The Rusticated Duchess (4 page)

Blessing Cottage
?

The house was supposed to be in his family, had been in his family for generations. There it sat, within sight of the castle walls. In the long distant past, some ancestor had built it for a mistress, who had lived in it with her children. In times more recent, younger sons had inhabited it with their families. Clare’s great-grandfather, however, burdened by failing fortunes and struggling to pinch two pennies together, was unable to bequeath his second son a reasonable portion. Instead, the old man had deeded Blessing Cottage to that second son. Clare’s great-aunt and great-uncle had lived there when Clare was but a boy, but after their deaths the property had passed to their son—his father’s cousin—who had never returned to inhabit it. That Blessing had been a military man, and Clare knew that Colonel Blessing had died unmarried and was buried in the castle’s family graveyard.

The property had not, Clare knew, reverted to the family. Neither had it been inhabited in the twenty-some years since Colonel Blessing’s death.

Fifty years earlier the Blessing family might have been in dire circumstances, but Clare’s father had been almost fanatical while guarding their remaining assets. Clare, for nearly twenty years, had then worked diligently with his father to reclaim the lost legacy the family had once enjoyed. He wouldn’t describe the Duke of Lauderdale’s purse as generously overflowing, but they were comfortably plump in the pocket now and well able to indulge themselves without worry. Clare’s son was being respectably educated at Eton and would go to Oxford, like other peers of his age and station. Lauderdale lived primarily in London, with a house in Mayfair, though he had eschewed the glittering horde in the decade since Clare’s mother had died. Clare’s primary residence was at the family’s English seat at Norham Castle, in Ladykirk and Norham at the Scottish border. He’d spent years living at Killard Castle but only visited now when necessary. Most often when Clare travelled, it was to supervise the vast farming operations at White Cross Court, with an occasional visit to London to check on the business interests there.

They could afford to reacquire the cottage now, without question. But who owned it, and what did the young woman with a guard who didn’t hesitate to aim a pistol at the heir to a duke have to do with it?

Chapter Two

That evening, only his second night in Ireland on this particular crossing, Clare penned a letter to his father in London, asking about the cottage’s ownership and any related concerns. Despite the late hour, after blotting and sealing the missive, he sent a messenger to Strangford to put it on the morning packet to England.

That night, while the sea tides washed rhythmically against the ancient stones beneath him, Clare dreamt.

His memories of Sarah were especially vivid when Clare returned to Killard Castle, and often turned into powerful dreams. Memories haunted him in the bedroom they’d shared and the drawing room she had created and even in the study where, from the window, he could see the stone vault where Sarah was entombed with the Dukes and Duchesses of Lauderdale. She hadn’t been one, of course, but she would have been. Her husband would someday be and so would her son, God willing. She belonged there, even if Clare still hesitated to look down when he walked to the window.

The dreams were one reason Clare spent less time in the proud, dramatic stronghold every year. Clare didn’t only dream of happy memories, but also of the worst moments. He had nightmares of the frantic drive south into Ireland, hoping against hope, only to find heartbreak and tragedy inside the physical safety of the FitzGerald stronghold. Sarah had already died from scarlet fever when he’d arrived. On guilt-ridden nights, she lay in her bed crying for him in her delirious fever. At the worst times, he’d dreamt of the interminably slow trip north to Strangford with her coffined body, waiting day after day in virtual solitude after he’d laid her to rest in the tomb. The endless days of empty loneliness and loss that he’d spent confined on the Lauderdale yacht in the harbour had been full of bitter self-recrimination, until both a physician and his father agreed he should re-enter the castle. They’d taken every precaution to ensure he didn’t bring the scourge home to his father or his son, and yet the first question the boy had asked, once restored to Clare’s arms, was about his mother. He’d relived those dreams hundreds upon hundreds of times, living for the nights when Sarah had been happy and loving and sweetly generous.

No, this dream was about the girl—the woman—who had faced him down at his own doorstep.

Instead of hidden under mourning black, she’d been gloriously naked, standing on the windswept road that ran to the shore. Long blonde hair flew behind her in the breeze and she’d spread her arms and stretched her fingers to feel the full effect of the wind against her skin. It coloured from gleaming paleness to a vibrant hue of compelling pink even as he watched, and her expression had transformed from cool, distant reserve to unfettered joy. His body twisted and turned in the bed, hard and aching, but he hadn’t dared get any closer to the siren, with her piercing green eyes and dulcet voice that lured him to indiscretions.

She was hardly more than a girl, and so his anger rose even as he dreamt. He was a man full-grown—a responsible man of honour—and he would not be drawn to the fierce siren who tempted and taunted him with her glorious tresses and haunting eyes.

He awoke angry still. He was angry with her for luring him, however unconsciously, into a desire he had no intention of fulfilling. Mostly he was angry with himself, though, and he acknowledged it even as he bellowed and stomped around the bedroom that he had shared with Sarah. His mind had supplied details of the girl’s appearance and personality that didn’t exist, that he couldn’t have known, that were as un-Sarah-like as possible.

Clare felt like an unfaithful, dirty louse and even hours later, he turned his head away in guilt from the portrait of his late wife that hung in his study. He couldn’t bear to sit there, reviewing castle accounts and comparing crop yields and livestock births, while Sarah serenely looked down on his head with her madonna smile and their infant son on her lap.

With a savage growl in the general direction of his groin, Clare stomped up the stairs for his riding boots and capes, calling for his horse to be saddled and brought about. The girl was young, even if she was in mourning, so he’d call and ask for the owner. He had business with the owner, and so much better if he caught a glimpse of the girl. She couldn’t be as alluring to him as his dream had suggested. If he saw her again, he’d be able to assess her logically and set her to the side as she interacted with him in what would be the common girlish way.

Jamie Seton met him on the front steps, before he could mount. “What did you find out?” Clare asked curtly, not even pausing.

The steward fell in obediently and shrugged. “I already knew the household’s been there about four months. The soldiers say the first man to arrive hired a housekeeper from Kilchet. One day there and the widow let her off and sent to England for someone she knew and favoured. I’ve just spoken to the disaffected female this morning and now know never to hire that gimlet-eyed sour-tongued fish either—the widow was right to dismiss that harridan right off. She has told everyone who’ll listen that the tenant is nothing more than some man’s mistress who got caught with a child. The household addresses the widow as ‘the lady’ or ‘my lady’ but none use her title and refused to tell Widow Lawson the lady’s name. As for the girl we saw? The keepers in the watchtower say she walks every day the weather permits, always with the guard we met or one other. She’s never out alone.”

“What about the old man—the caretaker who used to keep the place?” Clare gripped the horses reins tightly as he digested Jamie’s words. Whoever the girl was he had faced, she had not appeared to be a widow or any man’s mistress.

“Old Hodges? Apparently the man who hired the old witch paid Hodges to make himself scarce. Said to come back in six months, so Hodges hired a seat on a cart in Kilchet and headed to Dublin. Hasn’t been heard from since.”

“So the verdict is that the villagers don’t know the first thing about the household.”

“Not a thing,” Jamie confirmed. “Except that they lost the custom of the house by asking the servants too many questions about their mistress. The coach drives through every week and goes to the markets in Strangford now.”

Clare grunted, and took the reins of the big horse waiting for him. He mounted as Jamie stepped back and eyed him curiously, openly questioning. “I’m going to make the acquaintance of a lady,” Clare finally bit out.

“Yer not causin’ trouble for that lass, mon,” Jamie objected, his educated voice slipping away in surprise as he dropped all pretence of formality. “Ye said yerself she be a lady.”

“Of course not,” Clare derided. “I’m going to offer to buy the damned place. It is part of my heritage, after all.”

* * * *

Mrs Sinclair bustled into the sunlit room they used as a nursery, tucked between the kitchen area and a small library. Gloria supposed it to be an old conservatory or solarium, for the windows were perfectly placed to draw in the light and it looked out over the hibernating garden. Gloria much preferred it for Eynon to the crowded, stuffy rooms under the eaves. There in the attics, a narrow, steep staircase descended just past the nursery door to the landing at the top of the main stairs. Gloria’s brother John had tumbled down a more luxurious, if similarly organised, staircase onto the marble foyer at Aston Manor and had not survived. Gloria’s decision to use that old conservatory as a nursery had been easy.

It was easy to spend time in this room, with Mrs Pitcher, Brody Jenson and Eynon, watching the tiny infant’s personality bloom. Gloria was sitting on the floor, her legs tucked beneath her, watching Eynon squirm on his belly when the housekeeper entered. She looked up at the rustling of the housekeeper’s skirts and began to rise even as she recognised the intense worry on the woman’s face.

Nevertheless, Mrs Sinclair dropped a brief curtsy before closing the door behind her. “My lady, a gentleman has called. I’ve showed him into the front parlour.”

Gloria’s eyes widened. “A gentleman?” she questioned, even as Mrs Sinclair stepped carefully around the baby and handed Gloria his card.

“Colman was most unhappy, took up a spot right inside the parlour door. I told him what that I would check to see if your ladyship was available, but Colman said as how he would just stay where he was. Most improper of him, I should think, but I know precisely what he’d say if either his mother or I tried to tell him otherwise—that he takes his orders from His Grace. And the gentleman is a marquess! Perhaps he knows His Grace?”

Gloria, who had already read the card, trembled a bit. She suspected she knew precisely who was in her front parlour. Unsurprised he had come calling on what was clearly his closest neighbour, she was nevertheless in shock. She hadn’t thought—hadn’t put it together—but this was Blessing Cottage, and the name on the card was Jeremy A. S. Blessing, Marquess of Clare.

Gloria reminded herself firmly that Blessing Cottage was owned by her uncle now, by the Bentley family, by the Earl of Hanover. Uncle Neil, Uncle Colby and Lennox had said nothing about a family named Blessing, only that the castle was owned by the Duke of Lauderdale. Gloria knew of the Duke of Lauderdale—he was a reclusive old man who rarely went anywhere other than the House of Lords and his clubs. He was on all the guest lists of course—no hostess in her right mind would have failed to invite a duke residing in Mayfair to a
ton
entertainment—but Gloria had never met him.

Clare had to be Lauderdale’s son and heir.

In the corner, Eynon’s nurse Mrs Pitcher was already setting aside her knitting needles and rising from her rocking chair, so Gloria leant down and kissed the happy little boy and stood. “I can’t see him like this. I’ll need to put on black gloves at least.”

“You go up the kitchen stairs then, my lady,” Mrs Sinclair agreed. “Should I bring tea?”

Frowning, Gloria shook her head. “Only if I send for it,” she allowed. “Hopefully he won’t be here long enough.” At the door, she paused and looked carefully at the man who stood beside it, nearly constantly in her train or her son’s.

Eyes that matched her own green orbs looked back at her directly, without hesitation. Brody Jenson had been Eynon’s guard and companion, as much as Mrs Pitcher, from the day of his birth. Lennox had summoned him from Wales and given him the commission of guarding and serving the duke-to-be, and Brody Jenson had accepted it with an unquestioned enthusiasm that had at first surprised Gloria.

Like Colman, he’d been a soldier ten years earlier, but unlike that burly footman, Brody was slender, strong and proud with high cheekbones and a fearless face. The man had been educated by the rector at Eynon Castle, and clearly had better prospects than serving as an infant’s groom. He could easily have passed as gently born in the right clothes and shoes.

After months together, even as mistress and servant, Gloria rather suspected that Brody
had
been gently born, at least half of him. Despite her requests to tell about his childhood and parents, she could find out nothing beyond the fact that he had grown up among the brats at Eynon Castle, orphaned as a lad when his mother had died. Lennox had always taken a special interest in him, seeing to his education and ensuring that he’d been well-fed and decently attired. He’d spent four years in the army, from the age of sixteen, and had returned to Eynon Castle in Wales after Waterloo, where he’d served as the estate steward’s secretary and amanuensis, in preparation for taking over the role himself. He’d seen enough fighting, he’d said, and had seen enough men die to last a lifetime. He wanted to watch one grow instead.

Gloria had not yet had the courage to ask Brody the one question she wanted answered. But she was heading into an interview for which she was unprepared, and she needed an answer. With a wave of her hand, she directed Brody out of the nursery into the narrow corridor. He acquiesced, taking up a position between Gloria and the danger in the front parlour.