Chapter 16

The Duke of Tenby drove his curricle to Ebury Court in Kent on Monday, having fought with himself all weekend—with what he owed Harriet, with personal inclination, with what he owed his position. His aunt, of course, had urged that he throw caution to the wind. She had not even waited until they returned home from their call at Sir Clive Forbes’s and their discovery that Harriet had gone away. He doubted that Lady Forbes would have told him where she had gone—the woman had looked at him rather severely. But she had told his aunt.

“You have to go after her, Archibald dear,” his aunt had said when they were in the carriage again. “You are free again, after all, and you do love the gel, after all.”

“And that is all that matters, Aunt?” he asked. “Love?” 

“Unfortunately no,” she said after he had had to repeat his question. “One cannot be quite foolish. One cannot live on love. But if it comes to a choice between love and duty and choosing love will not bring disaster, then that is what one should choose. Would marrying my dear little Lady Wingham bring disaster into your life, Archibald?”

By no means. But perhaps marriage to him would bring disaster into hers. He was no gentleman. He was a man without honor. She did not want to see him again. Except that he suspected she was deeply hurt. He suspected that she loved him.

“Did you give this same advice to Lady Phyllis?” he asked loudly.

“She behaved foolishly,” his aunt said. “An elopement is not good even if they do intend to live quietly in the country. But perhaps she meant to be caught, Archibald. Once she had written to you and sent the letter, it would not matter, would it? Perhaps she has persuaded her mama and papa to let her have the man she wants. He is the heir to a barony, you know.”

She was proved quite correct. When the Earl of Barthorpe, much embarrassed, called soon after the duke’s return home with his aunt, it was to inform his grace that Lady Phyllis had returned to the country with her mother and would in all probability marry the Honorable Mr. David Lockhart on or soon after her twenty-first birthday. 

The duchess remained silent until Saturday afternoon, when she came into the library, where her grandson had been sitting all day, and sat down on the chair opposite his.

“She is gone into the country, then?” she said.

“With the countess,” he said. “It is better for her than an elopement. Life would have been difficult for her. Even a token engagement will not be easy.”

“I did not mean Lady Phyllis,” his grandmother said.

His hand played with a paperweight on the desk before him. “She has gone into Kent,” he said. “Freddie Sullivan’s wife is her friend.”

“And you intend to go after her?” she asked. “You intend to marry her, Tenby?”

“What makes you think I would consider such a thing?” he asked.

“She is an unusually beautiful woman,” she said, “And charming and modest with it. I have seen the way you look at her, Tenby. And the way she looks at you too, though she is far more well bred about it than you.”

“Six years ago,” he said, “I would have asked her to marry me. But I was called to Grandpapa’s deathbed instead.”

“It is an infatuation of long standing, then,” she said.

“A love of long standing,” he said softly, glancing up at her. She looked at her sternest and most straight-backed.

“I learned very young,” she said, “that there are things in life very much more important than love, Tenby. Love, like self, must always be placed last. I learned early not to look for happiness in life and to despise those who make it a life’s aim. I have asked myself yesterday and today what my life has accomplished, what to me is the most precious product of my life. I have thought of my parents, of early— friends, of your grandfather, of your father, of you. Maybe it is because you are last on the list, the one still present in my old age. Who knows? But I have been led to the conclusion that nothing and nobody in my life has meant more to me than you.”

“Grandmama,” he said, distressed, and waited for the burden of his duty to be rested squarely on his shoulders once more.

“It is because I love you, boy,” she said, looking sterner than ever. “I have never thought about it because love is unimportant. But when I thought about it yesterday and today, I realized that it is true and that it hurts my heart a little. Love does hurt. I remember that from a long time ago. I want to die, Tenby, knowing that you are happy, knowing that love has been set high among the priorities of your life. I would like to see your heir before I die. But it is more important to see you happy.”

She looked at him as if she had just delivered the sourest lecture of her life. She had looked just this way when he had been caught at the age of twelve romping with a group of village boys. First her lecture on what he owed his position and then his grandfather’s cane.

“Grandmama,” he said again, his hand closing about the paperweight.

“If she will make you happy,” she said. “If Lady Wingham will make you happy, Tenby, then I will gladly become the dowager duchess in order that she may have my title. And I will love the girl. I believe she is lovable. And I will expect her to be delivered of a boy sometime next spring. The sooner the better. You will not have me with you forever. And your mother needs a grandchild.”

“Grandmama,” he said, “she may not have me.”

She got to her feet and stood very erect before him. “As the Duke of Tenby,” she said, “it is your duty to secure your line. If Lady Wingham is the duchess you want, you will see to it that she has you. Without nonsense and without delay.”

Her sudden and unexpected consent in some ways made his decision more difficult. Through a combination of strictness and an affection they seemed not to have been aware of, his grandparents had ruled his life since he was eleven years old. It was true that he had lived a life of some independence since his majority and had tasted all the pleasures that young manhood had to offer. But his grandparents would not frown at that. A man of his rank and fortune was expected to sow wild oats. It was part of growing up. In important matters, he had always been obedient to his training.

Now, in these few days, he felt that he had finally reached full manhood. By a stroke of sheer good fortune, he had been freed from the sort of life he had been prepared for and would have hated and would perhaps have passed on to his own children. He had been given the gift of freedom, the gift of a second chance. He did not want to rebel for the sake of rebelling. But he wanted to take charge of his own life, make his own decision about his future, be a worthy Duke of Tenby in his own way.

It complicated matters somehow to know that his grandmother had given her blessing to the course he leaned toward. If he was going to go after Harriet to try to persuade her to have him despite his shabby treatment of her throughout their acquaintance, he wanted it to be because that was what he had decided he wanted to do. On the other hand, of course, it would be good to know that he would not be hurting his grandmother.

Ultimately, of course, he knew that he really had no choice. The alternative to not going after Harriet was misery pure and simple. And it would be no temporary thing. He had loved her for six years. He still loved her. He would always love her. In the end he stopped torturing himself with indecision when the decision had surely been made before he had started. Surely as soon as he had read Phyllis’s letter he had known that he would offer himself to Harriet if she would have him.

He drove his curricle to Ebury Court on Monday, more nervous than he had felt in his life.

There were people outside the house, he could see as he drove up the driveway. A man and two children, he saw as he drew nearer. It would be Freddie and his sons. This would make things a little easier. He would not have to make a formal entry into the house alone. He grinned at his friend as he jumped down from the curricle and handed the ribbons to a groom who had come running up from the stables. Freddie was strolling toward him in his shirtsleeves, his hair windblown. It still seemed strange to see Freddie, of all people, domesticated.

They shook hands heartily.

“Archie,” Frederick said, laughing. “Looking as usual as if you had just stepped off Bond Street. You have decided to call on old friends at last, have you? It’s about time, I hear congratulations are in order.”

“Yes.” The duke grinned again. He felt a strong urge to prolong this conversation. “I have just been freed from an irksome betrothal. You behold a free man again, Freddie, my boy.”

His friend laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Double congratulations,” he said. “This is more than a fleeting visit, then, Arch? Good. Clara will be delighted to see you. And you can help me with the cricket lessons.”

The duke looked toward the two children, one with a cricket bat, the other bowling. At the same moment the ball shattered the wickets as the batter ineffectually sawed at the air with the bat, Freddie’s older boy cheered with triumph and threw himself backward onto the grass. The batter burst into tears.

“Oh, oh,” Frederick said.

“You have produced a little blond and I did not know of it, Freddie?” the duke asked, reaching for his quizzing glass as he walked toward the children with his friend.

And then the little girl turned, a look of abject misery on her face, and gazed up imploringly at Freddie. “I can’t hit it,” she wailed. “It’s no good. I can’t hit it.”

Large green eyes. Rumpled golden-blond curls. A perfect little miniature of Harriet. Oh, God. The duke released his hold on the handle of his quizzing glass as Freddie stooped down on his haunches and ruffled the child’s hair with one hand. He suddenly felt a million miles away from Harriet. He had thought he knew her. He had thought so when he had known nothing about a central—surely the central— fact of her life. Her marriage had been fruitful. She had this little child to give love and meaning to her life.

And then he saw from the corner of one eye that Freddie and these two children had not come out of doors alone. He turned to watch Clara Sullivan approach across the lawn with Harriet, Freddie’s baby toddling along between them, holding to a hand of each. His heart felt rather as if it were trying to pound its way right out of his chest. He bowed to both ladies and took Clara’s hand to raise to his lips.

“I have come to impose upon your hospitality for a day or two, ma’am,” he said. “If you will have me.”

“If we will have you,” she said. “How foolish, your grace, when Freddie is forever inviting you here. You know Harriet, Lady Wingham, of course.”

He looked into her eyes for the first time. “How are you, ma’am?” he asked. “You have a beautiful daughter. I did not know of her existence.”

“It would be easy not to,” Clara said, “when one is in London and attending the activities of the Season. Children tend to become confined to the nursery.”

“I always spent the mornings with Susan,” Harriet said quietly, “And an hour or more of the evenings. My daughter is more important than anyone else in my life.” Her face was pale, her eyes and her voice defiant.

Their attention was distracted. Freddie was still murmuring comforting things to Susan and coaxing her to take the bat in her hands again. His son had other ideas.

“You take the bat, Papa,” he said. “It’s fun when you bat. Send her inside to play with Kevin. She’s just a girl. Girls are a nuisance and don’t know anything.”

“Oh,” Clara said as the duke reached for his quizzing glass again.

“I’ll take her for a walk,” Harriet said quickly. “I am quite sure she really is spoiling the game.”

Frederick had stood up. “Paul, my lad,” he said, beckoning with one finger, “you and I are going to take a little stroll together into the house before coming back to play—with Susan. Come along.” He reached out a hand, which his son took, looking considerably subdued.

Harriet was upset “What is he going to do?” she asked.

“Give Paul a spanking,” Clara said. “My heart bleeds a little every time it has to happen, but I no longer try to stop it as I did at first. Freddie gives our boys tons of love, but they must learn not to be brats. No, Harriet you must not feel responsible. Even my palm itched at that dreadful discourtesy. My son will not talk about other children in that way—even at the age of five.”

The duke strolled toward the little girl, who was disconsolately scuffing the grass with one soiled shoe. “The bat won’t seem to hit the ball?” he asked.

“No. It’s a silly game anyway,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

“What I always found,” he said, “was that I had to stop thinking of the wickets behind my bat as simply pieces of wood.”

She darted a look up at him with green eyes that seemed very familiar. “But they are wood,” she said. “Look. And they keep falling down.”

He went down on his haunches before her. Before the child Harriet had borne. The child she loved more than anyone else in life. Susan. “Name someone you love,” he said.

She looked at him curiously. “Mama,” she said.

“Good,” he said. “Now someone else.”

She thought. “My new doll,” she said. “The one Aunt Amanda and Uncle Clive gave me.”

“And one more,” he said.

She thought for a while longer. “Uncle Freddie,” she said.

“Splendid.” He turned her, his hands on the tiny, fragile little waist, and indicated the wickets. “The middle one is Mama. The one on this side is your doll and the one on the other side is Uncle Freddie.”

She giggled.

“Your job,” he said, “is to protect them with your bat so that they do not get hurt and fall over. It used to work wonderfully for me. My mama and my grandmama and my dog rarely got hurt. I protected them.”

She turned to look into his face with Harriet’s candid, trusting eyes. “But the ball won’t hit the bat,” she said, and her eyes filled with tears again. “Mama will get hurt.”

“It’s all in the timing,” he said. “If you swing at the ball as soon as the bowler releases it, your bat is around and useless by the time the ball comes flying past. On the other hand, if you wait until the ball is level with you and then swing, the wickets are down before the bat is properly in motion. The secret is to swing at just the right moment.”

She sighed, caught sight of his quizzing glass, and touched its jeweled handle with one small finger. “It’s pretty,” she said.

“Thank you.” He smiled. “I shall let you peer through it the first time you hit the ball. Let me throw you a few practice balls. For the moment the wickets are blocks of wood again. Agreed?”

“I can’t hit it,” she warned him. “You are going to get cross, like Paul.”

“Try me,” he said gravely, getting to his feet and holding out the small bat toward her. She sighed again and took it.

The first time he bowled the ball to her, slowly and gently, she demolished a portion of Freddie’s immaculate lawn and the wickets shattered.

“That always happens the first time during a practice,” he said. “Next time hold the bat firm and lean into the ball. It will give you a feel for when exactly it arrives.”

She trapped his next ball and left the wickets intact behind her. She knocked them down when she jumped up and down, squealing in delight. “Mama,” she called. “Did you see? Did you see?”

The duke laughed.

“Yes, indeed I did,” Harriet said, and he realized that she was still standing there. Clara was following behind the baby, who was running across the grass, his legs wide apart.

“Here come Paul and Uncle Freddie,” the duke said, hiding a rueful smile at the nonchalant look on the boy’s face. It was a well-remembered look from his own boyhood experience, a look that tried to tell the world that his stinging rear end was really nothing at all. “Maybe Paul will bowl and Uncle Freddie will field while I help you with the bat. Those wickets are Mama and your doll and Uncle Freddie now.”

“Not my doll,” she said, pointing to the nearest wicket. “You. Who are you?”

“Tenby,” he said. “Now we will certainly have to be sure to put up a good defense.”

Paul marched forward. “I apologize, Susan,” he said handsomely. “I can’t hit the ball very well either unless Papa bowls slowly to me, and I’m not even a girl.”

Freddie closed his eyes briefly.

“You are to bowl,” Susan said, “and Uncle Freddie is to stand over there. Tenby is going to help me with the bat.” She raised her voice. “Watch me, Mama. Watch me, Aunt Clara.”

The duke exchanged grins with Freddie.

“Be prepared to chase after a long ball, Freddie, my lad,” the duke said, standing behind Susan and setting his hands lightly over hers on the handle of the bat. “Right. Have at it, Paul, my boy. A nice overarm fast one straight at the center wicket.”

They all had tea together in the nursery. In the few days she had been at Ebury Court, Harriet had learned that that was a daily ritual, abandoned only with the greatest reluctance, according to Clara, when they had visitors who did not have children. Today it was easy to avoid awkwardness by playing with the baby, building him a tower of wooden bricks in one corner of the room until he decided to knock it down and she had to start again. Freddie wrestled on the floor with Paul while Clara poured tea. Susan, inexplicably and embarrassingly, had set her favorite book beneath her arm, squeezed onto the chair beside the duke, and handed him the book. Harriet wondered how he was enjoying reading it to her and whether he was reading the wolf’s part to Susan’s satisfaction. She heard a deep and menacing growl even as she thought it. Susan, she saw at a glance, was holding his quizzing glass to her eye.

In her room later, having washed and changed and combed her hair after a couple of hours out-of-doors in a healthy breeze, Harriet wondered if she was going to be able to go downstairs to dinner. There would be no children. Just the four of them. Two couples. Clara, Freddie, herself, and—Lady Phyllis Reeder's betrothed. She wondered if he had known she was there when he decided to pay a call on his friend. Surely not. Surely he wanted to see her as little as she wanted to see him. Unless he was stalking her, tormenting her. It was not easy, perhaps, for someone of his rank to give up a possession—that was all she had ever been to him—until he was fully ready to do so.

She hated to think that he had come to torment her. She wanted to believe that she had been wrong when she had accused him of being without honor. She wanted to believe that their quarrel had brought out the worst in both of them and in no way represented the persons they really were when rational.

She hated to think that he now knew about Susan. Why she had been reluctant for him to know, she was not sure. Except perhaps in keeping part of herself from him she had thought to keep her identity, to save herself from becoming submerged entirely in her love for him. Now she felt utterly defenseless. And he had played with Susan, showing a humor and a patience that she would not have expected, though she had glimpsed it with Lord Mingay’s children at Barthorpe Hall. He had read the story to Susan three times in a row, repeating the wolf’s part over and over each time he came to it and Susan had demanded more.

Good heavens, Harriet thought, feeling quite sick, he was going to make as good a father as Freddie was. To her children. Lady Phyllis’s children. She fought the tears that wanted to flow. She fought even harder and bit upon her upper lip when a tap came at her dressing-room door and Clara opened it and peeped around it.

“Are you ready?” she asked. “Good. We will go down together.”

Harriet shook her head. “I—I don’t feel very well,” she said, “or very hungry. Too much fresh air, I suppose. It was rather windy, was it not? I believe I will stay here if you don’t mind, Clara.”

“But you are dressed,” Clara said. She came inside after a pause and closed the door quietly behind her. “It is no coincidence, is it? I told Freddie it was no coincidence, and he said of course it was not.”

“What is no coincidence?” Harriet took refuge in ignorance.

“Did he tell you,” Clara asked, “that his betrothal is ended? His fiancée eloped with someone else, or tried to.” 

With Mr. David Lockhart. Oh, dear God. “No,” she said, “he did not tell me. Why should he?” But she felt the telltale color creep up her cheeks.

“Harriet.” Clara came across the room toward her and knelt in front of her. She took her hands in a firm clasp. “Oh, Harriet dear, it did not fade during all those years, did it?”

“I—” Harriet drew a deep breath. “No.”

“And he has come pursuing you here?” Clara said. “Just as he did before? Has he been making you improper proposals again? Shall I have Freddie send him away? He will if I tell him you are being harassed, even though Tenby is his friend. I’ll not have you upset in my own home, Harriet.”

Harriet looked at their hands. “Perhaps it is me you should send away,” she said. “I was his mistress for almost a month, Clara. But no longer. I ended it last week.”

“Oh, Harriet.” Clara squeezed her hands more tightly, “Oh, my poor dear. He is quite unscrupulous where women are concerned. I’ll have Freddie ask him to leave.”

“No,” Harriet said. She swallowed. “Don’t do that. I ran six years ago—back to Bath rather than go with you and Freddie to London and perhaps have to see him again. And I ran last week rather than risk having to see him every time I went to another entertainment. I am going to stop running and stop avoiding him. I have to learn to live with the fact that he inhabits the same world as I and that sometimes— when we are both in London or when we are both here or in Bath—we move in the same circles. I am going to learn to see him just like any other man.”

“Oh, Harriet.” Clara set her head to one side.

“I am,” Harriet said firmly. “I am going to fall out of love with him if it takes the rest of my lifetime to do it.”

She got to her feet and Clara rose also. “Let's go down to dinner. I am starved.”

Clara laughed despite the look of continued sympathy in her eyes. “I like your spirit,” she said. “And he is a gentleman, after all. He will not harm you in our home, Harriet. He was very good with Susan.”

“I don’t want him near Susan,” Harriet said, marching rather belligerently toward the door and opening it. “Susan was Godfrey’s. And she is mine. I don’t want her smiling at him and carrying her books for him to read.” She stopped suddenly and looked back at Clara. For a moment she had to bite her lip again. “I should have chosen a new father for her when I was in London. She needs a father so badly, Clara. Telling her how Godfrey used to play with her is no substitute for having a father to play with her now.”

Clara tutted. “Susan will have a new father soon enough,” she said, “and you a husband, Harriet. It will happen, dear. I promise.” She linked her arm through Harriet’s and moved her in the direction of the staircase.