by Abigail Agar
A Governess in the Duke's Darkness
A REGENCY ROMANCE NOVEL
ABIGAIL AGAR
Copyright © 2018 by Abigail Agar
All Rights Reserved.
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Website: Abigail Agar
Table of Contents
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A Governess in the Duke's Darkness
Introduction
The somber, terribly handsome Duke of Wellington struggles after the death of his beloved wife. His four whip-smart, difficult children run circles around him, and his musical instrument business slips through his fingers. He desperately needs help, life is unbearable without the love of his life. Soon, a terrible illness robs him of his sight too. He’s cast into darkness. Angrier than ever, he has guarded his heart forever from any emotion. Will he overcome his wife's death or will he slowly drive himself to madness?
Marina Blackwater is the youngest daughter of a very poor family. When she’s sent to the Duke’s house as a last-ditch effort for the governess position, she doesn’t know what she’s up against as the children push her through every possible challenge. But when she gets to listen to the Duke playing his violin furiously, she gets butterflies in her stomach and she can't find a way to resist his handsomeness and passion. How is Marina going to help the Duke soften his bitter heart?
Even in the midst of darkness, will the Duke see the light his caring governess has brought to his shadowy estate? Or will she be cast out, as well, leaving the Duke in continued darkness, never able to feel love for his music, or for his children ever again?
Chapter 1
Sunlight crept over the yonder moors, glowing through the tips of the treetops. The Duke of Wellington stood, glowering at the windowsill, his violin tipped against his neck. Again, he’d spent another chaotic night without sleep, humming his violin until his emotion made him play far too quickly, making the notes screech. When he finished one fifteen or twenty-minute song or another, he always paused, found that his cheeks were damp—although he didn’t remember crying.
He felt disconnected from that overzealous act: weeping. It was something other men did. Certainly not him, who’d spent the majority of his 20s as a soldier—his face stern, unafraid to peer out at the French armies with nostrils flared and posture straight.
But that hadn’t ensured that horrible things wouldn’t happen in his life. His wife: the love of the previous fifteen years of his life, had died nine months before. It had been nine months of aching loneliness. Nine months of sleepless nights, knowing that the warmth of her body wasn’t felt atop the mattress beside him; knowing that they’d snuck a shovel into the soil and dropped her body within. She wasn’t coming back.
And with that, another wave of emotion crashed into his chest, turning his lips downward. He slid his bow over and over the strings of the violin, causing it to screech wildly. Downstairs, at his large estate, he heard the servants and maids hustling about. He felt that they were little ants, trying to dart out of his angry step. If he were actually walking over them, he would crush them. And he knew he would feel nothing.
It was nearly six-thirty in the morning, which meant the children would rise very shortly, and the hustle and bustle of another sombre day in September would begin. He swept his violin into its case, snapping it closed, and rubbed his fingers together, blinking. He knew it was probably just because he’d been awake all night, but his eyesight felt inarticulate. It was as if he couldn’t quite see the fine lines around anything. Like everything was blurring into everything else.
“You really should get more sleep,” his doctor, Melrose, had explained to him several times since his wife’s passing. “The body toils when you’re not giving it enough rest. And how do you suppose you’re supposed to care for your children …”
At this, the Duke of Wellington had given the doctor a cruel look—peering down over his nose at the smaller, rat-like man. His tongue had burned with desire to say something whip-smart and cruel, as was the Duke’s custom when he felt most enraged. He didn’t need anyone else to care for his children. He needed only himself.
He’d promised his wife that he would see to their care, himself. That they wouldn’t have strange nannies darting in and out of the estate, dampening the connection the children had with their mother. The Duke felt that the children needed to remember their mother through his teachings, through his stories. Although, as of now, it had been nine months, and he still struggled to speak of her. Of his darling Marybeth.
They’d met when he’d been in his early 30s: a brash ex-soldier, who’d recently been injured in a battle in France. The injury had cast him back to England for recuperation. He’d struggled with a bum leg, limping through the woods alongside his father’s estate in Leeds. And one day, when the fog slipped deep within the trees, making him feel as though each breath was almost frosted, thick, he stumbled into a beautiful young woman—a young woman with electric green eyes, with blonde hair that curled down her chest (unwrapped, as she hadn’t assumed she would run into anyone that day, not that far in the woods). At once, she’d felt anxious, drawing her fingers through her hair. But the Duke, the stumbling soldier, made a soft joke to her, causing her to giggle in this way that seemed like their personal secret.
Marybeth and the Duke had walked together out of the woods, easing slowly from one path to the next. Marybeth’s fingers had graced along the edge of the Duke’s. Electricity had shot between them. But, at the edge of the woods, Marybeth pointed towards the far hilltop, where she said her father awaited. Her eyes had burned towards the Duke’s, almost expectant. Yet, her lips didn’t dare say the words that he so wanted her to say to him: come find me. Come be with me. Make me yours.
The Duke didn’t wait long to find her. Within weeks, he and Marybeth were courting—taking long walks along the wood’s edge, dining together with her parents, and his. The Duke was preparing to take over the operations for his father’s musical instrument shop—a grand, two-hundred-year-old affair that frequently provided instruments to the King and Queen, as well as all other royalty. The Duke sensed that Marybeth’s parents were pleased at the match. But regardless, he was head-over-heels, a man simmering with love.
He hadn’t imagined it would turn out this way. One wasn’t meant to assume that death would haunt your most beautiful memories. Even after four children, after prosperous years at the estate they’d lived in together (the one he, himself, now haunted each and every night, playing his violin).
He heard Christopher first. Christopher was the wildest of the pack—scampering up and down the halls, his feet stomping too loud for his eight-year-old weight. The Duke leaned heavily against the windowsill, wondering if he had the power to sit at the breakfast table with the four of them that morning. So often, as he gazed out over them—watching them nibble their biscuits, the crumbs falling to their
plates, he felt unbearably sure that he would never be enough for them. He could never show the love they deserved. The love they’d lost, when their mother had passed. She’d been the more cheerful one. The one more apt to dot her finger against their cheeks, cackle as she poked fun at them. “Christopher, if you make that noise again, I swear I’ll lose my head!” Always, she’d scolded with a sense that nothing truly mattered. Like the five of them could get on, against the affront of the rest of the world.
Claudia followed. Claudia—bright and nearly twelve years old, with those golden locks that snaked down her back (so much like her mother’s). She darted down the hallway after Christopher, calling, “Christopher, you have to calm yourself! Jesus, you’ll wake Father.”
Always, she was worried about the Duke, trying to ensure that he didn’t fall into one of his “irritant” moods (as she so described it to others, when she thought she was outside of the Duke’s earshot). Claudia was, truth be told, probably his least favorite, the one that he most blamed when things went wrong. As the eldest, she was meant to uphold Lottie, Christopher, Max, and ensure they were safe, happy. And usually, when he blamed her for their defeat, he felt most anxious. He knew it was irresponsible to give her any sense that she’d done anything wrong.
He knew it fell on his shoulders. That he, Aldolphus Caldwell, was the reason that she felt unsafe, that she felt she was meant to ensure that her siblings were happy, content—not weeping into the middle of the night, or not getting any sleep at all (like their father).
But of course, much of her time involved straining to keep her father, the Duke of Wellington, smiling. Telling soft jokes, in that girlish voice of hers; ensuring that his room was kept clean and his violin shining. All this. Yet, still, the Duke continued to feel unloved, dark, volatile—on the fringe of a nervous breakdown, perhaps.
He didn’t imagine a time in which he would ever feel love again.
The Duke of Wellington walked towards the small basin in the side of the room, splashing water on his face. He scrubbed at his cheeks, digging his nails into his skin, and blinked towards the far wall. There she was—Lottie, calling out Claudia’s name. Asking for attention. But at four years old, wasn’t that warranted? She was his youngest, a dark brunette with another set of eyes just like her mother’s. Lottie was a far different breed than the other three—mischievous, whimsical. Since her mother had passed when she was only three, it was already clear that her memory of her was dwindling. It had never had time to fully flourish.
Then, there was Max. He was the second youngest, a quiet, anxious kid, who, the Duke knew, he saw himself in (often, this was the most dastardly thing about having children, he knew: seeing something in them that you hate in yourself). How nervous he, himself, had been when he’d been younger! How he’d been so frightened about the weight of the world. Now, Max peered out of large, black eyes, seemingly marvelling at how horrendously difficult it all would be for him. And the Duke wanted to affirm this knowledge. Yes: it would be difficult. Yes: Max wouldn’t feel safe, most of the time. He would have to grow accustomed to that. Especially in the wake of his mother’s passing.
The Duke dressed in a separate pair of pants, another shirt, wanting to make sure that his children didn’t know he’d been awake since the dinner before. He took a pause at the mirror, slashing his fingers across his eyebrows. “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing,” he marvelled at himself. “Just making it up as you go along.”
The Duke stepped into the hallway, adjusting his coat. He gripped the railing at the staircase, his feet falling heavily on the wood, making it creak. Down below, the marble floor stretched out from the foyer, towards the yonder ballroom. He hadn’t been inside the ballroom since his wife had passed, as the pair of them had spent many a night twirling over the floor, their feet flashing quickly to the tune of whatever music they could find. Usually, it was a servant, or a random maid, with a slight affinity for the violin or the guitar. Sometimes, the Duke himself would just play the violin or the piano, watching with a wide grin as his wife twirled around and around. There was such a freedom to that time.
Three of the four children were seated at the breakfast table, dressed in black. Lottie’s feet snuck back and forth beneath the table, while Max’s eyes were drawn to the empty, gleaming plate before him. Claudia looked up at him, expectant, her lips curved downward.
Only Christopher was absent.
“So, Claudia. You want to tell me where your brother is?” the Duke asked. His voice was much harsher than he’d expected it to be. It grated against Claudia, making her face grow tenser.
“Um. He was only just… I’m sorry, Father,” Claudia said. She leaped up from her chair, whirling towards the kitchen. As she rushed, the Duke could hear a tiny whimpering from her throat. Already, he’d cast his oldest daughter to tears. What kind of monster was he?
“Christopher! Come, now. Father’s here, and you can’t possibly think …” Claudia’s voice rang out from the kitchen.
“Christopher! Get your hand away from that pot this instant!” This, the voice of Sally Hodgins, the head maid of the house, echoed from hallway to hallway.
The Duke perched himself at the end of the table, crossing his firm arms across his chest. His head had begun to beat, a sign of a horrific coming headache. As he waited, Sally bolted into the room, her moderate-sized stomach quaking beneath her light pink dress and white apron. The woman’s 40-something face was rather frog-like, chubby, and it shook as she began to speak. In her hand, she gripped Christopher’s little arm with a ferocity that the Duke might have said was too great—had he the strength to protest what was happening in his house, at this time.
“You should have seen ’im, sir. With his hand around the ladle, already digging into the breakfast …” Sally said, clucking her tongue. “I’ll be, I know you didn’t raise these children to be this way. But I declare, if you don’t think they should go to some kind of boarding school …”
“That’s ridiculous, Sally, and you know it,” the Duke said. His voice was a jolt of reality. Max’s eyes burned deeper into the plate before him, seemingly far too frightened to peer up at his father. But the Duke didn’t have the current patience to eliminate his anger.
Sally’s lower lip bumbled slightly. But she righted her chin, unfurling her fingers from Christopher’s arm. “Well then, I suspect you might as well get yourself a new governess. As the one you hired just last week has taken off in the midst of the night.” She clucked her tongue again. “That’s the second one’s done this, you know.”
The Duke glared at Christopher, forcing him to take tiny steps towards the table and slip into his chair.
“Does anyone want to tell me why the governess decided to up and leave in the middle of the night? Claudia?” the Duke growled. “I don’t imagine that bright and shining girl I hired a few weeks back could have changed her mind so swiftly about wanting to help us out. Not without something major happening.”
As he spoke, the cook, a woman named Margaret Collins, ambled into the dining room with a gleaming, stone-coloured pot. She dropped it in the centre of the table and began to ladle out porridge, simmering with apples and cinnamon. She coated each of the children’s plates, her eyes cast downward. Christopher gripped his spoon, preparing to dive into the food the moment he was given the okay. Little force of nature.
“Christopher? Any idea why your governess decided to leave in the middle of the night?” the Duke asked, his voice dry.
“No, sir,” Christopher said.
“Claudia? Any clue?”
Claudia’s eyes traced over Christopher’s face, before dropping to the table. She knew better than to throw her brother into trouble, just to clear her name. “There might have been some issues, while you were at work yesterday.” Claudia sighed. “But I didn’t imagine it would be enough for her to leave.”
The Duke gripped his fork, stabbing it into the top of his oatmeal. It steamed towards his face. “Didn’t you lot like her? She was
a fine woman.”
“A bit old,” Max piped up.
The Duke tilted his head at Max, surprised that he’d said anything. Max reached forward and dug into his oatmeal, clearly self-conscious. He snuck bits of it into his mouth, chewing far too quickly, like a rodent.
“A bit old?” the Duke demanded. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“She couldn’t play with us,” Lottie said then. “Papa, she was SO old. She was a million years old.”