The Wallflower Duchess

by Liz Tyner

  The others had reached the door and Fox was lingering over a farewell to Abigail. Then Foxworthy noticed his cousin missing. He turned. ‘Edgeworth. You’ve a long walk home. Hurry along.’

  Abigail draped her arm over Fox’s elbow. ‘Did you see the moon? It’s enchanting. We must make a wish on it.’

  ‘A wish on the moon?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Hightower said, practically shooing them out the door. ‘It’s a tradition in our household.’

  Edge kept talking, ignoring the commotion at the door. ‘The next time I tried to experience the life of my tenants—I was with them while they were rendering lard, only it was more like a festival than a chore, and the ale was flowing heavily and the next thing I knew, my legs were burned by a man who’d had more ale than he should have.’

  She stopped. The others had walked from sight. She touched his arm.

  ‘I almost had more freedom from work than I bargained for,’ Edge said. ‘While I recuperated. As soon as I could think I had the ledgers brought to me. I didn’t lay on my bed thinking of all the joys I’d missed, but of all the work that I still need to do. And then I called myself a fool. An angel had appeared to me and I had let her get away.’

  ‘An angel?’

  He nodded. ‘I decided a man should not lay on his near deathbed thinking of the work he missed and note how far his family stands from him. Two brushes with death. So close. And I’d never even kissed your cheek.’

  He reached out, twining a lock of her hair around his forefinger. ‘I told your father earlier that I must speak privately with you tonight.’

  Her eyes widened and she took in a breath. ‘He will be expecting a proposal.’ After a pause, she said, ‘You should be considering the overall role of a duchess. It doesn’t suit me.’

  ‘Are you as forthright with everyone as you are with me?’

  ‘Not in the same way.’ She cocked her chin. ‘You’re a duke. You can take it.’

  ‘Perhaps one should ladle it out a little more nicely as I am a peer.’

  ‘You are also the person who grew up in the house next to my father’s. Who studied in the garden shade hours on end and who batted me away. I thought you’d pursue my sister. Your father once mentioned it. We were summoned after your father said that Abigail might make a fine duchess. We had tea with your mother. My father beamed from ear to ear for a whole year.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’ Didn’t surprise him, though. When thinking of Edge’s future, his father had tended to look years ahead. He’d told Edge to make a goal and plan a strategy to achieve it, and if things moved a different direction to change plans, but keep his goal.

  ‘You always followed what your father said. In the winter, when you were home on holiday from school with your brothers, he would take you with him and leave them behind. He never took Lord Steven or Lord Andrew.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘And he chose Abigail for you.’

  ‘Idle talk. Years past.’

  ‘Not so idle. My father put a great store in it for a time.’

  He took in a breath, dismissing the thought with his exhalation.

  He reached out, took her fingers, pulled them close to him and took a ring from his smallest finger, the one where he usually wore his father’s family seal. He reached for her finger to slide the circle on to, but she clasped her hand. He opened the fingers and put the circle in her clasp.

  Her eyes studied his face.

  ‘Edge. Why do you have a fascination with me?’

  ‘Your absolute and utter awe in my presence.’

  The movement of her face would have been better viewed in bright light, but he’d seen it before when she’d called him a booby-head. He didn’t care. He loved the way her face moved when she looked at him.

  On a day when he’d thought the pain too unbearable to live through, she’d touched his hand when he wanted nothing but darkness and escape. Her caress had given him the only solace he could cling to. He’d pulled his strength from the moment of her skin against his and he’d been able to believe the agony would stop.

  Chapter Five

  Without a doubt, Edge had lost his mind. Lily looked at the gold band. It had a lily engraved on it. She had to strengthen her resources to be able to stand.

  A lily. Engraved. One of those flowers she hated. But he meant well. ‘Again...’ She had to gather her strength to think of the word and push the sound from her body. ‘Why? Have you ever heard that it is excess to paint the lily?’

  ‘The saying is true. Because a lily doesn’t need it.’

  She didn’t raise her eyes.

  ‘When I accepted my seat in the House of Lords, I knew what it meant. I had a responsibility to my country to help guide it in the direction best for England. It is a lifetime commitment. I will not be successful in every speech. But enough of them will influence.’

  ‘That is politics.’

  ‘Marriage is the politics of daily life. A couple makes a vow. They agree to act in the manner of marriage. A commitment to make a family. Every day will not always bring about the exact results hoped for, but it is the overall direction that is important. Guiding the children so they can make the world better for those less fortunate. I have an obligation to society.’

  ‘I’m an heiress. I don’t have to marry.’ She couldn’t. She couldn’t do like her mother had done and place herself in a world she didn’t belong. Her mother had never managed to fit into her husband’s world. Never made friends there. She’d moved back to the world she felt best in and the people who didn’t look down their nose at her. But then, she’d not fit there any more. She’d had a wealthy husband and tasted a better life. Her friends didn’t welcome her back as she’d expected. They’d thought her above them. She wasn’t upstairs and she wasn’t downstairs.

  ‘Lily.’ Exasperation tinged his voice. ‘Don’t you feel a need to do all you can to make the world better?’

  ‘That, Your Grace, is your department.’

  He leaned closer. ‘You’re taking this far too lightly,’ he said. ‘And stop calling me that.’

  ‘I’m not taking this lightly. You are. The injury affected your mind.’

  He put his fingers around her hand, causing her to clasp the ring and the metal to warm against her skin.

  For the first time in her life she understood her mother’s transgressions. He released her and then she could speak again. ‘You know what my mother—’

  ‘Yes. I do. But you’re not like her.’

  ‘The venom... You didn’t hear the worst words my parents said. They talked quietly when they spoke of killing each other. Marriage is like that.’

  ‘You and I are nothing like our parents.’

  He could not know that to be true and she didn’t either. ‘At least...your parents had a calm marriage.’ She whispered the words.

  ‘Until that rubbish was printed.’

  The words iced her body, momentarily freezing her so she couldn’t move. Her fingers clenched the ring in her hand. She stepped away, turning towards the staircase to the family rooms. ‘I must be going.’

  In one long stride, he covered the distance, stopping her before she reached the bannister, resting his hand on the wood. ‘Don’t let what your mother did concern you,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t belong in the world I live in.’ She spoke without inflection. ‘I’ve known that since I can remember. And besides, marriage is a foolish institution that brings much misery. My mother and father hate each other in a way that affects everyone around them.’

  ‘You didn’t warn me in this way when you thought I might approach your sister.’

  ‘She’s my father’s child. She has a claim to this world through him—besides, she likes soirées and all those times when eyes are on her. And she looks lik
e a duchess should look.’

  ‘And just how is that?’

  She stood taller, straightened her shoulders and waved her hand in a circle. ‘You know. That social look.’

  ‘I’ve never noticed my mother appearing all that much different—except she does wear larger earrings than other women. But she wasn’t a duchess all her life.’

  ‘She might as well have been.’ She shrugged the words away. ‘It’s natural to her. My sister would have worn the title like a glove. But people can’t say the things about her that they can say about me.’

  ‘I understand. I wasn’t happy when my father’s life was shared with the world,’ Edgeworth said.

  She’d recounted almost every conversation of her life to her sister, but this one she would not. She squeezed her hand around the ring.

  She glanced in the direction the others had left, knowing her father would keep Abigail away as long as possible, but Lily wanted to be certain she wasn’t interrupted.

  She returned to the dining room, his footsteps close behind.

  Lily placed the ring into his hand. The warmth of his fingers felt like a hug around her heart. She didn’t raise her eyes from their hands. She put her hands behind her back, clasping them, hoping to erase the imprint of the metal and his touch. It stayed.

  She tilted her chin up, but didn’t look into his eyes. ‘I feel badly that happened to your father.’

  ‘Your origins don’t matter to me.’ He put the ring on his smallest finger again and they both watched as the movement stopped. ‘But what you say, does.’

  He looked at her.

  ‘I couldn’t escape it before and I didn’t know what it was like to have any peace in my life until my mother and father no longer lived together. She was difficult to live with and he made her worse.’

  ‘Did you know of my father’s life?’ he asked.

  She didn’t answer. Of course she did.

  ‘All the things in life were handed to me, but I worked to be worthy of them,’ Edgeworth said.

  ‘The etiquette of a duke should be flawless and the person on the other side of it appreciates the notice,’ he added. ‘With my heritage comes the opportunity to make others feel taller by my notice. To give them a certain boost. I’d just not realised how setting myself apart distanced me from everyone, even my family. I trusted myself smart enough to gauge the truth of life, and of people. I discovered, after the fact, that my brothers both knew of my father’s mistress and spoke of it among themselves, but didn’t tell me. Even the men at my club knew. I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, I know of my family secrets. I vote for being in the dark.’

  He took her elbows and eased her arms from behind her back. He clasped her fingertips.

  ‘I can’t be in the dark any more. I have responsibilities. And you can help me. You are an extra set of eyes and ears.’ He rubbed his thumb against her palm. ‘And a friend.’

  She should pull away, she knew, but she couldn’t. Friends didn’t pull away. They didn’t.

  Letting out a breath, she stepped back, watching as their hands slid apart. ‘You don’t need another person. You can find out easily enough. Just ask people. If you ask the right person or the wrong—or wronged person—they spit out the words as fast as they can.’

  ‘I don’t know that I prefer to associate with those people.’ He turned, sideways, and looked to the window, his face completely from her view. ‘And I couldn’t fit into the world of others. To absorb their culture and understand their ways would take so much more time than I have. I could feel the wall between us. The wall between me and most people.’

  ‘The same wall I feel.’ Tendrils of hair curled at his ears, softening only the back of his head. ‘How can I help when I am no different in that sense, except you are on the top side of it and I’m on the bottom?’

  ‘You choose to keep your distance, Lily Hightower.’

  * * *

  He couldn’t cross that gulf alone. He’d tried. The people weren’t themselves when he was in their presence. They either wanted to impress him or resented him.

  Lily walked to face him. He moved only his gaze. Her eyes challenged. ‘I was curious once about what my life would have been like if I hadn’t been born into this house—but not any more. Last summer, when Aunt Mary and I went to the shops, I pretended I wanted to see the house my mother had been raised in. I knew it would take me by the blacksmith’s shop. I didn’t want to see him, but I wanted to see the life that could have been mine.’

  ‘What did you find?’ He searched her face, knowing he could not take his finger and soothe away the concern edging the corners of her lips and eyes.

  ‘The carriage passed too quickly for me to see much. A simple building. The huge doors in front open to let the heat escape. Fire from inside glowed, but the rest was dim. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live in that world and yet it should have been mine.’

  ‘I own a world I cannot be a part of.’

  He remembered the other trip to the country that had started easily enough because he’d wanted a chance to understand the people he served. Then the accident and scent of his own skin mixed with the hot fat when the tenant had stumbled. The renderings had splashed over Edge, from feet to knees and on one thigh.

  Pain took everything from him. In those seconds he could not see, move or live anywhere but inside his burning body. He’d thought a human could not feel so much pain and live. He’d been wrong.

  A simple quest to see how his tenants lived and the man had been nervous at being so close to a peer and stumbled. At one ankle, the skin had fallen away.

  ‘One of the maids cared for my blisters,’ he said. ‘She’s worked at my home for years and I hadn’t seen her before. She didn’t grimace at anything I said or did, only at the burn. She never spoke more than necessary, stayed as long as needed, but then disappeared instantly. Below stairs is a foreign world to me and it is owned by me. If I were to ask about their jobs, I would get all the correct answers. No grimaces or hidden feelings.’ He thought of Gaunt. ‘No rags wrung out in front of my face.’

  ‘Our housekeeper mentioned that we recently hired a maid who’d once worked for you. A ginger-haired woman.’

  He knew of no changes in the household. ‘Why did she leave?’

  ‘The woman had hardly worked for your staff a fortnight. Apparently she had committed some error.’ She waved away the words. ‘My housekeeper said it was not of any importance and she had learned her lesson and our new maid would be certain not to be underfoot.’

  His teeth tightened against each other. He remembered asking the housekeeper to let a maid with ginger hair know that she need not clean the library when he was in the house, even if it meant days might pass. He’d been trying to walk away the pain in his leg and she’d stepped in. It had irritated him that she’d seen the strain in his face and his movements.

  But she should have known to wait.

  ‘I think, in my memory,’ Lily said, ‘we have three people in my father’s employ who have worked for you. I believe one didn’t know how to make tea properly, but my housekeeper said she could teach anyone to make tea.’

  ‘Tea?’ He leaned forward. ‘Tea?’ His voice tightened. He remembered his father’s demands on the servants and had always considered himself much more compassionate.

  ‘Yes. But we have had no trouble with her.’

  ‘I am sure you have not.’ Every bit of his ducal training surfaced in the words.

  Lily stepped away, which drove into his body with the same force of hot oil. He kept standing. ‘The servants have a world of their own and I know so little of it, yet I’m sure they are aware of every moment of mine.’

  She nodded. No more emotion on her face than the maid had shown. He wanted to pull her to his chest, but he didn’t dare. She’d handed bac
k the ring. He didn’t want to be handed back his heart.

  ‘Yet I have always known that I am in this world by mistake,’ she said. ‘First, my mother entranced a suitor above her station. She married, but didn’t have the constant nature to remain satisfied with the responsibility of a husband and family.’ She shut her eyes for a second. ‘She needed the servants because even with them she was hardly capable of survival.’

  ‘No one holds you responsible for her actions.’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Lily.’ The rumble of words couldn’t have reached far. ‘I know—some of—how you feel. When my father’s scandal was published in the newspaper for all to see, my mother was crushed. She still bears the scars, even though they aren’t visible. It almost killed her. And my father died not long after. Their marriage ended on that day.’

  Air trapped itself in Lily’s throat. She used extra force to talk and appear unaffected. ‘If he were alive, would you even speak with me?’

  ‘Of course. I spoke with you often when he was alive. He knew.’

  ‘And did he ever mention it?’

  Nothing in his face changed. But the first word he spoke lasted longer than the short word should have. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘He thought so little of me. I was a lesser person.’

  ‘He saw most of the human race as lesser than the ducal family. A flaw. I saw it. I saw it in the way he spoke to the staff when they displeased him.’

  ‘Did he ever tell you to avoid me?’

  ‘Lily. Don’t talk of things that don’t matter.’

  ‘It may matter most.’

  He frowned, his eyes warning her that she’d asked the question and might not like the answer. ‘Mother told him that when your sister grew up,’ he said, ‘I would forget about you.’

  She smiled. ‘Not entirely accurate.’

  His eyes met hers. ‘I just let them think what they wished. I mentioned Abigail’s name in passing a few times and nothing more was said.’

  ‘You were being sly.’

  ‘Father was teaching me about diplomacy at the time. I found it helpful.’