His Favorite Mistake

by Aydra Richards

  Blast. “Then we’ll go as we are,” Nick said. “But this is beneath you, James. You can sit here and wallow, or you can take your life into your hands and make it right.”

  The anguish that settled on James’ face hit Nick with the force of a blow. If this constituted love, then he prayed he would never fall victim to that wretched malady.

  “She’ll never forgive me,” James said, with gut-wrenching certainty. “What I did—what I did to her precludes forgiveness.”

  In all likelihood, James was correct, Nick had to admit. It was an impossible obstacle, a Sisyphean labor of James’ own making. “Probably,” he acknowledged aloud. “But you owe it to yourself to try. You owe it to Jilly to try.”

  The bleak desolation in James’ eyes had not altered. Hope, that oft-said eternal wellspring, had run dry in him. But at last, in spite of it all, James nodded.

  ∞∞∞

  The Duchess of Rushton had returned to London.

  It had taken only two days for the announcement of her marriage to hit the papers, but in that time she had thrown herself into preparations to begin her new life. David had accompanied her to the Bank of England, whereupon he had assisted her in the process of setting up for herself her own account. Her dowry had been a respectable sum, and its placement into her account had allowed the letting of a small townhouse in Grosvenor Square.

  She had moved herself in immediately and set about placing discreet advertisements for servants, purchasing furniture and decorations that would make her new residence feel more like a home. In the meantime she had borrowed a few necessary servants from Kittridge House, whom David had been only too happy to share with her.

  She had tried very hard not to let herself dwell on what had brought her to this pass. It was easier, of course, when one had things to do, but in the early hours of the morning when first she woke with the dreadful nausea upon her, it seemed impossible to do anything but dwell upon it.

  Just days ago she had been so happy, expecting a child with her beloved husband, just months away from having the family she had always hoped to have.

  What it was that she had now, she didn’t know.

  She could not even work up any enthusiasm over her pregnancy. What had delighted her only a few days ago now served only as a reminder of her own humiliation. While she did not resent the tiny life growing inside her, she considered it with a sense of apathy, a predicament to be set aside and considered later, when she could at last work up the nerve to do so.

  Fathers were considered the natural custodians and guardians of their children. While the agreement that David had wrought from the duke might very well protect her, it would not extend to their child. Especially if the child turned out to be male—no court in the land would turn over custody of her husband’s heir to her.

  It was simply one more thing the duke would take from her. Thus there was no sense in forming an attachment to a child who would never truly be hers.

  She hadn’t cried yet. There was nothing to be gained from it, and she had the curious feeling that if she let herself start she might very well never stop. Some pain went far too deep for tears, bound itself up in endless tangles and knots, and wound itself into one’s blood and bones, so inextricably linked with one’s core that attempting to exorcise it seemed an impossible task. So she had stoically borne the hurt, convinced herself that she could keep swallowing back her tears until the propensity to give into them faded altogether.

  But for all that, she had done a rather excellent job of redressing herself once again in the frigid dignity she had clothed herself in these past few years. Though there were plainly those, among the few she acquaintances she had seen since returning to London, who wondered why the duchess did not reside within the duke’s London residence, why she insisted upon being addressed only as Lady Jillian, or why her husband had not shown his face among polite society, in the wake of Jilly’s dispassionate stare they wisely kept such inquiries to themselves and whispered them only out of her hearing.

  She had, truly, begun as she meant to go on. Detached, explaining herself to no one, and answerable only unto herself.

  And she might have continued in that vein forever, but for the unexpected arrivals that had turned up on her doorstep for staff interviews.

  “My lady, I understand you are seeking a butler,” Bartleby had said, shepherding Mary into the room, his voice somewhat more gravelly than she would have expected. “I have recently resigned my last position. My references are, however, impeccable. You won’t find a finer butler in all of England.”

  And the redoubtable duchess—Lady Jillian, at her own insistence—flung herself at the poor, beleaguered man, laid her head upon his shoulder, and cried at last.

  Chapter Thirty One

  James had been back in London for nearly a week. He was used to being an object of some curiosity—no one in his position, a duke of no small fortune and eligibility, could have failed to be. But this was some other beast entirely. He was intimately aware of the stares that followed him, of the whispers that swelled around him when his back was turned.

  He had grown accustomed, in the last few days, to doing rather too much for himself. Absent a butler and quite without the will to seek another, he had taken to answering his own door, rifling through his own correspondence.

  Of Jilly he had seen nothing. She rarely left the small house she had leased, just a few blocks from his own townhouse. If she had attended any events, he had heard nothing of them. Though their marriage was now common knowledge, it seemed that the fact of their estrangement was less so—when the post arrived each day, so too with it arrived handfuls of notes and invitations addressed to Jilly.

  Still, he was loath to feed the rumor mill, to once again place Jilly’s name on the tongues of busybodies with naught to fill their lives but idle gossip. If nothing else it was an excuse to see her. He could tell himself that he sought only to protect her reputation by bringing her the letters rather than sending them back from whence they had come, but really they were a foot in her door, a lever he could use to crack it back open and see how she had fared since her return to London.

  To take his own carriage would be to invite note. The ducal crest emblazoned upon the side of it would command attention, and that, for Jilly’s sake, was something he would not allow. Instead he crammed the handful of correspondence into his coat pocket and strode straight out his front door in the hopes of hailing a hack.

  Alas, that hope, too, sailed away from him. It was not quite the fashionable hour, and most of the Ton would still be preparing to make or receive calls. The streets were not quite deserted, but those who milled about them were not acquaintances of his. It seemed somehow unfair that it was such a beautiful day, that the sun glowed in the sky and larks chattered happily in the trees lining the street. James would have preferred a more gloomy atmosphere, given his present state of mind, but London weather was a fickle thing, and instead he was given only bright streams of sunlight breaking through the trees.

  Gentlemen of his status rarely walked anywhere, but his destination was only a few blocks away, and he could not see any harm in it, except that it gave him altogether too much time to think, to consider the ruin he had made of his life and hers. To think of the child she carried that he might never know. Yet another life wrecked by his clumsy hands.

  Jilly’s house was a neat little brownstone, tucked between two larger residences, and might’ve been overlooked entirely amidst the finer homes on the street. She could have leased something much finer, more suited to her position—but somehow the nondescript little townhouse suited her. She had never, to his experience, been overly impressed with appearances or the material aspect of life that abounded among their social set. He suspected it would just as comfortable inside as out, a tidy little home that would not bear the echo of resounding footsteps or gleam with a respectable town polish, but would feel welcoming and inviting.

  Or so he assumed. Presently he doubted very much that he would
find himself welcomed within its walls.

  The front door had been painted a cheery red, and James took the knocker in his hand and rapped upon it.

  Promptly the door opened, and James drew back a step in surprise. “Bartleby?”

  His former butler stared at him in stony silence for a cold, wretched moment, the lines of his face forbidding. “Your Grace,” he said, in a voice dripping with frost. “I regret to say that my lady is not receiving at the moment. If you would care to leave your card, I shall pass it along to her.”

  A frisson of concern skittered through him, and he forgot himself for a moment. “Is she ill?” he inquired. “She needs some lemonade—with mint. It settles her stomach best. And she should have a walk in the park. Be sure she takes a shawl with her; there’s a bit of a nip in the air.”

  Bartleby lifted his chin, every bit of his disdain for his former employer etched into his face. “My lady is well enough,” he said. “I mean to say, Your Grace, that she is not at home to you.”

  “Of course.” James felt the sting of those words as if they had been the prick of a knife sliding neatly through his ribs. He had expected them, but it did not blunt the pain. “Of course she isn’t.” He had never imagined she would be.

  Bartleby cleared his throat. “It would be best,” he said, “if you were to depart, Your Grace.”

  “Yes,” James said. “I’ll be off. Just—see that she gets these.” He tugged the packet of correspondence from his pocket and passed it on to Bartleby, who accepted it with a crisp, if stiff, bow. “Some correspondence came for her. I thought it best to pass it along instead of sending it back.”

  “It would be desirable, Your Grace, if you did not undertake such errands personally in the future. A courier can be had for a shilling or two,” Bartleby said, in stilted, formal tones.

  “I know,” James said, feeling uncomfortably like a small boy who had been called upon the carpet to account for himself. “I know. I simply wanted—I need to know how she is holding up, Bartleby. Will you tell me that, at least?”

  “Well enough, Your Grace,” Bartleby said. “Well enough.”

  The door shut quietly in James’ face. He stared at the closed door before him as if it were a particularly knotty problem that he knew not how to even begin to unravel. But after a few moments of quiet contemplation, at last he turned and walked away.

  And if he had only looked up he might have seen his wife peering through her window from the next floor up, considering him in much the same way.

  ∞∞∞

  “Well,” Jilly sighed, as she rifled through the packet of correspondence that Bartleby had delivered to her upon James’ departure. “I suppose there’s no hope for it. I’ll have to make the rounds eventually. I’ll need to decide what invitations I ought to accept.” If she did not, those dreadful whispers would begin again. There would be theories and gossip and speculation bandied about, and to hide away from polite society—a misnomer if she had ever heard one—would be to tacitly confirm them.

  If she ever wished to take her place in London society, she would have to do it soon. There were only a few months left before she would be required by societal convention to leave it once again for her confinement.

  “Oh, my lady,” Mary said. “Are you certain you wouldn’t want one of them French lady’s maids after all? Perhaps I do well enough for country life, but—”

  “Nonsense,” Jilly put in briskly. “I know what pleases me, and it is not to have my hair wrenched from my scalp in the name of fashion. You have done just fine so far.” And it was true; Mary had an effortless sense of color and style that Jilly had found to be matchless. She would never have an elegant French accent or the haughty manner frequently found within the upper echelon of servants, but it made her a pleasant and comfortable companion.

  She—and Bartleby—had been a great comfort to Jilly in the week or so since she’d come to London. Though she had never expected to see either of them again, she found herself unaccountably grateful that they had joined her small household. Of course it was not as fine as the duke’s, and considering the scandal that would inevitably fall around her it would certainly not be as prestigious a position as they could have hoped for, but neither of them had been anything but kind to her.

  It eased a bit of the sting, she thought, to have garnered their respect despite her circumstances. She had not expected it, after all. It fell to a woman’s responsibility to safeguard her own reputation, and she had failed miserably at that. But neither Mary nor Bartleby had laid the blame for it at her feet, and they had, of their own volition, left their positions in the duke’s employ for her own. It was a sort of loyalty she had not expected, but cherished nonetheless.

  “Lady Ravenhurst called again this morning,” Mary said. “Mr. Bartleby said she was most put-out that you were not receiving.”

  “Nora would be,” Jilly said with a grimace. But Nora would also be full of questions that Jilly was ill-prepared to answer, and she simply could not handle her friend’s well-intentioned kindness. That sort of friendly overture would strip her bare of the protective walls she had been working ceaselessly at erecting. She did not want a shoulder to cry on, or a sympathetic pat on the hand, or even someone to carry a grudge on her behalf.

  She wanted to ice herself over and cut out any proclivity toward nurturing personal relationships. They had never done her a lick of good.

  Her fingers paused in flicking through the assortment of envelopes as she recognized with an uncomfortable lurch a familiar name.

  Lady Gloriana Bradford.

  The girl that had, however unintentionally, ruined her life. David had spilled the whole sordid story on the ride back to London. The burst of anger that accompanied the sight of the letter surprised her. She had taken such pains in the past week to shed it, to remind herself that it would avail her nothing, that Gloriana was simply a spoiled young girl who, despite her selfish actions, bore little responsibility for what nefarious plans the duke had set into motion.

  For a moment she considered tossing the letter, envelope and all, into the fire. There would be a momentary satisfaction in it, surely. But it would fade, as all things faded now, and then, much later on, there might even be regrets. And so she set it aside, tucked it within the drawer of her escritoire, and endeavored to forget it.

  ∞∞∞

  Two days later, having been refused admittance to Jilly’s townhouse no less than six times in the past week, Eleanora Chickering, Lady Ravenhurst, stormed up the steps of James’ Mayfair residence and rapped smartly upon the door with the knocker. Her husband was somewhat less than pleased to have been roped into accompanying her, but he had come nonetheless, and stood beside her with the singular expression of a man lead a merry chase by his energetic wife.

  James answered the door himself, somewhat startled as Lady Ravenhurst stormed past him in a righteous snit, straight into his foyer, where she promptly began nattering about gossip and tittle-tattle, with much gesticulating.

  Robert, Lord Ravenhurst, slipped past James with an awkward, nearly apologetic smile. “Now, dearest,” he said, in a coaxing voice cleverly designed to extract his vivacious wife from her present pique, “we don’t know what’s gone on. Suppose you save your suppositions for the moment.”

  “Do come in, then,” James muttered to no one in particular as he snapped the door closed again. It was not quite noon, and he had been sleeping off half a bottle of good whisky on the sofa in the drawing room. He was not in a state for visitors. He had not been in a state for visitors for some time, and doubted he ever would be again.

  “Jilly won’t see me,” Eleanora said, casting an accusing glare in his direction. “I had assumed that, given your marriage, she would be residing with you. Imagine my surprise when Lord Westwood conveyed to me her new address, Your Grace.” Her dark eyes flashed with her ill humor and the set of her chin suggested she would not be moved from her goal—namely, to discover how it was that her dearest friend’s marriage
had so swiftly gone wrong.

  The guilt, which had temporarily been blunted by the liberal application of spirits, set back in swiftly enough. “I need a drink,” James rasped, turning for the drawing room.

  Robert stayed him, his firm hand clapping on James’ shoulder. “By the look of you,” he began, and his nose wrinkled as he corrected, “by the smell of you, I would say you’ve had more than your share.”

  James supposed he might have a certain odor about him. He could not clearly recall when he had last changed his shirt, and he might have nodded off with the open bottle of whisky still in his hands evening last. It was not outside the realm of possibility that he smelled as if he’d taken a dive into a still.

  Though Eleanora’s glare could have flayed the skin from his body, Robert affixed his wife with a half-grin and said, “Whatever has happened, it ought to at least be clear to you, m’dear, that His Grace is bearing up no better than Jilly.”

  That deflated the wind from Lady Ravenhurst’s sails somewhat. She gave him a brisk once-over, and sighed in a manner that suggested that she agreed with her husband’s assessment. “I can see that,” she said at last, her voice tripping down once again to the well-modulated tone of a lady from its former stridence. Just for a moment, she looked at him with something very like pity.

  James could bear all manner of things, but never that—that pity which he did not deserve. He well knew himself to be the villain in this fiasco.

  “I suggest,” Robert said, “that we adjourn to the drawing room for refreshments. You’ll pardon me, Your Grace, if I say that you look as if you could use some sustenance beyond spirits.” He all but frog-marched James back into the drawing room, surveying the wreck James had made of it last evening impassively.

  Lady Ravenhurst had stepped away briefly, presumably to find a member of the staff whom she could direct to bring refreshments. In the intervening time, Robert slung James onto the sofa and nudged the carelessly discarded bottles and glassware beneath it and out of sight.