The Duke's Secret Seduction

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “I brought two other fellows. One very witty gentleman, the Earl of Orkenay. I don’t think you’ve ever met him.” Alban remembered Orkenay’s slightly snide tone when speaking of his aunt, and he tucked that away for future reference. “And a young fellow I just met, a Sir John Fitzhenry. Seems a likely enough lad.”

  “We are to be joined by a party ourselves,” Lady Eliza said. “Two friends of Kittie’s were to come for a visit; she wanted to postpone them when you wrote to tell us you were coming, but I said nonsense. Two more ladies will be just the thing to even out numbers at the dinner table.”

  “I will know tomorrow what day they will arrive,” Mrs. Douglas said.

  It was the first time she had spoken for a while, and he thought immediately how lovely her voice was, no shrill notes, just soft and clear. Again, that random spurt of attraction flared, and he watched her eyes, how her gaze slipped away from him and a pretty blush mounted her cheeks.

  “I look forward to meeting your friends, ma’am,” he said, as he mused that there was nothing more enticing than a clear indication that a woman was attracted to and appreciative of one’s self. She was attracted, and so was he. If it had not been for the fact that she was his aunt’s valued companion, he would look forward to flirtation, then a conquest, then an affair. She was a widow, he a widower; if they had a brief and mutually pleasurable liaison it was no one’s business but their own.

  But he couldn’t. He acknowledged it with regret. She was beyond reach, her position with his aunt much too important to jeopardize with an affair. As long as she remained untouched, he could imagine her a companion fit for his aunt by virtue of a frigid morality.

  The hypocrisy of that struck him, but he shrugged mentally and let it go. A hypocrite he may be, but it remained true, to him, nonetheless; if he seduced her, he could no longer consider her a fitting companion for his aunt and he would have to replace her. His aunt seemed to genuinely love the young woman, ergo, she was forbidden to him.

  A twinge of disappointed lust led him to believe that perhaps he was ready for another woman, and perhaps for a woman as little like la petite Jacqueline as the luscious Mrs. Kittie Douglas. Unfortunate that it was never to be. It was not in his nature to forgo the inevitable consummation of their mutual attraction, but he was not a child, nor a lad, to take what he wanted when he wanted it and damn the consequences.

  He turned back to his aunt after gazing steadily at the widow long enough to cause her considerable discomfiture. “I’ll come back this evening, if you like, Aunt.”

  “No. Come for breakfast tomorrow morning and we will discuss what you and your friends will do while you are up here . . . besides drinking, gambling and shooting, I mean.”

  Alban took her free hand in his and kissed it. “I didn’t realize how much I had missed you until I saw you again. I should be soundly whipped for ignoring you for so long.”

  “You didn’t ignore me, Alban,” Lady Eliza said. “Not many nephews are as good to their aunts, I think. Letters almost every week, gifts, game, and the attentions of your staff at Boden; that is in no way being ignored.”

  “I suppose. I still cannot believe that even Stuart Lafferty,” he remarked, naming the Boden estate manager, “did not tell me what was going on . . . your . . . your blindness.” He choked on the word. To say it in relation to the strongest woman he had ever met hurt. And yet she would despise pity; it would offend her if she found that he did sincerely feel sorry for her and her situation.

  “It was by my express wishes. I said I would have him sacked if he told you. I wanted to do it myself, to tell you in my own time and in person.”

  “And I made you wait three years. I’m sorry.” In a rare gesture—for him—he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. When he looked up it was to see Mrs. Douglas standing nearby and watching with tears wet on her cheeks.

  Four

  “So,” Lady Eliza said, “breakfast tomorrow, and bring Bartholomew. I want to see him.”

  He squeezed her hands and kissed her cheek once again and said, “I will be happy to bring Bart. Maybe you can cheer him up. Nothing I’ve said seems to work.”

  Kittie, surreptitiously wiping the tears from her cheek, was amused by the surprised look on her employer’s face and thought that perhaps his grace had not been much of a cheek kisser in past. He bowed to Kittie and then strode from the room; he was gone and she had survived, but not unshaken. She sat down by Lady Eliza and tried to compose herself. It wouldn’t be easy.

  Sighing deeply and adjusting herself uneasily on her chair, Lady Eliza took another deep breath. Perhaps she, too, was shaken. It had been an emotional moment for her; Kittie gratefully turned to her care for her employer and away from her own reaction to the duke. “Are you all right, my lady?” Kittie said, reaching out to the woman and touching her hand.

  Lady Eliza nodded once. “I will be. I did not realize how much I was dreading the moment when I would be forced to tell Alban until it happened, but it is over now.”

  “What was to dread about it? He obviously cares for you so much. It was impossible that it wouldn’t hurt him, but he’s a strong man.”

  The older woman shook her head and her expression became contemplative. “I thought that was it. I thought it was just that I knew how much it would hurt him, this humbling experience of mine, but now I know what it was.”

  Kittie waited, choosing not to prod. Lady Eliza frowned, fiddled with her dress material, but finally continued.

  “Pride, I’m afraid. What a humbling admission. I was the one he could turn to, in past years. Alban’s mother was flighty, vain, and though I suppose she loved Alban, she never stayed in one place long enough to show him. I despised her. My brother should never have married such a . . .” She stopped and shook her head. “So judgmental,” she murmured. “I was so judgmental. My fatal flaw, I very much fear, and the cause of much sorrow in my life.”

  “You shouldn’t criticize yourself so!” Kittie said, squeezing Lady Eliza’s bony hand.

  “There is much to criticize.” She rallied and sighed. “But I was proud that Alban began to turn to me. I gloried in always being the one who was strong and sure, there for Alban in ways no one else was. His mother continually disappointed him; he could never count on her. Though . . . perhaps if I had not always jumped in so swiftly she would have had time to react to his boyish crises.”

  Kittie waited.

  “But now I am less than I was, felled by the encroaching blackness. It is pride, pure and simple, Kittie, pride humbled by nature. If I believed in a vengeful God I would suspect that he was singling me out for this particular punishment.” She chuckled and shook her head. “But is that not hubris, too? To think I matter so very much? If I have learned anything it is how little I matter in the scheme of the world.”

  “You matter very much to some of us, and I think his grace is one of those to whom you matter.”

  “Thank you, Kittie, that was gracefully said indeed.” The woman stiffened her back and shook her head. “I will be all right once I have had time to reflect. It is over.” She sighed deeply. “The worst is over.”

  “You should have told him what was going to happen when you first suspected. Then it would not have had to come to this.”

  “I know that now. But it is over,” she repeated. “What do you think of my nephew now that you have met him?”

  How could she answer? It had been a frightening experience in a way, to see the painting come alive, the man appear and see how much more he was than her wretchedly unprepared imagination had made him. A cool, pale portrait could not begin to do the living, breathing man justice. But whatever she said to his aunt, she did not want to reveal too much of how she felt. She dreaded appearing ridiculous. “I think he loves you very much,” she said.

  “That is an evasion, my dear. What do you think of him.”

  “He’s . . . so big,” she said in a breathless tone. “Most men are my height or shorter. He is vastly taller and . . . big.” Sh
e meant big beyond the physical, big in every sense, big in the way of filling the room with his life essence, but it would sound beyond foolish to try to put those things in words.

  But by the sly smile on Lady Eliza’s gaunt face she very much feared the woman was reading behind the words, maybe more than she even thought she was saying.

  “He has always been a large lad. And? How is his appearance?”

  “He appears different from the old painting of him in the dining room. Older, of course, but more than that . . . different. His hair, though still brown, has gold streaks in it as though he has been much out in the sun without a hat. And his mouth . . . his expression is very firm.”

  “How observant you have been. What else? What think you of his character, and his behavior?”

  “Other than my commentary on the purely physical aspects of the duke, I will reserve judgment until I know him better,” Kittie replied tartly. “You shall not coerce my thoughts until then.”

  “Very well,” Lady Eliza said, by her grin appearing highly entertained. “Very well. I shall ask again, you know, as his visit wears on.”

  “And I may still reserve my judgment.”

  • • •

  Alban retired early but had a restless night, although his serving staff had done the usual superb job and had the house prepared perfectly. He arose in the morning not truly rested but revivified just by the knowledge of where he was, and that he could walk out the door and there, around him, would lay the splendor of Yorkshire, rising above him in swooping fells.

  Boden, nestled on the sloping side of one of those fells, felt like home. He had spent many happy times there, though none of them with his duchess. Catherine had disdained Yorkshire, claiming it was well known that Yorkish folk were little better than the Scots, and the Scots were little better than brutes.

  He shook off that melancholy memory and went to rouse his friend. He had told Bart about Lady Eliza’s blindness over a glass of port the evening before, but that fellow had been surprisingly philosophical for such a gloomy gent. He had merely remarked that of all the people in the world he knew, Lady Eliza was likely the one person who could survive and triumph without crawling away in misery. If it happened to him, he would surrender and would likely just sit in a dark room all day and feel sorry for himself. Alban would turn to drink and rage. But Lady Eliza would find a way to turn it to advantage.

  Very sage words from someone who knew her well. Alban was no happier about her lot, but it was not for him to deal with. He would, though, try to convince his aunt to come back to London with him, or at least to Alban Hall, where she could be properly looked after.

  He asked a passing footman where Mr. Norton was and was told he was out in the garden awaiting the duke’s pleasure. Alban exited the house and was struck afresh by the grandeur of Swaledale, damned by some as grim, stark and gloomy. The fells, high, round-topped hills fit only for sheep and Yorkshiremen, were magnificently unchanged and unchangeable, oddly comforting in a world where people, with their petty concerns, could be swept away in a moment. It gave perspective to life. Alban felt as though he had been examining life through the lens of a microscope, only to look up and see the great wide world was still there, waiting for him to discover that there was more than his minute concerns.

  He took in a deep lungful of fresh air and coughed. Lord, but it was fresh.

  The very thing he loved about Boden was its age—it was hundreds of years old and had served as a hunting lodge for a courtier of Elizabeth’s—but also its lack of pretension. It was a hunting box, with no aspiration to be anything more. The front door was porticoed, and there was a crushed white limestone walk leading around between hedges to the back garden.

  Alban strolled and halted, not wanting to join Bart just yet. For one thing, Bart was fastidious and Alban badly wanted a cigar before he went down to see his aunt. He heard murmuring voices somewhere and idly wondered who it was as he strolled off the walkway and over the dew-jeweled grass. He could see that Lafferty was doing his usual excellent job; even though Alban had not been there for three years, the grounds were immaculate, with rolling stretches of green grass and impenetrable hedges. There were many projects that Lafferty had proposed over the intervening years and that Alban had agreed to, and he could see the outcome in the new pathway that wound back behind the house and would climb the fell to a spot where a small waterfall gushed and a new bridge was built by Lafferty’s staff.

  The voices were louder, and Alban recognized Sir John Fitzhenry’s tones. He turned the corner of the house and there was the young baronet with one of the housemaids. Both started, guiltily, and Sir John waved as the girl scurried away.

  “Your grace, what a beautiful morning.”

  Alban, grinning, joined him. “One thing, Sir John: if you are setting up a flirtation with one of the maids, please do it in such a manner so as not to interfere in the household too badly. Help is hard to find, and Mrs. Ranulph will box my ears if one of the girls is moping from a broken heart.”

  He was overjoyed to see the normally unflustered young man turn scarlet.

  “I was not flirting, sir, I was just . . . asking a favor.”

  “Is that what you young men call it? Anyway, have you seen Bart?”

  “Yes. I know where Mr. Norton is.” The younger man led the way around to the back of the three-floor gray house.

  Alban was not pleased to see Orkenay with Bart. Something about the earl had always made him uneasy, but since he could never pin down a cause for his unease—Orkenay was always affable, courteous, even friendly—he forced himself to ignore his niggling distaste.

  “Good morning, Alban, Fitzhenry,” Orkenay called out. “Shall we depart? I’m looking forward to meeting your aunt, Alban, since you have spoken so glowingly of her.”

  Alban shot a look at Bart, who shrugged helplessly. Though the breakfast invitation did not specifically exclude the rest of his party, he had hoped to have the morning with just his aunt and Bart. And perhaps the beauteous Mrs. Douglas. Just to even the numbers, of course.

  He sighed and stubbed out his cigar. “Very well,” he said, not bothering to clothe his acquiescence in any prettier attitude. “Let’s go then. I wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”

  Bart, intimately familiar with every inch of Boden property from long association, led the way past the stable, the cow byre and the dairy shed. He commented on a few changes but fell silent when he didn’t get an answer from Alban.

  Alban lost his surly mood directly but still felt no inclination to chatter. It was too tempting to just enjoy the peace of the north country, the whole reason he had thought of Yorkshire when he was standing on the midnight-dark beach at Brighton in the August heat weeks before. The way to his aunt’s home was down the fell through a wooded glade. At the tops of the fells trees were wind-bent, like old women carrying fagots to town to sell for kindling. But down fell was different. As one descended, the earth literally thickened, gathering in rich folds on the lower slopes and in the valley bottoms. That was where farmers grew hay in lush meadows, followed, after haymaking, by acres of waving meadow flowers.

  Two hundred years ago trees had been planted around Boden in planned copses, and in the intervening years thickets of hawthorne and bramble had grown up around them, impenetrable to humans but haven for rabbits and partridge, pheasant and grouse. It made for a harmonious blending of the wooded glades with the sloping landscape. The trees were beginning now, in early September, to think about shedding their summer green finery for more somber hues of gold and umber. Pine needles and old leaf mold coated the path and crunched underfoot as the party of men silently wove through the forest.

  “I can almost imagine Beowulf and Grendel battling in just such a forest,” Orkenay murmured uneasily, glancing off into the thick forest around them. A rabbit, startled, leaped away from the path directly beside him and he jumped with a yelp of alarm.

  Alban chuckled. “What school did you go to, Orkenay? You do know tha
t Beowulf is set in Europe and that the people in it are Danes and the like?”

  As Fitzhenry and Bart chuckled, Orkenay sniffed in disdain. “Yes, well, damned gloomy place, this woods. Thought it suited the melancholic atmosphere of that kind of thing; you know, heroes battling and dying, that rubbish. Don’t enjoy forests myself. Just pictured some kind of epic battle being fought among these oaks, that is all.”

  Alban was tempted to point out that there were no oaks around him, but thought he had tweaked Orkenay enough for one morning.

  “I know what you mean, though,” Bart said, glancing around as they wound down the path, the towering centuries-old trees closing in over their heads and obscuring the sunlight. “There is an atmosphere here of the ancients, but I think more like fairies and sprites, nymphs and brownies. Alban, is the fairy waterfall still here, and the cavern?”

  “Of course, idiot,” Alban said affectionately. “Where do you think a waterfall and a cave would go?”

  With a good-natured grin, Bart said, “I shall go to see it and make my wish as we did as lads, then.”

  “Norton,” Sir John said, referring to Bart, “was telling us that your aunt has become blind since last you saw her. How difficult that must be for you; more so for her, of course. And yet she still chooses to live here, in Yorkshire?”

  Alban glanced over his shoulder at the young man, thinking how delicate a way the fellow had chosen to indicate that they already knew about Lady Eliza’s blindness, and yet made it a passing reference. The fellow could be a diplomat, he was so tactful. “Yes, you will find that my aunt is an independent spirit. She has always lived by her own rules.”

  “So I have heard,” Orkenay murmured.

  Alban stopped and turned back to Orkenay, provoked into a reply by the insinuating tone of the earl’s voice. “See here, if you have something to say about my aunt, or if you think you know something about her, why don’t you just say it?”