The Untold Tale of the Winter Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Novel

by Emma Linfield

  “Would you like to join us, Martha Louisa?” Lillian asked.

  “Not today, thanks for asking Miss Doyle. I had my tea earlier, and anyways we are that busy what with cook seein’ that we have all the ingredients for stirrin’ up.”

  “Oh, my. That is just around the corner, isn’t it?”

  “’Deed so, Miss. An’ it’s quite the thing to get all thirteen ingredients this year.”

  “Why is that Martha Louisa?”

  Martha Louisa shook her head. “Grain din’ grow right. It was too cold. Nor the grapes. It’s just good luck that we had raisins put by, all sealed up. Citron and orange peel we got from the orangeries, but some o’ tha spices are that dear and we be nigh out of cinnamon and cloves. We might ha’ to make do with herbs from tha’ garden.”

  “I knew it was cold and that food was very dear in London, but I didn’t realize it extended out here to the country.”

  “Where ya think London gets its food, Miss? It’s been right close. His Grace gave permission for the villagers to kill two deer for tha Chrismas feast, an’ he’s sending six geese besides.”

  “Won’t that mean shortages later?”

  “Might. But it also means fewer mouths ta feed when real cold sets in. We’re that short on feed, the cook has been savin’ all tha scraps for tha poults an’ pigs.”

  “Dear me. I had no idea. Running an estate must be very complicated. Would His Grace know about these things?”

  “Some, I don’t doubt. But his farm manager, Mr. Biggs, would know more. They’s had their heads together some days, an’ I know they’s a might worried.”

  “I wonder . . .” Lillian eyed her two charges. “Perhaps I could talk His Grace into one or the other of them paying a classroom visit to talk about planning food and care for Parkforton. It would be a very practical application of the boys’ mathematical skills, and good preparation for when one or the other of them inherits.”

  “Oh, that would be Luke,” Nick said. “He’s older’n me by half a candlemark. But he doesn’t act like it, tha big baby.”

  “Hey! I’m not a baby!” Luke protested.

  But there is something in Nick’s observation. Luke is the gentler, more naïve of the two.

  “Neither of you are babies, therefore you know better than to squabble at the table,” Lillian said sternly. “Nor does being the younger give you leave to eat more than your share of the clotted cream.”

  “But it’s good!” Nick said, as if that excused the amount he had heaped on his scone.”

  “Yes, it is. Therefore, you should leave some for your brother.”

  Nick laughed, and scraped part of the mound onto his brother’s plate.

  “Much better,” Lillian approved. “Martha Louisa, what goes into a Christmas pudding? How is it different from a regular bag pudding?”

  “Well, it’s just better all round. But there’s suet, o’ course, an’ flour. Then they’s eggs, milk, an’ three diff’rent kinds o’ spices. Mrs. Buskins has a recipe she says is a fam’ly recipe. She don’ share it. Guess that makes it special right there.”

  Martha Louisa paused, and buttered a piece of bread for Nick, then another for Luke. “Reg’lar bag pudding has suet, flour, an’ eggs, but it can have onions and bits o’ meat instead o’ sweet stuff. Or it can have ‘lasses and ginger instead of the special spices from India. We grows ginger in the orangery.”

  “That is just amazing Martha Louisa. It is quite astonishing what all goes into just the making of a simple pudding.”

  “Oh, no,” Luke groaned. “I hear another lesson coming on.”

  “Whatever can you mean?” Lillian flashed him a smile. “It is interesting. But thank you for the suggestion, Luke. I think that we will spend some time tomorrow learning what is needed to get a Christmas Pudding on the table.”

  Lillian enjoyed the banter. It reminded her of her own long-ago schoolroom days. Inside, all was warm and cheery while outside, the snow fell and fate conspired.

  Chapter 10

  Sometimes Sebastian took tea with Lillian and the children. Even though he had welcomed the chance to escape teaching the boys, he found these interludes pleasant. The Saturday before Stirring Up Sunday, they were gathered in the schoolroom admiring Mr. Fusty Britches and Emmy Sue’s new babies.

  Although the boys had been warned not to touch the hairless pinkies, they still delighted in watching them. On Sebastian’s advice, they had inserted a partition between Mr. Fusty Britches and Emmy Sue and her brood. Mr. Fusty Britches seemed to be sulky, but the little mouse mother paid him no mind at all.

  “We’ll need to expand their territory,” Sebastian said, “Or they are likely to turn cannibal.”

  “Perhaps now that we have one brood,” Lillian suggested, “We should separate the males and females. It certainly didn’t take these two long to reproduce. If left unchecked, I fear the schoolroom won’t hold all their progeny and we would be forced to create a lesson in predators and prey. I do not believe any of us would enjoy that.”

  “You mean like feed Emmy Sue’s babies to a cat or a snake?” The boys both looked at her in horror.

  “Exactly. As soon as the little ones are big enough to leave Emmy Sue, I think the boys should have their own space. I’m not sure they would be safe with Mr. Fusty Britches.”

  “An interesting point,” Sebastian noted. “You speak as one who knows.”

  Lillian sighed. “My sisters and I kept mice for a time. They were supposed to be food for my brother’s snake. But somehow his snake got away, and he took very little interest in either the snake or the mice. So we girls ended up with the rodents.”

  “So that’s why you weren’t afraid of Mr. Fusty Britches!” Nick exclaimed.

  “Quite so,” Lillian replied. “He was not my first mouse. I’ll admit it was a little disconcerting to find him behind my teacup.”

  “At least he wasn’t swimming in it,” Sebastian noted wryly.

  Lillian gave a light laugh. “Exactly, Your Grace. I was quite impressed at how neatly Nick caught him up by the tail without alerting him to his presence.”

  “That was very well done,” Sebastian praised. Nick glowed with pride.

  Lillian looked out the windows. It was twilight, even though the afternoon was not greatly advanced.

  “I think I will leave the three of you to entertain yourselves. I need to clear the smoke of the house fires from my lungs.”

  “Is it still troubling you to breathe?” Sebastian asked.

  “Some of the time. Somehow it seems to make it easier when I spend some time outside.”

  “Have a care that you do not take a chill. Now that I’ve found a teacher that my brothers can tolerate, I am loath to lose you.”

  “I shall be fine, Your Grace. Pray, enjoy your time with your brothers. They do look forward to it. Perhaps you can enlighten them on more of the niceties of running an estate.”

  “After you had Mr. Biggs come in and teach them for half a day? I should not presume. They probably know more than I.”

  “Now that is coming on too strong, Your Grace. I am fairly certain that you have had some tutelage from Mr. Biggs yourself.”

  Sebastian laughed. “Right you are. But I think we shall play a game of jackstraws rather than spoil our time with lessons. I should have beaten them several times before your return.”

  “You can tell me all about it.” Lillian went to the schoolroom cupboard and took out the warm cloak that Mrs. Blanchard had found for her.

  “Don’t forget your scarf,” Sebastian reminded her.

  “I won’t,” Lillian promised, shaking out the Scottish plaid shawl-like object.

  Sebastian rose, and helped her drape the scarf over her head, and tied it under her chin for her. He restrained an impulse to touch the petal soft skin of her cheek, and marveled at the way her blond hair curled up around the front edges of the scarf to frame her face. Since Lillian had begun presiding over the schoolroom, it seemed like home in a way that Parkforton h
ad not felt since his parents’ drowning.

  He smiled warmly at her. “Don’t be gone too long. I don’t want to have to send out search parties to find you in the snow.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “I’ll just bring back a snowball for you.”

  Sebastian laughed at that. “I’ve been out with the stockmen, checking the high pastures to make sure we didn’t miss any cattle. A snowball is the last thing I need.”

  “Then you won’t mind if it melts,” she returned. “I’ll be fine, Your Grace.”

  With that, she slipped out the door into the long hallway that led to the backstairs.

  Sebastian watched the door a moment after it closed. Why did it feel as if she had just taken all the light out of the room when she left?

  Chapter 11

  Lillian breathed in the cold, crisp air as she stepped off the last step exiting from the kitchen entry. The fireplaces at Parkforton were well designed and rarely smoked, but she always felt her chest loosen and her cares drop away from her shoulders when she stepped outside.

  The fresh snow crunched beneath her feet as she walked down the path between rows of dead vines in the kitchen garden. No doubt this area would come alive in the spring, but for now the various plantings were only odd lumps beneath their covering of snow.

  Her breath puffed out in clouds of steam as she walked along. The last rays of sunlight slanted in under the clouds, glinting off the snow heaped atop stone walls and on building roofs. She owed so much to the Duke. The warm cloak she wore, her scarf, and above all acceptance into his family. Acceptance as a servant, to be sure, but as one trusted and well-liked.

  What would it be like to walk here in the spring when the plants were renewing themselves? Would it feel as if she were being renewed, as well?

  She had not been unhappy married to Charles, but neither had she been filled with joy. She could not even say that she was content. She had respected him, appreciated his good humor, his forbearance, and his trust that she would keep his confidences, including his preference for men. Oh, Charles! What happened to cause someone to murder you? You were too well-bred to create great dislikes or disharmonies among your associates.

  For it had been murder, she knew. It was only here, in the cold, dormant garden that she could face her terror, her loneliness, and her uncertainty. In the slightest moment, all that she had discovered here could be ripped from her. Nay, her very life would be torn away.

  Lillian shuddered, but not with the cold. It was that feeling that the country folk describe as “a goose walked over my grave.” If only she could have all this, teaching the boys, chatting with the maids and footmen, meeting the villagers and conversing with the Duke, without the fear that it could be taken from her at any moment.

  The thought had scarcely been formed in her mind before someone seized her from behind. She managed to get out a short scream before a gloved hand muffled her outcries.

  “Yer’d best be still,” a rough voice said low in her ear. “Else I’ll do ye right now. Ther’s a bounty on yer head, a mighty fine one, an’ I means to collect.”

  Lillian didn’t even need to think about her reaction. She bit down hard on the man’s hand, kicked him in the shins, and jammed her hip into his torso.

  “Damned slut,” the man hissed, snatching his hand away and raising it to strike her, while holding her more tightly clasped to him so that she could not assail his tender parts in her struggles.

  He did not get the chance to land the blow, however. Something smacked the side of his head, and he fell as if he had been poleaxed. As he fell, he knocked Lillian to the ground.

  “Aire ye all right, m’lady?” a gentle tenor asked.

  “I’m . . . I’m . . .Oh, thank you! I’m . . .”

  “There now,” the voice said. “Let me help you up an’ dust you off. He’ll not trouble you mair.” As strong hands helped her to her feet, and assisted her with getting her scarf out of her face, Lillian realized that she had met her rescuer. It was Mr. Timony, the head groundskeeper. “’Tis just sheer good luck I came out to sweep the walks, and heard you cry out. Come on up to the house, and I’ll call sum’un to see to ‘un.”

  “Thank you,” Lillian said again. It seemed she could scarce say anything more. “Is he dead?”

  “As to that, I canna say, m’lady. Let me help you into the light and warmth, and sum’un’ll call the physician. He’ll have the say.”

  Neither of them noticed another figure that withdrew into the privet hedge maze at the end of the garden.

  Lillian allowed Mr. Timony to lead her into the kitchen. Mrs. Buskins, her hands white with flour, met them at the door. With two swift bell pulls, she summoned Mr. Evans and Mrs. Blanchard.

  Mr. Evans dispatched one footman to the Duke, and two more to assist Mr. Timony with the unconscious intruder. In minutes, the Duke, followed by Martha Louisa and the two boys, appeared at the top of the kitchen stairs.

  “What happened?” the Duke asked.

  Just then, Mr. Timony and the two footmen returned to the kitchen. “I thought I killed a feller,” Mr. Timony said. “He wus manhandlin’ Miss Doyle, so I whacked him with the snow shovel. He went down like a sack of turnips, so I got Miss Doyle up here to the kitchen, since she wasn’t talkin’ sensible like. But when we got back down there to the end of the garding, the feller’s gone. So I guess he ain’t dead yet.”

  “Probably just knocked him out. But it won’t do to have someone roving the grounds like that. Miss Doyle, do you know of any reason why someone would mean you harm?”

  Yes, I know why they want me. They want me to hang for something I didn’t do. Aloud she said, “I have no idea. Perhaps they thought I was someone else? Your fiancée perhaps? I would guess there were some people who might think one of your brothers would be a more pliable guardian for Parkforton.”

  “A reasonable thought. But I don’t think I’ve made any enemies this year. Still, we shall send for the constable and get to the bottom of it all. Mr. Stableman, will you please alert the night watchman and ask him to double the watch?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” Mr. Stableman galloped back up the stairs, and could be heard loping down the hall toward the barracks where the castles few guards resided.

  “Miss Doyle, until we learn more of why this intruder was here, I will post a guard on the schoolroom door, and a couple on the grounds beneath your windows. Perhaps it was nothing, just a vagrant hoping to gain entry into the house, but better safe than sorry.”

  Then he turned to the groundskeeper. “Thank you. Who knows what might have become of Miss Doyle had you not intervened. Still, I do wish we had been able to lay hands upon him. Now, we shall have to worry whether he will come back and murder us all in our beds.”

  “Sorry, Your Grace,” Mr. Timony hung his head.

  “No, no! You did well, you did very well indeed. I am just wishing. For your valor, you shall have a little something extra in your pay envelope this month. I am deeply in your debt.”

  “Only doin’ the right and Christian thing, Your Grace, seein’ as the man was well-nigh six feet tall. Seein’ him grabbin’ Miss Doyle like that. I just did what came naturally.” The old fellow swelled with pride.

  Mrs. Blanchard cut in quickly before this mutual admiration could go on much longer. “Miss Doyle has had quite a shock. Martha Louisa, will you please ladle up some of the mulled cider, and take it up to the schoolroom? There is a stoppered jug near the kettle that you can use to carry it in.”

  “At once,” the maid replied. She deftly used the spouted ladle that was hanging near the cauldron of spiced apple juice to fill the jug with the aromatic liquid. Then with skill born of long practice, she wrapped it in an insulating towel. Mrs. Blanchard designated two more maids to take trays of foodstuffs up to the schoolroom, as if they had not just had an enormous tea a few minutes before Lillian went for her walk.

  The Duke went off to supervise increasing security around the castle. Lillian meekly followed Martha Louis
a up the stairs.

  Later, she lay in her comfortable bed staring up into the canopy. Would she never be safe? How had anyone found her here?

  Chapter 12

  Sebastian looked on while his hound master and head guardsman inspected the place where Miss Doyle was attacked. Although her tracks and those of Mr. Timony were clearly visible, it looked as if someone had brushed the area where the tussle had taken place, then sprinkled fresh snow over it and brushed it again.

  “They mun ha’ been right skilled,” the hound master, Mr. Roger Dubany, said. The head guardsman, Mr. Bart Dubany, the hound master’s brother, nodded.