She careered through the corridors until she found herself back at the library. The door was already half open, and Daniel stood there expectantly.
“Did you find her?”
“I did not find her, Mr Winchester, but I know exactly where she is,” she said and began to shake uncontrollably.
“She went to him?” Daniel said incredulously. “She went straight from the library to his very chamber without properly seeking an audience with him?”
“She is up there with him now, and he is furious, Mr Winchester.”
“You have seen him? Surely you did not go up there?”
“No, but I could hear it all from the bottom of the stairs. I have never heard him shout so, and I cannot help thinking that he is coming. As sick as he is, I think his rage will propel him down the stairs.”
“Try to steady yourself, Your Grace,” Daniel said and placed his hands on her shoulders, looking at her with such firm encouragement. “I think we should await him in the drawing room and be ready to receive him as calmly as possible.”
“He is already beyond the point of reaching him, Mr Winchester, I am sure of it.”
“But we must face him nonetheless, and we must tell him everything we have learned.”
“But his rage,” Eliza said and felt as if she was trembling from head to foot.
“You have nothing to fear. Whatever happens, whatever is said, I will not allow your husband to hurt you. He will not get past me. He will not find a way to you whilst I am in the room. And I will not leave you with him, not if there is no way to make him see sense. You must trust me.” His face was just inches from her. “Do you trust me?” His voice was low and calm.
As he looked at her, and she looked back at him, it was as if none of this was actually happening. She felt as if the rest of the world been halted for a moment as if it had stopped turning and only she and Daniel Winchester retained movement and speech.
“Of course, I trust you.”
“Then we must make our way to the drawing room and wait for him there,” he said and gently took her arm to lead her away.
Eliza and Daniel waited in the drawing room for what felt like an interminable length of time. Although she felt safe with Daniel, although she knew that he would protect her no matter what, still she trembled and feared what would happen next.
Daniel kept the door to the drawing room open and stood looking out, ready to usher in the Duke when he finally made his way downstairs.
“Here he comes now,” Daniel said in a hushed tone as he looked over his shoulder at her.
Eliza could hardly believe how calm he looked, how unruffled he was by so much drama and uncertainty. She knew that she had never met anybody like Daniel Winchester in her life, and she foolishly wondered what he would have done had he been Miles Gainsborough presented with the same thorny problem that had turned her old love away from her.
Pointlessly, she rather thought that Daniel Winchester would have remained stoic, would never have turned his back as Miles had done. But that was useless thinking, she was diverting herself from the imminent horror of her unreasonable husband bursting into the drawing room.
“Is she with him?” Eliza said, almost hoping for it so that she would have somebody to fix her own fury upon.
“No, he is alone. And it looks as if he has dressed himself, so I do not think he has called for any of the other servants.”
“I suppose that is something at least. Perhaps there is still a way to contain this disaster.”
“Have courage, Your Grace, and remember that I shall not leave you,” Daniel said finally before the Duke of Lytton stormed into the room, pushing past his attorney roughly.
“I see the two of you are together. So, you are not trying to hide it then?” Augustus addressed his question directly to his wife, turning his back on Daniel altogether.
“For goodness sake, Augustus, you cannot believe what Nella West tells you.”
“And how do you know that it is Nella who came to me?”
“Because she has already threatened to do so, Augustus. This is part of her plan, just as she told it to me.”
“And when did she tell it to you?”
“Your Grace, I have been aware that Nella West has sought to blackmail the Duchess and myself some weeks,” Daniel interjected.
“You lie, Winchester. You are protecting yourself, and I will not have it. Look how the two of you wait here together ready to concoct your little stories and make a fool of me.”
“I do not lie, Your Grace.”
“Then why did you not come to me with this before?”
“Augustus, we had hoped to avoid all of this. You have not been well and …”
“Do not pretend anymore, Eliza. I have known these last weeks that you only come into my chamber each morning in the hope that you will find me dead and not a trouble anymore. Do not make more of a fool of me by citing your concern for my health. You are a liar; a liar and an adulteress, and I will have the whole county know it.”
“Eliza is not an adulteress, and I will not have you speak to her like that,” Daniel said and strode through the room placing himself between the Duke and Eliza.
“Eliza? Eliza, is it?” The Duke was so furious and agitated that his spittle gave him the appearance of frothing at the mouth. “You dare to address the Duchess by her Christian name? Only a man who had too much knowledge of a woman would do that, and I know you now to have too much knowledge of my wife. And to think how I have employed you all these years, how I have trusted you with every bit of business imaginable. And this is how you repay me, you churl! By having your way with my wife, my property!” The Duke stumbled a little, and Eliza watched in horror as she thought he might pitch forward and fall to the floor.
Daniel reached out to steady him by instinct, but Augustus swatted his hand away and looked at him murderously.
“Whatever the two of you have done, the Duchess is mine. However much you might want her, Winchester, you will never have her.”
“If only you would listen to reason, Your Grace,” Daniel said in a tone that was so calm Eliza could see that it was making her husband all the more agitated. “I have proof that Nella West is lying to you. I have proof that she has tried the very same thing in another household before this one.”
“She is mine. You will never lay a hand on her again,” Augustus continued as if he had not heard a word that Daniel said. “You may spend the rest of your life wanting her, Winchester, you shall not have her.”
“You have the thing all wrong, Your Grace,” Daniel said, and it was the first hint that he was at all exasperated.
“You are telling me that you do not want her? You are telling me that you have not coveted my wife from the very moment she arrived here in this house?” The Duke was breathing hard, snorting with rage.
His clothing was entirely disarranged, and he looked every bit like a man who had just pulled himself from his sick bed and made a savage attempt to dress himself. There were two of the brightest spots of colour Eliza had ever seen in his cheeks, and yet the rest of his face remained jaundiced and grey.
The effect was entirely garish, almost as if Augustus was an actor in a play, his identity changed by hastily applied greasepaint.
When Daniel did not answer, she looked at him urgently.
“Well, tell me that you do not want my wife,” the Duke said as if to taunt him.
“Your wife has never done anything to dishonour you, Your Grace,” Daniel said angrily, and Eliza realized that he could not answer the question. He could not declare that he did not want her. “You have been taken in by a liar and a cheat, and I have no way to convince you of the truth of it all unless you listen.”
“You will convince me of nothing, Winchester. You will leave this house today, and you will never work for me again,” the Duke said in a manner that was so grand and arrogant it was almost amusing.
“I have no intention of working for you again, Your Grace, you need have no fe
ar of that,” Daniel said, and his calm manner returned.
“And you will never lay eyes on my wife again, never,” the Duke said and turned to glare at Eliza in a way which frightened her completely. It was a look so murderous that she knew if Daniel left her alone with him now, he would surely hurt her. “You will never lay eyes on my wife again, nobody will.”
Eliza gasped and knew then that she could not stay.
Where would she go? What on earth would she do now? All she knew for certain was that if she did not leave Lytton Hall at that moment, her husband would do her great harm, perhaps the greatest harm of all.
The Duke was breathing hard and looked as unwell as ever he had looked. He sat down heavily on one of the couches, and Eliza turned to look helplessly at Daniel. Without a word, Daniel took her by the arm and hurried her out of the room.
“Winchester!” the Duke roared.
“What? But where …?” Eliza said fearfully as she looked at Daniel.
“There is not time now, Your Grace. You must trust me. You cannot stay in this house, not today.”
And with that, the two of them hurried out of Lytton Hall, leaving the Duke of Lytton bellowing behind them.
Chapter 23
The next few minutes seemed to pass Eliza by in a blur of fear and excitement. Daniel left her for a moment outside the stables as he ran in and took his horse. When he returned, he put his hands on her waist without explanation and lifted her with ease until she was perched on the side of his saddle.
Daniel climbed up and sat behind her, holding her firmly to keep her on the saddle as he set off at speed.
They raced out of the immense Lytton estate without passing a single soul, and she wondered exactly what was happening now behind her in the Hall itself. Was the Duke roaring with impotent rage, too sick and unsteady to give chase to his fleeing wife and the attorney he had just dismissed?
Had he called upon his servants to have them run out in pursuit of them? Eliza imagined him dragging himself over to the fireplace and pulling endlessly on the bell ropes which hung there.
She imagined the sound of bells ringing without cease in the servants’ area until someone had finally made their way to the drawing room to attend their master.
Or had he simply remained in his seat, sitting there speechless and drained, the effort of his rage finally taking its toll upon his desperately unwell body?
Although they were travelling at speed, Eliza had that wonderful sense of safety once again. Daniel was a big man and very strong, and she did not fear at all that he would loosen his grip on her and let her fall. Instead, she closed her eyes for a moment and felt the wind rushing through her dishevelled hair as his strong arms held her tightly.
Eliza knew that she had so much to think about, so much to fear, and so many questions. And yet, at that moment, she could feel nothing but the most inappropriate exhilaration. The dreadful argument had whipped up her nerves to a point she could almost no longer cope. But the escape was something altogether different.
Perhaps it was simply the relief of being away from Augustus, knowing herself to be safe from harm for now at least, that had made her feel this way.
But whatever it was, Eliza simply cleared her mind of all other worries and allowed herself to enjoy it. For those few moments, much apart from being saddened by the past or afraid of the future, she was enjoying that moment as it was, and that moment was nothing short of exhilarating.
When they were finally some distance from the Lytton estate, Daniel slowed his horse and walked them into the cover of a small, patchy woodland.
Once they were somewhere close to the middle, he drew his horse to a halt and jumped down from behind her, reaching up to put his hands on her waist once more and lift her down.
“Forgive the urgency of our flight, Your Grace, but I thought it for the best,” he said and sounded a little breathless.
“There is nothing to forgive, Mr Winchester. I know that had I stayed in that house, my husband would have done me some harm, and I thank you for perceiving the same and keeping me safe.”
“How are you managing?” He looked at her with such concern that she wanted to reach for him, to put her arms around his neck and have him pull her in close.
Once again, she was assailed with the same old feelings, the knowledge that she was, for better or worse, still a married woman. And she would not, under any circumstances, give the world any reason to suspect otherwise.
As it was, Augustus could very easily have her condemned as an adulteress up and down the county. Suddenly, the exhilaration of the last moments left her, and all her old worries, along with some new ones, came to her with full force.
“My nerves are rather jangled, Mr Winchester, but I am managing. Unfortunately, my mind is so full of what it is I ought to do next that I can hardly think straight. I know it was the right thing to leave; I just do not know what I should do next. All I know for certain is that I cannot come with you,” she said and held his gaze. “Otherwise, everything my husband is about to say about me to the world will be proved true in their eyes, will it not?”
“I would do nothing to put you in that position. I wanted only to keep you safe.”
“I know, Mr Winchester. I know.” Without thinking about what she was doing, Eliza reached out and took his hand, squeezing it gently before she released it again.
“If only I had realized that Nella West was volatile enough to run directly up the stairs to Augustus. If only I had got there in time, all of this might well have been avoided.”
“It would not have been avoided, for she was most determined. It would simply have been worse because you would have been trapped alone with him in that room as that vile little woman gave voice to her lies. You must not think of all the things you could have done because it is done now, nothing can be changed.”
“It is only for me to make a move now, is it not? I must think of the future. Or at least if not of the future, then at least of the next few days. Perhaps that is all that will be required in the end. Perhaps that will be enough time for Augustus to come to his senses and realize that Nella was lying.”
“Perhaps,” Daniel said with very little conviction.
“I wonder if I can go to Ariadne,” she said quietly. “But would I not be putting her in a dreadful position? Her family might well feel embarrassed to house me in case it is seen as going against the Duke himself.”
“Are they really so weak?” Daniel said, and she saw a little of the old disdain on his face.
For a moment, she almost laughed. It reminded her so much of the first time she saw him and seemed to take her out of her worries again for the briefest moment.
“A family would not need to be particularly weak to suffer that anxiety, Mr Winchester. Not everybody is as courageous as you are.” She looked at him and smiled, meaning every word of it.
Daniel smiled back and then looked away, clearly made a little uncomfortable by such praise. “But I do not know what else to do. I have only Ariadne to lean on in this circumstance.”
“What about Lady Hanbury?” Daniel said and raised his eyebrows. “Did she not help you once before when the Duke was being unreasonable?”
“Yes, she did, of course,” Eliza said and felt another wave of relief. “And that letter she handed you for me, how could I have forgotten?” She lightly tapped her forehead with the palm of her hand.
“Lady Hanbury sent me a letter to tell me that I would be welcome at Hanbury Hall under any circumstances whatsoever. It struck me at the time that she was most determined to have me know there was someone I could go to in a time of crisis.”
Love Stories of Enchanting Ladies: A Historical Regency Romance Collection Page 19
