‘I’m sorry, mama. But I really liked him. He said he had known papa for years and he didn’t tell me he was a Duke only that his name was John Farrington.’ A huge sigh gusted from her and Helen led her back to her seat between her sisters. ‘
‘Now, sit yourself down and hold your head up high.’ Helen said and went back to her husband.
The ballroom started emptying at about two o’clock and Wilbur Gordon made sure his wife and daughters were well wrapped in their cloaks as they waited for his huge Landau to arrive. Jessica shivered as the Duke’s party stepped out beside them.
‘Mr. Gordon, it was good that you brought all of your daughters for a change.’ John Farrington said from beside Jessica. He smiled down at her. ‘I especially enjoyed dancing with Miss Jessica.’ He gently took her hand where it was clutching the front of her cloak and carefully kissed the backs of her fingers. ‘Perhaps you will favour me with a dance at your next ball?’
‘Your Grace, it was an honour!’ Wilbur Gordon said happily, ecstatic at the Duke’s attention.
John Farrington smiled down into the perfect innocent face and took his leave, following his obnoxious sister and mother to the ducal carriage as it drew up at the curb.
All through the carriage ride and after they reached home, Jessica was ribbed and plagued by her siblings over dancing with a Duke. In the end she had run upstairs and rushed to be in bed when Cecily arrived. It was hard to pretend sleep, but she remained quiet and eventually Cecily dropped off to sleep.
Jessica was thrilled to have danced with a Duke, but realised that it wouldn’t go anywhere. Every time the Duke had held her hand or looked in her eyes her heart had skipped a beat. The arrival of his sister only emphasized how disparate their existences were and Jessica felt it keenly, as the ton gossiped about the handsome Duke of Warwick. Things became worse the next day, after church, when her brother Robert teased her so much and called her “Your Grace”, making her so angry she slapped his face before running home alone to cry in her room.
Chapter Two
Warwickshire, February, 1808
The Duke of Warwick stood beside the hole in the ground and felt nothing. His hat spilled water as he watched the fine casket being lowered into the watery grave. His mother and sister were sobbing softly into their handkerchiefs and able to show their grief, but he neither could nor wanted to show grief for a woman he actually hated, all he felt was relief. The sexton offered the Duke a shovel of earth as the vicar intoned the interment prayer.
‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust....’ he slowly reached for a handful of earth, ‘.....We consign the body of the dearly beloved Victoria Farrington into God’s hands.’ And the Duke dropped the sod onto the wet casket with a bang, making the gathered mourners jump in surprise. ‘Lord, may you keep her by your side. Amen.’ The Vicar finished. He went to the Duke and offered his hand and John Farrington looked down on his muddy fingers.
‘Maybe I should wash my hand first.’ He murmured and the vicar muttered some reply and left him standing over the deep excavation in the grave yard. The mourners turned towards the lynchgate, huddled under their umbrellas and made a bedraggled procession back to the carriages.
‘It wasn’t your fault, John.’ Victoria’s brother Edward Asquith murmured beside him, as he stood quietly under his umbrella. He was very tall, which gave him the appearance of being cadaverous, but he wasn’t as thin as he seemed. He glanced up at the steel grey sky as the rain fell in stair rods, his eyes almost a bottle green. ‘I’ve talked with the best physicians in London and they have all said the same thing, once they haemorrhage there is nothing you can do.’ He patted his brother-in-law on the shoulder. ‘At least the child survived.’ Edward stood silently beside John just waiting for the harsh words that he knew would come. Edward knew exactly what a shrew and a bitch Victoria had been. He glanced at the sexton and his apprentice, waiting patiently for them to go so they could fill the grave in and erect the headstone.
‘The useless bitch couldn’t even give me a son!’ John snapped and the rage and frustration he’d had to deal with since his wedding night three years previously, burst forth like water from a broken dam. John let out a keening wail, which was misinterpreted by the other mourners as grief and they turned to watch him collapse onto his knees in the mud. He heard again his mother’s insistence that he marry Victoria, he saw again that she was not Jessica, as she walked down the aisle of the cathedral. Victoria may have had a certain allure, but she could never have possessed the innocence or the grace of Jessica Gordon. He’d spent the last three years repenting his decision to marry Victoria. Almost from the moment they walked away from the altar, she had become a shrewish wife, especially after the wedding night, when he had so miserably failed to perform. For a rake of his stature, it was devastating to realise his wife could not arouse him and she tried very hard in the first few weeks, only to leave them both frustrated and angry. Many a night he had sat in his study, thinking of Jessica as his manhood filled his hand and drunk himself into a stupor to avoid seeing Victoria in his chambers and she had belittled him and attacked his virility at every turn, until in the end in his drunken state, he had used the vision of Jessica Gordon to almost rape her and beget the heir he so needed. And that had failed too, as she unerringly produced a girl, before she lost her life.
Edward clutched his shoulder, in compassion, he’d known just what had transpired in their marriage as he and his sister held no secrets. Victoria had also been very vocal about it to her friends. Edward wondered if John would take up his rakish behaviour again, now that the bane of his life was gone.
‘Poor John,’ his mother muttered, as she watched him sobbing over the open grave. ‘We must start straight away getting him back into Town.’ She turned and stepped into the carriage with renewed purpose.
‘If you want my advice mother,’ Verity Farrington said coldly as she climbed into the carriage behind her mother, ‘you’ll keep your nose out this time. John didn’t appreciate you interfering the last time. He was never enamoured of Victoria Asquith and you forced the issue due to irrelevant gossip.’
‘But it was all over the ton that she was with child and he was the father!’ Emily Farrington spluttered in outrage.
‘Well you were wrong and you forced him to marry a women whom he could never love and was only bent on his title and money!’ Verity said firmly. ‘I’m four years wiser now and I advise you to button your lip and leave him to sort out his own life.’
Emily was shocked at this verbal attack by her own precious daughter. ‘He needs a mother’s guidance in matters of the heart.’ Emily said pouting. ‘As do you!’
‘John doesn’t need another marriage. What he needs is light hearted flirtation.’ Verity looked patiently at her mother. ‘He’ll look for another wife, when his heart scabs over from this marriage, Mother.’ She sighed at the calculating expression in her mother’s eyes. ‘And don’t both trying to trick me into matrimony. It’s not your place and John will decide where I’m to marry.’
‘But you were so popular in your first year.’ Emily continued to pout and pushed her bottom lip out like a child.
‘Pouting will get you nowhere. I was cut off at the knees by Lady Gordon for committing the ultimate sin and not knowing her daughter. It was my own fault and I have paid the price for my lack of finesse. I hope I’m a much wiser and tolerant person.’
‘You do a splendid job of organising John’s household.’ Emily said, sniffing disdainfully. ‘Better than Lady Victoria ever accomplished.’
‘Good, at least I know I can do something useful in this world.’ Verity said with barely veiled asperity.
‘Well, you’ll be helping John with his daughter now?’ Emily said hopefully.
‘No, I won’t be, mother.’ Verity sighed. ‘Not unless John asks me directly. He’s going to need a nanny, as well as the wet nurse I hired last week and eventually she will need a governess.’ She was quiet for a moment. ‘Lord Watson has offered for my hand. John
is happy with the settlement and I’m trying to decide if I can spend the rest of my life with him.’
‘You should take the offer. Very soon you’ll be twenty five and left on the shelf.’ Emily said firmly. ‘You should have your own life.’
Verity nodded distractedly as she watched her brother approach the coach. The footman opened the door and took the umbrella from Lord Edward’s hand before both gentlemen climbed in the carriage and settled on the seat squabs.
‘John...’ Emily began as the carriage lurched into motion.
‘Be quiet, mother!’ John spat viciously, as he wiped the tears from his face and the mud from his hands on his handkerchief. ‘I don’t want to hear your thoughts on anything today. When we get back to Charlecote Hall you will go to your rooms and stay there!’
Emily sat and looked at her son with her mouth open. Never had she heard John speak so harshly. She tried again, ‘John....?’
‘Enough!’ He said forcefully, ignoring the ashen colour of her face. ‘When I have dispatched the last of the mourners, you and Verity will be leaving for London.’ He turned his attention to Verity. ‘I have accepted Watson’s proposal so you need to be in London where he can ask you. I assume you are going ahead?’ Verity merely nodded acquiescence. ‘Good. Edward will be returning to town with you as a favour to me.’
‘But...?’ Emily tried again
‘I shall remain here and interview nannies for my daughter and work out my demons.’ John turned his face away as if the subject was closed. The silence was profound.
Edward indolently sprawled on the seat. ‘Do you want to hear the latest gossip?’ he asked and sniggered, but carried on regardless of his companions. ‘I did hear that Gordon’s youngest is getting married tomorrow.’ he said it jovially to fill the uncomfortable lull.
‘Who is she marrying?’ Verity asked softly, aware that this was a subject she normally avoided. She had realised years ago that John had a soft spot for the very beautiful Miss Gordon and it was unpredictable what he would do or say where she was concerned. ‘Anyone we know?’
‘David Carruthers, the eldest son of the Earl of Dean. I understand the young pup has gone and purchased a commission in the army. Wellington will have to put up with his antics now, the young jackanapes.’
John studiously kept his face turned to the window, as if the subject were beneath his notice.
Verity flicked her eyes to John and then asked ‘Why is he a jackanapes?’
‘Haven’t you heard the gossip? Apparently he got poor little Miss Jessica into a compromising position and has been forced to make an honest woman of her. I understand his ship sails from the Pool of London tomorrow evening. I’m sure all his mistresses will cry on the wharf as he sails away.’
‘Compromised how?’ Verity asked softly, still waiting for John to end the topic, but he seemed distant and uncaring.
‘Well, the word on the ton is that she was caught in the shrubbery enflagrante delecto with him...’ Verity watched John flinch and close his eyes. ‘...at Lord Devon’s ball last week and that Lord Carruthers had her skirts up around her waist and his britches around his knees!’ He laughed vulgarly. ‘I’ve always said Misses like the shrubbery!’
‘Edward!’ John said firmly. ‘Don’t be so vulgar in front of my mother.’
‘Sorry John,’ he replied without any sincerity. ‘I just thought you ought to know what kind of a girl she turned out to be!’
John had made the mistake of telling Edward all about his infatuation with the beautiful Jessica Gordon one night when in his cups. Edward had delighted in telling Victoria about it, so that she would clear a debt or two. A fact she never let him forget. Every twist of the knife was said sweetly alongside the name of Jessica Gordon.
‘Who discovered them?’ Verity asked still softly.
‘That’s the strange thing, nobody is owning up to having witnessed this event. I find it most peculiar. But I understand that Wilbur Gordon and Stephen Carruthers have made an agreement for the marriage. Miss Gordon or as she will be Lady Carruthers, will have to live with the Earl’s family while David is in Portugal. No doubt to provide a good home for the heir that should arrive in nine months time!’
The carriage jerked to a halt and the footman opened the door. The Duke allowed the ladies to disembark first and he sat and looked at Edward as if he’d crawled out from under a stone. ‘Do you believe that it’s true?’ He asked softly.
‘Who in the ton believes in truth!? It’s the story doing the rounds. Gordon and Carruthers have forced a marriage, so there must be some truth in it.’ Edward finished, surprised at the hurt expression on John’s face. ‘Why are you interested in it?’ Edward asked impertinently and John shook his head and turned away. ‘Christ, John. She’s a whore, like all of them. Just a hole to be fu....!’ His words died on a gurgle as the Duke suddenly had him around the throat and was forcing him against the front bulkhead of the carriage.
‘Never speak about her in that fashion in my hearing or I’ll kill you!’ John spat forcefully into his face. He watched the colour drain from Edward’s face and he jerked his head up and down a few times before John released him and slumped back onto his seat. Edward straightened his cravat, rubbed his throat and eased himself out of the door.
The Duke sat for a moment after Edward had climbed down and shook his head. He vividly remembered the beautiful Jessica Gordon smiling at him during their first dance, although he’d never seen her again after that night. He was saddened that she had been so compromised, even if there was no truth in the allegations, her reputation was ruined and John was very aware that the slow disintegration of her reputation started the night he danced with her. ‘Poor Jessica.’ He murmured. ‘I hope you love him and he loves you, otherwise your life will be as unhappy as mine.’ He scrambled out of the coach and wearily climbed the steps to his ancestral home, easing his cloak off his shoulders and handing it to Butcher, the butler, along with his hat.
‘It’s still very wet out there, Your Grace.’ Butcher said softly.
‘Yes, the vicar was in a hurry to get her in the ground before the grave overflowed.’ The Duke said just as softly and looked keenly in Butcher’s eye, giving him a knowing smile.
‘And Her Grace would have complained about that too!’ Butcher said, turning away and handing the garments over to a footman.
‘That she would!’ The Duke said. ‘I just need to pop upstairs and change. Will you see that the guests are entertained in the main drawing room, when they come down?’
‘I will Your Grace.’
‘And tell my mother’s and Verity’s maids to start packing. They are going to London with Edward this afternoon.’
‘I will, and will they need the large Landau, Your Grace?’
‘I would think so, Butcher. Probably the luggage cart as well.’ He sighed and gave the butler a small smile. ‘Thank you.’ he said softly and strode across the hall to the staircase and climbed them two at a time. He walked into his chambers, shedding his soggy jacket, to find Masters had already laid a bath and was in the process of laying out fresh mourning clothes for him.
‘How did the service go, Your Grace?’ Masters asked solemnly. John had been surprised that none of the staff wished to go. Not even the Duchess’s maid. Victoria, in her three years at Charlecote had managed to offend and ostracise every single member of staff from Butcher the butler, down to the lowliest scullery maid. As he stripped off his clothes and sat in the hot bath before the fire, he remembered Butcher’s indignation at the Duchess’s invasion of the kitchen. She had stormed into the kitchen, lashed the cook with her acerbic tongue, shouted at the kitchen maids and slapped the scullery maid, all because the breakfast she’d had delivered in bed was cold. He sniggered when Butcher told him that the next time the breakfast had been so hot, that she had to wait to eat it. Cook had threatened to resign and the scullery maid took to hiding in the pantry every time the door to the house opened. And that was nothing to the importuning the poor head gr
oom had had to suffer at Victoria’s hands. Because he refused to service the Duchess, she dismissed him and George, the coachman, had told the Duke. John took the greatest pleasure in re-instating the groom and telling Victoria to refrain from sacking his staff just because they wouldn’t fuck her. She had stood in his study and blustered, twisting the knife again about his lack of virility and John became so angry that he stood up from behind his desk, looked her coldly in the eye and said firmly ‘If you fall pregnant to some other man in this household, I won’t sack them, I will divorce you instead!’ Then she made the ultimate mistake and shouted ‘You wouldn’t dare!’ He had smiled in such a way that Victoria suddenly recognised the vulnerability of her position. ‘I would.’ The Duke spat. ‘And I would leave you penniless and give the child away to a deserving family.’ He had sighed deeply. ‘Please don’t forget that I’m the Duke. All of this is mine, not yours, and if I choose to remove you from my life, it will be very painful for you. You would be completely ostracised from the ton, the scandal would be immense and your entire fault!’ After that Victoria had been the epitome of the good wife, for about a week.
‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready, Your Grace?’ Masters asked from the window, jerking the Duke out of his reverie. ‘The guests will wonder what’s keeping you.’
‘Yes, Masters.’ He looked up at his faithful valet. ‘You and the staff have been very patient and kind, thank you.’ John said softly as he stood in the bath and rubbed himself down. Stepping carefully out he sat in the fireside chair and continued to dry himself and then he slipped on the stockings that Masters handed to him.
The Duke and The Governess Page 3
