The Wallflower Duchess

by Liz Tyner

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t think it was easy, but I forgave him. We did talk at the end. About the woman. About how his mind didn’t seem to work right any more and he couldn’t think. I believe he couldn’t live with what he’d done to me and our family, and that’s what finished him off. He went downhill so rapidly after everything came out. He was angry at Lily, of course. He felt I should be angry at her, too.’ She nodded while speaking. ‘But he really brought that on himself.’

  ‘You knew all along?’ He questioned his mother with his eyes.

  The Duchess nodded. ‘Your father was furious, as I say. It ate him up inside. After once letting everyone know he had Abigail Hightower picked out for your bride, your father began telling everyone that those two girls were practically raised in a brothel. That they were following in their mother’s footsteps. Lily was of marriageable age and think how that sounded in the minds of the women planning events, particularly coming from the Duke of Edgeworth.’

  Edge looked aghast at his mother while she continued. ‘Whatever Lily did to this family, whatever slip of the tongue led to your father’s secrets getting out, your father made sure she served her sentence. Lily didn’t betray this family, Lionel, your father did.’ Her voice faltered. ‘Your father betrayed his own values and broke his own heart and mine, too. Must more hearts be broken over this?’

  * * *

  Edge dusted the cuff of his coat, not that he needed to. He couldn’t be more alone than he was. His friends made his head ache. He’d snapped at Gaunt twice and he couldn’t believe that the tiny burr on the inside of his trouser seat had magically appeared. Someone had to have put it there.

  Make that three times he’d snapped at Gaunt, but that time the man had deserved it.

  His burns were even hurting again with the warmer weather and riding in the countryside had irritated them anew.

  He reached to his waistband and gave a tug to pull the trousers back to his waistline. Gaunt needed to take in the trousers, but Edge was afraid Gaunt would forget and leave a needle in.

  Lily Hightower owed him a full and frank conversation and he would have it. He was tired of waiting for her.

  He strode from his house and walked to the front of the Hightower residence and the butler greeted him by name.

  ‘Miss Hightower,’ Edge said.

  She was at home. He’d watched since the morning. Their carriage hadn’t left.

  Five minutes later, Abigail flounced by. Then in moments, she returned. She smiled, one of the lopsided ones. ‘My sister accepts your deep concerns about her. I told her you are here, weeping with remorse over not seeing her. And that you are little more than a skeleton. And your hair has fallen out.’ She whispered her next words. ‘I thought she’d have to see for herself.’

  ‘Will she?’

  Abigail shook her head. ‘I regret to inform you that my sister says she is contagious.’

  ‘What might she have?’

  ‘She claims a festering sore that will not go away. She claims...’ the word dragged on and on ‘...she caught it in the garden.’ There was total innocence in her face and he had no idea whether Lily had said those words or they were Abigail’s invention. It didn’t matter. The statement was right. The sore wasn’t going away.

  ‘That is fine with me. I wish to talk with her.’

  Abigail didn’t speak. ‘I will check with her again.’

  * * *

  Half an hour later, a maid walked by and did a double glance.

  ‘I’m here to see Hightower,’ he stated.

  ‘Certainly,’ she said.

  A few minutes after she left, Mr Hightower arrived.

  ‘I would like to see Lily,’ Edge said.

  Mr Hightower leaned a bit closer. ‘Haven’t you been meeting her every night in the gardens?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t know what to tell you.’ He scratched his nose.

  Edge didn’t speak or move.

  Mr Hightower said, ‘Lily is—She’s always been a bit—Well, she has a mind of her own. I can’t talk any sense into her.’ He nodded. ‘She’s her mother’s daughter.’

  Rage flared, but Edge pushed the boil into a simmer. ‘I would assume she is her father’s daughter as well.’

  Hightower’s chin rose. ‘To what are you referring?’

  ‘I would say we all have a mind of our own, Mr Hightower.’

  His eyes narrowed even more. ‘Yes, I do.’ He inclined his head at Edge. ‘Good day.’

  He stalked from the room and Edge wondered if Hightower’s valet had put a burr in his trousers as well.

  Hightower stopped outside the door and looked over his shoulder at Edge. ‘The pull’s there. Ring for a maid if you wish to see Lily.’

  Edge took a step nearer the fireplace and reached to the pull, giving it a tug.

  In seconds, a maid rushed in.

  ‘Please tell Miss Hightower I am leaving.’ He blinked once. ‘I am sure you know to which Miss Hightower I am referring.’

  The upwards bobble of her head told him he was right and she disappeared from the room.

  He contemplated tugging on the pull again, about five times until someone got tired of it and tugged Lily from her room, but he was a duke, after all, and it wouldn’t be correct. Or mannerly.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘I’m fine,’ Lily told Abigail, pushing her sister out the door. Then she put her head on the wood, eyes shut, palms flat against the door, holding it shut and holding herself inside.

  Edge was only steps away. In her house, to see her.

  But she couldn’t go to him.

  Pushing from the door, she crossed her arms over herself, holding her thoughts at bay. She refused to think. She’d made it through a day and she’d make it through another and another and another after that. And if she went to him she might never make it through the one after that.

  When she was younger, Lily’s mother had laughed, danced and then wept on the floor. She had existed only to dissolve into a man’s smiles and later drown herself in despair. And she’d taken so long to learn from her mistake.

  But now she was dashing around, digging up the garden and the happiest Lily had ever seen her.

  Lily must learn from her mother’s actions. Learning from her own cost so much more.

  * * *

  Edge paced the floor and kept thinking of the ladder against the window. He didn’t even know if he could climb a ladder. Dukes’ sons didn’t need tools or even need to know where they were stored on the property.

  And he could never have climbed a ladder in his youth. He was watched too closely to get near one. What if he had suffered injury?

  At thirteen, though, he was allowed to select any horse he wanted. They’d even steered him towards the stallions. But he’d selected a spotted mare with a bite out of its ear. He’d loved it the moment he’d seen it. The horse would have taken a bullet for him.

  It didn’t have the same lineage as the other horses and was a hand shorter, but if it came down to it, he would have taken a bullet for it, too. It had neatly sidestepped a runaway carriage and hadn’t balked a bit when caught in the lightning storm. But after it had died, he’d bought the perfect stallion. The one who’d tossed Edge into the water and nearly caused him to drown.

  He didn’t know if Lily was more like the spotted mare or the stallion, but he suspected she was a bit of both. But he’d just have to get on the ladder because he couldn’t live like this any longer.

  He turned. Tools. Gaunt would surely know.

  His hand paused at the bell, but he rang for Gaunt anyway.

  Gaunt opened the door, his face impassive.

  ‘I need a nail,’ Edge said.

  ‘Certainly.’ Gaunt changed no more than if Edge had asked for
a glass of brandy and, when Gaunt returned, the nail lay unmoving, probably cleaned recently, and lying in the middle of a silver tray.

  Edge picked it up and didn’t remember if he’d ever held a nail before. He met Gaunt’s eyes. ‘Thank you.’

  Gaunt left without questioning the request.

  Edge left the room immediately after Gaunt. He wondered if his footfalls were heard on the floor below and how quickly his servants could communicate to each other.

  Stepping into the back garden, he walked around the house until he stood under Lily’s window. The ladder had fallen on to the ground. He bent and lifted it, feeling the muscles in his arms tighten. He’d not expected the weight. But it didn’t matter. He put it against the window, thumping it into place, testing it.

  He forced himself not to turn back and look towards his home, suspecting he’d feel like a daft stable boy instead of a duke. Regardless, he wouldn’t be able to see the eyes watching him. Yet all it would take would be one pair of eyes to inform the others. He expected his servants to be watchful of the things going on outside his household. They were paid well to do so. Sometimes he wished otherwise. He wasn’t meant to be the one they watched, not that it really mattered, not now, at least.

  He found the hammer resting nearby and began to climb the ladder. His stallion had felt sturdier.

  The ladder gave a bit, springing under his weight, but Edge reached the top. He braced his boots on the rungs and used his weight to steady himself, and pulled the handkerchief from his pocket. Then he flourished the white flag in the air. No sense in making someone strain their eyes.

  Next, he pulled out the nail and with two raps quickly secured the handkerchief into the frame where it would flutter in front of the window.

  Dropping the hammer to the ground, he descended. Feet on firm ground, he looked up. A breeze fluttered the handkerchief across the panes. He took the ladder and put it near the Hightowers’ front door and told their butler to be sure it was put away.

  * * *

  Edge’s shoulder leaned against his own window frame. He was lost in thought until a rap on the door surprised him. He raised his head and looked to the doorway. ‘Enter.’

  Gaunt walked in, again carrying the tray, only this time it had a white cloth. ‘Your mother sent one of her handkerchiefs,’ he said, lifting it and bringing a medicinal smell into the room.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Gaunt turned. ‘Best of luck to you, Your Grace.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Gaunt.’

  With that, he left.

  Edge raised his hand, palm up to the heavens. Now, his staff could confide in him and tell him what they thought.

  The handkerchief didn’t lighten Edge’s spirit. If one didn’t work, then a dozen wouldn’t work.

  * * *

  An hour later, he strode to the door and peered around the corner of the Hightower house to inspect the neighbouring window sill. The cloth was gone.

  He didn’t wait until complete darkness to move to the bench. It seemed pointless. He took a stroll in the gardens, then made himself comfortable on the bench. If her servants were as helpful as his, perhaps they would also give her a message.

  He heard the door close, but didn’t know if the steps he heard were truly hers or if his imagination filled in the sound for him.

  She walked around the hedge and he stood.

  ‘I’m returning this,’ she said of the handkerchief. ‘It has a hole in it, however.’

  He took it between two fingers, then clasped his other hand around it and tugged it through the circle of his hand until he reached the end of the cloth, and he pulled it, bandage-like, around his knuckles. ‘Why did you do it?’ he asked, watching her through the fading light. ‘Why did you tell the newspaper of my father’s child?’

  ‘The newspaper printed another tale about Mother’s life, this one false. The publisher was hurting Abigail. Abigail wanted to marry and the stories were making it harder for her to meet eligible men. I’d had enough.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Agatha Crump had visited to commiserate with me about how she’d heard the news that the old Duke had said he wouldn’t be inviting the Hightower sisters to any more soirées at his house. I knew he’d not wanted the risk of us saying something in society to reveal his secret life. Before his words, we’d been invited to many different places, but afterwards only a few invitations arrived. I didn’t know at first why people stopped inviting us.’

  ‘He wasn’t himself at the end. He’d had stumbling spells a few years before he died and he never seemed quite the same after.’

  ‘I didn’t go there planning to hurt your family. I only wanted the publisher to stop hurting mine,’ she said. ‘I truly thought the man had heard about the baby since he knew so much about my mother. I was angry that the newspaper kept saying so many bad things about my mother and father, and yet your father was meeting his friend at Mother’s house so often. They’d spent the summer together and it seemed everyone knew. At least, all my mother’s friends did. Then when I said the words about the baby being on the way and him not caring—I saw the look on the publisher’s face. No one had told him.’

  She reached out, putting her hand on Edgeworth’s, her touch shooting through his body.

  ‘I couldn’t take it back. It was too late. And then I read the words. And your mother had been so kind to me. And you as well. I felt bad for that.’

  She stepped back, removing her hand, opening a chasm between them.

  ‘Lily?’

  ‘I can’t live like my mother and I can’t live in the world of—’ She held out her hands, palms up. ‘Your world. The people who watch your every move.’

  ‘Lily, your movements are reserved. Not the kind to pull unwanted attention.’

  She turned away. ‘Nevertheless, I don’t want to be watched so carefully—to have my movements noted and examined. To have my words repeated and possibly twisted. When a person errs, and it’s talked about, the person deserves some of the words, surely. But when the truth is twisted, as it was with my birth—I didn’t deserve that. Your mother didn’t deserve the hurt of the words said about her marriage. It was bad enough she was betrayed.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why my father’s situation was so difficult. The public nature of it. Perhaps it bothered me most because of that.’

  She closed her eyes and tried to explain it to herself as much as him. But she didn’t even want to hear the words from her own lips.

  ‘It’s just...’ She paused, putting a hand to her chest. ‘I feel the eruptions inside me. The flutters and...other things. I feel differently when I am with you and then when I am away from you it feels that I’m lost. I have to be near you to feel alive. And I cannot bear a lifetime of such feelings inside my body. I saw what they did to my mother.’

  ‘I certainly hope those feelings are normal, because I have them, too. It’s love.’

  ‘Love? But it doesn’t feel good. And I so fear being like my mother.’

  ‘No. You’re nothing like her.’

  ‘How do you know? You were away at school and she hardly ever was here.’

  His voice softened. ‘I remember her once, shouting at your father. I’d never seen such a thing. A husband and wife shouting at each other the same as the street urchins. “You’re not her,” he said. “I know that. And I am not my father. I know that.’

  He stepped forward, pulling her hands into his and holding them. ‘The difference we have is that we’ve both seen how things can go wrong—very wrong. And the destruction and pain the disruptions cause. And we’ve liked each other. Always.’

  He put the lightest kiss to one cheek and then one on the other and brushed a third at her lips. ‘I know you love me and you don’t want to. But you do.’

  ‘You’re so certain?’


  ‘Yes. Will you marry me? You’ll have a lifetime to grow used to the idea of a different kind of marriage than what you’ve seen. A marriage unique to you and me, and not like either of our parents’ unions. Perhaps that is why I’ve taken my time and not married in the past. I was waiting for the time when it was right for you and me to wed.’

  He pulled her hand to his lips, palm flat, and kissed it. She let her hand remain and the smile behind his lips flowed through his fingers into her heart.

  Lily reminded him of orange biscuits, of laughter, and of caring in the way she mothered her little sister. She reminded him of a world that almost existed and possibly could. ‘You don’t make me think of your mother or father. You make me think of you.’

  While looking into her eyes, he spoke, and even in the darkness she could see something in his face she’d never seen before.

  ‘Lily. I love you more than I love anyone. More than all the people of my past put together. Let’s start new today and move onward with only the memories we build from now.’

  ‘The memories will always be there.’

  ‘Only as reminders of the past and not a part of who we are going to be.’

  He pulled her close, then closer still, finally enfolding his arms around her. ‘I might like hearing how you feel about me.’

  With the fortress of his chest connecting them, as if their blood flowed through each other’s hearts, she said, ‘I may have not entirely told the truth when I searched you out to ask if you were going to court my sister. I hoped she’d wed someone else and I hoped to spend the rest of my life a spinster, living next door to a duke who never married, and sometimes we’d meet in the gardens. You were the silent knight I dreamed of, reading his lessons so he might some day conquer the world.’

  ‘All I care about at this moment is if I conquered your feelings.’

  ‘You hold them in your hand.’

  Epilogue

  Edge was dressed in black except for his white shirt and cravat as he waited for his wife to finish her preparations for their night out at Beatrice’s charity art showing.