Lady Saves the Duke Read online

  Mrs. Cripes was taking the cup from young Mary’s hand and pouring hot water over the tea into it. “That and their own parents don’ want ’em. Figure at least here with me and Mr. Cripes, they can learn how to make a living and whatnot. Mary and Johnny ain’t the first ones I've taken in and probably won’t be the last. Sit down here, Mrs. Cross. Would you care for some biscuits as well?”

  Abigail could barely comprehend Mrs. Cripes’ words as she dropped into the seat held out for her. Oh God—Oh God—Oh God. “You’ve had many children then? Are they apprenticed out? Do they find other work then?”

  “Some of ’em run away, mind you,” she said, frowning. “Thankless little buggers, at that.” And then, handing Abigail the cup of steaming hot liquid, she added, “And some of ’em just die.”

  Chapter 21

  Alex wasted no time returning to the main building of the inn as soon as he heard about the scarlet fever epidemic that had swept through this tiny hamlet last year. He didn’t want for her to hear about it alone. Trying to get to her through the mud eerily reminded him of that day the ice give way at Brooke’s Abbey. He needed to move faster, but distance and terrain would not allow him.

  The news would devastate her. He never should have suggested this. Why had he done something so foolish without obtaining the facts first? She’d never needed to know. He could not get to her quickly enough walking. He needed to be with her when she heard the truth. Maybe he could prevent her from finding out altogether.

  By the time he reached the back entrance where a young boy was carrying wood, his legs burned from traipsing through the mud. Through an open doorway, he watched from a distance as Abigail reached for the cup Mrs. Cripes was handing her.

  Something the woman was saying upset Abigail. He knew the instant it happened.

  An emptiness entered her eyes, and she no longer paid attention to the hot water in her hands, spilling the contents onto her lap. But she did not jump up. She did not even cry out. She sat unmoving, listening to whatever the lady innkeeper was saying.

  She’d poured steaming water on herself. He needed to get it off her.

  “Why, just last year a pair of twins I’d finally trained up were taken by the fever. After all the effort and time I’d put into them, ’twas a shame to lose ’em. A boy and a girl. Hard workers, too.” The woman’s voice carried across the threshold.

  Surely Abigail would faint at the woman’s careless words. Abigail only nodded, but all color had drained from her face.

  “How old were they?” Her voice came out sounding flat, lacking its normal lilt of optimism.

  “Oh, I suppose around seven or eight. Took them on as babies but hard to remember exactly when.”

  Alex stepped into the room and squatted behind Abigail. “We must leave now.” He grasped both of her elbows from behind and nearly lifted her from the grimy wooden chair. When she’d risen, he pulled the fabric of her gown away from her skin. “If we’re to make it back before dark, sweetheart, we need to get on the road now.”

  He’d shouted at John, his driver, to ready the coach as he’d made his dash from the stables. He needed to get Abigail out of this place. As he steered her nearly lifeless form through the tap room, he cursed himself again for bringing her here. She didn’t deserve this. He ought to have allowed her to continue believing the children were happy, healthy in a loving home. She could have gone on believing the world held more benevolence in it than despair.

  Once outside on the front verandah, he scooped her up to carry her to the waiting coach. She did not resist him this time. She hadn’t said a word. He didn’t think she’d even blinked. It was as though she were frozen.

  Ignoring the tragic irony of his own thoughts, he lifted her into the open door of the coach and then leapt in after her. She sat straight against the aged leather upholstery, staring ahead as the vehicle shuddered to move out of the muddy yard. Alex pulled out a flask and poured some water into a handkerchief. He pressed the cool water against the angry welt which had appeared on her hand.

  Abigail turned to look at him, oblivious of the burn. “They are gone,” was all she said. “I would have thought I would know. I would have thought that, as their mother”—she pulled her hand away from him and pressed it to her stomach—“I would have felt it, inside. But I had no idea. I imagined them happy, growing into little people. I imagined them cossetted—playing outside, learning how to read. And it was nothing like that, Monfort. I abandoned them to that woman. They were raised to be servants. As children, even, they were servants. I am a horrible person. I abandoned them to that life!”

  Alex could not bear to see her so hopeless. He scooped her onto his lap. “Hush, Abigail. Hush. You did not know! You were given no choice. You are not a horrible person, never a horrible person. I am so sorry. This is my fault. I never should have brought you here.” He tucked her head beneath his chin and clasped her tightly against him. She did not relax against him, however. She remained rigid, unyielding.

  “I could have run away. But I was selfish. I wanted to regain my parents’ approval. They told me the scandal would go away if things were kept quiet. It was why Farley was never confronted. I didn’t want any more scandal. I didn’t want to live as an outcast. But if I’d been willing to face a stupid scandal, then my children would still be here. They would still be alive! It is because of my selfishness.” She turned her head and looked into his eyes.

  What Alex saw there frightened him. That glimmer of light was gone. There was no optimistic tilt to the corners of her mouth.

  “I am such a stupid fool. I was hoping that seeing them happy and loved would give me some sense of comfort. That it would give me absolution for giving them up.”

  She pushed his arms away and moved to the other side of the bench. Pressing herself into the corner, she looked down at her hands. One of them was reddened from the hot water, but she continued to ignore it. Her gown was damp, but she gave it no notice either.

  “When first we met, you chastised me for not being pragmatic about my future. But, fool that I was, I continued to view the world through rose-colored glasses.” She stared at him with a cold light in her eyes. “I did nothing for those two children. Dare I even call them mine? They never were.” And then she looked out the window again. “Perhaps if I’d been braver somehow. Taken control somehow…I could have saved them.”

  And then a tear escaped to roll down her cheek. Alex almost felt relieved to see them begin to pour from her eyes.

  “I didn’t save them, Alex. I did nothing, and they…died.”

  The sentiment was hauntingly familiar to him. But he ignored that and slid across the bench seat to her again.

  She pushed him away at first but eventually relinquished her threadbare control and leaned into him. “I did nothing, Alex,” she cried again as he wrapped his arms around her. Sobs wracked her body as she allowed more tears to fall. They traveled for several miles as Abigail gave into her grief. Just as it had been a relief for him when she’d finally cried, it was equally so when she went quiet. She hiccupped a few times and burrowed into him. “I seem foolish,” she mumbled.

  “You do not,” Alex said firmly, not allowing her to continue such train of thought out loud. “There is nothing worse.”

  “I never knew them,” she said. “Why do I feel so empty inside?”

  “Because they have been in your heart all this time, Abigail.” As he said these words, he confronted a bit of his own grief. “Just as they shall continue to be.” Was the memory of his own children locked inside of his own heart? He allowed his mind to picture Marigold, with her golden ringlets dancing about the hearth singing Christmas carols in her small little voice. And Elijah, watching his sister, clapping his hands together.

  He’d purposely not thought of them thus since that last day. It hurt too much. He had been unable to save them. He’d been unable, even, to retrieve them from the cold dark waters until the spring thaw had come. He’d not allowed himself to remember the joy they�
��d given him. That had struck him as disrespectful. Unloving.

  “I never learned their names, even.”

  Without thinking, Alex spoke. “Marigold and Elijah.”

  Abigail stirred and then looked up at him with questioning eyes.

  And then he realized what he’d done—what he’d said. How thoughtless of him! “I’m sorry. Mr. Cripes said the children, your children, were called Flor and Timothy. He said they succumbed quickly to the fever. Apparently, many children died that year.”

  “Flor and Timothy,” Abigail said the names softly, as though trying them out upon her lips. “Your children were Marigold and Elijah.” And then she studied his eyes with an intensity he’d not allowed anybody in a long time. “I think I understand, now, some of what you feel. Dead inside. Not just a loss of life, but a loss of hope. I will not belittle your loss by telling you that at least you knew them as a father. That at least you provided a home for them, a family. For your attachment surely made it worse.”

  “Abigail, you are not to be faulted for their death.” But how many times had he been told this by Margaret? By his aunt? Nothing could undo what had happened that day. Just as Abigail could not change the past, neither could he. But she’d not had any choice in the matter, surely! “Abigail, you are not to blame yourself! You believed they were given to a decent family! Your parents would not have supported you if you’d brought them home with you. You would have been turned out. And you and the children would have lived in want. Perhaps then, none of you would have survived.” And then, taking her face between his hands, he held onto her fiercely. “You are not to blame yourself for this, do you understand me?”

  More than ever before, Alex understood the tenuous situation she’d been in when he’d arrived to ask for her. Her parents would never have allowed her to bring two bastards into their home. They were not evil, or monsters, but they were weak in character. They were all too humanly susceptible to the opinions of the folks who lived in the community around them. They would have shunned Abigail and the children. “Do you think it my fault that my children died?”

  Where had those words come from? He’d embraced the fault for their death, all of them, even Hyacinth’s for so many days, weeks, months, and now years, that it seemed odd to voice them aloud. “I could have stopped them from venturing outside. Hyacinth was careless sometimes. Even though I warned her to stay clear of the lake, I should have known better. Do you know why I did not go with them? She annoyed me. I was glad for her to be out of my presence so that I could get some work done. I had accounts to balance. I had some contracts to read. I should have gone with them, Abigail. One thoughtless decision of mine cost all three of them their lives.”

  And then Abigail was touching his face. In wonder, almost. She brought her thumb up to the corner of his eye and drew it away. It was wet. Was he to cry now? When she mourned the loss of her own children? He tried to turn his face away from her, but this time it was her hands that stilled him.

  “You blame yourself,” she finally said.

  Alex just gazed into her eyes. Warm, soft, comforting eyes. “I should have gone with them,” he said weakly.

  Abigail was shaking her head. “I should never have abandoned them.” She continued touching his face tenderly. “What a pair we are. Would you believe me if I told you that you never could have known Hyacinth would take the children out onto the lake? I’ve known my entire life never to trust an iced-over lake before the new year. I’m sure Hyacinth knew that as well. Had you thought, for even a second, that she would walk out onto that ice, would those contracts have mattered? Would you not have left off the accounts to stop her?”

  “I would not have allowed it, Abigail, but I didn’t think…I had no idea…” He turned his face away from her. “I should have, though…I made so many mistakes with them…”

  Both of them sat quietly as the coach rambled along the muddied road. Abigail rested her cheek on Alex’s shoulder so that when he spoke, his words vibrated through her.

  “If you’d known, Abigail, if you’d suspected that the children were not going to be placed in a loving home, would you have allowed them to be taken away? Even knowing you had no power over any of it, would you have allowed it to happen?”

  “I would not have, Alex. I would have fought them tooth and nail. I would have found a way to live, a way to care for them. I would not have allowed it.” And then she sighed.

  The magnitude of their words would take a lifetime to set in. But something had shifted in both of them. She was no less human than him. She was a woman. She was also a mother.

  He was a duke, yes. But he was also first a man; a man who’d once been a father. A man who would always be a father.

  Perhaps fate had steered them all along. He choked on the wave of emotions he’d disdained for years now.

  He’d loved his children.

  He’d even once loved Hyacinth.

  They had died, but he had lived.

  Where there is life, there is hope, Abigail had said to him. Was there? Hope that was?

  “I’m squishing you,” Abigail said, squirming in his arms.

  He tightened his grasp around her. “Hush,” he said softly. “You are not squishing me. You are…” Saving me…The words died on his lips. All along he’d been telling himself that he was saving Miss Wright, when in truth it was quite the opposite. Miss Wright had been saving him, a duke!

  He nuzzled his chin atop her head. From the moment she’d been shoved by the impetuous Lady Natalie into his rowboat, he’d been awakened somehow by Abigail’s spirit. With no prospects in life whatsoever, she’d found joy from a simple boat ride. She’d laughed and smiled all the while he’d sat there pompously judging her. He remembered how her eyes had glowed with pleasure when that damned fish swam by her hand. And then that ridiculous dress had given way, adding fuel to an attraction he’d never thought to admit to himself, let alone anybody else.

  He’d wanted her from that moment on. But he’d not only wanted her physically. He’d wanted to live in the halo of her joy.

  He’d not needed to propose. He’d claimed that his honor demanded it. He remembered how she’d covered her eyes and counted to three, daring him to stay—daring him to take her on.

  And he’d done so, all the while allowing her to believe he was magnanimously granting her his favor.

  “Abigail…” He allowed one hand to play with her hair. “Would you mind very much if we left Cornwall for Brooke’s Abbey tomorrow?” They’d planned on spending at least a fortnight at Rock Point, but he knew a pressing desire to go home. To return home and take Abigail with him.

  He continued to twirl some stray hairs around his fingers, wondering if she was going to feign sleep.

  “I don’t mind,” she said softly. “It will be home, won’t it?”

  “It will,” he said.

  He held her the rest of the way. She cried a few more times and then apologized for it. She needed time to mourn. Apparently, it seemed, so did he.

  ****

  Back at Brookes Abbey, Alex was uncertain how to deal with his grieving duchess. Her sorrow frightened him. It frightened him because he was afraid he was going to lose her when he’d just barely realized how vital she was to him. Not that he was going to lose her, per se, but perhaps that she was going to lose herself.

  Since he’d first met her, she’d always had a smile for him. She’d always had encouraging words and a positive attitude. But since that horrible day, she’d become a shadow of herself.

  And Alex didn’t know how to fix her.

  For the first month, she diligently went through the motions of familiarizing herself with her duties as the Duchess of Montfort and as the mistress of Brooke’s Abbey. Alex could find no fault.

  But she lacked her normal enthusiasm. She spread her time evenly between the housekeeper and the butler and even some of the lower servants and would then disappear for hours at a time. He’d thought perhaps she was spending time abed, but when he’d l
ooked for her in her chamber, she was never there.

  It was as though she were a ghost, appearing and disappearing at will.

  Except during the nights.

  At night, he both gave and found comfort with her.

  On this night, they’d made love slowly, leisurely, and now she lay spent in his arms. Alex tucked her head below his chin and pulled the coverlet over her naked shoulders. Sometimes, she silently cried afterwards. She did not think he noticed, but he had. Thankfully, tonight she was peaceful.

  “Will you begin riding again in the mornings?” he asked. He’d been wanting to pique her notice again, in anything, but the time had not been right. It was odd for him, somebody who’d so often disregarded other people’s feelings, to now find himself tiptoeing around her melancholy moods.

  She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Is Lady Page here?” The question held more interest than he’d heard from her in days.

  He laughed softly, somewhat relieved. “She’s been here since our nuptials, waiting for you.”

  “Poor thing, and I’ve neglected her.”

  Alex slid his hand up and down her arm. “You’ve had other…things…on your mind.”

  Abigail snuggled closer to him. “I’m fine, Alex. I’ve just been sad. I know you’ve been worried, but I had to take some time.” She sighed deeply as she rested against him.

  He didn’t want to push her. He didn’t want to ask, but it frightened him when she disappeared for so long during the day. The air was growing much colder now. Winter storms would be blowing in any day now. “I worry, Abigail, when I cannot find you.” It came out sounding like an accusation. He was no good at this sort of thing.

  “I talk to them,” she said. And when he didn’t say anything to that she added, “I go for long walks, and I find myself talking to them. As though they can hear me. Silly, I know. But it helps…”

  He’d not expected this. An odd thing to do, and yet it was so…so very Abigail. “What do you say to them?” He was curious. He’d not hardly allowed himself to think of Marigold and Elijah, or even of Hyacinth, after the accident. Since those first moments.