Dukes to Fall in Love With: A Historical Regency Romance Collection

by Bridget Barton

  “For heaven’s sake, it is not forever. You will only need to stay here a while, and then you will be out again. Just stay quiet and do as you are told, and you will soon be back in your own room.”

  “You heard Ronald Belville yourself, Mama. I am to be kept here until one of his ugly daughters is married to the Duke. And both you and I know that that will never happen. The Duke of Hillington despises those girls, as he despises the Earl. They are manner-less animals to him, almost creatures of another species altogether.”

  “You must not speak this way,” her mother said and looked worried, peering over her shoulder as if her husband might suddenly materialize.

  “Why, what worse can happen to me now? Or do you truly believe your husband when he says he would throw me down the stairs and break my neck without a moment’s compunction? There now, see what you have married? Tell me, how does your current husband compare to the very fine one that you once had?”

  “In time, you will see that …”

  “No, I do not want to hear anymore,” Ella said and held a hand up in front of her. “I never want to hear you speak again. When I am finally let out of this place, I will leave Dandridge Hall for good, and I will never set eyes on you again.”

  “Ella, I think that you will …”

  “No, I do not need you; I do not need anybody. I will do whatever I have to do; perhaps I will even become a governess like you.”

  “Ella, there is no need to be so spiteful.”

  “You still think that that is an insult, do you not? Really, I have never thought badly of you for having been a governess. Especially when there is so much else wrong in your character to concentrate upon. And I would be proud and pleased to be a governess if only to stay away from you and your husband forever. I will abandon you to your fate, Ariadne Belville because believe me it will not be a happy one. You will be alone here with that man, and he will very soon tire of you as he tires of everybody else. And then your life will be a misery, and you will richly deserve it.”

  Ariadne had turned on her heel and walked out of the room, her eyes welling with tears. At that moment, Ella had seen that her words had hit home, and she knew that every word she had spoken was everything that her mother feared would come to pass. Ariadne knew that she had made a mistake, had probably known it for some time, but something about her daughter’s words had somehow made it real.

  For the briefest of moments, Ella almost felt sorry for her. And then she had looked around the attic and wondered how many years of her life might be spent in there. In the end, every ounce of feeling she had left for her mother evaporated into the ether.

  “Miss Winfield?” came a voice from behind the door. “May I come in?”

  “Yes, course,” she called back, wondering if she ought really to be standing there in night attire.

  However, her only other option would have been to put the men’s clothing back on again, and she was not sure she felt entirely comfortable in that outfit either.

  “How did you sleep?” the Duke said, entering the room carrying a heavily laden tray and appearing not to notice her attire for a moment.

  “Better than I have done in a very long time, Your Grace.”

  “I hope you are hungry,” he said and smiled ruefully at the enormous plate of breakfast food. “There are bacon and kidneys, there are eggs and toast, tomatoes and mushrooms, I think; oh yes, and some jam.” He laughed.

  “It smells heavenly, and yes, I am ravenous,” she said and sat down on the bed as he lifted the nightstand to place it in front of her.

  “I am afraid this will have to serve as a table for the time being.”

  “It is certainly better than the attic, truly,” she said with a laugh, smelling the wonderful aroma of cooked bacon.

  “You carry on, Miss Winfield, and I will return in a minute with a pot of tea. I could not quite manage it all at once; it would not fit on the tray,” he said with a laugh and disappeared so suddenly that it was almost as if he had not been there in the first place.

  Ella was so hungry that she began to stuff bacon and toast into her mouth in a most unladylike fashion. She chewed quickly and swallowed, again and again, hoping that the Duke would not suddenly reappear and find her behaving so savagely.

  Perhaps the excitement of the night before had done much to improve her appetite.

  By the time the Duke returned holding a teapot in one hand and two saucer-less cups in the other, Ella had almost finished.

  “I say, you have a hearty appetite,” he said with a laugh. “I am afraid there is no milk; I have only two hands.” He gave her that rueful smile again, and she realized once more just how handsome he was.

  He placed the two cups down on the nightstand next to her tray and poured the tea before wandering across the room and setting the teapot down on top of a chest of drawers.

  “How do you feel?” he said as he tentatively sat down on the bed next to her and reached for one of the cups.

  “I ought to be scared, no, terrified … I ought to be terrified. But I am not, Your Grace. I am relieved, I can tell you, to be out of that house, even though I do not yet know what life holds for me. But I am pleased to know that it does not hold either the Earl or my mother. It does not hold Lady Patience and Lady Georgiana.”

  “You really are very brave, Miss Winfield. Still, the way you climbed out of that window and swung in through the other one, it should not really come as a surprise to me.” He laughed and sipped his tea.

  “Do you know, Your Grace, the Earl of Dandridge quite seriously threatened to throw me down the stairs of Dandridge Hall and break my neck? After that, I had not assumed that my life was safe at any point. And so climbing out of the window was easy; in fact, anything after that will be easy.” She laughed and reached for her teacup. “In fact, even the difficult things will be easy from now on.”

  “Well, I will help you in any way I can,” he said with a smile.

  Their old ease was back with them, and they were talking as if they were simply in Mrs Holton’s tearoom in the town, rather than on a bed in a deserted room at Hillington Hall. What a kind and handsome man he was, and how much he had risked helping her.

  And he was still helping her now, feeding her, and keeping her safe. As much as Ella realized that he might never feel for her what she felt for him, still she would always be grateful to know him. Even if he married Lady Caroline and made the Earl of Mortcombe the happiest man in the world, still Ella would love him and be glad for him, as long as he was happy.

  “I told my mother that I would get work as a governess and, in truth, I think that is what I will do. I know that it is not a happy position, as such, but in comparison to the life I would have had at Dandridge, it will be like heaven to me.”

  “You sound as if you have already thought about it,” he said quietly.

  “I thought about very little else in the attic. I did not even have a book to read to keep me occupied, and so I made plans of what I would do when I finally escaped from Dandridge Hall. And I decided I would make my way to an employment registry and find myself a suitable position as a governess. There, my accommodation and sustenance problems solved in an instant.”

  “Well, perhaps you should rest a few days here before you make any big decisions, Miss Winfield. After all, you have been through a good deal these last months, have you not?”

  “I should be very grateful, Your Grace. And I promise to keep to this room and not give you away to your servants.”

  “I would not want them to say anything in town which might get back to your stepfather.” He smiled at her.

  “Thank you.”

  “And I will see what I can do about getting some of your clothes,” he said and began to chuckle as he looked at the worn-looking pile of men’s clothes that she had neatly folded and left at the end of the bed.

  “I am sure that Violet can spirit away some of my things without anybody ever knowing. She is cleverer than all of them stitched together.”


  “She most certainly is.” He laughed and rose to his feet to retrieve the teapot.

  However, as he moved, he caught his tailcoat on the bedpost, and it tugged wildly at the fabric. There was a clatter as something fell out of the inside pocket of his coat and landed on the floor. They both looked down, staring at the little golden mask Ella had worn to the masquerade ball.

  Ella began to laugh. She reached for it and held it in her hands, turning it over and over. As she did, the Duke turned and studied the little pile of dark clothes again. Slowly, very slowly, realization clearly began to dawn.

  “Last night when I handed you the men’s clothes, you said it would not be for the first time, did you not?”

  “I believe I did,” she said and kept her focus on the mask.

  “You have worn them before, have you not?”

  “I have,” she said but would not meet his gaze.

  Ella knew that the truth was about to come out, all of it, and she realized that she no longer feared it. If anything, after all that had happened now, she had a curious feeling that she was about to burst out laughing again. Her shoulders began to shake with the effort of trying to hold it in.

  “Was that you? That scruffy little man outside my club? Was that really you?” the Duke said, and finally, the laughter broke free.

  “It was me, Your Grace,” she said between gasps. “You must forgive me, but I did it with your best interests at heart. You see, I had overheard everything, and I knew how your attorney sought to mislead you. But I had never realized how far he would go, and in truth, I can quite imagine that Mr Mercer himself had not realized it would all get so very out of hand.”

  “And so it was you who sent me the second letter? You are my well-wisher?”

  Ella did not answer him; she simply raised the little mask to her face and turned to him.

  “My goodness … it was you all along. You are my masked woman,” he said and stared at her, his dark eyes wide, and his handsome face a picture of surprise. “But of course it is you, who else could it be? What other woman of my acquaintance would be bold enough to sneak into a masquerade ball and tease a Duke?” And suddenly, without warning, he threw his head back and boomed with laughter.

  Chapter 31

  The rest of that day seemed to speed by in a haze of activity. Rufus had sat back down on the bed and excitedly demanded that Ella tell him every bit of her tale from beginning to end, from the moment she had decided to be an interloper at the ball to the very moment he had rescued her.

  He had been amazed at every turn and even more amazed that she could ever have thought that he would be angry with her, or even think her undignified for the eavesdropper that she clearly was.

  Rufus did not think her undignified at all, but adventurous and spirited and beautiful. He laughed and laughed throughout the whole thing, only becoming serious when the depths to which his old attorney had sunk became clear.

  He really had been prepared to put his master at risk, although Ella was keen to ensure him that the man had sounded most ill at ease with it. And she had pointed out what a terribly overbearing and intimidating character the Earl could be, especially to those who were beneath him.

  In the end, Rufus had decided that he must see Henry that day. He must talk to him and tell him that he knew it all and ask him why he had done it.

  And so it was that he left Ella in the room once more so that he could ride out to the home of Henry Mercer.

  When Henry’s housekeeper showed Rufus into his small but neat drawing room, the look on the old attorney’s face clearly demonstrated that he knew that all was known to his master.

  “Your Grace, I know why you are here.”

  “Good, I am glad that you know, and I am glad that we do not have to discuss every detail of it. But I do know everything, Henry. Everything except for why.”

  “I needed the money,” he said simply. “I have made some very poor investments of late and have found that I have now very little to sustain me in my old age when I can no longer work. I realize that that was not your fault, but my own, and yet I could see no other way out. Forgive me, Your Grace, but I knew that it would hardly matter to you which of the young ladies you finally married, for you would never love any of them. And so it was that I dropped hints, very subtle hints, each time I introduced myself to a prospective father of the bride. It may not surprise you to know that the Earl of Dandridge was the only one who picked up upon it. He seized upon it, in fact.”

  “Tell me, Henry, tell me that he brought pressure to bear.”

  “I wish I could blame him entirely, Your Grace. I wish I could play the misguided innocent and have you forgive me, but I cannot. I knew what I was doing from the very first, and when it progressed so very far, I had no idea how to get out of it. I have no excuses, and I shall not try to make any. But I do apologize, Your Grace, because I truly am so sorry.”

  “I know you are, Henry,” Rufus said and paused for a moment, not trusting his voice to remain steady as he spoke. The emotion was so great that it took him by surprise. He remained there standing in the middle of Henry Mercer’s drawing room like a silent statue for some moments whilst he gathered himself. “And I do forgive you.”

  “You forgive me?” Henry said incredulously, and it was obviously the last thing he had expected to hear.

  “I forgive you if you will forgive me,” Rufus went on quietly.

  “But there is nothing that I ought to forgive you for, Your Grace. You have done nothing wrong, and you never have.”

  “If I had been a better friend to you, Henry, I would have known of your worries. I would have known of your financial mistakes, and you would have felt able to speak to me on the matter. If I had been a better friend to you, Henry, the matter of money would not have been an issue. It would have been a small problem for me to solve.”

  “You have always been a good friend to me, Your Grace, as was your father before you.”

  “But not such good friends that either one of us took the care to find out about your life away from Hillington Hall. Well, all of that is going to change, my old friend.”

  “You mean …?”

  “Give yourself a few days to get over things, and let us go back to where we were before. What do you say? Shall I see you in the study at Hillington Hall come Monday?”

  “Of course, Your Grace. Truly, I do not know how to thank you.”

  “Well, you might be able to assist me with a brand-new problem, my dear chap,” Rufus said, loudly light-hearted and keen to dispel the awkwardness. “For you see, I have stolen the Earl of Dandridge’s stepdaughter, and now I do not know what to do with her,” he said with an elaborate shrug.

  “You have stolen her, Your Grace?” Henry looked so shocked that Rufus could only laugh.

  And then he settled himself down in the armchair opposite his old friend and attorney and began to tell him everything.

  When he had finished at Henry Mercer’s home, Rufus felt much more light-hearted. He knew that he could have blamed Henry and nursed his own feelings of betrayal always, but what good would it serve? He had not been entirely blameless in the whole thing, and it was clear that Henry had not known what else to do. He would not banish him for one error; for one error in so many years was surely something that ought easily to be forgiven.

  He felt relieved that he would see him again, that things would continue as they had always done. Honesty was certainly the best policy, and he had told the truth every bit as much as Henry. It had cleared the air between them and had done so much to make it right again.

  As he began to head for home, he decided that he would use a little more of that honesty. He would not pressure her, but he would go straight up to that room and tell Ella Winfield exactly how he felt about her. And, if she chose to go out into the world on her own and make her life as a governess, he would do whatever he could to help her. He would open his heart, tell the truth, and accept whatever fell out of the whole thing.

  By
the time he reached her door and knocked loudly on it, his nerves were almost as high up as his spirits. But still, he determined that he would say all of it, tell her everything, come what may.

  Ella was sitting on the bed wearing the breeches and shirt and waistcoat, clearly tired of mooching about the room in his old robe. She was reading one of the books that he had left to keep her company whilst he was away, and she seemed fully engrossed.

  “Can I interrupt?” he said with a smile.

  “Yes, of course, Your Grace. Did everything go as planned? Have you seen Mr Mercer?”