The Confessions of a Duchess (6 page)

But in the morning the fever had gone from her and she had seen her actions for what they really were. She had hidden her guilt and criminality from Dexter. Worse than that, she had been unfaithful to her husband, she had taken the virginity of a man eight years her junior; she had used him to ease her pain.

For Laura, unfamiliar with sensual pleasure, the night had been unimaginably blissful. But it was still dreadfully
wrong.
And when Dexter had begged her to elope with him, to run away from Charles and leave all her unhappiness behind, she had known that although she found the idea dangerously appealing, it would be the worst thing that she could do.

She could still see the expression on Dexter’s face when he had pleaded with her to go with him. He had looked eager and hopeful, with the kind of shining, new happiness about him that she remembered from when she, too, had been young. When she saw it, it made her feel every one of those eight years’ difference in their ages. She knew that if she took what he was offering she would ruin him forever. For a man of his age at the start of his career, with no money or connections, with nothing but a good name and integrity of spirit, to run away with a married duchess considerably older than he was himself, would be absolute disaster. The scandal would ruin him and he would never recover.

She had sent him away.

She had not done it gently. She had been deliberately cruel, for she judged that if she had explained her reasons he would have tried to override them and she would have been all too easily persuaded. She had hurt him and in the process she had broken her own heart as well as his. She had made him think her a faithless wanton. And now, four years later, she had had to send him away again still thinking she was a hypocrite and a whore.

Laura got to her feet and took an anxious turn across the room. When she had sent Dexter away before she had thought that would be the end of the matter. She had never imagined that the outcome of that passionate encounter would be her beautiful, precious daughter, Harriet.

It had taken her a long time to realize that she was pregnant. At first when she had missed her courses she had assumed that the misery and loss she had suffered had affected her cycle. She had been married to Charles for over ten barren years and during that time had gradually come to assume that there would be no children. Her childlessness had been a terrible grief to her, made all the more painful because she knew there was probably no cause for it other than the fact that her husband never came to her bed. When she had fallen pregnant with Hattie she had suffered no sickness in the mornings and had been out riding until her sixth month. Thinking back over that time, she wondered whether she had simply been denying her situation or had been so transfixed to find herself
enceinte
after all those years that she was afraid even to think about it in case it was all an illusion. Whatever the case, she said nothing until her friend Mari Falconer had challenged her gently about the pregnancy and then she had finally admitted to her oldest friend that the baby was not Charles’s child.

Laura put her hands to her head for a brief moment and then allowed them to fall.

Her pregnancy had been a thing so precious and so closely guarded that she was afraid that if anyone or anything should threaten her baby or her future happiness she would surely run quite mad. And then Charles had arrived and had done precisely that. He had sworn to take the child away from her as soon as it was born. He had shouted at her and hit her, pushing her down the stairs…

Laura closed her eyes for a second to blot out the memory of that appalling scene.

She told herself fiercely that she did not need to think about it now, or ever again. Charles was dead and his hatred could no longer touch either herself or Hattie. But she still felt unsettled and disturbed and she knew that the reason was Dexter. She had never imagined that he would come to Fortune’s Folly. She had never thought to see him again.

Dexter could never be allowed to know about Hattie for if the truth ever came out her
daughter would be branded a bastard and her life ruined forever.

Laura felt cold even to think of it. She shuddered, feeling the goose bumps breaking out on her skin. She did not have any fears for herself or her own reputation if the truth were known; that mattered nothing compared to Hattie’s future. Nor did she believe that Dexter would ever deliberately hurt an innocent child, as Charles had threatened to do. But if Dexter knew Hattie was his daughter he might want some say in her upbringing. He might wish to acknowledge her openly. Infidelity and illegitimacy had made his family a laughingstock throughout his life. His parents’ offspring had borne the stigma of not knowing the truth of their lineage and she could not imagine Dexter would wish the same fate on his own children. He might suggest that Hattie be brought up with his own family.

He might try to take Hattie away from her.

A powerful wave of protectiveness swamped Laura. She would die before she relinquished her child. And she would do everything in her power to make sure that no rumor or whisper of scandal would ever taint Hattie’s future with her mother’s disgrace.

So she could never tell Dexter about his daughter. Hattie had to be protected at all costs. She had to remain forever unquestionably and officially the offspring of the late Duke of Cole. For the past three years Laura’s sole purpose had been to shield and safeguard her child and that would not change now.

Laura walked slowly through the connecting door that linked her bedchamber with her daughter’s room. Her sister-in-law, who had made sure that her children’s nursery was not only on a different floor but in a different wing of the house, had told her quite plainly that she was mad to spend so much time with Hattie.

“You are storing up trouble for yourself in future,” she prophesied gloomily. “The child will grow up thinking it natural to spend time with you and will be forever hanging on your skirts. Best to get her a good nurse and then leave her upbringing to the servants.” Which, Laura thought, probably accounted for the dislike in which her niece and nephew seemed to hold their parents.

She picked up the framed charcoal drawing of Hattie that stood on the chest of drawers and studied it for a moment. Hattie was smiling, all round pink cheeks, tiny rosebud mouth and tumbled black curls. She did not look like Dexter. She had Laura’s hazel eyes and Laura’s grandfather’s coloring, but apart from that Laura thought she resembled no one in particular. She was her own person.

Laura’s heart eased slightly. Perhaps Dexter would not even recognize Hattie were he to see her in the village. Why should he, when she did not resemble him? Perhaps, Laura thought with a flash of bitterness, he would not believe Hattie to be his even if she
did
tell him. Since he thought Laura herself to be a faithless wanton he would think Hattie’s father could be one of any number of men.

But even so, she could not risk it. She would not hide Hattie away, of course, for people would notice that and talk, but she would have to be very careful.

She was so deep in her thoughts that she missed the sound of the front door opening and footsteps on the stair. A moment later the door of the room burst open and Hattie flung herself on Laura, a sticky, stripy piece of candy clutched in her hand. Judging by the way her cheeks were bulging, Laura suspected that the rest of the sweet—a rather large piece by the looks of it—was already in her mouth. She bent and scooped Hattie up in her arms.

“Mama, Mama! Candy!”

“So I see,” Laura said, smiling over her daughter’s curls at the nursemaid, who had followed Hattie up the stairs and was standing in the doorway. “Have you had fun, darling?

I hope you were good for Rachel.”

“Mr. Blount gave Lady Harriet some sweets, ma’am,” Rachel said. “I hope you do not mind. And Mrs. Morton gave her some lilac ribbons for her hair and a little scrap of lace to make a doll’s dress. Very generous, people are.”

“Yes, they are.” Laura kissed Hattie’s bulging cheek and smoothed a hand over her soft curls. She knew most of the shopkeepers in Fortune’s Folly pitied her the lack of a husband and her straitened circumstances, but because they felt uncomfortable giving a duchess charity they would always slip Hattie presents instead. Almost all of Hattie’s clothes were made from off cuts from Mrs. Morton’s gown shop and Hattie was likely to develop a very sweet tooth as a result of the grocer’s generosity, for scarcely a day went past without him leaving a small bag of sweets for her, or a packet of biscuits or a new cake recipe he was apparently trying out. Mrs. Carrington, who acted as cook housekeeper for Laura these days, grumbled that she was quite capable of making her own cakes, thank you, but she said it quietly because she knew as well as everyone else that without the generosity of their neighbors the household would in all probability starve.

“Mr. Wilson gave me two turnips,” Rachel said with a giggle. “He said Lady Harriet would enjoy making a lantern from one for Halloween and Mrs. Carrington can turn the other into soup.”

“That sounds delicious,” Laura said, “though I do not know how you managed to carry everything home.” She smiled at Hattie. “Will you enjoy making a lantern, darling?”

“Yes,” Hattie said, wriggling to be freed. Laura put her down and she turned her face hopefully toward Rachel. “Can we make it now?”

“Not now, milady,” Rachel said firmly. “It’s time for nuncheon.”

“Don’t tell me,” Laura said resignedly. “Mr. Blount also gave you some hot-cross buns.”

“And some oaten biscuits and strawberry jam,” Rachel said. “He said it would only go to waste if I did not take it.” She held out her hand to Hattie. “Come along, madam.

Time to wash all that candy from your fingers.”

“I can do it myself,” Hattie said with dignity, spurning her helping hand, and Laura smothered a smile.

“Proper independent, she is,” Rachel said. “You mind, madam. She’ll be walking into the village all on her own one of these days if we give her half a chance. Strong-minded, she is, the poppet.”

Laura listened as Rachel took Hattie off to the closet to wash, her daughter chattering all the while about making the turnip lantern and wheedling a promise from Rachel that if she was a good girl they would go down to the water meadows to play. Laura listened with half an ear, tidying and folding Hattie’s clothes as she did and feeling a mixture of contentment and a strange poignancy that she could not quite place. Strong-minded, Rachel had said. Little Hattie, independent and bold and happy, with her ebony curls and her fearless nature…Pride and a kind of astonishment rose in Laura that she had produced such a miracle as her daughter, that she and Dexter together had created something so exquisite and extraordinary. She doubted she would ever stop feeling that sense of awe.

Guilt stirred in her. Dexter was denied the pleasure of knowing his daughter and of seeing her growing up. She was denying him that right and she wished she did not have to do so, but she had no choice. Never for a single moment could she risk Hattie’s future, her happiness and her security.

The echoing jangle of the doorbell broke her thoughts.

“Hello?” A feminine voice wafted up the stairs to her. “Laura? Are you at home?” Glad of the distraction, Laura hurried down the stone stair and out into the hall.

Carrington was nowhere to be seen. Yet again he had not heard the bell. Laura sighed.

There was no point in bemoaning the shortcomings of either her butler or her housekeeper since she had deliberately kept them on to save them from an uncertain future. The health of both Mr. and Mrs. Carrington had been ruined in the last few years by the constant and excessive demands of the new Duchess of Cole and Laura, guilty that she had left her servants to Faye Cole’s mercy, had subsequently offered the Carringtons a new home. After a year, however, she was reflecting that it would have been better to employ servants to wait on
them.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Carrington were broken, shadows of their former selves.

Miss Alice Lister, Laura’s neighbor from Spring House, a neat villa whose garden bordered Laura’s own, was standing in the hall and peering through the door of the drawing room. She had a straw bonnet on her corn-colored hair and was clad in an extremely pretty cream-and-yellow-striped muslin gown with matching pelisse.

Laura liked Alice very much. Miss Lister had been ostracized by most of village society, especially those who were keenly aware of rank and status and were appalled that a woman reputed to be a former maidservant had come into money, bought herself a fine house and come to live amongst them. Such events went much against the natural order and the good ladies of Fortune’s Folly were not prepared to give Alice countenance. Then Laura had arrived, the biggest fish in the small pool of Fortune’s Folly, and she and Alice had become friends immediately. Laura liked Alice because she was neither servile nor ingratiating and she told things exactly as she saw them whether speaking to a duchess or a stable hand alike. Laura, surrounded by toadies for much of her life, found it refreshing.

“I did knock,” Alice said. “I thought perhaps you might be down by the river this afternoon—” She stopped. “Oh! You have been
in
the river.”

“How did you know?” Laura inquired.

“You have a strand of pond weed in your hair. What happened?” Laura sighed. “I am not quite sure. I was in the rowing boat and I lost an oar, so I tried to paddle back with the remaining one but ended going in circles instead.”

“Never try to paddle with only one oar,” Alice said. “It does not work.”

“As I realize now. I grabbed at a branch and would have been able to steady myself, except that it broke and I drifted into the middle of the river and went over the weir.” Laura paused. Had she imagined that someone had given the boat a hefty push? She had seen nothing, for the sun had been in her eyes, but she had thought she had heard footsteps…

No. That had to be pure imagination. She pulled herself together as Alice gave a gasp and clapped her hand to her mouth. “Laura, no! You were not injured?”