He remembered the chaos as if it were yesterday and had vowed every moment of his early years never to repeat it if and when he finally married.
His hands tightened at his sides, fisting into hardness. It was why he had returned to England, after all, to understand just exactly what it was that simmered between him and this woman he had been forced into a union with.
Lucinda, the only wife he was ever likely to have and to hold. If it had not all been so deadly serious he would have laughed at his conundrum. A sinner caught by a saint and made impotent to boot by the memory of his parents’ unfaithfulness.
Nothing made sense any more and had not done so for a long time. He wanted his certainty back and his conviction and one small part of him understood that only with Lucinda at his side might he be able to regain it.
It was the reason he had pressed her so hard with his need for an heir—a way to bring her to him on his own terms. A way to bed her.
Lucinda could not believe what she had just heard. The Dissolute Duke of Alderworth was telling her he had been faithful to her memory? All those years. All those temptations. Three thousand miles from home and a stranger in a land that was as harsh as it was different and yet he had never cheated? A Duke who was known for his dalliances and excesses? She was astonished.
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because I want to know that any child we do have is actually mine.’
The anger in his voice contradicted everything he was confessing. One moment she understood him and the next …
‘I was brought up with a father who never believed that I was his, you see, and treated me accordingly. Seeing what such distrust does to a man, I should not like to repeat it.’ No softness lay in his brittle green eyes, the bruising around them adding to his menace. ‘It is not necessary that you like me when you provide me with an heir, Duchess, but I do need to be certain that you have not allowed another the same delights.’
My goodness, she could barely breathe with her anger and confusion, the joy of the disclosure eradicated completely by a reading of her character that was hardly salubrious.
He imagined her wanton? The pulse in her throat was beating like a drum as she stood speechless. At that moment she hated him with a passion and she could not keep the emotion from showing on her face.
‘I shall be leaving London for Alderworth on the morrow. I will send the carriage back for you when I have word that you wish to join me.’
He was disappearing again, the tenuous truce that she had felt between them across the last week dissolving. Even in the face of her fury she could not just watch him go.
‘What time will you leave?’ Her voice sounded broken and hoarse.
‘In the morning. There is no point in staying here longer.’
‘Then I will come, too.’
For the first time a spark of life entered his eyes. ‘Very well. My carriage will be at the Wellingham town house at ten o’clock. Be ready.’
He did not speak again before he turned and walked away, Edmund Coleridge joining her the moment he was gone.
‘You look pale. If Ellesmere has threatened you—?’
‘No.’ She did not let him finish. As a friend of Cristo’s she realised he might know more of the relationship she had with Alderworth than others did. ‘I think I am just tired.’
Taking a breath, she tried to regain her lost composure, all the while her eyes scouting to check if Taylen Ellesmere was still anywhere in the vicinity.
‘I am retiring to Bath next week with my family, Lucy. If you should wish to join us, you would be more than welcome. My mother would enjoy having you to stay, I am sure.’
Edmund’s eyes were warm with promise, but Lucinda knew she could no longer lead him on with hopes that would never come to pass.
‘I am sorry. I shall be rejoining my husband at Alderworth tomorrow. It has just been decided.’
‘I see.’ He stepped back. ‘Does Cristo know what you intend?’
‘Not yet, but he will.’
‘He won’t be pleased.’
Ignoring his condemnation, she carried on. ‘I wish you well in your Bath sojourn. I imagine it is lovely there at this time of the year.’
Platitudes, she knew, but her husband’s unexpected confession had taken her from one place to another.
Taylen Ellesmere had never cheated on her, but had held their marriage vows safe and close. She felt the smile blossom on her face as she gave Coleridge her goodbyes and went to find Camille Beauchamp to thank her for the soirée.
Chapter Eleven
‘I would feel far happier about all of this if you would take a few of the Wellingham servants with you.’
Lucinda shook her head at Taris’s words. She did not want those in the employ of her brothers to see the truth of the relationship she had with Taylen Ellesmere, for undoubtedly such a detail would leak back to Falder. She was pleased when the conversation was interrupted.
‘The Alderworth conveyance is here, my lord.’
‘Very well. See that Lady Lucinda’s luggage is stowed on board.’
Taris turned to her as the butler left. ‘Asher and Emerald have decided not to see you off and Eleanor and Cristo were called back to Graveson yesterday afternoon. Perhaps it is best that it is just us.’
When her middle brother stood she went into his embrace, his arms warm around her, the solid strength and honesty of him so very familiar. Part of her wanted to hold on and stay here, under the shelter of home and family, but another part needed something different and that was the voice she was heeding.
Disengaging her arms, she moved away, trying to keep her emotions in check.
‘I shall send word as soon as I am there to let you know that I am safe.’
‘It is not the journey worrying me, Lucy, but the man who you will live with at destination’s end.’
The amber in his eyes was clouded and she could see worry there. It broke her heart to sense her brother’s concern. Just another betrayal she had heaped upon the family. Beatrice, however, was smiling.
‘Go with hope, Lucinda, and find the way of your life.’ She pressed a small package into her hand. ‘I have wrapped up a book for you I have recently enjoyed.’
And then Lucinda was outside, the façade of the town house behind her in the wind. Looking up at the third-floor window, she fancied she saw Asher, but the shadow was gone before she had time to be certain.
One step, two steps and then three, her feet like leaden weights dragging towards the carriage. Taylen Ellesmere sat inside and gave Taris a cursory greeting which was given back with an equal lack of warmth. When the door was closed between them, her brother’s open palm splayed out upon the window.
I love you. She mouthed the words, but knew that he would not see them. Biting down on the soft flesh inside her bottom lip, she sat back as the horses gathered their rhythm.
‘I am not taking you away for ever, Lucinda. You may return any time you wish to visit your family. The carriage shall be at your disposal whenever you have need of it.’
She nodded because she did not trust herself to speak and he swore beneath his breath.
‘My own family was not close so it is something of a novelty to see such affection in others,’ he offered finally as she kept her silence. ‘In fact, I would say loathing was the nearest term to describe any family dynamics that I recall.’
‘That must have been difficult for you.’
‘Well, it was always easier when distance parted us.’ He smiled through the gloom of the day, a laconic devil-may-take-it smile that negated all that she had ever heard of his upbringing. ‘I would be farmed out to others, with no thought given to my schooling. My life truly began when I eventually got to Eton.’
A new and interesting turn. ‘How old were you?’
‘Twelve. My parents had died the year before, but I was an independent child for my age so their deaths barely affected me.’
‘Callous.’
‘I prefer to call it practical.’
A dead end of insults slung across lies.
‘One of the maids at Falder used to work for your grandmother at about the same time you did not return from France.’
He stiffened and Lucinda felt a creeping coldness. A muscle along the bottom of his jaw ground out movement when she chanced a peek at him.
‘Rosemary Jones made some mention of your uncle.’
This time he sat forwards, his hands together so that his fingers were entwined in the position Lucinda remembered placing her own in one of the favoured games of childhood.
Here is the church and here is the steeple …
Ditties that he would not have played as he was fighting for his life in a hospital bed in Rouen.
‘She said that you were often hurt.’ This was blurted out before she lost her courage altogether.
‘All children need to stand corrected in the name of good behaviour.’
His eyes flinted, the anger in them causing her to simply fold. She could have said more, could have told him everything that the maid had confided, but it was too soon and the facts were too raw.
‘Of course they do, your Grace.’ She sounded like a thousand other wives in London who only wanted a life that was peaceful and easy, the truth tearing what contentment was left into pieces.
Outside the road ran along fields of green and the sky was blue, a cold blue, the colour belying the temperature. It was chilly inside the carriage, too, and she was pleased for the woollen blanket that was over her lap.