A Damsel for the Mysterious Duke

by Bridget Barton

  “Ruthless, Aunt Belle?” Georgina said, her heart beginning to beat a little faster.

  “Perhaps I ought to just leave you to read the letters and see if you can spot ruthlessness for yourself. If you do not find it, then you may come back to me and ask. It is hard to put into words, but theirs was something of an unholy alliance, a friendship that I always thought a most dangerous one. It was a relief to me when my sister threw a net over poor dear Baron Jeffries, your grandfather, and left for Hertfordshire. I am ashamed to say that, as much as I pitied the man for what was to come, I was equally relieved and pleased for myself and my brother that she was no longer here.”

  “Your brother? Felix’s father?”

  “Yes, Godfrey was a most wonderful brother. He was kind and sweet, and no match for Elizabeth. He secretly told me that there would always be a home for me here at Winton House, but that I must not share that information with Elizabeth lest she take advantage of that herself. He was as relieved as I when she became Baroness Jeffries and left us forever. And we very rarely saw her after that, for we had become beneath her, and she despised us.” Mirabelle began to laugh. “And I have never been so pleased to be despised in all my life.”

  “I should have liked to have met Great Uncle Godfrey.”

  “He would have liked you very much, my dear. He would never have believed that you could possibly be descended from Elizabeth, of that I am certain. But dear Felix is so very like him in looks and temperament that my poor old-lady mind is often confused into thinking that I am talking with my beloved brother and not my beloved nephew.”

  Georgina smiled sweetly, although she did not believe for one moment that Mirabelle Allencourt had ever suffered a moment’s confusion in her life, old lady or not.

  “Thank you for helping me, Aunt Belle, especially when I have not been able to tell you much.”

  “Well, maybe one day you will be able to tell me all about it.”

  “Maybe one day.”

  By the time Georgina had found her cousin in the garden, gently beseeching the gardener to cut her a few blooms for the little vase in her chamber, almost an hour had passed.

  The moment that the gardener gave in and snipped her five very beautiful blooms from the garden and sent her away, Georgina gave Fleur the news that there was a box of letters to go through in her room.

  “Good heavens, are we to go now and look through them?” Fleur said, her face a picture of excitement.

  Georgina suddenly realized that Mirabelle was right; Fleur really did wear her heart on her sleeve, and it was easy to see that the poor woman had a secret, albeit somebody else’s.

  “The reason Aunt Belle is helping us is that she can read you like a book, my dear,” Georgina said gently.

  “Oh goodness, I am doing it again,” Fleur said and winced, leaving Georgina inordinately grateful that her cousin already knew what she was referring to. “I really must try not to look so openly excited. For one thing, it is not very fitting for a young lady, is it? And for another, I should not want to do or say anything that would uncover Sammy’s secret.”

  “My dear, you are very good. I do hope that I have not hurt your feelings.”

  “No, not at all. And in any case, I daresay that Aunt Belle asked you to give me some instruction on the matter.”

  “Yes, she did,” Georgina said and laughed. “But I am sure that you are perfectly capable of managing for yourself.”

  “Yes, but I always welcome a gentle reminder here and there, so you must not be afraid to say it,” Fleur said and absently sniffed at the beautiful bright blooms in her hand. “Well, I shall sedately make my way to my chamber and arrange these flowers and then come to you so that we might read the letters,” she said with such a demure smile that Georgina began to laugh again. “See, I can manage,” Fleur said, and with a bright smile she turned and made her way back towards the house.

  Georgina had not arrived in her chamber but two minutes when Fleur joined her. She had not even taken the lid off the little box of letters that Mirabelle had left on her bedside table for her.

  “I say, it is quite a little box,” Fleur said and sounded somewhat disappointed.

  “Yes, but look at this,” Georgina said when she gently removed its lid. “The letters are packed so tightly that it will not be a quick and simple task to read them.”

  “Well, I suppose we ought to start,” Fleur said and drew up the little wicker chair that Georgina often sat in to look down upon the lake.

  “Oh look, they are all in date order I think,” Georgina said as she settled down on the bed and reached for the first handful of letters. “Although I am bound to say that my grandmother was a very meticulous woman, and the idea of it ought not to surprise me in the slightest.”

  “Who is the first one from?”

  Without reading the contents, Georgina turned the letter over in her hand to see who had signed it.

  “It is signed Bea, so I can only presume that it is Beatrice Ellington or Montgomery. I suppose she was Ellington back then.”

  “What does it say?”

  “My dear Elizabeth, forgive the brevity of this note, but there is so much happening, and I know that you will understand that my time is better spent in flattering the Earl. Cornwall is very beautiful this time of year, the scenery much more dramatic than Devonshire.

  In truth, I have great hopes of making this my home and am working hard upon securing such a thing. The Earl of Wighton looks a little older than I had expected. I know he is twenty years my senior but really, he looks quite thirty years older. Still, in the great scheme of things that is neither here nor there, and I think that it will, in the end, work in my favor, just as we had planned my dear.

  Anyway, write back and tell me how it was you got on in Hertfordshire and spare me no details.

  With much love,

  Bea.”

  “The Earl of Wighton?” Fleur said thoughtfully. “I suppose that must be who she married in the end. After all, did Aunt Belle not say that your grandmother’s friend Beatrice had moved to Cornwall?”

  “She did indeed, Fleur. I believe you are right, and what we have here is a very thinly veiled description of her scheme, is it not?”

  “Yes, an ambitious young woman, I suspect. Perhaps old Wighton’s title was more important to her than the man himself.”

  “And I daresay that my grandmother felt the same about my grandfather.”

  “Oh dear, I did not mean to upset you.”

  “Not at all, Fleur. I had never met my grandfather, so cannot really say what sort of man he was. He died before I was born.”

  “It is sad to think that he was nothing more than a target for your grandmother’s ambitions, though.”

  “Yes, it is always a little sad, I think. But so many marriages are conducted in that way, and it is often the case that neither party has a great deal of affection for the other.” Georgina shuddered. “Really, I cannot imagine such a thing. I cannot imagine anything but love as the cause of my future matrimony.”

  “And I feel the same. I could not possibly marry a man I did not love, and even less so one who could not love me.”

  “Then I suppose that neither one of us is ambitious, my dear.” Georgina laughed. “And so, we are both free to marry for love.”

  “Yes, that is very true. I wonder who you will marry,” Fleur said and gave a mischievous smile.

  “Shall I read the next letter?” Georgina said, effectively diverting her cousin from her train of thought.

  “Yes, please do.”

  “Oh, this is in a different hand,” Georgina said, again hastening to the end of the letter to read the signatory. “It is from a young man called David,” she remarked and raised her eyebrows high.

  “Goodness me! Read it, read it!” Fleur said, clearly forgetting her determination to conceal her feelings a little better.

  “My dearest Elizabeth,

  I am very sorry to be addressing this to you in Hertfordshire, for it had be
en my dearest wish that you would not return there. I cannot believe how callous you have become; how easy it has been for you to forget our love in the sight of a greater prize.

  And yet, despite my anger, I cannot help but love you still. I cannot help but harbour hope that you will let go of this foolish ambition and come home to Devonshire and to me, the man who really does love you.

  I know my sister has much to do with this, and I would wish that she could be a little more loyal to me in such things. She knows how greatly I love you and yet still she pushes you towards the man she sees as better. What a curious and destructive little friendship the two of you have, and how I wish that you had never met her.

  But still, had you never met my sister, you would never have met me, and I could not bear that either.

  My dear Elizabeth, I beg that you would put an end to my misery and return home and let things be the way they were. I am not a poor man by any consideration, but then you know of my family’s wealth. But I fear that my sister has poisoned your mind into wanting more and more from life, more of the things that are not important.

  Return to me, my love, for there shall never be another woman in this world for me but you.

  With all my love for as long as I live,

  David.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” Fleur said, and her beautiful blue eyes seemed to fill with tears. “That poor man. He must have known even as he was writing that the love of his life would undoubtedly marry another. Oh, what pain he must have been in.”

  “Indeed, he must,” Georgina said, finding it only too easy to imagine that her grandmother could be so flippant with the heart of another human being. “But perhaps he had a merciful escape in the end. After all, I cannot imagine that my grandfather had a happy time of it.”

  “But not only that, his own sister did not stand by him. His own sister would seem to have encouraged Elizabeth away from him, thereby breaking her own brother’s heart. Really, I cannot ever imagine doing such a thing to Jeremy. As much as I might complain about him, Jeremy is my world, and I could not love him more. I could only ever want the best for Jeremy, and I could only ever imagine myself working towards finding that for him, not driving happiness away from his door.”

  “The more I find out about my grandmother and her friend, the less I like them.”

  “And I, Georgina.”

  “Shall I read on? Just one more before we take tea?”

  “Yes, do.”

  “This is from Beatrice again; I can tell by the spidery handwriting,” Georgina said disdainfully.

  “My dear Elizabeth,

  You must harden yourself to any pleas from my brother, for he will try everything to get you to come back to him. But you were never his, and he must surely know that. If the Baron continues to pay his addresses, you must forget about David and always move forward, always take the better chance. My brother will survive it, I am sure, and I will never rebuke you for your decision. Rather, I will applaud you, for did we not always say that we would strive in this life and marry well?

  You do not need my brother or his care, for you have mine. We shall always be each other’s sole support in this world, as we always said we would be.

  I must end now, for I am to take tea with the Earl and his mother, and I am quite certain that he intends to announce our engagement this very afternoon.

  Imagine that! I shall be a Countess after all and you, my dear Elizabeth, a Baroness. And then we may leave Rowley behind forever, never to return, what do you say?

  Write back to me and assure me that your plan goes well, my dear.

  With much love,

  Bea.”

  “The heartless little …” Fleur said and then covered her mouth with her hand before she could say something quite regrettable.

  “Good heavens, now there is the sort of woman who makes one glad never to have had a sister,” Georgina said forcefully. “Really, the next time I feel sorry for myself in that regard, I shall think of poor David and his plight. Really!”

  “Although I daresay all sisters are not the same,” Fleur said, and they began to laugh.

  “Oh, I daresay not. In truth, I think I am rather shocked by all this. Even though I knew my grandmother to be harsh, to see these words written and to see how two women can scheme together to such an extent that they care nothing for the feelings of others is quite abhorrent.”

  “I do not know what it all means yet, Georgina, but I think it is fair to say that those two women could come up with any scheme on earth and be assured of one another’s support and absolute secrecy.”

  “A little like us, I daresay.”

  “Yes, except we have the best intentions of another at heart, not our own best intentions,” Fleur said with quiet wisdom.

  “I think we really must have tea now, my dear so that I can come to terms with what I have read.”

  “Yes, let us go,” Fleur replied and took the letter from her cousin, placing it neatly back in the box before putting on the lid and sliding it under Georgina’s bed.

  Chapter 15

  “Your tea, Your Grace,” Mrs Thistlethwaite said, bustling into the drawing room and setting the tray down on the table in front of him.

  “Thank you, Mrs Thistlethwaite,” Emerson said with a smile. “To what do I owe the honour, my dear? After all, you do not normally bring the tea tray yourself.”

  “True, Your Grace,” she said with a knowing smile. “But I did have something I wanted to ask you, and so I took the tray from the maid and told her I would bring it myself.”

  “Ask away, Mrs Thistlethwaite.”

  “It is nothing of concern, Your Grace, simply that I wish to inquire if you are planning to hold a summer ball here at Calder?”

  “Summer ball?” Emerson said, a little wrong footed. “Oh yes, I see. My father always held a summer ball, yes,” he said almost to himself. “Well, why not? If it will not be too much trouble and too short notice for the staff, that is?”

  “Nothing is too much trouble for your staff, Your Grace.”

  “Still, I would not like to throw them into a flurry if it is not necessary.”

  “And hopefully, Miss Jeffries will still be here in the middle of summer.” Mrs Thistlethwaite gave him a small smile of encouragement, almost urging him to confirm his regard for the young lady who she had no doubt witnessed arriving unannounced on more than one occasion.

  “Yes, I would say so,” he said and then was waylaid by a very low feeling as he imagined her leaving Rowley and returning to Hertfordshire. “At least, I hope so.”

  “She is a very pleasant young lady, Your Grace,” Mrs Thistlethwaite said tenderly. “And I think your father would have approved.”

  “I hardly know, Mrs Thistlethwaite. Perhaps you would be better placed to tell me.”

  “Surely not, Your Grace,” she said and laughed before busying herself with pouring him a cup of tea from the pot.

  “Mrs Thistlethwaite, I think it would be true to say that you knew my father better than I did.”

  “No, I am sure that cannot be true,” she replied in a tone which gave her away.

  “You knew him the longest.”

  “Yes, but I had been in your father’s employ since he first married the Duchess,” she said and smiled, and he noted that she did not refer to the Duchess as his mother.

  “Yes, and I did not come here until I was twelve, nearly thirteen.”

  “Yes, but you had been unwell, Your Grace. There was nothing that anybody could do about that.”

  “Mrs Thistlethwaite, you of all people must know that that is not true. I remember every inch of my life, every moment of it, and I have barely suffered a day’s ill-health in one-and-twenty years.”

  “You must not say that to anybody,” Mrs Thistlethwaite said and suddenly sat down in the seat opposite him without any of the ordinary reverence. “Your Grace, you must never say it.”

  “Then you know,” he said and looked into her eyes, refusing to look away. “Yo
u know all about it.”

  “Hardly that, Your Grace. It is not as if the Duke came to me and explained things. But I am a servant here and loyal to this house. And I am as loyal to you as I was to your father, believe me. But no good can come of such wondering, Your Grace.”

  “But Mrs Thistlethwaite, I do not even know for certain that the Duke was my father.”