His Secret Heroine

by Delle Jacobs

  They must surely be the only human beings on God's earth who liked him, and perhaps that was why he warmed to them. How terribly lonely that must be. But the fault for that belonged to him, not to her, or the rest of mankind. No man was ever universally disliked because of his kindness.

  "But how is it you came to know Chloe, Your Grace?" Madeline asked, then spooned her dessert.

  The duke paled. His lips thinned as he searched Chloe's face. "We are acquainted through my son," he said slowly.

  "The one who is a captain in the Guards?"

  "My second son. The one who is an author."

  "He is an author?" Allison asked, squealing. "Lord Reginald is an author? Oh, it is so very exciting."

  Chloe locked her hands tightly together in her lap.

  "Then he introduced you to Chloe, and she asked you to rescue us," Madeline guessed.

  "It was what she wished," the duke replied, watching Chloe's face closely.

  Well, it did no good to say otherwise. "And I thank you that they are safe at last, and we are together."

  "I am glad, too," Allison replied, and smiled shyly, then hid a yawn behind her hand.

  "Well, Miss Allison," said the duke, "I see you have grown weary at last. You must be watchful of them, Miss Englefield, for I have discovered they will stay up too late if you allow it."

  "Ah. I thank you for the warning. Very well, girls, off to bed with you, now. Tomorrow we shall be very busy, as you will have to acquaint me with the property."

  "But Chloe!" whined Madeline. "Your Grace, just a little longer!"

  "Up the stairs with you, Misses Cottingham. You have been enough trouble for one day." The duke's characteristic gruff voice seemed oddly tinged with the music of affection.

  "No more than you, Your Grace," said Madeline, her giggling tinkling like silver bells.

  "And you, Miss Cottingham, have all the cheek of your older sister. Do not expect that I shall overrule her, Miss Cottingham. You are to mind her without exception. I shall have nothing else from you. Go on, now."

  Both girls groaned together as they rose from their chairs and gave a kiss to Chloe's cheek, then one to the duke.

  "I shall come up shortly and see you tucked in," Chloe said.

  "Oh, we are quite too old to be tucked in, Chloe," Madeline insisted. "But you may come to say good night."

  "Very well, then."

  The last giggle faded with the sound of the twins skipping up the Jacobean staircase. The duke stared at Chloe in his inexplicable way, that strange way that told her nothing, except that he was once again about to say something he had sworn to himself not to impart.

  She squirmed in her seat, not wanting to be alone with the man in this strangely intimate way.

  "I am grateful you chose not to malign me, Miss Englefield."

  How odd it was, that the twins' affection seemed to mean so much to him. But they were still children, and it seemed the only affinity he had with other human beings was with children.

  "They need a hero," she replied, knowing as she said it, it was the truth. "How could I take that from them? And I am truly grateful to have them back with me."

  The duke took a deep sip from his port.

  "Do they also remind you of your daughter, Your Grace?"

  "No, curiously, they do not. But one cannot help but be touched by such sweet-natured children."

  "Yet you cannot say they do not resemble me. How is it that I remind you when they do not?"

  Once again he drank from the goblet, then set it down, still holding the stem. "Who can say what it is that brings on a memory? I have always thought Elizabeth's hair would be like Reginald's, golden, but even as an infant, hers had more curl to it than his. Your hair, perhaps, although I have observed that it does not curl naturally. I thought that from the beginning. But that is not enough, is it? You do not really resemble members of my family. What might it be, then?"

  Chloe held her breath. Where was he leading?

  With a long, deep breath exhaled, he began again. "Elizabeth was born on 22 April, 1792, as were you."

  Chloe gasped.

  "She died on 15 August the same year." His voice sounded oddly flat.

  "Tomorrow is the fifteenth," she countered, just as flatly.

  The taut muscles in his jaw flexed and bulged. "And so I hope you understand why I have been in such a hurry to get you here, as I do not wish to spend that day with you."

  Hot moisture stung her eyes. "I should not think so."

  "I have always gone home on that day," he said in a voice that sounded far away. "But I shall not this year. Beauhampton Hall is much too far, and I could not reach it in time."

  "What will you do, then?"

  "I believe I shall go down to Beachy Head. Have you ever been there, Miss Englefield? There is nothing quite like the vastness of the sea, as viewed from a magnificent cliff."

  Something about that gripped her heart. "I am sure it must be quite soothing. Are you quite sure you wish to be alone?"

  He took a deep breath that he seemed to hold, then once again sighed. "Yes, quite. You must go there sometime, Miss Englefield. It is, as you say, quite soothing."

  "How did your daughter die?"

  His head jerked up, and he stared at her, gazing so long she wanted to squirm. "We shall not discuss this."

  "Yes, of course. I should not have asked."

  She thought he was going to rise out of his chair. Then he reached for the wine goblet again, but instead of drinking, rolled the stem back and forth between his thumb and fingers.

  "I have tried for a very long time to fathom what went wrong. She was cutting a tooth, and a bit fussy, as children are wont to be at such a time, but nothing more. I rocked her to sleep, then laid her down. She never woke up."

  The man leaned his head back against the ancient high-backed wooden chair and closed his eyes. "You cannot imagine what it is like to lose a child."

  Chloe quelled the urge to rush to the hated man and give him comfort. She tightened her grip on her hands in her lap. "I cannot imagine how anyone could ever overcome such a loss."

  He swallowed the last of his port, and studied the dregs that clung to the bottom of the goblet. He had not said, but she guessed he had been the last to see the baby alive.

  She could not stand the silence. His voice was so flat, as if it said nothing of importance, yet in that very tone it spoke of pain so deep it clawed the bottom of her soul. She grappled about in her mind trying to find something to say that was neither overly mawkish nor utterly inane.

  "It is unusual for a father to take such an interest in his child, is it not? I have not known many fathers who frequent the nursery, despite their love for their children."

  "I always did. I enjoyed my children when they were young. And Elizabeth was so very wonderful. She loved to be rocked to sleep. Sometimes she quieted sooner when I rocked her. When she was so very cross that night, nurse asked if I might rock her to sleep. Perhaps she was ill, and we didn't know it, but we saw no signs. I laid her in the cot the way she always slept. Her clothes were not tangled about her. She had no fever, nor anything else that I could tell."

  The wine glass rotated between his thumb and forefinger, slowly back and forth.

  "I do not know what I could have done differently."

  "You were a very experienced parent."

  "There were five children, altogether. Two other little girls were stillborn. I did so want a daughter as well as sons."

  "In all these years, has anyone ever found anything else you might have done?"

  "I have consulted physicians, midwives, nannies, old wives. Some say teething is a dangerous time for babies. One old wife once told me a girl child must be passed over and under a donkey nine times to ensure she will live. But I did not believe her."

  Chloe smiled weakly. "Nor would I. So then, one and twenty years have passed, and no one can find fault in what you did. Is it not possible that you are not to blame?"

  "There must h
ave been something," he said, shaking his head. "There must be a reason."

  "But perhaps not one you could have foretold. What if there was truly nothing you could have done?"

  He looked as if she had assaulted him. "You are beyond impertinent, Miss Englefield. This conversation is at an end."

  He pushed back the chair as he stood.

  Chloe nodded. "Forgive me. I should not have intruded."

  The duke gave a disgusted sniff and walked to an ancient huntboard where the footman had left the port, refilled his goblet, then gestured with the bottle toward her. Chloe nodded, allowing him to pour a small amount into her goblet.

  "It must have been my fault."

  He drank the goblet's entire contents in one swallow, and clutched the goblet's bowl so tightly between his hands, she wondered if it might break.

  What had she unearthed? Deftly, as if walking on shattered glass, Chloe followed the trail. "But what if it was not? If her mother had been the last person to see her, would you have blamed her? Or the nurse? What if Reggie had sneaked in to give her one last kiss? Would you have thought it his fault?"

  "Of course not. How could a kiss harm her?"

  "Sometimes we carry disease to others before we even know we have it ourselves."

  "He cannot be at fault. A kiss could not have harmed her."

  Chloe set down her goblet on the huntboard. "My point, exactly. You blame yourself without even knowing what error you have committed. I submit to you, Your Grace, that you were in fact an exemplary parent. Not perfect, for you cannot claim perfection any more than any man can, but exemplary, nonetheless. Yet you will not accept it because you cannot admit it was beyond your control. You, who must control everyone and everything, would rather hold yourself guilty of some unknown crime than admit to being helpless."

  Rage seethed in his reddened face. Chloe gulped. She wanted to flee, but knew she must not. She watched his anger twist into unfathomably deep anguish.

  Chloe moved in for the telling blow. "You were helpless, Your Grace. You could have done nothing. But in her short life, she gave you great joy, and you gave to her a precious gift that too few children receive, a loving father."

  His lip curled bitterly "Damn you," he said with a snarl. "Just how would you know that, Miss Englefield?"

  "Reggie told me. He told me of the beautiful baby sister everyone loved. He remembers how you cried when she died. He remembers how you carried him on your shoulders when he was a small child. You saved him from a beating by the grandmother who detested him. You took him out to the fields to run off his wildness, because only you understood what it is like when something is beyond one's control. You were a good parent, Your Grace, but you were not God. You were helpless."

  The goblet crashed against the dark stone chimneypiece, its shards gleaming and tinkling to the floor.

  Chloe flinched.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Duke of Marmount held his hands to his face as fury drained away like flowing sand and left him ashen.

  Chloe stared down at the shattered crystal, gleaming in the firelight like broken stars, and clutched her fists so hard, her fingernails bit into her palms. A hard lump clogged her throat.

  No, he would not hurt her, not with fist or crop, but there were so many other ways, and she knew him capable of using them. And this time, she had transgressed beyond his boundaries.

  The duke trembled as he lowered his hands from his face. "I beg your pardon, Miss Englefield," he said.. "That is unlike me. I do not hit— nor— break things."

  He let out a sigh and bent and began to pick up the little shining fragments.

  Chloe took up the coal brush and swept glass shards into the scuttle, then made a neat little pile of them on the hearth. "The maid will see to it in the morning." She thought she heard just the slightest quaver in her own voice.

  "It was rather fine old glass that belonged to my aunt," he said, and took the scuttle and broom from her to finish the task.

  "It was only glass," she said.

  His Grace, the Duke of Marmount finished up the sweeping and deposited the coal scuttle full of broken glass on the hearth. He straightened his waistcoat and ran shaking hands through hair that had only moments before been immaculately tidy. "I have overstayed my welcome, Miss Englefield. I shall be going. You are no doubt more than weary of my presence."

  "As you wish, Your Grace." But suddenly she did not want him to go.

  Weems stood near the front entrance and bowed to the duke as he held out the hat, gloves and cane.

  The duke studied his gloves with great effort as he pulled them on. "The world must truly be a terrible place, Miss Englefield, if one cannot control anything."

  "I do agree, Your Grace. How fortunate it is that some things are not beyond our control."

  "Where the devil did you ever gain the audacity to advise others so freely, Miss Englefield?"

  "Perhaps because you asked. And since I do have such audacity, I have one more thing to say. Your son loves you. And he will never give up on you."

  "He will abandon me the first moment he can."

  Chloe forced her gaping jaw closed as the concept slowly coalesced in her mind. So that was it! He controlled Reggie because he feared losing the only member of his family who had not abandoned him. For even that poor, innocent babe who died so long ago had, in a way, abandoned the father who loved her so intensely. But was he right? Would Reggie also turn his back on the father who held the leash so chokingly tight?

  "Then ask him," she said. "And if you love him, as I believe you do, perhaps you will find a way to grant him the precious gift he most needs. Relinquish him to manhood."

  "The devil you say." He pounded his rolled brim hat onto his head.

  "You know what is right, Your Grace. I do not have to tell you."

  His Grace rolled his eyes, turned to the door, then back again. She saw sadness of unfathomable depth in his eyes as he turned. Her heart ached.

  The door flung open from the outside, and the duke stepped back, startled by the man in the doorway whose eyes were alit with the flames of rage.

  "Reginald!" the duke exclaimed, at the very moment Chloe shouted his nickname.

  Reggie shoved past the duke. Chloe dashed across the foyer and threw herself into his arms. He whirled her around her feet clearing the floor in a wide, joyous circle.

  "Oh, Reggie!" She hugged him as tightly, absorbing his warmth, the wonderful scent of him, reveling in the scrape of his bristly beard against her cheek. Her Reggie! He had come for her. He loved her.

  "Oh, Reggie, I'm so glad to see you. I'm so sorry I didn't trust you. I should have known you would come."

  Reggie took her face in his hands and kissed her lips. "Hell couldn't bar my way to you, love. It's my fault. I know what he's like. I should have never let you out of my sight. Are you all right?"

  "Oh, yes, it's all right. Everything is all right."

  "What has he done to you, love?"

  "Done? Nothing." Chloe looked back, seeking the duke. He wasn't there. The door was closed and Weems had magically faded away. "Reggie, he's gone."

  Reggie glanced over his shoulder, then back to her. "Intelligent of him," he said. "This time he's gone too far, Chloe. Are you sure you're all right?"

  Dread, like a hard lump, hit the deepest pit of her stomach. "It's all right, but he controls my sisters, Reggie. He made me promise I'd stay in hiding until you married Portia. Reggie, he could take them from me."

  "He won't. I won't let them or you out of my sight again. Mythe and Castlebury will back me, and I have the Special License. We'll ride to London and be married tomorrow. He will look more than strange if he tries to keep them from us, since he has no relationship to them."

  No, that was not what worried her. But what was it? Not what the duke would do to them. But what was it? Was it simply that on the morrow he must deal with the anniversary of his tiny daughter's death? If he had dealt with it for one-and-twenty years, why had it become
so weighty now?

  Because of her. She had poked and prodded and dragged, bringing all his deeply buried hurts to the surface, the way a grave-robber disturbs a corpse. She had left the duke at the rawest edge of his soul, and something told her he lacked the strength to survive.

  And it all had something to do with Beachy Head, a windswept cliff high above a pounding surf, beautiful, perhaps soothing, but unbearably lonely.

  "We've got to find him," she said.

  "My father? Let him go, Chloe. He won't hurt you now, I promise."

  "No, Reggie, you don't understand. Don't you know what tomorrow is?"

  "The fifteenth," he replied with a worried frown. "The day Elizabeth died. But sweetheart, he can't hurt you now. I know he has some odd notion because you have the same birthday as Elizabeth, but—"

  She shook her head. "He isn't insane, Reggie. He has done nothing but talk about losing her. Losing his family, Reggie. He can't lose you! He just cannot!"

  Reggie drew her close. "He's forced me to choose between you and him, love. I don't know what happened to him, but he is not the father I loved. What he has done to you is beyond forgiving."

  "But that's what I mean! Reggie, he is not the same man. He's lost somewhere. He is sure his control of you is all that keeps you from abandoning him, just like everyone else has."

  "But we can't let him run our lives."

  "No, and we won't. We are the ones who are strong, not he. Despite all his power, he is a weak and tragic man. But he needs us, and he needs for us to be too strong to be bullied by him."

  Reggie gave her a skeptical look. It wasn't his fault that he didn't understand. He hadn't heard all the things the duke had told her. But they were wasting time.

  "Please, just trust me. He's in danger, and we're the only ones who can help him. I said things to him I ought not, Reggie. He is in the very depths of despair. I am afraid for him."

  "But how can you even care, after all he's done to you?"

  "Because I love you, Reggie. And he's your father."

  Reggie seemed to shake his head and nod at the same time, and took her into his arms again. "All right, love. I don't understand. But it is obvious you know something I don't know."