Chapter 10 #2
“Overdid it last night, did you?” The dowager tutted, but her eyes sparkled with amusement.
“I heard the gossip before coming here. But no matter. We all make mistakes when we are young, and I daresay you have reason enough. Marrying my nephew can’t have been easy for you, poor girl.
” She clucked her tongue as she took the seat beside Alice.
There was a sound from the doorway, and Alice glanced up to see the Duke there.
His presence sent blood rushing to her face.
She had done what she could to avoid him that morning, both wanting not to think about what had happened the night before and his response to it.
And hers.
She wasn’t ready to face that reality. And she especially wasn’t ready to face the embarrassment of knowing he could see her suffering from her excesses.
But although his gaze swept up and down her body, no doubt taking in her clammy skin and the tangled mess of her hair—she hadn’t been able to endure Jenny doing much to it at all—he made no comment to her.
“I hear my aunt has come to visit and find her disparaging me to my wife,” he chuckled, the ease in his voice making it plain this didn’t trouble him overmuch.
He crossed the room to the dowager and kissed her cheek.
“I see you have met Alice. Alice, this is my aunt, and if you ever find her too nosy, you have my permission to tell her where to put it.”
Alice flushed still harder, looking down at her knees as she awkwardly sat. The Duke reached out a hand to steady her, but dropped it as soon as she was safely back in her seat.
“Oh, tosh,” the dowager scoffed. “I daresay she will find me a necessary ally. We Blackwell women must stick together, you know.”
The Duke made a sound under his breath, but then finally turned his full attention to Alice. “Do you need anything?”
She shook her head. Nothing from him, at any rate.
“The physician will be in to see you shortly,” he said, a tinge of disapproval in his voice.
Alice glanced up at that, but the Duke was already striding to the door.
“Don’t put any ideas of insurrection in her head, Aunt,” he cautioned lightly to the dowager, giving her a grin that made him look almost boyish. “I doubt she needs any suggestions.”
Alice gritted her teeth at the temptation to curse at him, but the familiarity of his relationship with his aunt intrigued her.
She knew both his parents had died in unrelating incidents—his mother when he was born and his father a couple of years ago—and this display of familial affection was… surprising.
When she glanced at the dowager again, the woman was looking at her with sympathy.
“I cannot imagine how you must be taking this, my dear,” she sighed, the gentleness in her voice making Alice want to cry.
No doubt a product of her bad head. “If I were you, I would despise him with every breath in my body.”
“I…” Alice had not expected that from someone who seemed so evidently fond of him. “Do you not like him?”
“I? Well of course I do. He is my brother’s son, and he is a good man, whatever you may feel.
But that doesn’t change facts, does it?” She looked at Alice as though she saw straight through her.
“And resentment like that is hard to get over. You might not even want to.” She exhaled heavily and shook her head.
“I understand why Frederick married you, all things considered, but he should have thought a little more about it.”
Alice leaned forward. “You think he shouldn’t have married me?”
“I think he is pig-headed when he thinks he knows something, or thinks that something is right. He realized he had done wrong by you and attempted to do right by you in the only way he knew how.”
“Through marriage?”
“Oh, my dear. I know you must see it as being trapped with the man who ruined your life, but he sees it as giving you everything he possibly can.” She paused, and Alice could almost see her choose her words carefully.
“I am in no way excusing his actions. When he was a young man, he was wild, and I know it would have saddened his mother had she been around to see it. He made mistakes, as did we all—and his mistakes were greater than most. Instead of drinking at a ball and suffering the next day, he was drinking while driving a phaeton, and…” She let her words trail off delicately, but Alice could not stop revisiting that moment in her mind.
The dichotomy of it all—everything had been so perfect one moment, and so ruined the next.
“But he has been forced to face the reality of his actions. And I know he only wants to do the best he can by you.”
Alice closed her eyes. “I don’t think I can ever forgive him.”
“And that would be understandable, too. Perhaps not what he wants to hear, but he should be doing this for your sake, not his. To protect your future, rather than assuring his.”
“I thought you would support him no matter what?” Alice prodded.
“I do, but I support him doing the right thing. Love doesn’t mean you are blinded to someone’s faults.
” She smiled sadly. “My husband died two years ago. Thirty years, we shared together. I didn’t love him when we married, but I grew to love him with him, and he loved me.
That didn’t mean I was ever blind to his faults.
Far from it! I knew his faults as well as anyone.
And sometimes, when necessary, I confronted him about them.
“He made the effort to improve himself for me, and heaven knows I’m not perfect, so I did the same for him.
I love Frederick like my own son, but he is not free from flaws.
I imagine no man is.” Her gaze softened.
“If you can, be gentle with him. And if you cannot, I am sure we both understand why. Now, tell me a little more about your leg. Frederick mentioned a physician.”
“I have a series of exercises to perform every day, and he comes to massage the muscle.” Alice felt awkward admitting even that much, considering it was a doctor’s gloved hands on her bare leg. But he was a medical professional, and she shouldn’t feel foolish about it.
“Ah.” The dowager’s eyes twinkled. “That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Frederick.” She waved her hand. “I understand how frustrating it can be to be in pain and to not have the full use of a limb.” She extended one wrist, the muscle wasted and the bones sticking out far more than in her other hand.
“No one has ever been able to ease this, and I fear there is nothing more to be done about it. This will stay with me for the rest of my days.”
Alice sucked in a breath. “How did it happen?”
“My fault. I was out riding, my horse took a scare and I tumbled off. Landed on my wrist. A nasty fracture, I suppose, but it ballooned to three times its normal size. I think I also shattered the bones in my hands.” She twitched her fingers, which did look crooked.
“I have very little movement and constant pain. Dear Frederick has done his best to have it seen to, but there’s no hope for me.
” Her gaze flicked down to Alice’s leg. “Does yours pain you too, dear?”
Alice nodded. “All the time. More so when it’s wet.”
“Ah, yes. It is quite the same for me,” the older lady chirped.
“Did the Duke—did he get Mr. Brown from Harley Street to attend to you, too?” Alice asked.
“No, dear. This is an old injury—over ten years now. I haven’t allowed anyone to attempt to diagnose me at any time recently.
” She sighed. “But, then, I’m older. We learn to have pain and cope with it when we get on in years.
But I have heard good things about your Mr. Brown.
We need new blood with new techniques. Perhaps if he succeeds with you, I might employ him for myself. ”
Alice stared at the other woman. She’d been prepared to be on the defensive, but at every stage, the dowager countess had proved her wrong.
She did not defend her nephew, even though she loved him.
She seemed to understand what it meant to live with permanent pain and a limb that was of no real use.
In effect, to be disabled, though Alice hated the term.
It made her feel as though there was something categorically, catastrophically wrong with her.
“Sometimes I think it would be easier without hope,” Alice said, looking down at her hands. She had two, and she could use both for whatever she wished. How fortunate she was—and how much she had taken that basic fact for granted.
“Hope can be hard when dashed, but life is harder without it. If Frederick hadn’t invited me to stay in this lovely house when my husband died, I fear I might have gone mad.
” At the look on Alice’s face, she laughed, patting her hand.
“You see, there is plenty of goodness in him if you know where to look. But don’t fear!
I don’t live here any longer, and I won’t intrude now. ”
“You would be very welcome,” Alice said hurriedly. Anything to prevent her from being alone with the Duke at all times.
“Nonsense, dear child. I would be intruding, even if you did not know it. This matter between you and Frederick is yours to sort. I will always be a willing ear, and you may be sure I will be around often enough you’ll wish me to the devil, but I won’t be staying here.
You need your privacy, even if it is only to scream at each other and throw fine china against the walls. ”
Alice giggled. “I haven’t considered throwing fine china anywhere.”
“Well, if you do, avoid the blue patterned set. His mother received that on her marriage, and he has precious little left of her, that’s for sure. But there is some Crown Staffordshire china that I believe I gifted him that you may throw. I can always buy some more if necessary.”
“I think that’s the set we eat off,” Alice said slowly.
The dowager smiled softly, her entire face transforming. She really does love him, Alice thought.
“He always was a sentimental boy.”
The Duke… sentimental.
Every day, she felt as though she was learning something about him, and she didn’t know how to feel about that.
At least now she knew she would have the dowager countess’s support even after she discovered Alice could never forgive the Duke even after a lifetime with him.
Even if.
The wording in her own head startled her—as though she had ever been anticipating forgiving him. As though she might perhaps have… wanted to.
“Call me Elizabeth,” the dowager countess said, leaning forward and smiling. A merry, bright smile that somehow, despite everything, reminded her of the Duke. “I am sure we are going to be great friends.”