“I went riding yesterday, as you know, with my friends.”
“Little Lord George and Alfie?”
Ezra nodded.
“And, my dear, what happened?”
“They…,” he put the marbles down on the table and watched them roll until they tumbled off the edge. “Alfie said something abysmal.”
Margaret did not speak for a moment. She did not want to, because the truth was that she was not certain she could bear to hear what Alfie said. “My dear-”
“He said that you might not be my mother.” His tears came fast now. “Th-that father had another- a-a-” He was stuttering and spluttering as he often did when he was upset.
Margaret knelt down beside him and took his face between her hands.
“No more, my darling! You are mine, my own dear son. I can tell you of the first moment I held you, moments after you were pulled from me. Of the first gurgles of sound you made. I am your own mother. No one else.”
It took some time for him to calm. She held him to her chest and stroked his hair until he was still and quiet. “You may hear many lies about us in the coming months, Ezra.”
Which is why something must be done, she thought as she imagined all the rumors and whispers that her son might hear.
Things that Margaret had thought she could protect him from. But she realized now, as she held him, that she could not. “Which is why we will be leaving.”
He lifted his head, and peered up at her. “Leaving?”
“Yes. We will visit one of the country estates.”
“But… for how long?”
“I don’t know, my love.” She pushed his curls back behind his ear. “Perhaps we will make a home for ourselves there.”
“But this is our home.” He pulled back from her arms, his face growing pinker, as it always did when he planned to plant his feet. “I will not leave.”
“This is for the best, Ezra.” She reached for him, but he yanked himself away.
“I will not!” he shouted, and scrambled under Joshua’s desk. He wrapped his arms around his knees and continued to shout. “This is home! This is our home!”
Margaret did her utmost to console him, as did Miss Hallow when she was drawn by the sound. But he would not be consoled, and rage descended into hysteria.
He demanded to be left alone, until Margaret and Miss Hallow complied.
“He will tire himself out soon,” Margaret said, as they stood outside the study. She felt heavy with emotion. Unbearably so.
“Certainly he will, Your Grace,” Miss Hallow said.
They stood there a moment longer, before Margaret took a deep breath and said, “We will be leaving, Miss Hallow, for the estate in Comptonshire. Would you tell Miss White and ask her to prepare the household?”
Miss Hallow disguised her surprise well, and Margaret was grateful for it.
“When will we be leaving, Your Grace?”
She looked to the closed study door, and imagined her son on the other side. “As soon as we can,” she said, and retired to bed. There, she lay sleepless. Her son’s tears had dried on her fingertips, though they still smelt and tasted like salt. She watered the pillow with her own tears, and thought on how it would feel to say goodbye to this home of theirs.
Though her once happy memories have become bittersweet, she recalled watching Ezra take his first steps, speak his first word and ride his first horse in these grounds.
This was where she had raised her child, and to say goodbye to it would be no easier for her than it would be for him.
Their Comptonshire manor was in Bath. It would be quiet; just the ticket. And perhaps those healing waters might soothe their sores.
Yes, leaving would be pain upon pain, but staying could very well break them.
Chapter 3
Lord Nathaniel Sterling, the Earl of Comptonshire
Nathaniel had met with the town’s most prestigious officials that afternoon in a meeting that had lasted several hours longer than any of them had expected.
By the end of the meeting, they had all been disappointed by the outcome. None so much as Nathaniel, who had seen the accounts for each of the public institutions and found them to be an utter disaster.
The officials had been sour-faced beneath his criticism, which had perhaps been too stern at times, but he had been carried away by his own temper.
There were buildings in disarray, jobs were few and far between and homelessness was on the rise. All of which had happened under the noses of these pompous men and – most frustratingly – under the leadership of his brother, during his time as Earl.
In the aftermath of the meeting, Nathaniel bid a very tired cluster of men farewell. As he shook the hand of a jolly fellow who was responsible for governing the finances at the local school, the gentleman let out a great chortle and said, “Quite the bachelor, aren’t you, good man?”
Nathaniel had smiled, but hadn’t really understood the bearing of the comment on their meeting.
Perhaps the man thought that if Nathaniel had a woman to come home to, he might bother himself less with the matters of the town.
Perhaps the gentleman would like that. It seemed as though many of them would like that, in fact.
A Lord, who owned much of the land in and around Comptonshire, had insisted that he had a beautiful daughter who would rejoice at the opportunity to meet with him.
As he spoke, he shook Nathaniel’s hand with vigorous enthusiasm and a predatory sort of excitement in his eyes.
“I would be much obliged,” Nathaniel had said. “Though for the time being, I am extremely busy, as you have no doubt realized.”
The man frowned, still shaking his hand. “Yes… quite.”
Nathaniel had pried his hand free and offered him a polite, albeit slightly terse, farewell.
Choosing to walk back to his manor, Nathaniel recounted the events of the meeting. His mind was awash in figures and statistics, in plans and schemes.
The weight of all that needed to be rectified was heavy on his shoulders, and he felt entirely lost in his own mind until he caught sight of grooves in the path.
They curved through the mud and into the trees, where he could see the backend of an overturned cart.
He heard the wheezing of a horse and the clump of hooves struggling through mud and ran towards the cart. It was overturned in the ditch, and there laid a brown mare on its side.
Its hooves were caught in the mud and the steep dive of the ditch’s edges prevented it from regaining its footing.
At first, Nathaniel wondered if the poor beast has been abandoned. “Easy now,” he said, and began to approach the animal so that he could detach it from the cart. In answer to his voice, Nathaniel heard a soft cry.
“Hello? Sir?” It was a boy. Snuffling out the words through gasps and tears. He was caked in mud, the lower half of his body trapped beneath the weight of the horse.
He was young. Terrifyingly young, though Nathaniel could barely make out his face through the dirt.
Nathaniel moved quickly. He jumped into the ditch, with mud up to his ankles, and grabbed the lad by his shoulders and beneath his arms. “Deep breaths, boy. Deep breaths.”
“Sir?”
Nathaniel’s heart was hammering. The boy was sinking, and scarcely able to talk. Scarcely able to breathe at all.
Nathaniel went down into the mud and braced his side against the horse’s spine. He locked his arms around the boy’s torso, holding his head up on his thigh. “I am going to pull, boy. It will hurt, but you are brave. Are you ready?”
Nathaniel heard the boy take a stuttering, but deep, breath, and knew that the weight of the horse would prevent him from taking another.
He pulled, careful of the boy’s frail arms, until he came free like a baby from its mother’s womb. He gasped in another breath and was quite limp in Nathaniel’s arms, though his eyes were still open and staring.
“My horse.” His voice sounded squashed and raspy. There were tear tracks throu
gh the mud caking his cheeks, but he was not crying anymore.
Nathaniel held him in his lap and moved his hands down each of his limbs, checking for breaks.
“You mustn’t think of it now,” Nathaniel said, distractedly.
“Please,” he cried. “Please, Sir, get her out.”
Nathaniel looked to the mare, still huffing and wheezing. It would surely die here, if left.
“Lie quite still,” Nathaniel said, with resolve, and laid the boy down on a gentle slope of the ditch’s bank. He then untied the horse from the cart and seized it by the reigns. “Come now, girl,” he crooned, and began to pull. It did not take much.
Free of the cart and with the guiding force of his hands, the mare’s legs were able to buck underneath her through the mud and she regained her footing.
She climbed the bank with speed, and stood on wobbly legs, blackened by the mud from nose to tail.
As he too mounted the bank, he felt something hard beneath his foot. He lifted it, to see, sunken in the mud, the twinkle of a golden pocket watch. He bent, picked it up and slid it into his pocket, which had become rather like a well of wet dirt.
“Is she okay?” The boy asked.
“Yes. Now think on your legs. Can you feel them well enough?”
The boy tried to move them. “They hurt. The left one most of all.”
Nathaniel nodded. “Brave lad,” he said, as he tied the horse’s reigns to his belt. He then picked the boy up, with great care, until he was flush against his chest. “What is your name?” He asked, as he pushed the mud back from the boy’s eyes.
“Ezra,” he said, tiredly, and lay his head upon Nathaniel’s collarbone.
“And where is home for you Ezra?”
It took the boy a moment to answer, as though he could not quite decide.
When he mustered an answer, he named an estate just one mile west. An estate Nathaniel knew of and, if he was not mistaken, it was owned by a London Duke, but was typically uninhabited.
It was kept well, with servants maintaining it on a quarterly basis to certify that it did not fall into disarray. Perhaps the boy was the child of a servant there.
Caked in mud and quiet as he was, it was impossible to tell the boy’s rank.
With the boy held close, and the horse close behind, Nathaniel began to walk.
***
Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe
“Where and when did you last see him?”
Miss Hallow was weeping with such force that getting a single word out of her was tricky.
“My dear, you are not to be reprimanded. Please-” She felt a lump burgeon in her throat, and swallowed it down so she could speak on. “Would you please tell me when and where you last saw Ezra?”
“Your Grace,” she stuttered, with shaking hands. Miss White promptly brought her a glass of water and encouraged her to sip before speaking again.
Margaret had sat her in the drawing room and was seated across from her. She did not look like a Duchess just then.
Her emotion was barely bridled and she was leaning forward in her seat, intently. “He asked to play in the gardens. He would hide and I would find him,” Miss Hallow explained shakily, between sips. “I-I was thrilled because, as you well know Your Grace, he has not wanted to play for so long.”
Another sip. Margaret’s fingers twitched against the fabric of her gown. “But when I went to look for him, he was gone, Your Grace. Vanished entirely.” She cried harder.
“Miss White, fetch Thomas.”
Miss White bustled off, faster than Margaret had ever seen her move, and returned with Thomas, who kept the stables.
The poor man looked terribly out of sorts, and was holding his hat tightly between his hands. “Your Grace,” he breathed, though he did not look at her. His eyes were firmly fixed on the ground. “I was comin’ to see you, Your Grace.”
“Has Ezra been to the stables?”
He shook his head. “I have not seen him, Your Grace, but one of the mares is missing, she is. And a cart to go with her too.”
“As I thought,” Margaret stood and brushed phantom crinkles from her skirt. While the servants seemed scarcely able to breathe for fear, Margaret appeared impeccably calm.
Her hands were steady, her countenance serene. Perhaps the only indication that there might be something amiss? She moved with speed when she walked.
“Prepare Rosie for me, Thomas. We will ride out to find him.”
Thomas’ eyes widened. “Myself, Your Grace? And… yourself?”
She nodded. “And any other man that can ride.”
Her heart ached from the speed of its beat. When the servants left her to prepare her horse, Margaret lay her hand across her heart and felt it pound through her dress.
She let out a single, shaky breath.
Chapter 4
Lord Nathaniel Sterling, the Earl of Comptonshire
The sun had long since set by the time Nathaniel reached the estate. He could feel the electricity in the air as he approached, and knew that the boy’s absence had not gone unnoticed.
In the courtyard, several horses were saddled, though it was clear that they had already been ridden that night. Their hooves were caked with dirt.
The boy was surely well-loved by whomever he belonged to, which reassured him. Though he wondered how servants of the household could muster such a grand search party.
The boy was sleeping soundly and as Nathaniel walked, he had become quite fond of the little fellow. The child had awoken several times and each time, he had asked the same thing; “Where is my horse?”
Nathaniel had reassured him that the horse was just behind him and, as though sedated, the boy would lower his cheek back to Nathaniel’s collarbone and fall asleep again.
He did not stir when Nathaniel approached the door of the estate, nor when he knocked his knuckles against the wood.
The door opened, almost instantly. And there, on the other side… was a woman.
Nathaniel’s lips parted slightly, but he didn’t speak. He knew what he must look like. There was barely an inch of skin or clothing on him that wasn’t splattered with mud.
Even his hair had been plastered to his temples and forehead. And the boy in his arms looked more like a muddy growth than a sleeping child.
But the woman… she was like nothing he had ever seen. He had expected a servant, and he certainly wouldn’t have felt so mortified at this moment if it had been a servant to open the door. Instead, a lady. A lady of rank and beauty and…
He glanced down at the bottom of her gown. She was wearing riding boots, and the hem of her dress was speckled with dirt.
Beauty and unorthodoxy.
It felt like a thousand seconds had passed since she had opened the door, though it had surely only been an instant.
The woman cupped her hands to her mouth, which had been a thin, tired line when she’d first appeared in the doorway. Now, her mouth was slack and her fingers were trembling around it.
“Ezra?” She cried, and her tears came in a hot flood. She did not care for the mud. Nor him. Her eyes shone like pebbled brooks in spring as she slid her arms around the boy’s body and gathered him to her breast.
Nathaniel’s arms had felt strong around the child, but now they withered to his sides and he watched – unblinking – as she sunk to the floor and fluttered her fingers across the boy’s cheeks. “My darling, darling, are you asleep?” Her voice shook so terribly, and her lower lip was quivering as though she was frozen.
“He is well,” Nathaniel said, hearing himself as though he no longer occupied his own body. “Perhaps a break.”
At last, she looked at him. She whipped her face up and stared. He wondered what she must see… what she must think of him… looking as he did, like a swamp monster in the Duke’s estate.
The Duke’s estate…
His eyes widened abruptly, just as the boy began to wake. “Your Grace,” he sputtered out, and dropped into a low bow. Oh, how fool
ish he must have looked. “You are the Duchess of Lowe.”
“That I am,” she said, in a voice that was at once ethereal and hoarse. She was cradling the boy’s face in the crook of her arm, as though he were but a baby.
“Oh, my dear. My dear boy,” she crooned to him, and wiped the mud from his cheeks with the pad of her thumb. “How you worried me.”
She kissed him upon his forehead, where he was perhaps muddiest, without disgust, without reserve. She then called for a woman named Miss Hallow and asked her to call for the doctor.
An Earl for the Broken-Hearted Duchess Page 2
