To Find a Duchess

by Lisa M. Prysock

  She had been a little alarmed that he would not allow little Benjamin Trimmel to take meals with them. She and her father had often invited Jake to join them for an evening meal. Not once since they had settled into the house (what her husband called a cottage in spite of very spacious and pleasantly large rooms) had he allowed Benjamin to join them. The little boy must be so lonely she thought, having all of his meals alone in the barn loft. William had simply raised an eyebrow when she had suggested that he be allowed meals with them and sleeping quarters in the house, perhaps in one of the kitchen storage rooms. By the look on his face she knew she'd not be able to question him on that subject again. Certainly this farmer drew a distinction between the help and family, and expected her not to question his decisions without good reason.

  She tried to eat her meal without thinking of little Benjamin but her mind did wander there from time to time, wondering if the boy had any family at all to speak of. William had mentioned something about his having a mother in London but beyond that had offered no other details and didn't seem to want to discuss the boy. She supposed her husband was also trying to create some degree of honeymoon and intimacy in their relations and maintain an elevated sense of privacy between them, so she said no more about sleeping arrangements for Benjamin. She had enough trouble wondering when her husband would come to her sleeping quarters and take his rights as her husband and finally make her his wife.

  “William,” she said gently, “I think we are almost out of candles. There are only a few left in the storage room. Might they be kept anywhere else as perhaps I have overlooked some?”

  “Did you look in the very far back corner of the linen closet upstairs? There should be a very adequate supply-- but I believe they are rather hidden behind the extra quilts and bed linens.”

  “No, I hadn't thought to look there,” she replied. “I shall look there after I wash the dishes.”

  “I believe you will find a number of other supplies there as well,” he said before he ate the pie loaded onto his fork. She was thinking just then that she was so glad he wasn't one of those men who ate with a knife. She found that just slightly hard to observe and was thankful again for his good table manners, though she knew some men ate without using a fork.

  “Is there anything else you need?” he asked.

  “No, everything seems to be in amazingly good order and very well stocked,” she remarked, stirring the string beans on her plate, avoiding the subject of wishing to go into the village. She hadn't asked to buy any lace or thread when they were browsing the shops on their journey to the south and a small part of her now wished she had taken her husband up on his insistence that she purchase something. She had only relented in allowing him to buy a few books and some blotting paper and ink to stock the desk in the parlor.

  “Please don't hesitate to ask if there is anything you need or find amiss.”

  “Well, there is one thing...” she started to say and then bit her lip. Should she tell him how much she longed for him to kiss her, to hold her hand, to love her, to trust her? Somehow the words would not find their way to her lips.

  He waited for her to finish her sentence and when she could not his curiosity was peaked. “Yes?” he said gently, wondering if he'd remembered to stock everything a woman might want or need. She had a six month supply of coffee, sugar, flour, tea... even sewing needles, buttons, thread, yarn for knitting and writing paper had been stocked. Perfume? Perhaps she wanted perfume. He had not thought of that...

  “Well, I know it might seem... but perhaps you would like to permit Benjamin to listen to the music this evening when I play the piano?” she inquired softly, wishing she'd have been brave enough to ask him to kiss her instead.

  “Benjamin?” he repeated.

  “I know this is our courtship time ... but he must miss his mother so much...” her voice trailed off. “One evening would mean so much to him.”

  He finished chewing his bite of pie and drank a large amount of water, setting the glass down firmly and looked at her very hard. “Just this once,” he finally said. His mind was suddenly stuck on the fact that this was no ordinary honeymoon. They should be making love and kissing each other every spare moment of the day. Well, that would simply have to be remedied later. He couldn't take advantage of her like that... the two of them barely knowing each the other.

  At his relent to permit Benjamin into their home she seemed more cheerful though somewhat disturbed about something. He had no idea what it was but it seemed to him he'd never heard her play more beautifully than he had that night. Every song was bright and merry; her small hands gliding over the keys with happy notes and lighthearted melodies. Benjamin, timid and surprised at first, gradually relaxed and sang along with them. It was obvious to both, he had enjoyed their company.

  When she had finished playing about half an hour of songs she asked William if she might serve them tea and slices of cake with strawberry preserves. Eagerly the boys followed her into the kitchen and they enjoyed dessert with the window open to the summer night sound of crickets making their own kind of melody.

  William asked Benjamin if he knew his letters and could read. Benjamin answered that he knew “a very little.”

  “Perhaps I could teach him the alphabet? Perchance in the afternoons, after he has done morning chores and luncheon is out of the way, before evening chores.”

  “Would you be amenable to that, young Benjamin?” William asked cautiously. Benjamin did not fully understand the meaning of his question so it was rephrased, “Would you like to learn your letters from Alexandra, uh, er, I mean, Mrs. Harcourt?”

  “Oh yes Y’er Grace, Sir!” Benjamin jumped up from the table and stood beside his chair and bowed to William, shocking Alexandra nearly out of her skin at his reaction. “Thank you I mean, uh, Sir!”

  This time it was Alexandra's eyebrow that shot up and she was indeed a little confused by Ben's use of a formality reserved for someone from the peerage with the title of a Duke. William's teacup clanged loudly back onto the saucer.

  William recovered for the boy quickly, ''All right then, your lessons will commence tomorrow at one o'clock, for just an hour, three times a week, every other day excepting Saturday or Sunday.”

  The boy nodded vigorously while his wife smiled widely. All else seemed forgotten and William neither corrected nor denied the boy's use of peerage address. She could only assume that the lad did not know how to address her husband.

  “You may go to your quarters now, young man,” William said, dismissing the boy.

  “Thank you, uh, Sir!” he said intrepidly and turned to give a polite thank you and a little respectful nod to Alexandra. “Thank you for the cake and the songs,” he said with a shy grin on his face.

  “Good night Benjamin. We'll see you tomorrow. Be sure to say your prayers,” Alexandra said as he scampered out the back door of the kitchen looking very excited and relieved all at once.

  When they were alone William remarked, “He was very excited about the lessons.”

  “Yes,” she replied thoughtfully, “Yes he was! I am looking forward to it. I like to teach and work with children. He looks as though he could use some new nickers and a new shirt. I think I'll set about making him something to wear soon.”

  While she busied herself clearing away plates, William leaned back in his chair with one leg across his other knee and looked to her, quite lost in deep thought. She tried not to disturb him and quietly washed their plates and cups, refilling her husband's tea once before she put her hands in the dishwater. Inwardly, William sighed with relief that the lad was out of the room. That had been a close call. It was not unheard of for children to make mistakes in addressing those of the peerage. Clearly, William realized he had to tell her the truth, and soon.

  He worried again at how she would respond to his withholding the truth of her elevated station in life and how it would change her, for surely it would. Part of him wanted her to stay as she was, innocent and not knowing, for as long as
possible. He had to stop worrying about her reaction and allow things to fall where they may once he told her all that he longed to reveal about himself.

  There was a gentle, warm and intelligent quality about her very nature and he found himself not wanting to disrupt the peace and tranquility they had discovered there at Hanwell Farm. Would she change once she knew who he really was?

  Chapter 14. An Unexpected Visitor

  It so came to be one morning not long after, that Alexandra had remembered seeing some blackberry bushes out by the lake. She decided to ask William if Benjamin might accompany her on a trek to pick berries for a pie. He had agreed, not wanting her to become lost in the woods alone again and warned her not to wander off too far. This promise extracted from her, she decided to make a picnic lunch for them and brought a slate along to teach Benjamin his letters. William declined to join them because he had promised himself to repair the barn roof where the sheeting had rotted and shingles needed replaced. So off his wife went with Ben skipping ahead, happily leading her down the path to the lake, while William began dragging a ladder and tools out of the shed.

  The morning seemed to progress quietly except for the sound of his hammer driving nails into the sheeting and then the shingles, and the occasional sound of the chickens cackling at each other, or the birds calling out morning greetings from among the trees and branches beyond the barn where they happily flitted about. He found himself whistling as he worked and enjoying the solace.

  He was up and down the ladder quite a bit carrying various supplies up to his perch on the angled barn's roof. Had Benjamin been there, he probably would have been handing these items up to his master but William paid this thought no mind. He was comforted more by the thought of the boy accompanying his wife to the lake. In the short time they'd been there at Hanwell Farm, Benjamin had come to know his way about the property almost as well as he knew it himself.

  Benjamin and Alexandra enjoyed their morning walk and she was encouraged that the little boy in their care opened up to her a little more about his mother. He called her his Mum.

  “I'm sure you miss her very much,” Alexandra said after listening to him talk about his mother's cooking. He particularly missed her plum pudding.

  “She worries 'bout me,” he said. “She wants me to go to school like other children...”

  “Soon you'll be able to write her a letter, if you keep at your letters like you are.”

  This thought brightened his eyes and spread a grin across his freckled face. “I'd like to write Mum a letter very much! That would be just grand!”

  It took her some time to locate the berries by the time they neared the lake, but when found, she was pleased to see there were more than enough ready for a pie, and maybe a cobbler too. They set to picking berries and easily began to fill the basket she'd brought along. He chattered away on the progress of the kittens and seemed to share a story about each one with her. He told her how he had named each one. There was Tiger, Patches, Boots, Sadie, Hannah and Rory... She listened carefully to everything he said, being careful not to let her dress catch on the thorns, contented to let Ben chat away.

  “You're very kind to teach me my letters ma'am,” he said, being careful not to stab his fingers on the tiny prickly thorns of the bushes. “I've never met anyone as kind as you are, except me Mum, o' course.”

  “Why thank you Benjamin! The Lord keeps me cheerful and makes my heart happy. Do you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior?”

  “Well, me Mum takes me to the church service when she isn't feeling poorly,” he said. “But I reckon I don't know exactly what ye mean.”

  “I see. Let me see if I can explain it properly. Do you know that when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden apple in the garden that sin was born into the entire human race?”

  He nodded, “Yes, I heard that part before.”

  “Well that's exactly why we need a Savior, to save us from our sins, so that we can have life eternal.” She explained patiently.

  “Eternal... that's forever, right?”

  “Correct,” she said, putting more berries into the basket. “So since we were in need of salvation, God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for us, that by the shedding of His blood, He became the Lamb of God and the perfect, sinless Savior of the world.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, a little thoughtfully. “I think it must have been painful... to be on that cross.”

  “Very! When we get to heaven we will see the nail holes in his hands and feet.” She continued, “So all we have to do is ask Jesus into our heart and believe that He died for us on that cross and turn from our selfish and wicked ways. Then we try to live for Jesus with all our hearts, souls and minds.”

  “I try hard to be a good boy but I make a lot of mistakes sometimes,” he chimed.

  “That's understandable. Simply ask Jesus to forgive you and do your best the next time not to sin,” she said. “Have you asked Him into your heart and asked Him to cleanse you from all sin and help you to live a good life before God the Father?”

  “Well, no I don't think so, but I believe in God,” he said.

  “That's wonderful that you believe in God, but the Bible tells us we must believe that Jesus was the Son of God, believe in Him, turn from our ways and do His will instead of our own will. Would you like to have forgiveness for all of your sins and eternal salvation?”

  “Yes, I would!” He said.

  “Then let's pray,” she said and they bowed their heads and closed their eyes and he repeated everything she said. “Dear Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God who died on that cross for my sins. Please come into my heart, cleanse me from all sin and unrighteousness and help me in everything I do from this day forward, to please you, Amen.”

  When he opened his eyes, he said, “That's it?”

  “Well, yes, that's it!” she said, “Just keep trying each day to live for Him and He will send the Holy Spirit to help you.” He seemed pleased with what had just transpired and continued to pick berries with a smile on his face. They continued to pick berries for quite some time and as they did, she thought how wonderful it was to lead this boy to Christ and how he had such a child-like faith, more than many adults she knew.

  As William pounded away on the roof, he was surprised to see a curricle drive up the lane. He could see a woman driving a bay horse along at a rapid pace. “Oh dear Lord, what next?” he muttered to himself and hurried to finish putting in the last few nails. “Please don't let it be her.” He didn't want to climb down to speak with her and was fairly certain of whom those blond locks of hair belonged.

  He kept his head down and hammered harder, muttering under his breath as the horse brought the curricle closer to the clearing where the honey colored cottage and barn sat adjacent to each other. He glanced down once to see the pretty blond woman in a pale blue frock with a white lace shawl. By now she was parked in her curricle far below the barn roof where he remained perched. Her matching blue bonnet shaded her eyes from the sun but she had to hold a gloved hand over them when she looked up to keep the glare from blocking her view of the handsome Duke.

  He stopped hammering, glad he'd at least completed the roof repairs before her arrival. He rested clenched fists on his hips and couldn't even find a word to say as he peered back at her from his perch on the roof. She could see the strained look on his face and the unhappiness in his eyes, without even moving from her seat. The only thing they heard was the sound of the bay horse as his feet clopped twice in place and the curricle creaked slightly.

  “Hartford,” she said trying to sound cheerful, “Why don't you come down from there and do be a gentleman and help me out of this curricle? I've come a long way to see you...” her voice trailed off.

  “I see you were in the neighborhood.” The sarcasm and irritation in his voice wasn't lost on her.