The Duke's Heartbreaking Secret: Historical Regency Romance

by Kate Carteret

  She laughed at her girlish notion and turned when her maid, Violet, came into the room.

  “Good morning, Miss Rowena.” Violet, small, dark, and pretty, bustled into the room with Rowena’s hot water jug.

  “Good morning, Violet,” Rowena said with a smile. “And thank you.” She went on when Violet put the jug down on the washstand and pulled the pretty floral screen around it.

  Rowena darted behind the screen and quickly washed, talking the whole time.

  “It is a beautiful day, but is it warm?”

  “The warmest so far, Miss. A real Spring day.” Rowena could hear Violet setting out her gown on the bed. “I’ve laid out the pale cream one with the short sleeves and the little blue flowers.”

  “Perfect for a Spring day.” Rowena smiled to herself. “I think I will go out for a walk. A long walk.”

  “You will need a light cloak with you, Miss Rowena, just in case it cools.”

  “What good care you take of me, Violet.”

  “I like being your maid, Miss.”

  “And I am glad of your friendship.” Rowena said truthfully.

  And it really was true; despite the difference in their stations, the two young women were close. If she was honest, Rowena felt closer to Violet than to anybody else at Frinton Manor, her own mother and father included.

  Rowena had often wished for a brother or sister, someone to wander the grounds and the beautiful Derbyshire Countryside with. Someone to tell her secret hopes and wishes to; to tell her silly romantic dreams to.

  But she was the only child of her parents, and Violet had become very important to her. It had been many years since she had first confided in Violet, and she knew that her maid had never let her down. Rowena could trust her with anything that was in her heart and often had done.

  When she was ready, Rowena came out from behind the screen and stepped into the pretty gown as Violet held it out for her.

  Violet had it fastened in no time, although Rowena was perfectly capable of dressing herself. The truth was when her mother had first decided she should have a lady’s maid, nobody had been more surprised than Rowena.

  Lady Eleanor Lockhart had never been a particularly attentive mother, except to criticize her only child, and the idea that she would think Rowena deserving of her own maid to help her dress and arrange her beautiful thick hair had seemed so very out of character for the Baroness.

  When Rowena had excitedly thanked her mother, it was to be told that any daughter of Baroness Lockhart should be attended to in the correct manner. To discover that it was for the sake of appearances rather than any particular care on the part of Lady Lockhart, seemed more akin to what Rowena had come to expect from her mother.

  The relationship between mother and daughter was not a happy one and was often the subject of secret conversations with Violet. And Violet had always shown her kindness and understanding, encouraging her flights of fancy and tales of rescue.

  “How would you like your hair today?” Violet said and began to untie the thick braid she had plaited her mistress’ hair into the night before.

  “Perhaps just put it up quite simply, Violet, since I am only planning to go out walking. I doubt I shall see anybody at all.”

  “Well, I shall keep it neat, just in case.”

  “Thank you.” Rowena sat down at her dressing table once the braid was loosened so that Violet could brush her long, straw-colored hair. “But I rarely see anyone when I am out, and I know that my parents have no fixed engagements today, or at least none that I am aware of or invited to.” She shrugged and saw Violet’s look of pity reflected in the mirror.

  Rowena shifted her gaze to the four-poster bed with its pretty green floral drapes neatly tied back and tried not to let her spirits sink. It was a sunny Spring day and she was going to spend all of it away from Frinton Manor; that would be enough to fortify her for a while.

  “Your hair is so beautiful, Miss Rowena. So thick and strong.”

  “Thank you.” Rowena looked back at her maid’s reflection.

  “And it is so long that I think you could let it fall out of the window and allow a handsome prince climb up it.” It was clear that Violet was trying to perk her up again.

  “Yes, he could climb up and rescue me.” Rowena laughed.

  “And carry you off to be married before anybody could do anything about it.” Violet laughed, fully in the spirit of things.

  “If only that were true. Not climbing up my hair, or even really rescuing me.” Rowena said as her gaze softened and the reflections in the mirror blurred. “But a good man, a handsome man, who would see me and want to take me away from here. How wonderful and romantic that would be.”

  “That very man is out there somewhere, I am sure of it.”

  “But my chances of meeting him are so remote.”

  “Surely not.”

  “When my mother and father never take me anywhere and disallow me friends and the ordinary enjoyments of society? Where am I to meet such a man? Probably not as I wander alone about the countryside on a warm day.”

  “You never know.” Violet smiled, and Rowena laughed.

  “Sometimes I think you are more romantic than I am, Violet.”

  “You have romance enough in your soul, you just have to remember that anything can happen.”

  “In that case, I had better eat a hearty breakfast.” Rowena laughed. “Tell me, was my mother taking breakfast when you came up?”

  “No, she was not yet down.”

  “Oh dear, then she probably is now.” Rowena pulled a face.

  She did not want an otherwise fine day to be ruined at its very outset by happening upon her mother.

  “Yes, I daresay,” Violet said and shrugged woefully. “But I could ask the cook to make you up a parcel to take with you. Just some bread and butter and some fruit, perhaps?”

  “Oh yes, what a good idea.” Rowena brightened.

  “I’ll see to it now, Miss, if you’re happy with your hair?”

  “Yes, very happy, thank you.”

  By the time Rowena made her way downstairs, Violet was waiting for her in the entrance hall. She looked furtive as she handed Rowena the small brown paper parcel of food and lifted down her blue cloak.

  Rowena quickly fastened it about her neck and hurriedly took the matching bonnet and popped it onto her head. As she fastened the ribbons, she saw Violet’s mouth drop open and realized that her mother must be approaching.

  “Thank you kindly, Violet.” She said, keen to release her maid and spare her any uncomfortable scene which might be coming her way. “That will be all.” She nodded firmly, motioning with her eyes that Violet should leave immediately.

  “Why are you going out so early?” Lady Lockhart surveyed her daughter with thinly veiled suspicion.

  As Rowena stared back at her mother, she realized that she had always felt suspected of something, even though there was nothing on the earth for her to be suspected of.

  But it was always there, the idea that her mother expected something to happen; something she was trying to avoid. What that could be, Rowena had no notion. With no friends outside of Frinton Manor, she could not begin to imagine how she could even go about finding trouble of any sort. Her mother ought really to have been more at ease on the matter.

  “I want to make the best of the day, Mama. I want to be out in this glorious sunshine.”

  “Without eating your breakfast?” Lady Lockhart raised her eyebrows into a sharp arch.

  “I have some food here.” Rowena held up the parcel and smiled awkwardly. “I asked that the cook make it up for me.”

  “Why?”

  “So that I might eat it when I am hungry.” Rowena said simply and wished that her mother would just release her.

  “And where are you going?”

  “Walking, that is all.” Rowena could feel annoyance rising.

  Despite her best efforts to avoid her mother, still, the woman was managing to ruin the day which had hardly
begun.

  “Where to?”

  “Why?” Rowena raised her voice a little. “What is it you suspect me of now, Mother?”

  “I am only inquiring.” Lady Lockhart gave a very good impression of being offended. “Can a mother not enquire?”

  “Of course.” Rowena said, knowing the best thing to do was go along with the charade.

  And it was a charade, for Eleanor Lockhart did not have a maternal bone in her body.

  “Well, I do not want you to be gone all day. You must be back in time for dinner for your father and I have something we wish to discuss with you.” Lady Lockhart gave an awkward smile that made Rowena feel immediately cautious.

  “Oh yes?” She said as sweetly as she could manage, hoping that she would at least be given a flavor of the discussion to come.

  “Yes.” Her mother said flatly. “But we shall come to that later.”

  “Very well, Mother.” Rowena maintained her composure and decided not to let the consternation of the looming conversation smudge the perfect blue sky of her day.

  Whatever it was, she would worry about it when it arrived. There was no sense in spending the day wondering what on earth was coming.

  Rowena looked at her mother’s face. The awkward smile had now gone, and she looked much as she ever did; a woman utterly displeased with life and everybody in it.

  Eleanor Lockhart was a thin, angular woman with rather pointed features. Rowena could remember a time when the red hair had been vibrant and rich, but those days had long passed. Her mother’s hair was now faded but, rather than turning grey, the rich chestnut had been replaced with a washed-out looking color that was more like pale peach.

  Her skin was pale and becoming ever more lined, a matter that distressed the vain Baroness daily, and her pale green eyes always looked a little watery, as if the woman was on the verge of tears.

  All in all, Rowena hoped that she would never take after her mother in any respect, neither looks nor character.

  “I suppose you had better go if that is your plan.” Lady Lockhart dismissed her own daughter as easily as if she were a servant.

  Without another word, she simply turned on her heel and walked away, leaving Rowena standing and staring at her back, as was so often the case.

  Why could her mother not be just a little more interested in her? It seemed to Rowena that she never had a kind word to say and she had sifted through her memories more than once to discover if she herself had ever done anything to hurt the Baroness so badly; something that had turned mother away from daughter for as long as Rowena could remember.

  And her father was little better. Whilst Lord Edward Lockhart was never cutting or cruel as his wife often was, Rowena could not remember a single instance of him coming to her rescue, not even as a child.

  He spoke to her with vague kindness but never seemed at all interested in what Rowena had to say. And it was true to say that Rowena had often found his disinterest as painful as her mother’s unkindness. What a pair they were!

  More than once, Rowena had wondered how the two had come to be together in the first place. They never discussed such things, of course, but Rowena could only imagine that the marriage between her parents had been of the variety that was arranged to suit the families rather than the two young people in question. It was all she could find to explain their relationship.

  They did not argue, particularly, but they did not talk contentedly either. It seemed to Rowena that they simply existed under the same roof, rarely spending much time in one another’s company. They ate meals together but, beyond that, they seemed to go about their own business. It was true to say that her father seemed always ready to please her mother, and equally ready to make himself scarce when his attempts fell wide of their mark. It had left Rowena with a vague impression that her father’s feeling for his wife ran deeper than his wife’s feelings for him.

  Whenever they went out into society, her mother always returned with some imagined grievance, largely connected with her not receiving what she thought was her due deference.

  Rowena wondered if that was why they did not take her out with them often, for it was true to say that they so rarely did. They seemed intent on having their share of society without their daughter in tow and Rowena had long since decided that to dwell on the reasons why was nothing short of futile.

  Still, if they did take her out once in a great while, Rowena might have another friend in the world beyond her wonderful little maid.

  Then again, perhaps she would not. Whenever they did take her to some engagement or other, her parents kept her at their side throughout and saw to it that she had little opportunity to speak. It was another source of upset to Rowena, to be out in the world and kept apart from it at the same time. So much so that she would much rather not go at all, for she was bound to be lonely either way. At least when she was alone at Frinton Manor, there were no witnesses to her sadness.

  With a sigh, Rowena turned the parcel of food over in her hands before finally determining to set off. She would walk fast and far, anything to shake the same old thoughts clouding her mind and ruining things once more.

  As Rowena strode out across the immaculate lawns, she thought to herself that her parents seemed to have ruined enough already. It was nothing they had done to her, as such, but rather the things they had never done which hurt her the most.

  Chapter Two

  Elliot Spencer was almost done with his breakfast when his father came striding into the dining room.

  With a silent sigh of resignation, Elliot realized that he would not be released from the room simply because he had finished and would have to bear witness not only to his father’s early morning ill humor but to his poor table manners also.

  Bartholomew Spencer was the Duke of Darrington, not that the title had done much to improve the man’s slovenly habits.

  As Elliot watched his father at the sideboard piling his plate high with bacon and kidneys, he thought how the man was careless in every way possible. He was careless with his dress, which looked a little unclean to Elliot, careless with his health, if his ever-growing belly and reddening complexion were anything to go by, and careless in his treatment of others, namely in possessing just about the worst manners Elliot had ever encountered.

  “Good morning, Father.” Elliot said when his father settled himself down at the table, his chair scraping noisily across the floorboards in a way which jarred Elliot’s own humor.

  “Mmm.” His father responded without bothering to look at him before he crammed a large forkful of kidney into his mouth and began to chew.

  Elliot watched his father’s distended cheeks and the thin trail of reddish-brown liquid which had escaped his mouth and was now running unchecked down his chin.

  He could feel his own hackles rising; there was no need for such behavior in a man of wealth, title, education, and alleged good breeding. The whole display was so rough, primal almost, and Elliot knew that pure arrogance and antagonism lay at its very heart.

  But Bartholomew Spencer was the Duke of Darrington and he would do as he pleased. As far as he was concerned, there were few men in the country who would dare to correct him.

  “What is wrong with you now?” The Duke bellowed suddenly, taking his son entirely off guard.

  “I beg your pardon?” Elliot studied his father for a confused moment or two, seeing the jaws still chewing the kidneys and hoping he would not speak again until the whole sorry mess was swallowed.

  “You have that look on your face, the one your mother always wore. It is trying my patience, boy, and I will not have it at my breakfast table.

  “I see.” Elliot said and shrugged as if he did not have the vaguest idea what his father was talking about.

  He did, of course, realize that his father, already trying to provoke a response with his vile manners, had seen a little revulsion in his son’s face and was reacting to it. But the whole thing was controlled entirely by the Duke, and Elliot, knowing the man of old, kn
ew there was little point in responding to it all.

  “You have turned out to be nothing better than a milk-sop, Elliot.” The Duke began, treading an already well-worn conversational path. “Too much like your mother for your own good.”

  Elliot said nothing and simply made a pretense of pouring himself more tea from the rapidly cooling pot.

  His father never took tea or coffee with his breakfast, he just ate. And, for a moment, Elliot hoped that it was a lifelong decision that would lead to his eventual choking; perhaps even that very day at the breakfast table.

  As far as Elliot was concerned, to be reminded that he was more his mother’s son than his father’s was reassuring, rather than the insult his father had intended it to be.

  “That woman had much to answer for.” The Duke continued to grumble as he loaded another forkful of kidney.

  Elliot made a silent determination not to wince this time. He would carry on as if nothing was happening, it was far simpler.

  But Elliot’s own annoyance was rising; he always felt protective of his mother, even now when she had been dead for almost fifteen years. But he would do what he could to keep his anger on the inside. To argue with his father was pointless. It was always an exercise in futility and produced the most extraordinary exasperation.

  “This is why you have reached your thirtieth year without finding a bride. For heaven’s sake, you should have sired an heir by now.” The Duke scoffed sarcastically.

  Elliot had heard it all before but still it irked him. His father, a competitive man by nature, was always keen to point out his son’s shortcomings, or what he saw as shortcomings, at any rate. He always did his best to make Elliot seem somehow less of a man for not reaching out and grabbing the first young woman who crossed his path, little considering that Elliot was simply a man of some discernment.

  More than once, the Duke had tried to interfere and had paraded many a bright and pretty young lady before him. But they were either too forceful and intent on the title, which was distasteful to Elliot, or so timid that he knew they would never survive life under the roof of Darrington Hall with a father-in-law who would undoubtedly frighten the living daylights out of them.