Chapter Twenty #2
Mrs. St. Clare spoke briefly to a female servant before taking the seat across from Katie.
Up close Katie could see that her hostess’s face was deeply lined, her tanned complexion that of a person who’d spent a good deal of time out of doors.
She was not beautiful, but handsome in a dignified way that aged far better than mere pretty.
“How are you enjoying Briarly, Your Grace?”
“The grounds are delightful, and the house is the perfect for the two of us.”
“You are from Hampshire, originally, so we are neighbors.”
“I’m from Hampshire, but my family’s home is close to one hundred miles away.” Katie smiled kindly. “So, perhaps very distant neighbors.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I just meant—” An unreadable expression flickered across the other woman’s face, and she sighed. “I’m sorry, but I find that I cannot engage in polite chit-chat.
Katie was not sure what to say to such a bizarre announcement. If she’d not wanted company, then why had she invited Katie to tea?
Mrs. St. Clare’s narrow face darkened as if Katie had spoken aloud. “I have been trying to contrive an excuse to see you since you arrived at Briarly.” She smiled ruefully, but there was something else behind it. Shame? “I—I am pleased that you came by today.
“I am sorry I did not visit before now, especially given that you are so very close. My mother-in-law and I have been paying calls and we should—”
Mrs. St. Clare laughed, although it sounded more like hysteria than amusement. “The dowager would never have called on me, Your Grace.”
“I am sure she would have done so eventu—”
“I was her husband’s mistress.”
The words tumbled out in such a rush that Katie had to play them over in her head before their meaning hit home. Her mind immediately lurched to another duke’s mistress who also lived in a cottage on the estate, although not nearly so grand.
How convenient for the Dukes of Dulverton!
An echo of Mrs. Clare’s hysterical laughter bubbled up inside her. “I see,” she said in a high-pitched voice.
“I am terribly sorry, Your Grace. I—I should have conveyed that in a less shocking manner.”
“I cannot think of a way that would make such information any less shocking.” Katie felt shrewish when Mrs. St. Clare’s cheeks darkened but could not bring herself to apologize.
Rather than look offended, Mrs. St. Clare gave her a self-deprecating smile. “I thought I had come to terms with my position in life more than forty years ago, but I find that every decade or so it…chafes.”
Thankfully, the door opened just then, and a maid deposited a tea tray.
Katie’s mind raced as Mrs. St. Clare fussed with the tea. She should leave. Immediately. To sit here with this woman was deeply disloyal to Betje.
And yet she burned with curiosity. Mrs. St. Clare obviously wished to say something to her. Why else would she force such an unorthodox meeting?
“How do you take your tea, Your Grace?”
“Black, please,” Katie said.
Such was the soothing miracle of making tea that by the time the older woman handed Katie her cup and saucer she looked almost serene when she spoke. “Gerrit told me the dowager returned to Spenwood several days ago.”
The sound of her husband’s Christian name—a name she did not feel welcome to use—made Katie want to fling the cup and saucer at Mrs. St. Clare.
Thankfully, she kept that impulse in check and took a sip of tea, her stomach roiling with jealousy, not only because this woman could casually refer to Dulverton by his name, but also because he appeared to visit her and talk to her.
“You are wondering why he would confide such a thing in me,” Mrs. St. Clare said.
Katie was actually wondering if Anna Wilson and Mrs. St. Clare sat in this room and enjoyed tea with one another while reminiscing about their lovers. Did Mrs. St. Clare have children, as well? Only pride kept Katie from asking.
“Nothing my husband does surprises me,” she said coolly. “Because I don’t know enough about him to guess what he would or would not do.”
Rather than look startled or embarrassed at such an intimate confession, Mrs. St. Clare nodded. “Yes, Gerrit is a very private person.”
“Yet he confides in you.”
“I have known him since he was a little boy.” She smiled, but the expression was strained. “In many ways, I stood as a mother to him.”
Considering that he could not abide the presence of his own mother, that seemed like an obnoxious claim. Katie set down her cup and saucer with a clatter. “Perhaps you might tell me why you wished to speak to me, Mrs. St. Clare.”
“You are angry now—on behalf of the dowager, which does you credit as she certainly deserves your loyalty.”
Katie gritted her teeth; when would she learn not to broadcast her every emotion to the world?
“But this isn’t about the dowager or me,” Mrs. St. Clare went on.
“This is about her son, whom I love a great deal. Did you know that Gerrit—I beg you will excuse my familiarity, but I will call him that to avoid confusion between him and his father, the man I will always think of as Dulverton. Did you know that Gerrit spent all his school holidays here at Briarly from the time he was nine years of age?”
“All of them?”
“Yes, every single one.”
Katie thought back to what the dowager had said about not having visited Briarly for more than twenty years. Had Betje meant she had not seen her son in that long?
“Why would he have done that? More to the point, why did the duke allow it?” Katie asked.
Mrs. St. Clare hesitated. “I believe Gerrit should tell you that.”
“My husband does not confide anything in me. If there is something you want me to know, you will have to do the telling.”
The other woman looked genuinely torn. “I—I do not wish to be indelicate—”
Katie gave a bitter laugh. “It is rather late for that, Mrs. St. Clare.”
Anger flashed in the woman’s cool gray eyes, and Katie thought Mrs. St. Clare might ask her to leave. But after a moment, she said, “When he was ten Gerrit walked in on his mother and her lover.”
Katie’s jaw sagged. Here was a part of the story that Betje had never told her. “Where was this?”
“Spenwood.”
Katie could scarcely believe her ears. The dowager had brought her lover under the same roof as her son? Suddenly the old duke’s behavior—keeping Mrs. St. Clare in the Briarly dower house—did not seem so egregious.
“Gerrit ran away from Spenwood and made his way all the way to Briarly on his own,” Mrs. St. Clare went on.
“Good Lord! That is hundreds and hundreds of miles.”
“Yes, it took him almost a month to get here and by then the duchess had come to Briarly and both she and the duke were frantic. His Grace sent Runners and a dozen servants to comb all possible routes.” Mrs. St. Clare’s lips twitched.
“Only when Gerrit finally arrived did we learn what happened. He’d climbed into a wagon full of vegetable marrows and fallen asleep, not waking until the carter went to unload.
The man knew by Gerrit’s clothing he was not an impoverished urchin and tried to get the truth out of him, but Gerrit would not reveal his identity.
Instead, he demanded to be put to work for his passage.
” Mrs. St. Clare chuckled fondly. “And so that is what the carter did, expecting Gerrit to capitulate after the first hour of hard labor. It actually took more than a week.”
Katie felt a reluctant twinge of amusement. Why wasn’t she surprised that he’d been stubborn even at such a tender age. “What finally convinced him to confess his identity?”
“He read in a newspaper that the Duke of Dulverton’s excavation had ceased due to a family emergency.
Clever boy that he was, he knew why and promptly told the carter who he was.
The poor man could hardly spirit him to Briarly fast enough.
” Her smile faded. “When Gerrit arrived, he took his punishment like the stoic he is. But when it came to returning to his mother, he told Dulverton he would run away again. He was emphatic that he would not go back to Spenwood.” Mrs. St. Clare sighed.
“And so, he did not see his mother for seven years.”
“Seven years! That is dreadful.”
“I agree. I pleaded with Dulverton to bring about a rapprochement between Gerrit and the duchess. To his credit, he tried to convince Gerrit to forgive his mother, but the few efforts he made ended in disaster and so he made fewer attempts as the years went by. Gerrit voluntarily went to Spenwood when he began to learn estate management from his father, but he was already a man by then—ten-and-seven—and the breach appeared unbridgeable.”
“How could Dulverton forgive his father but not his mother?” she asked before she could consider to whom she was speaking.
Mrs. St. Clare’s jaw flexed, and her face once again flushed. “It does not seem fair, does it?” she asked, a faintly mocking expression on her face.
Katie’s question might have been crass, but that did not make it any less true and she refused to apologize.
Not only had her husband forgiven his father for his infidelity, but he also seemed to have embraced Mrs. St. Clare as a mother figure.
Or at least he cared for her enough to confide in her and visit her.
“Dulverton and I only disagreed six times in all the years we were together, and Gerrit was the subject of our disputes four of those times. Dulverton gave me a fair hearing, but he was unshakeable in some of his beliefs.” She stopped and cocked her head, “Have you seen the portrait of him at Briarly—one that was painted when he was a very young man?”
“I have seen it,” Katie said. Like his son, the last duke had not been a handsome man. Her husband had inherited his father’s Vikingesque features and pale eyes, but—based on the portrait—Gerrit was much taller than his sire. “But why do you ask?”