by Abby Ayles
The dowager duchess was now deteriorating quickly in her older age. Lady Abigail suspected, with the loss of her husband a few years back, her mother had since lost much of the light in her life.
Lady Abigail’s parents could not have been more opposite creatures. Not only were they different in manners and personality, but there was a very vast age difference. For an outsider to look in on their marriage, it would have been assumed the arrangement was made for practical purposes.
It was well known, however, by all the late duke and dowager duchess’s children that their parents did, in fact, have a deep affection for each other.
“Abigail is not very happy to see that the gentlemen invited tonight are not of her preference,” the duchess explained to her mother-in-law.
“Your brother hopes better for you than a common militiaman,” Lady Abigail’s mother explained.
Lady Abigail didn’t like this response, nor did she look forward to the idea of her overly protective brother choosing dinner guests in the future.
“Don’t worry,” the duchess said, taking her sister-in-law’s hand and patting it softly. “Soon, the season will be upon us. You will have more suitors than you know what to do with.”
It was an accurate statement that, due to Lady Abigail’s beauty, she caught the eye of many potential suitors during her time in London each year. What was upsetting to her was that, so far, no one had caught her eye in return.
Lady Abigail brushed a rust-colored ringlet back from her shoulder. It was an act of irritation that both the duchess and Lady Abigail’s mother knew well.
“I have to say, I am surprised that His Grace is allowing you to go at all,” Lady Abigail said with emphasis on her brother’s proper title.
The duchess patted her belly that was beginning to show the swell of life beneath.
“ I have plenty of time before this little one comes. I have been away from London for so long, I could not bear to spend another season away. And as for the duke,” she said with a raised brow, “I did not ask. I merely announced my intentions.”
All three ladies laughed at this. They had become quite a close trio with all the time they had spent together over the last four years.
Though up until now the duchess had chosen to stay home with her young children, Lady Abigail and her mother had still attended the season at their lavish city house. They always came home in time to spend the remainder of the year with the duke, duchess, their ever-growing family, and the late Lord James Grant’s daughter, Jaqueline De’belmount.
“You will give my best to my sister, won't you?" Lady Abigail’s mother asked after they all contained their rather girlish giggles.
“Of course I will,” Lady Abigail assured her mother.
Lady Abigail rather looked forward to her time each year in London, less for the prospects and more for time with her favorite cousin, Lady Fortuna Rosh. She dearly loved this extension of her family and, in times past, had spent many weeks visiting with her uncle and aunt, the Marquess and Marchioness of Huntington.
“I do wish you would come though, Mother," Lady Abigail added.
“I am not feeling at all up to it this year. Plus, with all three of my grandchildren staying here at Wintercrest, I dare say I will be much happier to have them about than the ladies of the town.”
“I must confess, I am happy to have you here with them too,” the duchess added. “It will be my first time away from the twins. I didn’t think I could do it but knowing you will be with them brings me comfort.”
“Remember you said that, my dear, for when you return, you may find them entirely spoiled,” Lady Abigail's mother said with a happy glow around her aging face.
Lady Abigail couldn’t help but notice that, despite the wrinkles that now curled around her brown eyes and the large amounts of silver hair that glowed in the light of candles, her mother was still a gorgeous woman.
Chapter 2
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go,” the duke said the following night as the whole household sat around the fire.
“Don’t worry, my love,” the duchess reassured her husband. “I will be able to go to town and return home at the end of the season all before this little one is even ready to come out.”
“But the twins came early. What if that happens again?”
“It has only been two months since we discovered the pregnancy. I can’t imagine that this child will make its debut so vastly early as to arrive in London.”
“Still, all this traveling in your condition makes me nervous,” the duke said, taking his wife’s hand and kissing it gently.
“I don’t want to go to town just for myself, but also for Abigail. With your mother not feeling up to it this year, she will need a chaperone.”
“I can be her chaperone,” the duke retorted.
Isabella had to smile at this idea. Protecting Lady Abigail from having her brother as her chaperone was what she had meant. She loved her husband dearly, but he was far too protective of his younger sister.
Not to mention the fact that there would be many instances where Lady Abigail would be in need of a female chaperone to make her way among afternoon parties with other ladies. Finding your place was just as much dependent on these social gatherings as the more commonly thought of balls and large evening events.
“I think it will be more to her comfort if I am there with her,” the duchess tried to explain as efficiently as possible to her husband.
She watched the fire glow reflected off his red hair as he swiveled his look from his wife on the couch to his sister sitting at a distant table with the twins. His angular face darkened as he tried to make sense of her meaning.
“I am not that horrible,” he said once all the lines connected in his head.
“My love, were you not there at last night’s dinner party? Could you not have invited at least one gentleman for Abigail to have found even an ounce of interest in?”
“She is far too good for a militiaman,” the duke retorted.
“I didn’t mean for her to marry, though I would be happy for her no matter what vocation the person she chooses to marry has. She is young and in want of some excitement. I fear, with just you taking her to London, her whole season would be much like that dinner party.”
“It’s just hard for me. She is my little sister, after all.”
“I know,” the duchess said softly, touching her husband’s cheek. “I fear the day that Elisabeth comes of age. Even Jackie, for that matter,” Isabella added with a smile.
The duke looked at the whole of his family in the drawing room. Though Jackie was his niece, he had treated her as if she was his own daughter and not just his ward to take care of. He could scarcely imagine his own behavior when the time came for either Jackie or his darling little Elisabeth.
Lady Abigail couldn’t help but sneak a peek at her brother and his wife as they spoke on the couch by the fire. Though their relationship had begun on unsure waters, it had blossomed into something wonderful.
As Isabella ran a soft hand along her husband’s face, Lady Abigail felt that pang of wistfulness deep inside her heart. She wondered if she, too, would ever find someone that she could look upon with such love and admiration as her sister-in-law did on her brother.
“Lord James, Lady Elisabeth,” the children’s governess, Miss Smith, called from her seat. “It is just about time to retire to bed.”
The announcement woke Lady Abigail from her wishful thinking. Her young niece and nephew’s governess was a very time efficient lady. Everything seemed to run on an exact schedule.
Lady Abigail expected it was a necessity when dealing with two children of the same age. Not only did that mean double the mischief, but they also seemed to have a unique connection between them that often led to more trouble.
Miss Smith had taken over the task of educating Miss Jackie after the previous governess had found a better situation. That, of course, was the Duchess of Wintercrest. Though the twins
were still too young for formal education, Miss Smith had happily taken on the task of including them whenever possible.
“Aunt Abigail, will you read to us before we have to go to bed?” James asked in his sweet voice.
Lady Abigail saw that Elisabeth already had a book in hand for her to read to them.
“We only have but a moment. I would hate to make Miss Smith cross,” Lady Abigail said, taking the book from the little hand.
“Do come read it over here, so we may all hear it,” Lady Abigail’s mother called from her seat close to the fire.
Lady Abigail did as she was bid. With a child on either side, she walked over and sat before the fire.
Jackie, too, who was at first playing the piano, also stopped to come and listen. She happily took the spot next to her grandmother.
Sitting on the floor near the warm glow of the fire, Lady Abigail began to read. It was an enjoyable pastime that the family participated in each night.
The twins, and even Jackie, though she felt herself now too old to admit it, loved when Lady Abigail read to them.
She always did it with the most animated of voices and emotions that it quite nearly brought the stories right off the pages of the book.
By the end of the week, matters between the duke and duchess were all settled and the pair, along with Lady Abigail, were setting out on the long journey to town.
The duchess tried her best to hide her tears as she kissed her children goodbye. Though it might have been a very usual thing for a duchess to leave her children to see to social duties, it was not something Isabella did.
Of course, though the duchess knew that her children would be more than well cared for in the hands of her mother-in-law and Jackie, she was still torn by the thought of leaving them. The added emotions that came with her pregnancy didn’t seem to help the matter much.
“I received a letter from Fortuna yesterday,” Lady Abigail said once they were all seated in the carriage and away down the road.
Lady Abigail hoped that some exciting conversation might help distract her sister-in-law from her sorrowful feelings.
“How lovely,” the duchess said, doing her best to put on a brave face. “Did she have anything of interest to say?”
Isabella was happy for the distraction, just as much as Lady Abigail was for giving it.
“They have already arrived in London. With the weather being so warm, they went early this year.”
The duke and duchess both looked out their windows at this, almost to confirm that it was, in fact, unusually warm for the time of year.
“Aunt Amelia has invited us all over for dinner at our earliest convenience.”
“That was very kind of her,” Isabella responded. “I have been looking forward to meeting these relations that I have heard so much about over the years.”
“You will really like Fortuna, I think,” Lady Abigail continued, now falling into an ease of conversation. “She is very much like Lady Louisa.”
“How so?” the duchess asked, intrigued.
They spent the remainder of the day describing every last detail of the relatives Isabella was soon to meet. The duchess was always happy to meet the family of her husband, as she was very limited in her own.
Lady Louisa Frasier and her family had often taken Isabella under their wing as her only family, since her father, the Baron Leinster, had often been away attending to business before his passing. The Frasiers were the closest thing that Isabella had ever had to family dynamics.
When she and the duke had married, she was joyful to find that she was welcomed with open arms into not just his heart, but the whole of his household and family.
“Perhaps we should plan our own event,” Lady Abigail said, after a time. “We could invite Lord and Lady Gilchrist, as well as our aunt and uncle. I think we would all get on as such a happy party.”
“I think that would be a splendid idea,” the duchess agreed.
“It seems to me,” interjected the duke, who, for the most part, had kept to observing the scenery as they went along the road, “that it might be a lot of work for someone who promised to take it easy.”
The duchess waved him off as a silly man.
“It will give me something to occupy my mind with.”
For the next three days, as the trio traveled from the estate up north to the prestigious house in London, Lady Abigail and the duchess were hard at work making plans for a beautiful dinner party.
Arriving, finally, at their destination, both women could honestly say they would be happy never to sit in another carriage again. They made their way into the home already opened and prepared for their arrival, ready for a peaceful day of relaxation and recuperation.
“Perhaps both you ladies should retire early for the night,” the duke said as the carriage arrived at the house at dusk.
“I promised Louisa I would send her a note as soon as I got here.”
The duke didn’t like his wife’s answer to his suggestion, but allowed it nonetheless. He therefore had some tea brought into the evening sitting room so she could write her letter and regain some energy from the refreshments.
“I thought I might call on my aunt tomorrow,” Lady Abigail said between sips of tea. “I'm sure she would be happy to see you, Christian, and meet you, Isabella, if you’re feeling up to it.”
“Well, I think after talking about them for three days, I can’t bear to go much longer without meeting them,” Isabella said as she finished her letter and folded it for a servant to deliver.
Normally Isabella would have just waited to put it with the post, but since Lady Louisa seemed most anxious to know that Isabella was safely in London, she thought it best to have it taken to the Frasier household right away.
“And perhaps we could take a walk around the park, too,” Lady Abigail added.
“Perhaps it’s best to stick to one event at a time,” the duke admonished.
“You’re a ball of fun,” his sister retorted back in a teasing fashion.
“Yes, well you know how much your brother loves to spend the season in town,” the duchess added to the jeering.
“Well, I would guess that you just want to catch the next gig race,” the duke retorted to his sister with a raised red brow. “I am not at all certain that it’s a very good idea for you.”
“Why, because ladies should be abashed by such behavior?” Lady Abigail retorted.
“No, because I fear you might climb into one and show them all up. Then I would have to write to Mother and explain why her daughter is now a pariah.”
“You wouldn’t do that, would you?” the duchess asked Lady Abigail.
It was not at all shocking to hear that Lady Abigail wanted to attend a race, but to be a part of one seemed like an even more drastic line to cross than she could imagine for her sister-in-law.
“I may have done it, once before. But that was at Fortuna’s house and in a basket, not a gig,” Lady Abigail corrected her brother.
“Yes, well, things are different when you are in London. You are also a very prestigious member of the town, whether you want it or not, and that comes with more judgmental appraisals.”
“This is not my first time, Christian. I am well aware of the conduct I must follow.”
“ I don’t think you do fully understand,” the duke retorted. He should have uttered it in a reprimanding tone, but instead, he wore a smirk of pride.
The duke detested the time in town because, unlike his sister who still had a bit of leeway to enjoy herself, he had to act exactly as expected of someone of his social status.
“Do try not to make too big a spectacle of yourself this year, Abigail,” the duke finally sighed.
“Of course not, dear brother. Plus, Isabella will keep me in line, won't you?”
It was right that, of the trio, the duchess was the one most keen to sensibility and propriety. She sincerely hoped that she could instill some of those values in Lady Abigail without disrupting her free spirit too much
.
Chapter 3
Lady Abigail couldn’t have been more excited to see her cousin. Though it had scarcely been a year since seeing Lady Fortuna Rosh last, it still seemed too long to Lady Abigail.
The two cousins had grown up as close friends since childhood. There was not much that happened to one that the other did not know about.
The Duchess of Wintercrest was a little nervous to meet the family she had heard such great praise about, from both Lady Abigail and her husband.
“Oh, Abigail, I’ve missed you so,” Lady Huntington said as she hugged her niece. “And Christian, look at you," she added, raising a hand to a plump, rosy cheek at the appearance of her nephew. “You have grown into quite a man. How long has it been?”
The duke happily took his aunt's hand and kissed it lovingly. Lady Huntington blushed an even more profound crimson as the small ringlets encircling her face shook with her giggles.
“And Your Grace, of course, it is lovely to finally make your acquaintance,” Lady Huntington said as the duke introduced his wife.
“I must confess, poor Isabella must feel as if she knows you already, dear aunt,” Lady Abigail said as they all entered the home and came to sit in the morning room. “I about chewed her ear off the whole way from Wintercrest.”
“Where is Fortuna?” Lady Abigail asked when her cousin did not greet her or appear in the sitting room.
“She went out already this morning. It was a little early if you ask me, but she insisted on going with Josie to pick out the fabric.”
“Fabric for what?” Lady Abigail asked as she took a seat on a mint-colored couch.
The whole room was decorated in a soft green color with gold accents all around. Between that and the excellent light coming in through the window, it gave the room an air of freshness that would brighten even the saddest of moods.
“I will have to let her tell you. She is quite excited about it,” Lady Huntington said before beginning to pour the tea set before them.
Lady Abigail enjoyed the company of her aunt as she drank her delicate morning tea and ate moist muffins. The whole party, including her brother, seemed utterly at ease as they shared stories of memories from the past.
