by Abigail Agar
“Duchess, what is your philosophy on love? I see so many different relationships on the dance floor, and I don’t know what to make of it.
“There’s the couple that you can say are truly in love. There is the couple that is very well suited and will live a contented life together without love, and there’s the couple that is pairing up because the gentleman needs an heir and the lady needs a husband.”
Louisa interrupted. “And don’t forget the couple where the woman was forced to marry by her father or by financial circumstances. Or my favourite, the woman or man who flit from one partner to another until they latch on to the person who has the most money. Just a few examples of the marriage of convenience.
Percy nodded. “I’m very contented with Nora. She is wonderful, but I’m not in love.”
Percy was silent, looking to the Duchess to see her reaction and what she would say.
“I understand your struggle, Percy. I always knew you were a sensitive soul. Very few find love, in England or anywhere else in the world. We have all seen it, so we think we too might find it, but we don’t.
“It’s rare. But what you have with Nora is strong and almost as good. You have compatibility and mutual respect. You have a single vision of your future. Don’t undervalue what you have. Many couples don’t even have that.”
Percy nodded. He just needed to accept that that’s all there was. He couldn’t hold out for love.
Somehow settling for contentment seemed like the wrong thing for him to do. He wanted love. He wanted to wake up every day next to someone special, and he wanted her to wake up to someone she thought was special as well.
Would he end up an old bachelor searching for something he would never find?
Louisa reached over and put her hand over his. “Nora is wonderful. You’ll see. You will probably be the happiest of all of us. Who knows? Maybe you will fall in love with her over time.”
Percy lifted his head and looked into Louisa’s eyes. “What about you, Louisa?”
She gave him a small smile. “I’m in a similar relationship as you. The only difference is I’m content with it. Jack’s a wonderful man, and I expect to have a good life with him. I thank God I was able to choose my partner. I feel sorry for women who are forced to marry. I doubt those marriages ever work out.”
The Duchess spoke, “You two are lucky to have found your partners. I agree with Louisa that marriages of convenience are usually unhappy marriages, but not always so. The Duke and I were lucky. We barely knew each other when we married. It could have gone so wrong, but it didn’t. You’re best thinking what you have instead of what you don’t have.”
“Thank you, Duchess,” Percy said. “I think marriage questions are best answered by married people.”
“I think you are right,” she said.
Chapter 3
Louisa’s father, Frederick Haddington, the Duke of Rutland, enjoyed dabbling in investments. Although he didn’t restrict himself to the import and export business, it held the most interest for him.
And it afforded him a great deal of time with his brother, Hobart. He and Hobart were close, and it was rare that they didn’t see each other every day. Frederick came to Hobart’s warehouse to watch the comings and goings of crates filled with merchandise. Hobart oversaw the crates of cargo. Shipments came in and went out; the brothers were always investing in something.
Frederick entered the dockside warehouse alive with men carting crates from a cargo ship into an entrance as large as open barn doors. He looked for Hobart and found him near the gaping door, parchment in hand.
Hobart read every crate then pointed to the men carrying it to its destination. The controlled chaos continued for over two hours before the men were paid, and the large doors were closed and barred.
Hobart approached Frederick. “I would have sent a runner to let you know when we were done. You didn’t have to wait so long.”
Frederick smiled at his brother. “It never gets old for me. I enjoy watching you.”
Hobart pointed his chin towards his office, his hand overflowing with packing documents attesting to the contents of each crate. “I need a drink, and you probably need one too.”
He went to the sideboard and opened the decanter. Frederick waited silently, hearing the splash of whisky hit the side of the glass. Hobart handed Frederick his glass then lifted his glass and clinked Frederick’s.
Hobart made a toast. “To continued shipments that take three hours to unload.”
Frederick grinned. “Hear, hear.”
Hobart leaned back in his chair and smacked his lips. “I’ve got eighty per cent of this shipment spoken for. I need to find buyers for just twenty per cent. This will be one of our most profitable hauls.”
Frederick nodded. “My investors will be pleased. We’ll take our cut and use the remainder to buy more?”
“It’s what I’d like to do. If you ever want to do anything else, you just need to let me know. I’ve saved enough to continue to buy and sell shipments on my own, but I would be happy to work with you.”
Frederick took a drink and breathed out. “Did the crew have any trouble with pirates? There was another story in the newspaper this week that they burned down a ship in the open seas. If that happened to us, and I didn’t carry insurance, we’d be wiped out. What have you heard?”
Hobart nodded. “I heard the men say the ship’s captain refused to let them board, so the pirates shot burning arrows at them. I asked my captain about the pirates. He said he never saw any ships between here and India. He’s sure the pirates were sending a message. Pirates don’t sail the seas to go home empty-handed.
“He wanted to keep the guards, though. His crew can’t fight the pirates and sail away from them at the same time. If the guards can keep the pirates from boarding, they are worth every farthing they’re paid.
“So my plan is to get all the crates that are spoken for to their rightful owners, sell the remainder of the crates then rustle up business that we want to export. Our fabric is still a hot commodity in India, so I’ll start with the mills.”
“And that’s where I come in. I will raise the capital. Shall we say two months?”
“Six weeks should do it.”
“We’ll meet next week for the investor’s money?” Frederick said.
“See you then, Frederick, unless I see you before.”
*****
Frederick and Hobart had always been close. Frederick was three years older than Hobart so had naturally inherited the title, but Hobart never once mentioned that fact in the forty plus years they had shared the planet.
Their parents were another story. They both ignored, or worse, belittled Hobart while they doted on Frederick.
Frederick spent too much time wondering why his parents were like that. When he asked, they denied it. But there was no exclusive education for Hobart. There were no summers on the estates of other sons of Dukes. There were no trips to London to meet boys his age who would eventually serve in the House of Lords with Frederick. Because he didn’t have rank. He was nothing.
Frederick never considered him nothing. They were inseparable.
When they were children, Hobart crept into Frederick’s room every night, and they slept in Frederick’s huge bed. Their parents were never early risers, so it was rebellious and comforting, and that amused them both.
Another show of brotherhood didn’t go over so well. They decided to become ‘blood brothers,’ and so they carved an X in part of their upper arms. Unfortunately, when it came to Frederick, he became over-zealous in carving the X in Hobart’s arm.
The cut was deep, and it wouldn’t stop bleeding, so Frederick ran to the village to get the healer. She and Frederick rode horses back to where Hobart laid, blood on his sleeve and on the ground in a pool.
Hobart was white, and there was a sheen of sweat covering his body. Frederick held his hand as Shona cleaned and bandaged the wound.
She looked at Frederick. “You need footmen or sta
ble boys to get him to his bed. I suggest the Duke stay in the dark about this. Do you understand?”
Frederick nodded. He understood all too well. Frederick and three footmen carried Hobart up the servants’ stairs to his bedroom. Once he was stripped and in bed, a footman went to the kitchen and brought up food and drink. Frederick stole whisky from his father’s decanter and poured some of it into a wineskin.
Shona climbed the servants’ stairs every day for a week checking on her patient. Frederick slept in Hobart’s bed that week. Their parents didn’t even notice Hobart wasn’t around.
Frederick was devastated when, at the age of fifteen, Hobart ran away from home.
He was eighteen and had his own bank account by then, so he hired a private detective to find Hobart.
Over the years, Frederick learned to hire a private detective for a short period, usually six months. The first one strung him along for close to two years, doing very little except collecting Frederick’s coin.
Frederick assumed Hobart had changed his name, and he didn’t rule out that Hobart may be working on a ship or had sailed to America.
*****
After ten years of searching for Hobart, if there was any possibility that Hobart was alive, Frederick vowed to find him. Finally, he offered a reward. It was coin the likes of which any dockworker or farmer couldn’t resist. There was no honour among thieves. Someone would turn him in.
Hobart was medium tall with brown hair and brown eyes. The only thing that made him stand out from every other person with that description was an X on his upper arm, facing out. It was a mangled thing, but it was easy enough to see.
The reward did it. And quickly. Within a week of posting it, the private detective, Quinn sat across from Frederick in his London townhouse telling Frederick where Hobart lived.
He lived over a pub near the docks.
“Take me to him,” Frederick said.
Frederick stood and pulled the bell for Mendon.
“Your Grace,” Mendon bowed.
“I want four footmen in here in the next ten minutes.” He turned to Quinn, “Take me to him.”
The four of them walked to the docks, and Quinn continued to lead them through a maze of streets populated with houses that all looked the same. Nondescript brown houses with a window and a door in the front.
Frederick was afraid Hobart would run from him although he didn’t know why he would.
Quinn whispered in Frederick’s ear. “Third one down on the left. There’s a back door, so I suggest you split them up front and back.”
“Can he jump out the window and run?”
“Yes. Have them cover the door and the alley.”
Frederick whispered to his footmen and pointed. “Got it.”
Silently, they all nodded. When they moved into position, Frederick knocked on the door loudly. “Hobart, it’s me, Frederick. Please let me in. I want to see you.”
Frederick saw the shadow of a man in a window with no curtains withdraw and heard his footsteps fading to the back.
Frederick turned to his footmen. “Stay here until I call you.” He ran to the back door where two footmen were holding Hobart down.
“Let him up,” Frederick said, then called the footmen up front to join them.
He looked at Hobart. He had a full beard. Frederick began to cry, ran to him, and hugged him hard.
He wouldn’t let Hobart go. “I finally found you,” he said through sobs. “And you’re too thin. Come, we’ll get you bathed, shaved, and fed. My clothes will hang off you too, but they will have to do for now.”
“No,” Hobart said.
“No?” Frederick repeated.
“I won’t go with you.”
Frederick leaned back from his hug without releasing Hobart. “Why ever not?”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t what? You can’t put me in danger because you are in hiding? You can’t stand seeing the sight of me? What is it Hobart? What?”
Frederick hugged him again, tighter. He lowered his voice and whispered in Hobart’s ear, “I beg you. I’ve been searching for you since the day after you ran away.
“I’ve had one private investigator after another trying to find you. Please, Hobart, I beg you. Please don’t leave me again.”
Frederick stood in front of Hobart, hugging him, not letting him go, whispering, “Please,” in his ear over and over again.
Hobart blew out a long breath. “I’ll make you a deal, Frederick. I’ll come, clean up, eat a meal, and visit with you. But then I leave, and you don’t stop me. Deal?”
Frederick looked into his eyes. “Will you come once a week? You know, clean up, eat a meal, visit?”
Hobart looked into Frederick’s eyes. They were red and swollen from crying. “Maybe. Let’s see how today goes.”
Frederick looked at the closest footman. “Get the carriage.”
Hobart shook his head. “The carriage won’t fit down these streets. We’ll walk to the carriage.”
“Quinn, get us out of this maze.”
Frederick turned to Hobart. “Quinn found you when all the other private detectives I hired didn’t.”
Hobart nodded at Quinn.
The carriage ride back to the townhouse was awful. Frederick was jumping out of his seat wanting to get Hobart home. The London traffic was at a crawl.
Frederick instructed a footman to run ahead and have two baths prepared. “And tell Cook we are having roast duck this evening.”
Hobart lifted his head to look into Frederick’s eyes. “You remembered.”
Frederick snorted. “Don’t be so surprised; I remember everything about you. That is, up to the point when you were fifteen. And you know everything about me up to the point I was eighteen.
“You will meet my wife, Amelia, and my daughter, Louisa. They make me happy. Like you. You make me happy.”
Hobart put his head down and looked at the floor.
“There is nothing you can say and nothing you have done that will change how I feel about you. Nothing. It will be better once you bathe, though.”
Hobart met Amelia and Louisa then Mrs Reynolds, the housekeeper, brought Hobart to his room. A steaming bath beckoned, soap and clean towels waiting.
“His Grace has instructed the valet to bring you some of his clothes, and the valet will cut your hair and your beard. The clothes you are now wearing are to be burned.
“His Grace’s valet is named Mr Jakes.”
Frederick paid Quinn and gave him a bonus for his good work. He also gave him the reward money to pass along. “It was all worth it.”
Amelia came in after Quinn left. Her smile was bright, her eyes shone.
“You must be so pleased,” she said.
He smiled back. “I am. He didn’t want to come. I begged him.
“He said he’d agree to bathe, put on clean clothes and eat. Then he wants to leave. I’ll obviously try to get him to stay. If not, he’s thinking about coming once a week to clean up and eat.
“I need to change. I fear I have the stench of the docks clinging to my clothes.”
Amelia smiled again. “Yes. You do smell. Isn’t it wonderful?”
He grinned. “I’ll go now. I don’t want him to be finished before me.”
When Frederick saw the clean, shaven, dressed Hobart, he began to cry again.
“Frederick, if you are going to cry all night, I’m not going to be able to take it,” Hobart said.
Hobart sat with Amelia, Louisa, and Frederick in the parlour before dinner. Frederick had told Amelia and Louisa to stay away from asking personal questions, so Amelia asked about Hobart’s childhood.
“Frederick told me you used to sneak into his bed every night. He said he always missed you when you weren’t with him, and he slept better when you were beside him.”
“We were across the hall from each other, so it was easy to do. It gave me a feeling of comfort having him there. Of course, I had to tell him to stop talking several times a night so I c
ould sleep,” Hobart said.
Dinner was a success. Hobart ate the duck, closing his eyes and humming between bites. The pudding at dessert was a special treat.
“Amelia, please tell your cook that I thoroughly enjoyed the meal. I haven’t had pudding in at least ten years. What a treat.”
Frederick stood. “Ladies, if you will excuse us, Hobart and I are going to the library for an after dinner drink.”
Louisa said, “Goodnight, Uncle Hobart, it’s almost my bedtime.”