The Duke's Revenge

by Marlene Suson

“We shall bring Ellen through,” Alyssa said, with such quiet determination that Lady Hester’s eyes took on much the same look of reassessment that Pedley’s had earlier.

  Alyssa removed two bottles from her case and administered draughts from them to the girl, who soon fell into a restless, feverish sleep.

  Carlyle, sitting quietly at his daughter’s bedside, said, “You are exhausted, Alyssa. Go to bed. I will stay with her.”

  “I cannot leave her!” Alyssa exclaimed, aghast at the thought. “The worst is yet to come. It will be a very long night.”

  “I will be here.”

  “So will I,” Alyssa said stubbornly.

  They both stayed at her bedside. As the long night crept by, the man and the woman were happy for each other’s company and comfort in their vigil. From time to time, Alyssa gave Ellen medicine from the small arsenal in her case, but despite all Alyssa’s efforts, Ellen’s fever mounted. Her companions sponged her burning body and soothed her when she thrashed about in delirious nightmares.

  Occasionally, in her delirium, Ellen would cry out for her father. He would stroke her cheek and squeeze her hand, murmuring, “I am here, pet.” His touch would soothe her, and she would rest more easily until the nightmares came again to torment her. Alyssa watched him with a lump in her throat. How good he was when he dropped his shield of cynicism. The past two days at Beauchamp in his company had been the happiest of her life.

  In the light of the single candle that had been left burning, Alyssa saw that a thick stubble of beard darkened his lower face. His hair was sadly tousled from his running his fingers through it. His clothes, usually immaculate, were rumpled. His elegant tailcoat of blue superfine and the wide muslin cravat that had been so carefully folded about his neck had been shed long ago. He had rolled up the sleeves of his fine linen shirt and undone its top buttons so that his bronzed chest was visible in the V formed by the white material.

  His hazel eyes were so glazed with worry and exhaustion that Alyssa could hardly contain her desire to take him in her arms and comfort him. Whatever else he might be, he was a superb father. How deeply she regretted her wretched impulse to make him suffer by thinking that she meant to trap his son into a loveless marriage. Knowing now how protective he was of his children, she appreciated his rage. How could he have thought anything but the worst of her, especially after having been accosted by her mother and sister at Vauxhall.

  Alyssa wondered again what had passed between him and her mama that night. He had clearly frightened Mrs Raff. Since that night, she had been sullen, brooding, and incapable of speaking the duke’s name without murderous venom in her voice. And she was a woman who loved revenge even more than the trumpery paste jewels she bedecked herself in. She hated Carlyle so fiercely that if she somehow were to learn that Alyssa was at Beauchamp instead of with Charlotte Hagar, there would be no end to the mischief she would make. And Alyssa could not bear that. She was hopelessly, irrevocably in love with Carlyle. Above all else she wanted to go quietly back to London and cause him no further trouble than she already had.

  Furthermore, if Mrs Raff learned of Alyssa’s whereabouts, she could be counted on to inform Lord Eliot immediately of his grand-daughter’s scandalous behaviour. It would end any possibility that he would accept her back at Ormandy again. Her high stickler of a grandfather would cut her off with the same finality that he had cut her father before her.

  A few minutes later, Alyssa’s gaze fell on the portrait of the woman on Ellen’s bedside table. Jeremy had the same round face, brown eyes and protruding lower lip. The picture must be of Carlyle’s late wife. Alyssa wondered what it would have been like to be loved by such a man, to bear him such cherished children.

  “Was that your wife?” she whispered, gesturing at the portrait.

  The duke glanced at the portrait with such loathing in his eyes that her frank, unruly tongue blurted, “Did you ever like her?”

  He ran his hands irritably through his tousled hair. “Oh, yes, I loved her once! Fool that I was!”

  It was as if all the bitterness in the world had been distilled in those few words. He rose and went to the far end of the room, where he parted the curtains and stared out into the darkness.

  Only Ellen’s feverish call of “Papa’ brought him back to the bedside.

  “I am here, pet,” he reassured her, taking her hand again, his face set in an emotionless mask that seemed to have been carved from stone.

  As the night waned, Ellen’s fever waxed until she seemed to be burning up.

  Finally, not long before dawn, Carlyle asked in despair, “She will die, won’t she?”

  Alyssa glanced at his anguished face and her heart went out to him, but she would not raise false hopes. “I have successfully brought sicker patients through crises, but none has been as frail as Ellen.”

  He buried his head in his hands, and Alyssa was certain that he was praying.

  Chapter 20

  At last, when dawn broke, so did Ellen’s fever.

  “Thank God,” Carlyle murmured, a tell-tale sheen in his eyes.

  Alyssa had never loved anyone or anything as much as she did him in that moment. Placing a gentle hand on his muscular shoulder, she told him softly, “Go to bed. There is nothing more that you can do here. Ellen is out of danger. She will sleep for several hours, which is the best thing for her. I am certain now that it is the same illness that I saw in Northumberland.”

  “How do you come about your nursing skills?” he asked.

  She told him about her nurse. “The people that she treated with her herbs and other homemade remedies seemed to get well quicker and live longer than those whom the doctors bled and leeched. I became fascinated and began to try my hand. In time, people began to seek me out.”

  “And you responded?”

  “Yes. It is very satisfying to help make people well.” The expression in his eyes was so strange and unfathomable that she blurted, “What is the matter? Why do you look at me like that?”

  His mouth twisted in a half smile. “You are a most unusual...” He broke off.

  “Strumpet,” she finished bitterly, certain that was what he was thinking. She turned hastily away from him so that he could not see the agony in her eyes.

  Alyssa felt him come up behind her. “That is not what I was going to say,” he said quietly, placing his hands gently on her arms. Her heart jumped at his unexpected touch. “You need sleep. You must be burned to the core.”

  The concern in his voice wrenched at her soul. She dared not look at him, fearing that if she did, she would begin to cry. His fingers moved up and began to massage the stiff muscles of her neck and shoulders. it felt so good that she never wanted him to stop. But she forced herself to say, in a cracking voice, “Please go. Ellen will want you with her when she wakes. I will stay with her for another hour or two, to make certain all is well. Then I shall rest.”

  He said softly, his hands still working to loosen her tight muscles, “Indeed you will, if I have to carry you to your chamber and tie you to the bed.”

  She could not help smiling. “Your means would defeat your end, Your Grace. I am persuaded that I would not find such restraint conducive to sleep.”

  His hands dropped away from her back. “I will tell my sister to relieve you in two hours, or earlier if you wish.” He touched her arm gently again and, in a voice as soft as velvet, said, “Thank you, Alyssa.”

  A tremor ran through her. The way that he had said her name made it sound like a lyric poem.

  Then he was gone.

  No longer able to suppress her tears, Alyssa buried her head in her hands and sobbed silently for what could never be, for her doomed love for him.

  When Ellen’s eyes opened a half-hour later, they were no longer dull with fever. She looked about her eagerly, then frowning, asked plaintively, “Where is Papa?”

  “He was up with you all night,” Alyssa laid a soothing hand on the girl’s brow, relieved to find it as cool as spring rain. “It wou
ld not do to have him fall ill, too, so I ordered him to bed.”

  “You ordered Papa? I do not believe that anyone could do so.”

  “You are quite right,” Alyssa agreed with a smile. “I merely persuaded him.”

  As Alyssa talked, she poured a small amount of liquid from one of the bottles in her case into a glass. Easing Ellen into a sitting position, she handed her the glass, saying, “You must drink this vile stuff. Evil though it tastes, it will help to make you well.”

  Obediently Ellen did as she was bid, making a face as she swallowed. Alyssa took the glass, eased her down on to the pillows, and squeezed her hand. “Now you must sleep again.”

  The girl clung to her hand. “I am afraid to. I had such dreadful nightmares.”

  “That was because you had a fever,” Alyssa said soothingly. “It is gone now, and the nightmares will not plague you. But to make certain, I will sit here beside you. In the unlikely event that you do have one, I shall wake you.”

  Reassured, Ellen closed her eyes, and almost immediately she drifted off into a sound sleep, her hand still holding Alyssa’s.

  Sitting by the bedside, Alyssa was haunted by the memory of Carlyle there during the night, holding Ellen’s hand and comforting her. How different he was from the haughty, overbearing man she had once supposed him to be.

  An hour later Lady Hester appeared, accompanied by Pedley bearing a tray of food. “I have come to have breakfast with you,” Lady Hester told Alyssa as Pedley placed the tray on a table at the opposite end of the room from the bed. “And then you shall go and rest.”

  “So much food,” Alyssa murmured, looking down at plates heaped with meats, eggs, toast and a large bowl of assorted fruits.

  As the two women sat down at the table, Lady Hester said, “Richard was so distressed about Ellen last night that he forgot to introduce us. I am his sister Hester.”

  “And I am Alyssa,” she replied evasively, reluctant to reveal any more about herself,

  But Lady Hester was not to be fobbed off so easily. “Why are you at Beauchamp?” she asked bluntly.

  “I am not your brother’s mistress, if that is what you are asking,” Alyssa replied with equal bluntness.

  “So he indicated last night. I should have been surprised if you were, for he brings no women here. Which makes me all the more curious to know why you should be here.”

  “I leave that to your brother to explain. Indeed,” Alyssa added wryly, “I should like to hear his answer myself.”

  Lady Hester regarded Alyssa steadily for a long moment before saying, “Whatever the reason, I am grateful that you were here. I do not know what would have happened to Ellen had you not been. I would never have left Bath with her if I had had the tiniest suspicion that she was out of curl.”

  “You cannot blame yourself,” Alyssa said. “This illness comes on very quickly.”

  The two women began to eat. After a few bites, Lady Hester asked suddenly, “How do you know my brother?”

  “Through Jeremy.”

  Lady Hester smiled. “Isn’t he the dearest, most amiable boy? So like his father was before he married that terrible woman.”

  “Please tell me about your brother’s marriage,” Alyssa blurted, desperate to find the key to the enigma that was Carlyle. Seeing the sudden hostility in Lady Hester’s face, Alyssa added hastily, “I want so to understand him.”

  Her Ladyship studied Alyssa’s expressive face for a long moment before she said obliquely, “So that is the way it is, is it?” She looked worriedly toward the bed, then began in a whisper so low that it could not possibly be heard by Ellen, even if she were awake:

  “King George proposed—I should say demanded—the match, telling my father that it was necessary for secret reasons of state and that to refuse it would be a treasonous betrayal of king and country. My poor father was torn between his loyalty to the crown and his concern for his son, who was scarcely sixteen then. Papa did not want him wed so young, especially not to a woman six years his eider. He finally agreed that if, after meeting the princess, Richard wished to marry her, he should. So she was sent here to visit.”

  Lady Hester’s face and voice suddenly hardened. “No one could be more charming on those rare occasions when she cared to be. She was a born coquette who was not satisfied until she had conquered every man she met. Once he had been brought to his knees, however, he immediately bored her. My poor brother was a naïve stripling whose knowledge of women was restricted to a few dull country girls. Small wonder that he was dazzled by a scintillating, sophisticated princess raised in a court that prized wit and repartee. He fell wildly in love with her.”

  Carlyle’s bitter words echoed in Alyssa’s mind. “Oh, yes, I loved her once. Fool that I was!”

  “The marriage was performed immediately—before the princess could betray her true deceitful, selfish nature and before we learned of her notorious conduct in France. Once the vows were sealed, however, my brother—indeed, we all to our sorrow—learned the truth. My whole family suffered from her evil mischief and cruel, malicious tongue, but it was my poor brother who bore the brunt of it. She found fault with everything about him.” In recounting the story, even all these years later, Lady Hester was still so agitated that her fingers curled unconsciously into angry, unladylike fists.

  “At first, they lived here at Beauchamp, which the princess cordially detested. She found life in the country even more boring than motherhood. When Jeremy was born ten months after their wedding, she informed my brother that, having fulfilled her obligation to produce his heir, she would henceforth live in London, where she would do as she wished with whomever she wished. Richard remained here with Jeremy while she conducted herself even more scandalously in London than she had in France. It was truly my poor brother’s dark night of the soul,” his sister said, tears welling up in her eyes at the memory. “He was so unhappy and humiliated that he retreated into a shell that no one but Jeremy could penetrate. He was devoted to the infant.”

  Alyssa discovered that her own fingers, like Lady Hester’s, had unconsciously curled into very unladylike fists. She remembered with painful clarity the duke’s words at the Hagars’: “I know what misery awaits a cub who is wed to a sophisticated woman much older than himself.” Alyssa saw Carlyle as he must have been then: three years younger and more naïve than Jeremy, but with the same amiable, kindly nature; married to a woman who repaid his adoration by trampling on his love and his tender, adolescent pride, cuckolding him in the bargain. Alyssa’s heart ached for him and for the youth he must have been.

  “When Jeremy was about fourteen months old, Richard suddenly emerged from his isolation and went to London, where he took up residence with his wife,” Lady Hester continued. “Neither of them was seen in public for a month. All visitors were turned away, and none of us ever learned what passed between them. At the end of a month, they each went their own way. My brother, no longer the happy, amiable youth we all loved, but bitter and cynical, launched upon a most dissolute life, gambling and drinking and womanising. Papa, much alarmed, ordered the princess, who was pregnant with Ellen by then, back to Beauchamp, thinking that if she were here, Richard would return also. But she only laughed at Papa.” Lady Hester extracted a white lawn handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at the tears that had begun trickling down her cheek. “An acrimonious argument erupted between them. During it, Papa suffered a stroke, and although he was still a relatively young man, he died a few days later. She shortened my father’s life by many years. Then, on the day of his funeral, she died giving birth to Ellen.”

  Alyssa swallowed hard. No wonder Carlyle had been so determined to save his son from what he was certain would be a disastrous elopement with a lying, faithless older woman.

  “It is said that tragedy can be the making of a man,” Lady Hester said thoughtfully. “My brother returned to Beauchamp, and shouldered the heavy responsibilities that the two deaths had placed upon him with a maturity far beyond his years. He has rarely g
ambled or drunk since then. Women, however, are a different story.”

  She pushed her plate away as though her tale had robbed her of her appetite. “Now, Alyssa, you must get some sleep.”

  Alyssa nodded, not trusting herself to speak without betraying how deeply she had been affected by the story. At last she understood the enigma, and it only intensified her love for him.

  Chapter 21

  In London that morning Mrs Raff donned an elaborate gown of purple-striped silk with a hooped skirt of enormous width and a purple velvet hat trimmed with an ostrich feather. Then she set out for Bond Street to take advantage of Alyssa’s absence to pick up a few of the bare necessities of life that her clutch-fisted offspring had denied her: a large bottle of Steele’s Lavender Water, a pair of yellow kid gloves, and a huge white satin hat trimmed with such an astonishing array of artificial fruit—strawberries, grapes, tamarinds and apricots—that it more nearly resembled a fruit-bowl than a chapeau. Mrs Raff was so delighted with it that she could not wait to wear it. She ordered that the more modest purple hat be put in the bandbox in place of her new purchase, which remained upon her head.

  It did not occur to Mrs Raff that her vexing daughter might not have gone where her note had said until she chanced to see Charlotte Hagar, looking as if she had never been ill a day in her life, step from Brindley’s Bookshop and climb into a curricle waiting in front, Mrs Raff was some distance from the shop at the time, and her enormous skirt so severely impeded her progress down the crowded street that the vehicle was disappearing round the corner as she reached Brindley’s shop.

  She stared after the vanished curricle for some moments, oblivious of the stares of passers-by at her new hat, before setting off for the Hagars’ house. There, the butler, who was slow-topped under the best of circumstances, was so dumbfounded at being confronted by a woman wearing a satin fruit-bowl on her head that he blurted out, “Miss Raff has not been here in days.”

  Her dark suspicions confirmed, Mrs Raff’s next stop was Grosvenor Square