Mending the Duke's Heart: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Bridget Barton

  It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t chosen the particular book she had bought with her into the room for just this moment. It was a collection of sermons from a reverend, whose views were so decisive and strict, Ella wondered if he was not a member of a Puritan sect.

  For hours, the two misses sewed and listened as they were chastised on the importance of obedience to authority and avoidance of people of low repute. Mrs Jenkins became so animated in her recitation at one point, Ella wondered if she might have been a vicar herself had she only been born a man.

  Finally, Mrs Jenkins excused herself just before the midday meal to ensure that all preparations were adequately met.

  “Do you think it will be like this every day?” Lady Pamala sighed when the housekeeper was far out of earshot.

  “I am thinkin’ it will be,” Ella answered.

  “Hmm,” Lady Pamala moaned as she simultaneously stretched her back from the hours of intricate work.

  It was a very unladylike sound, and Ella felt the sudden fear of Lady Pamala doing it again in Mrs Jenkins’s presence. She wondered if perhaps she was a bad influence on the lady as she had made such exasperated sounds time and time again over her lifetime.

  “I don’t think I can stand to hear another one of those sermons,” Lady Pamala explained.

  “She’s quite the addle pot,” Ella agreed before she could catch the crude term from slipping her lips. Ella quickly cleared her throat, “Sorry, Lady Pamala.”

  Lady Pamala eyed her with a lopsided smile and giggled behind her hand.

  “Perhaps the Duke does have a point in insisting Mrs Jenkins watch us. I think I might be teachin’ you bad things. “

  “Don’t tell me that bloody woman is starting to make you feel down on yourself,” Lady Pamala let out with hands on her hips.

  “You see,” Ella pointed at her companion. “I’ve taught you horrible things!”

  Lady Pamala rolled her eyes, “Have no fear, I used that word—on the rare occasion, of course—long before I met you. You should hear Lady Clarissa when she is upset!”

  Ella gave her companion a look that told her that Ella wasn’t buying that explanation. Indeed, her presence with the Lady had loosened her tongue and character to less than polite manners, even if she had already been made aware of them.

  “Perhaps it is time I choose to take my leave of this fine house,” Ella said regrettably.

  It wasn’t just the copious amounts of money she had made and sent back to her mother that made her hesitant to suggest such an action. Ella had grown very fond of Lady Pamala and dreaded the thought of going back to her old life without their chatting and giggling and silly games to keep each day lively and enjoyable.

  “I don’t want you to leave,” Lady Pamala said in a quiet voice that nearly sounded like a child. “I’ve never had a sister before, but, I don’t know, these last few weeks felt a bit…”

  “I know,” Ella answered before Lady Pamala could finish.

  “I rather hoped you might choose to stay here a bit longer. Even after we were done with the dresses. Though I am sure you worry over your mother and miss her, I hoped that maybe you would like to stay here a bit longer. You could come with me to social engagements and even the ball. It would be so much more fun with you there.”

  Ella made a loud scoffing sound.

  “Me? At a ball?”

  “I could teach you,” Lady Pamala’s eyes lit up as they did earlier that morning while they designed gowns. “I was schooled by some of the finest governesses in the country. I could teach you everything you need to know. We could make you a nice gown too! Oh, it would be so wonderful! And I just know over time, Winthrope will come around. He will see all that wonderful goodness inside you that I know is there.”

  She was so excited that Ella could hardly deny Lady Pamala the wish. A part of her was half tempted to attend even just one ball to see what it was like, despite her mother’s voice inside her head scolding her to stop reaching for the stars.

  “You really think you could help me be more, you know, like you,” she motioned up and down Lady Pamala’s excited frame.

  “I know I could teach. In fact, you will be so well versed in ladylike manners that one would never even consider you to be otherwise,” Lady Pamala said, her chin held high. “Oh, please say yes?”

  Ella only hesitated a moment more before letting out an exasperated sigh with a roll of her green eyes.

  “I’m not promisin’ I can do it, mind, but if you want to try, have a go,” Ella finally caved in.

  Lady Pamala squealed with delight. Reaching for some more papers and drawing utensils, she announced she had already thought of the perfect idea for Miss Ella’s Ward’s first ball gown.

  Chapter 10

  “Winthrope, may I speak to you a moment?” Lady Pamala asked, hovering at her brother’s office door that night.

  The Duke of Winthrope shuffled some papers to the side and waved his sister in. Standing up, he motioned for her to join her on a pair of chairs next to a glowing fire. It was the perfect place to relax with one of the many books that decorated the walls that encapsulated the grand office. It was something Winthrope had enjoyed before but found he had little time for it now.

  As a boy, he remembered often sitting in these chairs, on holiday from school, reading quietly while his father went about his duties at the very same desk the Duke now used. Several conversations had transpired between him and his father in these slightly worn but well-loved chairs. His mother had suggested replacing them, or at the very least reupholstering them the year he finished his education. Luckily his father had politely declined the offer.

  Now, every time he found himself sitting by his office fire, he was reminded of his father and was almost sure he could feel his presence watching over him. Typically, these chairs and the couch that divided them were where he preferred to do most of his business if writing wasn’t required.

  Taking the chair, he waited for Lady Pamala to join him. She looked surprisingly nervous, wringing her hands in front of her.

  He had expected her to find him at some point in the day. In fact, he had been hiding in this office, hoping to avoid the inevitable confrontation. It certainly took her longer than he had expected to seek him out, and now that she did, she didn’t seem to look as enraged as he had thought she would.

  After the first day with Lady Pamala and her companion, the Duke had decided that they certainly couldn’t be left to their own devices any longer. Mrs Jenkins wasn’t the most ideal choice to watch over them, but she was available and very eager to do the task.

  He had expected his sister to come huffing down the stairs the moment she entered her sewing room, demanding to know the meaning of the added presence watching over her. The Duke had even worked out a whole speech he was prepared to give her.

  As the day had gone on, he had stayed hiding in his office, knowing that any moment he would hear from his sister, yet that moment never came.

  Though he knew that Lady Pamala wouldn’t like it, he knew that it was necessary. He wouldn’t deny her this friend that she seemed to have made. In fact, he hadn’t seen her so happy enjoying another’s company in a very long time. But his mother’s voice was always in his ear, reminding him that his responsibility was not to see to her happiness but to see to her success and proper upbringing.

  “I’m sure you have much you wish to say to me, so just have out with it, and then I can explain my reasoning,” the Duke said as he settled himself in the chair that once was his father’s.

  Lady Pamala opted to sit on the small couch instead of the opposite chair. Usually, she would have tucked herself like a little cat, curling her feet under her. Now, however, she sat straight upright, still fiddling with her hands.

  “I’m not very upset with you,” Lady Pamala spoke softly and slowly. “I must admit I was a bit at the start of the morning, but Miss Ward suggested we just get to work and see how things went. She was right. My anger dissipated throug
hout the day.”

  The Duke blinked back at his sister, shocked by her words. He had fully expected her to come down, pouting and stomping her feet like a child. Indeed, it hadn’t been her mannerism in the past but still had expected at least something of that nature.

  “I’m glad to hear that Mrs Jenkins’s presence is improving the situation.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that at all,” Lady Pamala cut in quickly. “It was positively horrible. She insisted on reading these sermons,” Lady Pamala shook her head to release the memory. “It was all meant to be very cruel to Miss Ward, and I didn’t like it at all.”

  “How so?” the Duke asked, sitting up a little straighter.

  He wanted to ensure that his sister was in good company, which improved upon her already good constitution. Indeed, he didn’t like the idea of someone being treated cruelly under his roof.

  “She read from a book of sermons. Many times the author spoke of the evils of association with low moral individuals often siting this kind as the poorer classes as they had little education, and thereby little understanding of virtue.”

  “I didn’t ask her to do that,” the Duke sputtered.

  He feared that his sister thought that as he was taking on a more stern approach to governing her, he would have gone so far as to belittle her friend.

  “I didn’t think you did,” Lady Pamala assured him. “I know you asked Mrs Jenkins to sit in the sewing room because you were afraid that Miss Ward is a bad influence on me. I am sure Mother has expressed her opinion of Miss Ward, though I should mention she has never even met Ella,” Lady Pamala continued scrunching up her nose in distaste.

  “Your actions today did make me consider my own over the last few weeks. Now I do not agree with you that we have been improper, and I will never agree with you and Mother’s opinion that I should stop my love for sewing and gown making, but I do agree that it is probably time I look sensibly to my future.”

  The Duke was so surprised by the way new his sister was handling the sudden change he was now using towards her, he couldn’t help but consider that she had already matured much.

  “I’m glad you are examining your future more closely,” he spoke in a slow, deliberate manner. “It is important for you to understand that we, as a family, have a responsibility to our title. Politically it reflects poorly on the title when my sister is choosing a life of vocation, not out of necessity but choice, and a vocation that is certainly not proper for her upbringing. Then to add an association with a miss—who I am sure you are right is a good person,” he added, quickly holding up his hand when his sister opened her mouth to interject, “but does expose an image that isn’t exactly what you should be making for yourself.”

  The Duke did his best to speak to his sister delicately. Already he was regretting his decision to take a firmer tone with her. Yes, he and his father had always given in to her wants and desires, but it wasn’t because she was demanding or even spoiled. One couldn’t help give in to Lady Pamala because she was so kind and willing to think of others. Any moment she chose to consider her own wants and desires, he couldn’t help but jump to give it to her, finding her so deserving.

  However, he had been concerned that he had let her have too much of her own way this time. Especially with his mother’s letters, it had been quite clear that things were not going well at all. He still had his reservations about Miss Ella Ward, but he couldn’t help but be open to listening to his sister’s desires on the matter when she was willing to take the conversation to him in such a grown-up manner.

  He did, however, still have the pressure of his party behind him. A party that insisted things should stay just as they are. The association of his sister and a commoner was already a bit of a hair-raising situation, even if she was an expert in her field sent to instruct his sister in a hobby she enjoyed.

  Though Miss Ward was clearly an accomplished milliner, she was still very coarse despite how young she looked. Her language alone gave away her uneducated background. What were other influential Tories to think when they came to their house for dinner and spoke with her, or worse, noticed that she used a knife alone to eat, spearing her food and promptly plopping it in her mouth from the tip of the blade?

  “To wish to create sewing projects for yourself by way of a hobby is fine enough, and even perhaps as a charitable venture, but it just simply isn’t becoming for you to endeavour to make a means for yourself. No other Lord will wish to connect himself to you under the circumstances.”

  “I don’t mean to open a shop or perhaps work in one,” Lady Pamala retorted. “I just simply enjoy the work of sewing and designing. If that means only making dresses for myself, perhaps for a few friends, and as a charitable endeavour, I am quite fine with that. I never meant for my activities to hurt your standing in the House of Lords.”

  “I know you didn’t,” the Duke assured her.

  He expected she just hadn’t realized how it would look for his sister to make more reasonable goals for the lower class. He wasn’t entirely on board with all the Tories believed. He did agree that there needed to be an order to society and that the current system worked well for many. He disagreed that people should be looked down on simply because of the happenstance of the family they were born into.

  Many Tories believed that the commoners, especially the poor, should not have access to proper education simply because they didn’t think their vocational options required it. The Duke believed that all should be allowed to access at least a primary education.

  In fact, he encouraged all his tenants and employees to send their children to the local country schools-both boys and girls-and gave hefty donations to both schools on a yearly basis to ensure that there would always be a teacher available and the supplies they needed. Even when his supplemented donations weren’t enough to make the price attainable for some of his employees, he happily paid the educational costs for them.

  It was a practice his grandfather had started, most radically at the time, and he had continued on. Over the years, all the Dukes of Winthrope found that the added education had resulted in improvements in work and life for those they were responsible for. This education had led to many advances in the mill, farms, and various other shops owned and rented out by the Duke at the hands of the people employed on the estate.

  Still, he held his place as Duke, as many Tories feared might be threatened with additional education for the lower classes, and in fact, he had many more educated men and women to work with to improve his lands and holdings.

  However, a crass miss in his home was a step further than he wished to go beyond the platform of the Tories. It didn’t matter how kind she was inside or that she was a good friend and teacher to his sister. Something had to be done to fix the unorthodox situation. At the moment, it was Mrs Jenkins’s supervision, at least until he found a better option.

  “But I do need to tell you that Miss Ward has become a very dear friend of mine. I don’t wish you to send her away. If that means we must sit with Mrs Jenkins, I suppose we will have to endure it. But I thought I might give you a second option.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I wish for Miss Ward to stay as my companion at least for the Season. Mother’s not here to go with me to engagements.”

  “I’m sure she would coordinate to be there to chaperone.”

  “I know, but that’s not the same as having a friend there with me.”

  “What about joining up with another lady of the ton. I know in the past they always seemed to move in pairs, or small flocks,” the Duke suggested.

  He didn’t like the idea of Miss Ward eating with her knife at other’s houses on top of his own, among many other things she had exposed to him in the short time he had known her. It wasn’t that he was disgusted by her or even thought he was better. It was simply that she was not trained in high society, and without that training, there would be no hope of her fitting in no matter how wonderful of a friend she could be.