The Duchess's Secret

by Elizabeth Beacon

  ‘Why didn’t you write to Papa and tell him to come home, Mama?’ Jenny asked with her usual merciless logic.

  ‘Your mother knew I could not come back until I had made enough money and she had no idea where to send her letters,’ Ash said before Rosalind could reply. She let him speak for her just this once—but it had better not become a habit.

  ‘Oh,’ Jenny said as if she saw the sense in what he said.

  Rosalind supposed, from a child’s point of view, it had a ring of truth, although she could have sent a letter via the Governor General’s Office, with a covering one asking them to send it on to her husband. It might have found its way to Ash, sooner or later, and told the world he was nowhere near as free and single as he appeared. Or she could have sent one to the Hartfield family solicitor, since the then Duke of Cherwell and Lord Lackbourne used the same one. They could have forwarded it to him, with a startled demand for an explanation or a thundering ducal scold to go with it.

  ‘When did you find out about me, then?’ Jenny asked Ash.

  ‘When I saw you in the hayloft at the Duck and Feathers yesterday afternoon,’ he told her truthfully.

  Jenny obviously did not want Rosalind to find out what she had been up to, so some things had not changed since this time yesterday. ‘How did you know I was me?’ she asked and Rosalind had to admire her distraction technique if not her grammar, or the way her daughter kept her promise to be good for the senior members of the Belstone family and their governess.

  ‘I had a little sister once. She looked and acted very much like you do, being a naughty little imp, forever looking out for her next lot of mischief. I thought you were her for a moment when I first set eyes on you.’

  ‘Is that why you looked so strange?’

  ‘Yes, I really could not believe my eyes,’ Ash agreed.

  Rosalind pictured him both then and on the night he furiously described his agony at not being able to save his little sister’s life to his distraught young wife. She understood his actions that night a little better now she had a child of her own, and his mother’s when she found out what had happened to her daughter even less. Maybe shortly after that revelation all those years ago Ash had an excuse for leaving his new wife to stumble into her clothes and join him for a long, silent journey back to town. While his hurt and anger still burned and blinded him to the way things really were, perhaps he had had a good reason to treat her with silent contempt, but not all the way to London, then on to Calcutta. She had kept that awful night when she was sixteen secret even when they raced to Gretna to marry each other, there was no denying that. But back then he had managed to ignore the differences between his chilly-hearted and selfish mother and his young and yearning wife and that was beyond her. He had simply painted Rosalind the same colour as Lady John Hartfield, filed her away in a sealed box marked Unwanted Wife, then carried on with his life as if she no longer existed as far as he was concerned. When he had got to his destination he must have acted as if he had never met and dazzled Rosalind Feldon into marrying him as well and she found that very hard to forgive. But any further questions about that night and his implacable fury afterwards must wait, she decided, and even managed not to glare reproachfully at him while her daughter was trying to puzzle out the gaps between their stories.

  ‘Have I got an aunt, then?’ Jenny said after a short silence. She was always eager for any sign of a relative and Rosalind felt guilty for not providing any. Lord Lackbourne had cut contact between his stepdaughter and her real father’s family, if he had any, and her mother had been a late and only child.

  ‘I fear not; my little sister Amanda died when she was a child and I miss her sorely to this day,’ Ash told his daughter.

  ‘You have me now, so you don’t have to be lonely any more,’ Jenny said, as if it was her task to comfort him. ‘And Mama as well, of course.’

  Rosalind wasn’t sure if Ash thought of her as a shield against grief and loneliness, more as a means to an end and mother to this wonderful, naughty, precocious child he probably did not deserve. A child who clearly thought they had dealt with this subject now and it was time to get back to the urgent realities of everyday life.

  ‘Mrs Belstone said I would have to come and ask if I could have my luncheon with them and go sledging afterwards, Mama,’ Jenny asked. ‘So can I? Please, say I can.’

  Perhaps her return to more urgent matters was a tribute to their determination to make Ash’s return sound normal and even a little bit mundane. Whatever it was, Jenny was now more concerned about her next adventure with her friends than the surprise return of a father she hadn’t known she had until today. Rosalind thought Jenny’s young mind was simply finding a way to cope with such a massive change by pretending it was not that big after all. Time would tell, she decided and postponed that worry until they got to it.

  ‘Why don’t we all go?’ Ash said and of course it would be far better to spend time with his daughter and her friends than stay shut inside with his wife brooding over the future and how soon they could get out of here and start the next, and very surprising, chapter in their lives.

  ‘Maybe we could,’ Rosalind said cautiously.

  They had the time it would take for the weather to change and a thaw to stop turning the roads into quagmires to get through yet, so the more of it they spent in company the better. That way there was less risk she would succumb to his brusque masculine charms and give in to his urging to truly be his wife again. Less chance of falling under his spell and trusting him to love her back when that could never happen again as well.

  ‘I think you had better stay and have luncheon with us, then we can all meet the Belstones afterwards,’ she said. ‘We need a snowman in the garden as well as the one you must have been building with Hal and Alison before you came home, if the state of you when you got in is anything to go by. I am sure Papa would like to help you, if you ask him nicely, while I go and tell Mrs Belstone about our change of plan and ask if we can still join them later.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ash said sincerely and she felt a little bit guilty about her sneaky feeling getting him very cold while Jenny was busy instructing him in the art of snowman construction might send him back to the inn for a warm bath and had there been room for another change of clothes in his saddlebags? He might have to stay there until these were dry, since yesterday’s travel-stained outfit could hardly be ready for him yet.

  Best not think of him striding about his room wearing nothing much, Rosalind. That sort of fantasy will land you under his thumb faster than you can say knife.

  ‘Seth Paxton is nearly as large as you are, Ash. I dare say he would lend you some of his old clothes to get wet if you ask him nicely,’ she told him to soothe her conscience. Of course the prospect of seeing a duke in an innkeeper’s cast-offs was wickedly appealing as well.

  ‘I dare say,’ he said a little bit less gratefully, but he managed to shake off his ducal dignity long enough to stroll back to the inn with an overexcited Jenny in tow, so she could plague Mrs Paxton with tales of her new papa while he changed into any warm clothing Seth could spare him.

  Chapter Eight

  It turned into a far better day than Rosalind dreaded when the snow trapped them all in Livesey last night. Of course she had to confess to Judith Belstone, her best friend apart from Joan, that her husband was home hale and hearty and had come back to her rich and a duke, even if he was currently masquerading as the not-very-humble Mr Meadows. Judith was speechless for a few moments, when she was finally persuaded to believe Rosalind was not joking.

  ‘Best not tell Ben that bit if you want your husband’s rank to stay a secret until you are all ready to leave for Edenhope. He is a vicar and very stern about lying, even though he is such a dreamer in other ways.’

  Rosalind shuddered at the thought Ben Belstone had a great deal in common with Ash already. ‘I would rather not be the sensation of the village,’
she admitted with a grimace of distaste.

  ‘You will be anyway. Your husband is alive after being missing for years, so how can you not be?’

  ‘We did not part friends,’ Rosalind warned and that was as much of the past as she wanted to drag up with anyone but Ash.

  ‘I had already thought that one out for myself,’ her friend said drily, then went on to exclaim about Rosalind really being the chatelaine of such a vast and famous mansion. ‘And a grand house in Grosvenor Square as well I recall from some eulogy on it from an ancient maiden aunt of mine who once met a rake there and had her heart broken far too easily if you ask me. There are probably half-a-dozen other estates and fine houses and who would have thought it, what with you living in a cottage ever since I have known you? You will be spoilt for choice of places to live and when I think of you managing on nothing much a year for so long I am not sure I am going to like your Duke, Rosalind.’

  ‘He only inherited it all when his young cousin died last year. Until then Ash had no property at all in this country,’ Rosalind heard herself defend him when he really didn’t deserve it. He obviously had plenty of money now and at least one fine house in his adopted land. He probably would not have left it for another couple of decades either, if not for the Cherwell inheritance. Jenny could have been quite grown up and maybe even with a child of her own by the time her father came back to England with his vast fortune and maybe even a by-blow or two to displace her in his affections.

  ‘But he did have a wife and child,’ Judith replied rather sternly.

  ‘Only a wife as far as he knew,’ Rosalind objected and why on earth was she defending him?

  ‘Ah, yes, I had forgotten about that bit of your story. Why did you decide to cut him out of your life as if he was truly dead instead of half a world away, then, Rosalind Whatever-You-Call-Yourself-Now?’ Judith said sternly, as if she was beginning to agree with her husband about lies.

  ‘Because he did the same to me,’ Rosalind said rather sadly and shook her head to tell her friend the subject was best left alone. It was best left that way even between her and Ash. If they were going to make any sort of future together she supposed they must always skirt around the past.

  * * *

  Rosalind got back to Furze Cottage to see her family out in the snow admiring their handiwork. Even Joan had left the warmth of her kitchen and her self-imposed domestic tasks to supervise the placement of Rosalind’s old and disreputable gardening hat on top of the vast snowman and pass Jenny the carrot nose and coal eyes Ash had to lift his daughter up to push them in and make a face, since their handiwork was taller than Jenny.

  ‘We rolled our snowball halfway around the village, Mama,’ Jenny told her excitedly as soon as she spotted Rosalind looking on with bewildered wonder at their joint enterprise. ‘I was afraid we wouldn’t get it back through the gate, but it just about fitted and then we rolled it about a bit inside and around the house as well to make it even bigger.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Rosalind said. ‘It is the largest snowman I ever saw.’

  ‘People will come from miles around to look and we can charge them a farthing,’ her mercenary daughter announced happily.

  ‘They can’t get here from miles around and why pay when they can see it from the road?’

  ‘Never mind, Jenny,’ her father said, then gave Rosalind an almost sheepish grin to admit he had enjoyed himself hugely. ‘You have the makings of a fine business woman, even if you didn’t think your enterprise through properly this time.’

  ‘Then I suppose next time we must make it further away,’ Jenny conceded and Rosalind didn’t disillusion her, because leaving the only home she had ever known would be difficult enough for her daughter when the time came without her mother constantly pointing it out before it could happen.

  * * *

  The afternoon was taken up with sledging and snowball fights and in between they all crowded around the brazier the Vicar had brought out to keep them all warm. Even Rosalind was relaxed enough to tease Ash about clinging to the heat and only joining in the fun between warming his hands and stamping his feet as if he would never get used to his native climate again. ‘Call yourself a Yorkshire man,’ she taunted him, then had to duck when he threw a snowball at her and she was half-enchanted by the boyish grin he gave her before they joined battle.

  So at least they were all tired and hungry. Ash went off to the Duck and Feathers, resigned if not actually happy about his exile, once he had carried Jenny up to her room after she fell asleep at the dinner table, so that was one day to cross off the list of the ones they would have to spend here as the dramatically reunited Meadows family. Almost reunited, Rosalind qualified that statement as she watched Ash lope off to the inn as fast as he could so he was not quite frozen to the bone by the time he got there. She would not feel guilty. It was far too soon to let him kiss and sweet talk her up the stairs she was plodding her weary way up on the way to her lonely bed.

  * * *

  It was ten days before the coach and four Ash had managed to hire in Dorchester as soon as the roads were fit to ride set out for London. The wind had changed to a mild southwesterly the day after Ash and Jenny built their snowman. Their magnificent creation dwindled to a couple of dirty-looking snowballs as mud took over from snow and disappeared altogether when it rained one night and washed even the last of the snow away from the gullies and folds in the heath where it had been hanging on. By the time their carriage pulled out of Livesey at the start of a very different life for all of them Furze Cottage looked very forlorn and empty with no smoke issuing from its chimneys and a shuttered and abandoned feel to it that made Rosalind feel guilty about deserting the place that had been her sanctuary for so long.

  The changes about to take over her life had finally begun to sink in for Jenny as Rosalind and Ash discussed them in front of her, so they would not come as such a surprise when they happened. Jenny had never questioned this was her home and it had come as a shock that she was going to be removed from it. She tested the limits of Ash’s patience as well as her mother’s as the day they were to leave got closer and Rosalind waited for Ash’s temper to snap. She knew he had a fine one from bitter experience, but he kept it under strict control for Jenny. He tried to reason her out of her sulks and backed up Rosalind’s discipline rather than stamping off in a fine Hartfield fury. He had been restless and preoccupied at times, though, and Rosalind was glad when he could ride his fine horse out every day and get some of his fidgets out of his system, but otherwise he pretended to be the wanderer miraculously returned with such ease nobody could have accused him of being above his company.

  Now they were finally setting out it was a relief to get on with this new life, even if it was daunting. Joan insisted she was looking forward to getting back to being a lady’s maid again and forgetting how to cook and clean, but Rosalind had her doubts. However close a duchess was to her personal attendant, they could never work as closely together for Jenny’s comfort and happiness again now Ash was back. Perhaps Joan would accept Rosalind’s offer of Furze Cottage, once she was satisfied the Duke and Duchess of Cherwell and Lady Imogen Hartfield had settled into their new life and could manage without her. So many perhapses, Rosalind, she told herself rather wistfully as Livesey faded behind them and not even Hal and Ally’s frantically waving little figures were visible any more.

  Apparently they would be staying at Cherwell House for a week or two when they finally got to London and Rosalind reminded Jenny of that exotic treat as she wiped tears from her daughter’s cheeks. They would have to wait for enough new clothes to be made so they could arrive at Edenhope without looking as if they had come out of the ragbag. The rest of their fine new clothes could be delivered later, but the seamstresses would have some work in the quiet time after Christmas when the ton resorted to country houses and hunting boxes and had not thought about coming to town for the spring Season yet. Jenny imagined being
dressed so finely would be sheer pleasure, but she didn’t know how many hours it took to stand and be pinned into this and that while they were fitted to the satisfaction of a fine London dressmaker and Rosalind didn’t want to disillusion her yet.

  She had already begun to worry Jenny would pine for her two best friends and their settled old life, until the novelty of the road and very different countryside and new towns they passed through distracted her. Ash added tall tales of his adventures in India to keep her amused, when he was not riding his fine grey out in the fresh air, and Jenny seemed to enjoy herself once her excitement blotted out the worst of her sorrow at being parted from the Belstones.

  * * *

  By the time they got to the outskirts of the capital city at long last Rosalind was almost desperate to be free of the tedium and intimacy of travel for a few blessed weeks. Secretly straining for every glimpse she could get of Ash’s fine and manly form riding in front of them, or trying hard to pretend she was indifferent to the long stretch of his muscular legs so close to her own when he did share the carriage with them for a while was winding her into such a tight knot of longing she sometimes felt as if she was in danger of exploding like an artillery shell. It was eight long years since she made love with him, for just one night of passionately intense fulfilment.

  You would have thought your body would have forgotten how it felt to yearn and sing and welcome a lover by now, but it hasn’t, has it, Rosalind?