This should have warmed Will’s heart, and it didn’t.
“But what about the ones who are angry that half of their earnings are being seized?” If they really are being taken, anyway, and someone has not just made it up.
“They seem more confused than angry,” said Miss Copperweld. She was being honest with him. He knew from the tone of her voice. “It does not square with what they knew of you, and so they are trying to make sense of it. Some are angry, I suppose.” She smiled reluctantly. “Don’t take my father as a good measure for how everyone else feels. He would get cross at, oh, a butterfly that crossed his path.”
“I see.” Thinking through everything he had just learned, Will wondered what the best course of action was. If someone, possibly his steward, was acting dishonestly, it would be a grievous offense. One that could see a man jailed.
“If you think you’ve been abandoned by your tenants, you haven’t.”
“No?”
“Of course not,” said Miss Copperweld. “If everyone truly felt hard done by, they would have demanded an audience with you well before now. I know commoners don’t demand things of dukes, but being honest, if there was enough unrest for you to be worried, you would have heard about it. One way or another, I mean.”
He had to laugh at her astute, if blunt, assessment. “That is an oddly reassuring point.”
“I have overheard some call you the ‘Duke of Sorrow’,” she said. The brown of her eyes glowed like embers. “I didn’t know what to make of it at the time, but I think I do, now.”
Duke of Sorrow? Will thought. Heavens, I do hope that hasn’t traveled more widely than Brookfield. He wrinkled his nose at her, mildly disdainful of the nickname, no matter how well-meaning or full of pity.
If it was either of those things. She stifled a rueful laugh.
For now, he chose to disregard her revelation. It simply wasn’t constructive. Pushing aside the uncomfortable feeling brought by knowing he had been thusly rechristened, he turned his thoughts back to the more concrete matter at hand. If his people were being defrauded, it was his responsibility to ensure the matter was resolved.
His father would expect it of him, and he could not bear disappointing his memory. Indeed, if his father was in this position, he would be doing everything he could to meet the problem head-on. He was always, as much as a duke could be, a man of the people, and the people seemed to like him.
“There is something to your unsolicited advice, Miss Br—Miss Copperweld. Perhaps it is time for me to show my face in Brookfield once more.”
Chapter Seven
The events of the day had been too unexpected to allow Augusta much sleep.
She had finally been moved from the downstairs parlor to a guest bedroom. It was beyond any room she had ever slept in and, ordinarily, she would be happy to experience something so luxurious and new. The colors were all soothing. Sage green, deep coral, and a shade of gold that matched her mother’s hair. Regardless, she found no solace in either the decor or the comfort of the enormous four-poster bed.
Instead, she continued to toss about, thinking and thinking about the time she’d spent in the gazebo with Lord Ainsworth.
She worried that she had been too frank, too candid. In spite of his initial standoffishness, he now engendered a warm familiarity that she considered potentially dangerous because she was half-sure it was entirely within her own head. It was true that he was kind beneath his fears, but she had only the faintest of ideas of how to behave around the nobility. Just because she had discovered he possessed a demeanor that she found agreeable did not make him her friend. It certainly did not make him an eligible suitor, though telling her heart that whenever he drew near was becoming next to impossible.
Augusta sighed into the darkness. “This is a bad idea. You shouldn’t have asked him for more help,” she grumbled.
She tried to think of another time when a man had captured her fancy. There was Jack Smith, the stable boy with striking blue eyes and dark hair, but they’d both been only fourteen. Hardly grown. Though she understood how important it was not to fall pregnant, they still engaged in other activities that, when she innocently confided them to Mama, merited a shrill shriek and then a quick, stern lecture about how dangerous even those were.
Augusta didn’t see Jack again after that evening, which was probably for the best.
How I felt then is not the same as how I feel, now, decided Augusta.
Like nearly everyone she’d ever met except for her father, she attended church on Sundays, or had until the last few Sundays. While she believed in God and understood that what she had engaged in was driven by lust rather than love, she could not regret it because it helped her distinguish one from the other. It would be very early, indeed, to say that she loved Lord Ainsworth with all her heart. She was too cautious for that, and too aware of their different positions in life. But she could not say that she was not falling in love with him.
No, she thought. You have fallen in love with him, you fool.
The very idea of being separated from him knotted her stomach.
She was attracted to the duke, too, and even her limited experience in the matters of physical pleasure unhelpfully filled in the voids. She could imagine, quite easily, what it might be like to allow him to touch her. He looked at her often and she could not mistake the longing in his face.
As difficult as his face was for others to read, it had become an open, legible book to her.
The foremost question was, did he view her as a woman with whom he might only have a tryst, or was something deeper taking root for him as it was for her? She refused to rationalize his glances as anything other than what they were—indications of interest.
Lord Ainsworth had unwittingly shown her all of the things she admired in a man. He was fighting his way back to himself, so to speak. But in spite of that, he had shown more and more of his true nature to her.
Lady Jane had not fabricated a whit of what she’d told Augusta. He hid a generous heart, though he preferred that nobody knew of it. And he was a man hurting, yet hiding his hurt from the light of day. She knew what a talented physician he was and could be, still. He had, after all, mended her back to excellent health in a relatively short period of time. And in the process, he’d managed to awaken her heart to things she’d never felt or allowed herself to feel.
The Duke of Ravenwood was a good man and, foolishly, she had fallen in love with him.
You do know you can never be with him. Not as a wife, in any event.
She did not think he would keep a mistress, even though many men of the ton apparently did. It did not seem to suit his straightforward temperament. If his parents had married for love, too, she supposed no other way of marriage had been modeled for him.
On the other hand, if Lady Jane’s wishes were fulfilled and he did manage to have a family of his own one day, it would not be with a woman like Augusta. While she was not the lowest of the low, she had a wretched drunk for a father and her mother had been a nobody. If things had turned out differently, she thought it was possible that her mother might have been admitted to Lord Ainsworth’s manor as a servant. But even in that capacity, Augusta still would have been just the daughter of the help.
Rather ironically, in terms of making the duke’s acquaintance, Augusta had been better off as an invalid. He would have never played cards with her, otherwise.
What are you thinking, Gussie?
That she should even entertain thoughts of herself as an equal and capable of loving him at all was mad. Her love, such as it was, was ill-fated, doomed from the very beginning. It would certainly go unrequited. Lord Ainsworth was kind, but he was not simple. If he ever loved again, he would not love her.
He would fall for some blonde, regal beauty who read French and wore the best dresses and played the pianoforte and knew how to greet every type of person who came to her manor’s doors. He would not fall for a slight, freckled, lower-class and conventionally uneducated chit.<
br />
I shall have to work here for as long as I can stomach it, or he will allow me to, and then I should go very far away. Augusta sniffled as hot tears rolled down her cheeks. She did not cry often but, apparently, the duke merited her tears. She needed a fresh start away from Brookfield and Lord Ainsworth.
But, blast it all, she wanted to know exactly what he thought of her. All of those glances, those warm little looks, couldn’t be for nothing.
This all circled again to the thought that, perhaps, he was entertaining the idea of using her for his own amusement, but that did not square with her perceptions of him and he had only just found out her lowly status. But if you think that either he or Lady Jane did not guess your low origins from the way you speak, Gussie, you really are mad.
No. Assuming that Lord Ainsworth only wanted a wench to bed also would not square with Lady Jane’s own words. She had been very candid about his brothers’ foibles, though it was evident that she had loved the older Ainsworths, too. She wouldn’t have any reason to lie about her favorite nephew, and what was more, lies didn’t seem to be in her nature. She had, after all, volunteered personal confidences to a near stranger. Lord Ainsworth still did not know that his aunt had been in the middle of a courtship when she’d come to live with him, but Augusta did.
Augusta rubbed her face. Why was life never easy?
She did not question that Lord Ainsworth would give her request ample and fair thought. But could she continue to stay under his roof for another two months? If she had been here almost one month and managed to find herself in love, or at the beginnings of it, then what would prolonged proximity to the duke do?
Dash her feelings. She could not let them trip her up.
Pragmatically, she had no choice but to save up the money. There were no other options for her.
I’m worried I may do something I regret, she thought, and even her inner voice sounded small and sad. It would be like Jack all over again, but I’d go further and there would be more repercussions. Would that be so bad?
She realized, and it was quite a terrifying realization, that she actually didn’t care.
*
Will’s thoughts rambled about in his head much like the sheep that ambled on the hills during the day. He was fully preoccupied by the conversation he and Miss Copperweld had had in the gazebo.
Augusta Copperweld, he thought, allowing the name to wrap around his mind. It was delightful, he felt. He had heard “Augusta” before, but not nearly as often as “Mary” or “Kitty”, and he wondered if, perhaps, it was a family name. I wonder if she goes by a pet name.
His aunt had been equally pleased to gain the intelligence of their mysterious guest’s name. Immediately after he and Miss Copperweld had parted, he could hardly contain his happiness at being able to tell Jane, who despite saying she enjoyed the mystery itself, was consumed by concern at “Miss Brooke’s” state. She was in the conservatory reading a book, and she looked up at him from her chair with a smile.
“Well, my dear?” she said, somewhat too expectantly if one were to ask him.
“Augusta,” he said, without preamble. “Augusta Copperweld.”
“Is that our ‘Miss Brooke’s’ true name?”
“Indeed, Aunt,” said Will.
Jane set her book aside and studied him thoughtfully. “I felt she would tell you before she told me.”
“Why?” asked Will, momentarily stymied.
Jane merely smirked secretively, an expression that made him shuffle impatiently. “Several reasons, the largest being that she respects you and most likely could not continue to deceive you for much longer.”
“There is more. I mean to say that I have learned more,” said Will, after the slightest shake of his head. “The marks of violence on her. We have her father to thank for those. I suspected, but was not entirely sure.”
No one could ever claim that the Ainsworths had hot tempers, but the look on Jane’s ordinarily composed face was best called murderous. “William, we cannot let her return to him. I assume she is not married.”
“No, she is not.”
“What shall you do?”
There were quick, conflicted thoughts that flew through Will’s mind at the question. In that instant, he interpreted those thoughts as, “What shall you do about her unmarried state?”
I could marry her. It is true that I do not know her, but I did not know Diana half so well and, somehow, I found it within me to propose marriage. And Diana did not incite the same feelings of—
Jane broke his excited inner monologue. “William? Are you quite all right?”
“Mm?” He stared at her and she looked astutely back at him. As ever, she kept her tongue, but he could guess the conclusions she was drawing. “Yes, fine. Well, as to what I will do… she asked if she might be employed here for the next couple of months until she saved up a little money of her own.” He began to pace the conservatory, a narrow but long room that held exotic plants and mementos from his mother and father’s travels. The sun was slipping down behind the clouds, casting things in warm amber light and long shadows.
“What did you say?”
“I said I needed to consider it.”
Jane’s silence spoke louder than her words could. He understood that, in that moment, they were each thinking similar, if not the very same, things. How could they allow a woman they’d taken in for fear she might be left for dead to work within the manor? Miss Copperweld had not asked to be taken in. Was Will as infatuated as he seemed, or was it simply that he had not been around many women since he’d come home? Jane was no fool. Will knew, without any doubt, that she’d divined what his long looks at Miss Copperweld meant. Possibly, she’d divined it before he did.
“I had a barmaid at the inn, Agnes, she’s called, listen around for more information about a girl with Miss Brooke’s description,” said Jane, at length.
“You told a woman to eavesdrop for you,” summarized Will, without any disbelief. That would be his aunt.
“More or less,” said Jane, affably, “and I did give her a bit of money, so it wasn’t as though I wanted her to work for free. I didn’t tell her to do anything dangerous or illegal.”
“No, and you probably subsidized something she does already. Why? When?” He leaned his hip against a sideboard.
Jane shrugged. “Information, of course. And last week, when I went to the milliner’s for my new hat. The one with the cerise ribbon. I’d stopped at the inn for a little to eat before coming back to Blackbrook.”
“But you did not gain Miss Augusta’s true name?” Will was skeptical.
“I don’t believe our Miss Augusta frequents many places as a patron, William. Agnes did not know her from a description.”
“Did Agnes have anything to say?”
“She said a certain Brom Copperweld, and now I can only be certain that is Miss Augusta’s father, had blustered in to ask if anyone had seen his darling Gussie. He was foxed before he even entered the taproom.” Jane rolled her eyes. “If Agnes has heard anything since, I do not know. I have not been into the village again.”
“The cur,” Will mumbled. “What a bastard.”
For once, Jane did not object to his use of coarse language. “At least he does not know she is here.”
“Yet,” said Will.
Giving a quiet growl into his silent bedroom, Will punched his pillow halfheartedly. What a beast a heart is.
And none of the day’s more pleasant events or his own tantalizing thoughts could keep his mind from the pressing matter of the villagers being overtaxed. He had continued to think about the whole mess, though thoughts of Augusta kept intruding.
He’d thought too much about her for days now and it was not entirely strange that, despite this matter of urgency, his mind was wont to dwell on her the most. He found her amiable, caring, quick-witted… and he could not deny that she aroused feelings of both affection and passion within him. She was, to his eye, beautiful, but it was more than that. She seemed to e
ngage all those around her and, granted, there were not many people in the manor these days, but even gruff Marcus had remarked on how pleasant “Miss Brooke” was. It was also apparent that she was, even without formal schooling, intelligent and adaptable.
Will had never been much of a snob in that regard. Working amongst men from different walks of life, and then within the military, cleansed him of any lingering arrogance he might possess concerning his own class and advantages. However, he was convinced that she would be genuinely horrified to hear his thoughts on her and would run as far away from him as her legs could now take her. He was as unbecoming to look at as she was beguiling. While she had faced her fair share of ill-fate, his own eclipsed hers.
He was as bitter and scarred as she was full of life and willing to forge on without bitterness. Their chances were hindered by their circumstances, and he was less concerned about their social statuses than he was their temperaments. Miss Copperweld would not want someone so jaded as he had become.
In the end, having been the subject of speculation already, he balked very little at the idea that he might be judged for marrying “below” himself.
But that was not what concerned him. His own rancorous spirit did.
Let her find someone better than you, you madman. She does not deserve to be shackled to the “Duke of Sorrow” and his marred face.
He fancied that he did not imagine her lingering gaze, which had become warmer and more inviting, but he blamed himself for encouraging her imagination. What young woman would not imagine herself married to a duke? Yet surely, his face put an end to any real desires she might have to win him. He was no prize.
And if she is the sort of woman who would marry only to wait for her husband to die so that she could become a wealthy widow, he thought wryly, knowing very well that she was not, well, I am quite hale despite my looks. God willing, she would be waiting a long time.
With that, he shoved aside the quandary of Miss Copperweld and moved on to thinking about what he could do to sort out this potential mess in Brookfield.
Regency Scandals and Scoundrels Collection Page 132