Then throughout the night, she had barely been aware of gentle hands tending her, applying herbs on her skin to cool her fever. She couldn’t even open her eyes to see who her benefactor was – she knew already that it could not be her father. He would rather strangle her than tend her at all. At last, she had fallen into a peaceful sleep, the best she had slept in what seemed like an age.
If it weren’t for her blasted ankle, Augusta would have preferred to leave the company of the duke. It couldn’t be more apparent that her departure was his most ardent desire, and she did not blame him a jot. She was new in the village but the tales abounded and she had gained sufficient intelligence about the Duke of Ravenwood by just listening to those who murmured about him. He was, they said, a recluse who would rather tend to his library than his people. It was a pity he was not more like his father because, as a boy, he’d seemed so promising, they said. Melancholy had overtaken him after the war.
Then there was gossip about his appearance, which Augusta had to say, was startling. He resembled one of the frightening creatures carved from stone and set on old churches. A dragon, perhaps, or, what were they called? Gargoyles, she thought. It was tragic, she felt, because she could conjecture that he had once been handsome, and maybe even devastatingly so. She was so intent upon not telling him anything of importance that she did not dwell upon his face.
If she had come across him in public, things might have been different. She might have cared more about his appearance or let him frighten her.
But the fact was, she was exhausted and far more scared of her circumstances than she was of him. In the end, he was only a man. An injured man, she told herself, trying to reason past her immediate and morbid curiosity. Same as Gabriel, who mucks the inn’s stables. His face had been marred by a horse that had kicked it in on his right side. He was somewhat compromised in his intelligence, which the duke was not, but he did look almost as shocking.
One just got used to Gabriel. She had, anyway, and she’d only been to the inn a few times to clean the kitchens when Maria, the wizened cook, needed the extra help.
Though she could admit the truth to the murmurings about the duke’s face, she did not think that he was heartless or greedy. She couldn’t, not after passing a night in his care.
Most of what she had heard about him came, of course, from her father. Brom cursed the duke to perdition and back for the heavy excise he apparently imposed on local market produce. Having had quite a bit of luck at the tables some months before, her father had won a little farm of his own in Brookfield, and that was the reason they had settled in the village.
In Augusta’s opinion, the old farmer who’d lost to her father must have been the grandest fool for staking his farm on a stupid bet. But such were the ways of men.
According to her father, vegetables would have fetched him a handsome profit, but the duke supposedly took more than half his earnings away. Even though her father never set sight on the man, he harbored a hatred for him.
At first, Augusta suspected that Brom either drank or gambled half of his money away, blaming it on the duke to ease his conscience, not that his conscience was large or well-developed. It was just easier to blame the nobility than it was to admit one’s chronic shortcomings. But she started to listen to the other villagers while she was out, and some of them lamented the same very high taxes in hushed tones and wondered what on earth the duke was thinking.
Augusta had always wondered about Lord Ainsworth, Duke of Ravenwood. Many times, she would gaze up at the large manor tucked in the hills that surveyed the village, and imagine the creature that lived within it. Her imagination ran wild, and her mind’s eye painted a vivid picture. She idly wondered if he was more like a dark, wicked ogre ready to devour any person who dared to trespass on his estate.
His reputation was vague and undecided, though, and Augusta was not by nature a mean-spirited woman. She was simply often bored and, paired with her intrinsic sense of fancifulness, this meant she had constructed many possible stories of the duke’s appearance and disposition.
Whenever she sold her wares or worked in the village, Augusta heard tales about him. Some despised him for his detachment from daily affairs, but then, more dissented with this attitude. Instead, they remembered him as a kind young man who tended the ill and helped the midwife birth babies. From the latter group, Augusta gleaned that the duke had once been Brookfield’s trusted physician and he’d, in fact, saved many from sickness and injury. This last group consisted of people who felt pity, and so, they called him the “Duke of Sorrow”. She didn’t know who started it but, these days, it was likely that someone who spoke compassionately about Lord Ainsworth would not use his proper name.
However, of all the tales surrounding the mysterious duke, the most tenacious regarded his appearance. In that, all of the villagers agreed. Everyone said that he’d returned from the war disfigured, with such an injury to his face that he could not turn it to the sun ever again. The only disagreement found within discussions of this matter was whether or not he deserved such a fate. Some said he did. Most denied it.
At least they were right about the nature of his face.
Opening her eyes to the sight of a man dozing off near her, she had known almost instantly who he was. While he dozed, she had been fortunate enough to observe him without his awareness for a full minute before he awoke.
Since Augusta had had no history of meeting with titled men in all of her twenty years, she did not possess the slightest inkling of how the gentry were supposed to look. She only knew what fairy tales and gossipmongers told her and, thankfully, her mother had instructed her on how to address them. Mama had once been a nanny to three young ladies before Augusta’s birth and, as such, understood how to comport herself in a multitude of situations.
“Remember,” she’d once said to Augusta, “when a man or a woman—even a child—has a title, you must abide by what they’re called.”
That was before she’d rattled off titles and their forms of address. Mama’s old charges, for example, were called “my lady”. Father thought it was all mad. He didn’t see how Augusta would ever really need to know these things, but Mama pointed out that she very well could find herself employed in a noble household one day. It was better to be prepared, because one never knew where life could lead.
Augusta never did get that kind of position, but she did assume that a duke was probably more dignified than common folk, as well as better dressed, and if God had blessed him, handsome.
Lord Ainsworth had endured the unimaginable.
Yet, in her eyes, the duke was not nearly as hideous as he was rumored to be.
His body, for one thing, was lean and perfect.
Why, her father was uglier when he was drunk and violent—which was to say, all of the time.
Lord Ainsworth’s face was nowhere near normal, nor was it strictly pleasing to behold. But in it, she could find traces of beauty, even though he frowned at her most of the time. His eyes were an intense shade of dark green, though she conjectured they might have been brighter before he had suffered injury. He could indeed see, of that she was sure, but she did not know how keen his eyesight was.
She didn’t think it could be perfect. The way he cocked his head at her and his aunt reminded her of a very inquisitive bird, but mostly it told her that he had adopted such a mannerism to compensate for a lack of sight.
He had dark brows that pulled together in a nearly teasing manner any time he frowned at her, and his hair was curly and rather long, held behind his neck by a band. Like a pirate from a book, she’d thought when she first realized how long it was. He was tall, too, towering above her in an imposing manner which could have scared her had he not been the same one who tended to her all night.
Still, there was something magnetic about him, Augusta concluded. Not that she would willingly tell him anything he asked.
As she caught her breath on the chaise, she reflected that she could not quite forget the hands that
tended her all night. Perhaps his attention to her health biased her, but Augusta could not call the duke hideous.
The whole of the right side of his face appeared to be sewn on like a worn leather mask; the skin appeared badly damaged. Things were a little better on his left side, though the area was not spared.
How terrible it must have been for him, thought Augusta.
He was nothing like the monster either her imagination or some of the villagers had made him out to be. Thinking back on her earlier notions of him, she felt slightly ashamed. He was rather cutting and surly but, as his aunt had told her, she did not think he was capable of biting more than barking.
Besides, you might very well be dead if he had not found you, she told herself. What is bearing a little rudeness from one who has been given a lot to bear, himself?
Still, he did want her gone and she was not ready—physically or emotionally—to face the idea of leaving. At least his aunt was firmly of the opinion that Augusta could not be turned out, and Augusta would bet her eyeteeth that the duke acquiesced to Lady Jane in nearly every matter.
Abruptly, Augusta realized that she actually could not have planned things any better. Perhaps fortune had smiled upon her.
Lord Ainsworth’s manor was the one place where her father could not bluster his way in, and it was the one place where he would never be admitted unless there were rare circumstances. Anywhere else in Brookfield would leave her vulnerable to his designs—and Brom was very wily when it came to getting what he wanted—but the manor was unassailable. She was, quite frankly, out of his reach so long as she remained here.
Maybe it is fate, she mused. Maybe I was meant to escape him, finally. There was the small matter of persuading the duke to allow her to stay until she figured out what to do next, but with Lady Jane’s iron will and some playacting on her own part, it would not be the most difficult thing she had accomplished in her young, but hard, life.
Augusta nested into the chaise and under the blankets and quilt she had been provided, making herself more comfortable. Everything was softer than her own bed.
Before she succumbed to more sleep, she thought on Lady Jane’s behavior and prayed that she would continue to tell Lord Ainsworth that Augusta needed to stay within the manor.
*
Even if he had been sober, Brom still would have gone outside in the dead of night to look for his whimpering excuse for a daughter. It was his right, his God-given right to find her and bring her back, even if that meant dragging her. It didn’t make a difference to him. She could come willingly, or not. He’d thought he had her well in hand, but evidently she was still in need of some breaking.
The ungrateful bitch walked out on me, he thought, stumbling through the lanes and shaking his head to clear it. He’d slept off most of the drink, and was hovering in an unpleasant state of being parched and fuzzy-headed. How could she have done such a thing? I put a roof over her head for twenty years, kept her fed… he tripped over a loose cobblestone and landed on his knees, then the palms of his hands with an “oof”. He knew better than to curse aloud because it would inevitably draw attention, yet he wanted to. But there wasn’t enough space between him and the houses. Someone would overhear.
He didn’t need some well-meaning Samaritan to meddle in his affairs.
When he righted himself, still weaving unsteadily as he got to his feet, he lurched in the direction of the square.
Augusta had nowhere to go. They had no other relations, and she had no friends. The foolish chit was probably hiding away somewhere, though perhaps not in any of the pubs or the inn—afraid of her own shadow, Augusta was—and the weather was fair. She was outside. She must be.
Brom sniffed, rough and wet. He cleared his throat. I shall find her.
*
“Aunt Jane, what on earth do you mean by any of this? I will have a candid answer. I am acquainted with your ways… you don’t do anything in vain.”
Will turned to his aunt as they made their way into his library, a cavernous room lined to the ceilings with books. After giving her a long, annoyed stare, he carefully went to the fireplace and coaxed the embers back into low flames. He did not want to admit it, but the library’s low light made his eyes strain so much that he may as well have closed them. At least he would have less of a headache.
Of course, he kept his eyes open.
“We are helping a poor woman in a bind, are we not? It is such a simple matter, really, even if we do not know her,” replied Jane, an innocent look on her beautiful face as she daintily settled in a chair.
Shaking his head, Will had none of it. “You know very well what I’m insinuating. What are you up to?” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “Your nature may incline you to open my home to a stranger, but I have no such tendencies. Not anymore. I will continue to insist that we determine who the young lady is so that we may send her on her way. Might I remind you that you were worried about her reputation before we brought her here?”
Jane made an expression of utter indignation that he could just make out in the weak firelight. “You will not send her away while she is in such a state, William. Might I remind you that you suggested I was a suitable chaperone? Having thought over your suggestion, I find I concur with it.”
Her eyes dared him to disagree. Will had to admit that she’d caught him out in that respect. “Fine,” he breathed, offering up yet another silent prayer for his patience. “But why are you suddenly so protective of this woman?”
“Why are you suddenly so callous toward someone who needs your care?” Jane retorted. “I have known you your whole life, and it is quite unlike you to cast aside someone in need.”
Will rubbed at his face thoughtfully. He was glad that it no longer hurt to do so. It had been a tough habit to break while he was still recovering. “I don’t know. I don’t…” he trailed off. It would do little good to elaborate upon his strange anxieties. His aunt was highly intelligent, but she had not suffered in the ways that he had. Therefore, he was not convinced that she could understand his point of view. “It is highly irregular.”
“What is?”
“Having her here.”
“Now you are interested in decorum?” Jane arched a perfect eyebrow. “William,” she said, her voice softening on his name. “You have locked yourself away for months with little care for what anyone thinks about it. We have done a fine thing. I was wrong to even intimate that her reputation was at stake. You have no visitors. It may be that no one will ever find out about her.”
“Servants talk,” grumbled Will.
“Yours do not. They are exceptionally loyal.”
“That driver will talk, then.”
“He might, but he won’t be taken very seriously, will he? It was rather late and he’d been sleeping before I roused him to take us back to Blackbrook. Anyone he tries to tell will probably think he was dreaming or drinking.” She frowned and added, “Besides, you do not have to let anyone in if they come here looking for her. It is your home, as you are so fond of reminding me.”
“You’ve an answer to everything.”
She leaned back in her chair, yawning. “It will probably be my downfall, being so right all the time.”
Will smiled at her. He leaned against a low table, knowing that if he sat down properly in a chair he might fall asleep. “I don’t think so.”
“I have been thinking about those marks on her,” said Jane. She grew serious.
Will nodded cautiously. So had he, but he didn’t want to fixate on them. It would make him feel all the more guilty for turning the young woman away. “They seem to have come from a riding crop.”
“That is what I thought. If she is being beaten by someone, we cannot let her go without determining the circumstances.”
“We may have no ability to change them for her, if they are inflicted by a husband or father,” observed Will, thinking aloud more than trying to justify such deplorable behavior.
Jane, though, seemed to feel
he was being unduly callous. She sounded scandalized. “You forget that you are a duke, and you very well may possess the power to do so.”
He disregarded her words and teased, “Have you considered that this may all be a brilliant ruse performed by someone who wishes to rob us blind? Well, one of us, at any rate. Thank goodness that you have your London home and that is where most of your belongings are.”
“William.” She sat up straight as a rod.
“Do relax, Aunt. I am merely trying to bring some levity to the situation.”
“I do not think it very appropriate,” she muttered. “What is there to find humorous? What has happened to my gentle, dear nephew?”
Everything, he thought.
If he was not, strictly speaking, bitter now, he was often touched by a sense of loss and change that he could not allay. He could not find it within himself to be moved by others’ misfortunes as easily as he had before his own in Salamanca.
Perhaps that made him a bad man. He couldn’t say.
“Nothing has happened to him,” Will said. “He is just trying to be rational.”
She looked down her nose at him, which was impressive given her small stature and the fact that she was seated. “What harm will possibly come from her? One does not get her callused hands from sneaking… and… and stealing! Rather, they point to a life of working.”
Will was just as stubborn in his reticence. He voiced the unthinkable, and what he did not really believe. He only meant to antagonize Jane again. It was one of his few entertainments. “It may be true that she has had a hard life. Perhaps, she has entered another profession in a bid to lessen the hardships.” He paused as his aunt gave a sharp intake of breath. “Surely you have heard of men who take pleasure in paying such innocent-looking ladies to harm themselves while they look on.”
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