“This can’t be the end for us!”
The look on his face almost broke her heart and she turned away as she felt betraying tears well in her eyes.
“But it is, Richard. Go home, rest, recuperate, then get on with your life, because I want no part in it.”
Not knowing what else to say or do to win her back, Richard left.
When she returned home, Lavinia was surprised to realise that Richard had gone out. In his weakened state, she had been hoping that he would be sensible and remain home for a while. From the little she was able to deduce from her servants, she realised that his mistress had come to visit and shortly after she arrived, Annabelle had headed for home.
When Richard arrived home, breathless from the short walk from his carriage, the first thing he did was to pour himself a large whiskey. He looked so downhearted that Lavinia’s worst fears were confirmed. He took a seat in the armchair beside her and tried to catch his breath.
Lavinia wasn’t one to pry, so she just continued with her embroidery, leaving it up to Richard to talk, or not.
“I’ve lost her,” he finally said once his breathing was regular again.
“I’m so sorry, my darling.” When he didn’t continue, Lavinia felt compelled to ask. “Is it completely hopeless?”
Richard nodded. “She overheard me speaking with Ada and got the wrong impression but then, it’s my own fault for not breaking things off with her sooner. I was just so happy to be with Annabelle that I didn’t want to spoil the mood by ending things with Ada. Then she went away and I was happy that I could avoid a scene for a little longer and so when she got back to London today, she was under the impression that we were still together. She said some inappropriate things, which Annabelle must have overheard.”
“Can Annabelle not forgive you, perhaps with time?” Lavinia had never needed to worry about her own husband, but she knew that infidelity was quite common and that many women forgave or ignored their husband’s indiscretions.
“I should have realised that there was a reason why she was so distrustful of men in general but I wasn’t thinking clearly.” Richard sipped his whiskey, wondering how much to tell his mother. She was no swooning lady but this might be a little too indelicate even for her. She loved Annabelle as well though, so he decided that she deserved to know the truth.
“Anna probably has hundreds of stories of the evils of men against women but the one that seems to affect her the most, is her mother. Annabelle’s father gave her syphilis, which is what is causing her to go mad.”
“Oh no,” Lavinia cried, tears pricking her eyes. “That poor girl.”
“The irony is that I have always been careful; she is safer with me than with most other men.”
“But safer still, alone,” Lavinia noted.
“So you are on her side?” He sounded hurt.
“There are no sides no this, darling. I know that you are a good man and will be a faithful husband, but I can also understand how Annabelle must feel. You and I had good, kind, loving parents; at least I hope you feel that way too. Our natures are basically trusting, despite the evils that we see in the world. Annabelle has only seen the worst in humanity, aside from her mother whom she speaks of with affection, only to have to watch as the selfishness of one parent destroys the other.”
“So what do I do?”
“For now, nothing. She is a strong woman, Richard, and she will not be bullied into a relationship. You must give her space, at least for the time being.”
Richard leaned his head back and groaned at his own stupidity. If only he had listened to his mother and broken things off with Ada, then none of this would be happening.
The first few days after her confrontation with Richard were relatively easy. It was as if she were numb and unable to feel anything, even pain.
She was sorry when that numbness wore off though, because it left a sharp pain in her chest that no amount of distraction could help her ignore.
Everything hurt. Going to the coffee house reminded her of Richard, her bed each night reminded her of making love to Richard; even lit candles brought Richard to mind and the night that he had lit dozens of them, just to make her smile.
Even baking didn’t hold the same appeal for her now. She did her best to make her creations taste as good as they used to but to her, everything tasted bland now. She followed her usual recipes to the letter but she no longer had the same love or the same amount of care for her baking.
In fact she found it difficult to care very much about anything, and only years of discipline and routine ensured that everything got done. She felt hollow, empty, as if she was missing something. She knew what was missing, of course, but she refused to contemplate it.
On the whole, she hid her feelings well and only those closest to her, namely her staff, even noticed that there was anything amiss. None of them said anything to her though.
Each day she prepared herself to remain strong in case Richard came into the coffee house, but he never did. His friend, Jonathan Rhyman, came in regularly but she rarely had a natural opening to ask about Richard.
He was explaining to her about Parliament’s plan to hastily rebuild and repair the Painted and White Chambers to be going on with, until a new palace could be designed and built. Annabelle took the opportunity to ask if Richard had thought any more about a career in politics. The answer wasn’t what she had hoped as Jonathan didn’t know and confined discussion of Richard to that specific question.
Although she thought herself weak for wishing for any news of Richard, she couldn’t help it. Unfortunately she didn’t overhear any snippets of conversation about him, which she assumed was because he was keeping to the house much more than usual following the fire. She just wanted to know how his recovery was going, that wasn’t too much to ask, was it?
Chapter Fifteen
Frederick Wyatt smiled as he saw that he had a letter from ‘Old John’ and put the rest of his post aside to read the latest update.
He had met John in his youth, whilst frequenting a whorehouse and they had remained friends, on and off, ever since. John was an unusual creature, being both educated and a criminal and Frederick had asked him for help many times over the years. Of course, he wasn’t such a good friend that he would help Frederick out of the goodness of his heart but even although his finances were tight these days, he thought that paying John to harass Annabelle was a worthwhile investment.
If only that imbecile, Armstrong, hadn’t bought the leasehold. He’d wasted a month or more cultivating a friendship with Mrs Braithwaite, only for her husband to turn around and sell the lease to Armstrong! If it wasn’t for that, he would have evicted Annabelle by now and could get on with his life.
Most people thought that he hated Annabelle and her mother, Evelina, because he resented them taking his mother’s place in the family but his mother had died a few days after he was born, so he had no memory of her, let alone love for her
No, the real reason that he hated Evelina and by extension Annabelle, was because Evelina should have been his. He had met her first, he had loved her first, he had even introduced her to his father, only for the cad to set his eye on Evelina himself.
She may have been three years older than Frederick and as his father rightly pointed out, they weren’t actually courting but Frederick knew that it was just a matter of time. Evelina was a creature of such exquisite beauty, that he simply had to possess her and would stop at nothing to make her his. He didn’t even care that she wasn’t from a noble family and didn’t have a particularly large dowry, with looks like hers, breeding counted for nought.
When he met her though, he was still in his first year of university, although he confided in his father that as soon as he graduated, he intended to marry her. His father had advised Frederick not to declare himself yet as women didn’t like long courtships, and he had assured his son that he would keep an eye out for Evelina whilst Frederick as away.
Frederick had been devastated to retu
rn to the estate in the summer and discover that Evelina had married his father! No one had even bothered to tell him.
He seethed with rage to the extent where it actually made him ill. Finally he confronted Eveline, waiting in her bedroom until she came in alone. She had seemed shocked to hear that he had plans to marry her and claimed that she had no inkling of how he felt about her, but he knew that she was lying. She had teased him and led him on until she met a better prospect, his father.
Well to hell with that, she would be his regardless! She had led him on and he wasn’t going to let her go without a fight!
His first blow stunned her and he was on her within seconds. She struggled against him but he was far stronger than she and easily subdued. His only difficulty had been the voluminous clothes that she wore, which proved tricky to get past, especially with only one hand since the other held her wrists. If it hadn’t been for that inconvenience, Jones wouldn’t have had time to discover them.
Unconsciously one hand went to the back of his head, where the little witch had clobbered him with a jewellery box. There were still two dents in the bone from where she had struck him that day. He was dazed and Jones had almost screeched the place down, until the other servants and his father came running.
And so he, the rightful heir to the estate, had been thrown out of his own home! The indignity of it still stung.
His father had been a liar and a cheat but the old man was wily and had used his money (and the threat of being cut off) to keep Frederick away.
Over the next 16 years his anger festered, growing stronger when Annabelle became so very popular among his father’s friends. He was always hearing stories about her marvellous singing, or her beautiful playing, or her wonderful French, or how intelligent and bright she was, or how her beauty would one day rival her mother's.
Frederick was the rightful heir but no one had ever complimented his intelligence. His father had never proudly shown him off to his friends.
When the old man finally died, Frederick had his chance to reclaim what should rightfully have been his from the start, only Evelina had grown older and was no longer quite the beauty that he remembered. Annabelle however, her beauty was worthy of someone like him, except that she constantly looked down her nose at him. She called his drinking boorish and him a drunkard; said he had the table manners of a pig and even had the gall to tell him how to treat his own servants! The girl’s attitude excited him to new heights of fury. Who did she think she was to tell him how to behave in his own home? She was the interloper; she was the one who didn’t belong.
Frederick was of noble blood but Annabelle’s mother’s parents had been in trade, which made them little more than peasants in Frederick’s opinion.
Still, he took pleasure in the fact that she and her mother would be under his care for the remainder of their lives. Annabelle couldn’t even marry if he didn’t give her his permission and a dowry.
When he discovered that his father had left Evelina a small annuity in his will, he was upset but reasoned that it wasn’t enough for her to live on, so she would still be unable to leave his house, even if she did have a little pocket money of her own.
When he discovered a little later in the will, that Annabelle had been left what would have been her dowry, Frederick was incensed. He had looked at her with desire before that day, but she was his sister and he knew where to draw the line. Suddenly his anger overpowered his reason though and if he couldn’t possess Annabelle as a parent would, then he was going to possess her as a man possesses a woman, and taint her forever for all future suitors.
Unlike her mother though, Annabelle was a fighter. She bit, clawed, scratched, kicked and yelled, until she finally managed to hit him with something that made his head bleed. The blood ran into his eyes and he could hardly see her but that didn’t stop him, until he was pulled off her. Under her orders, the servants even had the audacity to tie him up. The indignity was too much to bear and he had ranted and raved, as she and her loyal servants quickly packed up their most important belongings and stole his coach to take them into town.
He intended to take her to court for stealing his horses and carriage but she even managed to thwart him in that, having given the possession of them to the local inn keeper in the next town, and paid him a few shillings to return them to Frederick the next day.
He had no idea what happened to them after that, how they got about but the next time he heard of them was through his father’s lawyer, who informed him that Annabelle was using her inheritance to buy a house in London.
That had been the first time that Frederick had asked ‘Old John’ for help, wanting him to keep an eye on his sister and what she was up to.
When he learned that she was to enter trade with her coffee house, he was thrilled; she was being forced to go back to her trade roots and after that (and especially being a woman in trade) no aristocrat in his right mind would ever agree to marry her. She had been forced back to where she belonged and her only chances of marriage now was to another tradesman, although the successful ones preferred to marry up, not down.
He had stopped by a few times when the coffee house first opened, to taunt her but as his debts in London mounted, he had been forced to stay away for a while and since her situation didn’t change, he found himself content to stay away. Not least because Frank had given him a rather nasty black eye the last time he’d visited.
His life moved on and his debts mounted up. He began to charge his tenants more, which worked for a while but now he found himself with almost half of his farms empty, as the tenants were unable to afford the exorbitant rent and most of the others were in arrears.
Now he was facing threats to attend the Court of Chancery and there was even talk of bankruptcy.
On two occasions he had tried to propose to less than beautiful but wealthy women, in the hopes of securing their dowries but in both cases, her parents had objected to the match. It had taken him two months to woo each woman and still he had nothing to show for it, so he decided that wasn’t a very productive use of his time. Besides, he enjoyed spending his time gambling, or in the company of women who would do anything for a few shillings. In his opinion, being all prim and proper whilst courting one of these horse-faced frumps, was simply inhumane.
He had been feeling desperate, until he got the invitation to the Duke of Hampshire’s shooting party. He and James Armstrong had never been friendly, but he was hopeful that he could ingratiate himself with the son. One thing that he had learned early on was that once you were the friend of a wealthy, popular or well-connected aristocrat, people were much more willing to open up new lines of credit for you.
Seeing Annabelle at the shooting party had come as a total surprise. At first he had simply admired her beauty and envied the Duke his luck, for she was so far removed from his last memory of her in the coffee house, that he didn’t recognise her.
When he did realise who she was, his first emotion was anger. Why was he always struggling when luck just seemed to fall into her lap, time after time? First with her inheritance and then finding something to hit him with to delay his attack. It simply wasn’t fair! He was the Marquess of Dorset and he couldn’t find a wife, yet that lowly little coffee house wench, who didn’t even use her title anymore, had the King’s nephew and sister hanging on her every word!
Thankfully before he could do anything, he realised that this could work to his advantage, because if she was already friendly with the Armstrongs, then they would be much more likely to befriend him as well. He was her older brother, after all, her only family and they would surely want to get along with her family. He decided that if she was amenable to helping him, he would even consider giving her a monthly allowance, although he could ill afford it at the moment.
His first attempt to befriend the Dowager Duchess was rebuffed, but Annabelle had looked shy and hesitant, so he was inclined to believe that she had learned her place, and that he could manipulate or threaten her into helping him. L
ady Armstrong was another matter entirely, that arrogant, condescending, conceited harlot!
Still, he needed the mother as much as the son, so he had decided overlook her slight of him, for now. In truth, he knew that he couldn’t harm the Armstrongs, they were too powerful but he wouldn't forget her slight and if the opportunity ever arose, he would take pleasure in humiliating her.
For now though, his rage was still focused on Annabelle. He could hardly believe that he had been willing to forgive her, until she positively relished humiliating him later that night, making everyone there think that he was some kind of sexual deviant who lusted after his sister.
Now he could see that she hadn’t learned her place at all, and she had probably just been caught off guard the first time he spoke to her. Now it was war; a war that he was determined to win, at any cost.
He opened the letter from Old John and sat back to read it. He was still paying Old John to terrorise the area around the coffee house because, even although his plan to buy her shop had fallen through, he wanted Annabelle to remain frightened. There was still a chance that she may close the shop if the crimes continued. He knew that she didn’t have any other way to earn a living and she would be destitute. He hadn’t decided if he would swoop in and rescue her (for a price, of course) or just enjoy seeing her in the workhouse. He could then buy her from the workhouse and set her to work in his house, maybe as his scullery maid. Better yet, as his valet, so she would have to take care of his needs, all his needs.
A smile formed on his lips as he continued reading the letter, because it seemed that Annabelle had lost her protector. The Duke had returned to his country estate, probably to recover from injuries received whilst helping to put out the fire at Westminster Palace.
Annabelle as all alone once again; defenceless, a sitting duck.
He got up from the breakfast table and poured himself a celebratory gin. It wasn’t his preferred drink but it was cheap. These days he saved the good alcohol for when he needed to impress someone.
The Reluctant Duchess Page 17
