A Return of Devotion

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  “Yes, greatly. I’ve had to spend two days trapped in a tiny room while my horses rested enough for me to leave.”

  At that moment, all Daphne felt was pity. The bedchamber they’d been in, while hardly large by aristocratic standards, was far from tiny. But more important, he couldn’t see what he’d done wrong. “You deliberately set out to ruin a woman’s reputation because of a bet. No, you didn’t know it was me. Would you be sorry if it had been Kit? Did you even consider waiting to see if your evening had consequences beyond social ruin?”

  He looked away, staring at some art on a faraway wall for several minutes. When he turned back, he seemed tired and considerably older than the past fourteen years should have made him. “No. I didn’t consider it. And while life may have gone rotten for you awhile, it looks like you’re coming out on top. You’d have never caught the eye of a marquis otherwise. We all saw him rush to your side, so there’s no sense denying it.”

  Somehow, because her life was taking a turn for the better, he felt that excused everything he’d done? “Why are you here?”

  “Because I have nothing of my own. My father is the second son of a title that has now passed beyond his generation. My choices are to live off the kindness of others or find myself a hovel and a job.”

  “So you came here . . .”

  “To borrow the house in Bath for the Season. Obviously that’s not going to happen now, so we’ll have to spend the summer in London. Does that make you happy?”

  Daphne realized she didn’t care anymore. She’d wanted to stand tall while she faced him and she’d done that. He’d been surprised by this. Perhaps, like her, it took time for him to really comprehend something. If so, maybe one day he would return and apologize. If not, she didn’t intend to live her life waiting for it.

  “I find it doesn’t make me happy or sad. As you said, life has moved on, and so have I.” She walked over and opened the door for him, mostly because she wanted the pleasure of shutting it behind him. “I don’t know if this matters to you, but it matters to me. I forgive you. But I won’t be a bit disappointed if I never see you again. Have a nice journey.”

  He grunted, plopped his hat on his head, and walked out the door. Daphne shut it, perhaps harder than necessary, but with a satisfied grin on her face.

  Chapter forty-one

  Daphne walked into the library, smiling widely, and William promptly forgot each and every number on the factory report in front of him. He dropped the paper on the desk and stood to greet her, an answering smile spreading across his own lips.

  “I thought you would want to know your cousin left,” she said.

  William nodded, tension he hadn’t realized he’d still been holding seeping from his shoulders. “I know it’s hypocritical of me to be angry at him, but I can’t seem to help it. I don’t want him in my house or anywhere around you.”

  “It’s still new for you. And him, too, I suppose.” She sat in the chair in front of the desk, the picture of calm serenity. “I’ve had fourteen years to think about it. I thought I’d moved on, but apparently something in me needed to see him again. I think, for me, it’s all finally over.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” More than glad. Maxwell was family and could only be held so far away. If William wanted to keep Daphne in his life, Maxwell would eventually show up again.

  That was the last thing he wanted to talk about now, though. “I ordered a billiard table. I would have asked Benedict, but I didn’t want to wait that long. I’ve asked him for enough pieces of furniture to keep him busy for years.”

  Daphne laughed. “I think he’ll understand. Particularly if you teach him to play.”

  Her easy, relaxed manner made his heart soar. Even when they’d been having dinner together, she hadn’t been this open with him. This was the true Daphne. Despite the fact that she had so little to her name compared with him, she didn’t seem to mind. Life was what it was and she was who she was and he’d never seen anything more beautiful.

  She didn’t seem to notice the trail his thoughts had taken because she kept talking. “Do you remember what you said about sharing my story with the women? I think I’d like to talk to the one Kit and Graham brought to Mrs. Lancaster’s house. It’s going to be difficult for her, and I suppose I want her to know someone else has been there.” She took a deep breath and grinned at William. “I know I’ve been going to town a lot lately, but I wanted you to know that this time I’m coming back.”

  “I appreciate the information.” William’s breath sped up as he shifted his position in his seat. “I have a better idea. Well, perhaps not better, but a different idea.”

  “Oh?”

  “Bring her here.”

  Daphne’s mouth dropped open. “Here? You want me to bring an upper-class woman attempting to hide her condition from the world to the home of a marquis?”

  When she phrased it that way it did sound a bit topsy-turvy. “Yes. But not here, exactly. I thought you could bring her to the cottage. It’s private, she would have a bit of independence, and you could teach her skills so that if she wanted to keep her child, she would have the option of stepping down from society and making a different life.”

  She blinked at him but didn’t tell him no.

  William hoped that was a good sign. He plunged on. “She could work up at the house, learning skills like laundry and cooking, but still not be a servant. If you had more than one woman at a time, the new one could learn from the previous one. This way you’d always have somewhere for them to go. Even when there are guests here at the house, they aren’t going to meander their way down to the cottage.”

  He stopped talking and she just kept staring at him, occasionally blinking, her face taking on that blank expression that indicated she was feeling too much and didn’t know what emotion to land on.

  “What do you think?” he finally asked.

  “That’s . . . I . . . You want the women here?”

  “If you think it would help them.” Honestly, William couldn’t see how it wouldn’t. Options were the one thing these women didn’t have. It was something he could help Daphne give them.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Daphne said, her voice a bit rough. “That you would even make such an offer . . . but even if they know how to survive, they’ll never find work with a young child in tow.”

  William took a deep breath. He’d been working with her father on this idea all morning. Would she like it? He turned the paper around and pushed it across the desk. “Look at this. It’s only an idea right now, and there are a lot of details still to work out, but this is my factory.”

  Daphne leaned forward to look at it, obviously happy to move on to what she thought was a change of subject. “It’s lovely.”

  Her sweetness made him want to circle the desk and wrap her in his arms. He had to finish showing her his plan first, though.

  “And this”—he pointed to a rectangle set just over the rise from the dale where the factory was being built—“is going to be a dame school. For the women who want to come work for me. You see, it’s not a normal factory. We’ll be making buttons, brooches, buckles, and hairpins. It’s a lot of metalwork but also a lot of decorative work. That’s something they could learn to do, as most of them have been learning it in some form for most of their lives.”

  Daphne blinked at him again, the smile dropping from her face to be replaced with a look of utter shock. “A dame school? You’re going to hire someone to watch the children of your factory workers?”

  “Yes. Well, it wouldn’t only be for your women. I’m sure there are people in Birmingham who could use it as well, but I have to admit, it was you who made me think of it.”

  He flipped the paper back around to face him, making a note to ensure the windows faced away from the factory to dampen the noise as much as possible. Suddenly Daphne was up and around the desk and wrapping her arms around him.

  Whatever he’d been writing didn’t matter anymore. His pencil clacked against th
e desk as he dropped it in order to wrap his arms around her in return. He pulled her as close as he could with her standing and him sitting, savoring the feeling he’d been so afraid he’d lost. He rose to lean against his desk, taking her hands in his. “Am I to assume that’s an approval?”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling. “I approve. I’ll have to talk to Kit and Graham. A permanent place to bring them makes it all so much easier.” She dropped her forehead to his chest and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I can’t believe you care about this.”

  “I care about you. And knowing this matters to you, knowing I can help make life better for someone else . . . it feels better than I imagined. Doing it with you would make it even better.”

  Her smile fell and she bit her lip. “William . . .”

  “I know. I’m trying not to pressure you. So much has happened in the past few days, but when I had this idea, I couldn’t wait to share it with you.” He paused, bracing himself for her reaction to what he was going to say next. “But you know this only works if you’re part of it. You are the one who is going to be able to help these women in ways no one else here can.”

  William’s fingers curled tighter around hers. He’d have their banns announced tomorrow if he could. He’d drive to London to acquire a special license. All she had to do was agree. “I wish you could see what I see, the way it could be.”

  She took a deep breath and squeezed his fingers. “Tell me.”

  “I know you’d love Dawnview Hall. There are people on the estate, tenants who haven’t seen anyone really care about them in a long time. I want to change that. We can change that. It’s not a difficult ride here from there either, whenever you feel the need to be here to help someone. It’s an even easier ride from London. We could spend most of the summer here.”

  The more William pictured it, the more excited he became. He was nearly bouncing as he saw his life unfolding in a way he never would have dreamed. “When we go to London, you could meet with the committee Kit told me about, the one that helps identify the women who need you. I have friends whom I’ve been holding my distance from, whom it would be nice to spend more time with. And I’d like you to meet them. I’ve never enjoyed balls, but as much as you love music, I’d love to take you to the opera.”

  He had to pause for a moment as his breath ran out in his excitement. But when he looked at her, all the air he’d regained was lost.

  She did not look happy.

  She looked terrified.

  She was pale, and her arms were pulled in as tightly to her body as she could get them, poised to run as soon as he gave her an opening.

  “Daphne?”

  “I can’t do that. I can’t . . . that’s too many people. I wouldn’t know what to do or say. No one knows me. They’ll stare and talk. Even if they don’t know about my ruin, they’ll know I’m older and they’ll wonder and they’ll ask questions. I thought I could, but I can’t. All the people . . . I . . . I can’t.” She pulled her hands out of his grasp and clutched them to her chest.

  William had rushed her again, pushed her before she’d come to the realization on her own that she was stronger than she’d been before, that she could pick and choose her battles this time. He’d hoped his excitement would be enough to ignite hers, and maybe it was. But it wasn’t enough to overcome the fact that groups of people scared her on some elemental level.

  At least she’d liked his dame school idea. He’d tell Mr. Blakemoor to move ahead with the plans. Regardless of what happened between Daphne and William, those women would need his factory and Haven Manor.

  Daphne didn’t run. She wanted to, but she didn’t. She managed to avoid William, while somehow maintaining her strange role that fell somewhere between guest and housekeeper. After two more days, her father left, with the promise to write regularly and visit often.

  She’d shared the idea of bringing the women to the cottage and teaching them life skills with Jess and Kit. Both thought the idea a brilliant step forward. There was some work to be done, parts of the cottage to clean out and repair, but it wouldn’t be long before they could bring Martha, the woman currently living with Mrs. Lancaster, to her new temporary home.

  The billiard table was delivered.

  A full week came and went.

  And every day she’d take a moment to remember the conversation in the library, to see if maybe time would make it scare her less.

  It didn’t.

  And because it didn’t, it meant Daphne was once more searching for ways to avoid going up into the main house. Working in the kitchen was the easiest answer, so she pulled out the dough Jess had set to rest earlier and prepared to knead it.

  “Get your hands off my bread dough,” Jess growled.

  Daphne grinned and backed away, hands raised. “But you don’t have a scullery maid anymore. Kit went into town yesterday. She said Eugenia is flourishing with Mrs. Lancaster. They’re competing to see who can be happier than the other and which one can actually talk a customer into a stupor.”

  “I’m glad. It’s good for them both.” Jess put down the knife she was using to cut up an already-cooked loaf. “That doesn’t mean you can touch my bread.”

  With a huff, Daphne crossed her arms. “What do you need me to do, then?”

  “Get a project.”

  “What?”

  Jess swiveled, hands on her hips. “Get a project. You are always easier to live with if you are helping make something happen for someone else. So please, for everyone’s sanity, go fix somebody.”

  “Is that true?” Daphne had never considered it, but the statement felt comfortable.

  “You’ve never noticed that? If you have a task to do, particularly one that helps someone else, you couldn’t care less how many people are around you.” Jess took the bread dough Daphne had been about to knead and began punching it.

  Daphne didn’t complain that Jess was now doing the very thing she’d been about to do. “But I’ve had tasks to do here and the arrival of new household staff made me nervous.”

  “Changing the linens on a bed is entirely different than changing someone’s future. One is boring. The other gives you purpose. You can hardly compare the two.”

  Daphne opened her mouth to argue, but a little curl of hope had her shutting it again. Could Jess be right—again?

  “I’m going to town,” she announced. It was time she actually put her lovely new plans into motion instead of waiting for them to wither away and leave her with nothing.

  Jess looked up. “Why?”

  “To visit Martha.”

  Chapter forty-two

  William ran a hand across the green baize of the newly delivered billiard table. The gentle scrape of the covering reminded him of Daphne and her dresses that had been washed and worn until they bore the comforting softness of an old blanket.

  Who was he trying to fool? Everything in this house reminded him of Daphne. They’d talked and planned every inch of this house. This room, though, had been William’s idea, his plan. Seeing it in reality gave him a strange sort of thrill.

  Derek still grumbled about the amount of art William was slowly putting away, but he couldn’t continue to live in an overabundance so great that he couldn’t enjoy any of it. Perhaps he could open an art museum in Marlborough and entertain aristocrats as they came through town. He’d appoint Derek the curator.

  William pulled a mace from the cherrywood rack on the wall. The rack matched the wainscoting that ran along the bottom of the wall and made a pleasant contrast to the smooth blue walls, where there now hung a few carefully selected paintings, including one of a strange dog he would swear appeared to be smiling.

  The entire place was comforting, inviting. Home. He liked it here at Haven Manor. It was, perhaps, a bit small by aristocratic standards—Dawnview Hall was probably four times the size—but he liked it. He didn’t rattle around in it with more space than anyone reasonably needed, unless they were trying to show everyone else how important they were.


  In fact, he was fairly certain there were rooms in Dawnview Hall that he’d never seen before. Not so with Haven Manor. He’d even seen the washroom and the kitchen larder.

  And he’d been intimately involved in the discussions and plans for every one of those rooms. By the time renovations were complete, there would be a part of him in every room in this house.

  He wanted this to be hers as much as his. That wouldn’t happen unless she was his wife.

  It had been a week. For an entire week she’d acted as if the conversation in the library had never happened.

  She wasn’t ready. She might never be ready. Maybe she would marry him if he agreed to live here all the time, but that wasn’t realistic. They both knew he couldn’t run a marquisette from here. Already there were matters that needed his attention and had been delayed because of the distance of Haven Manor.

  No, he couldn’t stay here, and he refused to have a marriage like his parents: strangers who shared a child, drifting apart until they grew to hate each other.

  He could never hate Daphne, but he could become bitter that she accepted him but not his heritage. That she always made him leave her here, living her own life that he was welcome to visit on occasion.

  Part of William wanted to rail at God for showing him something he couldn’t have. The truth was, though, being with Daphne, learning to love Daphne, had made him grow as a person. He wouldn’t trade that for anything. Even if it meant the future he’d been so excited about a week ago was slipping away and a new one was taking its place.

  One where he waited for Daphne forever.

  Did she even love him the way he loved her? She’d never said it. Then again, neither had he. But he’d offered her everything he was and she’d said she couldn’t do it.

  Araminta and Edward had already left, and Kit and Graham were planning to leave tomorrow. William had already given his blessing for Haven Manor to be a place of refuge for the women. Whether Daphne married him or not, what she was doing was good. William wanted to be a part of something good.