Daniel reached out to steady him by instinct, but Augustus swatted his hand away and looked at him murderously.
“Whatever the two of you have done, the Duchess is mine. However much you might want her, Winchester, you will never have her.”
“If only you would listen to reason, Your Grace,” Daniel said in a tone that was so calm Eliza could see that it was making her husband all the more agitated. “I have proof that Nella West is lying to you. I have proof that she has tried the very same thing in another household before this one.”
“She is mine. You will never lay a hand on her again,” Augustus continued as if he had not heard a word that Daniel said. “You may spend the rest of your life wanting her, Winchester, you shall not have her.”
“You have the thing all wrong, Your Grace,” Daniel said, and it was the first hint that he was at all exasperated.
“You are telling me that you do not want her? You are telling me that you have not coveted my wife from the very moment she arrived here in this house?” The Duke was breathing hard, snorting with rage.
His clothing was entirely disarranged, and he looked every bit like a man who had just pulled himself from his sick bed and made a savage attempt to dress himself. There were two of the brightest spots of colour Eliza had ever seen in his cheeks, and yet the rest of his face remained jaundiced and grey. The effect was entirely garish, almost as if Augustus was an actor in a play, his identity changed by hastily applied greasepaint.
When Daniel did not answer, she looked at him urgently.
“Well, tell me that you do not want my wife,” the Duke said as if to taunt him.
“Your wife has never done anything to dishonour you, Your Grace,” Daniel said angrily, and Eliza realized that he could not answer the question. He could not declare that he did not want her. “You have been taken in by a liar and a cheat, and I have no way to convince you of the truth of it all unless you listen.”
“You will convince me of nothing, Winchester. You will leave this house today, and you will never work for me again,” the Duke said in a manner that was so grand and arrogant it was almost amusing.
“I have no intention of working for you again, Your Grace, you need have no fear of that,” Daniel said, and his calm manner returned.
“And you will never lay eyes on my wife again, never,” the Duke said and turned to glare at Eliza in a way which frightened her completely. It was a look so murderous that she knew if Daniel left her alone with him now, he would surely hurt her. “You will never lay eyes on my wife again, nobody will.”
Eliza gasped and knew then that she could not stay.
Where would she go? What on earth would she do now? All she knew for certain was that if she did not leave Lytton Hall at that moment, her husband would do her great harm, perhaps the greatest harm of all.
The Duke was breathing hard and looked as unwell as ever he had looked. He sat down heavily on one of the couches, and Eliza turned to look helplessly at Daniel. Without a word, Daniel took her by the arm and hurried her out of the room.
“Winchester!” the Duke roared.
“What? But where …?” Elia said fearfully as she looked at Daniel.
“There is not time now, Your Grace. You must trust me. You cannot stay in this house, not today.”
And with that, the two of them hurried out of Lytton Hall, leaving the Duke of Lytton bellowing behind them.
Chapter 23
The next few minutes seemed to pass Eliza by in a blur of fear and excitement. Daniel left her for a moment outside the stables as he ran in and took his horse. When he returned, he put his hands on her waist without explanation and lifted her with ease until she was perched on the side of his saddle.
Daniel climbed up and sat behind her, holding her firmly to keep her on the saddle as he set off at speed.
They raced out of the immense Lytton estate without passing a single soul, and she wondered exactly what was happening now behind her in the Hall itself. Was the Duke roaring with impotent rage, too sick and unsteady to give chase to his fleeing wife and the attorney he had just dismissed?
Had he called upon his servants to have them run out in pursuit of them? Eliza imagined him dragging himself over to the fireplace and pulling endlessly on the bell ropes which hung there.
She imagined the sound of bells ringing without cease in the servants’ area until someone had finally made their way to the drawing room to attend their master.
Or had he simply remained in his seat, sitting there speechless and drained, the effort of his rage finally taking its toll upon his desperately unwell body?
Although they were travelling at speed, Eliza had that wonderful sense of safety once again. Daniel was a big man and very strong, and she did not fear at all that he would loosen his grip on her and let her fall. Instead, she closed her eyes for a moment and felt the wind rushing through her dishevelled hair as his strong arms held her tightly.
Eliza knew that she had so much to think about, so much to fear, and so many questions. And yet, at that moment, she could feel nothing but the most inappropriate exhilaration. The dreadful argument had whipped up her nerves to a point she could almost no longer cope. But the escape was something altogether different.
Perhaps it was simply the relief of being away from Augustus, knowing herself to be safe from harm for now at least, that had made her feel this way.
But whatever it was, Eliza simply cleared her mind of all other worries and allowed herself to enjoy it. For those few moments, much apart from being saddened by the past or afraid of the future, she was enjoying that moment as it was, and that moment was nothing short of exhilarating.
When they were finally some distance from the Lytton estate, Daniel slowed his horse and walked them into the cover of a small, patchy woodland. Once they were somewhere close to the middle, he drew his horse to a halt and jumped down from behind her, reaching up to put his hands on her waist once more and lift her down.
“Forgive the urgency of our flight, Your Grace, but I thought it for the best,” he said and sounded a little breathless.
“There is nothing to forgive, Mr Winchester. I know that had I stayed in that house, my husband would have done me some harm, and I thank you for perceiving the same and keeping me safe.”
“How are you managing?” He looked at her with such concern that she wanted to reach for him, to put her arms around his neck and have him pull her in close.
Once again, she was assailed with the same old feelings, the knowledge that she was, for better or worse, still a married woman. And she would not, under any circumstances, give the world any reason to suspect otherwise.
As it was, Augustus could very easily have her condemned as an adulteress up and down the county. Suddenly, the exhilaration of the last moments left her, and all her old worries, along with some new ones, came to her with full force.
“My nerves are rather jangled, Mr Winchester, but I am managing. Unfortunately, my mind is so full of what it is I ought to do next that I can hardly think straight. I know it was the right thing to leave; I just do not know what I should do next. All I know for certain is that I cannot come with you,” she said and held his gaze. “Otherwise, everything my husband is about to say about me to the world will be proved true in their eyes, will it not?”
“I would do nothing to put you in that position. I wanted only to keep you safe.”
“I know, Mr Winchester. I know.” Without thinking about what she was doing, Eliza reached out and took his hand, squeezing it gently before she released it again.
“If only I had realized that Nella West was volatile enough to run directly up the stairs to Augustus. If only I had got there in time, all of this might well have been avoided.”
“It would not have been avoided, for she was most determined. It would simply have been worse because you would have been trapped alone with him in that room as that vile little woman gave voice to her lies. You must not think of all the things you could have do
ne because it is done now, nothing can be changed.”
“It is only for me to make a move now, is it not? I must think of the future. Or at least if not of the future, then at least of the next few days. Perhaps that is all that will be required in the end. Perhaps that will be enough time for Augustus to come to his senses and realize that Nella was lying.”
“Perhaps,” Daniel said with very little conviction.
“I wonder if I can go to Ariadne,” she said quietly. “But would I not be putting her in a dreadful position? Her family might well feel embarrassed to house me in case it is seen as going against the Duke himself.”
“Are they really so weak?” Daniel said, and she saw a little of the old disdain on his face.
For a moment, she almost laughed. It reminded her so much of the first time she saw him and seemed to take her out of her worries again for the briefest moment.
“A family would not need to be particularly weak to suffer that anxiety, Mr Winchester. Not everybody is as courageous as you are.” She looked at him and smiled, meaning every word of it.
Daniel smiled back and then looked away, clearly made a little uncomfortable by such praise. “But I do not know what else to do. I have only Ariadne to lean on in this circumstance.”
“What about Lady Hanbury?” Daniel said and raised his eyebrows. “Did she not help you once before when the Duke was being unreasonable?”
“Yes, she did, of course,” Eliza said and felt another wave of relief. “And that letter she handed you for me, how could I have forgotten?” She lightly tapped her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Lady Hanbury sent me a letter to tell me that I would be welcome at Hanbury Hall under any circumstances whatsoever. It struck me at the time that she was most determined to have me know there was someone I could go to in a time of crisis.”
“I know where Hanbury Hall is, and I can take you directly if that is what you want,” Daniel said. “And what I know of Lady Hanbury leads me to suspect that you are right, that she would take you in without a second thought.”
“Perhaps if I just explained to her that it is only for a day or two until Augustus calms down. After all, she has seen him behave badly at the dinner table and likely knows that this will blow over in time.”
“Do you remember when you said to me that I might speak freely to you, Your Grace? That even if I was about to say something you did not want to hear, you would have me say anyway?” He looked at her levelly.
“Yes, I remember,” she said and began to blindly do what she could to tidy her hair. She did not want Lady Hanbury to see her in such a dishevelled state. “And it still stands, Mr Winchester. You of all people may say to me whatever you wish.”
“I do not think as you do, I am afraid. I do not think for a moment that a few days is all the Duke will need to see sense. If he was inclined to see sense at all, he would have listened. He would have waited until I had provided him with my evidence of Nella West’s previous lies and disreputable behaviour. But he was determined not to hear it; I could see it in his eyes. Any other husband would be desperate for any lifeline, any little scrap that might prove his wife innocent of such a betrayal. The Duke did not strike me in that way, not for a moment. It was as if he did not want to hear reason; he wanted to have his rage, to have his excuse to rant and rail and strike out.”
“But why? Why would he want to do that?”
“Perhaps he has begun to see himself through your eyes finally. Perhaps he has come to see that the accusations he first levelled at you truly do seem to fall squarely at his own feet. And if he has come to that realization in these last days as he has lain in his sick bed, then he has done so quite soberly.”
“It is true he has not taken a single drop of strong liquor for some time that I know of, Mr Winchester. As ill as he is, I am bound to say that he is completely sober.” Something about that idea made her feel terribly uneasy.
In every aspect of his past poor behaviour, Eliza had been able to convince herself that the brandy had played the larger part. And it seemed to win out in that he was always more contrite in the daytime when, if not entirely free of the effects of the liquor, he was certainly not quite at its mercy as he generally was in the evenings.
And so, she had believed that life might go along a little easier the less he came to rely on the decanter. But his outburst and his unwillingness to listen, his determination for rage as Daniel had put it to her, spoke of something that could not be solved by simple abstinence. It spoke of a mind that was made up, and an anger that was deep-seated, a furious frustration that would have its way no matter what.
Even though he had not said it outright, she knew that Daniel was referring to the business of an heir. She knew that he had such great perception, such a quiet, almost silent understanding of human nature, and she knew well that his words could be trusted.
The Duke had finally come to realize, in horrible sobriety, his own failings. He had reached a point where blaming his wife for her childlessness had become ridiculous and he could see it. But he was the sort of man who could not look at such a thing square on and allow the blame to settle upon his own shoulders.
He would have to divert it, transmute it, make it into something else altogether, and what better way to punish his wife for his own failings than to accuse her of adultery?
“Your Grace? Your Grace?” Daniel said and reached out to touch her elbow. “You have gone quite pale. What is it?”
“He will not see sense, will he?” she said quietly, her voice breaking with fear. “You know why he is angry with me, and you know it is because he is angry with himself. He cannot face it, can he? And now all that is left for him is to punish me in some other way, some way that would make him right and make me wrong. Anything so that he does not need to look at his own failing, is that not so?”
“I cannot say for certain that it is, all I can tell you is that is what I believe. Forgive me, I do not wish to frighten you any more than you have been frightened today, but I cannot be a part of letting false hope have its way. I will not lie to you, not now, not ever.”
“Then he is going to do it, no matter what I do or say; Augustus is going to ruin me. He is going to take the lies that Nella West has concocted and make them his own. He is going to lay it all out for anyone who will listen, and there are plenty who will until he has my good name rubbished from one end of the county to another. And then what? I cannot go home, or at least I will not,” she said with sudden defiance, determining that she would never set foot in Lytton Hall if her husband allowed his own insecurity to demolish her. “But I will be a pariah, an adulteress, even though I am not one. I will have nothing and nobody. Who will have me in their home? Even Lady Hanbury could not be expected to entertain me for any length of time under such circumstances. What is to become of me, Mr Winchester?”
“Please, please not upset yourself. I know it is my fault for speaking so, but I can do no other. But even though I speak my mind, there is nothing to say that it will come to pass. You can do no more than take it one day at a time, live moment by moment, and face challenges only when they present themselves and not before. If you try to outrun something that has not yet happened, you will be exhausted before you even begin. Let us simply start at Hanbury Hall. At least, if nothing else, you know that fine lady will listen to what you say from one end to the other before she makes a judgement.”
“Yes, I am sure that she will. And given that it is all I can hope for at this moment, I will not give my energy to anything. So please, Mr Winchester, I must beg you to take me directly to Lady Hanbury.”
Without another word, Daniel gently lifted her back up onto his horse.
Chapter 24
“My dear child, have you slept at all?” Lady Hanbury said the following morning as she crept unbidden into Eliza’s chamber. “I know it is still early, but I had to come and see how you are managing.”
“Oh, Lady Hanbury, how kind you have been to me,” Eliza said and felt her tears retur
ning.
She had cried on and off ever since she had arrived at Hanbury Hall. Daniel had stayed with her only long enough for the explanation to be made, and then the moment Lady Hanbury had declared that Eliza could stay for as long as she needed, Daniel made ready to leave.
He understood, as Lady Hanbury did, that he would need to limit the time he spent with the Duchess of Lytton. If there was any careless discussion, even from Lord Hanbury’s own fine household of staff, it could do nothing but add to whatever it was the Duke chose to say about his wife in the end.
As she watched Daniel leave, Eliza began to realize just how much she had come to rely upon him. She had always known, for as long as they had been tentative friends, that he had extraordinary strength in every way, and that she had been able to lean upon him and hardly even realize it.
For the Love of a Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 18