And in May she got a letter from Mrs. White that woke her up. Tristan had admitted that he was ruined. He had nothing left, after Elizabeth’s extravagances and his own, and his arrogant and wanton mismanagement of the estate. Her eyes almost fell out of her head when she read that he had put Belgrave and the London house up for sale. Mrs. White said that Elizabeth was furious with him, and they were barely speaking. He said they were going to move to a small house in London, when both homes were sold, unless the new owners of the estate let them stay on at the Cottage, and rent it. They had nowhere to go, and no money left, and needed every penny from the sale of both properties just to pay their enormous debts. Mrs. White said she hoped the new owners were going to let her stay on—she had been there since she was a girl. And Hobson was going to retire once Belgrave was sold—he said he was too old to adapt to new owners, who didn’t belong there. The title would inevitably go to Phillip by law, but not the estate if it was sold.
Angélique read the letter again, dressed immediately in one of her black mourning gowns, and went to see Andrew’s lawyer the same day. He had another appointment, but saw her at once when she sent him a message that it was extremely urgent. He hadn’t seen her since the reading of Andrew’s will in January, and had been told she’d been in seclusion ever since, in terrible shape. And he thought she looked very thin when he saw her, but her eyes were bright. She told him what she’d learned in the housekeeper’s letter from Belgrave.
“I’m going over as soon as I can, and I’ll need a solicitor in London. Will you help me find one?” She was suddenly energized and nervous and very concerned.
“What are you trying to do?” he asked her, looking sympathetic. “Help your brother with his debts before he sells?” He had no idea of the history between them, and had no reason to. Only Andrew had known. He had told no one else, although his attorney had been made aware that Phillip was the heir to the title and estate, and had sent the letter announcing his birth to Tristan, Duke of Westerfield.
“Certainly not,” Angélique said about helping her brother, looking outraged, and more like her old self. “I intend to buy it, without his knowing I did, if possible. I don’t want him to know until the sale is complete.” Patrick Murphy, the attorney, was startled by the unusual request, but he assumed it would be feasible, if a competent lawyer handled the purchase discreetly.
“Will you be buying the Grosvenor Square house too?”
“No,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t need a house in London, and my father never really liked it. But I want my son to know the estate he will inherit one day, and learn to run it long before he does. I can maintain its ownership until he grows up,” since she would be purchasing it from Tristan now. And her father had schooled her well in the running of the estate while she was growing up. She was far more competent than her brother. “I’d like him to live there,” she said quietly of her son, “just as I did as a child. It’s a wonderful place.”
“Will you be giving up the house in New York?” Murphy looked surprised.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I haven’t thought that far. All I know is that I want to buy Belgrave Castle before someone else does.” He nodded. And as she thought about it, she knew that the house she and Andrew had bought together was too painful to live in without him, and that their life in New York was equally so now that he was gone. She had never thought it would be possible, but now that it was, she wanted to go home. “Please see to it that no one buys it before I get there. Explain all that to the solicitor you hire in London. Whatever another purchaser offers, I will outbid them. I don’t intend to lose my home again.” He didn’t know what she was referring to, and didn’t ask. He assured her that he’d take care of it and give her the name of the lawyer he found in London.
She went home then and sent for Claire and Mrs. Partridge, and told them both that she was leaving for England as soon as possible with her son, and she wanted Claire to go with her, if she was willing, which she said she was. She had been happy in New York, but she was young and had formed no strong attachments there in six years, and she liked the idea of going to England and being closer to her relatives in France.
“And when will you be coming back, ma’am?” the housekeeper asked her, looking worried. The staff liked working for her and had been heartbroken to see her so bereft after her husband’s death. They wondered what she would do, if she would go back to Europe, or stay in New York. There had been no sign of change till then. She had barely left the house in five months.
“I don’t know,” she said sadly. “I have some family business to conclude in England. It might take some time.” She wasn’t ready to tell them she was moving yet. She wasn’t sure herself. The housekeeper nodded, and she and Claire both left the room. Angélique called for the carriage after that and went to the office of the Black Ball Line.
She discovered that the packet boat North America was sailing to Liverpool in four days, and she intended to be on it. She didn’t want to waste any time. She didn’t want Tristan selling Belgrave to the first offer out of desperation. It was a property that people had coveted for years, and until Tristan took over, it had been in perfect condition and impeccably run by her father. She had no idea what the situation was there now, other than that her brother had run out of funds.
She booked passage for herself, Claire, her son, and his nanny. She got a stateroom next to hers for Phillip and the nanny, and another small cabin for Claire, as she had before. And when she got back to the house, she informed the nanny, told her to pack for him, and told Claire to start packing her trunks.
“What sort of clothes will we be taking?” Claire asked her, wondering. Her mistress had seen no one in five months, nor worn any of her elegant dresses. She was still in deep mourning for Andrew, and wore only her plainest black dresses.
“I’m still in mourning,” Angélique reminded her, “and I intend to be all year. But I’ll need some other clothes for afterward, and maybe some decent gowns.”
“Will we be staying that long, ma’am?” Claire looked at her, surprised, and Angélique was honest with her, more so than with Mrs. Partridge.
“Probably. I hope so. We’re going back to the house where I grew up,” she told her, and realized that this time what she had claimed last time on the ship was true. She had said she was a widow, which had been a lie then, and now she was. And she realized, as she took things out of her closets and laid them on the bed, how long Claire had known her, all the way back to Le Boudoir, and she had never said a word about it to the other staff. Angélique knew she could trust her, and always had.
She had the nanny pack for Phillip, and for the next three days the house was a furor of packing and sorting, and making decisions about what to take and what to leave, but at least she was no longer languishing on her bed. She had a plan, and she sensed that Andrew would have been pleased to see her up and busy again, and he would have approved of her trying to save Belgrave for their son. It was his birthright.
Patrick Murphy came to tell her that he had written to a solicitor in London, who had been highly recommended, and he hoped his letter would reach him before she did. She would be in London herself in three weeks.
She was adding a few last things to one of her trunks the next day, and had just packed all her jewelry, when Mrs. Partridge came to tell her that she had a guest downstairs.
“Who is it?” Angélique was distracted. She had no idea who it was, and didn’t want to see anyone before she left. It was too painful listening to people tell her how sorry they were, when in truth they had no concept of the enormity of her loss when Andrew died. He and their son were all she had.
“I’m not sure who the gentleman is,” Mrs. Partridge said, looking puzzled. “I believe it’s Mr. Hanson’s father, ma’am. He said he was John Hanson. I’ve never seen him here before.” Angélique was startled and hesitated before she went downstairs. Why was he coming to see her now? He hadn’t even spoken to her at the funeral, an
d had never seen Phillip until then. He hadn’t even acknowledged the boy at his father’s funeral. She almost decided not to go down, and then smoothing her hair and dress, she went.
She found him in the library, looking around the home that they’d lived in for six years and that he’d never seen. He had been no part of their life, only Andrew’s, since they married. And she was sure that the loss of his only son had been hard on him as well. She was shocked by how much he had aged in the six and a half years since she’d known him. She had noticed it at the funeral too, but thought he was just grief stricken. He had suddenly become an old man. He was sixty-seven.
“Good afternoon,” she said quietly as she walked in. He turned to look at her, and was shaken the minute he did. She was just as beautiful as before, although her eyes were deeply sad, and she was very thin. She didn’t want to be rude and ask him why he was there. “I hope you’re well.”
“Patrick Murphy tells me you’re leaving New York.” Other than her servants, he was the only one who knew.
“Yes, I am.” She was still standing, and didn’t invite him to sit down.
“I wanted to say goodbye before you go. I wanted to talk to you a long time ago, but there was never a right time. I’m sorry for the way I behaved when Andrew wanted to marry you. I didn’t realize until he died that my fury wasn’t because you had been the madam of a brothel in Paris, but because you turned down my proposal and accepted his. I never wanted to face that before.” He sat down in a chair then, and looked bereft. “I wanted to marry you desperately and thought you were the love of my life after all those lonely years. And then you married Andrew, and I could see how much you loved each other. I was jealous of my own son.” There were tears in his eyes as he said it, and Angélique was stunned. It was an enormous admission, and she didn’t know how to respond. She hoped he wasn’t going to repeat his offer now that his son was gone. She held her breath, and her tongue. “The reason I wanted to speak to you before you left,” he went on, “was to thank you for never exposing me to Andrew. You never told him that you had met me at the brothel in Paris. He told me that you said you’d never met me before. I was very grateful to you for that. You were very generous to allow my son to keep his illusions about me, more than I deserved. You were honest with him, I wasn’t. And I’m deeply ashamed of that now. It proved to me that you were a good woman, and an honorable one, and I never admitted that to him. You were more honest with him than I. And I wasted so many years being angry at you for being with him and not me. We could have been together for all this time. And now he’s gone, and you and the boy are leaving.”
“But you were right that I destroyed his political career,” she said regretfully.
“I don’t think he minded,” John Hanson said honestly. “He never seemed unhappy to me, not for an instant, while he was married to you. And the political ambitions were more my idea than his.”
“Thank you for that,” she said softly. They had cleaned the slate and settled old scores. It was a good way for her to leave. The war was over.
“Will you be coming back from Europe?” he asked, worried, and she wanted to be straightforward with him and not lie.
“Probably not. I want to see how Phillip likes it there. But I’d rather he grew up in my old home. It’s a wonderful place for a child. Better than New York.”
“But can you go back after all this time?” He didn’t think she could—from what Andrew had said. And the lawyer had only said they were leaving—he didn’t say why.
“I’m trying to buy the estate from my brother,” she explained, and he nodded. And then he looked at her with pleading eyes.
“May I see the boy? He’s the image of his father at that age.” She hesitated and then nodded, and left the room to go and find him. He was in the nursery packing his favorite toys with his nanny. He was excited about going on the ship, and Angélique had been telling him all about it.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” she said quietly as she walked into the nursery and sat down on a small chair next to her son, who was so exactly like his father, just as his grandfather said. It comforted her now to look at him and know that Andrew would live on through their child. And she could look at him every day and see the man she loved.
“Who is it?” Phillip asked her, curious about their guest.
“He’s downstairs, and he’d like to see you. Your grandfather, Daddy’s father.” The child looked surprised. He had no grandparents he knew. Three were dead and one had refused to see him all his life, which he didn’t know and had never been told. Andrew’s father was simply never mentioned. He didn’t exist in their life. Until now.
“Have I ever seen him before?” Phillip asked.
“He was at Daddy’s funeral.”
“Why didn’t he talk to me then?” the child inquired.
“He was probably too sad, just like we were. But he’d like to see you now, and I want you to come downstairs with me to meet him.” She held out her hand, and he took it and followed her out the door of the nursery. They went down the stairs together, and Phillip walked into the library ahead of her, and stopped when he saw John Hanson.
“Hello, young man.” John smiled at him and reached out to him, so Phillip would approach. “I hear you’re going to be taking a trip on a big boat.”
“I am.” His grandson smiled at him, and told him all about it.
“That sounds like a lot of fun to me. And you’re going to England.”
Phillip nodded as they chatted. “I’m going to see my other grandfather’s house. One day it’s going to belong to me, and I’m going to be a duke,” he told him conversationally, as though that were entirely normal. His grandfather smiled.
“That’s very impressive. Do you think you’ll wear a crown?” his grandfather teased him, and Phillip laughed.
“I don’t know. My mama didn’t tell me that.” And then he turned to her. “Will I, Mama?”
“No.” All three of them laughed.
“But I’ll get to ride horses and go fishing in a lake.”
“That sounds very nice. Do you suppose I could visit you there one day? Or maybe you could come back here and visit me.”
“If you come to see me, you’ll have to take a boat too.”
“I do that sometimes. Or maybe you and your mama could come to London sometime to see me when I work there.”
Phillip nodded. It all sounded a little complicated to him. “I think I have to go and finish packing now. I’m taking a lot of toys.”
His grandfather held out his hand again, and Phillip shook it, did a little bow, and then scampered out of the room and up the stairs.
“He’s a wonderful boy,” he said to Angélique, and then with sad eyes, “I’ve been such a fool, and missed so many years.”
“You came to see him now. That’s a start,” she said, touched by the meeting and that he’d come to see them and humbled himself to her.
“May I contact you when I come to London? I’d like to see the boy.” She nodded. It would be good for Phillip to have at least one grandparent, and John had just been nice to him. She knew Andrew would have been pleased. It had taken a long time to come around. Five and a half years.
“You’re welcome to come and see him,” she said carefully, not wanting to encourage him otherwise. His admissions had explained many things, but had also been overwhelming. It had never occurred to her that he’d been in love with her for all those years. She thought that he had forgotten her, except as an object of hatred and fury.
He stood up then, and she walked him to the door. “Thank you for coming and laying old ghosts to rest. It will make everything easier now,” she said, smiling at him.
“For me too,” he said, and looked relieved. “Take care of yourself, Angélique,” he said softly, kissed her on the forehead, and walked out the door remembering the girl he had known and had wanted so desperately in Paris years before. He had finally let her go. And all he felt for her now was respect.
The crossing from New York to England was very quiet. Angélique had no desire to socialize with anyone, unlike the trip where she’d met Andrew six years before. She ate her meals in her cabin, played with Phillip, and walked around the deck to get some air, and spoke to none of the passengers. All she wanted was to arrive in England and take care of business. She was terrified someone else would beat her to it and her brother would sell Belgrave for a song. She prayed that that wouldn’t happen before she arrived.
As soon as they got to London after landing in Liverpool, she checked them into Mivart’s Hotel on Brook Street in Mayfair and went straight to the solicitor that afternoon. He had received Patrick Murphy’s letter two days before, and had been expecting her. The mission she was giving him was clear.
“I understand that you want to buy the estate and you don’t want the duke to know who the purchaser is.” He had checked around, and it was evident that the duke was in a great deal of financial trouble, and in debt up to his ears. “Do you want him never to know, or only at the time of the transaction?”
“Until the purchase of the estate is complete,” she said simply. “After that I don’t care.”
“May I ask why?” He was curious but didn’t need to know. She told him anyway.
“Because I’m afraid if he knows it’s me, he’ll block the sale, and sell it to someone else, even if it’s for less money.” She believed Tristan capable of doing anything to hurt her. His hatred of her was limitless and would be more so now.
“He’d be foolish to do that. He can’t afford to. From what Mr. Murphy said in his letter, you’re willing to pay almost any price to obtain it. And frankly, he needs the money. Do you know how much he’s asking?”
The Duchess Page 29
