Love Stories of Enchanting Ladies: A Historical Regency Romance Collection

by Bridget Barton

  She began to move at speed, not wanting to run into any of the household staff in such a distressed state. She was still so shocked by the turn in the conversation and realized that she had never once, since becoming his wife, contemplated the idea that she would bear him a child. It had been ridiculous, of course, to ignore such a notion, for it was not beyond the realms of possibility.

  And she had always wanted a child so much, that was true. But she had always imagined that child to be the product of the love between herself and Miles Gainsborough, not the product of awkward nights spent with a man who repelled her so utterly.

  There was suddenly so much to think about, another shift in the earth beneath her feet that she had not been expecting. Drying her face as she went, she kept her head down.

  When she collided with somebody in the corridor just beyond the grand staircase she was aiming for, she cried out in surprise.

  Daniel had not been expecting to meet anybody as he made his way out of Lytton Hall for the evening. He was still working on the dreadful tenant farmer contracts, and keen to have the whole thing over and done with, Daniel had worked a very long day, much longer than usual.

  He looked down at the Duchess with every intention of apologizing, even though the collision had surely been as much her fault as his.

  But as she raised her head to look at him, Daniel could see that her ordinarily flawless peachy cream skin was red and blotchy and looked a little damp, and her eyes were shining with tears.

  “Forgive me, Mr Winchester,” she said and made to walk around him.

  Hardly knowing why he did it, except that it had been some sort of reflexive instinct that he had no time to control, Daniel took a firm hold of her upper arm as she passed him.

  He knew that his action was nothing short of outrageous and that he would have to find some explanation for it.

  “Your Grace are you quite well?” he said in a firm tone, decidedly firm so that he would not appear too familiar or too friendly.

  If he was honest, at that moment, Daniel was all at sea. As much as he had made his own determinations on the character of the young lady whose arm he still held, he knew that he had been deeply affected by the sight of her tears and the idea that she was so upset.

  “I am quite well, Mr Winchester,” she said and the assertion clearly seemed ridiculous even to her. “Perhaps just a little under the weather, that is all.” She smiled at him but could not meet his gaze.

  This time, however, he did not put it down to her coolness of character, but rather he sensed a little embarrassment there in the turn of her head and the slight slumping of her shoulders.

  “Is there anything that I can do for you, Your Grace? Perhaps I could call your maid for you? Miss West, is she not?”

  “That is very kind of you, Mr Winchester, but you need not go to the bother. I am going to retire to my chamber, and I shall ring for Nella when I need her.” She was fighting so hard to regain her ordinary composure that Daniel could not help feeling sorry for her.

  He knew that she was keen to be away from him, keen to nurse her embarrassment in private. He knew he must let go and allow her that much privacy at least, and yet there was something in him which wanted to know more, to get to the bottom of what was truly upsetting her.

  He was in no doubt that she had come from the Duke, but what on earth could have passed between them to have her so upset?

  Of course, in the end, Daniel knew that it was none of his business. He was nothing more than the attorney to the Duchy of Lytton, not a relative or a family friend.

  His conduct in keeping her there was entirely inappropriate, and he knew it, although he noted that she did not pull away from his grip or seem as angry with him as he would have expected she might.

  “Well, if you are sure, Your Grace,” he said and gently released her arm as he fought to keep his tone nothing more than polite and professional.

  “Thank you kindly,” she said and looked down before walking around him and hurriedly making her way to the staircase.

  Daniel continued on his way, looking back only once to find that she had stopped halfway up the stairs and had looked back at him.

  They locked eyes for a moment, and he found himself trapped, unable to look away. But Eliza broke the momentary spell, turning and hurrying away until she disappeared out of sight entirely.

  Remaining still, Daniel stood for some moments and tried to come to terms with what he had seen, and even more so with what he had done. He hoped that his little indiscretion would not find its way to the ears of the Duke, for it would undoubtedly cause him some problems.

  And yet there was something about the moment that had passed between them that was strangely intimate, private almost. It was as if they had both witnessed that tiny gap in the wall between them, and he was sure that it would not be something that either one of them would ever care to discuss with Augustus Tate.

  Realizing that he would likely never know the source of her anguish, Daniel turned to make his way through the long corridor which would lead to the side entrance of Lytton Hall.

  It would do him no good to think any more of the matter, and it would certainly do him no good to allow his feelings for his employer’s new wife to change in any way from what they had initially been. However tempting it was, it could only ever be fruitless.

  Chapter 7

  Eliza stared down at the unopened letter on the tea tray. She had been in the morning room since breakfast, at which she ate very little, and now that it was nearing midday, she knew she must either read the letter or discard it.

  She had recognized her mother’s handwriting as soon as the butler had approached her in the dining room with it laid regally on a silver salver. She had been so surprised to see it, for she had been expecting a letter from Ariadne, and when the distinctive copperplate script drew her eye, she felt her eyes immediately well with tears.

  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 wa
y 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.