The Duchess's Secret (HQR Historical)

by Elizabeth Beacon

  ‘My knight in tarnished armour?’

  ‘Exactly—more of a Don Quixote than a Galahad,’ he confirmed. ‘But I love you with all I am and ever will be, Ros.’

  ‘Only if you love me with what you were as well.’

  ‘Must I? I don’t much like the heedless young idiot.’

  ‘All of you.’

  ‘You are an implacable woman, Rosalind Hartfield.’

  ‘We Duchesses are well renowned for it.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ he said and to her astonishment her tall and proud Duke sank on to his knees and looked as if he was about to mean every word he said, but could not quite bring them on to his tongue for nerves.

  ‘I must look enormous from down there,’ she said with a self-conscious squirm and hoped Joan managed to keep Jenny and her entourage out for a bit longer.

  ‘You look wonderful,’ he argued, shifting position as if his knees might be hurting him a little on the wooden floorboards of this rather spartan hired house that was all there was available at short notice even for a duchess.

  ‘Get on with it, Ash. You must have had a long day dashing about the countryside and you might seize up and get stuck down there.’

  ‘True, and I had best hurry before Jenny interrupts us. So, will you marry me, Ros?’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, looking down into his laughing, loving, pleading smoky-grey eyes like a besotted and very surprised schoolgirl.

  ‘Because I adore every lovely inch of you; because you are the most beautiful woman I ever laid eyes on; because you are the mother of my children. Most of all because I love you with everything I am, was and will be. Oh, and the lawyers say we should probably marry again to make sure the baby can never be challenged for the duchy if it happens to be a boy.’

  ‘And you were doing so well...’

  ‘Until that bit?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Would you rather I lied?’

  ‘No, I had already worked it out for myself. It’s just hard to admit your dragon Great-Aunt Brilliana is right.’

  ‘I know. Now will you say yay or nay so I can get up? I’m not as young as I used to be.’

  ‘I know exactly how old you are, don’t forget and, yes, Ash. I will marry you once a week if that is what it takes to keep us and our family secure and content for the next fifty years or so.’

  ‘We had best persuade Plumstead to retire then, I don’t think his nerves or his knees would stand the strain.’

  ‘Neither do I. Now get up before yours get stuck like that, or someone comes along and catches us behaving like loons.’

  ‘Personally I think I look like a dignified duke with serious family responsibilities, but if you want to be a loon you can be. Anything you do is wonderful if you agree to be my Duchess for the rest of our lives.’

  He got up lithely and grinned like the boy she first recalled, all wolfish charm and wicked humour. ‘You are quite right, though, you have got even fatter since I saw you last,’ he added and there it was, all the pieces of them slotting back sweetly into the places they belonged. Her unease these last few weeks as she sensed gaps and wrong bits in the wrong places died and she actually believed this was real. They really were going to be as happy together as two erring humans could be.

  Struggling not to laugh with this feeling of almost too much happiness fizzing inside her, she smacked a nearly playful hand against the ruffled tawny pelt at the nape of his neck she usually found fascinatingly responsive as a lover and wife. ‘You wait until you see me in a couple of months’ time if you think I’m big now,’ she said ruefully and kissed him before he could add worse to his unflattering description.

  On tiptoe and with six or seven months’ worth of baby dancing about in her womb, she had to put her hands on his shoulders to prop herself up far enough to reach his warm and waiting mouth, but it was worth it. Oh, yes, it was worth everything they had put one another through since their eyes first met across that crowded ballroom now. Their kiss was long and loving and more like a vow than a kiss, but they had been apart for almost a fortnight and they were human, so it was fortunate Jenny had a fine collection of seashells and the monkey on a stick Joan had bought her on their way back from the beach to keep her amused for long enough for her parents to prove their love very thoroughly before she finally got home.

  * * *

  ‘Why was your door locked when we got back, Mama?’ Jenny asked when her parents finally came downstairs to the hired parlour hand in hand. ‘And your eyes look all shiny,’ she added almost accusingly, as if she sensed her parents had found a place where she was definitely not invited.

  ‘We lost a penny and found sixpence, my Jenny,’ Ash said with a grin and she forgot to be offended he had been away longer than he promised and threw herself at him in a joyful rush.

  Rosalind watched Ash swing their little girl around, then hug her and give her a great smacking kiss on the cheek before he put her down again. Her child would never need to hesitate on the edge of a room and wonder if she was welcome. She realised how different Jenny’s childhood was from her own emotionally insecure one and here was that huge bubble of happiness again, almost too huge to keep inside. A duchess dancing to music only she could hear with her husband’s baby now very obvious in her belly was a spectacle the world, and their daughter, should not have to witness.

  ‘How would you like to be a bridesmaid, my love?’ she asked, with a shake of her head at Ash as if to say No, we are not keeping this secret. If they had to do it again the whole world was going to know Asher Hartfield loved Rosalind Feldon this time and their time of secrets was well and truly over.

  ‘Who for?’ Jenny said, although she was jigging on the spot at the delightful thought of being dressed like a small princess and wondered at and on show for a whole day. Didn’t that prove she was a far more secure child already than Rosalind had ever been?

  ‘Us,’ Rosalind said and when Jenny looked puzzled she added, ‘Your Papa and I have realised we love each other so much we want to do it all again.’

  ‘Isn’t it time someone else had a turn?’ her daughter said, looking very bewildered about the whole idea.

  Ash could not hold back his roar of laughter and even Rosalind had to smack a hand over her mouth to stop herself joining in as Jenny looked puzzled and a little bit offended, but finally agreed to forgive them if they let her pick her own bridesmaid’s dress.

  Epilogue

  ‘Happy?’ the Duke of Cherwell asked his not-very-blushing bride as he boosted her up into their best carriage as best he could now she was very pregnant indeed.

  ‘So happy I don’t even care that I look like one of Monsieur Montgolfier’s hot air balloons,’ she told him blissfully as she shook rice and rose petals out of her unbound hair. Fertility symbols seemed redundant when she felt nearly ready to pop with his baby dancing about in her womb like a prize fighter. And it was her wedding and she was a duchess and Ash liked her unbound hair so he would just have to put up with it not being so in private for once.

  ‘You are a wicked girl,’ he told her as he climbed in after her and sat down to watch Brilliana staring down at the bridal bouquet she had caught automatically and lost for words for once in her life.

  ‘Maybe she and Plumstead will get married now he doesn’t have to get her to write a sermon for him every week. They might miss one another.’

  ‘Poor man, doesn’t he deserve a peaceful retirement after so many years of being ordered about for his own good?’

  ‘Nonsense, he won’t know what to do with himself. He will not be allowed to retire into his former parish, don’t forget. He would have to take her away.’

  ‘What a delightful thought.’

  ‘I can dream,’ Rosalind agreed as she settled back into the corner seat to wave at their assembled tenants and friends, and there was Jenny, with Judith Belstone holding very firmly on
to my Lady Imogen’s bright cerise bridesmaid’s dress. A promise was a promise and at least they would be able to find her even in a crowd.

  ‘Oh, so can I, love, so can I,’ he said and pulled her into his arms, or as much of her as he could get hold of in one go, as he told her when they had managed to fit as neatly against each other as was possible right now.

  ‘I know all about your dreams. Look where they got me,’ she said with a wave at the white wild silk rippling over her belly where their child was visibly impatient to be born. And again, it was her wedding, so if she wanted to wear white this time, she was the Duchess in charge here so who was going to argue? Not her besotted Duke or their daughter and she had decided not to listen too hard to Brilliana for the sake of her own peace of mind.

  ‘It got me married to the love of my life,’ he said softly between nibbling her right ear because they were away from the crowds now and on their way back to Edenhope for their much-delayed wedding breakfast, ‘and father to a future pugilist and his big sister.’

  ‘I know, isn’t it wonderful?’

  ‘No, it’s perfect. My ideal wedding to the finest Duchess in the land.’

  ‘Certainly the biggest,’ she said as she lay back against him and watched Edenhope grow closer and even the scaffolding was decked with flowers and bunting for her special day.

  ‘If you hurry up, we can use the bride cake for the baby’s christening.’

  ‘Pinch me, Ash?’ she asked, suddenly serious as she wondered how it was possible to be so happy after all those years without him.

  ‘And have half of Edenhope lined up to accuse me of injuring their Duchess? I’m not that brave and I would far rather love you for the rest of my days,’ he said.

  ‘Me, too,’ she said dreamily.

  ‘It would be nice if you promised to love me back.’

  ‘I just did that in front of a lot of witnesses.’

  ‘So you did, but it wouldn’t hurt if you did it again.’

  ‘I do love you, Ash. I always have, I always will.’

  ‘Me, too,’ he said with all the seriousness he had in him in those dear grey eyes of his and she believed him.

  * * *

  If you enjoyed this story,

  don’t miss these other great reads

  by Elizabeth Beacon

  A Wedding for the Scandalous Heiress

  A Rake to the Rescue

  And why not check out her

  A Year of Scandal miniseries?

  Starting with

  The Viscount’s Frozen Heart

  The Marquis’s Awakening

  Keep reading for an excerpt from The Lord’s Highland Temptation by Diane Gaston.

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  The Lord’s Highland Temptation

  by Diane Gaston

  Chapter One

  Scotland—September 1816

  The thundering of a thousand horses’ hooves, the roar of the charge, the screams of the injured pounded across Lucas Johns-Ives’s brain. He slashed at the French soldiers, so many caught off guard by the British cavalry, easy prey for their sabres. The charge had begun in glory, but now it was slaughter—blood everywhere, men crying out in agony, horses falling.

  Dimly, the sound of a bugle reached Lucas’s ears. Ta-ta-ta. Ta-ta-ta. Over and over. The signal to retreat. They’d ridden far enough. Done enough. Killed enough. Time to retreat.

  Where was Bradleigh?

  Lucas searched for his brother and spied him still waving his sword, his eyes bulging, a maniacal grimace on his face. He’d been so angry at Bradleigh, angry enough to refuse to ride next to him. Let his brother fight on his own for once.

  But now Lucas shouted in a voice thick with panic, ‘Bradleigh! Bradleigh! Retreat! We’ve ridden too far. Bradleigh!’

  From the corner of his eye, Lucas saw a thousand French cavalry on fresh horses galloping closer, swords drawn.

  His brother took no heed.

  ‘Bradleigh! Bradleigh!’

  Bradleigh impaled a blue-coated French soldier through the neck, pulled back his sword, dripping with the man’s blood. He laughed like a madman.

  Lucas spurred his horse to catch up to him. He’d pull his brother out of danger, just as he’d promised their father. Drag him back to the Allied lines. He’d save Bradleigh from himself.

  He was almost there, almost at his brother’s side, but then suddenly a French cuirassier on a huge black horse roared between them. Lucas pulled on his horse’s reins to avoid crashing into the man and beast. The cuirassier charged to his brother, raised his sword and ran it through his brother’s chest.

  ‘No!’ Lucas cried as his brother’s blood spurted and his body fell from his horse. ‘No!’

  * * *

  ‘I love the stone circle.’ The melodic voice of a young girl broke into Lucas’s reverie, melting away the sounds and sights of the battle.

  The girlish voice laughed. ‘Remember how we played here?’

  Lucas shook his head. It could not be. This was Belgium, was it not? Where was the battle? Where was his brother?

  Suddenly the air smelled of wet grass and a breeze cooled his burning skin. He’d been walking, he remembered. He’d felt light-headed and queasy—nothing another bottle of fine Scottish whisky couldn’t cure. Had the drink caused the dream? Was this a dream? If so, which was the dream: the battle or the melodic voice?

  ‘That was when we were mere children,’ another voice answered. A boy’s voice this time. ‘Or at least when I was a child. You still are one.’

  ‘I am not,’ the girl protested. ‘Fourteen is not a child.’

  ‘Ha!’ the boy responded. ‘Wait until you are sixteen. Then you will know fourteen is a child.’

  The girl harrumphed. ‘Oh, yes. You are so grown up.’ Her voice changed. ‘Niven, look! There is a man in the circle.’

  ‘Where?’ he answered.

  ‘There. On the ground beneath one of the larger stones.’

  Lucas heard them move closer.

  ‘Who is it?’ the boy asked.

  ‘I do not know,’ the girl replied. ‘He’s a stranger.’

  ‘Stuff!’ the boy said. ‘There are no strangers hereabouts. Not on our land, anyway. We know everybody.’

  Their land? Where was he, if not Belgium? Where had the stench of blood and gunpowder gone?

  Lucas struggled to open his eyes, but the light stung them. He braced himself against the stone at his bac
k and tried to rise. ‘Bradleigh.’

  His legs wouldn’t hold him. He collapsed, scraping his head as he fell.

  Their footsteps scrambled towards him and he forced his eyes open a slit. Two young people, a girl and a boy, floated into view, like apparitions.

  ‘Sir! Sir! Are you hurt?’ The girl leaned down to him, but she was just a blur.

  Lucas tried to speak, but the darkness overtook him.

  * * *

  Mairi Wallace shook the dirt from her apron and lifted the basket of beets, carrots and radishes that she’d gathered from the kitchen garden. What a scolding she’d receive if her mother knew she’d been digging in the dirt.

  ‘Now, Mairi,’ her mother would say in her most patient but disapproving voice. ‘It is not fitting for a baron’s daughter to gather vegetables. If you must put yourself out in the sun, cut flowers. You are not a kitchen maid, after all.’

  Except that all the kitchen maids except Evie had left. So many of their servants had bolted for positions that actually paid their wages that the household was woefully understaffed. Only two housemaids remained and two footmen. Mairi did not mind taking on some of their work. She rather liked the sun and fresh air on such a fine Scottish day.

  She turned and gazed over the wall and caught sight of her younger brother, Niven, running down the hill as if the devil himself was after him.

  Mairi frowned. Had he not gone for a walk with Davina? Mairi’s heart beat faster. Where was Davina?

  She dropped the basket and ran through the gate.

  ‘Mairi! Mairi!’ Niven called. ‘Come quick! I need you!’

  Mairi rushed to his side. ‘What is it? Is it Davina?’

  ‘No. Well, a little.’ He fought to catch his breath. ‘Oh, just come with me. Now.’

  Niven, at sixteen, was old enough to have some sense, but he was as impulsive and impractical as their father. This would not be the first time Mairi had had to pull him out of a scrape. But Davina, their younger sister, was typically more prudent. Slightly.