by Matilda Hart
On the other side of the ballroom, Emil tried to dodge various conversations in hopes of locating his fiancé. The questions that he entertained were inane; mostly about what his business prospects were for the future and how he planned to tame his headstrong future wife. In his own mind, Emil knew that he never would want to tame her, because then she wouldn’t be the exquisite woman that he was in love with.
Finally he saw her there, engaged in a perfunctory dance with Mr. Eldridge. Poor Joan, he thought to himself. He had to get her out of that situation, and fast.
“I never thought someone would take you off the market, Joan.” Mr. Eldridge said as they danced around one another. “Such a forthright girl, you are.”
“Thank you.” Joan replied, knowing full well it wasn’t meant to be a compliment.
“But I must tell you, dear.” Mr. Eldridge pulled Joan in close to whisper something in her ear. “The engagement is the fun part. And the honeymoon. It’s a whole different story after that.” He said, looking over at his wife who was sneering at him from across the room.
Joan couldn’t take it anymore.
“Would you excuse me, Mr. Eldridge. I need a breath of fresh air.” Joan said.
“Don’t stray too far.” He yelled off after her, but she was already halfway out the door and making her way to the veranda. From across the room, Emil saw her courageous exit, and began to follow her towards the gardens immediately.
It was all like deja vu. Joan ran with incredible force and began stripping off her jewels and haphazardly throwing them into the bushes. Then she managed to undo her corset after ripping off her heavy reticule. Instantly she felt as though she could breathe for the first time all evening.
Joan kept running, doubts flooding her head and reminisces about being a young girl who had run through those very gardens, never dreaming that one day she’d be encumbered by marriage or any man. She used to play and dance and fight there, by herself dreaming of exploring the world, or with her Lost Boys who were her greatest friends; just as free-spirited as herself. She began to wonder if she would never again feel that freedom that she once felt.
Joan felt an overwhelming need to go the rose garden. At that time of year the garden would be fragrant with perfume, and she wanted the aroma to soothe her and flood her anxiety-ridden spirit. After several twists and turns, she saw the gates to the garden ahead and proceeded with speed. Scarcely had she placed one step inside then she came crashing into a towering figure who caught her before she fell.
“Heavens.” Joan exclaimed.
“Ha! I do feel like we’ve found ourselves in this situation before.” Emil said in surprise. “I expected to find you here, but I never dreamed it would be quite the same way that it was the first time.” There was a smile on his face.
Joan relaxed and let go into his arms.
“Are you trying to keep me from running away?” She asked.
“Of course I would want to, but I couldn’t ever. Anytime you feel like running, you should run.” He said, tenderly embracing her.
“You’re too good to me.” She said with a smile.
“I’m so grateful that I ran into you that night in the garden. I realize that had I not been running for the same reason, then we never would have collided. I’m a firm believer in running now.” The Duke explained.
Joan brought her lips up to his and gave him a loving and passionate kiss. For the very first time she knew clearly, without question, that marriage to Emil was not some sort of compromise; it was not the prison that she feared it might be. Marriage to Emil actually ensured her freedom. In fact, it ensured both of their freedoms.
Emil reached over and picked a white rose from one of the bushes, and handed it to her.
“Ah! These are the most beautiful roses in the world, did you know that?” Joan said, smelling the rose and drinking-in its perfume.
“All the most beautiful things come from France.” Emil said, looking at her with a sparkle in his eye.
“Lets see all the roses. They come in every color imaginable.” Joan said.
“You can start your own rose garden at my estate, you know. There’s no reason for you to ever feel homesick.” Emil said holding her hand in his.
“Yes, I would like that.” Joan said.
And as they strolled through the garden, hand-in-hand, they silently marveled at the marvelous blooms, bursting in pinks, yellows, whites, reds, and purples.
“Give me one moment.” Emil said, walking away briefly. Joan wondered what he might be up to, and waited patiently.
Moments went by and Emil returned with a bouquet of roses with each and every color represented.
“I realize I gave you a simple white rose, but each color has a meaning, you know. I thought that you should have one of each.” Emil explained.
“Because you were undecided and hoped to have all your options covered!” Joan teased.
“Because I feel every kind of love and friendship for you, Jane.” He said, handing her the bouquet.
“Duke Emil Lawrence, you are the greatest love of my life.” Joan said, receiving the bouquet.
“And you, mine. Joan the Beautiful.”
THE END
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Romanced by the Duke
Introduction
Caroline Tibbot is the daughter of merchants, and never expected to be married to a duke, much less the attractive, arrogant and brash Thomas Ecclestone, Duke of Durham. Sent to his estate against her wishes, Caroline still longs for her one dream to be fulfilled – to sail the oceans just as her parents did. Yet each day that she tries to escape her marriage is a day that shows her a new side to the young duke. In the end, she must choose between her dreams of adventure, and what many would consider a dream – being married to a handsome, rich duke who will giver her a life of luxury. Despite her stubbornness, she has been touched by the duke and must make the ultimate decision.
Chapter One
Caroline stared out of the small western window of her family’s modest house, searching out the horizon where the sun was dipping. The Welsh town of Ewole had always been her home, her entire life, a constant that barely contained her longing to explore beyond what she knew. She sighed, and pushed away a lock of her brown hair as a tear stubbornly caressed her cheek. Tired, she turned away as the sun set, and twilight descended, pausing to light a candle.
“I miss you, Mother,” she whispered.
Her eyes gradually adjusted to the weak light. She often wondered what was beyond the horizon, but she knew only from second hand stories the answer – or, at least, some of the answers. Caroline had grown up with maps, with the tales of distant shores and long journeys as part of her bedtime ritual. Her parents, Sarah and Edwin Tibbot, had traveled widely as part of Edwin’s business as a merchant. Sarah, however, was no mere bystander, no mere ornament to adorn her husband on these voyages. She worked hard and had an aptitude for a good business deal, accompanying her husband to important meetings where, with a casual whisper or prearranged code word, she guided Edwin into a prosperous position. They worked well together, Sarah had explained to her eldest daughter, simply because Sarah knew her perceived place and used it to her advantage. The m
en she dealt with did not think they had been outwitted until long after she had swept up the contracts in her pale hands, and beamed at them her broad smile. By the time her skirts had rustled out the door, she and Edwin were laughing quietly to themselves, planning their next venture.
Sarah’s death in childbirth four years earlier had left behind a husk of a man and three bewildered daughters. Caroline had been able to shake off the lethargy of her mourning after a while, enough to engage again in the rough and tumble of life. She had determined that she would not be cornered by life and by the blows that it dealt. She would not be constrained into circumstances that would diminish her sense of adventure. Caroline knew what she wanted – she wanted to sail, to plough through the ocean and to walk on the balmy shores of the West Indies, just like her mother.
“Caroline,” came a quiet voice, interrupting her thoughts. It was Edwin. Greying and unkempt, he shuffled into the room, like a man much older than himself. Their housekeeper, Mary, followed him, helping him sort his papers from one hand to the other as he slid into his favorite chair, where he would stay put until the dinner bell rang. A port was poured for him, which he initially sniffed at then sipped, before downing it and turning his attention to his daughter. “My dear, I have some news. News that concerns you.”
Caroline moved to the settee chair opposite him, noting that his eyes were fixed on her mother’s portrait on the wall, and that his fingers flicked agitatedly through his papers. “Yes, father? News, you say? Are you about to return to the Indies? Let me put your fears at rest. I can accompany you. Mary can look after Susannah and Beth.”
Edwin sighed in irritation. “Caroline, not this again.”
“Mother promised.” The words left her lips before she could correct herself. “Mother promised that she would take me on one of your trips when I was fifteen. I am now almost eighteen.”
“I know better than you what your mother promised! She promised many things, one of which was to stay by my side forever. The other was to raise our daughters as gentlewomen possessing grace and sense.” He paused, collecting himself and waving the glass for another port, which Mary obliged him with. “That latter promise may yet come to fulfillment.”
“I would journey with you wherever you would go, Father, and not leave your side.”
He snorted. “Just like your mother.”
“Yes.”
“I did not mean it as a compliment.” His eyes narrowed, and Caroline sensed the deliberate manner in which he was hurting her. He would not meet her gaze. “My news concerns what should be of immediate interest to a young woman of your age. I speak, of course, of your future husband.”
“I have no interest in a future husband.” Inside, she was fuming. There were still more horses to be ridden, paths to be explored, hills to be trod and games to be played. There were still horizons to be breached, and a world to be explored. “You know this. You have two other daughters who, if you would but display more patience, would be much more of the marriageable kind.”
Edwin sighed. “I still do not imagine what it is that I have done to deserve to be spoken to in this manner when I bear such good news about your future.”
“You know that the good news I long to hear concerns ships and sea and trade – not some man of mixed heritage and middling fortune.” She smiled despite herself, and caught a glimpse of a returned smile on her father’s face. He quickly wiped it away.
“’Middling fortune’, my dear? Oh, I have done for you much better than that. I have set my eye on a duke and many thousand pounds a year more than a middling marriage might achieve.”
“Father,” gasped Caroline, “just how much port have you had? A duke? Which new duke has the Prince Regent promoted after Waterloo? You must have acted fast, father, with friends at Court that I am unaware of – and yet this ‘duke’ has accepted your mild offering of myself? God’s truth, father, what duke would settle for a merchant’s daughter? Has the market price for marriage fallen so much with the peace? Or have the bulk of England’s women disappeared from the earth?”
“If only it were so, it would be a quieter realm!” Edwin scrunched the papers in his hand. “Yet here I have proof, if you need more than your father’s word, that the Duke of Durham, Thomas Ecclestone, is willing to take your hand in marriage.”
Caroline felt the force of his statement like a slap across her face. Involuntarily, she put her hand to her cheek, and then recovered herself.
“I will not.” She crossed her arms in defiance. “I will marry no man, not even a duke.”
There was a tremor in her father’s voice. “You have no choice, Caroline. Mary will pack your cases, and the duke’s carriage will arrive to take you to his summer residence at Whitby, the day after next. It is done.”
Caroline protested long into the next day, until she was hoarse from pleading and her father had retreated for safety from the storm into more port. Yet still the carriage arrived, her tears flowed, and she was pulled from the trembling arms of her sisters and bundled into the duke’s ornate carriage, sobbing and cursing her father’s mercenary nature that had landed him an outcome that would have even exceeded her mother’s nose for business.
Chapter Two
Over a week passed, and Caroline’s carriage sped through small villages and bustling towns, and cities such as Manchester, Leeds and York. To begin with, Caroline barely looked out her window. She was determined not to acknowledge each new view, each new smell or landscape. Upon stepping upon the threshold of each of the inns that she would spend the night, she sighed, looked down, and took her dinner in her room, barely acknowledging servants, patrons or fellow travelers as she passed them by.
Each night, she alternated between sobbing and gritting her teeth, screwing up her courage to enact the plan that the long days were allowing her to form in her spinning mind. A duke Thomas Ecclestone may be, and while a loveless marriage would not be unusual to a man of his standing, he would still require a duchess well suited to hosting balls, making small talk, and generally keeping the name of Ecclestone in good keeping. A surly, silent duchess would be to no one’s advantage. Caroline determined to be as unwelcoming, as sour, and as repellent as milk left out in the summer sun. She would repel the duke and, being a man of hasty decisions and a lazy, indolent nature (she did not know this, but assumed he was based on the contracted marriage he had made with a lowly merchant), she would be sent away in disgrace. She would be forgotten like the mist when the sun came out to reveal a breathtaking vista.
All Caroline needed was a suitable rival, one next to whom she would appear dowdy, sullen and tart. Someone who would help the Duke of Durham come to his senses and restore Caroline to her trajectory of adventure and travel by returning her via the long cross country journey she was currently enduring. She swore that on the return leg, she would take note of the wonders that were passing her by – but now, as the end approached, she steeled herself to resist the view and not take the risk of her temper being lulled by the wider world into even a hint of acceptance and familiarity.
Caroline nodded off, and was awoken by the carriage coming to a halt. She heard the coachmen descend, and rap on the carriage door. She pulled back the small curtain, and the sweaty face of the coachman quickly lowered his eyes, and mumbled something that Caroline could not hear. She opened the door, and a breeze that smelt fresh, salty, and full of vigor caressed her, filling the small space of the carriage with its essence. The coachman remained stiffly bowed.
“Could you say that again, sir?” she asked.
The coachman drew himself up, a smile crossing his lips. “’Sir?’ You are too polite, Miss, too polite. You can call me Wilkinson.” He doffed his cap in a hurry, and blushed from forgetting to do so earlier. His age was hard to determine, but Caroline guessed that he was in his late thirties. “Miss, we’re about a mile out. Soon we’ll approach the avenue, and then we’ll be at the Broad House. I thought you’d like to know, so you could get yourself ready to meet His Grace.”<
br />
She nodded, but before she remembered that she was supposed to be sullen and silent, one question tumbled out. “Wilkinson, what’s the Duke – His Grace – like?”
“To look at he is a fine man. Not tall. A well made man, the Duke. He rides often, and rambles about the grounds.”
“Thank you,” she said, withdrawing back into the carriage, and after a few moments the carriage lurched forward with Wilkinson calling on the horses for one last push, and Caroline hoping for a last minute reprieve.
It was a flurry of activity once they reached the Broad House. Servants rushing hither and thither, pulling down luggage, opening doors, hands escorting her down the steps of the carriage, and then the lineup of the household as they parted, revealing Thomas Ecclestone, Duke of Durham, at the top of the stone steps.
He was as Wilkinson had described. “Well made”, was an apt description. Ecclestone was broad across the shoulders, angular, with a narrow waist and strong legs that filled out his breeches. His strong hands crossed in front of his waist, but what caught Caroline’s eye was his face. Ecclestone’s features were furrowed, his lips pursed, which would normally be off putting. Yet there was something about his face, something classical that drew her gaze. Then, when he saw that she was looking at him, his features relaxed and he smiled smugly, his eyes widened and she saw that they were a deep brown, like polished mahogany.
