“What happened that day?”
“I know that I just simply disappeared, and I was sure that your parents would never tell you exactly how it was that I came to be gone. I have always worried what you would have thought, how concerned you would have been, and yet I was powerless to do anything about it.” He paused for a moment, taking her arm and leading her to a seat by the fire. “Sit down, Georgie,” he said, and she did just that. “When he came for me, it was in the middle of the night.”
“Who came to you?”
“It was Garrett Winstanley.”
“Garrett Winstanley? Was that not your old attorney, the attorney of my father’s cousin also?”
“Yes, and he was a very fine man, despite what I am about to tell you.”
“Do go on.”
“I was in my little bed and fast asleep when your father came to get me. I remember the light from his candle in the darkness and how he gently placed a hand over my mouth when I began to speak. After all, the Baron had never come into my tiny little room before, and I was surprised to see him there, not to mention the fact that I was groggy from sleep. Without a word, I followed him silently through the corridors below stairs and then up the servants’ staircase. He led me through the house until we were in the entrance hall of Ashdown, a place I had never seen before in all the years that I had lived there. I remember thinking how wonderful it was, how spacious and warm and how cheerful, even though it was lit only by a handful of candles on that night.”
“You must have been so afraid.”
“I think at the time I was more confused than afraid, Georgie. I knew that the Baron was a good man, and I was certain that he would not hand me to somebody who meant to hurt me. And your mother was there too. She smiled at me kindly and told me to be a good boy. I was to go away with the man who had come to collect me, and that was that.”
“But did they not tell you who he was? Why he was there?”
“I wondered afterward if even they knew his name. The man I came to know as Garrett Winstanley hardly spoke to them in my presence, and I am bound to say that they seemed a little afraid of him. There was confusion in the air, and it was not all my own, at least that is what I think now when I look back down the years and try to separate that one memory from all the others.”
And so, Garrett Winstanley took you away from Ashdown Manor without a word of explanation?”
“Yes, that is precisely what happened.”
“And then, when I woke the next day, you were gone,” she said sadly.
“Yes.” He said and pulled the bell rope at the side of the fireplace. “I think I shall have some tea sent for.”
Chapter 11
“I can hardly believe that I have been able to make it through the rest of the afternoon and dinner, Georgina,” Fleur said when the two of them sat in their nightgowns on Georgina’s bed by the light of a single candle. “How hard it is to find a secret place to talk and the time in which to do so. I would never have imagined how difficult it is.”
When Georgina had returned to the tea room in Rowley to reunite with Fleur, she knew it would not be possible to tell her everything she knew in so public a place. Her appearance was certainly enough to tell Fleur that she had been greatly upset during the afternoon, but she dared not utter a word about it, and her cousin had immediately perceived the sense in such a decision.
They had also silently agreed not to discuss it on the journey home, for they could not risk the driver hearing any part, even though he was completely outside of the carriage in his driver’s seat.
No sooner had they returned home than it was time to dress for dinner, and so they had been thwarted once again. And dinner seemed to go on for an awfully long time at night, with both Felix and Jeremy in fine and talkative moods, not to mention full of inquiry as to why the two young women were not.
In the end, it had been necessary for both Georgina and Fleur to put on a little act, to forget that they had great things to discuss, and to act for all the world as if nothing had changed.
“I am so sorry, Fleur. How you must have suffered until I could get here,” Georgina said and smiled, remembering how she had scampered through the second floor of the house the moment she heard silence descend and judged the whole family to be in their beds for the night.
“You are here now, that is the main thing,” Fleur said, and it was clear that her anticipation was building higher still. “Tell me, is it him? Is the Duke of Calder really your childhood friend?”
“It is him,” Georgina said, and Fleur gasped, even though Georgina truly believed that that was the answer that her cousin had been expecting all evening.
“Good heavens, did he admit it straight away?”
“He knew why I was there; I could see it in his face. And when it seemed that I could not gather myself, he told me to ask my question.”
“I daresay he has been thinking of nothing else since he made his slip and called you Georgie.”
“He looked tired, that much was true. And his hair was perhaps a little more unruly than normal.”
“I hope he did not suffer, for he seems like a very nice man, despite the illusion.”
“He is a nice man, and the illusion was none of his doing. It all came about when he was so young, and he was never given an opportunity to go back again.”
“You must tell me everything.”
As Georgina gave her wide-eyed cousin a full account, she quickly realized that it would be some time before the two women managed to settle down for the night. She would have to suffer another night without a great deal of sleep; that was certain.
“So, the Duke, the old Duke that is, really was his father?” Fleur said in a whisper as Georgina’s tale of the afternoon continued.
“The old Duke told him as much that is true. But I think it is clear that Sammy does not know whether or not to believe it. Really, he is so very lost. I can hardly imagine what it is like to reach the age of one-and-twenty and not truly know who you are or where you came from. And he was forced to live a lie, to tell so many lies, that I think he hardly knew who to trust in the end.”
“But Garrett Winstanley is a man to whom he seemed to take, especially since he initially lived with him.” Fleur looked tired, and yet it was clear that she would not wait until the following day for the rest of the story.
“Yes, but Garrett Winstanley was loyal to his master, never once telling Sammy the full details. But it is true that he was kind to Sammy from the first, taking him into his home and doing what he could to allay his fears.”
Georgina remembered the warmth in Sammy’s voice when he had talked of Garrett Winstanley and that first year after Ashdown Manor when he had lived in the man’s home. They had lived a quiet life, and it was there that he had been schooled in the idea that he must become somebody else entirely. Almost immediately, he had come to answer to the name of Emerson Lockhart and was told that he was destined for great things. And it was there that he was schooled thoroughly and his manners worked upon until he was fit to be sent to Eton to continue the rest of his educational training.
But Georgina had also seen the strain in his eyes when he had recounted how it had been necessary for him to learn repeatedly the story of his origins. A story that he knew was not true and could not possibly be so. He was to be the son of the Duke and Duchess of Calder, a couple who had been left in quiet sadness when their only son, a boy in failing health, had been taken as a baby in hopes that something could be done for him. As his health began to improve, the couple held out greater hope for his survival, and so it was, only a little late, that he was sent to Eton in hopes of catching up with his peers and fulfilling the education that would be so necessary to him when he finally inherited the Calder estate and title.
“But he never met the Duchess, you say? And he does not think that she was his real mother?” Fleur said, full of confusion.
“No, he never met her. He only ever met the Duke, and only ever away from Calder Hall until t
he Duchess, a woman who it seems had been in perpetual ill-health, finally passed away. It was then that he was able to spend school holidays at Calder Hall instead of being forced to stay alone at Eton when all his cohorts had returned to their families. And he is certain that the Duchess of Calder was not his mother, and even more certain that she did not know of his existence.”
“Good heavens.”
“When he finally asked the Duke if the Duchess had ever known him or if she truly was his mother, the man admitted that she was not. He gave Sammy to understand that he really was his father, having an illicit love affair some years previously with an unknown woman. Sammy was the product of that affair, and so the Duchess could not be told. Her health was failing so badly that the Duke had not wanted to bring such heartbreak into her life, or what was left of it.”
“But Sammy does not believe the Duke was his father?”
“I think he has so many doubts that it is hard for him to fix upon the truth. I must admit that I do suspect that the Duke was his father, for there is no other reason for the man to have gone to such lengths in building such deceit and risking his own reputation if he were ever found out.”
“Yes, I would tend to agree with you, my dear. But I can also understand fully why Sammy might not so easily believe anything in his world. It is so sad, Georgina. How lonely he must have been all these years.”
“Lonelier than lonely, I believe. He explained a little to me of his schooling, not much, but enough for me to realize that he could not form any true friendships there. After all, he could not risk dropping his guard for a moment and accidentally telling a friend something that might reveal a little more of his real origins.”
“And so, he kept himself apart?”
“Simply so that he could keep the burden of his father’s secrets weighing heavy upon him and not break beneath them. Whilst he has grown in stature in this world, I cannot help thinking that the Duke did him a great disservice on the day he stole him away from Ashdown Manor.”
“But he would have continued in this world as a servant when his blood would suggest otherwise.”
“And whilst he would not have known of his origins, he would have known who he was as a human being, Fleur. He would not have found it necessary to remain ever vigilant and to perpetually rehearse the lie that he had been forced to rehearse from the age of eleven. He would have been himself; he would have always been Samuel White.”
“So, how old was he when he finally attended Calder Hall for the first time?” Fleur went on.
“It was more than a year later when the Duchess finally passed away. Sammy was twelve, almost thirteen when he first went to Calder Hall. And I can only imagine his awe and wonder, for he had been a simple servant, and the grandest he had ever known life to be was when he moved into the home of his father’s attorney. But when he saw his family home for the first time, he must surely have almost been afraid of such enormity and grandeur. Really, when you think of the impact it has on adults, the impact that it had on both of us at the garden party, then imagine how a young boy who had thought himself a servant would feel to be told that that was now his home.”
“I cannot begin to imagine.”
“I think he still feels it even now, for I am certain that he is not settled in his role of Duke, and he more than once alluded to the idea that he was an impostor there, that he does not assume that he truly does have a right to call himself the Duke of Calder.”
“Perhaps, in time, he will come to realize that whilst he might not have been the legitimate result of his father’s marriage, he is still his father’s son.”
“I do not think it is as simple as that. I think that Sammy needs to know once and for all who he is.”
“But who is there left to tell him? You said yourself, Garrett Winstanley had died before Sammy determined to question him thoroughly. And with his father gone and so suddenly, who is there for him to ask? And even if they were still here, it seems unlikely that either man would have told him the full truth, for there had surely been ample opportunity to do so in the intervening years.”
“You will think me ridiculous, Fleur, but I have told the Duke that I will help him. I have told Sammy that I will do everything in my power to find out who he is and how he came to be at Ashdown Manor all those years ago.”
“I do not think you ridiculous at all,” Fleur said firmly. “I think you most kindhearted and a very fine friend to offer such a thing. And you must allow me to help you where I can, even if it is only to use me as a sounding board for your ideas.”
“I am very grateful to you.”
“Does the Duke know that I know?” Fleur said cautiously.
“He asked me if I had told anybody, and I could not lie to him. He has been lied to enough.”
“And how did he bear that news?”
“Not very well at first, but he quickly realized that I could not have made my way out to him without your help today. And then it was an easy thing to assure him of your confidence in all regards, so you must not worry about any of it.”
“Did you ask him about the lady?” Fleur said suddenly. “The lady you saw, the ghostly lady who was so pale and delicate.”
“I did not think to ask him, Fleur. I must admit that my own emotions were so very fluid that I had quite forgotten about her. And, in truth, I think it might be too early for such things. We were both greatly shaken by our conversation, even if it did bring us a good measure of relief after so many years. I think that we covered as much as we could today; there was not enough left of either one of us to go on in the end.”
“Quite so,” Fleur agreed. “So, how you to begin? How are you to help him?”
“In truth, I do not know where to start. I was so determined to say something that would ease him just a little that I had offered my assistance before I had really thought about whether or not there was anything that I could do.”
“Your grandmother seems to be a very good starting point.”
“Do you think so? Goodness, if only she were still alive.”
“Why? After all, it seems unlikely that she would part with any secrets if she were,” Fleur said and shrugged.
“Yes, and in truth, she might make more trouble than she would solve,” Georgina said firmly. “Yes, you are quite right. My grandmother is the starting point, but not one who would ever help us, alive or dead.”
“And what of your parents, perhaps they might know something?”
“My father was very cowed by his mother, it has to be said. My mother was too, although I am certain that she never liked her mother-in-law for a moment. Perhaps I could make some secret inquiries with my mother, carefully worded, of course, to see if she can shed any light on the matter.
“And perhaps we ought to find out what your grandmother was like, really like, from the person who knew her the longest,” Fleur said with a bright smile.
“Of course, Great Aunt Belle,” Georgina said, feeling that all was not lost and that, if nothing else, she at least had a sense of direction.
She would start with great Aunt Belle; she would find out anything of note that that dear old lady could tell her.
“Right, that is where we must begin, with Great Aunt Belle,” Georgina said, happy that she finally had a plan. “We must start tomorrow.”
Chapter 12
Great Aunt Belle’s senses were by no means as blunted as Georgina had hoped. That alert and hawk-eyed lady clearly suspected her two great-nieces of searching for information with a purpose.
She did not believe for a moment that they were simply trying to make comparisons between Mirabelle and Elizabeth as sisters all those years ago. It was not idle curiosity, but curiosity with a very determined point and Great Aunt Belle made no mystery of the fact that she was suspicious.
However, it had not stopped her from speaking a little about her sister and their upbringing at Winton House all those years ago.
Armed with some minor information, the two young cousins set off a
day later to repeat their performance of going into the town of Rowley for the afternoon. Once again, Georgina made the rest of the journey traveling post-chaise, this time happy in the knowledge that she would be driven back into town by one of the Duke of Calder’s drivers, just as she had been on her last visit.
As the post carriage made its way along the great gravel driveway to Calder Hall, Georgina spied the Duke himself out on the grounds from her window and called up to the driver that he should stop just there and let her out.
The driver did just that, and the sound of the carriage turning, spraying gravel here, there, and everywhere, finally caught the Duke of Calder’s attention. He looked over at her from a distance and waved enthusiastically.
Georgina hurried through the pathway lined with immaculate box hedging and then took one of the gravel paths to the sundial where he waited for her.
A Damsel for the Mysterious Duke Page 9
