Jilting the Duke

by Rachael Miles

  “The paint was chipping off, but Father and I repainted it there.” Ian pointed to the bottom of the banner. “And here.” Ian pointed to the bearer’s cloak.

  Aidan turned the figure over once more. “You did a fine job with the repairs; they are barely visible.” He handed the figure back to Ian. “The banner-bearer would like to remain with his troops.”

  Ian smiled, gratefully. “Thank you, sir; I have another, but this one is my favorite. Would you like to see my other soldiers? None are as good as he is, but I have them set up to fight the Battle of Hastings. He leads the Saxons. I’ll show you how to tell which are Saxons and which are Normans.”

  “Ian, I’m not sure that the Duke has time.” Sophia tried to intervene.

  “No, Sophia.” Aidan used her name without thinking, her name on his lips feeling like a caress. “I have time.” Aidan turned to Ian. “I’d be pleased to review the troops with you, Commander.”

  Chapter Seven

  Sophia watched helplessly as Ian led Aidan from the room, neither looking back. Spent, she sat on the couch, leaning into its curved side.

  When Aidan had first entered the library, he’d seemed so real that the colors in the room faded around him. Tom, all kindness and bland manners, had never walked with such vitality, not even when well. The chill that had settled in her bones years ago had lessened as Aidan drew near to her, and the kiss he’d breathed onto the back of her hand had made a place below her stomach tighten with expectation. She should have expected to react to the physical contact strongly, she reassured herself; no one but Ian and Tom’s sisters had touched her since her return. But even so, for an instant she had wished Aidan would fold her in his arms and reassure her that Tom’s plan hadn’t been misguided.

  However, when Aidan had released her hand, she saw nothing in his face to encourage such confidences. If anything, the line of his jaw had become more severe over the years, reminding her of his older brother Aaron. She braced herself for harsh recrimination or even cold hatred. But he offered neither. His every sentence conveyed distance and a disinterested practicality.

  Just as Ophelia had predicted, Aidan treated her with a civil solicitude, an appropriate manner for discussing business with the widow of an old friend or, apparently, for meeting with a former lover. It was as if they had never kissed, never held one another in their arms, never made promises . . . never loved. It was as if she meant nothing to him.

  Unbidden, she remembered her first glimpse of him, young and laughing with his friends. She had suppressed the memory for years. But now, having seen no trace of their passion and no hint of the laughing, charming boy he’d been, she let herself remember.

  It had been sunny, the first pleasantly warm day. She’d walked with some of her Elliot cousins to the local village fair. With a small allowance from her uncle, she had already bought rosemary soap from the Misses Bornfield, spinsters who lived near the pond at the edge of town, and some ribbon for her hair. At the end of the booths, a crowd cheered the morris dancers.

  She’d noticed Tom first. Tall and thin, he watched the dancers over the heads of those in front of him. Someone hidden by the crowd had called his name, and he’d responded with a call and a waved arm. His wavy dark hair fell over his eyes, only to be pushed away by elegant hands. She’d noticed him because he was a stranger and handsome.

  Then, Aidan came into view, eclipsing Tom. She had been struck by Aidan’s beauty, broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips, thick black hair, and deep eyes. The two were clearly relations, perhaps even brothers, but something in the vitality of the one overshadowed the other. Tom, enamored with the rural dances, hadn’t noticed her watching, but Aidan saw her immediately.

  He’d winked, and followed that wink with a slow, confident assessment of her dress and person. Sophia had lived too many years with her cousins to allow any attempt to embarrass her, so she had waited for his eyes to return to hers, then she’d mimicked his assessing gaze until he laughed aloud.

  When the crowd shifted, she’d soon wished she had been less daring. Tom and Aidan’s third companion, Charles Culvert, was the son of a neighboring landowner. Seeing her, Charles waved, then made his way to her side, his companions in tow, to make introductions. Aidan had pretended they had already been introduced—another dare she couldn’t ignore, and she’d gone along with the charade. In the company of her cousins, they had spent the rest of the afternoon together, and the next afternoon, and the next, until the beginning of Michaelmas term, when the whole group left for school. But Tom and Aidan had returned again at the next holiday, and the next, and soon, she’d come to expect seeing them at the end of every term.

  Sophia and Aidan’s hadn’t been a proper courtship. He hadn’t met her in her uncle’s drawing room or conversed with her aunt while Sophia embroidered demurely. No, with her cousins as chaperones, she had met him in the fields for long walks or in the orchard with the fruit trees in bloom. She’d fallen in love with him while throwing rocks in her uncle’s pond and watching the fish dart among the rushes. He had listened to her ideas and argued with her as if she were one of his friends from Harrow or Cambridge. He had made her feel valued and confident.

  But today, his nonchalance had made clear that she had been no more than a youthful indulgence, long ago set aside. He had moved on, to war and whatever missions he had done there, to a role in parliament, to managing his estates . . . to a life not influenced by love for her. Certainly he had broken off all communication with Tom, never answering any letters until even Tom ceased to write. But was that the result of anger—or simply of time and distance?

  In Italy, she had known men—and women—who could cover a well of hatred with a polite façade. She didn’t know if Aidan had grown into a man capable of such dissimulation. But would the cost of believing Aidan sincere and finding him deceptive be greater or less than the cost of mistrusting him at every step? No, she had spent a decade fearing how he might respond when they met again and had been wrong in all her predictions. She would not spend the rest of Ian’s youth suspecting Aidan—until Aidan gave her cause.

  Sophia weighed the decision carefully. If Ian were not involved, she might force the discussion. But Ian’s well-being was her only concern. Yes, she would follow Aidan’s lead. If he chose to ignore their failed love, then she would ignore it as well. She already had years of practice pretending disinterest in news of Aidan; now she could simply pretend disinterest in Aidan himself.

  * * *

  As Aidan accompanied Ian to the nursery, the boy offered a short tour of the house and its inhabitants. Ian pointed out a study, a morning room, and a door under the stairwell that concealed the servants’ stairway, leading down to the kitchen, the household offices, and Dodsley’s and Cook’s rooms.

  As they ascended the stairs to the first-floor landing, Ian indicated the general arrangements of the rooms: a music room, the gallery, the drawing rooms. The second floor was devoted solely to bedrooms, family to the left and guests to the right. Most conveniently, Ian indicated Sophia’s bedroom. “Mama’s room is there at the end.” Ian waved his hand toward it. On the third floor were the nursery and the staff rooms.

  Ian had Tom’s talent for knowing all the household secrets: Dodsley loved opera and would sometimes play the piano and sing robustly in the music room (“with Mama’s permission, of course”). Cook was disappointed at not finding pistachios in London for any reasonable price because without them she was no longer able to make her famous lemon cake. His tutor Mr. Grange (who “smells of pickles”—Ian wrinkled his nose) pined after a squire’s daughter, but hadn’t the money to offer for her. Their lame cat Artemisia (“Papa named her for a plant”) liked to lie in the sun on the balcony outside his mother’s bedroom and pretend to catch birds, so Sophia left the door unlatched and open. Ian’s stories were useful and charming, though Aidan was certain Sophia would not have approved of her son’s easy confidences.

  Ian was so delighted to escort him to the nursery that Aidan fe
lt a twinge of conscience. He had accepted Ian’s offer for reasons other than a desire to get to know his ward better. Certainly the boy’s resemblance to Tom was too great for Aidan to refuse the boy’s request. But he also needed some time, having met Sophia, to plan his next move. Ian’s invitation gave him that time. It also allowed him to escape from the gaze of the ever-vigilant Dodsley and wander the house unimpeded. Aidan imagined that he would play soldier for a quarter hour or so, then begin his investigations. If he happened to run into a suspicious servant, he would simply claim to be lost.

  The nursery was painted, not the typical drab whitewash, but a pleasing terracotta that spoke of Ian’s Italian childhood. The walls were hung with botanical drawings. Aidan knew the most common—pansies, violets, roses, columbines—but others were more exotic.

  “Mama painted them,” Ian offered proudly. “I get them when she’s finished. I like that one best.” Ian pointed to an image labeled “Rosa chinensis.”

  Aidan knew it from his mother’s garden, the Mutabilis rose, with buds and flowers from yellow to salmon to red. He noticed the clarity of the line, the purity of the colors, the delicacy of the touch. From her early promise, Sophia had developed into an artist of sensitivity and skill.

  “Finished?” Aidan prompted.

  “Mama drew the illustrations for Papa’s botany books. After the engravers return the illustrations, I can have the ones I want. Papa gave me this one special before he died.”

  “They are quite lovely.” Aidan had attributed the easel in the library to an interest suitable to women of her class. Clearly it was far more important. Perhaps an interest in Sophia’s art would offer a way past her reserve? He stepped closer to examine the images.

  “She and Papa would sit in the loggia. In the morning he would translate and write, and she would draw the plants he was writing about.”

  “Really?” Aidan focused on Sophia’s drawings. He didn’t wish to hear about the companionability of the Wilmot marriage.

  “Then in the afternoon they would argue.”

  “Argue?” Aidan found himself more interested. “About what?”

  “Well, not an angry argue,” Ian clarified. “Papa always called it an intellectual disagreement. Mama would compare what he had written to the Latin and tell him how to make it better. Papa would quote something in Latin, and Mama would quote something back, until they found a new sentence they could agree on. Papa said Mama had the best mind of any man he knew.”

  Aidan knew Tom was right. Sophia’s agile intelligence had fascinated Aidan from the moment he’d found her translating Greek in her uncle’s garden. Her aunt’s opposition to her education had forced her to wrap her Greek dictionary in oilcloth and tuck it inside a lidded urn. But he shook off the memory. “Why do you like this one best?”

  “I like the hummingbird. Mama put it in the picture because I liked to feed them in the garden. Papa liked this one too. He always said it wasn’t fair that Mama could fix his work, but he could never fix hers. Her illustrations were always perfect. This is the only picture that Papa declared wasn’t perfect. So it was special.”

  Aidan looked back at the image, the strong lines, the delicate coloring. “Why isn’t it perfect?”

  “Hummingbirds don’t feed on roses.” Ian’s tone hinted that he expected an adult to have a better knowledge of the feeding habits of hummingbirds. “Mama had to make a second one for Papa’s book, but that one wasn’t nearly so good.”

  “Because it didn’t have a hummingbird?” Aidan speculated.

  “Yes.”

  Aidan found the conversation strange—and strangely compelling. He’d learned more about Sophia and Tom’s relationship in a few minutes than he had in all his years of questioning tourists. He now knew to seek out and follow her advice. He was going to become indispensable to her, as necessary as light and water to her precious plants, then he would withdraw and leave her bereft. Missing his companionship as much as his touch. Abandoned, as he had been.

  Aidan turned from looking at the pictures in time to catch the boy wiping a tear on his sleeve, and he was moved to compassion. Whatever Aidan’s business with the mother, the boy deserved kindness. “Thank you for showing the pictures to me, Ian. Now, where are those soldiers?”

  Ian’s face brightened. He pointed to the far corner of the large room. There on a low table, toy soldiers stood on a thick green cloth. Tufts of fabric bunched up under the green created hills and valleys, and blue cloth cutouts set on top signified rivers and oceans.

  In the shape of his face, Ian looked far more like Sophia, but he resembled Tom in his mannerisms, the way that he tucked his head to the side when thinking or his way of looking into the distance when planning. Even his sighs were colored with Tom’s inflections, so that Aidan could easily forget the years and imagine himself with Tom once more, playing soldiers before either of them knew what losses soldiers face.

  But Ian’s ability to think strategically far surpassed Tom’s at the same age. Tom had hated to lose even a single soldier. He would work so hard to save each one that he would often find himself surrounded or otherwise lose the game. Ian knew he would sustain losses, but worked to minimize them.

  Aidan quickly realized that he wouldn’t be able to offer the game only half of his mind, lest he lose the battle and change the course of English history. Soon he was embroiled in a game of strategy with a sharp-minded boy. When Sophia came to the nursery to see if Aidan needed to be rescued, he was surprised to realize over an hour had passed.

  “Oh, Mama, please, not yet.” Ian’s disappointment surprisingly mirrored Aidan’s own.

  “If you would like, Ian, I could come by tomorrow, and we can enact another battle.” Aidan spoke without thinking.

  Joyful, Ian turned his face up to his mother. “Would that be acceptable, Mama?”

  Aidan nodded his willingness, and Sophia, seeing his acknowledgment, smiled broadly at Ian. “Of course it’s acceptable. His grace will send us a note letting us know when to expect him.”

  Aidan stood and offered Ian his hand. “Excellent battle, Commander; we meet on the battlefield tomorrow.”

  * * *

  On the way back to the main floor, Aidan stopped on the landing in front of the large Palladian windows to look out over the garden. “I believe we still have much to discuss.”

  Sophia felt her knees weaken, but her hand on the stair railing steadied her. So, he had not forgotten their past, but only delayed broaching the subject. She felt the pressure of her heart heavy in her chest. The silence extended between them for several moments, but she ignored the growing quiet, waiting until she could speak deliberately.

  “Certainly, your grace. Would you like to return to the library?”

  “Not your grace . . . Aidan.” He gave a distant smile. “We were all so young, even children together. Surely—if nothing else does—that gives you the right of my name.” He turned down the final set of stairs.

  “Then . . . Aidan . . . what remains for us to discuss?” She braced herself for his answer, keeping her eyes on the stairs as they descended.

  “The past and the future,” he offered enigmatically.

  She swallowed, waiting for the next sentence.

  “And by that of course, I mean Tom and Ian. . . .”

  She felt relief and disappointment in the same moment. So, they were to be cordial, ignoring the passion that had once connected them. But she had little time to consider the implications of that position; Aidan had continued speaking.

  “Should we conclude our discussion of the guardianship now? Or would some other time be more convenient?”

  Sophia thought of her preparations, her clothes, her hair, the air of distance she’d worked to maintain. Waiting would gain her nothing but more anxiety. “Perhaps we should make some preliminary decisions.”

  Aidan held open the library door, and she entered, walking once more to the middle chair on the assumption he would again pick the couch. This time, Aidan chose the cha
ir next to hers. She tensed.

  “I can see why you wish to keep Ian here rather than send him to Harrow. He is sociable, but there is something . . .” Aidan’s tone remained pleasantly cordial.

  “Like Tom.” Sophia hoped spending time in the nursery had changed Aidan’s perspective on Ian.

  “Yes, like Tom. In his manner.”

  “Tom would have hated Harrow, had you not been there.” She allowed herself to relax slightly. “Ian is not ready to have to work so hard to make friends or to be isolated from family.”

  “I can see that. We will keep him with a tutor this year. But I still wish to introduce him to boys already at Harrow, so that he has friends once he is there.”

  Sophia felt such relief that her body seemed to have lost all its sinews. “I’m pleased you agree that’s the wiser course.”

  “I’m even willing to leave him with you for the rest of the summer. I have a house not far from here; I could easily see him when I’m in town. At some point he might benefit from spending time on the ducal estate, but there’s no hurry.” His voice was low, confidential, his body leaning toward her just slightly. “Whatever Tom might have imagined, it is for the two of us to decide.”

  Sophia was surprised; he offered her everything she had wished for. All she had to do was agree.

  Then she remembered the look of joy on Ian’s face and the weight of Tom’s letter in her hand. “Delaying Harrow for a year is best. As for the other, I had hoped to convince you to let him stay with me, but, seeing him with you . . . knowing that Tom talked about you to him, that Tom chose you to stand in his stead as father. Much as I will miss him, Ian should go with you. He needs more than a mother now.”