by Sophia James
He was therefore both relieved to find her here and furious to see who she was with, for the man was virtually making love to her with his lips and she was allowing it. Her compliancy had him grating his teeth together. Hard.
‘Duchess.’
She frowned and he was pleased to see worry in her eyes. ‘Duke.’
Coleridge made no attempt at all to distance himself from her side and Taylen looked at him pointedly as his wife began to speak.
‘Cristo said you might want to talk to me.’ The statement left Tay speechless. ‘He said you had a proposition you would like me to know. Something about spending my days in the parlour with my embroidery or being coddled in the garden painting flowers?’
‘Your youngest brother has a sense of humour.’
‘You went to see him after our meeting in the park? You went to tell him about my galloping when I so expressly asked you not to?’
Coleridge was taking in every word between them with interest and Tay had had enough. ‘Would you excuse us?’ Without waiting for a reply he shepherded his wife to an end of the room sheltered from the notice of others by a narrow alcove.
‘I did not expect you to be so … underhanded,’ Lucinda said as they stopped, her eyes shimmering with anger. Taylen changed tack altogether.
‘I told your brother I did not fancy living alone for the rest of my life if anything were to happen to you. Did he tell you that as well?’
She shook her head.
‘Edmund Coleridge wants you in his bed.’
‘A fact that makes him little different from you then, your Grace.’
He ignored her criticism completely. ‘Yet knowing that, you still allow him to court you openly?’
‘He is a friend. I allow him friendship.’
‘Your brother thinks he would like to be very much more.’
‘It sounds like you had a long discussion about me. Pity I was not there to set wrongs to right, but then my siblings have always been more than quick to make judgements about the suitability of my various beaux.’
‘Various?’
‘Indeed. You didn’t expect me to be pining for the company of a husband who did not think to remember that he had a wife for three long years until the necessity for a legitimate heir brought him back?’
The four small stars on her bracelet sparked gold as her hands underlined her words.
‘The newspaper cutting you spoke of, the one in the paper from Georgia. It was not as it was reported. Since marrying you I have always respected my vows and I have not … cheated.’ He finished each word with a sharp honesty. The muscles in his jaw rippled with the effort.
Damn, Taylen thought, what the hell had made him confess that to his estranged wife here in a crowded room in the middle of a public soirée?
He was known for his waywardness and his belief in free speech and action, flamboyant and untempered by the conventions attached to society life. He had lived his whole life in the pursuit of the hedonistic and the liberal, escaping the dreadfulness of his childhood with fine wine and finer women.
Until he had married!
Then something had happened that he could not explain. His libido, long since more than active, had simply dried up and he found it difficult to touch a woman without thinking of his parents’ licentiousness. Six lovers had trooped through his younger life on his mother’s side and many, many more than that on his father’s. And they had left their mark.
He remembered the chaos as if it were yesterday and had vowed every moment of his early years never to repeat it if and when he finally married.
His hands tightened at his sides, fisting into hardness. It was why he had returned to England, after all, to understand just exactly what it was that simmered between him and this woman he had been forced into a union with.
Lucinda, the only wife he was ever likely to have and to hold. If it had not all been so deadly serious he would have laughed at his conundrum. A sinner caught by a saint and made impotent to boot by the memory of his parents’ unfaithfulness.
Nothing made sense any more and had not done so for a long time. He wanted his certainty back and his conviction and one small part of him understood that only with Lucinda at his side might he be able to regain it.
It was the reason he had pressed her so hard with his need for an heir—a way to bring her to him on his own terms. A way to bed her.
Lucinda could not believe what she had just heard. The Dissolute Duke of Alderworth was telling her he had been faithful to her memory? All those years. All those temptations. Three thousand miles from home and a stranger in a land that was as harsh as it was different and yet he had never cheated? A Duke who was known for his dalliances and excesses? She was astonished.
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because I want to know that any child we do have is actually mine.’
The anger in his voice contradicted everything he was confessing. One moment she understood him and the next …
‘I was brought up with a father who never believed that I was his, you see, and treated me accordingly. Seeing what such distrust does to a man, I should not like to repeat it.’ No softness lay in his brittle green eyes, the bruising around them adding to his menace. ‘It is not necessary that you like me when you provide me with an heir, Duchess, but I do need to be certain that you have not allowed another the same delights.’
My goodness, she could barely breathe with her anger and confusion, the joy of the disclosure eradicated completely by a reading of her character that was hardly salubrious.
He imagined her wanton? The pulse in her throat was beating like a drum as she stood speechless. At that moment she hated him with a passion and she could not keep the emotion from showing on her face.
‘I shall be leaving London for Alderworth on the morrow. I will send the carriage back for you when I have word that you wish to join me.’
He was disappearing again, the tenuous truce that she had felt between them across the last week dissolving. Even in the face of her fury she could not just watch him go.
‘What time will you leave?’ Her voice sounded broken and hoarse.
‘In the morning. There is no point in staying here longer.’
‘Then I will come, too.’
For the first time a spark of life entered his eyes. ‘Very well. My carriage will be at the Wellingham town house at ten o’clock. Be ready.’
He did not speak again before he turned and walked away, Edmund Coleridge joining her the moment he was gone.
‘You look pale. If Ellesmere has threatened you—?’
‘No.’ She did not let him finish. As a friend of Cristo’s she realised he might know more of the relationship she had with Alderworth than others did. ‘I think I am just tired.’
Taking a breath, she tried to regain her lost composure, all the while her eyes scouting to check if Taylen Ellesmere was still anywhere in the vicinity.
‘I am retiring to Bath next week with my family, Lucy. If you should wish to join us, you would be more than welcome. My mother would enjoy having you to stay, I am sure.’
Edmund’s eyes were warm with promise, but Lucinda knew she could no longer lead him on with hopes that would never come to pass.
‘I am sorry. I shall be rejoining my husband at Alderworth tomorrow. It has just been decided.’
‘I see.’ He stepped back. ‘Does Cristo know what you intend?’
‘Not yet, but he will.’
‘He won’t be pleased.’
Ignoring his condemnation, she carried on. ‘I wish you well in your Bath sojourn. I imagine it is lovely there at this time of the year.’
Platitudes, she knew, but her husband’s unexpected confession had taken her from one place to another.
Taylen Ellesmere had never cheated on her, but had held their marriage vows safe and close. She felt the smile blossom on her face as she gave Coleridge her goodbyes and went to find Camille Beauchamp to thank her for the soirée.
Chapter Eleven
‘I would feel far happier about all of this if you would take a few of the Wellingham servants with you.’
Lucinda shook her head at Taris’s words. She did not want those in the employ of her brothers to see the truth of the relationship she had with Taylen Ellesmere, for undoubtedly such a detail would leak back to Falder. She was pleased when the conversation was interrupted.
‘The Alderworth conveyance is here, my lord.’
‘Very well. See that Lady Lucinda’s luggage is stowed on board.’
Taris turned to her as the butler left. ‘Asher and Emerald have decided not to see you off and Eleanor and Cristo were called back to Graveson yesterday afternoon. Perhaps it is best that it is just us.’
When her middle brother stood she went into his embrace, his arms warm around her, the solid strength and honesty of him so very familiar. Part of her wanted to hold on and stay here, under the shelter of home and family, but another part needed something different and that was the voice she was heeding.
Disengaging her arms, she moved away, trying to keep her emotions in check.
‘I shall send word as soon as I am there to let you know that I am safe.’
‘It is not the journey worrying me, Lucy, but the man who you will live with at destination’s end.’
The amber in his eyes was clouded and she could see worry there. It broke her heart to sense her brother’s concern. Just another betrayal she had heaped upon the family. Beatrice, however, was smiling.
‘Go with hope, Lucinda, and find the way of your life.’ She pressed a small package into her hand. ‘I have wrapped up a book for you I have recently enjoyed.’
And then Lucinda was outside, the façade of the town house behind her in the wind. Looking up at the third-floor window, she fancied she saw Asher, but the shadow was gone before she had time to be certain.
One step, two steps and then three, her feet like leaden weights dragging towards the carriage. Taylen Ellesmere sat inside and gave Taris a cursory greeting which was given back with an equal lack of warmth. When the door was closed between them, her brother’s open palm splayed out upon the window.
I love you. She mouthed the words, but knew that he would not see them. Biting down on the soft flesh inside her bottom lip, she sat back as the horses gathered their rhythm.
‘I am not taking you away for ever, Lucinda. You may return any time you wish to visit your family. The carriage shall be at your disposal whenever you have need of it.’
She nodded because she did not trust herself to speak and he swore beneath his breath.
‘My own family was not close so it is something of a novelty to see such affection in others,’ he offered finally as she kept her silence. ‘In fact, I would say loathing was the nearest term to describe any family dynamics that I recall.’
‘That must have been difficult for you.’
‘Well, it was always easier when distance parted us.’ He smiled through the gloom of the day, a laconic devil-may-take-it smile that negated all that she had ever heard of his upbringing. ‘I would be farmed out to others, with no thought given to my schooling. My life truly began when I eventually got to Eton.’
A new and interesting turn. ‘How old were you?’
‘Twelve. My parents had died the year before, but I was an independent child for my age so their deaths barely affected me.’
‘Callous.’
‘I prefer to call it practical.’
A dead end of insults slung across lies.
‘One of the maids at Falder used to work for your grandmother at about the same time you did not return from France.’
He stiffened and Lucinda felt a creeping coldness. A muscle along the bottom of his jaw ground out movement when she chanced a peek at him.
‘Rosemary Jones made some mention of your uncle.’
This time he sat forwards, his hands together so that his fingers were entwined in the position Lucinda remembered placing her own in one of the favoured games of childhood.
Here is the church and here is the steeple …
Ditties that he would not have played as he was fighting for his life in a hospital bed in Rouen.
‘She said that you were often hurt.’ This was blurted out before she lost her courage altogether.
‘All children need to stand corrected in the name of good behaviour.’
His eyes flinted, the anger in them causing her to simply fold. She could have said more, could have told him everything that the maid had confided, but it was too soon and the facts were too raw.
‘Of course they do, your Grace.’ She sounded like a thousand other wives in London who only wanted a life that was peaceful and easy, the truth tearing what contentment was left into pieces.
Outside the road ran along fields of green and the sky was blue, a cold blue, the colour belying the temperature. It was chilly inside the carriage, too, and she was pleased for the woollen blanket that was over her lap.
She wondered where the accident in the carriage had occurred when they had come this way all those years ago. She had been told the name of the place, of course, but with no little memory left of the time, she could be certain of nothing. Still she felt a familiarity, a knowledge of having passed this way before and she was glad that the journey would be only a few hours in length.
Taylen Ellesmere had ceased to make any effort at conversation at all, his glance drawn by the views outside, his face a blank mask of indifference. If he remembered the accident, he did not show it.
Over the past week she thought she might have been getting closer to him, but this morning they sat opposite each other like strangers hurtling towards a new life together and one it seemed that neither of them wanted. When her fingers closed around the jade talisman of happiness that Emerald had bequeathed her, she frowned.
She wished she might ask him to explain more of his surprising confession from yesterday and that this time instead of anger there could be dialogue. But his expression stopped her from such an action and so she turned to look out at the countryside.
Alderworth was a substantial mansion built of stone and wood, the wings around a large central edifice a matching image of each other. The parkland it sat in was extensive, rows of old trees stretching as far as the eye could see. A lake of some proportion lay at the bottom of a rise, the old stone walls radiating out from the driveway alluding to another, more ancient dwelling.
Lucinda had come last time under the cover of darkness. She knew because Posy had filled in many of the details of the visit that she had forgotten. She hoped that the servants would not remember her and that enough time had passed for the incident to be consigned to history and to never be recalled.
‘When my parents were alive they used to line the servants up around the front driveway every time a guest came to stay in a sort of skewed sense of importance. I have never been so formal.’
‘It looks …’ She could not quite voice what she meant to say.
‘Less than well cared for?’ His eyes took in the lines of the house. ‘Much of the money at the moment is going into increasing the production of the agricultural yields.’
‘Cristo has been doing the same at Graveson.’
‘Then perhaps we have more in common than I thought.’
‘So there are no more parties here?’
He turned towards her and Lucinda felt breathless. ‘The shallow follies of youth have much to be accountable for. I spend money on far more important things now.’
Like the production of an heir?
She almost said it. Almost blurted it out, so that it was there in the open instead of seething underneath each and every word, a contract penned in pragmatism and shame. Instead she smiled, in a tight and vapid way, the movement taking the humour from his eyes.
‘You will have your own set of rooms and a maid to see to your needs. The house has suffered across the years from inattention but I am aiming to see it restored.’
‘You love Alderw
orth, then?’
‘History is to be valued,’ he answered in a measured way. ‘If too much of it is left to waste, there will be no lessons to be learnt by those who come after us.’
The topic of the heir again, winding into conversation and strangling any hope of accord. Best to remember that she was not here as the cherished new wife of a Duke who would love her, but as the sole hope of ensuring that a questionable family name might march into yet another decade of unbroken lineage.
When the carriage stopped and Lucinda was helped out by a servant who welcomed her, she was achingly aware that Taylen Ellesmere neither took her arm nor gave her the courtesy of any introduction as they walked inside.
Not quite the wife he wanted, but at least the country air made her feel stronger and more in control.
Everything here was in need of attention: the flaky stone, the gardens, the few servants in their old and faded uniforms. Ellesmere had not lied when he had proclaimed the finances of Alderworth had suffered.
But beneath the lack of care, peeling paint and rotten woodwork was a beauty that lay in the very bones of the place, the house’s roofline raised to the sky in a proud exclamation of old wealth.
The quality of the timber was undeniable, the ornate cornices alluding to a time where such frippery was the vogue. She vaguely remembered parts of it from the last time she had been here and did her best to recollect more, but to no avail. Darkly fashioned paintings of ancestors stared down from the walls in every room, sombre harsh people whose eyes seemed to follow this new generation with a disapproval that was tangible.
Two large portraits of his parents had pride of place above the fire surround in the main salon and Lucinda saw the small holes a dart might fashion in both of them before she had looked away, not wishing to pry further. A green chaise-longue with carved mahogany feet took up the space in a bay window, the sun lightening the fabric in all the places that it had touched, leaving the seams dark.
Taylen Ellesmere had disappeared almost immediately, leaving her in the hands of a middle-aged housekeeper, Mrs Berwick, who had hurried her up to the first floor and finally to her bedchamber, a room nearly at the very end of a long corridor. She had pointed out a pile of bath cloths and two decanters with brandy and whisky, equally filled on a table by the bedside.
