To Love a Duchess EPB

by Karen Ranney

  She tried to use her elbows to punch him but he didn’t release her. Instead, he pulled her backward until the heels of her shoes were grinding into the surface of the roof.

  “Let me go, you idiot. I wasn’t going to throw myself off the roof. I was looking for something.”

  “And is that what you were trying to do last night, you daft woman?”

  “Would you stop calling me that,” she said. She’d never been talked to in such a manner. Who did he think he was? “Let me go,” she said, calming herself so she could speak. Her heart was racing and she could barely breathe. “I didn’t. It was a mistake. You misinterpreted everything.”

  “Did I misinterpret you crawling over the railing last night?”

  “Did I really do that?” she asked, startled.

  “Aye, you did, and very determined you were.”

  “I had too much wine,” she said, embarrassed to be making such a confession to someone she didn’t know. Someone who was in her employ, at least for now.

  “I’ve had my share of nights like that, Duchess. I never once tried to end my life.”

  She didn’t have anything to say in defense of herself. Was there a defense she could offer? Not one word came to mind. Prior to last night she couldn’t remember ever being on the roof.

  “How did you know where I was?” she asked.

  “I was told you were looking for me when I got back from the stables.”

  “And you naturally came here to see if I was intent on throwing myself to my death again?”

  “Something like that,” he said, not relaxing his hold.

  “You can let me go,” she said. “I can assure you that I have no intention of ending my life.”

  In the past few minutes she’d allowed herself to relax in his grip. She lay her head back against his chest. Anyone looking at them might think they were lovers who’d slipped up to the roof for a few moments alone and now stood there, captivated by the sight of London lit by the sun.

  No one would think that the two of them were antagonists.

  “I don’t know what came over me,” she said, compelled to say something. “I don’t remember wanting to end my life. I’m glad you stopped me.”

  “He isn’t worth it, you know. Not all your grieving.”

  Anger suddenly bubbled up from where it had been hiding. She pulled free of him and turned.

  “How could you say such a hideous thing?”

  “Because it’s the truth.”

  She hadn’t meant to cry. She really hadn’t. Especially not in front of him. But she couldn’t hold back the reservoir of tears, all that weeping she wouldn’t permit herself to do at the hospital. She took a step back, but he wouldn’t allow her that. Instead, he reached out and grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him. Only then did she realize that she’d been backing up to the edge.

  For some reason, that made her cry harder. Then he was holding her again. His arms were around her back, his hands flat against her cloak. She couldn’t reach up and brush her face, so she had no other choice but to lay her cheek against his jacket and let it soak up her tears.

  He said something in Gaelic to her, some barely whispered words in a voice that sounded reluctant and ill at ease.

  When she tried to move away, he shushed her and pulled her close once again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no right to speak of your husband that way. Of course you mourn him. That’s what wives do, don’t they?”

  She held herself still, closing her eyes against her tears. He thought she was crying for George. He thought her grief was for a man she’d never truly understood, for a stranger with whom she lived for six years.

  She moved her arm up and placed her hand against Drummond’s chest. His heart thundered against her palm.

  “Gabh mo leisgeul,” he said. “I didn’t mean to ridicule your pain.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s Gaelic for I’m sorry, and I am.”

  He confused her. What kind of man was this Scottish majordomo? On one hand, he was vicious in his speech, yet he’d tried to save her not once but twice.

  She pushed free finally, taking a step back and keeping her gaze on the surface of the roof. She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t acknowledge this moment of intimacy. He was the first man who’d touched her or attempted to comfort her for years.

  Also, he was the only man who’d ever apologized for his actions.

  “I was going to release you from my service the minute I saw you today,” she said, her voice low. “I was going to demand that you leave Marsley House within the hour, without recommendation or reference. I was going to tell you how much I detested your speaking to me in that way and that I considered you a despicable creature.”

  She dared herself to look up at him.

  Mrs. Armbruster was right.

  Why hadn’t she noticed how handsome he was until this exact second? His eyes were a soft green. His hair was thick and black, and he had a dimple on the left side of his mouth. His was a strong, square face, one that would probably be transformed by a smile. Now it was stern and somber and a little daunting.

  “But I can’t do any of those things now, Drummond. Not after coming to the conclusion that you saved me from myself. That was last night, however. Today I only came here to find something.”

  He didn’t look as if he believed her and she regretted that.

  “I do not mourn my husband,” she said, giving him the truth as a gift, a payment for his protection of her. “God forgive me, but all I felt was relief at his death.”

  She turned and headed for the door to the third floor. How odd that she could feel his eyes on her all the way down the stairs.

  Adam walked to the edge of the roof, stood where the duchess had been, and looked around. It took him a moment, but he saw what she’d been reaching for, a leaf-shaped diamond brooch. He bent and picked it up. The brooch rested in his palm, the diamonds glittering and sparkling like fire was in their depths.

  What kind of woman treated this bauble with such disdain? The kind who had been, no doubt, raised with no fear. Not like his mother, who worried about each meal or if the landlord was coming before she’d earned the rest of the rent. He’d been twelve when she died of a cough that had consumed her.

  If she’d still been alive or if Mary had lived, he would’ve stayed behind in Glasgow. He would’ve made his way, somehow, maybe at the foundry or one of the cotton mills. He’d have been determined to support them. But that was water into the Clyde, wasn’t it? They hadn’t lived and there’d been no reason for him to stay there.

  He pushed the thoughts of his past down deep. What good was it to dwell on something he couldn’t change?

  He closed his fist around the brooch so tightly that he could feel the diamonds pressing into his skin. Marble Marsley—hardly that, though, was she?

  Whom did she mourn? He hadn’t asked Mrs. Thigpen enough questions about the Duchess of Marsley, and he was determined to correct that oversight as quickly as possible.

  First, however, he had an obligation to return to his pose as majordomo and then to his assignment. Along the way, if he could forget the surprising duchess, all the better.

  Chapter Ten

  She really should have dismissed Drummond on the spot. Instead, she’d allowed him to comfort her. She wasn’t acting anything like a duchess, was she? First going to the Foundling Hospital and then being embraced by a servant.

  Perhaps she’d simply needed to be held. For those few minutes when he’d put his arms around her she’d allowed herself to weaken. In that short space of time she didn’t have to be the Duchess of Marsley. She didn’t have to be possessed of poise and reserve. She didn’t have to be strong.

  Drummond hadn’t told her that she should get over her loss. He didn’t say that she needed to put her past behind her. Not once had he uttered those despicable words: Sometimes things happen. We need to get beyond them.

  What was the re
cipe for getting beyond this? What, exactly, did she do? Did she burn a certain herb? Did she utter an incantation? Did she memorize a certain verse or a whole book from the Bible? Did she prostrate herself on the chapel floor? Did she summon a wise woman or a physician? Did she consult the most learned men in London?

  She would’ve done all of those things eagerly, but nothing would have altered the reality of her life. Nothing would have ended the cavernous emptiness she felt.

  Instead of entering her suite she hesitated at the door, unwilling to go inside and face Ella. The fact that she was hiding from her maid was yet another embarrassment. When would she cease being a person subject to the whims of others?

  She walked to the end of the corridor where George’s rooms were located. Slowly, giving herself time to reconsider, she opened his sitting room door and slid inside.

  The smell of beeswax permeated the room, an indication that the maid had been diligent. Although he’d been gone two years, his suite was dusted every day. Every morning the curtains were opened as if someone might wish to witness the view of the approach to Marsley House. Once a week the windows were polished, as were the mirrors. The cushions on the yellow-and-brown-striped sofa and chairs were fluffed. The pale yellow carpet with its brown frame was brushed once a month and twice a year taken outside to be beaten.

  Yet no one would ever return to take up residence in this suite again.

  She went to the small desk between the two floor-to-ceiling windows and extracted the key from the center drawer. It never used to be here, but she kept it in this place for safekeeping. Her life was not her own and any semblance of privacy was laughable with Ella going through her pockets, reticule, and anything else she wished on the premise that she was caring for Suzanne’s belongings.

  The one thing Ella hadn’t yet done was prowl through the duke’s suite.

  Suzanne pocketed the key, turned, and surveyed the room. She would have to commend Mrs. Thigpen for assigning a conscientious maid to the suite. Whoever had been in charge had done an admirable job. Even George couldn’t have faulted the girl. Even though he would have tried, unless she was pretty enough to seduce.

  She opened the door to the duke’s suite slowly, looking down the hallway to ensure that Ella wasn’t coming or going. When she saw no one in the corridor, she slipped out of the room and closed the door quietly behind her.

  Although the servants’ stairs would have been closer to the room she sought, she took the main staircase to the third floor. The chances of encountering one of the maids were greater in the afternoon. They worked from seven until eleven and then again from one until dark, going through Marsley House from the first floor to the third, with the public rooms rotated on Mrs. Thigpen’s schedule.

  No one, however, ever entered the room that was her destination. She’d given orders that it was to be considered sacrosanct. No one was to dust or rearrange anything. Everything was to be left exactly as it had been that day. That terrible day. The day that essentially ended her life.

  She didn’t allow herself to come here often, because the temptation would be to remain in here, cloistered, with memories of happiness like bubbles surrounding her. She might have turned insane in this room from longing or grief.

  She stood outside the door with her hand gripping the key as she willed her heart to slow its frantic beating and her lungs to fill with air. After the events of this morning, she needed to remind herself of things gone and over, but never forgotten.

  Sadness felt sentient, reaching out with a clawlike grip and holding on to her soul.

  Slowly she inserted the key in the lock and turned it, hearing the click as loud as a gunshot. Here, in this quiet corridor, every sound was magnified.

  She turned the latch and stepped inside, then closed the door swiftly behind her. As it was most times, the room was shadowed and still. Because she knew the space so well, she didn’t need light to see her way to the windows. She opened one set of curtains and then another, turning and surveying the room in the bright sunlight.

  She could feel the warmth of the sun on her shoulders. How strange that she felt so cold inside, as if she could never truly be warm again.

  The wind sighed against the windows, promising the chill of winter soon to come. Winter was the dead season when everything, perhaps even life itself, went dormant.

  There, in the corner, was the crib he was so proud to have outgrown. Next to it was the small bed with its pillow and bright blue coverlet. At three years old he had been his own person with his father’s arrogance and her humor.

  The silence in the nursery still shocked her. It grated on her, reminding her at the same time it enshrouded her. There were no soft giggles. No remonstrances from the nurse. No excited, “Up, up,” demands from Georgie. Nothing but an eternal quiet that must mimic the grave.

  Here, in this room, she remembered happiness and joy. Here, as in no other space on the earth, she remembered a small voice asking innumerable questions and demanding that the world slow and stop for him.

  She walked toward the crib, reached out, and put her hand on the ornate carving of the spindles. The crib was an heirloom, like most of the furniture at Marsley House. George had used it, but there would never be another child to use the crib. Memories would have to be enough. Georgie bouncing up and down, impatient to be about the investigation of his day. Her raising him up in her arms as he grinned at her.

  He had been just like Henry in his optimism and joy.

  Henry had few chances in life, while Georgie had had the world spread out before him. Whatever he’d wanted to do, however he’d wanted to accomplish it, both his mother and father would have moved mountains to ensure he could have done it.

  In their love for their child she and George were united. It was in everything else they were separate.

  She sat on the end of Georgie’s bed, staring at the far wall where all his toys were arranged. His toy soldiers would never again fight imaginary battles. His stuffed rabbit would never be clutched to his chest as he fought sleep. A wooden horse on wheels sat next to a wagon filled with blocks, all waiting patiently for their owner to return and play with them.

  For the first time in two years, her tears were manageable. She wasn’t assaulted by the strength of her grief. Because she had already wept in her majordomo’s arms? Or had she begun to realize, finally, inexorably, that she might wish it and will it and pray for it but she was never going to see her darling child again. He would forever be three years old and she would forever be his grieving mother.

  Henry didn’t have a mother. She pushed that thought away but it surfaced again. None of those babies at the Foundling Hospital had a mother to care for them. They’d been made artificial orphans because of shame. Those poor children would always be known as foundlings. They’d go through life with that stigma, being branded as a child even their own mother hadn’t wanted.

  Life was sometimes cruel; she knew that only too well. Was that why she’d tried to scale the railing and fall from the roof? She couldn’t honestly remember wanting to end her life. She couldn’t imagine doing that despite everything.

  Had the wine dulled her wits? Or had it merely allowed her true wishes to come out?

  She clasped her arms around her waist, feeling cold. She hadn’t known the pastor who’d officiated at her husband and son’s service. He’d been an acquaintance of George’s and had pontificated at length on her husband’s glorious military history. He’d offered a dozen platitudes in the guise of comfort, none of which had penetrated her gray haze. Something about God never making mistakes and reuniting under faith and other sayings that made absolutely no sense.

  Nothing made sense in her life right now. Suddenly she was feeling a myriad of emotions—anger, curiosity, rebellion—added to the grief she almost always felt. Yet this sadness was different and it took her a moment to isolate why. She felt as if she were mourning not only her son, but the fate of Henry and those other babies.

  Mrs. Armbruster had
a great deal to answer for.

  Chapter Eleven

  The duchess hid for a week. At least, that’s what it felt like to Adam. She didn’t go anywhere. Nor did she entertain visitors. No one came to call.

  After his last encounter with the duchess he’d gone to Mrs. Thigpen, knowing that the woman would know the answer to his question.

  She insisted on him joining her for lunch, and since the meal was a beef-and-pork pie, he wasn’t adverse. When he finished and he put his fork down, he complimented Mrs. Thigpen on the talents of the cook. For a few minutes he listened as she detailed all the dishes in which Grace excelled. When the housekeeper was done he leaned forward and dropped his voice. Although there was no one else in the staff dining room, he didn’t want his question overheard by anyone passing in the corridor.

  “Olivia, I have a favor to ask. I realize that what I’m asking is somewhat intrusive, and I apologize for that. My curiosity, however, demands an answer.”

  “Of course, Adam. What do you want to know?”

  “Who does the duchess mourn?”

  She sat back in the chair and regarded him solemnly. Had he overstepped? For several moments he thought she wouldn’t answer him, but then she sighed.

  “Georgie,” she said. “Her son.”

  When he didn’t say anything, she continued. “We didn’t think the poor dear would survive it,” Mrs. Thigpen said, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “It was such a terrible dark time. She doted on Georgie. I think he was the light in her life.”

  She didn’t add, and he was probably wrong in assuming, but he wondered if her son was the only bright spot in the duchess’s life. He could only assume what marriage to the duke had been like.

  He’d gotten to the duke’s thirties and had to read page after page of the man’s bragging about his conquests. The duke had been proud of his sword—as he’d called it—and the wide swath he’d cut through the female population. From what Adam had read, he hadn’t limited his swordplay to London, but had taken advantage of more than one young girl who’d come to work at Marsley House.