For the Love of a Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Bridget Barton

  Despite having every intention of never forgiving any member of her family, still, Eliza could not deny the feelings of her heart. She missed them, most particularly her mother, who was a gentle soul, and prior to seeing her daughter married away without a fight, a very fine mother.

  So fine, in fact, that Eliza could hardly believe where it was she had ended up. She supposed that she had thought that her mother would always fight for her like a lioness with her cub. When that had not happened, Eliza had felt truly betrayed.

  Even though she knew that her mother had very little power, just as was the case in her own life, still, Eliza had somehow expected more from her. She had expected to hear arguments, to witness anger, to see Lady Bexley railing against her husband’s dreadful plan. But Eliza had seen none of those things, and so she was determined to harden her heart. Even if it meant hardening her heart against the mother she had loved so very much and, in truth, still did.

  But however much she had decided to harden her heart, Eliza knew that she was not quite the coolly detached young woman she was trying so hard to be. The idea of opening and reading her mother’s letter terrified her because she knew that it would, without a doubt, set loose a maelstrom of emotions that she did not feel strong enough to experience.

  Better she not read it at all and continue with the pretence of self-control, of self-containment, of self-possession. After all, that was something that she could at least have a little pride in, something that was entirely within her power. It was little enough, but at least it was something.

  Eliza drained the last of her tea and set her cup back down on the tray, hurriedly scooping up the letter which lay there and tearing it open before she lost her courage.

  “My Darling Eliza,

  How many times I have begun this letter and how many times I have needed to abandon my attempt and to begin again in the hopes of finding some better way to address you.

  But after everything that has happened, I know that there is no possible way I can address you and have you believe how very sorry I am for the way your life has been so thoroughly disrupted.

  I daresay disrupted hardly covers it, does it? Perhaps I should say ruined, decimated, any number of awfully descriptive words that would be more fitting given the circumstances.

  I had hoped in these last weeks that the first time I write to you might be in response to one of your own letters. I suppose it was simply cowardly of me, hoping that you would be the first to speak, the first to reach out a hand in the form of a letter.

  I know, however, that I had no right to expect such a thing from you. After all, so much has been expected of you of late that you ought now to be able to live forever without ever suffering the weight of the expectations of another again.

  I have been thinking about you every day since you left, and I miss you more than I can say. Bexley Hall is not the same without you here, and I cannot help nursing the tiniest hope that you might one day consent to return here and spend just a little time with me.

  But even as I wander the corridors or sit alone on the terrace where once I used to sit with you, my dear, I realize that I am only here at all because of your sacrifice. And because of that sacrifice, for me, life simply cannot go on as ever it did.

  How I wish I had spoken out against it all. How I wish I had demanded that we all suffer as a family instead of putting the stone walls and the green lands of Bexley first. You may not believe me, my darling, but it means nothing to me now.

  From the very earliest days of my marriage to your father, Bexley Hall had felt like home. And in all the years since, I have been happier here than I could ever have imagined. When Henry was born, it seemed my happiness was complete.

  Although your father and I had not chosen one another, the match that was made for us by our parents was made well, and love came over time. By the time I had given birth to my first child, your dear brother, I already loved your father as if I had chosen him myself.

  Little did I realize then that my happiness was not complete. I was so very pleased with my life that I could not imagine that it would ever, could ever, be any better than it was. But then you came along, my dear, and my heart soared into the sky.

  I had never realized what a wondrous comfort a daughter could be until you came into my world. As soon you were able to walk, you followed me everywhere. You were a great distraction to your nurse, but never to me. I was just happy to have a daughter to share my life with, and you have always been the closest person to me in all the world.

  I know that I let you down, Eliza, even though I know that no action of mine could have changed anything. We are but women after all, are we not? In the end, the real decisions are not made by us.

  But still, I cannot help thinking that had I at least made my feelings known to your father, had I demonstrated my objections more clearly, at least I might not have lost you as completely as I seem to have done now. At least you would have known that this would never have been my choice, for I would rather we had no home, I would rather we had slept together under the stars as a family without the comforts we had always known if only I could have saved you from the heartbreak.

  And I know that you must be experiencing the very worst kind of heartbreak, for I know precisely how much you loved Miles Gainsborough. Of everything that has happened, I cannot help thinking that that is the cruelest of all things.

  Try not to think so badly of the boy, my dear. In the end, we are all at the mercy of our fathers’ wants and wishes, even young men like Miles. And to so many fathers, money, status, land, and reputation, are falsely placed at the top of the list of priorities which really ought to look very different.

  But men and women are not the same, and matters of the heart are always left to us, are they not?

  And yet, despite our differences, I can see your father’s own sadness. He had been managing tolerably well until that day in the Duke’s Chapel, your wedding day when you refused to take his arm. He knew that that was your way of detaching from him forever, of telling him that it was not really his right to give you away in matrimony. Even though he performed that task, he knew that you had refused to acknowledge it, and he has been unable to speak of that day ever since.

  In fact, he finds it so very difficult to talk about you at all, and I know that is because his own heart is breaking.

  He, like me, wanders the hall of Bexley looking like a very different person these days. I know that when a daughter marries, her father loses her to some extent. But I can see that he knows he has lost you completely, that he had already lost you before you had spoken your vows.

  I know that you are undoubtedly still angry with your father, but I cannot help expressing a desire that the two of you will one day be reunited. My dear daughter, Bexley Hall is always open to you as I am sure you know, and you would be a very welcome visitor here. More welcome than you could possibly imagine.

  And given that there are but a few short miles between us, your absence is all the more painful. I had always imagined, once you were married, that you and I would see one another with such regularity it would hardly be as if you had left at all.

  But now Bexley Hall is so devoid of you, your beautiful face and your shining character that it is almost as if you were never here in the first place. It is as if you were just a wonderful dream, the yearning of a mother to have a daughter, nothing more.

  I have twice now driven past the great gates to the Lytton estate, wondering if I really could find the courage to call upon you without invitation. After all, the Duke made no secret of the fact that your family would always be welcome.

  But it is not the Duke’s disdain that I fear, rather it is yours. And so, once again I lack the courage and I return home to Bexley Hall berating myself for not instructing the driver to turn in through those gates and make that long journey down the driveway to Lytton Hall itself.

  My greatest fear, of course, is that you will not see me. I imagine myself standing in that great hallway as your
butler returns to tell me that you are either not at home or that you are not receiving visitors. It is a scene I revisit over and over, and I know that I cannot simply arrive without warning.

  And not only for my own sake, but for yours. I shall not put you in the position of having to turn me away if it truly is your heart’s desire never to see me again.

  And so, I must leave it to you, Eliza. If I would be a welcome visitor to your home, I should be very glad if you would reply to this letter and tell me as much. And please know that the moment I receive your blessing, I shall lift my cloak and bonnet and make my way directly to you.

  I will never truly be able to apologize enough for what has happened and can only hope that life for you improves so that you may find a pathway to peace. Even though there is such a great gap in age between you and your husband, perhaps there is still some common ground between you, something that you can build on to make a life that is, if nothing else, content.

  But perhaps you think it too late now for a mother to offer a daughter such advice? Perhaps you will never again see me as your confidante or trust me to guide you well in times of crisis.

  If I can impress nothing else upon you, allow it simply to be this. That I love you, my darling daughter, and I always shall. And your father and brother love you too, whatever you might think of them.

  Please write back to me, Eliza. Even if it is only to tell me that you do not yet want to see me, at least that little contact from you will give me some measure of peace.

  Take very good care of yourself, my dear, and know that I never stop thinking about you.

  With all my love,

  Mama.”

  By the time she had finished reading, Eliza was crying openly. The tears ran down her cheeks unchecked and landed one after the other onto the lap of her gown, darkening the pale blue material noticeably.

  There was so much in her mother’s letter which had broken her heart and made Eliza miss her all the more. But there was much which had angered her also, and she knew that her tears were not simply the result of sadness, but of that same old sense of injustice that would not leave her.

  What good would it do to see her mother and keep that anger and resentment alive? Of all the feelings she experienced, the loss, the heartbreak, none of them could match the life-changing effects of bitterness.

  In playing her part at Lytton Hall, in holding on to the idea of self-control, her character was so detached that she felt beyond hurt. For the most part, at any rate.

  But she knew there were still times she had yearned for her mother, that calm, loving voice of reason who was always ready to advise Eliza to the very best of her ability.

  How much she had wanted her mother when the Duke had taunted her with her failure to conceive a child. And how her mother would have made her feel so very different about it all. She most certainly would not have been left with the notion that it was her fault alone that no sign of being with child had made itself known.

  Lady Bexley would have pointed out the Duke’s advancing years and poor state of health and not given in until her daughter’s confidence and sense of worth had returned to her.

  But what good was any of that now? It would not change what had happened, nor would it take her off the path which had been set for her.

  She closed her eyes and blindly dug her hand into the pocket of her gown for a handkerchief. She would find a way to let go of her grief and return to herself as if she had never read that letter at all.

  But just as she began to dry her eyes, the door to the morning room opened inward, and Daniel Winchester peered into the room.

  Chapter 8

  Daniel knew he should walk away. He could do so without any concern, for that would have been the proper thing to do in the circumstances. To venture any further into the room would be inappropriate, and he knew it. Who would not know such a thing?

  But he also knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he could not walk away. He could not shrug his shoulders and leave without ever thinking of her distress again. Surely nobody could do that.

  “Your Grace,” he said and, despite every instinct urging him to the contrary, Daniel Winchester walked into the morning room and closed the door behind him.

  Beyond addressing her in the correct manner, he could not think of a single word to say to her now that he was in the room with no sensible way of taking back his actions thus far.

  She looked up at him miserably, her humiliation at being found in such a state clear to him. For all that she was so much younger than him, a woman of just nineteen years, he realized that she possessed a dignity that he could have only imagined at her age.

  Her eyes told him how she wished he had not discovered her at that moment, and the letter laying open on her lap told him that she must surely have just read something which had upset her greatly.

  “Forgive my intrusion, but I did not want to leave you here in such distress,” he began awkwardly. “If you have received some upsetting news,” he said and nodded significantly at the letter, “I can seek out His Grace and tell him for you.” He raised his eyebrows in question.

  “Goodness me, no. I would beg you to say nothing to my husband. It is not bad news at all, just something I did not yet have the stomach to read.” She looked down at the letter before taking it up and folding it over and over again until it was no more than a tiny, crumpled thing.

  “Is there nothing I can do for you? Can I not at least find Miss West?” He knew he could not leave her but was at a loss as to how he might help.

  Without knowing what she had read or what had upset her, it was hard to find the right course of action, the right person to send for.

  “I would rather Nella not know of my upset,” she said quietly and began to dry her eyes in earnest.

  “But why?” Daniel took a few steps further into the room until he was standing almost in front of her.

  She looked like a young woman who was fighting hard against being utterly forlorn, and he felt a newfound respect for one he had previously judged without evidence.

  “I cannot be sure she will not inform my husband. Not out of spite, but out of fear or duty or some other such similar sentiment.” She laughed mirthlessly. “But then, I cannot be sure you will not simply do the same thing.”

  “I would not. And I am not in fear of anybody, Your Grace. If you wish me to say nothing and to fetch nobody to help you, then that is what I shall do. And if you wish me to leave because you fear I am not truthful in my words, then I shall. You need only say it.” She looked up at him with those golden-brown eyes, and he was reminded of those few curious moments when their eyes had locked before she had run away up the stairs to her chamber just days before.

  He remembered how he had held onto her arm and how he had thought he would hear something about it from the Duke himself in due course. But that conversation had never come to pass. She had kept it to herself, and Daniel realized that there was so much more to her than he had thought. She was not a flighty young woman with ideas of impressing society with her new wealth and title. At least, she did not strike him that way any longer. In truth, he wondered why he had ever thought it. Perhaps his own prejudice had marred his thinking.

  “No, you need not leave.” She smiled just a little. “After all, I did say you might cut through this room for your midday walk, did I not? I would not have you think I would go back on my word.”

  “I do not think it.” He smiled back and felt himself to be heading into a place he could not get back from.

  Daniel imagined himself raising a foot and placing it firmly on a path which ran in a very different direction from the one he had always been on.

  “I wish you had not found me here, Mr Winchester, but it is entirely my fault that you did, so I do not blame you for anything.”

  “I would not like to think of you suffering whatever has upset you alone, however much you would wish I had never come in.” He knew he should not be saying it but could not stop himself. “If
His Grace cannot assist and Miss West cannot, perhaps you might permit me? After all, I am here now and am more than willing to help you if I can.”

  She was silent for some moments, and Daniel knew he had stepped over that invisible line. Whilst she might only be a young woman with few of life’s experiences behind her, she was still a Duchess, and he knew the boundaries of such a position in life.

  “It is a letter from my mother, Mr Winchester,” she began a little uncertainly at just the moment he had prepared himself to apologize for his impertinence.

  “Is she well?” he said with concern.

  “She is quite well; I thank you.”

  “And your father? The rest of your family?” he said and lowered himself down into the armchair opposite the couch on which she sat when she indicated that he should sit.

  “My father and brother are well also, Mr Winchester. In fact, they are all in the very peak of health and will no doubt resume life as normal very soon.” She spoke with a little bitterness which took Daniel aback somewhat.