Duchesses in Disguise

by Grace Burrowes

  Help me, Jonas, she prayed to her late husband. Help me get back safe and sound to our children.

  When the carriage had tumbled, her head had smashed against the window, shattering the glass. Her foot had become wedged at an awkward angle between a portmanteau, which must have carried several bricks, and the sharp edge of a sewing box. She hadn’t felt any pain in the first moments after the accident. Just shocked surprise. In fact, she had laughed and joked about the hardness of her head to ease the others’ concern for her well-being. But now, the left side of her skull felt as though it had been pummeled by Gentleman Jackson, and her left ankle throbbed and swelled against the ribbons of her slippers.

  She gallantly kept a smile stretched over her gritted teeth as the third horseman dismounted, held out his hand, and raised his head. His familiar pale gray-silver eyes pierced through the rain. Heat rushed to her head.

  “Stratton,” she whispered, and then, “Stratton,” again as shock transformed to disbelief and then converted to plain anger.

  “You can just… just…” Her head hurt too much to find words that articulated her fury at the gods in the heavens. So, she just emitted a frustrated scream.

  Stratton probably thought she was mad— in the Bedlam sense of the word, of course.

  But she had long since stopped caring what he thought of her.

  “Ride on,” she hissed. “I don’t require your help. I shall walk to Lesser Puddlebridge… bury… borough—whatever the nearest hanged town is called—rather than accept your assistance.” She raised her head, turned, and made a defiant step away from him. But when her foot struck the earth, pain shot up her leg, and her ankle gave way. She reached for the overturned carriage to steady herself as a wave of black, nauseating dizziness rushed through her.

  Stratton’s hand clamped around her elbow. She yanked away. “D-do not pretend to b-be civil. I wouldn’t accept your help even if you were trying to save me… from… from stampeding elephants.”

  She attempted another step, swallowing down the pain just to prove her point. Her husband’s words echoed in her memory. You can be the most stubborn woman in all England at times. She would always pretend to be offended and would retort, Just England? No, no, I ’m the most stubborn woman in all Europe and parts of the Americas.

  “Your Grace,” Stratton began. She expected him to say something insulting, along the lines of, You foolish bovine chit, you don’t know what’s good for you, as I do. Get on my horse immediately. Instead, he surprised her by gently cupping her elbow and saying in soothing tones through the roar of the downpour, “I know that you do not approve of me, and I cannot blame you. My past behavior to you has been inexcusable. A thousand apologies could not suffice. But it is obvious that you are in great pain. Please forgive me enough to allow me to assist you. If it helps you, pretend I’m someone else.”

  Mary Alice doubted she could muster the mental energy for such a feat of imagination while her skull felt as though it were being repeatedly whacked with a red-hot anvil and a hundred invisible knives jabbed her ankle. She couldn’t walk another two feet, much less to the neighboring village. And every layer of her clothing was drenched.

  She closed her eyes and murmured the two hardest, most humiliating words she had ever uttered in her life. “Thank you.”

  He kept a firm grip on her elbow as she inelegantly hobbled to his horse. Between the rain and the black splotches crowding her vision, she blindly reached for a stirrup. His large hands went around her waist and lifted her into the saddle. She heard him grunt and felt his arms shaking.

  Just capital. Now her sworn enemy, who’d inspired others to moo around her, knew how much she weighed. Could she suffer any worse indignity?

  As she settled onto the saddle, a vivid pain burst in her temple. She sucked her breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and clung to the pommel.

  She felt him mount behind her. He placed a strong arm around her, forming a shelter with his chest and arms. He used the brim of his hat to protect her from the rain. She was vaguely aware that this was the most intimate she had ever been with a man other than her husband. But she was in too much pain to care that his arm rested just under the weight of her breasts. She wished only that she could press her ailing head against his hard chest to relieve the black throb.

  She shoved her fingers beneath her bonnet and dug into her aching temple. Warm fluid oozed onto her fingertips. “Am I… am I bleeding?”

  He didn’t answer but muttered, “Dear God,” and urged his horse.

  The motion of the beast jarred her skull. “H-how far is your home?”

  “Just beyond the fields.” His hoarse voice reverberated in her head.

  A heavy weariness descended upon her. Remaining upright proved too difficult. She leaned over, desiring to curl up on the horse’s neck. “I’m so very tired.”

  He tightened his hold, forcing her upright again. “I need you to talk to me, Your Grace.”

  “Please, please, I want to rest.”

  He shifted his arm until it slanted painfully across her chest. “Why were you traveling this way? Tell me.”

  “W-we were to go on holiday.” The words were ponderous, heavy things on her tongue. “My friends wanted to get away from… They said I needed a holiday, but I didn’t want… to leave my children. I shouldn’t have c-come.” She turned, pressing her cheek against his chest, seeking sleep. She hadn’t known a man’s body for two years. She had forgotten such reassuring strength and comfort.

  “I understand, indeed.” His voice reminded her of Jonas’s. Even when he spoke quietly, it resonated like quiet thunder.

  “I miss them so… so much already. When I kissed them good-bye several days ago, I was crying. I… I haven’t been away from them for more than a year.” Something she said wasn’t correct. “No… A year is too long. A week. I’ve never left them for more than a week. I worry for Anna. She’s… different…” She shook her head, and black pain flared in her head. She scrunched her eyes closed and whimpered.

  “You are an ideal mother.”

  “The physicians… They told my husband and me that we should put Anna away. But… we wouldn’t let them. They would require a thousand… a thousand armies to take my…”

  “Your child is safest with you.”

  She blindly tugged at her bonnet, trying to get it away from where it pressed into her temples and forehead. His hand touched hers as he gently peeled her bonnet away. A swell of cold rain rushed onto her face. His large hand cupped her cheek and drew her against his warm neck.

  “I’m so tired, Jonas,” she whispered. “Can… can we sleep?”

  “The house is just ahead.” She could feel his body trembling, like that first night they made love.

  She opened her eyes. All she saw was a flash of green grass and gray, drenched skies before the black spots filled her vision and she had to shut her lids. “I can’t make it. Let’s sleep here.”

  “You need to stay awake for me.”

  “No.”

  Her muscles turned limp, as though she could slip from Jonas’s hold and onto the grass, letting the rain lull her aching head. She remembered when she and Jonas had picnicked on a grassy cliff by the Lyme coast. She had fallen asleep against his warm body while listening to the comforting sound of waves. “The ocean is so… The ocean is…” She couldn’t finish speaking. The pain paralyzed her.

  She could hear Jonas call her name as if he were far, far away. All she could do was grip his hand to assure him she was well. Poor Jonas always worried about her. But it was just a headache. The housekeeper would make a draught for her, and then she could curl up beside him.

  She could see light behind her closed lids. There was the sound of a slamming door and alarmed female voices. Jonas was shouting. What was wrong? Jonas never raised his voice.

  Mary Alice couldn’t feel the heat of his chest anymore. “Jon-Jonas!” His warm hands were on her again, pulling her toward him. Her stomach heaved. She needed to lie down, but his arm h
eld her up. She tried to cry, “Let me sleep,” but instead, hot vomit filled her mouth and poured over her chin. Then she slipped into blackness.

  * * *

  The roaring fire and flickering candles turned the small bedchamber in the home of Stratton’s tenant into a sweltering night. Stratton had stripped down to his pantaloons, boots, and shirt and now paced, restless with worry. His tenant, Mrs. Fillmore and her girl servant, who fortuitously had postponed returning to her home in the village because of the downpour, had undressed Her Grace and clad her in a wool nightdress. He hadn’t informed his tenants of their visitor’s true identity. They had assumed they wound muslin bandages around the head and foot of a genteel acquaintance of his. Her Grace remained unconscious during it all. Now her head was sunk into a goose down pillow, the candle on the side table illuminating her peaceful face in gold and turning her hair the color of autumn leaves.

  He was in hell. He raked his hands through his hair and strode to the small window. Rain pinged the glass. The downpour concealed the moon and trees. Just wet blackness. He felt as helpless as he had in the war when he’d walked among the fatally wounded, unable to nurse them back to health. He had noted how easy it was to kill a man but how hard it was to keep a man from dying. All things seemed to lean into death.

  He heard a soft rustling of bedcovers and rushed to Her Grace’s side. She hadn’t moved. What had he heard? Maybe he was losing his mind. “Your Grace?” he whispered.

  She didn’t respond.

  He reached under the quilts, found her hand, and squeezed it. “Your Grace?”

  Her eyes remained shut. Her breath was as even as ever.

  He sat in the chair he had pulled beside the bed.

  “Please, lady,” he prayed. He couldn’t bear the idea that this woman, whom he had emotionally hurt so badly, should die in his care. She needed to live, to be far from him and with her children and friends who adored her. Her vivacity and kindness could not end in this dingy room, on a dismal night, and with him. She deserved better.

  “You will be well,” he growled, as if by his own sheer will he could alter fate. He hung his head, still clinging to her hand. Outside, the wind picked up, rushing the rain against the window. His mind flowed with horrible memories—the hurt in Her Grace’s eyes all those years ago, the stillness of his soldiers as they drifted into death, the filthy rat-infested hospital where he found his daughter.

  He thought it was a trick of his mind when it first happened. The small pressure of her fingers. Then it happened again. He slowly raised his head. Her Grace’s eyes were open, unfocused and blank.

  “Your Grace,” he said quietly.

  She turned and gazed at him. Her pupils seemed to sharpen as recognition dawned.

  “You?” she whispered. “Stratton?”

  The disgust and disbelief coloring her voice brought him only relief. The accident had not rendered her witless. She knew him and remembered that she hated him. He couldn’t stop laughter from breaking over him, as all the hours of tension bubbled up and burst away.

  “Yes,” he cried. “It’s me! Stratton! You’re old enemy. Oh, thank God.”

  She attempted to sit up. “Ah!” She reached for her temple as pain crumpled her features.

  “No!” He clasped her shoulders. “Lie still, please. Don’t hurt yourself. There was an accident.” He gently pressed her back onto the pillow.

  Her brows furrowed. “What? Where am I?”

  “Your carriage overturned.” He gingerly touched her bandage, careful not to get near the wound. “You have a concussion. And, I fear, you’ve injured your ankle.”

  He studied her face, watching for any signs of permanent mental damage. Her features scrunched as she dug into her memory. “I remember being in the carriage,” she said. “But…”

  “It turned over, and you hit your head. At first the wound wasn’t apparent, for it was concealed beneath your bonnet. You probably were in shock. My acquaintances whisked your friends to my home, but as I escorted you, your health rapidly worsened. Fearing for your life, I stopped at a nearby tenant’s home.”

  Her brow furrowed. “I don’t recall any of—my friends!” She tried to bolt up again, but he gently kept her safe against the pillow. “Are they well?”

  “They were quite well when last I saw them,” he said reassuringly, letting his thumbs massage her shoulders. “I shall take you to them in the morning. Please don’t distress yourself.”

  She let his words sink in. “What of the carriage?”

  “I shall ask that it be repaired. It is not my most pressing concern at present. You are.”

  He hadn’t intended the intimate tone in his voice. Her alarmed eyes locked onto his. A strange current passed from their depths, crackling through his body. She glanced away. “Please… please remove your hands from me.”

  “Of course.” He withdrew them, but still hovered close. Her profound dislike for him would not stop him from worrying over her and seeing to her wounds.

  “I-I must hire a carriage tomorrow to return me to London,” she said.

  “That is not advisable.”

  She arched her brow. “Thank you for your kindness, but I refuse to s-stay in your home or your tenant’s. I will not be beholden to you any further.”

  “I cannot in good conscience allow you to leave my estates until you are well recovered. You’ve suffered a head injury. I’ve been witness to many soldiers dying…” He trailed off. What the hell was he saying? He would terrify her. “It is not advisable,” he repeated.

  “I will not stay!” She attempted to rise to her elbows.

  “No!” He reached for her shoulders again, but stopped and held up his palms mere inches from her body. “Please,” he implored. “Please rest.”

  She released a frustrated cry. A single tear slid down the side of her face and onto her pillow. “This is so very vexing. I should have never left my children—Anna.”

  He drew the chair closer and sat. “I’m sorry this has happened on your holiday. And I’m sorry for my behavior all those years ago.”

  She studied him and then began fingering the edge of the top quilt. Her silence unnerved him. He continued to speak. All the eloquent words in the letters he had written to her over the years, but had never sent, were reduced to a halting stammer. “Every day I regret the pain that I caused you and wish I could rescind those cruel words. I loathe myself for the pain I’ve caused you… and others.”

  He knew better than to expect forgiveness, but he needed some word or sign that she believed him sincere. For several long seconds, she remained silent, focused on the frayed quilt. He wondered if she’d even heard him when she finally whispered, “Why did you say it? I was just a lowly merchant’s daughter who fancied herself in love with the Season’s crown prince. I was harmless to you.”

  She was hardly harmless to him. And that was the trouble. “Perhaps we should continue this conversation when you are recovered.”

  “I may never get another chance to know. And your words have haunted me all these years. Why? Why did you want to hurt me?”

  He gently banged his balled hand on the wooden armrest of the chair. “I fear the reason may cause you to further despise me.”

  “Is that possible?” Whatever expression passed over his face softened her countenance. “That was cruel of me to say. Please forgive me. But I would like to know the truth.”

  The truth wouldn’t make their situation better, but worse, sending her recklessly back to London to get away from him.

  “Tell me,” she urged.

  He couldn’t deny her, not when her eyes were so large and vulnerable beneath her bandaged forehead. They remained as powerful as they had been years before, heating his skin and charging his body.

  “I knew that you possessed affections for me, and I…” He rubbed his chin and mouth. “I greatly esteemed you as well.”

  “W-what?”

  “I harbored affections for you.”

  She stared at him, her li
ps parted in disbelief. “So, you insulted me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What? And you were rumored to be intimately involved with several married ladies at the time. I know this now. Did you harbor affections for them as well? Did they receive the gift of your cruel tongue too? Are you so shameless?”

  He came to his feet. “I warned that you would despise me more. Yes, I was shameless. The other ladies, including the mother of my daughter”—the truth burned his throat like swallowing strong spirits—“were affairs of fevered, forbidden passion. They proved my masculine prowess, but my desire for them was not the stuff of honest affection. You were different.”

  She blinked. “Why? Because you, the golden one, were disgusted with yourself for admiring someone so homely, so awkward, so reeking of her father’s hosiery business?”

  “Because what I feel for you is true!” The booming words reverberated around him before he realized what he said. “I mean, was true,” he corrected quietly.

  He paced to the chimneypiece. “I was scared. And don’t ever say you are homely or awkward. You are beautiful. Every aspect of your being and spirit is lovely. I couldn’t admit that then because I was immature, full of arrogance, and a coward. In my misguided mind, I must have thought that if I cut you, I would somehow sever my attachment to you.”

  “Did that work, Colonel Stratton? Did watching my humiliation and hurt, born of your insults, cure you of your feelings for me?”

  He stirred the fire with a poker. Flames leaped from the exposed coals. “Of course, not. It made them stronger.”

  “How surprising,” she shot back. “But I assure you that your slurs forever destroyed my affections and good opinion of you.”

  Her words hit like stones. He’d known he was forever lost from her graces, but hearing her say as much destroyed him. “I know I can never make up for the pain I’ve caused you,” he choked. “Sorry is a mere word, but it’s all I have.” He returned to her bedside. “I can only take comfort in the knowledge that you married a better man.”

  “I did. He loved me very much, and I returned that love. I still do.”