To her surprise and relief, however, it seemed for a time as though all would be well. Dianna and her future husband – a charismatic lad who would one day inherit the Earldom of Winfield – got along splendidly as children and continued their friendship into young adulthood. But the day they were to be married Miles left to travel the continent.
That was four years ago, and no one had heard a word from him since.
“It must be positively dreadful for you,” Abigail said sympathetically. “I cannot imagine.” To lose Reginald was bad enough, but at least she knew what had happened to him. To go through her life never knowing… It was unbearable to think about. “I do not mean to upset you, dear, but do you know how much time must pass for one to be declared legally deceased? If that were to happen then you would be free from the contract.”
“His mother claims she still receives letters from him,” Dianna said, a rare sliver of bitterness creeping into her tone. “I fear she lies, but what proof do I have?”
“What proof indeed,” Abigail murmured. She sighed and straightened in her chair. “When I lost Reginald, it was a decision we came to together.” More or less. “We were foolish to ever think we could be married.”
Dianna’s blue eyes darkened. “You were not foolish, you were in love.”
“Stupidly so,” Abigail agreed.
“Do you… Do you still think of him? After all this time?”
Every day. “Once in a great while.”
“You must despise him for what he did.”
“Oh, no,” she said honestly. “When I remember him and our time spent together it is with great affection and fondness. We were children, Dianna, and were both forced to pay the price for our impetuousness. But that part of my life is long over.” Reaching out blindly, she grasped her teacup and took a liberal sip of the cooling liquid. “Best not to dwell on the past, my dear. Memories are what they are. You cannot change them.”
One of Dianna’s shoulders lifted and fell in an elegant shrug. “I suppose that is true enough. It is curious, though, is it not, that you never married?”
Something twisted unpleasantly in Abigail’s stomach. Now she knew why she never talked of Reginald, nor of the history they had shared. It hurt her now just as it had back then. It seemed time did not lessen the pain of all wounds, and the ones she had sustained all those years before were still slowly trickling blood. “I did not marry because I had no wish to do so,” she said firmly, hoping her tone would put an end to the subject.
“So you have no lingering feelings at all,” Dianna persisted.
“For Reginald?” Abigail took another sip of her tea. “No, none at all.” It was, she reflected, one of the only lies she had ever told her niece.
“Then it will not matter to you, then.”
Abigail peered at Dianna over the curved rim of her cup. “What will not matter?” she asked suspiciously.
“It was in all of the papers yesterday morn. I am surprised you have not heard already.”
“Heard what?” She loved her niece, she truly did, but sometimes the girl could be nothing short of exasperating.
“The Duke of Ashburn. He is returning home.”
Abigail’s teacup slipped from her hands and shattered on the floor.
CHAPTER TWO
The article in the The John Bull was really quite straightforward. Having recently suffered the death of his wife, the Duke of Ashburn would, at long last, be returning to his ancestral home. It hinted that his finances were in ruin, but Abigail knew the coy assumption was a farce intended solely to stir the winds of gossip. Reginald had always been careful with his inheritance, even as a boy.
The article went on to reference his two daughters, both fully grown with families of their own, before it began to ramble at great length about one of Reginald’s old suspected flings who was now married to a marquess but rumored to be carrying on a liaison with an earl.
Abigail set the paper aside. She did not need to finish the article. She did not even need to read past the first sentence.
Having recently suffered the death of his wife…
Suffered the death of his wife…
Death of his wife…
Her shoulders snapped together and she stood up with enough force to send the high backed drawing chair she had been sitting in scraping against the floor. Hugging her arms tight to her chest, she began to pace the length of the parlor, her eyes downcast and expression severe.
Outside the unframed windows that ran the length of the room – Abigail despised curtains – the sun was just now spilling across the peeked and pointed rooftops of the city to bath everything in the soft, rosy glow of dawn. The streets were oddly quiet, the hour too early for even the vendors to be out hawking their wares. Everyone was still abed, enjoying their last precious moments of sleep before a new day began. It was where Abigail should have been. Where she would have been, if not for that blasted article.
Glaring at the tattered copy of The John Bull she had borrowed from Dianna, she plucked it off the side table and crumpled it into a ball, as though by making the words illegible she could strike them from existence. But what was read could not be unread, and with a small, regretful sigh Abigail smoothed the paper back out and tucked it beneath a vase.
Reginald was coming home.
How many hours, days, weeks, months had she spent desperately wishing for his return? And how many years had she spent hoping he never did?
Too much time had passed. If for some reason he thought of her now at all, she would have him remember the girl of his youth, not this old woman she had become.
Abigail did not consider herself vain, but as she crossed to the mirror hanging on the wall and studied her reflection she could not help but notice the changes that the passing years had brought to her face and body.
Where the skin had once been smooth it was now creased. Where her hair had once been thick and tawny, it was now thin and dulled to a shade alarmingly close to gray. As a young woman she had worn it in a variety of styles, proudly showing off the gleaming color that Reginald had once compared to the “sun on a fine summer’s day”. Now she wore her hair coiled into a bun and tucked beneath a simple lace cap, a spinster’s hairstyle if ever there was one.
She knew, overall, that she had little room for complaint. At forty and seven she was still healthy as a horse, and if she had grown a bit pudgy around the middle who could blame her? She walked, didn’t she? Three days a week, if truth be told. It was the crumpets, Abigail decided as she sucked in her belly before letting it fall out again with a loud whoosh of air. It was always the crumpets. Not that it mattered what she looked like.
After all, she was thankfully past the age where the opinions of others were of any consequence and heavens knew she wasn’t about to go husband hunting. Those days were long behind her, passed by in the blink of an eye and recalled every now and then with a vague fondness. She was content with what she had. Content with where she was.
But if that was completely true, then why had she worn a morning dress of dark blue?
“Because I like blue,” she said aloud, hoping the sound of her voice in the empty parlor would drown out the true answer. The answer that burned under her skin, like a sliver of wood she couldn’t quite pluck free. The answer that shouldn’t have even been an answer at all, not after all these years.
Why had she gone through the trouble of digging up one of her old dresses stored long ago in a trunk of similarly ignored garments? It was quite simple, really. And so utterly complicated all at the same time.
Blue was Reginald’s favorite color.
Ashburn House was exactly as Reginald remembered it.
Dark and imposing, the sixty room estate sat ostentatiously atop a long sloping hill, the windows glittering out at the front lawns like the many faceted eyes of a spider. White columns flanked the main entryway and extended out to either side, as imposing and grand as they were structurally useless. Slapping his palm against one of them now, Re
ginald leaned into the cool stucco and breathed in the memories of his childhood home.
He thought of his mother, so rigid and set in her ways, so determined to see the Ashburn legacy continue on without a speck of tarnish or scandal. He struggled to think of his father, a man he remembered only vaguely. A quiet voice. A quick smile. Those were the only memories Reginald had of a man who had died in a carriage accident before his son’s sixth birthday.
He liked to believe his parents loved each other and his mother had grown hard after the tragic death of her husband, not before. He liked to believe she had loved him, even though he did not know what kind of love would allow her to deny her child the one thing he wanted most in the entire world.
As he walked into the front foyer with its vaulted ceiling and covered furniture he could not help but wonder how his life would have been different if Abby had worn his ring these past three decades instead of Theresa.
Could she have been happy here in this stale, stagnant place? There are so many bloody curtains, he observed as he moved slowly from room to room. Abby hated curtains. They blocked out the light, she had been fond of telling him, her pert little nose wrinkling whenever he managed to sneak her into Ashburn House.
Without fail she had always managed to drag him out to the woods and the fields beyond where they would spend hours hidden away beneath the clouds, their faces tipped towards the sun as they drank in the cool summer air and each other.
He knew now how she must have felt then whenever she stepped foot inside Ashburn house. His light was gone, extinguished one afternoon long ago when he had listened to his head instead of his heart. With Theresa it had sputtered and flared, but never sparked nor shone so bright as when he was with Abby.
He climbed the winding staircase, each footfall heavier than the last. For a long, lingering moment he paused outside the room he had slept in as a child before he moved on to the master.
It was the only bedroom that had been readied. Since the death of the dowager duchess eight years ago the estate had been run by a skeleton staff. What furniture had not been put into storage was hidden beneath great white cloths filmy with dust. In the master suite the cloths had been stripped away and fresh linens placed on the enormous four poster bed. A basin of hot water rested on a side table and he removed his gloves before sinking his hands into the clear liquid, soaking away the chill that seemed to linger in his very bones.
Drying his hands with a towel, he did a quick, thorough study of his new chambers. He could count on one hand the number of times he had ever been allowed into his parent’s private quarters. Twice when he was a young lad, once to stand by the bedside of his dying father, and the last time to stand by his dying mother, her frail body withered away from pneumonia but her mind still sharp enough to scold him for not having his boots polished and his cravat straightened in accordance to her merciless standards of perfection.
A knock sounded at the door, tearing him from his dour thoughts.
“Enter,” he said brusquely. He turned as the door opened to reveal an old man, slightly stooped in the shoulders and weathered in the face, but with a twinkle in his brown eyes and a smile twitching at the corners of his thin mouth.
“Welcome home, your grace,” the man rasped in a low, gravelly voice.
“Wilson?” Reginald’s jaw dropped in astonishment. “Is it really you?”
Peter Wilson had faithfully served the Browning family for three generations, moving up the ranks from footman to valet before ultimately becoming steward of Ashburn House, the highest position a servant could achieve.
Reginald had thought the old man retired years before. He usually took no joy in being proven wrong, but in this case he could easily make an exception.
“Aye,” Wilson said, inclining his head before he drew back his shoulders and stood as tall as his old, creaky body would allow.
“I thought you left.”
“And leave Ashburn House without a steward?” One thick eyebrow, bleached white by time, shot up. “I couldn’t go and do that, your grace. Someone had to care for her,” he said meaningfully.
Reginald was a man more than fully grown, but he still shifted uncomfortably at the implication behind Wilson’s carefully chosen words. Yes, someone should have been caring for his ancestral home…. and that someone should have been him. “I intend to make Ashburn House my main residence from this point forward.”
Wilson nodded again. “I would expect no less from you, your grace. With such short notice we could not prepare the estate in its entirety, however—”
“Take your time,” Reginald interrupted, holding up his hand. “I know my return was not anticipated.” Indeed, it still felt surreal to be back, doubly so now that he was faced with the man who had been so much more to him than a steward in his youth.
Beyond the watchful eye of the late dowager duchess Wilson had been a type of surrogate father, teaching Reginald more about the care and upkeep of Ashburn House than any tutor or book or fancy education ever could. On some level he supposed he had always curried the older man’s approval, and it still pained him to remember the disappointment in Wilson’s eyes when he learned that Reginald would be leaving everything behind to begin a new life in another country.
After all, it had been Wilson who used to sneak him pastries when he was sent to bed without supper. Wilson who taught him how to ride a horse when his instructor declared him impossible. And it had been Wilson who turned a blind eye when he went to meet with Abby.
“I was sorry to hear of the death of your wife,” the steward said now, as though he instinctively knew the sudden turn Reginald’s thoughts had taken. “She was a grand lady.”
“Yes,” Reginald murmured, “she certainly was.”
‘Grand’ was as fitting a word to describe Theresa as any, for she had been grand in every sense. Grandly beautiful. Grandly mannered. Grandly pedigreed. A woman born and raised to be a duchess if ever there was one, whereas Abby...
His jaw tightened. The last thing he wanted was to compare the woman he had married to the woman he should have married. It was fair to neither of them, and reminded him of mistakes best left forgotten. There was no use in trying to wish the past away. He could not go back and change what had happened, nor in truth would he want to. To change one thing was to change all things. If he lost Theresa, he lost his daughters, and they their children as well. No, he could not alter the past… but he would be damned before he lived in a future without Abby in it.
“I will be journeying to London tomorrow morning. There is no point in opening the rest of the rooms until I return. In the meantime, hire as many staff as you need to. I want Ashburn up and running as soon as possible.”
“Are you going for business?” the steward queried.
“Yes.” Of a sort.
Wilson rubbed his chin. “The townhouse is undergoing renovations.”
Something Reginald well knew as he had been the one to schedule said renovations for his city residence, but he was pleased that despite his advancing years Wilson was still able to keep such close tabs on everything.
As though he could read his mind – which as a boy Reginald feared he very well could – Wilson said, “I am old, not senile.”
Another rare grin flirted with the corners of the duke’s mouth. “I never said you were.”
“You should stay at the Keating Hotel,” Wilson advised. “Lovely views from what I hear and it is only a few blocks from her townhouse.”
Something inside of Reginald’s chest coiled tight, rather like a spring ready to deploy. He had told no one of his intentions, least of all the man standing before him. Surely after all these years the past would have been forgotten, lost to the winds of time. “To whom are you referring?” he asked guardedly.
The steward’s brown eyes twinkled. “Why, Lady Abigail of course. That is who you are going to London to see, is it not?”
CHAPTER THREE
Abigail received the calling card at half past eleven in th
e morning. It was delivered by a solemn faced footman, along with a bouquet of freshly picked (and still slightly damp) roses arranged in a delicate green vase.
Her hand trembling, she picked up the card from the silver tray it had been set upon and read the name elegantly engraved on the thick white paper.
The Duke of Ashburn
She flung the card away from her with a little gasp. It fluttered harmlessly to the floor and slid out of sight beneath a writing desk. Making no effort to pick it up, Abigail began to pace the length of her small parlor, sending her dove gray skirts swishing between her ankles.
The gossip was true, then. Reginald truly had returned… and was wasting no time in making his presence known.
But how had he found her?
She stopped short in the middle of the room and pressed a palm over her racing heart. A foolish question. He was a duke, for heavens sakes, with immeasurable resources at his disposal. It was not the how she needed answered.
It was the why.
Thirty years had come and gone since the day she slipped his ring from her finger and walked out of his life. Thirty years was a lifetime for some. An eternity for others. To always be waiting… wondering… wanting…
“No,” she said firmly, putting enough emphasis on the single syllable to make it echo through the room.
Mayhap she had waited and wondered and wanted for a time, but she had lived her life, and so had Reginald, except he lived it with another woman while she remained alone.
But that had been her choice, her decision, and she stood by it without allowing herself an ounce of self-pity. She was an intelligent woman. A strong woman. She did not need a man by her side to make her complete and she certainly did not need to receive the bloody Duke of Ashburn. Not after all this time.
No matter how much she wanted to.
Bustling into the foyer she secured a cream colored shawl around her shoulders to ward off the chill of the crisp autumn air, plopped a poke bonnet atop her head, and took one of her own calling cards from a small mahogany box tucked away in a side drawer. Slipping it inside her reticule she pulled on a pair of satin gloves – the fingertips nearly worn through with age – and darted breathlessly out the door.
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