. He had, after all, mended her back to excellent health in a relatively short period of time. And in the process, he’d managed to awaken her heart to things she’d never felt or allowed herself to feel.

  The Duke of Ravenwood was a good man and, foolishly, she had fallen in love with him.

  You do know you can never be with him. Not as a wife, in any event.

  She did not think he would keep a mistress, even though many men of the ton apparently did. It did not seem to suit his straightforward temperament. If his parents had married for love, too, she supposed no other way of marriage had been modeled for him.

  On the other hand, if Lady Jane’s wishes were fulfilled and he did manage to have a family of his own one day, it would not be with a woman like Augusta. While she was not the lowest of the low, she had a wretched drunk for a father and her mother had been a nobody. If things had turned out differently, she thought it was possible that her mother might have been admitted to Lord Ainsworth’s manor as a servant. But even in that capacity, Augusta still would have been just the daughter of the help.

  Rather ironically, in terms of making the duke’s acquaintance, Augusta had been better off as an invalid. He would have never played cards with her, otherwise.

  What are you thinking, Gussie?

  That she should even entertain thoughts of herself as an equal and capable of loving him at all was mad. Her love, such as it was, was ill-fated, doomed from the very beginning. It would certainly go unrequited. Lord Ainsworth was kind, but he was not simple. If he ever loved again, he would not love her.

  He would fall for some blonde, regal beauty who read French and wore the best dresses and played the pianoforte and knew how to greet every type of person who came to her manor’s doors. He would not fall for a slight, freckled, lower-class and conventionally uneducated chit.

  I shall have to work here for as long as I can stomach it, or he will allow me to, and then I should go very far away. Augusta sniffled as hot tears rolled down her cheeks. She did not cry often but, apparently, the duke merited her tears. She needed a fresh start away from Brookfield and Lord Ainsworth.

  But, blast it all, she wanted to know exactly what he thought of her. All of those glances, those warm little looks, couldn’t be for nothing.

  This all circled again to the thought that, perhaps, he was entertaining the idea of using her for his own amusement, but that did not square with her perceptions of him and he had only just found out her lowly status. But if you think that either he or Lady Jane did not guess your low origins from the way you speak, Gussie, you really are mad.

  No. Assuming that Lord Ainsworth only wanted a wench to bed also would not square with Lady Jane’s own words. She had been very candid about his brothers’ foibles, though it was evident that she had loved the older Ainsworths, too. She wouldn’t have any reason to lie about her favorite nephew, and what was more, lies didn’t seem to be in her nature. She had, after all, volunteered personal confidences to a near stranger. Lord Ainsworth still did not know that his aunt had been in the middle of a courtship when she’d come to live with him, but Augusta did.

  Augusta rubbed her face. Why was life never easy?

  She did not question that Lord Ainsworth would give her request ample and fair thought. But could she continue to stay under his roof for another two months? If she had been here almost one month and managed to find herself in love, or at the beginnings of it, then what would prolonged proximity to the duke do?

  Dash her feelings. She could not let them trip her up.

  Pragmatically, she had no choice but to save up the money. There were no other options for her.

  I’m worried I may do something I regret, she thought, and even her inner voice sounded small and sad. It would be like Jack all over again, but I’d go further and there would be more repercussions. Would that be so bad?

  She realized, and it was quite a terrifying realization, that she actually didn’t care.

  *

  Will’s thoughts rambled about in his head much like the sheep that ambled on the hills during the day. He was fully preoccupied by the conversation he and Miss Copperweld had had in the gazebo.

  Augusta Copperweld, he thought, allowing the name to wrap around his mind. It was delightful, he felt. He had heard “Augusta” before, but not nearly as often as “Mary” or “Kitty”, and he wondered if, perhaps, it was a family name. I wonder if she goes by a pet name.

  His aunt had been equally pleased to gain the intelligence of their mysterious guest’s name. Immediately after he and Miss Copperweld had parted, he could hardly contain his happiness at being able to tell Jane, who despite saying she enjoyed the mystery itself, was consumed by concern at “Miss Brooke’s” state. She was in the conservatory reading a book, and she looked up at him from her chair with a smile.

  “Well, my dear?” she said, somewhat too expectantly if one were to ask him.

  “Augusta,” he said, without preamble. “Augusta Copperweld.”

  “Is that our ‘Miss Brooke’s’ true name?”

  “Indeed, Aunt,” said Will.

  Jane set her book aside and studied him thoughtfully. “I felt she would tell you before she told me.”

  “Why?” asked Will, momentarily stymied.

  Jane merely smirked secretively, an expression that made him shuffle impatiently. “Several reasons, the largest being that she respects you and most likely could not continue to deceive you for much longer.”

  “There is more. I mean to say that I have learned more,” said Will, after the slightest shake of his head. “The marks of violence on her. We have her father to thank for those. I suspected, but was not entirely sure.”

  No one could ever claim that the Ainsworths had hot tempers, but the look on Jane’s ordinarily composed face was best called murderous. “William, we cannot let her return to him. I assume she is not married.”

  “No, she is not.”

  “What shall you do?”

  There were quick, conflicted thoughts that flew through Will’s mind at the question. In that instant, he interpreted those thoughts as, “What shall you do about her unmarried state?”

  I could marry her. It is true that I do not know her, but I did not know Diana half so well and, somehow, I found it within me to propose marriage. And Diana did not incite the same feelings of—

  Jane broke his excited inner monologue. “William? Are you quite all right?”

  “Mm?” He stared at her and she looked astutely back at him. As ever, she kept her tongue, but he could guess the conclusions she was drawing. “Yes, fine. Well, as to what I will do… she asked if she might be employed here for the next couple of months until she saved up a little money of her own.” He began to pace the conservatory, a narrow but long room that held exotic plants and mementos from his mother and father’s travels. The sun was slipping down behind the clouds, casting things in warm amber light and long shadows.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I needed to consider it.”

  Jane’s silence spoke louder than her words could. He understood that, in that moment, they were each thinking similar, if not the very same, things. How could they allow a woman they’d taken in for fear she might be left for dead to work within the manor? Miss Copperweld had not asked to be taken in. Was Will as infatuated as he seemed, or was it simply that he had not been around many women since he’d come home? Jane was no fool. Will knew, without any doubt, that she’d divined what his long looks at Miss Copperweld meant. Possibly, she’d divined it before he did.

  “I had a barmaid at the inn, Agnes, she’s called, listen around for more information about a girl with Miss Brooke’s description,” said Jane, at length.

  “You told a woman to eavesdro
p for you,” summarized Will, without any disbelief. That would be his aunt.

  “More or less,” said Jane, affably, “and I did give her a bit of money, so it wasn’t as though I wanted her to work for free. I didn’t tell her to do anything dangerous or illegal.”

  “No, and you probably subsidized something she does already. Why? When?” He leaned his hip against a sideboard.

  Jane shrugged. “Information, of course. And last week, when I went to the milliner’s for my new hat. The one with the cerise ribbon. I’d stopped at the inn for a little to eat before coming back to Blackbrook.”

  “But you did not gain Miss Augusta’s true name?” Will was skeptical.

  “I don’t believe our Miss Augusta frequents many places as a patron, William. Agnes did not know her from a description.”

  “Did Agnes have anything to say?”

  “She said a certain Brom Copperweld, and now I can only be certain that is Miss Augusta’s father, had blustered in to ask if anyone had seen his darling Gussie. He was foxed before he even entered the taproom.” Jane rolled her eyes. “If Agnes has heard anything since, I do not know. I have not been into the village again.”

  “The cur,” Will mumbled. “What a bastard.”

  For once, Jane did not object to his use of coarse language. “At least he does not know she is here.”

  “Yet,” said Will.

  Giving a quiet growl into his silent bedroom, Will punched his pillow halfheartedly. What a beast a heart is.

  And none of the day’s more pleasant events or his own tantalizing thoughts could keep his mind from the pressing matter of the villagers being overtaxed. He had continued to think about the whole mess, though thoughts of Augusta kept intruding.

  He’d thought too much about her for days now and it was not entirely strange that, despite this matter of urgency, his mind was wont to dwell on her the most. He found her amiable, caring, quick-witted… and he could not deny that she aroused feelings of both affection and passion within him. She was, to his eye, beautiful, but it was more than that. She seemed to engage all those around her and, granted, there were not many people in the manor these days, but even gruff Marcus had remarked on how pleasant “Miss Brooke” was. It was also apparent that she was, even without formal schooling, intelligent and adaptable.

  Will had never been much of a snob in that regard. Working amongst men from different walks of life, and then within the military, cleansed him of any lingering arrogance he might possess concerning his own class and advantages. However, he was convinced that she would be genuinely horrified to hear his thoughts on her and would run as far away from him as her legs could now take her. He was as unbecoming to look at as she was beguiling. While she had faced her fair share of ill-fate, his own eclipsed hers.

  He was as bitter and scarred as she was full of life and willing to forge on without bitterness. Their chances were hindered by their circumstances, and he was less concerned about their social statuses than he was their temperaments. Miss Copperweld would not want someone so jaded as he had become.

  In the end, having been the subject of speculation already, he balked very little at the idea that he might be judged for marrying “below” himself.

  But that was not what concerned him. His own rancorous spirit did.

  Let her find someone better than you, you madman. She does not deserve to be shackled to the “Duke of Sorrow” and his marred face.

  He fancied that he did not imagine her lingering gaze, which had become warmer and more inviting, but he blamed himself for encouraging her imagination. What young woman would not imagine herself married to a duke? Yet surely, his face put an end to any real desires she might have to win him. He was no prize.

  And if she is the sort of woman who would marry only to wait for her husband to die so that she could become a wealthy widow, he thought wryly, knowing very well that she was not, well, I am quite hale despite my looks. God willing, she would be waiting a long time.

  With that, he shoved aside the quandary of Miss Copperweld and moved on to thinking about what he could do to sort out this potential mess in Brookfield.

  He would need to enter the village. There could be no other way to rectify such an issue.

  After seeing Jane initially, he’d spent the rest of the afternoon in his library going over all his ledgers and, indeed, he was not mistaken. A meager percentage of his tenants’ earnings was all that entered his own coffers. It was not noted down, of course, and why would it be, if someone was engaging in foul play, but when he did the sums in his head he could easily see the discrepancy in what was written down and what had been deposited to his bank.

  He had no doubt about the veracity of what Miss Copperweld had told him. Still flummoxed even after going thoroughly through his accounts, a little before dinner he decided to visit his aunt and asked her if she had heard the same mutterings as Miss Copperweld.

  “I have heard something similar, but never anything so severe as half,” she confessed, her eyes meeting his in her mirror. She had just sat down to re-pin her hair, an activity that she liked to do without the help of her maid. “I did not want to worry you. I attributed them to rumor and nothing more. But you must also understand that I am not as privy to Brookfield gossip as Miss Copperweld would be… there are some who simply do not trust me because of who I am, though many people are very welcoming, and I cannot quite blame them.”

  “I wonder what the cause of it all is,” muttered Will.

  “I have faith that you will discover it,” said Jane. “Though I would keep an eye to your steward.”

  “That is what Miss Copperweld said.”

  “Is it?” smirked Jane, deftly pinning a curl into place.

  Will did not reply past smirking back at her, then quit the room.

  Even from such a safe haven as his own bed, the idea of striding into Brookfield under broad daylight filled him with apprehension. Or, more accurately, terror. It was ridiculous because he had faced dire circumstances—cannonballs, bullets, blades, disease—and yet this was what turned his blood cold.

  But he was more confused than ever. Will determined that the earlier he set out tomorrow, the better. He needed to understand what was happening in his village.

  Miss Copperweld had not thrown down a gauntlet, but he was throwing one down for himself.

  You may not be able to woo her, Will, but you can set things right for Brookfield.

  Chapter Eight

  Everyone in the village recognized their duke’s livery, unfortunately. Before the carriage had advanced far into Brookfield, a veritable crowd had gathered, gawking at it, whispering amongst themselves about this almost shocking oddity. Will couldn’t blame them. He hadn’t come into the village for official business in an age. From the partially open window, Will observed the gathering crowd with increasing apprehension, wishing that he could go back on his decision and turn tail to the manor. It was the first time he had ever truly wanted to flee from a battle, as it were.

  He couldn’t.

  Jane and Miss Copperweld sat with him. It would be the height of cowardice to ask that Jensen, his driver, turn back uphill. No, he, Lord Ainsworth, would proceed. That was the plan.

  A glance at Miss Copperweld revealed that there was support and pride in her eyes as well as fear. He thought at first that the fear was for him, but then he stupidly recalled that she had been on the run from this very location—her father might very well be a part of the gaggle.

  If Miss Copperweld could do this, then by Jove, so could he.

  Will’s jaw clenched. If the man dared to show his face, then he was going to be unpleasantly surprised.

  Of course, Will would have to discover which man actually was Mr. Copperweld, but he did not believe Miss Copperweld would be able to remain stoic in the face of her largest fear.

  When they had reached the center of the village, Will instructed Jensen to stop. Acutely aware of his appearance, he glanced briefly at his aunt before he reached for th
e door.

  Her eyes were warm and encouraging. “I am proud of you, dearest nephew,” she said.

  He answered only with a nod, and both he and Jensen opened the carriage door at the same time. Jensen helped Will out with alacrity, and because he had been with the Ainsworth family since his own youth and had doted on the boys as much as a male servant could, he seemed uncommonly vigilant. None of the gathered villagers were shouting abuses or looked particularly menacing, but they all appeared very piqued.

  It was as though the sun had been waiting for Will all along. He felt its light caress his face, obscuring his vision with its white brightness, and heard people gasp collectively.

  With a wince, he waited for them to shout, for women to scream in fright at his appearance, or for children to cry out in fear of the monster in their midst.

  None of this happened.

  Instead, the crowd stilled and the murmurs became louder, but not shrill. Some began to grow brave and advanced toward him – whether out of anger or curiosity, Will couldn’t tell. Confused and inundated by a flood of emotions, he could only watch them creep along. Simply being around this many people all at once was jarring to him because it had been so long since he had been part of a crowd. But this was also all familiar. It was, after all, home in a way. This was where he’d first nursed people, where he’d first decided to give himself to the healing arts.

  A man more forward in his advances reached the duke first. Will lingered where he was, thinking the man might wish to do him harm but unsure of how to defend himself without inciting a bad reaction en masse. He tried to keep an open stance and mild expression on his face, such as it could be under the circumstances.

  “Lord Ainsworth,” cried the man. He was ginger and reddened from his time under the open skies. If Will had his guess, he was a farmer. “I’m called Callum Young. You may not remember me, but I am full of gratitude. You saved my wife and delivered our twins, Your Grace. Without you, I would have lost my dear Emily.” He cleared his throat and Will felt the prick of tears against his own eyes. “I only wish to thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is horrible that you lost your family after you saved mine, and I want you to you know that you have my condolences.”