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

by Bridget Barton

  “If you would excuse me,” she said, doing her best to speak calmly and evenly, “I think I might just catch a breath of air, Your Grace.”

  She curtsied politely and made her way away from the group. The Duke watched her fleeing form.

  He immediately let his arm drop, taking advantage of Lady Clarissa’s slackened hold. He saw her falter for only a second. He could almost read the question that filtered through her mind. She wondered if he had suggested he regretted their two dances. As soon as the thought entered, she seemed to push it aside as an impossibility and resumed her pleasant smug smile.

  “You really shouldn’t say such things to the poor girl, Your Grace,” she chided as if they were very close friends.

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Dances you regret? I know that a Duke choosing to dance with someone of her station might seem a little worth a pause, but everyone understands why you were enticed to do so. You are such a doting brother. We all know you would do anything for your sister. Such an admirable quality, Your Grace.”

  The Duke looked back to where Miss Ward’s brief form had vanished. She had seemed to weave her way through the room much faster than he had. He was wracked with confusion. He hadn’t meant Miss Ward. In fact, he had thought he was quite clear that he was alluding to Lady Clarissa.

  Now he feared that Miss Ward had made the same assumption and it had been the last straw to drive her away.

  “I wasn’t referring to Miss Ward. I actually prefer her company over almost all others. You will find, Lady Clarissa, that it is not parentage alone that breeds fine ladies. Some, I have found, are just born with exceptional qualities.”

  He didn’t wait for a response or for Lady Clarissa to find a way to coerce him to dance with one of the little young ladies she had with her. It was no doubt what she wanted.

  Dancing twice with him, eating at his right, and then being the one to orchestrate his final dances with young misses that everyone would see as no threat to her claim was just what Lady Clarissa would want.

  He turned and made his way back out of the room. He used every bit of willpower not to turn back around and make it quite clear that he had no interest in Lady Clarissa. This, however, was not the time or place to clarify her assumptions about their relationship. Though he had no wish to, he would have to call on her the following day, if only to clear things up.

  He would tell Lady Clarissa though he found her to be a nice lady—which was a lie—he had nothing beyond a friendship in mind between them. It would be a hard blow after all the attention he seemed to bestow her tonight.

  It wouldn’t be wrong for a man to show interest in one girl at a ball and then decide otherwise at a later date, after getting to know her better. Of course, the Duke already knew all that he needed to know about Lady Clarissa. He would just have to employ some patience—that he was often in short supply of—before dismissing the lady.

  He circled the three rooms again, and when he didn’t find Miss Ward, he turned to go out in the back garden. The doors had been left open to let some of the cool spring air dissipate the steadily building heat from all the bodies and frivolities.

  He didn’t like the idea of Miss Ward going outside to gain her composure. She probably didn’t know it, but it would be unwise for a miss to walk the gardens alone in the dark even if it was at his own home. It only left open an opportunity for a compromising situation.

  He wouldn’t put it past Lord Melvin to create such a situation. In fact, if rumours were true, he had ruined a few ladies' reputations at events in a like manner.

  It was a breath of relief that he didn’t seem to find Miss Ward on the long veranda or the walking path that circled a small pond and garden. He was about to make a circle of the rooms again, figuring he must have somehow missed her when the realization hit him.

  He felt like smacking himself in the head for not realizing it sooner. Of course, there would be only one place that Miss Ward would go to collect herself. The one place she felt the most comfortable in the house.

  He made his way back into the house with long determined steps down the hall and turned to ascend the stairs leading to the second floor and household's private quarters.

  Chapter 24

  Ella wanted to rip her hair out. She wiped a tear off her cheek with an angry jerk. For the last fifteen minutes, she had been seated on the sewing room floor trying to thread a needle.

  Whether it was the tears blurring her vision or the fact that her hand wouldn’t stop shaking from anger, she hadn’t been able to get the blasted thread through the eye of the needle.

  Ella had never hit another person in her life but had she been anywhere else in the world, she was sure she would have socked Lady Clarissa in the stomach had she not walked away from the ball.

  Everything had been going relatively well. Yes, she was confused by the Duke’s actions, and she still had her own reservations about what she was feeling towards him. Still, everything else seemed to finally be turning out well.

  Lady Pamala seemed to be having a wonderful time, at least Ella thought so as she didn’t know much about ‘Coming Out’ balls. She expected that this one was a success. Ella reminded herself that she was there as Lady Pamala’s companion, so her focus should have been on her friend anyway and nothing else.

  She had been caught momentarily by Lord Cunningham who asked for her to walk with him as he made his way over to a card table. She’d had no choice but oblige and feared she might not be able to hold her tongue if he brought up the hunting expedition he had gone on that morning.

  Luckily he didn’t bring the matter up, and she only had to nod and add little comments here and there as he regaled her with tales of his own youth at prominent balls.

  Seeing the punch bowl set out for late refreshments, she took the opportunity to leave Lord Cunningham citing a sudden and terrible thirst. She had only been there a moment when Lady Clarissa and her two little minions had rounded on her.

  With the privacy of loud voices all around, Lady Clarissa had laid out clearly what opinions she had of Miss Ella Ward. Along with reminding Ella that she didn’t belong among polite society—something she had certainly expected and anticipated—she accused Ella of attempting to improve her class by tricking Lady Pamala into making Ella her companion, and worse yet, attempting to seduce the Duke.

  The worst part of it all was that Ella couldn’t entirely deny everything that Lady Clarissa was saying, though she had never intended to increase her class. She had understood very well when she first accepted the position that she would be assisting Lady Pamala as a seamstress and nothing more. She had never once even hinted to Lady Pamala that she wished to enter society as her companion. It was Lady Pamala who had made that request.

  And she never once endeavoured to make a connection of any kind with the Duke of Winthrope. In fact, their relationship was tumultuous on the best of days, and enmity on the worst.

  She never once accepted Lady Pamala’s offer to be her companion with the expectation that she would seek out a match with any member of the ton, least of all the Duke.

  But she couldn’t right out prove all that Lady Clarissa was suggesting were false accusations. Like her mother, Lady Clarissa had cut quick to the results of what was unfolding in Ella’s life and, like her mother as well, made the assumption that Ella had wanted these outcomes or somehow orchestrated them.

  She growled out in frustration as she failed to thread the needle again.

  “Bloody Hell! If you don’t get in there right now, I swear I’ll throw you out the window!”

  “That seems drastic,” a deep voice chuckled from the doorway.

  Ella straightened up, startled by the intrusion. She hadn’t heard anyone come in and certainly didn’t want anyone to find her at the moment.

  The Duke of Winthrope took a step forward out of the darkness of the doorway, a small smile playing on his lips.

  Ella felt panic settle in the pit of her stomach. He w
as the last person in the world she wanted to find her sitting cross-legged on the floor with tears and snot dripping from her face while she cursed an inanimate object.

  “Your Grace,” she managed to stammer out in surprise.

  Before she could get up and compose herself, he took three long strides across the room and sat down next to her on the floor.

  “I was looking for you,” he explained as he made himself comfortable.

  She looked at him in utter shock. He was still, of course, in his fine dinner jacket with its tails sure to crumple and wrinkle. He stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back on his hands as he studied what she was struggling with in her hands.

  Ella hadn’t thought she could feel any worse than she did until this moment arrived. Not only was she raging over Lady Clarissa’s cruel comments, in a very unladylike heap on the floor, but the Duke, of all people, was here to witness it.

  She gave a loud sniff in a very unladylike fashion, trying to get a hold of her emotions. Reaching into his pocket, the Duke produced a white cotton handkerchief. Setting down the needle and thread, she took it with thanks and proceeded to set her face as right as she possibly could.

  He waited a few moments while she collected herself, busing himself by picking at some stray strings on the rug beneath them.

  “I didn’t mean for anyone to hear that,” Ella said with a final sniff.

  “What’s it done to you, anyway?” the Duke asked in a casual tone.

  He was sitting so close to her, she could smell his sweet scent of sandalwood and a hint of brandy. He leaned in closer to inspect the offending items in the lap of her dress, readjusting his closest arm so that it was nearly protectively wrapped behind her.

  “I can’t get the thread through the eye of the needle.” Ella couldn’t help but speak in a meek tone. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said, coming off of his arms to take the needle and thread out of her lap.

  Crossing his legs, he proceeded to try and thread it for her.

  “I have never been able to do this,” he spoke slowly as his eyes narrowed on the needle.

  He gave it a few attempts, not being successful in the least. Ella couldn’t help but smile as she watched him work. His lip curled out of his mouth to the side as he concentrated. It was the most un-duke like thing she had ever seen. Here he was sitting on the sewing room floor in his fine clothes, tongue out, trying to thread a needle.

  “What did Lady Clarissa say to you?” he asked after the third failed attempt though he kept his eyes on his work.

  “Nothing that I didn’t expect at least one person to say to me tonight,” she said with a heavy sigh.

  He paused for a second, looking over at her while the items rested in his hands. She let him study her face for a second, though she was sure it must have looked horrendous. Her eyes already felt sore and puffy from all the crying, and she had no doubt her nose was red from rubbing it.

  “So what had you running away?” he asked gently. “Perhaps my opinion is limited, but I didn’t think you were one to back down from a fight.”

  He gave her a teasing look.

  “Oh, it was just the last thing she said,” Ella spoke as the anger seemed to boil up in her again. “She pointed out that my hem is torn and frayed.”

  Ella reached down and pulled out the section of the dress where the stitching had broken. The hem had unravelled, and already a few strands were unwoven and fanned out.

  It wasn’t uncommon for a hem to break during a ball, especially when one chose to dance most of it. In fact, he remembered quite vividly a matronly lady whose black dress had unravelled so much that a three-foot snake seemed to trail behind her at one of the earliest balls he had attended as a young man. It was nothing to be ashamed about and certainly not something that others would expect her to fix right away.

  “And this is a very upsetting thing?” the Duke attempted to understand.

  “She said that she couldn’t believe that I, the daughter of a milliner, would dare show my face, associate myself with your family, and claim to be a fine gown maker myself, when I couldn’t even properly hem a dress. Then, of course, those two little rats with her laughed right along.”

  The Duke nodded in understanding. Thankfully, he let the next few moments pass in silence between the two of them while she endeavoured to control her anger. She didn’t look over, but she could hear him trying the needle and failing a few more times.

  “Ah!” he finally said.

  She turned and found an elated look on his face as he pulled the thread successfully through the needle. The childlike glow in his eyes, the triumphant return of the threaded needle, and the whole ridiculousness of the situation were too much. Ella burst out laughing.

  It wasn’t long before the Duke joined in. She loved the sound of his laugh. It was always deep and rich when he really meant it.

  Their laughter stopped when a sudden yipping sounded and a head appeared from a basket of scrap fabric at the other end of the room. Ella hadn’t realized that Scrapper was in the room. Otherwise, she would have brought him over.

  He must have snuggled himself in the scrap basket for warmth as there was no fire in the hearth tonight in the room. Hopping out of the basket, he stretched his little body and yawned and then slowly padded over.

  It was significantly past his bedtime. Despite the late hour, he was not the kind of dog that would turn down an opportunity to get attention. Padding over, he paused in front of Ella, putting his front two paws on her lap. Clearly, he was looking for a way to resettle himself to bed in the folds of her gown.

  She didn’t mind the intrusion, though it would make it that much harder to hem the garment she was still wearing if she had to work around not waking the little fluff ball too.

  The Duke reached over and scooped up the dog with one hand. Settling the little ball of fluff in his own lap as he patted him lovingly.

  “You come sit with me,” he said to Scrapper, “and let the lady do her work.”

  Scrapper turned once in the Duke’s lap before deciding the best place to sleep and collapsed back into a furry ball.

  “He might get hair or threads on your coat,” Ella warned as she went to work folding up the hem of her dress to sew it. “Then you will look as dishevelled as me.”

  “Ladies’ hems rip all the time,” the Duke countered. “Lady Clarissa was simply rude.”

  “Yes, well, I am supposed to be a good seamstress. Not to mention I am representing your household out there. What sort of image is this giving about people you employ? A seamstress that can’t even sew a proper hem. But you see,” she continued quickly before he could answer, “we were really in a hurry to get it done. Lady Pamala’s dresses were the priority, of course. We didn’t have a lot of time after that and so perhaps my stitches are a bit big and loose, but it doesn’t reflect the quality of work I usually present.”

  He put one of his hands atop of hers to calm her. She stilled in her sewing and looked up at him.

  “No one thinks less of you because of a few frayed strings,” he assured her.

  They locked eyes as his thumb gently caressed her bare skin. She had tossed off her gloves in her earlier attempts to thread the needle, and now she was glad for it. Feeling the touch of his skin on hers was heavenly.

  She could swear she saw something of a more profound emotion behind his chocolate-coloured eyes but quickly turned back to her sewing before she could truly analyse it. Her stomach was turning with butterflies, and she was suddenly keenly aware that they were utterly alone in a mostly dark room.