Someday My Duke Will Come

by Christina Britton

  Clara gaped at her, stunned by the poison in the woman’s words. There was pain, but also a deep disdain for Quincy. She gave the duchess a mournful look, that she could not see the treasure that her son was. “I do know what he deserves,” she replied quietly. And like a bolt of lightning it hit her just how right she was: she truly did know. Quincy deserved the truth.

  As much as she feared his reaction, he did not deserve her hastily patched excuses as to why she couldn’t marry him. He was the best man she knew, so giving, so caring. He had lost his father young, had escaped the house of a woman who should have loved him unconditionally yet had only given him pain, had carved a life for himself. Then, upon returning home, he had learned of the deaths of his brothers, and that he was saddled with debts that could destroy his lifelong dreams.

  Yet never in all that time had he lost his optimism for life. He had searched endlessly until he had found a solution, had shown her nothing but kindness in the process. Had taught her how to embrace a joy in life she had thought lost to her.

  And what had she given him in return? Lies, and a refusal to allow him to speak his heart. Why? Because she feared that sharing her son with anyone would tarnish his memory? Because it might pain her to see Quincy’s reaction to the truth of her ruination? She was a coward. Just as she was a coward to allow this woman to manipulate her and threaten her. And the duchess would never stop. She would keep at it until Clara was trampled to dust in the wake of her fury.

  But instead of the expected despair at such a realization, Clara felt freed. She knew just what she had to do.

  She smiled at the duchess. The woman blinked, seemingly not knowing how to take Clara’s sudden change of mood.

  Clara laughed, dipping into a deep, mocking curtsy. “Your Grace, I look forward to seeing you later.”

  And with that she turned and sailed from the room, her mind already racing ahead to what had to be done.

  * * *

  A morning’s hard riding over Synne’s hills did nothing to ease the ache in Quincy’s chest. The wounds of Clara’s refusal the night before were still fresh. But he wouldn’t push his horse any farther. Nor could he escape seeing Clara again. And so, no better off than when he had fled at dawn, he turned his mount’s head back to Danesford.

  The one thing he did not expect to see when turning his horse into the stable yard, however, was Clara, seemingly waiting for him.

  His hands must have tightened on the reins, for the horse gave an agitated whinny and stumbled to a halt, its shoulders quivering. Quincy patted its neck, murmuring comfortingly to it before dismounting and handing the reins over to a groom. The whole while he could not keep his eyes from Clara. She stood ramrod-straight, her face arranged in its typical calm lines. But there was a nervous energy about her, showing clearly in her tightly clasped hands and her white knuckles. She kept her gaze focused on him, ignoring the bustle around her, as he walked toward her.

  For a moment he stood silent before her, fighting the overwhelming desire to take her in his arms. Only the memory of her face the night before kept him from doing so.

  “What are you doing out here?” he asked, his voice gruff.

  “I came to find you.”

  “Why?”

  She flinched at his harsh tone but kept her gaze steady. “I’ve been unfair to you.”

  Well, he certainly hadn’t expected that. Not knowing how to respond, he remained silent.

  She dragged in a deep breath with seeming effort and raised her chin a fraction. “I’ve not been truthful with you, Quincy.”

  “So you lied when you told me you have no plans to ever marry?”

  “Oh, no. That was the truth. But I have not given you the true reasons for it. I would tell you now.”

  A wild hope surged in his breast. He tamped it down as best he could. “I would very much like that,” he said carefully.

  She nodded, relief and fear flashing in the deep blue depths of her eyes. Then, with a blush, she started off for the house. He fell into step beside her, his hands in fists at his sides to keep from reaching for her. All the while his mind whirled. What did this mean? Was she going to finally trust him?

  He quickly quieted the chorus of desperate questions. He could not bring himself to hope and then see it dashed to pieces again. So he kept his silence, giving her the space she seemed to need though it killed him.

  He expected her to duck into any empty room to have this conversation over and done with. Instead she started up the stairs, making her way to the family quarters. Surely she wouldn’t take him to her room. But no, they passed her door and kept on. He cast her a confused frown but she was focused on her destination.

  When she finally stopped and turned to face him, he could only stare blankly at the door before them. It was Lenora’s art studio. He had seen it upon arriving at Danesford, this place where Lenora created her magnificent paintings, whimsical watercolors that fairly breathed with a life of their own. Why Clara was bringing him here, however, was beyond him.

  When he looked at her in question, she smiled. It was a small, sad thing that fairly broke his heart.

  “You’re not the only one I’ve kept the truth from, Quincy,” she said, her voice quiet. “And I know now I can never be free until I lay out my past in front of everyone I love.”

  Love. The word swirled in the air between them. Did she love him then? Before he could ask her, he heard the muted sound of low, tense conversation within the confines of the room. Clara threw the door wide, and he stood stunned in the entry as he took in the tableau before him.

  Peter and Lenora were there, seated together on a low settee, as well as Lady Tesh with Freya curled in her lap. Margery stood by the window, her troubled face illuminated by the early-afternoon sun streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Phoebe sat near Oswin, their hands clasped tight. And one other was there, who he could not comprehend being present for several long, confused seconds.

  He frowned. “Mother?”

  Her lips twisted. “Reigate.”

  Quincy cast a bewildered look to Clara, but she was already making her way across the room. Her back was a tense line beneath the delicate muslin of her gown, and she appeared as if she were ascending the gallows.

  Feeling much the same, knowing that at the end of this he would either be raised to heaven or cast down to the pits of hell, Quincy set his jaw and followed her within, closing the door firmly behind him.

  Chapter 21

  Clara stopped when she reached the marble fireplace, closing her eyes for a moment and breathing deeply. She had been so sure of what had to be done when she’d left the duchess’s room earlier that morning. And since then she’d fed the fire burning inside her to see this over and done with. It had kept her going as she’d written out notes to everyone she needed present, as she searched for Quincy, as she’d stood waiting for him in the stable yard while all around her the grooms and stable hands went about their busy day. For no mere note would do for Quincy.

  Now that the moment of reckoning was before her, however, she didn’t know how to begin.

  Behind her she could hear faint shuffling, quiet whispers quickly hushed. They all knew something was wrong. She had seen it in their eyes when she’d entered the room with Quincy, a worried expectation.

  All save for the duchess, who had sat apart from the others and considered her with narrowed eyes, suspicion clear on her cold face.

  As if that woman heard Clara’s thoughts, she suddenly spoke.

  “Goodness, Lady Clara, you keep us in such suspense,” she drawled. “I’m certain we would all like to leave this room this century. If you would be so kind as to tell us why you’ve dragged us in here when we should be with the rest of the guests belowstairs?”

  Clara turned to face them as a low growl issued from Peter. “My cousin can take as long as she needs, Duchess,” he said with a dark glare.

  “Well, she’s certainly doing that,” the woman muttered.

  Another growl f
rom Peter, this one contained as Lenora spoke into the tense atmosphere. “I’m sure Clara is merely searching for the right words. And my husband is quite correct,” she continued, her voice firm and brooking no argument, “Clara may take as long as she needs.” She turned to her and gave her an encouraging nod that didn’t hide the anxiety under the surface. “Whenever you’re ready, dearest.”

  Clara took one final moment to drink in the faces of these people who loved her so well. The fear that had held her back for so many years rose up again, stronger than ever. She couldn’t do this. It was a mistake; she would not be able to survive this if they all turned from her.

  Her anxious gaze found Quincy’s.

  He sat poised at the edge of his chair, as if he feared what would be said and was ready to bolt from the room at the least provocation. Yet there was a steadiness to his gaze that grounded her. Just then he smiled. It was a small thing, barely even lifting the corners of his lips. But it gave her the encouragement she needed to do what had to be done. Didn’t he deserve the truth? Didn’t they all deserve the truth?

  And, most important of all, didn’t she deserve to be true to herself?

  “I’ve brought you all here,” she began, her voice a weak thing but quickly gaining strength, “because there is something I need to say to you, something that I’ve been keeping from you these fifteen years. The reason I’m telling you now,” she continued, “is because the duchess’s recent actions have made me realize that I will never be fully free until the truth is out. And I would rather reveal it to you myself than have someone else do so.”

  Here she looked at the duchess full in the face. “I want to thank you, Your Grace,” she said with a grim smile, “for making me realize that truthfulness with those I love is paramount to my happiness.”

  The woman merely stared back at her, the mutiny twisting her features not able to completely hide the undertone of fear there.

  Dragging in a steadying breath, Clara turned to face her family. There would be no more cowering, no more hiding.

  “When I was fifteen,” she began, “there was a young man visiting the Isle who courted me in secret. He claimed he loved me, vowed to marry me. He told me he merely had to wait another few months, until he reached his majority, and we would be wed posthaste.”

  Phoebe, Oswin, Margery, and Lady Tesh sat in silence, their expressions confused. Peter and Lenora clasped hands, worry plain on their faces. They knew some of what was to come. The duchess looked angry enough to smite Clara on the spot.

  And Quincy. His gaze was shuttered but unflinching. She looked away from him, knowing she wouldn’t be able to continue if she witnessed his reaction, more frightened of it than of anyone else’s.

  “I took him at his word. It was foolish of me; I can see that now. But I was so eager to grow up and start a life of my own. I think I had become a bit resentful of how much I had missed out on after my mother’s death, how much of my childhood I had left behind. I wanted to live for me. Which is no one’s fault but my own,” she hastily explained when Phoebe covered her mouth with a trembling hand. “I wanted you and our brother to have a mother-figure. And I will never regret helping to care for you both, will never regret the close relationship we’ve shared because of it.

  “At the time, however, I was maturing into a woman and unsure of my place in the world. And that man exploited that fact. He made me believe I should live for nothing but myself, that my family had been selfish to take so much from me. Which, in my vanity, I allowed him to convince me of, though it was the farthest thing from the truth.”

  She paused, curling her hands into fists, her gaze dropping to the floor as she dug deep for strength. “He seduced me, and once he’d gotten what he wanted from me he left. I never heard from him again, though I wrote to him with increasing desperation. Especially after…” She swallowed hard, tried again. “Especially when I learned I was with child.”

  She did not raise her eyes to witness their reactions. She didn’t need to. There were indrawn breaths, gasps, cries of disbelief. And then the duchess’s strident voice above the others.

  “I knew it!” she crowed. “Reigate, you cannot marry this woman. Think of the scandal. I will not see a loose strumpet as the next duchess—”

  “Silence!” Quincy bellowed. He surged to his feet, glaring at his mother. Peter was at his side in an instant, his expression equally furious. Clara rather thought that if she were the duchess, she would keel over on the spot with two such massive, commanding men glowering at her. As it was, her heart beat out a pathetically hopeful rhythm that he did not hate her.

  “If you say one thing further against Clara,” Quincy said, his voice dropping to a deadly quiet that did not disguise the danger in it, “you will rue the day.”

  The woman stared at him in shock before, her lips pinching tight, she gave a sharp nod.

  He turned back to Clara, nodding before he sat once more. Peter, too, nodded her way before taking his place at Lenora’s side. Clara, for all she tried, could not discern a single emotion in their faces save for grim determination.

  Her sister’s agonized voice rose up, shattering the heavy silence. “Clara, is it true?”

  At the sight of Phoebe, hand to her heart, eyes wide with shock, Clara nearly broke down.

  But it was too late to stop now. Keeping her gaze steadily on her sister, she nodded. She expected Phoebe to sob, to break down in tears. Instead her sister lowered her hand to her lap and nodded once, as if to show she was well and Clara should continue.

  And she did, letting the rest spill out in a rush, eager to have done with it. “When my father and I told everyone that I was traveling to visit with my old nurse up north, in reality she came here to stay with me, in a cottage close to Swallowhill. I hid away from the world, hid the truth from you all, to give birth to that child.”

  Not a one of them spoke, shock and grief and devastation all filling their faces, seeming to register them mute. The only face she refused to look at was Quincy’s. She could not bear it if he were disgusted by her.

  The seconds ticked by, the silence stretching. She bit her lip, her nerves beginning to fray.

  Finally Aunt Olivia spoke—of course it would be Aunt Olivia. Though it was not with her usual brusqueness. No, her tone was gentler than Clara had ever heard it.

  “What happened to the child, my dear?”

  That one question did more to undermine the careful control she’d spent so long building up than anything thus far. “He did not make it,” she managed through a throat tight with tears. “Not even long enough to take his first breath.”

  The last thing she saw before tears blurred her vision was Quincy’s face, stark with shock.

  * * *

  Quincy had expected something painful in Clara’s past, but he had never imagined something so devastating. To be a young, unmarried woman, seduced and abandoned, and then to find out she was with child…she must have been terrified. Worse, to have to hide away, to spend nine months growing a life inside you, only to lose that precious life in an instant. No wonder she had become so upset when he’d first suggested they marry. She must have thought him just like that coward who had used her, offering her false promises to get her to his bed.

  Which brought him to the stark realization of just how much she wanted him, how much she must care for him, in order to ignore her fears and come to his bed.

  At the sight of the tears welling up in Clara’s eyes, however, at the sound of a sob quickly stifled, he forgot about everything else but comforting her.

  Before he could so much as rise, however, Phoebe leapt to her feet, rushing to Clara and enveloping her in her arms. The rest of them hurried forward, until a veritable sea of Ashfords crowded her.

  “My poor, dear sister,” she crooned. “Why did you hide such a thing from us?”

  Clara’s voice rose up, muffled against her sister’s neck. “Because I knew you would all despise me for it. I’ve threatened our family with a devastating scan
dal. It could ruin us all if it got out.”

  “Ruin us?” Lady Tesh scoffed. “My girl, none of us will speak a word of it, I assure you. And if a certain someone does”—she gave the duchess a furious warning glance—“they will regret it. Besides,” she continued, turning a tender smile on her great-niece, “if you don’t think we haven’t weathered worse storms, you are a greater innocent than I thought. There are scandals aplenty in our history, and we’ve come through each one. Mayhap not unscathed, but stronger for it.”

  “She’s right,” Margery said with a soft smile, running a gentle hand over Clara’s back. “And we could never despise you, dearest. You shall always be our darling Clara, who we all love so very much.”

  A sob broke free from Clara’s lips. As she buried her face in her sister’s neck and the rest of them consoled her, Quincy ached to go to her.

  But now was not the time. Let her family show her that she was loved, that she had not lost their respect. There would be time for him to tell her his own feelings on the matter, and to renew his offer for her hand. There was no doubt in his mind that this was the reason she had refused him, some heroic attempt to protect him from this tragedy. When in reality it just proved to him that she was even stronger than he had believed her to be, and made him love her more.

  To live with such a thing for so long would destroy anyone. Yet she had funneled that grief into a positive, throwing herself into loving her family in every way she could. He would be blessed indeed if she accepted him.

  And then he would spend the rest of his life making her happy.

  A sudden movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention. When he turned to find his mother slinking from the room, fury welled up in him. How this woman must have terrorized Clara into revealing this painful truth about herself.

  He hurried after her. “Mother,” he growled when he reached the hall.

  “Not now, Reigate,” she said over her shoulder, no doubt desperate to escape the unintended consequences of her actions.