A Cinderella for the Duke

by Abby Ayles

She nodded once and then slipped out of the door.

  Chapter 23

  Lady Louisa stood in the fairly empty hall for just a few moments. No one had noticed her exit from the room. She was sure if she was the one to open the other door and enter the ballroom all eyes would fall on her.

  * * *

  Why would he not care that entering the ballroom after she left the same door would already cause suspicion from any of the matrons in the room? Those ladies never missed a thing. Perhaps men did not realize things like that.

  * * *

  Lady Louisa straightened out her skirts and touched her hair to make sure it was still perfectly in place as Bess had done. She had never experienced anything like that in her life and rather felt like she was waking from a dream.

  * * *

  Never had a gentleman shown any interest in the plan wallflower that was Lady Louisa. Perhaps if she had attended a masquerade ball sooner in life, she would have found this more daring side of herself.

  * * *

  Taking steading breaths, she made her way down the hall and back towards the sounds of voices and music in the magnificent ballroom. She was already feeling the butterflies of anticipation at meeting the man again.

  * * *

  He would be easy to spot. He was likely to be the only one in such a full mask. Though death masks with their long pointed noses were a popular masculine choice for men, even if someone wore the same one as he did, she would still be able to easily spot that tall frame and square chin.

  * * *

  She entered the room and scanned it for just a second. She wanted to make sure she could see her aunt and cousins and stay far away from them for the dance. She finally laid eyes on the large array of peacock feathers.

  * * *

  However, her attention was drawn to the table of punch almost immediately. There he was standing, waiting for her arrival. She couldn’t help but notice several people watching him and whispering. Had it been noticed her going in and his coming out of that door.

  * * *

  She hesitated to go to him, though her body protested the inaction. It was visibly obvious that people were taking notice of him. Then she watched as an elderly gentleman walked up to him and spoke in a quick, quiet tone.

  * * *

  Lady Louisa recognized the man at once as Mr.

  * * *

  Vaughan. Then the masked man put a reassuring hand on Mr. Vaughan’s shoulder and seemed to laugh off his words. Lady Louisa was beginning to see a very close familiarity between the two that made her stomach turn.

  * * *

  With each passing second, the puzzle pieces were coming together. She had seen that tall frame before, heard that deep luxurious voice. What seemed to seal the deal for her was when the gentleman turned to speak to one introduced to him by Mr. Vaughan. He had long hair that seemed to shine black ebony in the light tied back with a simple ribbon.

  * * *

  She was sure. The mysterious man she had just spent the last half hour flirting with was none other than the Duke of Rowland. She couldn’t believe herself. How had she not seen it before? With every motion and mannerism, he screamed recognition.

  * * *

  She started to panic and backed out of the room. In the process, she accidently backed into someone. A loud yelp resounded that caught the attention of those around them. Lady Louisa turned and apologized profusely to the young lady that she had trampled on.

  * * *

  Turning back around, she saw the Duke too had caught the act, and when her eyes reached his face, he smiled in satisfaction. She shook her head in dread.

  * * *

  Instantly the smile that had spread on his face faltered. He took a few steps towards her, seeming to know that she was about to run.

  * * *

  Run she did. She turned on her heels and as quick as she could she removed herself from the room. It was not an easy task for a lady with so many skirts to consider. She was sure that the Duke would overtake her flee. She would not look back, however.

  * * *

  She couldn’t bear to let the Duke know who she actually was. He would be so appalled to know. She was sure she should have felt shocked at the knowledge as well.

  * * *

  Instead, she was sure her heart was breaking with each step that she took. This had been the first and only time in her life she could honestly say that she felt the excitement of budding romance and now she was going to run from it.

  * * *

  She was almost to the front door when she heard the pursuing steps behind her. She couldn’t stop, however. Luckily a man was at the door and opened it for her.

  * * *

  Only once did she hear the Duke call out, “Wait!” before she was out in the clear air of the night.

  * * *

  She didn’t stop there either. She had assured Mr. Johnson she would take the carriage home with her aunt not wanting to make him wait with the cart all night. Now she was regretting that decision.

  * * *

  She stepped quickly down the stone steps and turned sharp right to hid behind the line of bushes on the side. She had just made it behind the rose shrubs when a second figure burst from the doors.

  * * *

  The Duke of Rowland removed his mask to see into the night clearer. He took a few steps down the stairs and looked over to the stables of waiting carriages. Perhaps he would see her vehicle go by and stop her.

  * * *

  He could see his own air in the chill of the night as it came in and out in short bursts. Evidently, the lady had realized who he was when she entered the ballroom. The recognition read all over her face. Why had that made her run?

  * * *

  For the first time in his life, he had met someone that brought such a turmoil of emotions and simultaneously she was the only one to run away from him.

  * * *

  He waited on the steps a few moments longer sure that she couldn’t have gone too far. Inevitably she would appear at any moment. But it never happened.

  * * *

  “Rowland,” a deep husky voice called from behind him. Rowland turned to see his uncle in the doorway. “First you disappear for almost an hour. Then right in the middle of Lady Ludlow’s words, you bolt from the ballroom. What is going on?”

  * * *

  “I saw someone,” Rowland responded still half dazed by it all.

  * * *

  “Someone? What do you mean someone?”

  * * *

  “Not just someone, Uncle James. The someone. I believe I have found her!” Rowland said gripping his uncle by both shoulders.

  * * *

  “You are acting quite mad, tonight,” Mr. Vaughan said, put off by the outburst.

  * * *

  “I’m trying to tell you, Uncle. I have found her. The girl I am destined to marry.”

  * * *

  “Well, then where is she?”

  * * *

  “She left.”

  * * *

  “Left?”

  * * *

  “Yes. She ran.”

  * * *

  “Why would she run?” Mr. Vaughan asked skeptically. “I don’t know,” Rowland said in a voice that drifted off.

  * * *

  “Well, what is her name. Perhaps she got scared or had to leave. We can certainly call on her on the morrow,” Mr. Vaughan said happily seeing this lovesick look in his nephew's eyes.

  * * *

  “I don’t know,” Rowland repeated. He turned to his uncle and looked him straight on. “She never told me her name.”

  * * *

  “You are talking nonsense, nephew. Come inside. There is a hall full of eligible ladies more than willing to run towards you, not away.”

  * * *

  Mr. Vaughan shook his head at his nephews confusing actions. With an arm around Rowland's shoulders, he eased him to return to the house.

  * * *

  “She was the one, I am sure of it,” Rowland whispe
red before donning his mask back on and returning inside with his uncle.

  * * *

  Lady Louisa waited hidden behind the shrubbery until she was sure that the Duke was gone. She had heard every word of that conversation. Undoubtedly the man was mistaken she thought as she unclasped her own mouth. She had feared that her own breath could give her hiding spot away. Timidly she stepped from behind the bushes checking to see that she was indeed alone at the front of the house.

  * * *

  With little word or fanfare, she began the walk back to her own residence. In the beginning, she turned several times upon hearing sounds. She so feared that the Duke might reappear and discover her true identity.

  * * *

  Soon she turned a bend blocking her view from the house, and in the still darkness, she concentrated hard on the ground before her. There was little moonlight to guide her path.

  * * *

  Luckily she had already made this walk several times when she came to learn at the side of Mrs. Vance. Even still there was the need to remove her mask which obscured her own view a bit.

  * * *

  She puzzled as she walked briskly in the chilled air how she didn’t realize it was the Duke from the moment she had slipped into the office. It was so obvious now that she knew his identity.

  * * *

  More puzzling was the fact that he had confused her with a beautiful enchantress and not the plain lady that he greatly disliked. She reminded herself that she had exceedingly disliked him as well.

  * * *

  How that had changed when she spoke with him with no pre-knowledge of his character. In fact, she had quite fallen for him at that moment. It was a fleeting emotion; she tried to remind herself. Nothing more than a mistake.

  * * *

  It also didn’t need to be mentioned that her sole purpose of coming to the country was to make amends with her aunts. Though she had not been successful in this task, she strongly doubted that informing the Duke that she was the woman he had just vowed to wed would bode well with either Lady Hendrickson or Miss Elisabeth.

  * * *

  For that reason alone she was determined to keep her identity this night a secret from the Duke. Certainly, the emotion would be fleeting for him as well. No doubt he already found interest in another upon returning to the party.

  * * *

  No, there would be no reason to inform the Duke that she was the woman in the green dress when it would only cause more strife and turmoil between her family and her aunts. Instead, she would return to Mentheith House and pretend like the encounter never occurred.

  * * *

  She would swear Bess and Mr. Johnson to silence. They would never speak of her absence from the house this night if she asked them not to. She would continue the plan she had made before the debacle with the Duke ever occurred. Within a week’s time, she would return to London and leave every memory of this place behind her.

  Chapter 24

  Lady Louisa retired to bed long before the other ladies of the house returned from the ball. Consequentially, she also rose much earlier than the others. She rather enjoyed the peaceful breakfast she had alone in the morning room and then settled herself in the drawing room to do some mending while she waited for the rest of her relations to waken.

  * * *

  Lady Louisa had already begun to make her plans to return to London that very morning. First, she sent a letter to her mother informing the Dowager Countess that she would be coming home shortly.

  * * *

  Next, she asked Mr. Johnson to procure coach times so as to ascertain her earliest departure. She would have been quite fine if she could have left that very morning so much was she dreading seeing her aunt and Miss Elisabeth again.

  * * *

  Not only did Lady Louisa still feel a great amount of amenity towards them for the ridiculously rude behavior before the ball, but she also had no desire to hear the two talk incessantly of the night.

  * * *

  Lady Louisa was still in the process of reconciling what had occurred to her at the ball and make sense of the swirl of emotion it had caused within herself.

  * * *

  Unfortunately leaving before the rest of the house was even awake was not something that Lady Louisa could do. For starts, it would take much more time to prepare for such a trip. Secondly, though she didn’t feel much gravitate towards her aunt as host, Lady Louisa’s upbringing would not allow her to leave without a proper goodbye to her hostess.

  * * *

  So it was that by mid-afternoon the rest of the household was fully awake and breakfasted. Even at such a late hour of the day, all three were still quite groggy from the night's adventure. It was one of the quietest afternoons that Lady Louisa had ever experienced in Mentheith House.

  * * *

  “I want to know who this supposed mystery woman is that everyone kept gabbing on about last night,” Lady Hendrickson said after a time.

  * * *

  Lady Louisa was just about to excuse herself from the group and see to the needs of the garden; she decided against it when the conversation turned to the ball and unknown guest.

  * * *

  “Someone of little consequence if you ask me,” Miss Elisabeth said with a flick of her hand.

  * * *

  “I would not be so quick to brush the event off,” Lady Hendrickson scolded. “It is rumored that the Duke was quite taken by her. He even chased her out the door.” “Chased is my point, Mother. Whatever lady is mental enough to run from the Duke of Rowland is not worth the discussion.”

  * * *

  “Colonel Jasper said that the Duke spoke of nothing else but finding her identity the rest of the night,” Miss Mary chimed in. “He even told me that the Duke has vowed to marry the lady when he learns of her name.”

  * * *

  “I can’t believe such things. And why would Colonel tell you anyway?” Miss Elisabeth said in an accusatory fashion.

  * * *

  Miss Mary’s gaze fell immediately to her hands in her lap.

  * * *

  “Don’t be so cross with your sister,” Lady Hendrickson scolded her daughter.

  * * *

  It brought a shocked look from every member of the room.

  * * *

  “She did us a great service last night,” Lady

  * * *

  Hendrickson continued. “She kept the attention of the Colonel since Louisa was sadly not able to attend,” she said without even looking in Lady Louisa’s direction. “She had even secured the promise of a family dinner with the Duke and his house guest here at Mentheith House.”

  * * *

  “How wonderfully exciting for you all,” Lady Louisa said. “It sounds like the night was a most eventful one.”

  * * *

  “I wish you could have seen it,” Miss Mary said gaining back some of her will to talk. “The house just looked marvelous. The dancing was divine too. When the Duke ran out after that lady,” she trialed off. “I dare say it was the most romantic thing I have ever seen,” she finished.

  * * *

  “Hardly,” Miss Elisabeth scoffed though softer now with her mother’s scolding. “I bet you anything it was simply an unenvied guest, and the Duke was chasing her off.”

  * * *

  Even Lady Hendrickson gave her daughter a look that said she highly doubted it.

  * * *

  “Frankly, my dear,” Lady Hendrickson said with her chin in the air, “I think you are underestimating the problem this little mystery can cause us. Up until last night, it was almost clear that he was nearly about to propose. Now his mind has seemed to travel elsewhere.”

  * * *

  “What am I to do about that?” Miss Elisabeth said in a whine.

  * * *

  “It’s really simple, my dear,” Lady Hendrickson replied. “You simply must remind him that the real one in front of him is far superior to a fantasy girl that he concocts in his head.”

 
* * *