However, it is some distance from the dining room, and I had wandered down several corridors before I realized that not only was I nowhere near finding the morning room, but I also had no idea how to make my way back.
And then a door opened suddenly, and Mr Winchester marched out of it with a very stern look on his face. He came out so quickly that I gasped, but he made no apology whatsoever for startling me.
“Your Grace? Have you come to look for me in particular?” he said in a tone that reminded me very much of the stern classics tutor my father had employed in the summer months when Henry was back from Eton.
I must admit, something about it made me feel like a child, as if I had done something naughty and that I ought not to have been in that part of the house at all. Despite the fact that by dint of my marriage, that house was now my home.
“No, I have not come to look for you, Mr Winchester,” I said with a little polite aggression of my own.
I was determined, you see, not to stutter and blush before him. I suppose these last weeks have changed me, Ariadne, and I am not quite as sweet-natured as I once was. In truth, I am a little angry at the world, and I find that the only people I can think of in the same way, with the old love, are you, of course, Lady Dearborn, and Eames, my father’s butler.
Not a very great list, is it? Especially when I used to have such great care for almost everybody.
Anyway, to return to the unusual Mr Winchester, he looked a little taken aback with my firm stance although he did not speak and instead chose simply to raise his eyebrows in question.
“I was trying to make my way to the morning room, Mr Winchester, but it would appear I have taken a wrong turn, or indeed several wrong turns. Perhaps you would be so good as to direct me a little better.” I was polite, but still, I did not allow any concession in my tone.
I suppose I was neither friendly nor unfriendly, and I have determined to remain that way until I have a better idea of the man himself.
“Of course, Your Grace,” he said and gave me the very briefest and tightest of smiles. “But it is rather a convoluted explanation, so perhaps I should walk with you.” He came fully out of the room he was in, a room I assume now to be his own little study or office, and he closed the door behind him.
We walked in silence for what seemed like an eternity, and it was clear how very wrong I had got my bearings when I had set off in search of the morning room in the first place.
Walking at Mr Winchester’s side gave me a great sense of his size, and he is so upright in his bearing that he reminded me a little of a friend of my father who was a Colonel in the British Army at the time of the war with France.
I can hardly explain what I am about to say to you next, so you must make of it what you will. There was something about walking at the side of that man which gave me a deep feeling of safety, of security.
But how can that be, Ariadne, when he has not been particularly friendly, and I have not felt myself once to be in any kind of danger? It makes no sense, does it?
So, at least I will have something to think about to take my mind off my situation. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I shall devote my time to trying firstly to befriend my maid, Nella West and secondly to solving the riddle of Mr Winchester. If, indeed, he is a riddle at all and not simply a standoffish man of no particular interest. Only time will tell.
You must write back to me as soon as you can to let me know if we are safe to meet at Lady Dearborn’s. Now that I know I am free to come out on Thursday, I should very much like to. I think it will make the unreality of the last fortnight a little easier to manage.
My dear Ariadne, I cannot wait to see you again and hear all your news, and I dearly hope that I shall see you on Thursday.
With much love,
Eliza.”
Chapter 5
Daniel had spent a long and uninteresting morning going over the finer details of the contracts for the Duchy’s tenant farmers. The lands of the Duchy were widespread and spanned more than just Hertfordshire. The Duchy also owned great swathes of land in the Midlands and the North, much of which was rented to farmers and small industries.
The turnover from the rent yields alone was immense and the Duke’s own funds so vast that they earned interest daily.
Daniel did not have an opinion on the matter and had never felt envious of the Duke and his ilk who were born into so much wealth that it could never be spent in a lifetime, not even recklessly. He simply looked upon the Duke as another client, even though he had, as time had gone by, become his only client.
And if he was honest, Daniel enjoyed his work. Not necessarily the work he did for the Duchy, but the fact of being an attorney in the first place. The law had always appealed to him, and he had an innate understanding of its inner workings, even the most convoluted twists and turns that English law could provide.
In many ways, it was like a puzzle, something that could be enjoyed in its figuring, with a satisfaction that could be gleaned from its solving. He would not have traded his place for that of a wealthy, titled man with no real purpose or necessary pursuits.
Daniel sat back in his chair and wondered for a moment if he would pull the bell rope in the corner of the room for tea. Since he had worked at Lytton Hall for so long, he had been afforded certain privileges, and he had long since grown comfortable with the idea that the household staff would provide him with either sustenance or a warm fire if he asked for it.
He was always polite, and the servants liked him well enough. The ageing cook was particularly fond of him, and she often sent up little extras, small cakes or savoury pastries, when he had requested nothing more than tea.
But Daniel realized that he was not particularly hungry or thirsty, he simply needed a change of scenery for a while. He rose from his desk and made his way out of the room, pulling the door up behind him.
It was a fine late spring morning, and he decided he would take a small turn around the grounds to get some air and clear his mind in preparation for an afternoon spent reading through the arduously boring tenant farmer contracts.
With his mind made up, he set off in the direction of the morning room, intent on making his way out through the French windows and onto the little terrace beyond. It would give him just enough time to blow away the cobwebs, and he was certain that, given that it was almost midday, there would be nobody in the morning room at all.
However, when he opened the door to the morning room and peered inside, it was to find the Duchess of Lytton peering back at him.
She was not seated but standing by the French windows and had seemingly been looking out across the sun-drenched terrace. He could see a small tray with a tea setting for just one person and realized that she must have spent almost all of her morning in that room.
However, she was very nicely dressed in a gown he had not yet seen her in. It was an ivory gown with small green flowers embroidered all over it, and it was somehow simpler than the gowns she had worn every day since arriving at Lytton as its new Duchess.
It was certainly not brand-new as the other gowns were, and yet somehow it seemed to suit her better. He could see that a dark green velvet cloak and matching bonnet lay over the back of one of the armchairs, and he instantly formed the idea that she was getting ready to go out somewhere.
“Forgive me, Your Grace,” he said and bowed his head. “I had thought the room would be empty and had decided to make my way outside for some fresh air through the French windows.”
“By all means continue, Mr Winchester, for I am only waiting here a little while until the carriage is ready,” she said and looked at him in that curious, studying way of hers.
For a woman who was not yet twenty, there was a good deal of self-possession about Eliza Ashton, or Eliza Tate as she now was. If he was honest, Daniel was not entirely sure if he found her inscrutable attitude annoying or attractive. He sincerely hoped it was the former and not the latter.
He could hardly say why it was he found he
r presence at Lytton Hall so unsettling. He had been determined not to like her very much before she had even arrived, if only for the nature of her marriage.
Daniel thought that he would have perhaps felt sorry for the young woman who had been set to marry a Duke who was easily old enough to be her father if she had not seemed so very at ease with it all. He could only imagine that a woman as young as she was in her circumstances would display signs of obvious upset if she were not entirely happy with the situation she now found herself in.
But of course, amongst women of her class, quite often status and wealth came very much higher up the list than love and respect.
Daniel knew he had no way of knowing what she truly felt, but he could only imagine that a young woman who was as poised and seemingly neutral as the new Duchess of Lytton must surely be of the type who did not care for anything but wealth, title, and physical comfort.
And the fact that he found her so very attractive with her shining dark brown hair and wide, golden brown eyes, served as something of an annoyance to him.
“If you are quite sure, Your Grace,” he said and made his way further into the room.
“I am quite sure, Mr Winchester.” She smiled at him benignly before continuing, “I find the little terrace at this part of the house a very fine place to take the air on a nice day.”
“Indeed, it is, Your Grace. I must admit that I often come through this room to make my way outside. Ordinarily, it is quite deserted.”
“Yes, I do not think that the Duke uses the room. But I like it very much, and I hope that you will not mind my presence here in the future when you come to make your way outside.”
“Your Grace, I shall find another way out of the building; I would not disturb you,” Daniel said and wondered at her curious friendliness.
Her tone had not changed, not grown in warmth, but she seemed sincere in her words nonetheless. He had to admit that it unsettled him a little, or at least had taken him unawares.
“That really will not be necessary, Mr Winchester. I will not be at all disturbed by your passing through the room.” She smiled at him again, only now he was sure that he did see a little warmth in it.
But no sooner had he perceived that tiniest of connections than her countenance returned to its neutral, unreadable aspect.
As Daniel Winchester bowed politely at her and made his way out of the French windows and into the terrace beyond, Eliza remained standing where she was and peered out at him as he slowly walked away.
He really was an unusual man, so very guarded. She knew, of course, that her being the new Duchess of Lytton was not only something that she would have to get used to, but those around her would have to also. And yet she did not think that his manner was in any way connected to a lack of trust or any ideas of uncertainty of her own character.
There was something about Daniel Winchester which suggested that he would never be afraid of anybody of any rank at all. He was not arrogant, she was sure, but there was something about him which made him most unusual. He was not a grovelling man, that was certain, but he was not overly proud or begrudging either. He just seemed to be very much contained within himself, a man at ease with life who seemed to have no particular need for companionship or approval of any kind.
She laughed quietly to herself and wondered if her new hobby of studying people had not taken on a little life of its own; perhaps her imagination was being too readily employed.
One thing had changed, she was sure, and that was that she no longer actively disliked the man. Or at least not as she had done on that day in the chapel when he had looked at her so disdainfully.
And she was equally sure that she was not always going to be able to hold the world at arm’s length as she had determined to do, as she had claimed to Ariadne that she would. In those few moments of dubious companionship, Eliza had wanted Daniel Winchester to stay.
She had heard herself quite determined that he should not stop using the morning room as a through route to the outside world. Why had she done that? If she did not like the man at all, Eliza knew that she would have much preferred him to find a different means of exit just as he had offered to do.
And she knew that she had smiled at him with her old warmth, albeit only for the briefest of moments. But his eyes had widened just a little as if he had noticed, and it was as if he had seen that tiny chink in her armour. She had, course, immediately drawn back and made herself as aloof as Daniel Winchester, if not more so.
As she continued to peer out, she could see that he was now some distance away, although still clearly visible. He turned slowly as if to look back towards the house, and Eliza instinctively stepped to one side to hide behind the long curtain which fluttered at the side of the still open door, caught on the very faintest of breezes.
He turned away again and stood with his hands clasped behind his back and seemed to be staring off into the distance towards the dense woodland on the edge of the estate.
All in all, Daniel Winchester was an unusual figure, a man who would certainly take some deciphering. But why on earth should she of all people want to decipher him? After all, he was nothing to her. He was her husband’s attorney, not hers, and someone she would likely never be particularly familiar with.
And yet still she stared out at him from behind the cover of the curtain. He was, as always, immaculately dressed in tan coloured breeches and black knee boots over which he wore a waistcoat and tailcoat of olive green. The colour suited his fair hair very well indeed, and even his strangely pale blue eyes.
He certainly looked as fine as any young man she had met in Lady Dearborn’s drawing room, Miles Gainsborough included. Whilst it was true to say that he was not as young as Miles, nor as classically handsome, his appearance altogether marked him out as equal to any man of any class.
But whereas Miles had always seemed to her an open book, a man so very easy to read, Daniel Winchester was surely his opposite.
And there was something about the attorney’s height and broad build that seemed to mark him out as a man and make Miles Gainsborough, in comparison, seem rather more of a boy.
“This is ridiculous, what foolishness is this?” she whispered quietly to herself before finally turning away from the window.
As she pulled her cloak around her shoulders and tied it at the neck, she knew that there was little point in comparing her old love with her husband’s attorney. It was like comparing apples to fish in that it was utterly without point.
What upended her more than anything was the idea that Daniel Winchester, a man who should have been of no importance or interest to her, was now somehow in her life whereas Miles Gainsborough was not and never would be again.
If only she had not thought of Miles, even with the idea of making a comparison. Eliza had spent weeks doing everything in her power to divert every thought of him, every image which sprang to her mind, in any way she could. She simply could not allow herself to remember a time, just weeks before when everything in her world had felt so sure, when she had known herself to be on the right path.
She could not have imagined then how greatly her world would change, how it would be everything she would never have suspected.
Every so often, it truly hit her that she was married to an old Duke, one she cared nothing for, and the greatest love of her life was out there in the world having abandoned her to her fate. It was that, more than anything, that still tore at her heart. It was bad enough that her father had sacrificed her, that her whole family had, but she had never believed for a moment that Miles Gainsborough could so easily turn his back.
As she pulled on the green bonnet, careful not to disarrange her shining brown hair, Eliza felt the familiar hurt, the hurt that was still so great that she almost dared not face it. And with it came the tears that she had been so determined not to shed ever again.
As she tied the ribbons of her bonnet, Eliza’s sudden sense of desolation almost floored her. Her breathing was growing ragged, and she knew th
at she was in danger of her few tears turning into a sensational bout of heartfelt weeping.
Trying to master her emotions, Eliza furiously dabbed her face with a handkerchief and slowed her breathing as best she could. When she looked up, it was to see Daniel Winchester much closer to the house than he had been, determinedly making his way back to the morning room.
Something about that self-contained man drew her up short, and her tears ceased immediately. Once again, a little sense of annoyance at him took over, and she was able to use it to take her mind off the things which were hurting her the most, just as it had been that day in the chapel.
Well, if nothing else, Daniel Winchester would serve that much of a purpose. And yet, at the same time, she was certain that there was very much more to him than that.
For the Love of a Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 4