Love Stories of Enchanting Ladies: A Historical Regency Romance Collection

by Bridget Barton

As he made his way out through the familiar corridors of Lytton Hall, he realized the enormity of what he was doing. He looked at the oak-panelled walls as if to take in every knot and every grain, to commit them to memory.

  He looked at side tables and vases, dreadful oil portraits and fine tapestries and realized that he had barely looked at these things properly for years.

  But now it seemed important to look at them, to concentrate in these final moments. It was more than just the hall, however, and the many years of his life he had spent working in it. He was turning his back on Eliza too, and he knew it.

  But he knew that he must, that there was no pathway to her now.

  “My Dear Ariadne,

  I know that I had declared some months ago that I would not write anymore, but see you often, something has happened, and I cannot wait until Tuesday to tell you all about it.

  In fact, when I had word this morning, I had almost given up on the last two months of this dreadful period of mourning, almost broke with it altogether, to have my horse saddle so that I might ride over to you.

  Oh, how I wish you were here, Ariadne. But is that not what I always say when my emotions are such that I am compelled to set them on paper and send them to you?

  And so, to my news.

  I was this morning, out in the little woodland between the Dower House and the hall itself. It stretches almost to the lawns of Lytton Hall, and you will remember that it is the place where I once met Daniel Winchester, that fateful day when Nella West spied upon us.

  But I was determined to enjoy my walk there nonetheless, to somehow shed some of the old fear and suspicion that has polluted every day since. And I suppose I liked the idea that I might see Daniel there, for I have often wondered if he would return to the Dower House after the way we left things.

  But, as you know, that did not happen. And in truth, I could never really have expected it, could I? What man would return after so obvious a rejection? But even now I am not entirely sure that I had meant to reject him. If I had, why do I think of him every day? Why did I walk out this morning into the woods hoping that it was still his custom to take some fresh air at midday?

  But I did happen upon somebody in the woods, Ariadne, although it was not Daniel Winchester but the Duchess of Lytton. I find that I rather like Cecile Musgrave, although I am bound to say that I do not know her particularly well.

  As you know, I have kept very much to myself at the Dower House and do not often receive invitations to the hall itself. And the truth of the matter is that I am glad, for I do not wish to be a part of that household now. Nonetheless, I am drawn to Cecile and find that she is the sort of woman I like. She has an open, pretty face, and a very ordinary manner.

  We walked together for a while, both commenting on the unusual warmth of the day, the brightness of the sun and sky, and other such similar things that people discuss when they are acquainted but not well acquainted.

  But then I asked about the household, enquiring after the Duke in particular. And that is when she told me the very worst, Ariadne. That is when she told me that Daniel Winchester is no longer the attorney for the Duchy of Lytton.

  He is to concentrate solely upon his clients in town and spend more of his time in his own home. He left his employment here one week ago after finishing a protracted piece of work for the Duke.

  I cannot tell you how hard it was to concentrate upon the rest of the conversation, for dear Cecile was politely telling me how much her husband would miss such a clever and resourceful attorney, a man of steady common sense just like himself.

  I was close to tears, Ariadne, and even now I do not know how I held them back. I felt desolate as if I had finally been truly bereaved. You will hardly imagine it, my dear, but I felt like a widow at last.

  I felt everything at that moment that I ought to have felt for Augustus but could not. Such sadness has swept over me, and I am once again suffering such a great sense of loss. Only this time, the loss is entirely my own doing, is it not?

  I understand now why it was you were so exasperated with me when I told you the details of my final conversation with Daniel. You saw so clearly what I have been afraid to look at. You knew all along that I had fallen in love with him, but I refused to see it.

  But today I could not even convince myself that I was simply sad at the loss of a friend, the ending of an era as it were. I could not tell myself that it was simply because I will never set eyes on Daniel again to share one of our all too brief conversations. I have finally reached the stage where I cannot lie to myself any longer.

  I have tried to make my love for Daniel anything other than what it is. He even told me as much himself when we argued, he said that I mash feelings together that ought to be separate, I hide love by letting fear overtake it. And I was so, so angry with him saying such a thing.

  But of course, I was not really angry because I was offended. I was angry because he had described my disposition perfectly, and I felt so vulnerable.

  That vulnerability made me afraid again; I know it did. You see, nobody ever saw right through into my heart like that before. It was the keenest observation, the most detailed, and absolutely accurate.

  It frightened me that Daniel could be so perceptive and know me so well when we had never spent any more than ten minutes together at any given time. And yet Miles, the man I had known and loved for so long, would never even be able to guess at the finer details of my character.

  If he had the rest of his life in which to study me, Miles would never know me so well.

  But perhaps that sort of life would be far better for one like me who is made afraid by such vulnerability. Perhaps a man like Miles, one who does not look too closely, one who does not pay such great attention, would be more comfortable in the end.

  For I am bound to tell you now, Ariadne, that my feelings for Daniel Winchester give me no comfort whatsoever. I have known loss in the past, but if I were to allow myself to love Daniel Winchester, I know I would love him too much. I would love him so thoroughly; I would love him with every fibre of my being. And if I ever lost him as I lost Miles, this time I would be truly finished. There would be no surviving it, you see, for I would love Daniel more than any man in the world.

  Once again, I am full of thought and yet static. There is no move I can make; there is nothing I can do. And yet my mind will not give me any peace, and my heart gives me even less.

  I had hoped to purge myself of these feelings by setting them down on paper to you, but I can already sense that I have not achieved it. Perhaps I will have better luck when I see you with my own eyes on Tuesday.

  In the meantime, take very good care of yourself, my dear.

  With much love,

  Eliza.”

  Chapter 30

  “How wonderful it is to see you out and about again, Eliza,” Lady Hanbury said in the fine and comfortable drawing room of Hanbury Hall.

  “Even for a woman who loved her husband, I am bound to say that a year trapped in one’s own environment with only the most sedate of visitors seems almost cruel. And for a woman who was treated cruelly, I think the idea is intolerable. But you are here now my dear, and the dreadful thing is over.”

  “Yes, I am finally free,” she said without conviction, realizing that she felt anything but free. “And glad not to be wearing black anymore.”

  “I am glad you have not chosen to continue to wear it as some do, Eliza. You are a young woman, only one-and-twenty, and you should be dressed beautifully and living life as it should be led.”

  “How much you cheer me. How kind you always are, and how well you lift my spirits.”

  “I am more than glad to lift your spirits, my dear, but I had hoped that they would already be lifted. Not for myself, you understand, but for you. I had hoped that now you are out in the world again, you might be truly relieved.”

  “Oh, I am relieved, really I am. I suppose it is just going to take some getting used to again. It really did feel like a very long year
, even though both you and Ariadne visited me with such careful regularity, such thoughtfulness.”

  “And now you can visit us whenever you please. You can take part in things again, to go to dinners, buffets, afternoon games. Just think of it, you may go down into the town whenever there are actors to put on a little play, or you may go into London and enjoy yourself.” Lady Hanbury smiled broadly. “And you may always take an older female friend with you.” She chuckled.

  “I would like that very much indeed. I would not think to go anywhere of such excitement and not take you with me.”

  “Now that I see a smile on your face, I am relieved. But I am not convinced that your sadness does not remain.”

  “I am quite well, I assure you,” Eliza said and felt sad again, knowing that she was telling the truth.

  In the final weeks of her period of mourning, that dreadful knowledge that Daniel was no longer within reach had made her feel lower than she had felt at any point in the preceding year. She felt truly lonely, even though she was no longer isolated from her friends.

  And even though she had been so determined to see little or nothing of Daniel during that time, just knowing that he was no longer there had come as such a blow. It was a blow that could not have been any harder if she had seen him every single day of the preceding months.

  The realization it had brought with it had been such a difficult thing to contemplate, and yet this time she had forced herself to face it. She would not deal with her loss of Daniel as she had dealt with her loss of Miles.

  She would not find some diversion; she would not turn her sadness and loneliness into self-righteous anger and defence. She would just feel what she felt, allow it to be, for she knew it was the only way she was ever going to truly understand herself.

  “Eliza, I would not wish to attempt to drag confidences from you.”

  “Forgive me, I know well that I could trust you with anything.”

  “I would like to help if I can.” Lady Hanbury looked at her so kindly, with such warmth, that Eliza was reminded of how the woman had taken her in when nobody else in the county surely would have done the same.

  “I feel as if I ought not to say such things, being a widow, and what have you, but it is rather matters of the heart which have me feeling so disjointed currently. You must forgive me, for it makes me so distracted, and I fight to keep the smile on my face.”

  “Well, you do not need to keep a smile on your face just because you are having afternoon tea with me. This is not one of those silly, polite little affairs that exists up and down the county, Eliza. This is you and me talking, two friends, real friends, and the tea and sandwiches are simply a practicality to stop us fainting.”

  “Oh, you are funny,” Eliza said and enjoyed a moment of amusement. “And I think I would perhaps feel better to talk to you about things. I have so much confusion, so much that I cannot seem to get to the bottom of.”

  “And tell me, does it have anything at all to do with that handsome attorney? Please tell me it does, for I cannot think I have ever seen such a striking-looking man. That pale hair and those eyes, and he is so tall, so upright.” She chuckled again. “Of course, Lord Hanbury was a handsome man himself in his day.”

  “I am sure he was.” Eliza was suddenly highly amused.

  “But I am bound to say that it was a long time ago, and he was not nearly as handsome as Mr Winchester.”

  “I shall say nothing, Lady Hanbury. Your secret is safe with me.”

  The two women laughed heartily, Eliza taking a crisp white handkerchief from the long sleeve of her gown to dab the corners of her eyes.

  “I was sure of it back then, Eliza.” Lady Hanbury resumed the thread of their conversation. “When Mr Winchester brought you here that awful day, I could feel his love for you.”

  “But there was never …”

  “My dear Eliza.” Lady Hanbury held up a hand to quieten her. “I know that there was nothing to the dreadful lies that rotten little maid decided to tell. You need not have any fear that I suspect you now or ever did, for it was not possible. I knew how hard things were for you at the hall, but I knew that you were strong and that you would manage no matter what. But that does not take away your feelings, nor his.”

  “I think Daniel said something similar to me himself. It was some weeks ago, and I had not seen him for such a long time. And I had gone out of my way to ensure that our paths would cross, for I knew that I had missed him. But we argued dreadfully, and I could not get the thing out of my mind for weeks.”

  “But what on earth was there for the two of you to argue about?”

  “Daniel made his feelings for me very clear. He wanted to know that there would be some hope for him, some hope for us when my period of mourning was over. It was not far away, and I think now, when I look at it, that he was quite right to suggest that it was not too soon to discuss it.”

  “But you thought that it was?”

  “I became very awkward, truly I did. I can hardly think of it now without berating myself. But the thing is, I am afraid.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “I cannot say for certain if I would prefer a life of love with somebody like Miles Gainsborough or a life of the deepest, almost terrifying love with Daniel. In the end, is it not better to be contented? I had once been contented in that fashion and had been happy enough. And even then, when I lost that much, it hurt me dreadfully. I could not bear it if I loved and lost Daniel.”

  “But have you not already loved and lost him?”

  “Not fully.”

  “But there is nothing between you and Miles Gainsborough anymore, is there?” Lady Hanbury looked a little confused. “Or do you think that there was some significance in him appearing at the old Duke’s funeral?”

  “He was very keen to speak to me, but I was not in a frame of mind to be able to manage it. But yes, I do think it was significant. He did not know Augustus at all, and the way that Miles and I ended things, the argument that we had, would make the idea of him simply turning out to support me more than a year later rather improbable.”

  “So, in a way, you are having now to choose between the two. If not Miles himself, then the idea of somebody like him, I understand. But still, it is a choice between two men or at least two ways of life.”

  “That is exactly the case.” Eliza nodded seriously. “But even then, Daniel is not the sort of man who can be toyed with in this way. He is a very strong and very stoic man, one who would not be dangled on a piece of string by a young woman who simply cannot get her emotions in order. The truth is, I fear I really have lost him. He no longer undertakes any work for the Duchy at all, and I know that to be his way of cutting all ties. And it was most effective, truly, for I had never felt such a sense of loss.”

  “But he is not so very far away, is he? I mean, his home and office are not five miles from here, and I can only imagine that it is but seven miles from your own home. Such a short ride away.”

  “And yet I cannot make that journey because I have not answered my own question.”

  “Which you would choose,” Lady Hanbury said quietly to herself. “Yes, I think that you cannot move forward without asking that question and finding the answer. If you do, if you make a choice without knowing, you risk it being the wrong choice. And I think you have already had enough unhappiness and misfortune to last you a lifetime. You need not search for any more.”

  “That is very wise, Lady Hanbury.” Eliza felt a good deal better.

  Just talking the whole thing through with an older woman who had so much experience of life made her feel more settled, more confident that she could, in the end, get to the bottom of it.

  “In the meantime, I think you need a little relief from it all. What about my bridge afternoon at the end of the week? I know it is short notice, but I think it would do you good. It would get you out of the Dower House again, and you might even win a game or two. A little spot of winning is always good for the soul, I think.�
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