Stolen Encounters with the Duchess

by Julia Justiss

  That being the case, better to learn at once what his future held.

  Sir Edward had also advised sending a note with flowers, asking her to set a time for their meeting. Probably advice as valuable as his prompting Davie to prepare a speech, but he was no more able to follow it. Waiting the whole of the night had been interminable enough; as soon as it was polite to make a morning call, he would go. If Faith accepted him, he’d deluge her with flowers after.

  * * *

  Some time after dawn, he bathed and shaved, wishing he’d allowed the nattily dressed Christopher to persuade him into ordering a new jacket and trousers the last time his friend had dragged him along on a visit to his tailor. Dressing with care, he went out for a breakfast of steak and ale, of which he ate only a few mouthfuls. Sipping at the ale, he checked his pocket watch every fifteen minutes until, finally, it was late enough to be permissible to call on a society lady.

  His heart pounding so hard he felt light-headed, he left the inn and took a hackney to Berkeley Place. Hoping he would find Faith without encountering her dragon of a mother-in-law, he’d trotted up the front steps before he noticed the knocker was off the door.

  Surprised and puzzled, he made his way around to the mews and crossed the back garden to the kitchen, where his vigorous knocking finally roused an elderly servant. After reprimanding Davie for pulling her away from the task of putting the house under holland covers, she sourly informed him that the Dowager, the duchess and her sons had departed London two days ago for their country estate in Derbyshire.

  After he pressed several coins into the old woman’s hand, which sweetened her manner considerably, she was prompted to add that while the Dowager had decided all sudden-like that she must go to Ashedon Court, the young duchess had said she welcomed the chance to let her boys spend some time in the country. Asked her opinion of how long the family would remain away, the woman replied that the duchess had said, with Parliament set to adjourn soon, they probably wouldn’t return to London until the following spring.

  Thanking the woman as he dropped one more coin into her hand, Davie walked thoughtfully back to the news. From the sound of it, the Dowager must have discovered her son was missing—and suspected he might have fled into the country. Unskilled at subterfuge, Faith would probably not have tried to persuade her mother-in-law there was no urgency in determining her brother-in-law’s whereabouts, but simply acquiesced to the Dowager’s plans and accompanied her to Ashedon Court. If Lord Randall should suddenly return to London, Faith would be as safe from him, buried in Derbyshire, as she would be staying with her sister Sarah in Highgate. Besides, she’d several times mentioned how much she missed being in the country.

  Still, he’d begun to wonder, with a touch of panic, why Faith had not let him know she’d left town, when he recalled having told her he would be fully occupied over the next critical few weeks, pushing for passage of the Reform Bill. She probably thought she would have time to send him a note from Ashedon Court, explaining her change in plans, before he could discover her absence.

  He was tempted to follow her immediately, to make sure there was no more alarming explanation for her silence...but there was the matter of the pending vote in the Lords. Driven as he was to speak with her and discover his fate, he couldn’t dismiss the duty to see to its fruition the work to which he’d devoted the last ten years of his life.

  He was hardly the only member of the Commons who’d be pushing for the Lords to pass the bill, he argued with himself. Surely others could keep the pressure on for the week or so it would take him to take care of his pressing business in Derbyshire.

  He could go to the Quill and Gavel, and hope to find his fellow Hellions at a strategy session before their usual afternoon meeting in the committee room. Ask their opinion on how long it would take for the Bill to come to a vote in the Lords, and if they thought he’d have enough time to go to Derbyshire and return before the vote was taken, he would do so.

  His course of action decided, he set off for the hackney stand.

  * * *

  To Davie’s relief, he did in fact discover the Hellions in the private parlour they often bespoke when they were working outside the committee rooms. However, as he should have expected after his precipitous departure the previous evening, before he could get a word out, Ben rounded on him.

  ‘Good thing I didn’t save you any ale! Was Englemere so loquacious you couldn’t get away, or did you forget you’d promised to return and give us his assessment?’

  So preoccupied was he with his own personal quest, it took him a telling few seconds to refocus his mind and pick up the thread of that discussion. By the time he had, three speculative gazes were fixed on him.

  ‘Unless discussion of the Reform Bill wasn’t what set you running off,’ Christopher said before he could answer.

  ‘Isn’t it time you trusted us enough to let us know what’s really going on?’ Giles asked quietly.

  Well and truly caught, Davie blew out a frustrated breath. But Giles was right. Though there was nothing, besides advice, with which his friends could help him on this, on a matter of such importance to him, he ought to tell them what was happening.

  ‘Very well,’ he acquiesced, taking a chair. ‘Get me some ale, and I’ll explain.’

  In a few succinct sentences, he related the quick progression of his renewed relationship with Faith, from unexpected meeting, to offering assistance, to the desire he had increasing difficulty controlling, to his epiphany last night, after which he’d sought out Englemere to determine if he could ask for her hand and still remain the man of honour and integrity he took pride in being.

  His summary complete, he braced himself for derision. ‘If you wish to make some crack about “pursuing the Unattainable”, now is the moment.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound as if she is “unattainable” any longer,’ Ben said quietly. ‘And I’d hope you’d give us more credit than to assume we would mock your efforts, now that the relationship has turned from an impossible dream to a courtship that may actually win you a bride.’

  ‘Englemere and Sir Edward did affirm the trustees could have no objections, I trust,’ Giles said.

  ‘They believed two of them would not. The third, a stickler for rank, would require some persuasion, but they thought they could win him over,’ Davie confirmed.

  ‘They should remind the stickler that Prime Ministers are often ennobled,’ Giles said with a smile. ‘You may end up with a title higher than his.’

  ‘No, he’d turn it down,’ Ben said. ‘We’re focused on abolishing the importance of titles, after all, not collecting them. Except for you, of course, Giles. You can’t help being born a viscount who is destined to become an earl.’

  ‘Thank you for excusing me,’ Giles said drily. ‘There’s nothing wrong with titles, as long as men are judged and promoted for their own efforts, not merely because of an accident of birth.’

  ‘So, when are you going to try your luck?’ Christopher asked. ‘Though she’d be a fool to turn you down.’

  ‘After suffering through a decade of marriage to Ashedon?’ Ben inserted. ‘If she has any sense at all, she ought to jump at the chance to wed a man who’d actually mean his vows to love, honour and “keep himself only unto her”.’

  ‘I hope she will—if she loves me enough. That’s the unknown, of course. Until I spoke with Englemere and Sir Edward last night, I didn’t feel I could hint at wanting anything more than friendship.’ Davie made a wry grimace. ‘She’s fond of me, I know, and friendship might be all she’s interested in.’

  ‘Then she is a fool,’ Christopher said.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Davie countered. ‘She’s a duchess, remember. Marrying a commoner would outrage a large part of the society in which she’s moved all her life, and probably close many doors to her. That’s a lot to ask.’

  ‘If she
loves you, I don’t think that will matter,’ Giles said.

  ‘I hope not. I expect I shall find out soon. Which is what I came to ask you—’

  ‘If you wanted our permission to address her, you have it,’ Ben interrupted, a twinkle in his eye.

  With an exasperated glance, Davie continued, ‘I wanted to ask you how long you think it will be before the Bill will come up for a vote in the Lords. Faith isn’t in London at present; I learned just this morning that she and the family have gone to Ashedon Court, in Derbyshire, and don’t plan to return until next spring. I’d like to follow her to Ashedon immediately, if you think I’d have time to travel there and back before the Bill comes up for a vote.’

  ‘You want to leave London?’ Ben asked incredulously. ‘With the most important vote of the last four hundred years about to happen? When we need every penetrating wit and every persuasive voice to convince the members of the Lords that the bill must and should be passed now?’

  ‘I appreciate your desire to lay your proposal before the lady with all speed,’ Giles said, frowning. ‘But truly, Davie, there couldn’t be a worse time for you to be away. It may be longer than a week before the vote is taken, but returning in time for that is less important than the work that needs to be done by all of us now, to ensure that we get the proper result once the votes are counted.’

  ‘Here, here,’ Christopher said.

  Their advice was hardly unexpected, but Davie found himself resisting it. He’d given all of himself for years to the fight to create a better nation. Couldn’t he be allowed a few days to pursue something of such compelling personal importance?

  For several moments, none of them spoke, the only sound the tick of the mantel clock and the muffled voices from the taproom beyond. Finally, Ben broke the silence.

  ‘No one knows better than you how important the next two or three weeks will be. If you still feel you must go to Derbyshire anyway, then go. I think I speak for all the Hellions in saying you’d travel with our best wishes and our blessing.’

  Surprised it was the rake Ben, who’d never remained with the same lady more than a few weeks, rather than the faithful married Giles, who understood the strength of his compulsion, Davie nonetheless felt validated and humbled by their trust.

  And he also knew, despite their approval, that he’d found his answer.

  More than anything in the world, he wanted to make Faith his wife. But he could no more square with his conscience abandoning his duty to his country to pursue a personal matter, than he could have pressed Faith to become his wife, if doing so would have put her at risk of losing her sons.

  ‘Thank you all for the vote of confidence,’ he said at last. ‘But...I guess I’ll stay. We’ve waited ten years to alter the fate of the nation; I suppose I can wait another few weeks to find out my own.’

  Giles reached out to shake his hand. ‘Thank you. We all appreciate the sacrifice you’re making.’

  ‘It’s only a few weeks’ delay, Davie,’ Ben said with a grin. ‘Who, in that short time, could appear out of nowhere to carry your lady off from an estate in Derbyshire?’

  ‘There had better be no one,’ he retorted, exceedingly glad he’d made sure Lord Randall was tucked away in Calais.

  * * *

  But despite their high hopes and best efforts, it was an angry and frustrated group of Hellions who reassembled in the private room of the Quill and Gavel two weeks later, the day after the Reform Bill was voted down by the House of Lords.

  ‘I still can’t believe it!’ Ben cried, banging his fist on the table. ‘All that effort spent persuading a majority of the peers to pass the bill now, lest they incite the violence of a populace that so overwhelmingly supports it, and then this!’

  ‘Even the most intransigent had agreed to abstain, if they couldn’t in good conscience vote for it,’ Christopher said.

  ‘Only to have the clergy bring out their members in such numbers, the Lords Spiritual were able to outvote the Lords Temporal, and defeat it,’ Davie said disgustedly. ‘I stayed in London, talking to peers for days on end, for this? I should have left for Derbyshire two weeks ago.’

  ‘The clerics back at Oxford called us “hell-bent” for daring to propose eliminating their seats in the House of Lords,’ Ben said. ‘Mark my words, if they haven’t stirred up a devil’s brew of trouble themselves, by opposing this.’

  ‘I hope you’re wrong about that, Ben,’ Christopher said, looking weary. ‘Where do we go from here?’

  ‘I’ve heard there will be a call for a vote of confidence in Grey’s government,’ Davie said. ‘He’ll win it, and then advise the king to prorogue Parliament. All he’s pushed for these last few years is getting that bill passed, and since it can’t be re-introduced in the same session, he’ll want to call a new one.’

  ‘That will give you enough time to travel to Derbyshire and back,’ Ben said. ‘At least something positive will happen from proroguing the session.’

  ‘Yes, we’ll wish you luck—’ Stopping in mid-sentence, Giles smoothed the front page of the newspaper he’d just opened. ‘Hell and the devil, Ben, I’d hoped you were wrong, too. But it appears you weren’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Christopher asked. ‘What’s happened?’

  The other three crowded around as Giles swiftly scanned the paper. ‘News of the defeat of the Reform Bill must have spread through the countryside. According to the Morning Post, there have been riots in Derby, Nottingham, Dorset Leicestershire, and Somerset. The palaces of the Lord Mayor and the Bishop of Bristol were destroyed, the Bristol jail broken into and prisoners freed. Rioters even set fire to Nottingham Castle and Wollaton Hall, Lord Middleton’s home.’

  ‘Wollaton Hall!’ Ben repeated, turning to Davie. ‘Isn’t Ashedon Court near there, outside Derby?’

  Shock iced his veins, followed by the burn of anger. ‘It is,’ Davie affirmed grimly. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen. I’m leaving for Ashedon immediately.’

  Grabbing up his coat, Davie barely heard his friends’ offers of encouragement and assistance as he rushed out, ticking off in his head the tasks he must complete in order to leave for Derbyshire. Hovering at the edge of his mind was the horrifying vision of Faith, his lovely, innocent Faith, menaced by crowds of angry men who didn’t know the warmth and charity of the lady, but only that she lived in a house bearing a ducal coronet.

  If she were harmed, he couldn’t be responsible for what he might do.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Two days later, Faith sat on a bank of the stream that divided the Home Wood at Ashedon Court, the skirts of her oldest gown tucked under her, watching as her boys fished. Sunlight spangled the trees drowsing in the afternoon breeze with a gold that brightened leaves just beginning to turn to their autumnal hues of red and yellow.

  Edward, become quite proficient after nearly a month of practice, baited a hook for Colin, even the younger boy now expert in detaching his catch from the line. Looking on fondly, she thought how much more like a normal, happy eight-year-old her eldest had become, after three weeks out of the city and away from the influence of the tutor who’d been trying to turn him into a miniature of his arrogant, self-absorbed father.

  To her guilty delight, Faith wasn’t having to counter the Dowager’s influence, either. Several days after their arrival in Derbyshire, the letter she’d penned in a disguised hand in London was delivered, informing her mother-in-law that a ‘concerned friend’ had seen Lord Randall board a packet for Calais. Alternately relieved to know her son was well and alarmed that he had departed to the peril of foreign shores, the Dowager had dithered over whether she would follow her son to offer succour, remain at Ashedon Court in the hope that he would join them there, or return to London. Finally choosing London as the most likely place Lord Randall would try to contact her—and no more a lover of country life than her son—she’d
immediately begun preparations to return to the metropolis.

  She’d harangued Faith about accompanying her to resume the duties required of a duchess in London society. To which Faith had sweetly responded that she had a higher duty to remain with her son at Ashedon Court, so the young Duke might become better acquainted with the land and responsibilities that were now his.

  The Dowager hadn’t been happy, but she’d recognised a winning trump card when she saw it. Left with no more ammunition to attack Faith’s determination to remain with the children, she left in a huff, accompanied by an entourage with enough grooms, outriders and footmen to satisfy even their former tutor’s concept of the consequence due a duchess.

  As the clomp of hoofbeats and jingle of harness faded as the Dowager’s coach disappeared down the Long Drive, for the first time since her marriage, Faith had felt entirely free.

  Since that morning two weeks ago, she’d let herself drift through the days like thistledown blown on the wind. Rising early to take a bruising morning ride; sharing breakfast with the boys in the nursery; teaching them lessons that continued outside, as she identified trees and plants, fish, frogs and insects. Often, as they had today, they brought along a picnic lunch and fishing rods, ending the tutoring walk by throwing some hooks in the stream or, in Colin’s case, climbing the nearby trees.

  They’d also, during their rambles, stopped by the nearer cottages on the estate, introducing the tenants to the new little Duke—and overhearing several muttered comments about how the occupants wouldn’t have recognised the old one, seldom as he came to the estate. The assessment troubled her; Wellingford hadn’t been nearly so vast a property, but she’d grown up knowing all the families who worked the land, and she wasn’t even the heir. She vowed that, before he saw London again, Edward would be able to say the same about his tenants.

  During her rides, she’d got to know the grooms, and engaged a younger one with a sharp eye and a friendly manner to begin teaching the boys, to their great delight. Just last night, she’d penned the last notes to the prospective tutors recommended by Englemere, inviting each of the top three candidates to visit at Ashedon Court for a personal interview.