The Obscure Duchess of Godwin Hall_A Historical Regency Romance Novel

by Hanna Hamilton

  He was interrupted from his thoughts by the entrance of Rebecca and Miss Swanson into the room. The two brothers rose from the table, and once the customary bows and curtsies had been exchanged, Charles exclaimed with a familiarity that Andrew deeply resented, “My dear, you do not look as if you are well rested either.”

  “On the contrary, Duke,” responded Rebecca, inclining her head out of apparent politeness. Andrew was certain that really it was because she had no wish to meet Charles’s eyes. She does look a little faint, Andrew thought. “I spent a very comfortable night.”

  “Perhaps dinner was too heavy,” Charles said, with a tender expression on his face that made Andrew feel quite sick. “I will order some lighter dishes to be prepared for you.”

  “Do not fuss so, Charles.” The chairs were all scraped back again, and they all rose to their feet as the familiar tap of Grandmamma Horatia’s walking stick entered the breakfast room. “I am sure that Lady Rebecca is perfectly capable of saying so herself if she wishes for a change of menu.”

  Andrew saw the almost imperceptibly slight look of gratitude that Rebecca shot his grandmother. It made things even more difficult that he could read her face with such ease.

  “You will have to start speaking up for yourself from now, my dear,” Grandmamma Horatia said to Rebecca. “Men often have an impertinent habit of presuming to know what is best for their wives in every particular, and I believe that the sooner they are disabused of such notions, the better for any marriage.”

  Rebecca forced a smile, but Andrew could clearly see her face fall at the word ‘wives’.

  “I hope that you will not incite my wife to rebel against me, Grandmamma,” Charles said jovially.

  Were it still last night, were the moon still high in the sky and the candles burning brightly, Andrew thought, I suppose that now I should have made a curt response to such a comment from Charles. But I haven’t the appetite for it. Not today.

  Everything seemed dimmed out by the grey morning light of the breakfast room. What Andrew had experienced as the impetuousness of passion the previous night seemed histrionic and foolish to him now.

  Perhaps he had hoped that his opinion would count for something, that by making himself disagreeable he might somehow have been able to exert an impact on the future of his brother’s life.

  I ought to have known better, he thought bitterly, spreading butter across his roll and studiously avoiding the eye contact of everyone else at the table. I have been a second son for long enough to know the score — my opinions and feelings are not of consequence to anybody.

  “I trust that you are looking forward to the dressmaker’s arrival later this morning, my dear?” Charles continued, still in the same forced, jovial tone. Rebecca removed her gaze from her cup of tea long enough to regard her fiancé with a cool blankness.

  “Indeed,” she said. Andrew found himself marveling at her ability to deliver just two syllables with the politeness that emerges only from impeccable breeding yet with not a single ounce of warmth that would be due to an almost-husband.

  “Women are always delighted by such diversions,” Charles announced airily to the room. Andrew took a moment to marvel at the stupidity of his brother’s pronouncing to a room of three women on matters of what women did or did not enjoy. He was so occupied with this thought that he scarcely realized that he spoke aloud.

  “My dear brother, you lack sufficient familiarity with the female sex to be able to observe with any authority what women do or do not like.”

  The observation hung in the silence of the breakfast room. I thought I said it rather affably, he thought to himself. Usually, Andrew was dedicated to behaving in a manner that would be considered socially correct, so this mingled feeling of shame and satisfaction at speaking out of turn in front of company was rather new to him.

  Charles seemed to have decided that the only appropriate response to Andrew’s barbed observation was to feign a heavy coughing fit, but Andrew derived great satisfaction from seeing a shadow of a smile from behind Rebecca’s hand.

  If she is to be married to my brother, and submit to a state of lifelong unhappiness, then to give her whatever smiles she can get will always be my task.

  “Lady Rebecca,” he said, his courteous tone belying the sharp informality with which he had spoken against his brother only a few moments before. “It has been such a long time since the two of us rode out together. Would you care to join me on an excursion this afternoon?”

  He was almost ashamed at the sense of unadulterated delight that flooded his breast at the sight of Rebecca’s wide and unhidden smile at his suggestion, and her exclamation of “Of course! How delightful that should be.”

  Why should I be ashamed? he thought impatiently. It’s only a ride. It is scarcely my fault that I am able to make her happy, even though my brother is apparently incapable of doing so himself.

  It was true that they had ridden out together all their lives. When they were small children, they had gone out on their ponies, accompanied by a groom. Later, in that precious space between childhood and the Season when Rebecca had come out, and the two friends had been deprived of the innocent pleasures of their friendship. They had still ridden together but always chaperoned.

  It struck Andrew as a marvelous irony that now Rebecca was engaged to his brother, he would soon be afforded the intimacy of brother-in-law. Once Rebecca was married to Charles she could be alone with Andrew as much as either of them pleased.

  In a way, it seemed too cruel.

  “I shall join you,” Charles interjected.

  Andrew should perhaps have expected this, but he was nonetheless wrong-footed. Charles had always been a reluctant horseman, and had never chosen to ride when a carriage could be had for the occasion. I suppose he either really wants to spend all his time with Rebecca, or really wishes not to allow me any time with her alone, Andrew thought gloomily.

  There was a silence still, and Andrew realized with horror that Charles had not had the courtesy to invite Miss Swanson along. He stole a look at the lady in question and could see that she was bearing the slight as best she could. She was carefully dabbing at her lip with a napkin, and Andrew had a dreadful suspicion that she was doing her best to conceal a trembling lip.

  I shall give Charles five seconds to invite her, he thought. Five… he stole a glance at his brother, who had returned to the matter of his eggs, seemingly complacently pleased at the arrangements for the day.

  Four… His eyes met Rebecca’s. She was looking in great concern at her friend and met his gaze with an expression of silent appeal.

  Three… He felt a sharp jab in the knee. It was the unmistakable sensation of Grandmamma Horatia’s cane. When her grandsons were boys, she had occasionally deployed the cane as a stealth weapon when Charles or Andrew were behaving in a manner not befitting of young gentlemen.

  Two… “Invite Miss Swanson,” Grandmamma Horatia mouthed emphatically.

  “Miss Swanson!” Andrew said brightly. The young lady looked up with the nervous hope that he had seen before in young women who stood on the edges of balls, praying that they would be asked to dance. “I hope you will be joining us for our excursion? Indeed…” He shot a chilly look at his brother. “I believe that my brother Charles has presumed as such; otherwise he should have asked you himself.”

  Miss Swanson responded with a brief, grateful smile, before returning her eyes to Charles’ face. He was still occupied with his eggs, but seemed to have realized his faux pas and was now studiously avoiding looking at anyone else.

  “It is settled, then,” Charles said, still speaking in the same bright and cheerful tone, but addressing himself exclusively to the tablecloth. “I look forward to it.”

  Although Andrew felt that on the whole, this conversation had not gone in the way that he would have wished, he could take some comfort in the utter lack of conviction in his brother’s voice.

  Chapter 16

  “Well, you got every ounce of speed
out of him!” Andrew eased his horse to a trot once he had caught up with Rebecca, and they exchanged a smile. It was the kind of uninhibited smile that they had not shared since a younger and more innocent time.

  “And what a speed it was!” Rebecca replied with a laugh. “He is a magnificent creature.”

  “I expect Charles will give him to you once you are married,” Andrew responded. “There’s no one else in the house who can ride him. Certainly, he isn’t Charles’ sort of mount!”

  Rebecca could see that Andrew had only brought up the matter of the marriage in order to make a jest at his brother’s expense, but nonetheless it had the effect of dimming the smile on her face.

  Enjoy yourself, some steely inner voice reminded her as she felt herself start to deflate from within. You do not get many opportunities to do so. So, you might as well relish them while they last.

  It was true. There had been a fierce joy that had lit up within her when, with the four horses walking sedately side by side, Andrew had called out, “I’ll race you, Rebecca!”

  She had not needed telling twice, urging the splendid gelding away, away from Charles and Caroline, away from Godwin Hall, and for a few minutes at least, away from all her troubles. It had been brightened still further by Andrew’s unhampered use of her Christian name — just ‘Rebecca’ — no ‘Lady’.

  “Perhaps, in that case, I shall ride him when I most wish to get away from Charles,” she replied. She tried to make her voice light, and for the most part, she succeeded. She was getting better at deception by the day, she was sure.

  “Well, for the time being, we had better wait for them to catch up,” said Andrew, glancing back at the ridge where they had just come from. Charles and Caroline had yet to appear.

  “We can walk on,” Rebecca said. She could detect that Andrew’s ingrained sense of propriety had caught up with him, and he was concerned about having left Charles alone with Caroline. “I know that Caroline is not my sister by blood, but as far as I am concerned her being alone with Charles is no different to my being alone with you.”

  It was the wrong choice of words. She realized it as soon as they were out and flushed a deeper shade of pink, deeper even than the fine glow that had been worked up from the riding.

  “That is true,” Andrew said quietly. “And it is certainly not the first time that we have ridden out without a chaperone.”

  “The first time in a long time, though,” Rebecca said, her voice lowered to be as soft as his. They stood still, and there was no sound but the gentle rushing as the horses breathed in and out, still winded from their long and glorious gallop.

  “Too long,” Andrew agreed. He took his hand from the reins and for a moment Rebecca thought that he might reach out and take hers. But instead, he reached down to pat the neck of his chestnut hunter.

  “Well, perhaps we can do it more frequently now,” Rebecca said. Her voice was such a strange mixture of hope and heartbreak that she barely even recognized herself.

  Andrew smiled at her and then nodded at the distant horizon.

  “Why do we not just keep going?” he said. He jerked his head backward in the direction that they had come from, the direction from which Charles and Caroline still had not appeared. “After all, we have a marvelous head start.”

  He grinned, the kind of unabashed grin that she had so often seen on his face when he was a young boy. Rebecca found herself smiling back just as openly, letting herself pretend, if only for a few minutes.

  “Oh yes?” she said. “Well, where do you propose we go first?”

  “Do you not think it’s rather boring to plan these things too carefully?” he said. “Wouldn’t it be best if we just made for Liverpool and got on the first boat?”

  “Or we could go north,” she said. It was still the fantasy, of course, and it was fading slowly and then quickly, just as daylight does. “Perhaps we would make it as far as Scotland.”

  “Whatever you like,” he said. He was staring at the horizon, and she suspected it was because he did not dare look at her. “I do not mind leaving all of this behind. I do not care a bit for any of it.”

  As the words left his mouth, a movement in the corner of Rebecca’s eye made her turn her head. Caroline and Charles had just appeared over the ridge in a jagged sort of trot. As she looked, Charles caught sight of them and reached up to tip his hat.

  Rebecca did not know what to say to Andrew. What could she possibly say that would not make things worse, other than they both knew that the story would have to dissipate as surely as mist, and it was best not to try to hold onto it too tightly?

  “They’ve caught up with us,” she said.

  “Oh?” Andrew stood up in his stirrups to look around, catching sight of the two horses that drew ever closer to them. “Well, I suppose that if one stands still, then even the most incompetent of horsemen will catch up with one eventually.”

  “Perhaps you ought to be kinder to Charles,” Rebecca said. Her words surprised even her, and what surprised her still more was that she felt them deeply.

  “Kinder?” He looked utterly nonplussed as if he was not familiar with such an exotic piece of vocabulary. “Whatever do you mean, kinder?”

  “I know that you are the younger brother,” Rebecca said gently. “But you are the stronger. You always have been. And I wonder if Charles doesn’t feel rather bullied sometimes.”

  She knew that in part she was only saying this to protect herself. She knew that if Charles were happier, more assured in his position as the lord of the manor, then he would have less cause to take out his sense of inferiority on her.

  But there was also a part of her that simply wanted Andrew to be better. His manners were generally impeccable, and her heart had thoroughly soared at breakfast when he had the gentlemanly presence of mind to invite Caroline on the ride with them when his brother had not.

  “I thank you for your continual efforts to improve my character,” Andrew said. The light of fantasy had disappeared from his face, and he had reverted to his usual self — the increasingly sarcastic self that Rebecca had seen more and more over the past few days.

  “Do not tease, Andrew,” she replied quietly. “I’ve had quite enough of teasing. I am just trying to be honest with you, the way that we always used to be with each other.”

  Andrew gathered up his reins and tapped with his heels to turn his mount around, facing to where Charles and Caroline were almost there to meet them.

  “Perhaps now is not the time for too much honesty, Lady Rebecca,” he said. She found herself wounded by the space that his formality of address placed between them.

  Although I despise the cynicism of his words, Rebecca thought, I know that the sentiment is quite right. And I hate it.

  “We have finally caught up with you!” Charles said, urging his horse into a dull attempt at a trot as they came within speaking distance.

  “My brother and Rebecca have always been fearless on horseback,” he added, turning to Caroline. Rebecca wondered if, in her absence, he had been boring Caroline with his constant need to commentate and explain the world.

  Caroline did not seem to mind much and accepted the information with the same polite demureness with which she had received everything for the duration of their stay at Godwin Hall.

  I feel guilty for Caroline, Rebecca thought, glancing at her friend’s profile and hoping that she was at her ease. I know that she feels out of place in grand houses and among people with whom she is not familiar. I hope that in my concern for myself and my situation I have not been failing too gravely as a friend.

  This reverie was interrupted, however, when Charles said to Andrew with a studied casualness, “Oh, brother, I almost forgot!”

  “Forgot what, brother?” Andrew seemed to have taken Rebecca’s words to heart, and those few words to his brother were addressed with less chilliness than he had been prone to exhibiting since Rebecca had arrived at Godwin Hall.

  “I have come across some of Father’s interes
ts in London that need administering,” Charles said. “I am told it will take at least a week or two to put everything in order, and it needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. I have told his lawyer that you will arrive in London tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Andrew said the word so sharply that his horse jumped a little. “I see no reason for that brother. We will all be going up to town for the Season soon enough. Can it not wait until then?”

  “It cannot wait,” Charles replied, and Rebecca detected a note of steel in his voice. “Furthermore, brother, I am so glad that you will be able to help with this affair. You have always had a much better head for this sort of thing than I.”