Discovering Miss Dalrymple

by Emily Larkin

  He saw himself grow up through his father’s eyes.

  April 10, 1792. I can’t bear to send him to Eton yet. He’s still too thin. I’ve decided to take him to Dorsetshire instead. The sea air will do him good.

  August 3, 1793. Dorsetshire agrees with us both. Alexander is a sturdy wee fellow now and as brown as a berry. I’ve taken his name off the Eton roll.

  March 16, 1798. He’s only thirteen and yet he’s already as tall I am. He quite dwarfs his cousins. I have no doubt that he’ll dwarf me before the year is out.

  December 8, 1801. Alexander has grown out of his clothes again. He’s over six foot, now. If his shoulders grow any broader he’ll not fit through a door. I told him that and he laughed. He laughs a lot, my boy.

  July 30, 1803. It’s time to think of sending Alexander to Oxford. I hate to let him go, but he’s a man now and he needs to find his feet in the world. I have no doubt that he’ll enjoy university. He has a gift for making friends.

  January 25, 1806. Alexander is twenty-one today. Perhaps it’s a father’s partiality, but I truly believe there’s no finer man in England. It’s a comfort to know I can pass the dukedom to him. He’ll bear that burden far better than I have. He’s so level-headed. And despite what happened when he was a child he has a merry heart.

  May 11, 1807. A letter from Lucretia’s brother telling me it’s past time that I arranged a marriage for Alexander. Damned impertinence. I refuse to do to Alexander what my parents did to me. He will choose the bride he wants, when he wants.

  The next diary covered 1808 to 1812. Alexander skipped over the first two years. He didn’t want to read about Georgiana’s betrothal or Hubert’s disappearance. He thumbed through 1810 and 1811, reading the odd entry, and slowed when he reached 1812. The handwriting grew spidery, shaky. He turned the pages gently, feeling grief well in his chest, remembering his father’s decline, the way he’d spent less time in the study and more in his bed.

  August 26, 1812.

  A terrible thing happened today. Alexander came to sit with me after my nap and for a moment I didn’t recognize him. “Who are you?” I asked, and he said, “Your son,” and I looked at him and knew that he couldn’t possibly be, not with that face, not with those shoulders. A terrible fear grew in me. What if I had rescued the wrong boy all those years ago?

  I asked Alexander to take me to the Long Gallery, and we spent half an hour looking at the portraits together. I couldn’t find anyone who looked like him. Where did he get his height from? Those eyebrows? That chin? They’re not mine, and they’re certainly not Lucretia’s.

  Alexander saw I was distressed. He took both my hands in his and asked what was wrong, and I looked into his eyes and knew myself for a foolish old man. Those are my son’s eyes. There can be no doubt.

  But now, without those eyes looking at me, the doubt has returned and I can’t sleep for fear that I rescued the wrong child.

  Alexander is my son. He has to be. If my boy is still lost out there I couldn’t bear it.

  Alexander stared at the entry for a long time, and then turned the page. There was no mention of his shoulders or his eyebrows in the next entry, or the next. The journal advanced a few more days, and then abruptly stopped.

  He sat still for a moment, then turned back to August 26. He read what his father had written. I can’t sleep for fear that I rescued the wrong child.

  Chapter Two

  September 12th, 1814

  Dalrymple Court, Dorsetshire

  Georgiana’s mother went through the novels in the library with the same energy that she did everything. “Her heroines always faint,” Lady Dalrymple declared, thrusting a book back into place on the shelves. “I can’t abide fainting females.” She pulled out another book, flicked through the pages, thrust it back. “Too virtuous. I don’t wish to be preached at.” Behind her, Viscount Dalrymple leaned against the great library desk, arms crossed, smiling as he watched his wife.

  “You’ll like this one, Mama,” Georgie said. “The heroine has a mind of her own.”

  “Does she? Then I’ll take it.”

  Georgie added the three volumes of Pride and Prejudice to the pile of books her mother was taking on her journey to Derbyshire.

  “I make that four novels and three volumes of poetry,” her father said mildly. “Surely you won’t need more than that, Miranda? There will be books in Derbyshire.”

  “True.” Lady Dalrymple turned briskly away from the shelves. “I need some of your essays, Francis. So that when I miss you I can read them.”

  Georgie watched her parents’ eyes meet—a few seconds only, but the affection in that glance made her throat tighten. Her father straightened away from the desk. “You may take as many of my essays as you wish.”

  The viscount’s essays on fossils filled two drawers of the desk. He brought out a sheaf and spread them on the gold-tooled leather top. “Which ones would you like?”

  “You choose for me, darling.”

  Lord Dalrymple sorted through the essays, laying some aside, talking to his wife while he made his selection. Georgie watched, listening to the murmur of their voices. Lady Dalrymple had a tendency to talk over people—her mind and her tongue moved quickly—but she never talked over her husband.

  That’s one of the things that make a good marriage, Georgie thought. Listening to each other. Her thoughts slid to Hubert, and then to Vickery. She glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. Eleven o’clock. Another three hours until her afternoon ride.

  “My lord? My lady?” The butler stood in the doorway. “Are you at home to the Duke of Vickery?”

  “We are,” her father said. “Show him in, Truscott.”

  The butler withdrew.

  Georgie looked at her parents, wondering why on earth Vickery was three hours early—and caught them exchanging a secretive, smiling glance.

  It was easy to leap to conclusions. Her heart began to beat faster. Is Vic here to propose? Was that why he’d spoken privately to her parents yesterday?

  Georgie smoothed her bodice with a hand that was suddenly trembling, and wished she could check her appearance in a mirror—which was foolishness. Vickery had known her since she was in the nursery. He’d seen her muddy and bedraggled, with missing teeth and scraped knees and torn flounces. He knew what the real Georgiana Dalrymple looked like—not the perfectly coiffed lady who went out in public.

  Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Georgie’s heart beat a little faster. Don’t leap to conclusions, she told herself firmly. There are a dozen reasons he could be here.

  “His Grace, the Duke of Vickery,” the butler announced.

  Vickery stepped into the library.

  Georgie found herself blushing like a shy schoolgirl. Which was more foolishness. She wasn’t a girl any more, and she wasn’t shy with Vickery. If he’d known her forever, she had known him for just as long. She knew what he looked like when he’d fallen into an ornamental lake, dripping and laughing and with pondweed in his dark hair. She knew what he looked like after a day spent climbing the Eype cliffs with her brother and Hubert, the three of them as sweaty and grubby as farm laborers. And she knew what he looked like tired and heavy-eyed after his father’s death. She knew the real Vickery, just as he knew the real her.

  Vickery’s gaze went first to Georgie, and then past her to her parents. “Good morning.”

  “Alexander, how lovely to see you.” Georgie’s mother crossed to him and planted a kiss on his cheek. “What brings you here so early?”

  “I was hoping for a private word with your daughter.”

  Hope clenched tightly in Georgie’s chest. Did that sentence mean what she thought it meant? What she hoped it meant?

  Lady Dalrymple’s mouth tucked in at the corners, as if she was trying to hide a smile. “You may speak with her in here. Francis and I have just finished.”

  “No,” Georgie said. If Vickery was here to propose, the library was no place for that; one never knew when a footman or housemaid wou
ld enter. “We’ll speak outside.”

  Lady Dalrymple suppressed another smile. “If that’s what you wish, dear.”

  Georgie looked at her father. He appeared to be suppressing a smile, too.

  Georgie’s doubt became certainty. Her heart began to beat even faster. Vic is here to propose. She crossed to the French windows, opened them, and stepped out onto the terrace. Vickery followed. “Your bonnet?” he said.

  “I shall do without it,” Georgie said, closing the French windows behind them. When Vickery proposed she did not want to be wearing a bonnet. Bonnets made kissing awkward. For that matter, so did parents and footmen and housemaids.

  Georgie set off along the terrace. The light this close to the sea seemed to have a different quality. Dorsetshire light, clear and pale and golden. Nothing like the gritty, smoke-stained light of London.

  Vickery said nothing. He kept pace with her.

  Georgie stole a glance at him.

  If Vickery had been a simple Mister, people would have said he was attractive, but he was a duke, so he was usually described as handsome. Vickery dismissed such comments as flattery, but Georgie privately did think he was handsome. He had a strong face—his eyebrows were very straight, his jaw very square—but it wasn’t just his face that made people look twice at him, it was his height, his broad shoulders, his easy, laughing confidence.

  No ramshackle young man, the Duke of Vickery. No wastrel or gamester. No brawler either, despite his physique. Steady. That was the word that described Vickery best: steady. Someone you could rely on. Someone who’d do his duty unhesitatingly and cheerfully.

  Hubert had been steady, too. And cheerful.

  Georgie felt a pang of grief for Hubert. And mixed with the grief was guilt. How can I love someone else as much as I once loved Hubert? She glanced at Vickery again as they went down the steps. His expression was uncharacteristically solemn. Was he thinking about Hubert, too? They’d been best friends, Hubert and Vickery and her brother, Oliver.

  They cut across the scythed lawn and entered the rose garden, with its fountain and pretty bower. Georgie looked around for gardeners and saw none.

  She crossed to the bower and sat on the bench there. Vickery sat alongside her.

  Georgie clasped her hands in her lap. Emotions knotted in her belly—anticipation, nervousness, excitement. Silly, she told herself. She was twenty-four. Too old to be nervous about a proposal, especially a proposal from such an old friend as Vickery.

  She waited. And waited. And glanced at Vickery. He was frowning at the fountain, watching the water fall.

  Georgie eyed that frown, and felt a twinge of uncertainty. “Vic? Is everything all right?”

  Vickery stopped frowning at the fountain. He turned his head and looked at her.

  The most striking thing about Vickery’s face wasn’t that his eyebrows were so straight or his jaw so square; it was his eyes. Mismatched eyes, one blue, the other green.

  “Vic?” she said again.

  Vickery looked away from her. He took off his hat and raked a hand through his hair, a nervous gesture she’d never seen him make before. “Georgie, when you dreamed where Hubert was buried . . . how did you do it?”

  Georgie stiffened. After a moment, she managed to say, “I beg your pardon?”

  Vickery turned his hat over in his hands and repeated himself: “How did you dream where Hubert was buried?”

  Georgie opened her mouth to lie, and closed it again. She didn’t want to lie to Vickery; she wanted to tell him the truth: that she had a Faerie godmother, and that on her twenty-third birthday her godmother had given her the gift of finding things.

  Never tell a soul. Her mother’s warning rang in her ears.

  Georgie hesitated, wrestled with her conscience, and then trotted out the falsehood she’d told a hundred times in the last year: “I went asleep thinking about Hubert, wondering where he was, and when I woke I knew.” On the heels of those words, came shame. I just lied to Vic.

  “And that little girl from the village who went missing? The one who’d wandered nearly as far as Chideock? Did you do the same thing?”

  “Yes,” Georgie said, feeling slightly sick. Two lies.

  “Do you think you could do it again?” Vickery asked. “Find someone by thinking about them before you went to sleep?”

  Georgie hesitated, and then said, “Yes,” again. It was only half a lie—she could find anyone she wished to, just not by dreaming.

  Vickery stared at the fountain. He was frowning with his mouth now, as well as his brow.

  Is that frown because of me?

  “Does it bother you?” Georgie asked hesitantly. “The dreams?”

  Vickery shook his head. “No.” He glanced at her. “I found my father’s diaries yesterday.”

  The change of subject made her blink. “Oh?”

  Vickery looked away from her again. “I read some of the entries.” He turned the hat over in his hands, once, twice, then put it down on the bench and locked his hands together.

  Georgie looked at the tension in his hands, the tension in his shoulders. “You read about the months you were missing?”

  He shook his head. “I read about before and afterwards. Mostly afterwards.”

  Vickery was a man, six foot two of muscle, bone, and confidence, but he’d been a child once, small and helpless, lost, alone, afraid, abused. Georgie reached out and touched his clenched hands lightly. She didn’t say anything. What was there to say? It’s all right, Vic? A trite utterance, and patently untrue.

  Everyone knew what had happened to him—snatched from his father’s Kent estate, sold to a chimney sweep, the months spent as a climbing boy, his miraculous rescue. Some people even called him Duke Chimney Sweep, but Georgie had never heard it said in a derogatory tone. People admired Vickery. Admired his strength, his resilience, and yes, even his push to change the child labor laws.

  Vickery’s hands unclenched. He took hold of her hand. “I didn’t realize I’d forgotten so much. I mean, I still have the occasional nightmare, but . . . I didn’t speak for several months afterwards. Did you know that? I didn’t.”

  “No,” Georgie said, gripping his hand tightly. “I didn’t know that.”

  Vickery was silent for a moment, and then he said, “A week before my father died he wrote about me in his diary.”

  Georgie nodded, unsurprised. The old duke had loved his son very much.

  Vickery opened her hand, turned it over, kneaded her palm with his thumb, not a caress, but something more meditative, as if he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. She thought that he wasn’t thinking about her, but about his father.

  Vickery took a deep breath, and then said, “Father was afraid I wasn’t his son, that he’d rescued the wrong boy.”

  Shock held Georgie speechless for several seconds. “What? Nonsense! Your eyes, Vic! There can be no doubt! There was never any doubt!”

  “I don’t look like either of my parents.” Vickery kneaded her palm again, not looking at her. “Or my grandparents or cousins. I’ve spent all morning looking at the portraits. I don’t look like anyone on either side of my family.”

  “Not everyone looks like their parents,” Georgie said firmly. “Honestly, Vic, there can be no doubt. How many five-year-olds would there have been in England with eyes such as yours? Only one!”

  Vickery turned his head and looked at her with those remarkable green-and-blue eyes and said, “What if there were two?”

  Georgie shook her head.

  “Would you . . . I mean, I wondered if . . .” He flushed. “Could you possibly try to dream where Father’s son is?”

  Georgie’s lips parted in astonishment. She stared at him for several seconds, moistened her lips, and then said, “I beg your pardon?”

  Vickery’s flush deepened. “I know it’s a stupid thing to ask, but . . . you were right twice before, and I thought . . . Please?”

  On the heels of astonishment came mortification. Vic hadn’t come this morn
ing to propose; he’d come to ask for her help.

  Georgie looked away.

  He doesn’t want to marry me. He sees me only as a friend.

  Vickery released her hand. “Forget I asked. It’s foolishness, I know.”

  “No,” Georgie managed to say. “I’ll try. Of course I’ll try.” She turned her head and looked at him and tried to smile cheerfully. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

  “Thank you.”

  Georgie kept the smile pasted on her lips. She would do this for him—pretend to dream—and tomorrow morning she’d tell him what everyone in England knew: he was the late duke’s son. She could tell him now, if she dared to explain about her Faerie godmother.

  Where is the Duke of Vickery’s son who went missing twenty-five years ago? she asked herself silently, even though she already knew the answer.

  Her gift gave her the answer: bones on a seabed.

  Georgie’s breath caught in her throat. For a long moment she couldn’t breathe. She forced herself to ask the question again. This time she rephrased it, so there could be no mistake: Where is the son of the sixth Duke of Vickery who went missing when he was a child?

  Her gift should have told her he was seated alongside her; instead, it gave her the same answer it had before: bones on a seabed.

  Georgie’s mouth was suddenly very dry. Where did Alexander St. Clare die? she asked silently.

  Her gift showed her a swift, deep creek on the Vickery estate in Kent.

  “Are you all right?” Vickery asked, taking hold of her hand again. “You look quite pale.”

  “I’m perfectly well,” Georgie managed to say. She looked at him and asked silently: Where was this man born?

  Her gift told her that Vickery had been born in a farmhouse on the Cornish coast.

  Georgie swallowed, and gripped Vickery’s hand tightly. Where are this man’s parents?