Although she did not turn back, she knew that her family could do no other than leave, make their way back slowly to their own carriage. All she wanted was to be back at Ariadne’s side and take whatever comfort her dear friend could provide.
“Eliza, I was terribly sorry to hear of your bereavement.” Recognizing the voice, Eliza stopped dead in her tracks and looked to her side.
Seemingly from nowhere, Miles Gainsborough had appeared. She had not seen him during the service, although it was true to say that she had not made a thorough study of all present.
To have him suddenly there returned her to the peculiar dreamlike feeling of earlier, the idea that nothing was quite real. After all, there was no reason for Miles Gainsborough to attend.
Not only had he not been a friend of the Duke of Lytton, but she was certain that he had never even been introduced to the man.
“Thank you,” she said, unable to tear her mind from memories of that last, fateful meeting.
“I hope you are managing,” he said and seemed embarrassed as if casting about for something to say.
“Yes, thank you,” she said, wondering how it was that she could think of nothing more to say.
As far as she could remember when they had been together, conversation had always been a very easy thing to find. There was always something for them to laugh at, something for them to talk about.
“I really am very sorry, Eliza, but I am pleased to see you again nonetheless.”
“Thank you,” she said again and simply stood looking at him, willing the words to come.
But he had taken her so unawares, and she felt shocked to her core. To look up into his handsome face after a year was suddenly too much.
He looked as if he had not changed a bit, dressed in dark clothes with his dark hair and eyes, so tall and handsome, she was transported back to that day as if there had been no time in between.
And, the more she studied him, the more she remembered her heartbreak and that jangle of feelings she had been ignoring for so long.
“I have startled you, have I not? I am terribly sorry, Eliza, for I would not have wished to add any further upset to this day. I hope you can forgive me,” he said and bowed.
“I had better make my way back to Ariadne.” She was suddenly desperate to be away from him, not trusting herself at that moment not to fling her arms around his neck and beg him not to leave her there.
If only he had not come. If only she had not felt herself back in time as if none of it had happened, her handsome dark-haired love standing in front of her with the promise of their life together untouched, unsullied.
“Oh yes, of course,” he said although it was clear to her that he did not yet want to release her.
But she was at her husband’s funeral, and she knew she did not have the time or the privacy in which to formulate easier conversation with the man she ought to have married.
Daniel had been thinking about the upcoming funeral for days, knowing in his heart that it would be the next time he saw Eliza. After he had delivered the awful news, there had been nothing for it but to leave Hanbury Hall.
No pressure had been brought to bear by either Lord or Lady Hanbury, but he suddenly came up hard against his own place in things.
He had been her husband’s attorney and was doing no more than delivering the news that the man had expired. With the news imparted, his function was complete. There had been nothing left to say, especially not in front of Lord and Lady Hanbury.
It had disturbed him a great deal that he had found himself looking forward, in a perverse way, to his old employer’s funeral. Not that he had any desire to see the man finally planted in the ground, but he did want to know how Eliza was.
More than once he had thought to call upon her at Hanbury Hall, but he knew that such a thing was impossible.
She was already in mourning, albeit not in her own home, and for a man to call upon her so early on, before her husband was even buried, would be seen by all as disgraceful, possibly even by Lady Hanbury herself.
He had watched as Eliza clawed her way through the service, keeping her eyes to the front in the little chapel in which she had been married just a year before. And, as all the mourners had taken their place around the grave in the family plot, he had seen how she could not quite look at the coffin.
What a country England was when a woman was forced to stand with strangers on such a day. She should have been permitted to stand with her own family, her mother and father, and brother.
Although he knew that there was a great rift between them, surely, they would have been more comfort to her than the new Duke and Duchess of Lytton.
And he could see throughout that Ariadne Holloway had been anxiously biding her time, waiting for the moment she could join her dearest friend.
But, more than anything, Daniel knew that he wanted to be the one to comfort her. He had been her friend, her only confidant at Lytton Hall for so long. And he had comforted her before, had he not?
He knew, of course, that no such thing could take place. He had only comforted her in absolute privacy, and it would be a foolish thing to attempt.
Daniel knew that nothing could pass between them on that day beyond a brief nod and a hasty expression of condolence.
He watched with relief as Ariadne made her way to her the moment the service was complete. And he watched with consternation the awkward conversation with her parents, the look of devastation on her mother’s face as her only daughter had walked away.
How he wished that things could be different for her. How he wished she could find some way to forgive her family so that she had them, at least, in the twelve months of mourning that was to come.
Just as he had been about to work himself up into anger at the idea of a young woman of twenty being locked out of the world for a whole year for the sake of a man who had treated her so cruelly, his eye was drawn to a handsome, dark-haired young man he had never seen before.
Seeing the look of shock on Eliza’s face told Daniel exactly that the young man in question could only be the one she had been set to marry before she had been thrown onto the Duke of Lytton’s path.
And Daniel, for his part, could not take his eyes off the pair of them.
Chapter 26
Only a week later saw Daniel Winchester cautiously making his way to the Lytton Hall Dower House. He had been riding back down the long driveway from the hall itself, and as he had done more than once in the preceding days, had let his eyes stray to the little glint of white stone behind the tall foliage of the small gardens.
This time, however, he gave in to his own want and drew up his horse. He climbed down and walked it in through the large, wrought iron gateway, and quickly found himself at the front of the house.
A stable lad he did not recognize from the hall came out to take his horse from him, and he wondered if the new Duke had secured Eliza staff of her own.
When a smiling housekeeper opened the door to speak to him, he realized that Dixon Musgrave must have kept the household staff in their entirety at the hall and really had employed new servants for the Dower House.
When the housekeeper showed him into the drawing room, leaving the two of them alone, he smiled at Eliza tentatively.
She looked as beautiful as ever, her dark hair loosely secured at the back of her head and looking full and soft. Despite the grave, black gown, she still looked wonderful to him.
“Mr Winchester,” she said and rose to her feet, bowing her head a little before the two of them took their seats.
“How are you?” he said and looked into her eyes, keen to know that she was doing well.
“It all seems a bit strange, to be honest. But I must admit, I already sleep better here in this little house than ever I did at the hall. It is very peaceful.”
“Yes, and so far away from the hall that you cannot even see it,” he said with a smile.
“Mr Winchester, please forgive me for am a little nervous about your visit,” s
he said and fixed him with a steady gaze.
“Nervous? Please believe me I would do nothing to make you uncomfortable,” he said and felt suddenly as if he ought not to have come at all.
He looked around the drawing room, its muted green upholstery and its white panelled walls having something of a calming effect.
“No, I am not made nervous by you, Mr Winchester.” She gave a light laugh, but she was clearly not relaxed. “For heaven’s sake.” She shook her head, and he took the opportunity to laugh along with her, albeit feeling a sense of disquiet.
“I am made nervous by your visit. There is still so much that I do not know of my husband’s last day, Mr Winchester. And I cannot help wondering who else might be aware of my final moments in the hall before I fled at your side.”
“You are worried about Nella West?”
“Of course I am. If she tells the new Duchess about everything that happened, she is bound to tell her husband.”
“Nella West is no longer at the hall. Nobody has seen her since the morning after Augustus Tate’s passing. It seems she packed her things very early and fled. Perhaps she was worried that she would be blamed for the Duke’s seizure, given that she had caused the entire fuss in the first place.”
“I cannot imagine her being so nervous. In truth, I had thought that she would still be there, safe in the knowledge that I would never mention a thing about it for fear that people would believe it to be true.”
“And that is why my visit was making you nervous?”
“In truth, Mr Winchester, it still does. Whilst I am relieved that Nella is no longer at the hall, there is no telling where she is or what lies she has spread. I believe her capable of anything, and I am bound to say that every day I fear hearing of some gossip. Every day I think it is the day that I will discover that she has spread her lies to the county just as my husband had intended to do on that awful day.”
“But I have heard nothing at all. And I have been up at the hall myself, for it seems that nobody there knew of my dismissal. The new Duke sent word to me immediately that he would be requiring my services, albeit to work alongside his own attorney. But still, I cannot think that he would continue to have me at the hall if he had any suspicions at all.”
“Well, I am very pleased that you did not lose your place there. You went out of your way to help me on that day, and I was so distraught by the idea that you had lost everything.”
“I have been building my own list of clients for some time now, and I have more work outside the Duchy than I have in it these days. I wish you had not worried so much, for I would never have you worry about anything.” He smiled at her, and for just a moment, she seemed to relax.
She smiled back at him, and he found himself mesmerized by her eyes, narrowed like a cat at that moment, and her lips so full and rosy.
“But still, Mr Winchester, I am in mourning currently,” she said, and it seemed as if she had come to a decision, straightening her back, her face wearing a look of mild determination. “Although I have few staff here, I cannot yet say that I trust them.”
“They are all new, are they not?”
“Yes, just a housekeeper, a cook, two maids, and a stable boy. It is such a small house that there is not a need for any more than that.”
“Then I do not think you necessarily need to fear them as you feared your husband’s servants. I understand entirely why you did not trust them, why you might have thought them loyal to their master and not to you, but your own staff are just that; your staff. You are their mistress. Why on earth would they gossip themselves out of good jobs?”
“I know, I know. It all sounds so ridiculous, Mr Winchester, but this last year has taught me to be cautious at all times. Not only did I learn that at the hands of my husband, but his staff also. Well, Nella West really, but you take my meaning.”
“I do take your meaning,” he said and began to rise to his feet. “You would rather that I did not visit you here.”
“You make it sound very final, Mr Winchester, but I would beg you to remember that we are still friends. I will never forget everything you did for me at Lytton Hall, not as long as I live. But you must humour me for a while, for you know better than anybody what my nerves suffered in that place. And I am very concerned about any gossip that might be out there in the world, even just a hint of it. If you are seen here so soon after my husband’s passing, I cannot think that it will go well for either one of us.”
“But we are still friends, you say?” Daniel said, holding onto that small shred of hope as he fought a deep sense of disappointment.
What else he could have expected, he could not say. Everything she said held water, everything made sense. There was not a single part of it that was unreasonable or irrational, even if fear was at the root of it all.
Even without the threat of Nella West out in the county causing trouble, if he was seen at the Dower House too often, an inference might well be drawn by an outsider looking in.
And then, in its own right, the whole thing would cause its own gossip, and people would begin to wonder if a man who called upon a woman who was so fresh in her mourning did not know her better than he ought.
“Of course we are.” She rose to her feet also and stood before him.
He was reminded of the time he had embraced her in his study and wished for all the world that he could do that again. But he knew, this time, that he would have to be led by her. She was the widow in mourning, not him, and he would have to take everything that followed at her pace, not his own.
They stared into one another’s eyes for a few moments, neither moving, and he began to wonder if she would make some little move that would let him know she needed him, she wanted him.
But, in the end, she said nothing. And what else could he have expected at that very moment?
“Well, I daresay I ought to leave you now,” he said, almost as if the words were physically painful.
“Yes, I daresay,” she said quietly. “You will take care, Mr Winchester, will you not? You will look after yourself.”
“Of course,” he said and bowed. “And you must take care of yourself also.”
As he walked back out into the weak sunshine, Daniel felt utterly bereft. She had been right, he knew she had.
What a foolish thing he had done in calling upon her just weeks after her husband had been buried. But he could not have managed another moment without setting eyes on her, the woman he had come to love more than any he had ever known.
Now all he would need was patience. But with several months of mourning left for her to observe, he felt sure that his patience was going to be stretched to its very extent.
And even then, there was no assurance that Daniel Winchester would get what he wanted in the end. There was no agreement between them, not even the vaguest understanding.
And yet there was something there, and he was sure that she felt a little of what he felt at least, if not more.
Whatever the case, Eliza was well worth waiting for.
Chapter 27
“I think it is absolutely lovely. What a charming little Dower House,” Ariadne said enthusiastically. “But I do wish you had thought to have me over sooner. I know you are trying to do everything properly, my dear, but you need not have waited three full months. I am your closest friend, a sister in the absence of a real one, and I cannot think there would be anyone in all of England who would have objected to you seeing me before now.”
“Oh, how I have missed you telling me off, Ariadne.” Eliza laughed and took Ariadne by the hand to draw her through the entrance hall and into the neat little drawing room. “But you are right, I did leave it too long. I suppose writing letters to you since I have been here at Lytton Hall has become something of a habit. I cannot think I ever wrote so many letters in my life.”
Love Stories of Enchanting Ladies: A Historical Regency Romance Collection Page 22
