“I know where Hanbury Hall is, and I can take you directly if that is what you want,” Daniel said. “And what I know of Lady Hanbury leads me to suspect that you are right, that she would take you in without a second thought.”
“Perhaps if I just explained to her that it is only for a day or two until Augustus calms down. After all, she has seen him behave badly at the dinner table and likely knows that this will blow over in time.”
“Do you remember when you said to me that I might speak freely to you, Your Grace? That even if I was about to say something you did not want to hear, you would have me say anyway?” He looked at her levelly.
“Yes, I remember,” she said and began to blindly do what she could to tidy her hair. She did not want Lady Hanbury to see her in such a dishevelled state. “And it still stands, Mr Winchester. You of all people may say to me whatever you wish.”
“I do not think as you do, I am afraid. I do not think for a moment that a few days is all the Duke will need to see sense. If he was inclined to see sense at all, he would have listened. He would have waited until I had provided him with my evidence of Nella West’s previous lies and disreputable behaviour. But he was determined not to hear it; I could see it in his eyes. Any other husband would be desperate for any lifeline, any little scrap that might prove his wife innocent of such a betrayal. The Duke did not strike me in that way, not for a moment. It was as if he did not want to hear reason; he wanted to have his rage, to have his excuse to rant and rail and strike out.”
“But why? Why would he want to do that?”
“Perhaps he has begun to see himself through your eyes finally. Perhaps he has come to see that the accusations he first levelled at you truly do seem to fall squarely at his own feet. And if he has come to that realization in these last days as he has lain in his sick bed, then he has done so quite soberly.”
“It is true he has not taken a single drop of strong liquor for some time that I know of, Mr Winchester. As ill as he is, I am bound to say that he is completely sober.” Something about that idea made her feel terribly uneasy.
In every aspect of his past poor behaviour, Eliza had been able to convince herself that the brandy had played the larger part. And it seemed to win out in that he was always more contrite in the daytime when, if not entirely free of the effects of the liquor, he was certainly not quite at its mercy as he generally was in the evenings.
And so, she had believed that life might go along a little easier the less he came to rely on the decanter. But his outburst and his unwillingness to listen, his determination for rage as Daniel had put it to her, spoke of something that could not be solved by simple abstinence.
It spoke of a mind that was made up, and an anger that was deep-seated, a furious frustration that would have its way no matter what.
Even though he had not said it outright, she knew that Daniel was referring to the business of an heir. She knew that he had such great perception, such a quiet, almost silent understanding of human nature, and she knew well that his words could be trusted.
The Duke had finally come to realize, in horrible sobriety, his own failings. He had reached a point where blaming his wife for her childlessness had become ridiculous and he could see it.
But he was the sort of man who could not look at such a thing square on and allow the blame to settle upon his own shoulders.
He would have to divert it, transmute it, make it into something else altogether, and what better way to punish his wife for his own failings than to accuse her of adultery?
“Your Grace? Your Grace?” Daniel said and reached out to touch her elbow. “You have gone quite pale. What is it?”
“He will not see sense, will he?” she said quietly, her voice breaking with fear. “You know why he is angry with me, and you know it is because he is angry with himself. He cannot face it, can he? And now all that is left for him is to punish me in some other way, some way that would make him right and make me wrong. Anything so that he does not need to look at his own failing, is that not so?”
“I cannot say for certain that it is, all I can tell you is that is what I believe. Forgive me, I do not wish to frighten you any more than you have been frightened today, but I cannot be a part of letting false hope have its way. I will not lie to you, not now, not ever.”
“Then he is going to do it, no matter what I do or say; Augustus is going to ruin me. He is going to take the lies that Nella West has concocted and make them his own. He is going to lay it all out for anyone who will listen, and there are plenty who will until he has my good name rubbished from one end of the county to another. And then what? I cannot go home, or at least I will not,” she said with sudden defiance, determining that she would never set foot in Lytton Hall if her husband allowed his own insecurity to demolish her. “But I will be a pariah, an adulteress, even though I am not one. I will have nothing and nobody. Who will have me in their home? Even Lady Hanbury could not be expected to entertain me for any length of time under such circumstances. What is to become of me, Mr Winchester?”
“Please, please do not upset yourself. I know it is my fault for speaking so, but I can do no other. But even though I speak my mind, there is nothing to say that it will come to pass. You can do no more than take it one day at a time, live moment by moment, and face challenges only when they present themselves and not before. If you try to outrun something that has not yet happened, you will be exhausted before you even begin. Let us simply start at Hanbury Hall. At least, if nothing else, you know that fine lady will listen to what you say from one end to the other before she makes a judgement.”
“Yes, I am sure that she will. And given that it is all I can hope for at this moment, I will not give my energy to anything. So please, Mr Winchester, I must beg you to take me directly to Lady Hanbury.”
Without another word, Daniel gently lifted her back up onto his horse.
Chapter 24
“My dear child, have you slept at all?” Lady Hanbury said the following morning as she crept unbidden into Eliza’s chamber. “I know it is still early, but I had to come and see how you are managing.”
“Oh, Lady Hanbury, how kind you have been to me,” Eliza said and felt her tears returning.
She had cried on and off ever since she had arrived at Hanbury Hall. Daniel had stayed with her only long enough for the explanation to be made, and then the moment Lady Hanbury had declared that Eliza could stay for as long as she needed, Daniel made ready to leave.
He understood, as Lady Hanbury did, that he would need to limit the time he spent with the Duchess of Lytton. If there was any careless discussion, even from Lord Hanbury’s own fine household of staff, it could do nothing but add to whatever it was the Duke chose to say about his wife in the end.
As she watched Daniel leave, Eliza began to realize just how much she had come to rely upon him. She had always known, for as long as they had been tentative friends, that he had extraordinary strength in every way, and that she had been able to lean upon him and hardly even realize it.
But there was more to it, she was sure, and she felt bereft when she realized that, by necessity, they would not meet for their few minutes every day. In truth, they might never meet again, and she could hardly think of it without that old familiar feeling of loss.
How could life be so full of loss so early on?
She had tried her hardest not to cry immediately in front of Lady Hanbury for she would never have wanted that dear woman to think that she truly was harbouring an adulteress after all. But, a mixture of her loss and Lady Hanbury’s kindness very quickly reduced her to tears, and she found herself hurrying to explain.
“Lady Hanbury, you must not think that it is true. Mr Winchester has been very kind to me for as long as I have been at Lytton Hall, but it was no more than kindness. There is no truth to Nella West’s insinuations or my husband’s current belief, really there is not.”
“Although I have been in your husband’s company but rarely, my dear, it was ce
rtainly long enough for me to realize what an irrational, boorish creature he is. And I can assure you that I would not take any assertion of his, whatever it might be, to be the truth.” She paused long enough to smile and hand Eliza a clean handkerchief. “Even if the dreadful man told me that the sky was blue, I should never believe him, so you need not fear that I will ever lend any credence to such an accusation.”
Lady Hanbury had spent the rest of the day consoling her and trying to take her mind off thoughts of the future. Lord Hanbury, although a quiet man, had certainly not hidden away from the distraught woman, seeing to it that endless trays of tea were sent for to keep his wife and her guest well looked after.
After refusing any idea of dinner, Eliza had been shown up to her chamber early and Lady Hanbury personally provided her with a white nightgown and the assistance she needed to get herself changed for bed.
Her kindness reduced Eliza to tears once more, reminding her of the wonderful closeness that had once existed between her and her mother in the days before her life had been irreparably changed.
How she wished that none of it had ever happened. How she wished she had never been married away, had never lost Miles, had never found herself in the awful position of preparing to defend an honour which should never have been called into question in the first place.
But she could not escape the idea that had none of it happened, she would never have met Daniel Winchester. Even now, she knew that such thoughts would do her no good. She was not a free woman, even if her husband turned his back upon her.
Even then she would not be free to give her heart to anybody else, for it simply could not be done. She was married, and she always would be. Even if she was alone and penniless, she knew she could not let go of that old, deeply engrained principle.
And she could never expect such a thing of Daniel. He had already lost the larger part of his business that day purely and simply because he had stood up for her. He had protected her, and in doing so, had lost so much.
If the county came to believe the lies, he might even stand to lose more. At least in the beginning, at any rate, nobody would be queueing up to secure the services of an attorney who was being so roundly berated by none other than the Duke of Lytton.
And to expect him to take her on, to look after her in any way, shape, or form, now that the thing was done, would be the ruin of him, and Eliza knew that she owed him too much.
She could never expect it of him, and she would never, ever ask him to make her his own responsibility, even though she had finally seen his deeper feelings for her and had heard his refusal to declare he did not want her.
“You must not upset yourself again, my dear,” Lady Hanbury said gently a she perched herself on the edge of the bed, bringing Eliza back into the here and now. “And I can tell just by looking at you that you have had no more than an hour’s worth of sleep. Perhaps you could try again? Just close your eyes and see if you could drift?”
“I have tried and tried to sleep, Lady Hanbury, but my worries have truly caught up with me,” she said and thought for a moment of that curious exhilaration as she and Daniel had raced along, his strong arms around her as she felt the wind in her hair and experienced the sort of momentary freedom she had never expected to feel.
“I was so relieved to escape my husband, fearing the worst, fearing that he would hurt me or even kill me, Lady Hanbury. But now my worries poke and prod me to such an extent that I am beginning to wish that I had simply remained there and accepted whatever punishment Augustus chose to bestow.”
“My dear, you cannot mean it. You cannot wish yourself so harmed.”
“But at least it would be over, one way or another. Perhaps he would have done enough to get the whole thing out of his system, to satisfy himself that he had taken his revenge without the necessity of ruining the rest of my life. For what life can I expect to live now? I will not be welcome in any house in the county; nobody will want my society again. And for what? For simply finding myself so isolated that I made a friend of a kind man?”
“Whatever happens in the future, Eliza, you will not be alone. Lord Hanbury and I are not people to be bullied, not by society’s little expectations, and certainly not a drunken brute of the Duke. I can promise you now quite faithfully, my dear, that it will be nothing to us to stand firm against such things. You will remain here at Hanbury Hall forevermore if that is what it takes to keep you safe and housed and fed. Whatever else you have to worry about in this life, whatever insults might be levelled at you or injustices thrown at your feet, at least you need not worry about keeping body and soul together. You can leave that to me, can you not?” Lady Hanbury reached out and gently touched her cheek.
Eliza realized that she had truly found another fine friend in Lady Hanbury and felt her emotions swaying once more as gratitude enveloped her in a warm embrace. She knew, of course, that her fear would be back in no time, but for the moment, she had Lady Hanbury’s kindness and the safety of knowing that she at least had somewhere to live if the worst came to the worst.
“I do not know how to … I really cannot tell you how much I … Oh, Lady Hanbury, I …” Eliza said before reaching for her handkerchief and weeping into it.
“I know, my dear, too much has happened to you of late, too much that ought not to be. And if anybody is to blame for all of it, it is the Duke himself. These ridiculous men and their idea that they might take any young woman they choose. It is archaic and a disgrace in this day and age, and yet I am certain that such a thing will persist in perpetuity. But it is their vanity that is perhaps the most unforgivable, the idea that they might allow their rage and ego to take over at the first sign that the unwilling wife does not truly want them. That is at the root of all of this, Eliza,” Lady Hanbury said, and Eliza found herself relieved, grateful even, for the humanizing use of her Christian name. “As with so much that goes wrong in this world, the pride of man is at its root.”
“You are very sensible, Lady Hanbury, very wise.” Eliza sniffed and gently dabbed the red raw skin around her eyes. “Mr Winchester is the same; he sees things just as they are. He sees that Augustus is determined to believe some wrongdoing on my part so that he does not have to contemplate his own failures. As you know he blamed me for, well, you were at the dinner and you saw it all with your own eyes and heard it all with your own ears. But he was blaming me for his own failures, and now he has gone too far to let himself go back. He cannot now apologize for all that has happened, for it is too late. I am sure now that he has reached a point where he must believe in the position with which he has identified; otherwise, he is admitting defeat entirely, and Augustus would never do that.”
“Mr Winchester is a very sensible man indeed, and I am grateful to that young man for having the courage to step in where other men would not have dared to. How glad I am that he brought you to me safe and in one complete piece, my dear. He is to be congratulated; he is to be applauded. Such courage does not come along every day.”
“Indeed, it does not.”
“Well, if you do not have a mind to sleep, then at least you must eat something,” Lady Hanbury said and was suddenly all business. “I will have a jug and bowl sent up to you. I am sure you will feel a little better for putting yourself to rights and being up and about again. What do you say?”
“Yes, I think you are quite right. I would do myself no good to lay here in self-pity. And you have been so kind to me, I rather think that I could eat something now.”
“Now that is wonderful news, my dear,” Lady Hanbury said and rose, gently kissing the top of Eliza’s head before she left the room to make the arrangements.
Lady Hanbury had been right. Eliza really did feel better for getting washed and dressed and making her way down to the dining room for breakfast. She could already smell such wonderful aromas as she descended the stairs that her stomach began to roll.
She realized that she had not eaten a thing since the breakfast she had taken the previous morning, just
before she had met with Daniel in the library and all hell had finally broken loose.
“Come in, my dear, and help yourself. We have it all laid out on the side table, and there is plenty of it, so no standing on ceremony,” Lord Hanbury said in such a bright manner that Eliza could not help being lifted by it.
Love Stories of Enchanting Ladies: A Historical Regency Romance Collection Page 20
