The Marquess’s Hand_A Regency Romance Novel

by Rosie Wynter

  She walked determinedly down the various twisting streets until she came to a row of plain and rather shabby-looking houses on the edge of the village. Remembering her sister’s instruction, Rosalie walked up to the house on the left-hand side, and knocked on the door. She could hear movement from within and felt her breath catching in her throat as she prepared herself for what was to come. She held her hands behind her back, fingers fidgeting and winding about each other nervously. She reminded herself that it was perfectly possible that the Donne family had long ago quit the town and that her entire quest would come to a disappointing halt here. In a strange sort of way, a part of her would have been grateful if that were the case. The part of herself that remained uncertain of Mr Farrell wished to escape the meeting altogether, in order to avoid the disappointment that would come were Harriet to confirm her worst fears.

  When the door opened, Rosalie was left in no doubt that she had come to the right place. The woman who answered the door, with her blonde curls and fair, rosy cheeks, reminded her at once of Mr Farrell’s daughter, Abigail, and also of the portrait that hung unassumingly in his drawing room. When Mr Farrell had said that he had failed to capture the essence of the woman he had painted, Rosalie could see that he had told no lie. The woman before her was a true beauty, and Rosalie could easily see how any man could have fallen into temptation with such a woman. Though a rough approximation, the portrait of her in Mr Farrell’s home did not do her justice.

  As Rosalie opened her mouth to speak, she realised that she did not have the faintest idea what she should say. If she jumped straight to the heart of the matter and told the woman she was here to discuss Mr Farrell, it was perfectly possible that the door would be slammed in her face. At the same time, she could not think of any reasonable excuse as to why she should be calling at this woman’s door. In the end, all she could do was ask the most important and most pressing question first. “Excuse me, are you by any chance Miss Harriet Donne?”

  The woman took an inordinately deep breath and seemed exceedingly nervous as she looked at Rosalie. She did not even answer verbally but just nodded her head, with her eyes trained on the ground. When she did finally speak, her voice was but a whisper. “I… I am surprised you came all the way here; surprised that you found me, at all. I am glad you have been able to, however.”

  Rosalie’s forehead creased in confusion. “You know who I am?”

  For a brief second, Harriet’s eyes looked up at Rosalie directly. Just as in her portrait, they were a kind of hazel brown and not the vibrant green that Abigail possessed. “Yes. You are Miss Rosalie Curtis, are you not?”

  Now it was Rosalie’s turn to nod dumbly, words failing her at the surprise of being known by the woman she had come to see.

  “Please, won’t you come in? I do not have much to offer you by way of hospitality, but I can make some tea and offer you some bread and butter, if you would like.” Miss Donne opened the door wider then and took a step back, indicating that Rosalie should step inside. Rosalie obeyed without delay, eager to discover the truth she had come searching for and to learn how it was that her visit came as no surprise to Harriet Donne.

  Although Harriet’s home did not appear to be much from the outside, the interior was surprisingly warm and cosy. The stone floor was covered over with a warm rug, and the furniture was of a quality one did not immediately associate with serving folk. Rosalie was encouraged to sit on a plush cushioned chair as Harriet busied herself at the fire, checking that her kettle still had enough water and coaxing the hearth to light. The girl’s nervousness was readily apparent by the way she seemed to stumble over simple tasks. It took several attempts before she could get the fire going, and her hands seemed to tremble as she worked.

  Not wishing to torment the girl or to cause her undue stress, Rosalie leaned forward and put a hand on Miss Donne’s back. Harriet flinched, at first, but then turned to Rosalie with a troubled look on her face. “Please, you do not need to fuss over me or see to my comfort. I’ve come here to ask you what you know of Mr Farrell. I don’t know if you can help me, but I need to know if the rumours regarding him are true and, if they are not, why it is that he refuses, so fervently, to clear his name.”

  Once again, Harriet looked down at her feet, then over to the kettle and then back to Rosalie. Already she seemed a little upset, and her body seemed to quiver more now than it had a moment before. “Quite right,” she whispered. Moving away from the fireside, she took a seat opposite Rosalie. She placed her hands in her lap and then fell silent. At first, Rosalie did not know what to make of this and wondered if perhaps the girl were waiting to be asked questions. However, after a minute or so, Harriet spoke. “I suppose I should start by telling you how I know who you are, Miss Curtis.”

  Rosalie nodded encouragingly. “I can only guess that you are in frequent contact with Mr Farrell. I’m bound to say that factor alone creates more questions in my head than it delivers answers.”

  Harriet pursed her lips. “Yes, I am in frequent contact with Peter.”

  Rosalie took a sharp breath as the woman spoke Mr Farrell’s first name so casually. She had, of course, assumed that the two were close, but having it confirmed in this way raised her hackles, and she found herself feeling a sudden resentment towards this woman, even though she did not yet know her story. “May I ask just why you communicate with him so much? You… Are you perchance his wife?”

  “No, absolutely not. Peter is... Well, he is exceedingly dear to me. I assure you, though, that our regard for one another is far more like that of a brother and sister and not at all what I fear you suspect.”

  Rosalie could see her confrontational words had set Harriet even more on edge. If she was not careful, she knew she might end up scaring the girl to a point where she could get no answers from her at all. “Please forgive me. It was rude of me to say such a thing. I am just struggling to understand exactly who you are and why it is that Mr Farrell is keeping you hidden here.”

  Harriet looked at her fingers, fidgeting as she answered in a halting manner. “Everything Peter has done has been for my protection, mine and my daughter’s.”

  Rosalie leaned forward at the mention of a daughter. She knew that Harriet could be talking of no one else but Abigail. “You are Abigail’s mother then. Is…” Rosalie thought for a moment about her next words. She had almost asked if Peter was the father, but as she considered all she had heard so far, she felt this could not be the case. “Mr Farrell is not Abigail’s father, is he?”

  Harriet shook her head very slowly. Her shoulders rose and fell as her body shuddered, and the very next moment, she broke down in a flood of tears. Rosalie almost did not know what to do. In that moment, all she cared about was finding the truth from this woman, and it was somewhat inconvenient to have her falling apart before her eyes. However, Rosalie had enough sympathy within her to move over to Harriet’s side and to put an arm around her. As a stranger, she didn’t know what good this would do, but she was relieved to find that Harriet’s convulsions did settle somewhat as a result of that touch.

  “Forgive me,” Harriet was able to say, as she seemed to master her faculties once again. “This… This is not an easy conversation for me. If you can believe it, that was the first time I have even admitted to anyone that Abigail is my daughter. I… I do want you to know the truth, though, and I must ask that you indulge my weakness.”

  Rosalie withdrew her arm from around Harriet’s shoulders and returned to her seat. “Please take your time. No one will interrupt us, and I am happy to give you as long as you need to tell me your story.”

  “Thank you, Miss Curtis. I can see why Peter has taken such a strong liking to you.” Harriet rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. The whites of her eyes were now visibly red and sore with the skin around them slightly puffed up. It was clear, though, that Harriet sought to struggle through her feelings, and Rosalie was grateful to the girl for what she was doing.

  “Peter and I grew up with e
ach other from the youngest age. My father was old Dr. Farrell’s steward and enjoyed a good friendship with his master.

  Dr. Farrell practically insisted that I live under the same roof as him, so that I could be near to my father, and showed no qualms or objection to my befriending his son during my youth.

  For the longest time, Peter and I did not see each other as servant and master, and it never seemed to occur to us that one day I would serve him as a maid. It was most gratifying when I did begin working for him, as he never stopped treating me as a sister. He even took the time to introduce me as an equal to a number of his friends and acquaintances. In all honesty, I never truly felt as if I worked for him or his father, and, because of the way he treated me, I saw myself in many respects an equal to the men he introduced me to. It sounds stupid saying it out loud, but it was a testament to how well I was treated, both by Peter and his father, that I felt so comfortable among my social betters.

  Caught between the life of a servant and a lady, I unwittingly found myself falling into bad decisions as I grew older. Peter’s so-called friends had made fortunes in the world of business and were universally charming, and they paid me a great deal of attention. Peter did not realise this, but more than a few of them exchanged messages with me in secret, or stole odd moments alone with me in Peter’s house, when the opportunity arose. Were I a true lady of London, I’m sure Peter or his father would have paid notice to this and objected. As it was, with my being a servant, there was nothing particularly unusual about my being alone in a room with the gentlemen, and it was expected that my conversations with such folk would tend to nothing more than business. Older and wiser as I now am, I truly wish this had been the case.”

  Rosalie was surprised by how self-deprecating Harriet was. Despite the dire nature of what she was saying and the shame of her actions in her youth, Rosalie found herself developing a kind of begrudging respect for the woman. It took a certain measure of strength to own up to one’s mistakes as she was doing, and even more to acknowledge them openly to another person. Though she didn’t mean to hurry the conversation along, Rosalie was eager to get to the bottom of the mystery. “Am I to assume that these ill-advised friendships with men of business led to some kind of affair?”

  “Exactly correct,” Harriet affirmed. Whereas beforehand, her emotions had left her shy and retiring, she seemed to have built up some strength as she told her story and now seemed possessed of a certain confidence, or perhaps it was stubborn volition driving her to confess her past sins. “My father died when I was nineteen, and I was left with no guiding figure or watchful eye to look out for me. It was a dark time for me, and although Peter and his father showed the utmost kindness and care toward me, I found my grief eased far better by another man.”

  Rosalie felt a lump in her throat and tried to swallow it down. “Someone used your father’s death to make advances to you?”

  Harriet turned her head towards the fire. All emotion was now gone from her, banished to some corner of her mind. Perhaps she could not say the things she was saying without distancing herself from them and treating the past as a historian would have a great battle or calamity. “Yes. I cannot say if the man’s choice to comfort me was motivated purely from a desire to abuse my trust. I like to think that in some small way he genuinely did wish to help ease my pain at my father’s passing. Whatever the truth of his motivation, however, I found myself giving more than I should of my time, my heart, and even, I am ashamed to say, my body to him. I know there is no excuse for what I did, but I want you to know that I thought myself in love and believed wholeheartedly that the gentleman to whom I had formed an attachment believed himself in love with me, also. The day I came to him and told him I was with child, I remember believing that after he had conquered the initial shock of the news, he would be genuinely happy for what we had created together and would see to marrying me at once.”

  Rosalie frowned. In many respects, she could understand just how Harriet had made those girlish mistakes that had marred her life. She sounded as if she was once a true romantic, just as her own sister Claire was, and she could easily believe this woman to have fallen prey to some rake through nothing more than his honeyed words and attentive looks. That was how it had been for her, with Wareham, after all. “And just where were Dr. Farrell and Peter during all of this? I know you say they cared for you, almost as they would have for a sister, but just how were you able to carry on a secret affair under their roof?”

  Harriet shook her head vehemently then. “Please do not misunderstand me. Both Peter and his father bear absolutely no blame for what happened to me. They were neither neglectful of me nor did they leave me too much freedom. Please remember that old Dr. Farrell was a much-respected doctor and frequently out of the house on call to his patients. Meanwhile, Peter was only just beginning to see dividends from his business in the Americas. That, along with his courtship of Lady Georgiana meant that I was frequently alone in the house. I will spare you the particulars, but the man I believed myself in love with would visit during these hours alone, or else I would find an excuse to meet him privately.”

  Rosalie was glad that Harriet did not give any further details regarding the specifics of her time with the cad who had wronged her. Rosalie did not care to know and kept her mind focused on Mr Farrell’s part in this curious affair. “So then help me understand the rest,” she continued. You found yourself pregnant with this man’s child. I can surmise that when you told him the news, he did not ask for your hand as you had hoped, but what happened next?”

  “When I told the man of my condition, he baulked. If you can believe it, he actually fled from me, running as though I was a beast trying to devour him. I was so stunned by his reaction that I could do absolutely nothing, and for two weeks it was as though all emotion in my body had been drained and I was just a shell walking the earth. It was during that time that Peter began to notice that something was amiss. He began to ply me with questions, to discern just what had altered my spirit. He, of course, believed that my melancholia stemmed from some unprocessed grief regarding my father’s death and was thoroughly stunned when at last I confessed all to him. After the treatment I had received from Abigail’s father, I expected Peter to disown and distance himself from me, as my lover had done. He had every reason to do so, but he surprised me with his kindness and brotherly devotion.

  At first, he tried to coax the identity of the father from me. I believe he wished to seek out the man and bring him in irons to our door; to force him to marry me and accept responsibility for all he had done. I, however, would not furnish him with the man’s name. Despite being abandoned and betrayed by that man, I still had enough foolish devotion and youthful optimism to believe that he would come around in the end. I held out a naive hope that once he had conquered the initial shock of what he had done, he would come seeking my forgiveness and do the right thing by me. In time, as I realised that this hope was a vain one, my decision to keep private the father’s name came from more practical concerns. Though it is not the kind of thing people talk about in polite society, we all know the abuses a person can get away with when their crimes are directed towards the lower classes. At the end of the day, I had to accept that I was an orphan serving girl, of little to no consequence, and could never have given satisfactory proof to the courts to prove my child’s true parentage.”

  “But what of Peter? Surely, with his influence, he could have brought the man to account?” Rosalie was now truly appalled by all that Harriet had been made to suffer and found that her own personal interest in the girl’s tale was being superseded by her concern for the woman herself.

  “There was really nothing Peter could have done, although he never understood that himself. The truth of the matter is that the man in question, the man who had wronged me, was of a position and consequence far exceeding Peter’s own. I knew that his status would shield him from all attacks Peter might make against him.” Harriet heaved a great sigh and immediately continue
d. “I decided to withdraw to the country for seclusion during the pregnancy, and Peter joined me. He made excuses to his father, whom we had not informed of the matters surrounding the case. Peter said that he was away on business, and for several months he looked after me as faithfully and carefully as though I were his own flesh-and-blood relative. We neither of us knew just what we were going to do regarding the child. Nothing can prepare you for the feelings that come when you become a mother and see your child for the first time. The day Abigail came into this world, I realised that I could not bear the thought of her being declared a bastard in the eyes of society; nor could I give her up to the parish on the pretence of being an orphan. The moment I saw her, I knew I wanted her to be protected and loved and cared for. It was then that I… I-”

  “You prevailed on Peter to take the child as his own,” Rosalie finished on Harriet’s behalf, guessing the end.

  “I know it was selfish of me, but I could not do otherwise. The moment I saw Abigail looking up at me, I just knew I had to give her the kind of life she deserved. When Peter came quietly into the room after the midwives had left, I begged him to say that the child was his own. I knew he was courting Lady Georgiana and even suggested to him that the two of them together could pass the child off as their own should the woman prove open to the idea.”

  “And Peter simply accepted this? Despite having done nothing wrong, he agreed at once to declare Abigail as his own to all of society?” Rosalie could scarcely believe what she was hearing. In a way, his actions were well in keeping with everything she knew of him. In spite of his loving her, he had never been selfish and always insisted that Rosalie looked to a so-called better man to give her happiness. That kind of devotion to others, that stubborn selflessness, well matched the man Harriet was describing in her story.