Eleanor And The Duke (Berkshire Brides Book 1) (10 page)

“Shall I close the window, Miss?”

“No, Lizzie,” Ellie replied. The day was warm. She had no business shivering in the heat.

She reached for her leather portfolio from behind the trunk that Lizzie had just unpacked and pulled the strap over one shoulder. “I think I’ll go down to the garden and do some drawing. Tell Mrs. Thornberry I’ll have a light supper when it gets dark.”

“Yes, Miss,” Lizzie said. “Shall I come along?”

“No. ’Tis different here in the country. More relaxed than London. ’Tis not necessary for you to accompany me everywhere I go,” Eleanor said. “You can finish unpacking, and see to your own supper.”

Eleanor felt an overpowering need to get away from the house, away from the past, a great deal of which was just too painful to recall.

Where she’d expected a peaceful withdrawal from society, she’d found anything but peace. She needed to get Beckworth to give her the quarterly allowance she was due and send him on his way back to London. She did not see why it had to be so difficult when it was clear he had more important things to do than bother her here.

She went to the farthest reaches of the garden and spread out the blanket. Sitting down on it, she opened her portfolio and brought out a number of sketches she’d made in Italy, sketches that had nothing to do with the Florence landscape. They were all of Beckworth.

She ought to have burned them as soon as she’d drawn them. Like some primitive ritual, maybe that would exorcise him from her soul.

And yet she had not been able to part with the drawings, taking them out whenever her self-control was at low tide and she could not bear another day without seeing the planes and angles of his face.

It was unfortunate that Eleanor was unable to come into town and enjoy the lively faire. Andrew remembered how well she delighted in such entertainments. They’d attended plays in Drury Lane and concerts in Vauxhall Gardens. They’d played croquet in the park on one warm April day the week before they were to have married, and ridden together along the pretty bridle paths near Primrose Manor during their single visit there.

But with her father so recently in his grave, Eleanor could not come into Reading and indulge in such frivolity. Andrew knew her lossx was not going to be easy for her, not that she’d been close to her sire in recent years. Derington had been an inept father and an even worse husband, if the rumors could be believed.

Eleanor’s pittance of a dowry had not been an obstacle to Andrew’s intentions. She might have been destitute for all he cared. He had wanted Eleanor and Eleanor alone.

His sentiments had not changed. If anything, he wanted her more today than he had a year ago.

“Is that Lord Weatherby, Your Grace?” Carrick asked as they rode away from the solicitor’s office. The secretary tipped his head in the direction of a street leading toward the center of town.

The man in question turned just enough for Andrew to identify him. “Yes. And Squeers with him. I wonder who they intend to bribe here.”

A large number of London’s fashionable set had arrived for the race, some of whom were members of Parliament. And with every vote on the labor measure essential, Weatherby could very well do some damage here.

“Carrick, find me an assembly room.”

“Your Grace?”

“I wish to host a party . . . No, never mind. There are likely numerous society parties taking place this week.”

“To be sure, sir. And no difficulty for you to acquire the right invitations.”

Which would suit his purpose well. He cared nothing about attending parties, but they would give him the opportunity to speak to his peers and counteract any damage Weatherby tried to do.

“Go back to Primrose Manor, Carrick,” Andrew said. “I’ll just wander the streets here and get myself invited to a few soirees.”

“If it’s all the same to you, Your Grace, I’ll stay here and wait for you.” He gestured toward a tavern nearby. “It doesn’t feel right leaving you to ride back with only Matthew to accompany you. Especially after dark, with so many strangers in town.”

“Very well. I’ll meet you and Matthew here in an hour.”

They dismounted, and Andrew left his horse in Matthew’s care. Then he walked into the crowded lane and searched for someone he knew. He soon encountered a close friend, the Earl of Woodingham and his wife.

Ellie caught a whiff of a savory sausage pie when she returned to the house, but she wasn’t hungry. She saw no sign of Beckworth’s presence, so she carried her things up to her bedroom, feeling vexed. She hadn’t drawn anything even slightly worthwhile. Every sketch had been a study of Beckworth’s eyes – their intensity, their heat – and his mouth – so sensual, so expressive.

She tore up the drawings and shoved them to the bottom of her portfolio. It was time to confront him about her funds and to insist that he leave her home.

It felt strange to be back in England, and yet it was almost as though she’d never left. Primrose Manor had not changed in all the years since her mother’s death – thanks to the Thornberrys, who took meticulous care of the property.

Eleanor had very few fond memories of Primrose Manor. There’d been far too many hours spent at the mercy of her sour-tempered governess, Miss Chilcott, and she’d felt utterly powerless whilst sitting with her poor mother, Martine.

It pained her now to realize she could hardly remember her mother now.

Dusk had fallen, so Eleanor lit a lamp and carried it out of her bedroom then ventured down the hall to her mother’s room. She had not entered it in fourteen years.

She pushed open the door and glanced around, finding the room exactly as it had been during her mother’s life, including the narrow armchair beside the bed and the writing desk against the opposite wall. Eleanor had spent many an hour sitting in that chair by the bed, just keeping her mother company. Lady Derington had done little more than lie still, quietly sighing every now and then.

Eleanor could do nothing to please her or even lift her spirits.

She walked to the window and opened the heavy drapes that her mother had always kept closed. Outside was Eleanor’s old rope swing. She’d sat for hours upon the smooth wood, swinging and day dreaming, wishing her mother could be more like Lucy’s mother.

She returned to the desk and opened the drawer, where she discovered a thick collection of letters, tied neatly in a narrow strip of yellow ribbon. The letter on top had her mother’s name written upon it, in her father’s hand.

Eleanor turned over the packet and saw that the last letter bore her father’s seal.

She sat down and untied the ribbon that bound the letters together and saw that every one had been written to her mother by her father. And none of them – not a single one – had had the seal broken. Her mother had never read any of them.

“Oh, Miss, here you are,” said Lizzie, poking her head in through the doorway. “Mrs. Thornberry has your supper waiting.”

“Thank you, Lizzie. I. . . Tell her and my aunt I am not hungry.”

Lizzie hesitated for a moment, her expression one of concern. “All right, yes, Miss. I’ll have Mrs. Thornberry keep a plate warm for you.”

Eleanor bundled the letters and was about to tie them together again when she hesitated. She could not help but wonder what her father had written.

She could imagine her mother not wanting to read anything he might write, but on the other hand, he had not always been a scoundrel. Years ago when they’d come to the country for a visit, he’d taught her to ride and to fish, laughing together when her awkward efforts had proved successful. He and Martine had taken her on long walks through the fields, while her father told silly tales of talking toads and magical flying mice.

And he’d carried her on his shoulders when she’d tired of walking.

Eleanor swallowed the thickness in her throat and refused to weep for the man. She forced herself to think of her mother, lying despondent in her bed after learning of her husband’s newest adillo which usually involved another woman or the loss of a substantial sum of money.

Perhaps she ought to burn the letters. They were private communiqués between her parents, and no one else’s concern.

Yet Eleanor was their only child. And now that both her parents were deceased, how was she to understand what had transpired between them if she did not read the letters?

Was it any business of hers?

The thought of intruding in such a way was almost painful. But a peculiar desire to better understand her father grew in Eleanor’s heart. Why had he left her mother when it was so obvious that she had needed him? How could he have abandoned his only child to a mother who was ill and unable to supervise her care and education?

Why had he thought it acceptable to make Beckworth trustee of her funds? When her father had come to Florence to chastise her for leaving England, Eleanor had made it perfectly clear that she would never wed the duke. Obviously, Derington thought they were well-matched, in spite of Beckworth’s philandering ways. Clearly, her father believed that renewed contact with the duke to work out the disbursement of the annuity would result in their reconciliation.

Guilt over her refusal to come home during the last months of his life had been niggling at the edges of her awareness, but now it overtook her. She sat quietly at her mother’s desk, feeling as he must have felt during those last weeks. Utterly alone.

“Duke! We did not expect to see you here,” Lord Woodingham said.

“It was a last minute decision to come out to Reading,” Andrew replied. And now that he’d taken care of his business, what he really wanted was to return to Primrose Manor. To Eleanor.

“I wish we had known, Your Grace,” Lady Woodingham said. “We could have traveled from London together. Made a party of it.”

“Which is exactly what I’m looking for . . . a party. Know of any?”

“Why, of course,” the lady retorted. “You don’t think Woodingham could drag me out here without some civilized entertainments, do you?”

Andrew laughed. Lady Woodingham was a beautiful and charming young woman, and he knew Eleanor would get on famously with her once they were married.

He took her hand. “Do you think you could secure an invitation for me, my dear countess?”

She gave him a light swat on the arm with her fan. “Oh, you. You know you need no invitation. A duke . . . and an eligible bachelor, besides! You will be a welcome addition to any party.”

Which was true, much to Andrew’s dismay. He’d received plenty of invitations to soirees and events in which he had no interest, and the invitations had only increased after his aborted wedding. It wouldn’t matter if he were ninety years old or a reprobate of the first order for marriageable women to flock to him – or, rather, to his title. But not Eleanor.

She was a discerning woman, and no degree of status or wealth could convince her to take vows with a man she did not respect. Or trust.

It was one of the many things he loved about her.

“Lady Claymere is having a garden party tomorrow afternoon,” Lady Woodingham said. “I am sure she would be delighted to see you there.”

Perhaps. Lady Claymere and Eleanor had once been very good friends, and it was Lady Claymere – Ivy – who had told Andrew the reason Eleanor had fled. “Where exactly?”