The Reluctant Duchess

by Jane Goodger

  Furrowing her brow, she leaned in closer and held the candle nearer. “This is like the ones in the library. By the way, you really should get better books. I couldn’t find a single one to hold my interest.”

  “I have many more books in my rooms that may be more to your liking. You may borrow any that you like.”

  Rebecca smiled, her eyes still on the small house, marveling at the intricate detail. “Did you make this?”

  “And the ones in the library. It is what I do with my time.”

  “It’s marvelous. You’re a true craftsman. An artist.”

  “Thank you.” He stood where she’d found him, still pressed against the wall, still rigid. What must he be thinking? She found out moments later.

  “May I look at you? My eyesight is quite poor and I haven’t really seen you in the light.” Rebecca straightened and turned around. “Closer please.” She was very nearly stepping on his toes, but he moved closer still, leaning his head until Rebecca thought he was simply vying for a kiss. But no, his gaze moved over her features, taking them in, one by one, until he straightened and smiled. “I thought you would be lovely,” he said.

  “And am I?”

  He chuckled. “You exceed my expectations.” He frowned suddenly. “I am sorry that I cannot possibly exceed yours.”

  Rebecca laughed—she simply could not help herself—and Oliver gave her a startled, almost hurt, look. “Oliver, you have far exceeded my expectations. Do you not realize that I had created a rather monstrous image in my head thanks to your proclivity for darkness and the ridiculous behavior of the servants. You are lovely, sir. A happy surprise.”

  “You are not patronizing me.”

  “No, I am not.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “The only thing you are missing is color.” She tilted her head. “But your eyes are a lovely lavender, quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. You said they are quite sensitive to light?”

  “I cannot bear the sunlight, and everything is a bit of a blur if it’s any distance away. You’re a bit blurry now, as a matter of fact.”

  “Have you ever thought of purchasing tinted spectacles? They would protect your eyes from the light and allow you to go outside.”

  “Tinted spectacles?”

  “We can go to London and visit a jeweler who can manufacture some for you. Then you’ll be able to see better and perhaps even go out into the sun.”

  He looked toward the draped window, squinting even against the small sliver of light that managed to find its way past the dark material. “The sun burns my skin. When I was a boy, my father took me fishing. He covered my eyes with some material that I could hardly see through but protected them from the light. But my cheeks became blistered by the sun and it hurt like the devil.”

  “Then we shall take precautions and limit the time you spend in the sun. Oh, Oliver, I should think it would be wonderful to get out and about.”

  “Rebecca…”

  “Cooped up inside this house for years, I’d imagine you would like a respite. We can visit museums and the zoo. I’ve never been to the zoo and I would very much like to see the elephants. Perhaps we can visit—”

  “Stop, please,” he said harshly. “I cannot. I…” His breathing was uneven, his features taut.

  “I’m sorry, Oliver. I only wish to help.”

  “I wasn’t ready for you to see me.” His voice was dull, his expression unreadable and the earlier magic of the moment was gone. “Please leave me. I have much to think on.”

  “Of course.” She walked to the door and looked back. “I shall see you this evening?”

  He’d been staring blindly at the floor, but at her words, lifted his head, his expression bleak. “You shall.”

  After she’d gone, Oliver resisted the urge to sweep his latest miniature off the work table. He’d done that once—he couldn’t even remember what had made him so angry at the time—and had deeply regretted it. Righting his chair, he sat down, cautiously, as if doing so would cause him pain, and stared blindly at his little house. It was all too much to consider, but the one thing he could not push away was this: He was not a monster, according to his wife, and yet all his life he had been treated like one. She must be wrong and yet…

  Others were like him, she’d said. She had a name for it. Albinism. Perhaps his condition was rare, but yet common enough to have a name assigned to it.

  Instead of leaving the tower through the main door, Oliver proceeded to the narrow secret door toward the back of the room and followed the stairs down to the main level where the library was. He rarely ventured to the main level, particularly during the day. Why should he? But he remembered as a boy seeing book after book on scientific studies and animal husbandry. Surely he could find something about his condition in one of them.

  Once in the library, he strode to the entrance and shouted to the nearest servant, “I am not to be disturbed,” then slammed the door. For hours, he pored over books on husbandry and volumes on human pathology. Articles, yellowed and crumbling, were cast aside in frustration. Not a word could he find, and the pile of books and articles, pamphlets, and journals at his feet was growing. Perhaps three hours after he’d begun he heard a timid knock on the door and shouted for whoever it was to go away.

  Was she lying? Making words up because she pitied him?

  Then he took down a flimsy bound book with a promising title: Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man by Sir William Lawrence. And there he found it in the index: Varieties of colour of man and their causes. Listed second, was the word: Albino. Page 243. Heart beating hard, he pulled the book close to his eyes and flipped the pages, past descriptions of animals and humans of various races. He stopped when he saw the word. A word that made him real.

  That singular description of human beings called Albinos, possesses

  a skin of a peculiar reddish, or an unnatural white tint, with

  corresponding yellowish white or milk-white hair, and red or at least

  very light blue or grey eyes.

  “My God,” he whispered.

  The hair on all parts of the body is unusually white, light yellow or flaxen appearance of the fair-haired (blondins Fr.) German variety : but it is compared to that of milk or cream, or of a white horse. The eyebrows, eyelashes, beard, the hair of other parts, and often a soft down covering the whole body, are of the same colour. The iris is of a pale rose colour, and the pupil intensely red :* these parts, in short, are exactly similar to the corresponding ones in white rabbits and ferrets. The characters of the Albino arise…

  It went on, but his eyes were blurred by tears, and he dashed them away and kept reading, fascinated to learn about himself. Reading for any length of time was difficult, tiring to his eyes, but he squeezed them shut and continued on, his heart racing, his mind filled with more and more questions. Albinos had been seen in nearly every continent, every country. Including England. Yes, he was unusual, just as Rebecca had said. But enough people existed in this world like him so that he was not alone. Others. That word, that one word, brought indescribable joy.

  “Sir?” Mr. Starke called to him from the other side of the door. Oliver had little doubt his unusual trip to the first floor and to the library, of all places, had stirred some curiosity among the staff. He looked around and was a bit surprised at the extent of the mess he’d created while looking for answers. Books lay on the floor, the reading table, stuffed haphazardly back onto shelves.

  “Yes, Mr. Starke, please enter.”

  The old butler entered, his eyes cast downward, and Oliver felt that old irritation mixed with humiliation.

  “I am albino,” Oliver said. “I am not a ghost or a demon. I am a common man with a condition.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “You knew?”

  “Oh, no, Your Grace.”

  Still, he stare
d at the carpet, his cheeks ruddy. “Why do you not look at me?” he asked quietly.

  Starke lifted his head, but his eyes were trained above Oliver, at the wall. “We are forbidden to, Your Grace. And the curse—”

  Oliver stood still for the count of three, letting those words—and their meaning—settle in. “By whom were you forbidden?” Though he knew the answer, dreaded the answer. Starke looked as if he might be ill. “By whom, Mr. Starke. Who sentenced me to this existence? Who?” This last was a shout.

  “I did.” Oliver snapped his head toward the door to see the blurry outline of Mr. Winters. “It was to protect you, Your Grace. The staff had been disrespectful. You were quite young and perhaps you do not recall, but they would stare at you. They already feared you and I simply took advantage. You were unaware of it because of your poor eyesight, but I saw the way they looked at you. I corrected it, as I do all things that offend me. Certainly, you can recognize how well this household now operates. Fear, Your Grace, is the ultimate motivator. Fear is why I know I can run my finger along any shelf in this room and be sure it will come back clean. Fear is why they are respectful. They are simple creatures who only understand one thing, and I have taken advantage of this.”

  “I don’t want them to fear me. I—”

  “If I may, Your Grace, you know little of the day-to-day operations of running a great house. Please leave this to me.”

  “I will not be made to feel like a monster in my own house,” Oliver shouted, and saw Mr. Starke back up a pace, which only enraged him more.

  “You are becoming overwrought, Your Grace,” Winters said with maddening calm.

  Two breaths. Three, and he regained control of his emotions. Oliver took up the book he’d been reading. “Look, Mr. Winters.” He jabbed a finger, humiliatingly desperate, to the page. “I am an albino. Others are like me. I am not alone. Rebecca said—”

  “Ah, Her Grace is behind this hysteria? I should have known. I am certain she means well, but she knows little about you, about this house. Just this day, she attempted to countermand a decision. You must keep her in her place and not allow her to interfere.”

  “Why?” Oliver asked with deadly calm. “She is mistress of this house and I am master. As a matter of fact, Rebecca mentioned the dispute and I must say I agree with her position. Apparently that family has been on Kendal land for generations. Missing one month’s rent certainly does not justify eviction.” How foreign it felt to defy Winters—and how oddly freeing.

  “If you give them an inch, they will take a mile. With all due respect, if you do this, Your Grace, every tenant on your lands will begin taking advantage of your soft heart. Horncliffe is one of the most profitable estates in all of England. It is this way because I have ruled with an iron hand. The tenants should be grateful, not come begging for hand-outs, not rewarded for failure. Simple creatures understand only one thing.”

  “Yes,” Oliver said softly. “Fear.”

  Mr. Winters smiled. “Precisely, Your Grace.”

  “I should like to meet the staff.”

  Those were his first words when Rebecca entered her room. He sat by the window, velvet drapes pulled closed, the book from the library on his lap. He’d read every single mention of albinism in the tome, whether it was a discussion of humans or rats. He read and he thought, something he hadn’t done in far too long. For years he’d accepted his fate, his life. No deviations from his routine, no conflict, no decisions. A full accounting of his life only filled him with self-loathing of a different sort from what he’d ever experienced, the deep, raw emotion of a man who realizes he’s not a man at all. The fire was the only light in the room and he watched with the slightest bit of anxiety as his wife began lighting a few lamps.

  “Your eyes can accept this amount of light?”

  The question caught him off guard, and he found himself inordinately pleased by her consideration. “Yes. It is the sunlight that is most bothersome. Rather like shards of glass stabbing my eyes.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Now, then, we can converse like husband and wife,” she said, taking a seat in the chair adjacent to his. “Much better, don’t you think?”

  “Much.”

  “What is that book?”

  “It’s a scientific treatise on the human race. It contains quite a lot of information on albinism.”

  She beamed him a smile. “And did you find it interesting?”

  He glanced down at the book, rubbing his thumb along the leather binding. “It is difficult for me to express how profoundly grateful I am to you. How profoundly you have altered my perception of myself, my life. How others have treated me. How I have allowed them to treat me.”

  “Is this why you wish to meet the servants?”

  He looked up at her, frustrated by how blurred her image was, so he dragged his chair closer. “They fear me.”

  She dipped her head. “Yes, I know. I believe…someone has poisoned their minds.”

  “Mr. Winters.”

  Obviously surprised, she looked at him and tilted her head. “You know?”

  “He admitted as much. As misguided as he was, he meant well. He thought to protect me from their stares, you see. I realize Winters is a difficult man to understand, but he is all that I have had of family since I was six years old.”

  “He is cruel.”

  “Only because he believes that is the only way to maintain control of the staff. And to protect me, though I do believe the need for protection has long past. I am not a child nor have I been one for quite some time. He does mean well. I must believe that.”

  Rebecca stood and stared into the fire but she was too far away for him to read her expression. “You agree with him, then?” she asked.

  “No, I do not. And that is why I wish to meet the servants. I want to show them that I am simply a man.”

  “Not just a man,” she said, a smile in her voice as she turned to him. “But a duke.”

  “Yes.”

  Rebecca returned to her chair, but this time sat on the very edge, so that her knees touched his. She could not know what such a simple thing as that, touching him without coercion, without repulsion, meant to him. “I’m sorry about earlier. I cannot know how difficult this is for you, how difficult your life has been. We shall do whatever you wish, whenever you wish, but I shall not give up on you, Oliver. I will not allow you to hide anymore. And I will not allow anyone to mistreat you or malign you.”

  He reached for her hands and pulled until she was on his lap and laughing. “Take down your hair.”

  She reached up, such a feminine thing to do, and undid the pins in her hair until it fell, thick and beautiful, down her back. Picking up a lock, he held it to his nose and breathed in. “Lavender?”

  “Yes. I made good use of my wonderful tub today.”

  He held her close, breathing in the lavender, enjoying the sensation of having a feminine form on his lap, in his arms. “Should I let you go?” he whispered.

  “I’m quite comfortable,” she said.

  “That is not what I meant.”

  Rebecca stiffened slightly, then relaxed. “If you should let me go, I would not go far, Your Grace.” A pause. “Do you wish for me to go?”

  “I do not. But I am fully aware that the manner in which we were married was hardly honorable.”

  She toyed with the collar of his banyan. “That is the second time you’ve told me I may go and the second time I have told you I wish to stay.” Pulling back, she looked at him, but she was close enough so he could see the exquisite details of her face, her long lashes, her flushed cheeks, her expressive brows. “Do not ask again, Oliver, else I’ll begin to believe you wish me gone.”

  “Never.” He pulled her close and kissed her, letting out a moan when he tasted her. His heart felt too large for his chest at that moment. As he deepened the kiss, he came close to pulling a
way, simply to tell her that he loved her. Did he? He’d never loved another person other than his father, but what he was feeling at the moment was far, far different from anything he’d ever experienced. The love of a child for a parent was something else entirely. This was new and cruelly wonderful.

  Love had never been his reason for wanting to marry. Sex, children, companionship, yes. The romantic notion of love was something that lived in poems and that he’d never experienced in his life. How was he to know he was in love if he had never seen it?

  Sighing, she ended the kiss and rested her head on his shoulder, and that more than anything she’d done moved him. “Are you certain you are ready to meet the staff, Oliver? I don’t want to push you. It is only that I am so happy you turned out to be so dashing.” She laughed and he joined in.

  “Did you truly think me some sort of monster?”

  She trailed a finger beneath his banyan, touching bare skin and making him hiss in a breath. “I think I knew after I touched you that you were not a monster, though I could not imagine what all the fuss was about given your fine…physique.”

  “You think my physique fine?” he asked, his ego puffing up exponentially. Other than the lightness of his skin, he’d never given any thought to his appearance. He supposed he was fit, given his long hours of fencing, but hadn’t realized his wife might find his muscles pleasant.

  Laughing, Rebecca flattened her hand and explored his chest, making his cock stiffen painfully. “Rather fine, yes. Not a bit of extra flesh on you. So pale.” This last was whispered, more with wonder than aversion.

  “Would you like to see all of me?” he asked, cocking one brow, reveling in this feeling of being admired.