“I am afraid he excused himself rather suddenly, my dear.”
“Suddenly? Goodness, he was not unwell, was he?” Eliza was suddenly full of concern.
“No, I do not think that was it.” Lady Hanbury seemed to be picking her words carefully. “As you were talking to Miles, I made a little study of Daniel Winchester. It is clear that he is as in love with you as ever, for there was such a look upon his face when he saw you in company with Miles. He looked as if he had truly given in; as if he had come to some decision. And then, quite suddenly, he excused himself and hurried over to me to tell me that he must leave. My dear Eliza, he did not even look back once, he just left.”
“Oh, my goodness. But what am I to do now? Have I turned him away forever?”
“Do you want to have turned him away forever?” Lady Hanbury said with a knowing smile.
“No, no I do not.”
“Then is it fair to say that you have answered that question of yours without the need to even speak to Daniel Winchester?”
“Yes, my question is answered. However afraid I am to let myself love Daniel fully, I know that life would not be lived properly with anybody else but him.”
“Then congratulations, my dear.” Lady Hanbury reached for her hand and gave it an extraordinarily strong squeeze.
“Congratulations?” Eliza said incredulously. “But he is gone; he has left. How might I tell him now?”
“By suddenly excusing yourself from my bridge afternoon, climbing into your carriage, and going directly to him. There is no sense in hovering any longer. You have made your decision finally, and you know in your heart what it is you want. So, no more shilly-shallying, my dear, you must finally take a firm hold on this life of yours and shake it until it becomes what you want it to be. Come along, on your feet.” Still holding her hand, Lady Hanbury rose suddenly, and Eliza was drawn along in her wake. “That is it, my dear. Now then, off with you,” she said and began to propel her out of the drawing room.
“Thank you,” Eliza said when they were finally approaching the front door.
“I will wish you luck, although I know that you do not need it. He loves you, my dear.”
Eliza could say no more; she threw her arms around Lady Hanbury and embraced her tightly.
Chapter 32
By the time she arrived at Daniel Winchester’s fine home, Eliza was breathless with excitement and nerves. The last time they had spoken, everything had been dreadful. She had been afraid and confused, and he had been exasperated and angry.
And she had no doubt that he was in no better mood now. He was very likely pacing back and forth, trying to rid himself of the image of Eliza in seemingly happy conversation with Miles Gainsborough.
Suddenly seized by a desire to end the suffering, Eliza jumped down from the carriage, surprising her driver entirely as he had made his way to the door to assist.
Without a word, she smiled broadly at him before hurrying away, her eyes fixed firmly on the glossy black wooden door of Daniel Winchester’s house.
She knocked with more determination than she had expected and realized that it must have sounded rather urgent. The door was opened in no time by a rotund, kindly looking housekeeper.
“Good afternoon, my dear,” Eliza said with a bright smile. “I wonder if you would be kind enough to tell Mr Winchester that Eliza Tate is here to see him? I should be most grateful.”
“Of course.” The housekeeper returned the bright smile. “Do come in and take a seat here for a moment, and I will see if Mr Winchester is available.”
The housekeeper returned to her in no time at all, still smiling warmly as she beckoned her to follow.
“Mr Winchester is in his study if you do not mind speaking to him there?”
“Not at all,” Eliza said and realized that she was walking quickly through the narrow corridor, so excited and so keen to have Daniel know it all.
“Eliza,” Daniel said quietly when the housekeeper showed her into the room and then left.
“Daniel, I had to see you. I hope you do not mind me arriving so suddenly?”
“No, not at all.”
“It was just that you left Hanbury Hall before I had a chance to speak to you.”
“I see,” he said and continued to stand.
Eliza stood also, knowing that she was too excited to sit. She looked at him for a long time without speaking, taking in his irregular features, his pale hair and eyes, his handsome frame in an immaculate dark blue tailcoat.
He was older than Miles and would never have drawn the immediate attention from all around for the obvious good looks that Miles had been blessed with. And yet to Eliza, he was the most attractive, most handsome man in all the world.
“I do not love Miles Gainsborough, Daniel.”
“Forgive me, when I saw the two of you together, I immediately thought the worst.” He still spoke quietly, and his countenance gave away no hint of his feelings.
He was, in truth, much as he ever was; stoic, calm, and entirely unreadable.
“As soon as I realized you had gone, I rather gave chase,” she said and shrugged.
“Did you indeed?” Daniel said and finally laughed. “Now that does conjure an amusing image.”
“I had to give chase, Daniel, for I have so much I want to tell you.”
“Then perhaps you would care to take a seat.”
“No, I cannot sit, Daniel.”
“As you wish,” he said and smiled at her curiously.
“Daniel, the last time we spoke, you were right about so many things. But you were wrong about some others, so I might begin there.”
“By all means.” He laughed indulgently.
“You had thought that I could not give you an answer on that day because I would not be happy to live in a smaller home with a man who did not have a title. That has never been true and never shall.”
“I realized it almost as soon as I had said it. Forgive me.”
“No, I do not need to forgive you; there is nothing to forgive.”
“What else was I wrong about?”
“I have already told you, I suppose. I do not love Miles Gainsborough and, even when I did, it was nothing in comparison to the love I feel for you and have felt for you for so long.”
“Just an hour ago I was not expecting this day to turn out well at all.” He stared at her intently.
“You were right, I purposefully covered one set of feelings with another. I know that I have done so to protect myself, but I also know that I do not need any protection from you. I was so afraid, you see, of loss. I have lost in the past, and it was so painful. But that was when I had lost somebody I had barely loved. I began to wonder how it would feel to allow myself to love you so greatly and then see you turn your back on me also.”
“I would never turn my back on you, Eliza,” he said in a deep, hoarse tone.
“I know, and I should always have known. You were the one man in all this who never did. You were by my side throughout, risking everything to protect me, to stand up for me. But I concentrated on my own fears and failed to see what was there in front of me. Now I know; now I see all of it.”
“And you see how much I love you, Eliza? Because I love you as I have loved no other.” He took a step towards her.
“I do see it, but it is wonderful to hear it.”
“I have wanted you from the very first; I knew I had never met anybody like you. I cannot tell you how hard it was to know that you were married to another and that we would never find ourselves on the same path.”
“But now we are.”
“Now we are,” he said and reached for her. “I know that so much that was sad has happened to bring us together, but it was out of our control, all of it. All we can do now is live life as it is without looking backward. The past is a thing that is done, all its injustices, all its hurt, all its fear. It is finished; it is no more. The only thing which makes us fear the future is the memory of the past. We draw upon it every day as a means
of predicting the next outcome, but it is so flawed. We fear that just because something has happened once, it must surely happen again, but that is not true. I am not Miles Gainsborough, I am Daniel Winchester, and I put my love for you before anything else.”
“Oh, Daniel, the time it has taken me to get to this point. How you must have suffered as I allowed myself to spend so many months at the mercy of my own thoughts and fears. But I am not at their mercy anymore, and I am determined now to only look forward, as you say. At that moment when I realized you had left Hanbury Hall, I knew. I just knew that I could not live without you, not a moment longer.”
“You are here now, Eliza, and that is all that matters to me. I love you,” he said, and she was suddenly in his arms, hardly knowing how she had got there.
She closed her eyes as she leaned her face against his broad chest, feeling his strong arms around her, holding her tightly to him. They embraced for some minutes without a word, and she could feel that familiar strength seeming to radiate from him as they stood.
“I love you, Daniel,” she said and looked up at him.
Without a word, Daniel covered her lips with his own and kissed her passionately. Eliza returned every one of his kisses with equal passion, clinging to him tightly as she did.
Nothing in her life had ever felt as right as that moment did. It was as if she had been rolling through the world, a little wooden peg trying to find a gap she would fit into perfectly. And that moment, that very moment, felt like home. It was where she belonged, and the feeling brought with it the greatest sense of relief.
She felt as if she had been walking through the darkness, trying to find the right door. And, finally, she had found the right door, opened it, and was now safely inside.
Epilogue
“You have three meetings this morning, Daniel,” Eliza said as the two of them sat at the small and neat dining table, the sunlight streaming in through the large window. “Mr Osterley at half-past nine, Mr Wentworth at half-past ten, and Mr Oliver at half-past eleven. You will have to hurry yourself, my dear.”
“Eliza, it is but half-past eight,” Daniel said with a laugh as he reached for another slice of pound cake. “I have plenty of time. And if I am to see so many clients this morning, I ought to have a proper breakfast.”
“Yes, of course.”
“You do not really need to go to so much trouble, Eliza.”
“I know, but I enjoy it. I like to know what it is you do, and I like to help, even if it is only to hurry you along in the morning.”
“You think I need a little hurrying along in the morning then, do you?”
“It is one of the most surprising things I think I have discovered about you since we married,” Eliza said thoughtfully as he laughed. “I had always imagined you to be awake by six, breakfasted by seven, and at your desk by eight.”
“I am not quite as organized as you imagined me, then?”
“No, not really.”
“I do hope you are not disappointed.” He smiled as she poured him another cup of tea.
“No, not at all. I could not be happier.”
And it was true; Eliza had never been happier in her life. The two of them had married within days of her declaration of love for him, with just Ariadne, Lord and Lady Hanbury, and the housekeeper, Mrs Arklow, bearing witness.
It had all been too soon for Eliza to decide whether or not she wanted her own family in attendance. She did not want to remember her previous wedding, a day of such pain and regret. She had the idea that seeing her family dressed in their best once again, her father determined to give her away, could only dredge up memories she did not want to infect what was undoubtedly the happiest day of her life.
And her new life was so different from everything she had ever known that every day was an excitement to her. She had retained her title of Dowager Duchess, but she never used it. For the same reason that she had not invited her family to her wedding, she did not want to be reminded of her former status and former sadness.
She was the wife of one of the most successful attorneys in Hertfordshire, a woman who was now free to follow her heart entirely, and she could not have been more content.
Eliza continued in her old associations, still enjoying the company of Lord and Lady Hanbury and dear Ariadne Holloway. But she had involved herself more in the concerns of the town, turning her hand to charity and other such similar occupations and finding that she enjoyed them greatly.
She even liked to help Daniel keep his appointments straight, always making sure that he would be free by midday.
It had become their custom to stop then, to come together in the drawing room and have that same time devoted to conversation just as they had at Lytton Hall. It often felt like the most important part of her day, a gentle reminder of everything she had to be grateful for.
She was now free to talk to Daniel Winchester whenever she liked, and for as long as she liked, for he was her husband, and they would walk through this life together hand-in-hand.
When Daniel had dispensed with his clients for the morning, he arrived in the drawing room where she was already waiting for him with a tea tray.
“Have you had a productive morning, Daniel?”
“Indeed, I have. I have secured some continuing business from my first two clients, and my third appointment of the morning was a brand-new client. So, all in all, business is booming.”
“And do you prefer it to working for the Duchy?”
“I have variety now; I have different challenges. In truth, I have everything that I had looked for when I first studied to become an attorney in the first place. I suppose I allowed life to drift when I was at the Duchy, and pleased with the work, I just continued to accept it. But now I have what I truly want. In every respect, as a matter of fact,” he said and leaned over to kiss her cheek before accepting the tea she had poured for him.
“Well, I have not been at all busy this morning,” Eliza said and laughed. “I am afraid I have indulged myself in a little laziness and a little reading.”
“It sounds like a very fine way to spend the morning.”
“It is very fine, but I am afraid that I have nothing new to report to you since breakfast.”
“Well, I have something new to report to you beyond my run of clients.”
“Oh yes, what is that?”
“I had two minutes conversation with Mrs Arklow before Mr Oliver arrived, and she was telling me a little piece of gossip that she had picked up in the town yesterday.”
“Gossip? Now that is a new thing. I really had never suspected you were a gossip, my dear.”
“Have your fun, Eliza.”
“Alright, I give in. What is your little piece of gossip?”
“That a young maid who used to work at Lytton Hall is to stand trial at the next assizes for blackmail.”
“A young maid?” Eliza said and sat bolt upright in her seat. “You mean Nella West?”
“The very same.”
“But what has happened? Who has she blackmailed? And where on earth has she been all this time?”
“I am afraid you have a lot of questions that I cannot yet answer, but Mrs Arklow tells me that she had been working in a fine home, not fifteen miles from here, and made an attempt to blackmail her employer.”
“And it has ended in her being charged with an offence?”
“I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. She really was most determined to have her way, was she not?”
“She most certainly was,” Eliza said and shuddered.
“My dear, I hope I have not upset you with this news. Perhaps it has dredged up old feelings that would be better left alone.”
“Not at all; I am pleased to know where she is.”
“Why? Surely you do not still fear her?”
“No, not for myself, but for others, yes. I know what she is capable of.”
“Then it is a good thing that she has finally been caught.”
“It is,” she said and
reached for his hand. “And it has been a very long time since I realized that she cannot hurt me anymore. I already have everything in this world that I want, and nothing that she or anybody else could do could ever change that.”
“I am very glad to hear it.”
“And I am very glad to say it.”
“What do you say to an afternoon together?”
“Have you not got work to do?”
“I have, but it is nothing that cannot wait until tomorrow. I think I would rather spend the afternoon with my beautiful wife.”
For the Love of a Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 25