Wild Passions of a Mischievous Duchess

by Violet Hamers

  “How glad it makes me to hear you say so,” she said, slipping her arm through his. “I had wondered if you remembered me at all.”

  “How could I forget you, after those years when we were all children?”

  “That seems so long ago now. Though, I confess that there is a part of me that still thinks of you as that long legged sixteen-year-old. You always seemed so torn between boyhood and manhood then. One moment you’d be tearing after Elizabeth and I across the grounds and the next you’d be scolding us for being unladylike.”

  “Things were simpler back then,” he said, his eyes scanning the garden.

  Rosaline seemed to drop her pretense at cheerful comfort then, and when he glanced down at her from the corner of his eye, he found that her eyes were downcast. She looked thoughtful and touched his melancholy. “Yes. They were. Do you ever wish you could go back to the way you were then?”

  “Do you?” he asked, wishing to draw the conversation away from himself.

  “All the time,” she said. “Every day. It’s the thing I wish most of all. I’d give anything to be a girl again, carefree and wild.”

  “What’s holding you back now? You are an independent lady, free to go where you please and do what you like. Are you not?”

  She gave him a clearly disingenuous smile. “Yes, I suppose I am. It’s just different, now, is all. Sometimes I feel…” her voice trailed off. Gerard looked at her, waiting for her to finish the sentence.

  “Feel what?” he prompted.

  She smiled and shook her head. “It’s nothing. I don’t know what I meant.”

  They continued on in silence, and Gerard’s thoughts returned to Elizabeth. Without the thought of seeing her again to sustain him, his life stretched out before him like an endless road obscured by black fog.

  “Elizabeth said that she didn’t believe that the case would ever be solved. Do you think that, too?” he asked Rosaline. If she was determined to walk alongside him, he thought that he might as well give voice to his thoughts.

  She didn’t answer right away, though her grip on his arm tightened. “Let us not talk about what Elizabeth thinks.” Her lips were turned downward in a slight frown. “I hate that she has caused you this distress. After all those years of not seeing you, I hate that our reunion has to be cast under this pall of sadness.”

  “I don’t know if the detective will be able to find the man who attacked her. He has simply vanished without a trace. I don’t know how it’s possible. But maybe she was right. I wanted to believe that I would be able to put all of this behind me but…”

  Rosaline patted his arm. “It’ll be all right.”

  The words rang hollow. When he did not speak again, she did not try to bring him out of his silence and finally he could bear the company no longer. He just wanted to be alone.

  “I have business to attend to. Letters to send back to Hadminster.” He offered as an excuse.

  “Far be it from me to get in the way of your work,” she said sweetly.

  Gerard went into the manor and immediately retired to his room and shut the door. It was a mistake to even leave his room in the first place that morning. At least here he had the privacy to be as unpleasant as he pleased.

  To that end, he ripped his cravat off his neck and threw it fruitlessly against the wall. In spite of the force of his throw, the silk fabric whispered gently to the ground. He wished there was something more hefty he could throw. Something that would shatter theatrically and provide him a moment of relief from the pressure building inside of him.

  But nothing here belonged to him. At home he could do it, he could vent his frustration and despair as he saw fit.

  He sank into a chair, mussing up his hair with his fingers as he put his head in his hands.

  I should never have come back to London.

  He just wanted to go home. He could return to the way he had been before. He could forget the brief moments of hope and true happiness that he had with Elizabeth and just…go back. Back to the soul-numbing grind of work. Back to the solitude of Hadminster. Back to dwelling on the past.

  God knows that looking to the future has only brought me more pain.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  He was slumped in his chair for an indeterminate amount of time before a soft knock came to his door.

  “Who is it?” he growled snappishly.

  The door creaked open. “Your sister, so stop being grouchy.”

  Bridget let herself in. She was dressed up and Gerard remembered her mentioning a ball she was attending. Part of him was glad that his own dramas were not getting in the way of her social life. Another part of him resented her for flaunting her happiness.

  “Heading out, then?” he asked, still rather peevishly.

  “Yes,” she sighed, sitting in a chair near him. “Life goes on. But I wanted to talk to you first.”

  He turned his palms up in a gesture of compliance. He knew that Bridget was unhappy about the state of things, and prepared himself to meet her derision.

  “Gerard, you must go see her again,” she said without preamble.

  “She does not wish to see me.”

  “That’s rot and you know it. We all know it. Look at you! You’re a right mess over this. And why? Why not let yourself be happy?” She leaned forward in her chair, the curled locks of her hair trembling as she shook her head emphatically.

  “You seem to have forgotten that it was she who called off the engagement. Not me,” he countered, crossing his arms.

  “She called it off because she thought you weren’t serious about marrying her. So, prove her wrong!”

  “If I marry her before the killer is caught, she will always be in danger.”

  “So, take her to Hadminster. It’s safe there, whoever did this clearly is a Londoner. It would be much easier to protect her from strangers in the country.”

  “She will never be able to return to London. We could not visit you.”

  “Oh, damn London! There are other places! She was an orphan, remember? She’s never been to France or Spain or anywhere at all. You could show her the wide world and never miss London, and when I get lonesome for the two of you there’s nothing to stop me from visiting.”

  Gerard fell silent. The thought of traveling the world with Elizabeth beside him seemed far too dream-like to be possible. In his mind he could see her, her face to the wind, on a ship carrying them far away to a place where the past could never find them.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “So, it’s not just about her safety.” Bridget’s frantic pleading mellowed out into a quiet certainty.

  “Of course not. It never was just about her safety,” he admitted, speaking the truth out loud for the first time. “I still love Christine. I can’t move on until I know what happened to her, and why.”

  “Gerard,” Bridget reached for his hand, squeezing it in hers. “Christine was my friend before she was your lover. I knew her as well as you did, if not better. If she could see you now, making yourself miserable for her sake, she would be horrified.”

  He did not answer. He didn’t believe her. How could anyone ascertain the feelings of a dead person? If there was even the shadow of a doubt that, perhaps, Christine existed in some spiritual plane where she could not find true rest until her killer was brought to justice, how could he turn away from that?

  Bridget stood up, wrapping her long-fringed shawl around her. “Go to Elizabeth and beg for her to take you back. She won’t come back to Stonehill, now, because of all that has happened, and so I stand to lose a friend whom I hold dear. And I hold you responsible for that. If you cannot rectify it, I shall be most grievously injured and have to ask you to leave my home.”

  “Bridget—”

  But she was already turning to leave the room, closing the door behind her. Gerard scoffed, shaking his head.

  Has everyone forgotten that it was Elizabeth who ended the engagement?

  He could hardly just show up at her door again and
beg forgiveness. She’d said what she needed to say, and he had left as per her own stated wishes. Returning now would only annoy her.

  But the thought of traveling to far-off lands was now planted in his mind, and he could not stop imagining Elizabeth on a ship. Could he leave everything behind for her sake? Could he leave family and country in order to strike out and create a new life in a foreign land with her?

  Yes.

  But what about Christine?

  He slumped back against the chair, helpless to choose between a hopeful future and the memory of a lady he still loved in his heart.

  * * *

  When her advertisement ran in the newspaper two days later, Elizabeth spread it out on her desk and gazed at it, wondering who else was seeing it. She tried to imagine what her new place of employment might look like. Whether they were nobility or just well-to-do enough for a governess, the exact circumstances would likely not be much different.

  She hoped that the child or children would be well-behaved. She hoped that her employers would be kind. Though she doubted whether she would ever find another employer as welcoming and friendly as the Duchess had been.

  She still couldn’t quite believe that she, of such lowly birth, would have been so eagerly brought into the fold by a Duchess. There had been no hesitation, no back-handed compliments, no question of ulterior motives. When Gerard had expressed interest in her, Bridget had not hesitated to encourage them.

  Elizabeth had once had friends in the orphanage, and she got along well enough with fellow teachers when she worked in the school, but she never had friendships as meaningful to her as she had made at Stonehill.

  Her eyes pricked with tears once more, but she dashed them away quickly. She had done nothing but cry for long enough now. It wasn’t like her to be so soft. Love had softened the hard shell of resilience that she had striven her whole life to build around herself. Now she had to rebuild it and carry on without him.

  She couldn’t stop the image that came to the surface of her mind unbidden. She thought of the warmth of his eyes, how they were framed by his arched brows and thick eyelashes. She could still feel the brush of his fingers across her cheek.

  As she thought of these things, a knock came to her door.

  Has someone answered the advertisement already?

  It couldn’t be, the paper had only gone out that morning. Dread built up in her chest at the thought of leaving the inn for some new house already. As painful as it was to linger in that place where Gerard had once held her and kissed her, she wasn’t ready to leave yet.

  She remembered the attack in the garden and, stepping up to her door, she made sure that it was locked. Of course, it was.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  There was a pause. A nervous hesitation. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

  “It’s me,” Gerard said.

  Her breath caught in her throat at the familiar timbre of his voice. She swayed on her feet, caught in a sudden whirlwind of conflicting emotions. She wanted to throw the door open wide and heave herself back into his arms, but she also wanted to snap at him to leave her alone and hadn’t he done enough damage already?

  Perhaps he was there to tell her that she would have to pay him back for her time at the inn. She had been quietly tabulating the bill in her mind, and the expense already was more than she would be able to pay back in months.

  She forced her face into an expression of impassive calm and opened the door. The sight of him nearly floored her. Had it really been only a few days since he had kissed her last?

  “Elizabeth…” he breathed.

  “Come in.” She stepped aside, holding the door open for him. He did not sweep into the room, quickly doffing his hat and overcoat as he had done on the previous occasions. He stepped in timidly, looking around at the windows and furnishings as though he’d never seen them before.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you. I wasn’t sure if you would be in,” he said.

  “I was just looking over the advertisement I put in the paper,” she gestured toward the desk. Gerard glanced at her then stepped gingerly towards it. His eyes scanned the page and he rubbed his lips together as he read.

  “Ah,” he exhaled. “I see. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

  Why are you here?

  The unspoken question must have been clear on her face because when he looked at her, he quickly looked away, then down at his feet, then round the room again. He was looking for the words to say. She waited impatiently, drumming her fingertips on the back of a chair.

  “I have…that is…I wanted to…how are you?”

  She could have smiled at his loss for words. She remembered the first time she had seen him, through the window when he arrived at Stonehill. She remembered his reputation, and the stern set of his brow. How frightened she’d been of him. How different he seemed to her now.

  “Not very well, Gerard,” she said softly. There was no point in lying to him. “My life has never been so upside-down.”

  He regarded her seriously, his dark eyes scanning her face.

  “I came here to beg you to reconsider,” he began.

  “Please, don’t.”

  “Your words have been ringing in my ears since I left here.” He continued in earnest, taking a step towards her but then stopping short. “You were right, of course. Entirely right. I knew I was being selfish to keep you cooped up here. I was being naïve to think that the case would be solved any day. I was a fool and I strung you along and I’m terribly, terribly sorry.”

  His words spilled out in a torrent, sliding over each other. Elizabeth imagined him on the carriage ride over here, practicing what he would say, his hands fiddling with the brim of his hat in his hands.

  “I’m not angry at you,” she said simply. Her hand was now gripping the back of the chair as if she was holding herself up. He made her feel weak. Spineless. Her instincts always threatened to override her senses whenever he was near. The physical proximity of his body affected her like the moon affects the tide, pulling her inexorably towards him.

  “I know you aren’t. But I have hurt you all the same. You must believe me that I never intended to. I only ever wanted to love you.”

  Elizabeth chewed on the inside of her cheek. She had to remember why she had called off the engagement. The momentary pleasure of falling in his arms again would not weigh against the uncertainty and frustration of a long, protracted engagement to a man who was not free in his heart to marry her.

  “Leave London with me,” he said, stepping forward even closer. He could have reached out and taken her hand then, but he did not. His hands hung heavily from his arms at his sides.

  “Leave London?” she asked.

  “Marry me now. Let me take you to France. To Spain. To Marrakesh. Anywhere you want to go, I can take you. We can go together.”

  Elizabeth’s vision swam before her eyes. All at once her world seemed to tip on its axis once again, sending her reeling.

  “You don’t really want to leave London,” she said so quietly that her voice was almost a whisper, floating in the heavy silence of the room.

  “I do. I want to leave and never come back.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “That isn’t true. You are upset because I called off the engagement, but the truth of what you want, what you really need, isn’t changed. You cannot marry me without closure over what happened to Christine. That’s why I can’t be angry at you. You love her. How can I hate you for that?”

  “Elizabeth,” he stepped forward one last time, closing the space between them so that she had to tilt her head up to look into his eyes. He took her hand from the back of the chair and raised it to his chest, pressing her palm against his heart. She could feel the warmth and the steady thumping of his life force, so close, so vital. “Christine is dead. I can’t bring her back. Yes, I still love her. I will always love her. But I cannot live like this any longer.”

  “What has brought about this change, so suddenly
?” she asked.

  I should take my hand away from his chest. I should step away. He is too warm. Too tempting.

  “The thought of returning to my life as it had been before I met you,” he explained. “I couldn’t bear it. I’d once thought that I would live out the rest of my days in solitude, dwelling forever in the past. When I met you that all changed, and I saw for myself another path. I set my heart on it, and I can’t go back now. I cannot.” This last was said in a barely audible whisper, heavy with the weight of anguish.

  “What if you change your mind? What if you regret marrying me? For me, leaving England is easy. I have nothing to leave behind, and nothing to bring with me other than myself. But I cannot let you leave your family, your dukedom, your whole life, not for my sake. How could I live with myself, every day knowing what you had to sacrifice for me?” She leaned forward despite herself, drawn to him like a magnet.