The Curious Life of the Unfortunate Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Novel

by Emma Linfield

  “You know to what I refer.” Her face was nearly crimson and Leonard finally understood her worry.

  “You fear she will not want children.”

  “I fear she will!” Elizabeth countered. “And let us cast aside for a moment the kind of mother she would be, with the mind of a child herself.”

  “She does not understand how children come to be.” Leonard sighed.

  “She has never been told, to my knowledge. I believe that Mr. Barlough will not hurt her, but he deserves a wife who can provide all her duties to him.”

  “Elizabeth,” Leonard said gently, again reaching for her hands. “You have taken care of your siblings since your mother passed. Perhaps your judgement is clouded because you see your sister and brother as your own children in a strange way.”

  “What a thing to say!” she protested. “I care about my siblings, of course. But Frances requires more than the average sister. Moreover, it is not my choice to make. My father would never permit such a thing to occur.”

  Leonard admitted that she might have a valid point in the matter but that was hardly the issue in the moment.

  “Have you ever seen Frances happier? I know I have never seen such elation in Herbert. I daresay, he has picked up Frances’ skipping.”

  “Stop causing me to giggle, Leonard. This matter is quite serious. If Mr. Barlough foresees marriage, you must tell him to set his focus elsewhere.”

  “You did not respond to my question,” he reminded her. “Have you ever seen your sister in such a state of bliss?”

  “It is true she is happy, yes, I concede as much. However I—”

  “Did you not wish to stop Herbert from dancing with Frances a mere month ago?”

  Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed.

  “I fail to see your point,” she snapped but Leonard did not believe that to be true.

  “You worried about her then and it was proven to be an unfounded fear. How can you know that your fear about her marriage will not be just as unfounded?”

  “They are quite different issues!” she insisted. “Surely you can see that!”

  “I can see that is a matter for Frances and Herbert to work out amongst themselves. I can see that your sister and my barrister are happy together and I will not be the one to disrupt their happiness with my concerns.”

  Elizabeth momentarily lost the ability to speak and for an uneasy moment, Leonard thought she might storm away, leaving him alone on the picnic blanket.

  “May I be frank?” she finally said, the words escaping in a rush of air.

  “Please do,” Leonard replied although he was not certain he wished to hear what she might unleash upon him.

  “You are correct. Everything you said is true. Frances is happy, truly ecstatic for the first time in her life. Herbert makes her happy. He understands her and he is a good man. Why would I ever interfere with that?”

  A wry smile formed on Leonard’s lips and he squeezed her hands warmly.

  “Say it again,” he murmured, leaning his face toward her, their noses touching. Her eyes widened in surprise but she did not move away.

  “Say what?” she asked quietly, her breath touching his face like kisses of honey. He had long fought the overwhelming desire to kiss her, to taste her lips and know the texture of her mouth. Leonard’s eyes closed. He could no longer resist and slowly he pressed his lips to hers. A small gasp escaped her throat and when he opened his eyes to study her face, her own amber eyes were still opened fully.

  He drew back slowly, exhaling a long breath. His heart still beat rapidly in his chest but he grinned lazily at her.

  “Well?” he challenged. “Will you say it again?”

  “What is it?” she breathed, her voice flowing forth in short rasps. “What would you like me to say?”

  “That I am correct and that all that I say is true.”

  Elizabeth fell back, giggling at his teasing and stared straight into the sky. Leonard stared at her lovingly, his pulse still racing.

  “No,” she called back sweetly. “You will never hear those words from my lips again.”

  Chapter 16

  “I do wish you would choose another night to attend such an event,” Leonard grumbled. “If I did not need the coach to go to London you could see yourselves there in more luxury.”

  “You could leave Frances here with Mother,” Leonard suggested and Elizabeth immediately refused.

  “Her Grace would not know how to manage Frances if she had a fit in our absence. I could not inflict such a thing upon her. No, my sister will attend with us. I cannot very well tell her that she is uninvited to the party now. I dare not envision the backlash to such an announcement.”

  Leonard agreed it was a poor idea.

  “You must not worry about Frances. Even I know how she adores a party. Your only concern will be ensuring another does not sweep her away from Herbert.”

  Elizabeth gave him a wary look. The conversation of her sister marrying the barrister the previous week had not been entirely settled in her mind. She understood Leonard’s position, even conceded his points but that did not mean she felt entirely comfortable with the concept. Yet that was a matter for another moment.

  “We shall be fine, brother,” Catherine assured him, detecting an uneasy undertone. “Only the highest class of people will be in attendance.”

  “The people in attendance are not my concern. I, too, have been to one of the Smitherson’s galas. I know how rambunctious they can become.”

  “You exaggerate,” Catherine told him in a singsong voice. “You have not attended a gala in years! The Smitherson affair is highly honored. Nothing untoward occurs.”

  “Keep your wits about you,” Leonard relented, although Elizabeth knew that he had never intended to keep her from going. The invitation to the party had come in only two days earlier and her initial response had been to refuse, knowing that Leonard and her father intended to visit London on business matters. Catherine had been insistent.

  “Have you not attended these events?” the Duke’s sister demanded. “I cannot believe such a thing is true!”

  “Perhaps there have been invitations,” Elizabeth confessed. “But we do not often attend galas.”

  She did not add that she often felt stared at whenever she had attended balls in the past, although she had no sense if it was in her mind, or as a result of the ancient rumor which had plagued her since her youth.

  “We must go together,” Catherine insisted. “It will be lovely, for once, to have a companion who is not completely witless.”

  A scowl on Catherine’s face told Elizabeth that she was recalling a time when the Smitherson event had been ruined by some witless person. It had been settled and the ladies arranged to attend the gala in the next duchy the following evening.

  “Catherine, leave us,” Leonard ordered and Catherine frowned.

  “Will you speak of me in my absence?” she demanded. Elizabeth chuckled but stopped when she realized the girl was sincere.

  “Of course not!” she cried indignantly, casting Leonard a look of worry. “Why would you believe such a thing?”

  “You would not be the first,” Catherine muttered but she did leave the pair alone in the study, the door slightly ajar.

  “Why would she think that?” Elizabeth asked in amazement.

  “Catherine oft believes that people speak ill of her in her absence,” Leonard explained. “I have no idea if she imagines such things or if she has a legitimate complaint.”

  The revelation was both stunning and hurtful.

  “She cannot believe I would be a party to that!”

  “I do not know what she believes,” Leonard replied. “She is partly why I wished to speak with you alone. I do worry about my sister.”

  “Why? She is charming and gay!”

  “She has changed much since our father died,” Leonard explained, gesturing for her to sit across from his desk where he remained seated. Elizabeth obliged his request, her head cocked with interes
t.

  “How?”

  “Before my father passed, Catherine was a shy girl. She did not make friends with great ease and her social graces left quite a lot to be desired. My mother did not push her, knowing that she was apt to retreat into a shell of make-believe if pressed too firmly. My father indulged her, urged her to read, and lose herself in the world of fantasy she so eagerly longed to embrace. She adored my father.”

  Elizabeth tried to imagine the Catherine she had gotten to know over the past three weeks as the lady Leonard had described. The two personas bore no resemblance to one another.

  “Many adored him,” Elizabeth commented, turning her gaze toward the portrait of the late Duke still mounted behind Leonard’s desk. “From what I have heard, there was good reason to admire him.”

  “Indeed.”

  Leonard paused and cleared his throat. Elizabeth realized he was choked with emotion.

  “When he passed, a darkness sank into Brookside, a strange, black shadow that took hold over everything. It seems to me that it had always been there but my father was so strong, he kept it at bay with his will.”

  The Duke sighed deeply and moved his own eyes toward the painting. When he spoke again, Elizabeth wondered if he spoke to her or the portrait of Aylmer.

  “Mother became an abyss of despair. She was inconsolable, unwilling to move from her bedroom, unable to eat. I had doctors at her side for two months before she finally left the bedchambers or put a morsel of food to her lips but to this day, she will not leave the estate. I ran. I wandered away for weeks on end, coming home barely long enough to deal with the matters at hand before mounting my horse and disappearing again. If not for Herbert, I fear the duchy my father had worked so hard to sustain, to grow, would have fallen into a state of disrepair.”

  Elizabeth was flabbergasted. She had not known any of this about the Duke of Pembroke and his family. How had it been kept from prying ears? How had the servants not spoken of the chaos ensuing within Pembroke?

  “But Catherine…she fared worse of all.”

  Elizabeth perched at the end of her chair, her eyes fixated on Leonard as she silently willed him to continue.

  “I had returned one day, after being away two weeks. I could not even tell you now where I had gone on that venture. Ireland, most likely.”

  For a moment he fell quiet, possibly losing his train of thought but Elizabeth dared not speak.

  “The Catherine I knew was gone. She was cold, hard, cynical. She fought with me and if she had lacked social graces previously, she was feral then. I did not recognize my own sister and she appeared to despise me.”

  “But that was months ago,” Elizabeth finally breathed. “Grief does bring out the beast in people.”

  “We did recover slowly,” Leonard agreed. “But the Catherine I knew died with my father. This lady now, she is not the same girl.”

  “There is nothing wrong with this version of Catherine,” Elizabeth insisted. “She is the only one I have ever known and I love her just fine.”

  A bemused smile fell on Leonard’s lips.

  “Your heart is full of love for many,” he commented and Elizabeth thought she saw a glimmer of wistfulness in the depth of his eyes.

  “What else did you wish to tell me of Catherine?” Elizabeth asked quickly, sensing that he was moving off the topic. She was eager to hear what else he had been keeping hidden in the depth of his own heart.

  “Since you have come to Brookside, she is beginning to show signs of her former self. I believe you and your sister have reminded her what it is like to be loved.”

  “She knows you love her, Leonard,” Elizabeth said softly.

  “Perhaps,” he sighed. “But you have shown her the love I should have.”

  He paused and studied her face closely.

  “You fear what happens when you leave here,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “I do, too. I fear that my sister will crawl back into her hard shell and I might never see her again.”

  Melancholy touched Elizabeth and suddenly she realized just how close they were to leaving. In one week, she would be saying her goodbyes not only to Leonard but to Catherine, also.

  “I have dampened the spirit of the party now,” he muttered, a flustered look crossing his face. Elizabeth could see he regretted speaking so personally about his family.

  “I will ensure your sister knows how much she is loved by all of us,” Elizabeth promised him. “You have my word.”

  He nodded and glanced at her furtively before darting his eyes back toward the mound of papers on his desk.

  “Forgive me, Elizabeth, but I have much work to do before my travels tomorrow.”

  “Of course.”

  She rose quickly and excused herself from the room, knowing he had not dismissed her with such haste to complete paperwork. He did not want her to see the welling of tears in his eyes.

  Elizabeth stopped in the corridor and fell against the wall, her heart beating wildly. She could not seem to catch her breath. The thought of leaving Brookside was overwhelming her.

  “Liza, what is it?” Percival demanded, rushing toward her. “Are you ill?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak the words on her mind.

  “Speak, daughter! What is the issue?”

  Elizabeth blinked several times, her heart heavy as she stared at her father.

  “It is nothing, Father,” she whispered, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I had not realized that I had grown so attached to Brookside in such a short time.

  “It is not Brookside you are attached to,” her father replied dryly. “Come along, child. You cannot melt into a puddle of histrionics outside of the Duke’s study.”

  She permitted him to lead her away toward the servant’s stairs but her mind was anywhere but on the walk back to her quarters. The journey to Pembroke was filled with so many revelations. She had not expected to find love in Leonard nor had she known she would gain a sister in the process. Yet she had and leaving them was the hardest thing she had ever been faced with in her life.

  “Good night, Liza,” Percival said when they approached her door. “Sleep well and do behave well at the gala tomorrow. Keep your wits about you, yes?”

  “Of course, Father. Good night.”

  She pushed her way into her bedchambers and gasped when she realized she was not alone.

  “Forgive me, Miss Elizabeth,” Cora said, hurrying away from where she had turned down the bed. “I will be on my way if you do not require anything else from me.”

  Elizabeth opened her mouth to answer but horrifyingly, a strangled sob escaped her lips and suddenly, she began to wail.

  “Oh, Miss Elizabeth!” Cora breathed, rushing to her side. “Are you unwell?”

  Elizabeth could only manage to shake her head, her heart still too full of sadness to manage a word. Somehow, Cora understood and put her arms around Elizabeth. Under normal circumstances, Elizabeth would have been alarmed at the idea of an abigail touching her but in Brookside, everything she had ever known had been questioned. Her perceptions on life, and love had been put to the test, and the feel of Cora’s plump arms about her was a comfort, not an offense.

  “Everything will work out the way God intended, Miss Elizabeth,” Cora told her soothingly. “You must have faith in Him.”

  The words did seem to calm her and suddenly Elizabeth felt much better. She lifted her head and dried her eyes hastily.

  “Forgive me, Cora,” she murmured. “I believe I am overtired.”

  “I will fetch you some warm milk,” Cora suggested crisply, untangling herself from around Elizabeth’s shoulder.

  Warm milk will not solve my heartache, she wanted to yell after the abigail. The only thing which will cure me is staying here at Brookside.

  Yet she knew that would not stop her from feeling a loss for her own family if she chose to remain in Pembroke. Elizabeth took a deep, shuddering breath and chided herself to pull herself together.

  There is
one week remaining. A lot can occur in one week.

  Elizabeth had no idea how right she was.

  Chapter 17

  Catherine had not exaggerated the Smitherson gala in the least. It was more extravagant than Elizabeth had envisioned, although she did not know why she had doubted Catherine’s description.

  Elizabeth had attended many balls and while the wedding in Fife had been quite close to the most elaborate affair she had ever seen, the Smitherson gala put to it to shame. It was plain to see the splendor even as the coach arrived at the sprawling estate.