An Earl for the Broken-Hearted Duchess

by Lucinda Nelson

  “And when it hit the bullseye, with such force! I thought it would pierce straight through it! Mother, did you see?”

  Margaret smiled for him and touched the hair at the back of his head. “I saw, my love. He is quite something, isn’t he?” An understatement if there ever was one.

  Ezra grinned and hummed his agreement and she knew what he was going to say before he said it.

  “When can I next see him?”

  ***

  Nathaniel came often after that, almost every day between the hours of noon and three, for several weeks. But his time with them was different now.

  He would greet Margaret at the door, before taking Ezra on some grand adventure and returning him smiling and tired. Though Nathaniel always extended her an invitation to join them, she sensed that it was courtesy prompting him to do so and nothing more. So she would kindly decline.

  Had he lost interest in her so swiftly? Or was he trying to do the gentlemanly thing by affording her space? She’d certainly given him no reason to believe that she wanted anything else from him.

  And yet, she did. More and more each day, she wanted to speak to him. Spend time with him. Ask him about his plans for the town and discuss Rousseau until her tongue went numb in her mouth. Without Nathaniel and without her son, Margaret’s loneliness worsened. Even William had been scarce in the past week.

  She knew that it was mad of her to feel stung by Nathaniel’s sudden disinterest, given that she’d been the one to turn him away.

  But she could not help feeling a pang when he was absent, while her yearning for him still felt so very real. And growing day by day, though she only spent seconds with him before he left with her son.

  Enough time to reignite her longing, only to have him torn away before she could bid him anything more than ‘good day’.

  It was a Tuesday morning when William arrived, at last, to find her trying to read in the drawing room. Trying and failing.

  Her mind was on Nathaniel, as was usual for her nowadays, and she was on the hunt for a distraction that would stick. To no avail.

  William’s company was just the ticket and she was so pleased to see her dear friend that she embraced him for what felt like several minutes. Just stood there, holding him in the hallway.

  When she released him, he had a queer look on his face, but he was smiling. There was a new brightness to his hazel eyes.

  “I had hoped Ezra might see me today. I have stolen a few of Lady Reed’s beloved dogs, for his pleasure alone.” Lady Reed was William’s cousin. A sweet, but mad woman with more dogs than Margaret could count.

  “I do hope Lady Reed will not miss them,” Margaret said, with a smile, before calling for Ezra.

  He was thrilled to see William, but at the prospect of leaving with him he looked up at his mother and frowned. “Will I be back in time to see the Earl?”

  “I imagine so, my dear. He does not usually arrive until noon. But will you not be too tired?”

  He shook his head determinedly. “I will go slow with William,” he assured her. “But will you stay, mother? You must stay and tell the Earl that I will be back soon, if he comes before my return?”

  There was such worry in his eyes. Such a simple worry that only a child could be capable of. Margaret hesitated before smiling and nodding.

  She’d wanted to join them, if only for a distraction from her thoughts, but knew better than to risk disrupting Ezra’s mood. She cherished his happiness too much. “Of course I will, my love.”

  “You have been seeing more of the Earl then?” William asked, in a peculiar voice.

  Margaret nodded, but before she could elaborate Ezra called for William. He was wrangling the front door open, crutches be damned, so that he could see the dogs waiting for him outside. “Oh come William! Do come! I can’t wait any longer.”

  Before the door closed on Ezra’s fingers, William rushed forward and held it open for him. Ezra hopped outside to greet the dogs, while William stood in the doorway looking back at Margaret.

  “Do not push him too hard,” she said lightly, with a smile, but he did not smile back. He only nodded and, with a final lingering look, stepped outside.

  As the door closed, she considered how peculiar his behavior was, but did not have the energy to think much of it. William had always been a strange man, wonderful though he was.

  In their absence, Margaret returned to the drawing room.

  She picked up her book and tried to read, but all she saw was an incoherent jumble of words on the page. Before she’d even managed a single line, Miss White announced the arrival of Lord Nathaniel Sterling.

  Dropping the book beside her quite suddenly, she stood as he entered.

  “Your Grace,” he said, as he bowed.

  “Please, Nathaniel. Call me Margaret, as we discussed.”

  He offered her a slightly reserved smile and nodded his agreement. “Margaret then. I apologize for my earliness. I have several meetings this afternoon that I could not postpone.”

  “There is no need to apologize, but I am afraid that Ezra is not here, Nathaniel.”

  His brows rose. “Not here?”

  “No. A friend of mine has taken him out for the morning.”

  “Oh,” Nathaniel said. He looked out of sorts, as was she. They hadn’t been alone together for some time. They stood awkwardly for a number of moments before he said, “Then please give him my best and tell him I will call again tomorrow.”

  Nathaniel turned to leave, but before he could, Margaret managed to tumble out a few words. “Oh, do stay.”

  He paused in the doorway and she went on, in a rush.

  “Only, he will be so devastated to find you gone. He had hoped to be back before you arrived. I am sure he will be back before long, because he will not want to risk missing you. And if he could just see you for a moment before you left for your meetings, it would appease him.”

  And her.

  In truth, she did not know who she wanted Nathaniel to stay for more. Herself or for Ezra.

  Nathaniel did not answer at first. He was, she imagined, wondering what he would do while he waited. Certainly, he wouldn’t expect to spend more than a few minutes with her.

  She waited for him to say something, until she could wait no longer. “Perhaps,” she began, and knew herself to be a fool even as she spoke. “Perhaps you would take a ride with me? I could do with the fresh air and it has been some time since you and I last had the chance to speak.”

  She said it as if she did not know that he had been avoiding her, as one avoids the plague. And that was as it should be. She had no place in his life and he certainly had no place in hers.

  And yet here she was, desperate for a moment alone with him so that she might coax some of his much-missed openness from him. She missed his openness terribly.

  It seemed like an eternity before he answered. But, at last, he did.

  “Yes,” he said. Only that and nothing more.

  Chapter 14

  Lord Nathaniel Sterling, Earl of Comptonshire

  They saddled their horses in silence and rode in silence until the estate was almost out of sight.

  Though he couldn’t say that he was comfortable amidst the quietness that existed between them, it was of some small comfort to him to be alone with her again.

  But that comfort was nothing beside the soreness that accompanied being with her.

  Even after the weeks that had passed, he still felt raw whenever he thought of that moment they’d shared in the classroom.

  When he’d tried to kiss her.

  Once the silence became unbearable, Nathaniel spoke. “It seems that Ezra has almost recovered. I expect he will be riding soon.”

  She smiled across at him, with an expression that looked almost fond. He wished she wouldn’t look at him that way. It made his stomach flip and his heart pound even now, when she’d long since made her feelings for him – or lack thereof – clear.

  “Yes, he has already started asking if he
might try riding with you soon.”

  “And what have you told him?”

  He saw a tiny flash of white teeth as she bit into her lower lip. “I have asked him to wait a little longer.”

  Nathaniel could not help but smile. “You worry too much for that boy. He is tougher than you might think.”

  Margaret gave her horse a little nudge with her heels, so that she could keep pace with Nathaniel’s. “You are wrong,” she replied, though she spoke softly and kindly. “I know him to be tough. I only think that sometimes six year old boys should not have to be.”

  Had Nathaniel been walking on his own two feet, he would have stopped in his tracks and stared at her. It was a sentiment he’d not heard before. “If only more people were like you,” he said, more to himself than to her. “I would have liked to hear more of that sentiment as a child.”

  “Did you feel that you had to be tough?”

  Sometimes, he still did. “My father was very difficult to please. But I cannot complain a great deal. I was fed, clothed and I had a roof over my head. More than many children can honestly claim.”

  He saw Margaret frown. “If we are all to measure our plights against those who suffer more, no one will have a right to what they feel. That does not seem like a good world to me.”

  Damn her for saying that and giving his heart such a twinge of vindication.

  And damn him too for being so taken aback by her every word.

  Damn him for wanting her as he did and damn him for speaking at all.

  But she drew the words from him like music from a lyre. “I assure you,” he continued. “My childhood was not so terrible.”

  He felt her watching him closely. As they rode, he listened to the soothing clomp of hooves in the dirt.

  “Were you very close to your father?” She asked.

  “As I said, he was difficult to please.”

  “That is a rather evasive answer.”

  Nathaniel caught her eye. She was showing something of herself that he hadn’t seen before. Resolve. It was too easy to forget that the Margaret he knew was a grieving woman, caught up in an abysmal time. Perhaps the Margaret of before had been different.

  He would like to know her very much, foolish as that desire was.

  Nathaniel smiled in surrender and shook his head. “I concede. I was not close with my father. Nor am I now.”

  She tilted her head a little. “Might I ask why?”

  “Only if I may ask a question of you.”

  This seemed to sway her, at first, and he felt sure for a moment that his request would liberate him.

  But alas, she was less secretive than he’d been expecting. “Very well,” she agreed.

  As he watched her out of the corner of his eye, he thought that it seemed rather strange that she would suddenly agree to being more open with him, despite fighting tooth and nail against all his earlier attempts to know her better.

  Why now?

  “My father afforded my brother most of his attention, because he was the eldest. And was disappointed in me for my ambition to become a military man. He thinks it best that I wed a woman of rank and live my days amongst good society.”

  “But you do not want to marry?”

  “I believe it is my turn to ask a question.”

  Though she did not look happy about it by any means, she gave a short nod of consent.

  “Were you very much in love with your husband?” He hadn’t known what he’d meant to ask until the words were out of his mouth.

  Once he heard it spoken aloud, he knew it to be an insidious thing that had been lurking in his mind ever since he had met her.

  “That is a forthright question,” the Duchess said, with high brows. She had an expression that could be likened to the face of a mountaineer looking upon his next and most challenging climb.

  “I loved him once,” she began. “He was charming. Handsome. Clever. Everything I’d ever wanted in a man. He was well-liked and treated me as no one else had before him. As though, I were entirely precious to him.”

  Why did it hurt him so to hear that? Nathaniel looked ahead of them, at the hoof beaten road. “But that changed,” she said.

  “It was not long after we married that he became distant. After the first year, we hardly even spoke and he saw his son so little that every time he did, he would remark that Ezra had grown since the last time.”

  Margaret paused for a moment. Then said, in a solemn voice, “In truth, Nathaniel, I was rather lonely.” She smiled over at him; a sad and weathered smile. “But yes,” she concluded. “I did love him once.”

  Nathaniel swallowed.

  Somehow, both of them had stopped riding. They were at the top of a gentle hill, which overlooked a view of rolling hills in every shade of green imaginable.

  “I am sorry,” he murmured. “That you were lonely. But glad that you were loved for a time.” He meant that, truly.

  Though it hurt him terribly to think of another man loving her, a man who had hurt her so, he was glad that there had been a time when the Duke had made her feel cherished.

  “I thank you for that,” she said, so gently and quietly that he almost didn’t hear.

  He heard her feet shift in her stirrups. “I would like to dismount and get a better look at the hills,” she said. “But I am not accustomed to this mare. She is taller than my Rosie. Would you mind assisting me?”

  Her request snatched him out of a daze. With a nod, he dismounted himself and rounded his horse so that he could stand beside hers.

  Nathaniel put his hand beneath her foot.

  Very carefully, he eased it free. He then did the other side, without looking up at her even once. But when it came to helping her down, he knew that he would not be able to maintain his distance any longer.

  He cleared his throat, feeling painfully aware of his own hands, and looked up at her. There was a tense moment.

  He touched her hip to support her as her right leg swung over the horse so that she could face him while sitting upon its back.

  Nathaniel heard the rustle of her skirts in the breeze.

  He couldn’t breathe. Nor did he want to. As she put her hands lightly upon each of his shoulders, he felt certain that even a breath might shatter this moment.

  Her cheeks were flaming red when she shifted forwards and slid from the horse. She let her weight rest upon her hands, still clutching gently at his shoulders, and was suspended there for an instant with her lower body flush against his chest.

  Their eyes were fixed.

  He lowered her… until he felt her breath tickle his chin. There was scarcely an inch between their faces and he could smell the syrupy sweetness of her infiltrating his lungs.

  He didn’t know what he meant to do.

  Until he felt the soft give of her mouth beneath his.

  ***

  Lady Margaret Abigail Baxter, Duchess of Lowe

  His kiss was like air to her, when she’d been drowning.

  She took it in as though she couldn’t live another moment without it and slid her fingers through the locks of his downy hair like a woman gone mad.

  It started soft, with her mouth like rose petals and his like a bed of pollen. But when she felt his heavy sigh through his nostrils billow against her cheeks, she folded into him entirely.

  His arms felt like home to her, holding her tight against his torso with the soft snuffle of the horses behind them.

  Margaret had never been kissed so. Never. And in that instant she regretted ever turning him away. Ever evading his kiss.

  She should have spent the past weeks languishing in his kisses. She did not care what she would think when he parted from her that afternoon.

  She did not care that she would surely think herself a reckless fool.

  All she wanted in this precious moment was his tender lips, his strong hands and the sensation of his curls between her fingers.

  When she broke away from him, it was to breathe. She sucked in the air and opened her eyes
to see that his were still closed, tightly, as though he’d been holding onto something for dear life.

  Her.

  He looked as though he would clutch her closer and she felt it in his hands, which tightened upon her back. There was so much tension in him, straining his chest against hers.

  But his eyes opened. And his hold on her softened.