Under A Duke's Hand

by Annabel Joseph

  Aidan woke in the dark, in the early morning hours. Someone had pulled the curtains and banked the fire, and piled him with blankets. The portrait was gone from the corner. He sat up with his wife’s name on his lips.

  His head spun at the movement, and his stomach lurched. A servant looked in on him from the door. “Water,” he rasped. “And something to eat.”

  At once, the servants produced an ewer of fresh water and a basket of bread, cheese, and currant cake. The bland food settled his stomach while the water worked to clear his head. His friends were right, he had needed a rest, but now he needed to go back to his wife.

  He climbed the stairs with nervous urgency. They would have woken him if she’d taken a bad turn. The whole house would not be abed, so silent, if Gwen was in crisis. He reached his rooms and went inside, and found Minette bathing Gwen’s forehead and cheeks.

  “Where is the housekeeper?” he asked. “You should be resting in your condition.”

  “I don’t mind helping,” said Minette with her typical cheer. “Your wife is better now. The fever has broken, but she’s very tired.”

  “I must sit still, for Jack,” Gwen whispered. Her eyes were closed, her head heavy upon the pillow. “I must be still.”

  Minette soothed her gently. “Of course you shall be still.”

  “Where is Jack?” Her eyes fluttered open but she didn’t seem to see them. “I’m being still.”

  “That’s good, darling. Rest a while, and then we shall have some tea.” Minette looked over at Aidan. “Will you speak to her? I think she’d like to know you’re near.”

  Aidan didn’t think she would want him near. She wanted Jack, for all his poor behavior. She’d already fallen back into sleep, dreaming of the meadow, perhaps.

  “I met Gwen two days before we were to marry,” he said to Minette. “In a clearing, by a lake. I sketched her there. I was dressed in common clothes, and I told her my name was Jack.”

  Minette clutched her chest. “What a relief. She’s been speaking of this fellow Jack ever since the fever broke. I didn’t know what you would make of it.” She wrung out the cloth and laid it over the edge of the bowl. “Would you care to sit with me a while?”

  “You ought to be resting,” he said again. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “Yes, and I am in fine health. Women do not become weak and pitiful creatures just because they are with child.” She patted Gwen’s hand as Aidan took a seat on the other side of the bed. “As for your wife, I think she is on her way to recovery. She’s very strong.”

  Aidan studied Gwen’s face, her eyelids twitching in sleep. “She’s strong enough to leave me,” he said. “And almost die in the attempt.”

  Minette gave a subtle shake of her head. “I don’t think she was leaving you. I think she only meant to get your attention.”

  “She has my attention. She’s had my attention from the start. I’ve tried to be a good husband, but she’s never liked me.”

  “She calls you ‘Sir,’” said Minette quietly. “When she talks about you to others, she refers to you as ‘the duke.’”

  “Well, I am a duke, as much as she abhors me for it. I can’t change who I am, or who she is, or where she came from. She is my wife now, and calls me ‘Sir’ as a measure of respect.”

  “And that is important to you?”

  He gave her sharp look. “For her to respect me? You respect your husband. He surely requires it.”

  “I respect him and I love him. But I never call him ‘Sir.’” She returned his look very directly. “Perhaps that is your way of distancing yourself from a wife whom you feel, perhaps, too far below you.”

  He had known Minette since she was a child—and he had never heard her speak so bluntly. Worse, her words had a ring of truth. Not just a ring, but many bells tolling.

  “She believes I feel that way,” he said. “But I only like to cleave to proprieties.”

  “You’ve always been a stickler for manners and such.” She studied him a moment. “I wonder if you’ve been raised too properly, so now your marriage is too cold and proper. I wonder if you don’t know how to be a simple man.”

  A simple man, like Jack, the man Gwen called for in her sleep.

  “I’m not a simple man.” It always came back to this. “I’m a duke, Minette. It’s who I am. It’s my duty, my purpose, my responsibility.”

  “Your title and responsibilities will always be part of your life. But Gwen and her needs must be part of your life now too.”

  He made a low, gruff sound. “That would be fine, except that I don’t understand her needs, and she refuses to understand mine. I married her because the King of England told me to. I have an image to maintain. A sacred legacy.”

  “What image? What sacred legacy? That you’re a greater fellow than her? That you’re too lofty for such trifles as love and caring?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, defending himself from Minette’s incisive words. “I care for her. I take exquisite care of her, for all the good it does me.”

  “Do you love her?”

  Aidan leaned forward and put his head in his hands. He would have given anything for the Minette of his childhood, toddling around their ankles and eating cakes.

  “I want to love her,” he admitted between his fingers. “But there is this distance between us. Perhaps I’ve put it there. I only wished for her to respect me. I only wanted her to accept me as I am.”

  “As a duke? What about plain old Arlington? Or Aidan, if you will? The kind, caring friend we all know?”

  “I’ve tried to be kind,” he burst out, looking up at her. He lowered his voice as Gwen stirred in her sleep. “I’ve tried to be kind and caring, but she wants something more. She wants love, this sweet, romantic ideal that she dreamed of as a child. I don’t know how to give it to her.”

  He was stunned to see tears in Minette’s eyes. “Don’t you remember?” she said. “Don’t you remember how I wished for Barrymore to love me, and how much it hurt me when he refused to?”

  Good Lord. All of them had suffered, watching that misery. It never occurred to him that he was doing the same to his wife.

  “He thought he was doing what was best, and what was good,” Minette continued. “He had his reasons, but it was the worst sort of torment, being denied love by my husband. All I wanted was a smile, a kiss. Some sign of true affection. When Barrymore wouldn’t give himself to me, I thought I wouldn’t survive.”

  “Our situations are not the same,” Aidan said. “You loved him and you wanted him. Gwen doesn’t want me.”

  “Do you think she would have ridden out into the icy night if she didn’t want you? If she wasn’t desperate for your love?” Minette clasped her hands so tightly together that her knuckles whitened. “I know a little of being a desperate woman, Arlington. I recognize myself in her.”

  Minette’s throat worked as she fished out a handkerchief. Aidan bowed his head.

  “So what do I do?” he asked, feeling more desperate by the moment. “Help me, Minette, since you’ve been there. What can I do to save us? How did you finally get through to Barrymore?”

  “I threw a porcelain swan at him,” she said, wiping her eyes. “It shattered everywhere.” She fluttered the handkerchief with a tinkling laugh. “I don’t imagine that is helpful advice. But I threw a swan at him and shrieked that he had to love me. I behaved like a madwoman.” She gave him a pointed look. “Some might say Gwen behaved like a madwoman too.”

  Was it true? Had her flight not been an act of rebellion, but a cry for love?

  “She knew she could not get to Wales,” said Minette. “She is not an idiot. She was making a calculated move. Now, I suppose the next move is yours. And you know, I don’t think you told me the truth earlier. I think you do love her. I think you love her as desperately as she loves you.”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “I love her in a completely unreasonable way.”

  “Why unreasonable?” asked Minette.

 
“Because there is no basis for it. Only that she is mine, but you see...” He leaned forward again and rubbed his eyes. “I’m afraid that beneath all my richness and finery, and grand title, there is nothing to appeal to her, nothing I can give her. We are nothing alike.”

  “Oh, goodness.” Minette chuckled and adjusted Gwen’s blanket. “Barrymore and I are nothing alike, as you well know, but I love him with all my heart and soul. He puts up with my chattering, and I put up with his brooding. I appreciate the things that are special about him, even if he’s nothing like me.” She tucked away her handkerchief, her chin tilted in a thoughtful way. “Gwen has spoken of Jack on numerous occasions, even as she fought the fever. And Jack is you, without all your richness and finery, and grand title. Perhaps it would please her to wake to a husband more like Jack, and less like the Duke of Arlington.”

  “But I am the Duke of Arlington.” He swallowed against the emotion in his throat. “That’s always been all I am.”

  “If you truly believe that, dear friend, it makes me sad.”

  Minette stood and felt Gwen’s forehead as Aidan fought to compose himself. Why was he so afraid to look beneath his riches and his titles? Who was he, truly?

  He was a man who had behaved badly toward his wife, and was ashamed to admit it. He was a man who had made terrible mistakes.

  He was a man who would have to start all over again, and try to make things right.

  Minette reached for the wet towel, wrung it out and mopped gently at Gwen’s forehead. “Is the fever coming back?” he asked.

  “No. She’ll be fine. I imagine the both of you will be perfectly fine.”

  He walked around to Minette’s side. “Do you think it will bother her if I sit on the bed?”

  The lady gestured for him to take a place beside his wife, and then handed him the toweling. “It might soothe her to sponge her arms, and her neck. It’s calming for invalids to be touched.”

  He took her hand before she moved away. “Minette. I still remember you tripping about in short skirts, with your curls in tangles and your ragged dolly hanging from your fist. When did you get so grown up, and so wise?”

  “I suppose it was when I married, and realized the sheer complexity of loving another person,” she said. “It gives trouble to the best of us, but I’m sure you’ll be all right. Love is not an easy thing, but the struggles are worth it.”

  “Barrymore is lucky to have you.”

  She grinned at him. “And Gwen shall be lucky to have you too, once the both of you sort out your feelings.” Her smile wobbled, turned into something more sad and sober. “Just love her, Arlington. Don’t make her wonder and question. Don’t make her suffer anymore.”

  * * * * *

  Gwen opened her eyes and blinked into moonlit darkness. She felt as if she’d been sleeping a thousand years. She turned to her right and found her husband asleep beside her, still in his shirtsleeves, a blanket pulled up over his legs. Why was she in his room? Why did she feel so groggy? Her thoughts cleared as if from a fog, and she remembered. She had tried to run away from him, and as expected, he had brought her back.

  She began to remember other things, like cold and numbness, and a fall from her horse. She remembered the ladies leaning over her, mopping her forehead, and a physician speaking to the duke in a hushed voice, and the duke yelling back at him.

  He must be so angry. She feared to wake him and face the consequences of what she’d done. She’d run away in the middle of his party, doubtless ruining the whole affair and sparking a new spate of gossip. Now, afterward, she wished she had made a different choice.

  She wouldn’t wake him, that was for sure. She wouldn’t hasten the reckoning between them. She slid from the bed, being careful to make no noise, and stood propped against the side of it until her legs were not so wobbly. She found a cold, weak pot of tea on the side table and drank the entire thing, staring out the window at the moon.

  Why was she so thirsty? How long had she slept? Was Eira all right, and cozy in her stable stall? She seemed to remember one of the ladies assuring her some such thing. Gwen felt grimy, as if she needed washing. She crossed into the duke’s bathing room and lit a lamp, and ran some lukewarm water into a basin.

  Her flannel nightgown felt as grimy as her skin, so she cast it aside and stood naked, and washed herself all over with one of the duke’s soft towels. Her hair was a tangled mess so she washed it too, undoing the snarls with scented water and a fine tortoiseshell comb.

  It must be Arlington’s comb, she thought, looking at it. He had uncommonly long hair for a man, and always kept it in decent order. She wrapped herself in a towel and sat on a bench near his other things, razors and brushes and bottles of cologne. He kept an army of valets for when he wished to look smart, but sometimes he dressed himself.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about the comb, or rather, how he would look standing there combing his hair, dealing with snarls and knots just as she did. His grooming tools were so practical, like any other man’s, like her father’s, or her brothers’.

  She felt cold, and she didn’t want to put the flannel gown back on, so she took the lamp into his dressing room and found a long row of linen shirts. Surely he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed one. She squeezed the last of the moisture from her hair, set aside the towel, and pulled his shirt over her head. How soft it was. It smelled like him, like the fragrant herbs they used to launder it.

  She knew the scent of him so readily. Why could she not know him, the man who combed his tangles out? The man who got dressed in this room, after putting on one of these shirts? She went to the next shelf, studying his shoes and coats, and hats, and cravats. There were drawers of gloves and stockings, all arranged in impeccable order, sorted by color. Help me understand him, she prayed to the heavens. I don’t want to run away. I want him to love me.

  She crept along the shelves, touching bits of lace and silver buckles, and velvet-covered buttons. She found the outfit he’d worn on their wedding day, the fine dark coat with glittering embroidery. How handsome she had thought him, and how horrible at the same time.

  But had he really been horrible, or just unfamiliar? She had been so frightened to go to bed with him that first night, but he had taken the time to calm her. Told her silly tales of marauders and medieval maidens. The next morning, when everyone had come barging into the room, she had been clothed.

  Somehow.

  It could only have been by him.

  She had never thought of it until now, that he had done those things for her when he barely knew her. And what had she done in return? Cried, and reviled him, and caused him trouble at every turn. Perhaps he would have loved her if she had not been such an adversarial shrew from the outset. Now, since she had run away and humiliated him again, she feared he would never love her.

  She wished she could start all over and do things differently. Perhaps when he woke and started shouting at her, she could appeal to him with those words. Give me another chance. Maybe she could appeal to his sensual side. Maybe that was all they would ever have, their lurid compatibility in bed. Maybe that was what she deserved, to be pleasured, but not to be loved.

  She crossed to the other side of his dressing room, past a leather-covered bench and chest of drawers. There was a large, rectangular parcel propped against the chest, swathed in a cloth. She peeked beneath it, then pushed it back to reveal their formal painting. Tears rose in her eyes. Someone had savaged the thing, torn it to shreds.

  “Gwen.”

  The deep voice startled her. She spun to find her husband watching her. His gaze traveled over her shirt, or rather his shirt, and returned to her face. She didn’t know what to say. Nothing came to her lips. No excuses for her flight, no asking for another chance. Nothing came but anxiety.

  “Someone has ruined it.” She gestured to the torn canvas. “Someone destroyed our painting.”

  “I destroyed it,” he said.

  So it was that bad. Gwen shrank away, ducked behind the ruined
painting as if it could protect her from this moment.

  “You put my shift back on the morning after the wedding,” she blurted from behind the frame. “It must have been you. And the night before, you told me those stories about wedding nights and marauders to distract me, so I wouldn’t be afraid.”

  He said nothing as she reminded him of these things, only stood there looking at her with his hands open at his sides.

  “And you tried to stop me running off on Eira that time, so I wouldn’t be hurt,” she said. “And you kept her for me, when you would rather have gotten rid of her. You loved me once. In the beginning, you loved me, at least a little.”

  His voice sounded soft after her panicked outburst. “I have always loved you, Guinevere. Not just a little.”

  “Then why...why did you rip up our painting?”

  “Because I thought it was horrible.” He held out a hand. “Come here, please. Come away from that wretched thing.”

  She crossed to him and he caught her up and sat with her on the bench, holding her in a smothering hug.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for all the ways I’ve hurt you. I tore the painting because I was cold and wrong, and I’d like to start over. I’d like another chance.”

  Gwen blinked at him. “I was going to ask you that same thing. For another chance. I’m so sorry I ran away and ruined your party.”

  “I don’t care about the party, Gwen. I care about saving this marriage. I care about your happiness, because I believe it is inextricably tied up with mine.”

  His eyes were so sad. So deep and blue and sad.

  “I want to make you happy,” she said. “I want it more than anything. I just don’t know how.”

  “Darling.” His hand trailed up and down her arm, over the soft linen of his shirt. “If I’ve been unhappy, it’s my own fault. There’s nothing at all wrong with you. It was my loftiness, my pride.”

  “No, it wasn’t all you. I asked you for love when I behaved so unlovably. You must admit it’s true. I’ve been awful.”

  “Not awful,” he said with a hint of a smile.