Chapter 7
Seven
Dear Lady Drake,
I find myself in need of your assistance with my young ward. I must ask you to travel to Caerlaverock several times throughout the year. I regret the further damage to your reputation this may cause, but I see no other way without exposing the girls to more scandal.
Yours, Nithesdale
—A letter from Edward Charles Hancock, Duke of Nithesdale, to Lady Phoebe Drake, March 1808
S omething vile and foreign had taken over her body, and if she did not leave this room, she would heave the contents of her stomach onto the vast table where her three guests sat. She’d heard stories of men and women deep in their cups acting as though the boundaries of society did not apply to them, only to become violently ill for all to see. She was suffering those effects. Her stomach churned and her pulse beat erratically. She had to leave this farce of a dinner before she embarrassed herself further.
The polite conversation between Mr. Forrester, a man she admired, and Ross, a man who’d lowered her to a new level, was more than she could bear. The topics had ranged from a bill in the House of Lords, to shipping and last year's crops. She kept waiting for the Duke to ruin Mr. Forrester’s kind regard of her, yet nothing about what had occurred between the two of them came up in conversation. In fact, the discussion was rather boring, which frayed her nerves even more.
How could he speak as if nothing had occurred between them? The way his mouth had burned a trail of lust across her flesh. The way her body betrayed her heart and had been willing to do anything the man desired. She still couldn’t believe that had been her in his arms.
Dear God in Heaven, she had sunk beneath anything she could recognize in herself.
She brought her napkin to her mouth and pressed the despicable words threatening to spew forth from her lips back down where they belonged. Her parents had raised her better. She should follow their path and escape to the Highlands, except she had no haven to escape to. Her father had purchased Urquhart and eloped with his bride when her grandparents attempted to marry her mother to a nobleman twice her age. The Ton had turned their backs on her parents. Her father was a mere man of trade, and yet her mother hadn’t cared. She’d found a man who loved her as much as she’d loved him, and unlike the peerage, who only celebrated the birth of an heir, her parents gloried in the birth of each of their six daughters. Their castle truly was their home. They had everything that made them happy.
And he’d destroyed it all when he’d stolen their home.
“My dear, is everything all right?” Lady Drake asked discretely.
“I … I seem to be suffering from the effects of a megrim.” She was, wasn’t she? Nothing else could explain the pounding in her temple, or the way her mind traveled back in time and out of her body to peer down at herself at the moment in the gardens when she’d wrapped her legs around his waist as she shamelessly reveled in the feel of his manhood against her center. She was married, and she had attempted to seduce another man.
She was a scandal neither her mother nor father would recognize, nor would they condone her actions—no matter what the cause.
“My mother suffered from megrims.” Mr. Forrester looked at her with such concern she wanted to cry. He was a true gentleman. “She found a dark room and a cold compress on her forehead were the only remedies to give her relief.”
Forrester was the man she should have married, not the Duke of Nithesdale, and yet if Mr. Forrester knew how far she’d lowered herself, she would be ruined in his eyes as well.
“My grandmother had her lady’s maid mix a poultice that was spread on a cloth then bound to her forehead.” Lady Drake tapped her lip with her spoon in a most unladylike fashion as she appeared to sift through her memories. The action caught Ross’s attention and his eyebrow quirked, but he did not comment as he continued to eat his soup. “I believe it consisted of leeks, flour, and …” She pondered for a moment. “… earthworms!” The last word burst through her lips with an exuberance that would have made Iseabail laugh, if she wasn’t so miserable.
“It is a true sign of a duchess, to suffer from megrims,” the Duke interjected. “Although some physicians are inclined to say only martyrs suffer from the ailment.” He casually brought another spoonful of soup to his mouth as if he hadn’t just insulted her.
Iseabail wasn’t certain if it was the volume of Lady Drake’s voice, the thought of earthworms on her head, or the way Ross stared at her with neither concern nor disdain that drove her to her feet. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, and quit the room without a backward glance.
She heard two chairs slide across the stone floor and was certain it was Mr. Forrester and the Duke attempting to be polite, but she found she didn’t care. She could not have casual dinner conversation after what had happened less than an hour earlier. Instead, she ran across the great hall and up the stairs to her bedchamber. Once she was behind her closed door with the only sound being that of the fire crackling in the hearth, she finally felt like she could breathe. The pretense of being a duchess, and a true wanton, while hosting a dinner was too much to bear.
A faint tap on the adjoining door to her husband’s bedchamber made her jump. She stared at it for a moment, reluctant to give up her seclusion.
“My dear, it’s your husband,” a weak masculine voice said from the other side of the ornately carved panel.
Her husband? What was he doing out of bed? How was he out of bed?
She ran to the door and opened it. Nithesdale was leaning against the door jamb as if he visited her room every evening in his night shirt. This, however, was the very first time their roles were reversed, and she couldn’t help but notice the quiver in his legs.
“Your Grace, please come in and have a seat.” With his feet bare, she had no doubt her husband would want to raise his chilled limbs to the fire for warmth. She hoped her suggestion kept him from her bed, this room had become her only place of refuge away from the prying eyes of the servants … and the rest of the household.
“The ravishing will come later, my dear.” The Duke winked as he took her arm and she assisted him across the room. Once he was seated, she grabbed the extra blanket from the foot of her bed and laid it over his lap and tucked it under his legs. He smiled at her nursemaid tendencies.
There was a day when his comment would have sent a blush to her cheeks, those days seemed to have been a lifetime ago. “You look very well, Your Grace.” He did. Her husband hadn’t left his room in weeks and today he was seated in her room.
“After the intimacies we’ve shared, my dear Iseabail, I would hope you would feel comfortable with me by now.”
She stared at him, his words making little sense to her muddled brain. “I … I …”
He smiled. “Nithesdale, my dear. Call me Nithesdale.”
His smile faded, however, as his gaze fell on the only painting in her pastel blue room. A deep, unending pain crossed his face. When she’d first walked into the room a month earlier, she’d been shocked by the seductive painting of a nude woman looking over her shoulder as her raven-black curls gracefully fell to the sheet around her waist. There was no escaping the love burning in her blue eyes. Whoever this woman was, she had loved with all her heart the man she was peering at.
“Who was she?” she asked, because despite her inquiries to the staff, not one person had been able to answer her question. She suspected the Duke was the only one in the household to know the mystery woman’s identity.
He didn’t turn away from the portrait as he gazed at the face with a longing she’d never witnessed before. It was as if the woman had captured her husband’s heart and taken it into the painting with her, never to release it again. For the first time, Iseabail felt as if she was the one intruding on his privacy, not the other way around.
“She was to be my duchess,” he whispered, his unshed tears making her even more uncomfortable. His grief made her want to change the subject, but the Duke seemed to need this moment. “Emmaline was the toast of the Ton from the moment she descended the stairs at her very first ball. Every toff in London wanted her hand. She was intoxicating. When she walked into a room, men were instantly mesmerized. She had more grace on the dance floor than all the other debutantes combined, and her smile …” The memory brought a sad expression to his face. “It truly was glorious. The brightest chandeliers in the Palace of Holyroodhouse couldn’t hold a candle to her spark.”
Iseabail had never been inside the royal palace, but she’d seen it from the window of her family’s carriage on the one trip they’d taken to Edinburgh, before her parents had died. The grand home of the royal family had been so much more imposing than Caerlaverock or Urquhart.
“Somehow, I became the lucky one out of all of the gentlemen vying for Emmaline’s attention … and we fell in love.” The reverence in his voice was nearly heartbreaking. Her husband, a man with a reputation vaster than all of Scotland and Britain for his wild spirit and countless paramours, had loved and lost.
She sat down at his feet and laid her head upon his lap. Listening to him speak of his love while it was obvious that his heart had been broken beyond repair, brought out a tenderness for him she’d never felt before. She couldn’t stop the question from spilling from her lips. “What happened?” It was rude and possibly cruel, but she had to know how a love like that could die an early death. She’d seen how her mother’s premature death had destroyed her father, and she couldn’t help but wonder if love was worth the risk of the destruction it wrought.
“She didn’t have a shilling to her name.”
She looked up then and watched as a tear spilled down Nithesdale’s cheek, his gaze never leaving the portrait of his affection. He swiped the tear away and cleared his throat. “My father threatened to disown me if I didn’t choose a woman with a sizable dowry. He had run the estate into the ground with bad investment after bad investment.”
His voice grew wistful. “I didn’t care. We were in love, and Emmaline was going to be my bride.” Nithesdale cleared his throat. “I was in London for the Season when I received word that my father had been injured in a carriage accident and I should return to Caerlaverock at once. I came home, and while I was away, a rogue who had just returned from a tour of the Continent compromised Emmaline in the eyes of the Ton. I wasn’t there to protect her.”
“Compromised her?” If anything, Iseabail thought sitting for a nude portrait would ruin a young lady in the eyes of the Ton. Fearful that her skepticism would show, she laid her head back on her husband’s lap and took comfort in the way his hand brushed through her hair. It wasn’t erotic or vulgar, but rather the most loving thing he’d ever done, and she suspected he was thinking of another woman.
“He kissed her at the annual charity ball at Buckingham Palace. I suspect he planned it with Prince George himself. It was our Regent who found them and made the spectacle.”
“She betrayed you.” Her voice was full of indignation for her husband.
“No, she did not. It was I who betrayed her.”
She met his gaze and instead of pain in his shadowed blue eyes, she saw a deep shame.
“I wasn’t there when the scandal unfurled, but I believed the story I was told. The commotion caused a stir in the ballroom, and most of our acquaintances witnessed the fallout. What was relayed to me nearly tore my heart from my chest. Emmaline’s dress was in disarray, her attacker was beaming like the champion of a pugilist match when he announced to all who were present that my Emmaline had accepted his suit and they would be wed within the fortnight.”
She gasped on his behalf. To have lost the love of his life in such a manner was unconscionable. Nithesdale smiled and shook his head.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, my dear. Emmaline tried to tell me the truth of the matter, but I turned my back on her. I was too proud to listen to the woman I claimed to love. I didn’t know her betrothed all that well, but what I did know was that he was vastly wealthy. I let my feelings of inadequacy rule my thoughts. No one was aware of our relationship, and when the opportunity presented itself for the scoundrel to steal society’s darling, the man took it. He forced his kisses upon her when an audience was imminent. Her gown was in a shambles, not because of her wanton behavior, but because of how hard she fought him from kissing her.
“After their marriage, I learned the truth of the matter, but she would no longer accept my correspondence, nor would she grant me an audience.”
Iseabail began to protest in his defense, but Nithesdale soothed her and continued. “I tried again after her husband died, and she was a widow. I wanted to make amends. After all those years, Emmaline still held my heart. My betrayal, however, was too grave. Emmaline had long ago closed her heart to forgiving me, and him.”
Tears fell down her face at the thought of such a tragedy … it was unbearable. Pride and vanity had kept them apart, and for what? So that they could both be miserable in their own little corner of the world? What was wrong with the people of the Ton when pride stopped them from having the only thing that mattered in life—an undying love shared between two people that could blossom into so much more?
He smiled down at her and she realized she was probably the only person alive who knew the story of their lost love in the name of pride and honour. “Where is she now?” She asked.
“London. Living out her days alone.”
“She has no children?”
“She bore him an heir, but he refused to let her take part in the child’s up-bringing, and by the time he died, his heir believed she deserted him.”
Iseabail gasped and looked up at the portrait of the happy woman whose entire life had been manipulated by a man who hadn’t a care for her heart or her soul. In many ways she was walking in the same footsteps as Emmaline, yet Iseabail’s husband was trying to do right by her, despite his unconventional tactics.
“Why did you marry me instead of setting me up with a dowry?”
His smile was kind, and in some way, it made her feel the same way she had the first time he’d invited her to play chess as a young girl. “Do you know what happens to young women with large dowries?”
“They receive many offers of marriage.”
“True,” he said, “But not all of the men making offers would be worthy of you or your sisters.” Nithesdale pointed toward the chess board she’d set up in her room in the hopes that he would want a match in the near future. It seemed her wish was about to come true. She smiled and felt the warmth she always did when they met over a game filled with cunning and strategy. It was the only time when she could be herself in front of another human being.
“I hardly think a mere Miss, especially one labeled a bastard, can be choosey.” She picked up the game board and moved it onto the ottoman.
They set up the board, the loser of their previous match receiving the lucky color for their current match. Nithesdale moved his black pawn to the D5 position.
“I see you choose to expose your queen.”
Nithesdale waggled his eyebrows. “An exposed Queen always gets lucky.”
She laughed at his debauchery and the sudden marital warmth that was developing between them. “You should have invited me to play more often.”
His smile dimmed. “You were too young, and I had no desire to corrupt a child, but there are men who would take advantage of any girl or young woman who possesses the least bit of vulnerability.”
She refused his bait and moved her knight to F3. “And you think I would be vulnerable because of my parentage if I had been granted a large dowry?”
“I do.” He moved his pawn to C5, and she countered with her pawn to E3.
“But as your duchess, no one will take advantage of me?”
“They will attempt to take advantage of the duchy, but Mr. Forrester will prevent it.” He moved his knight to C6.
“Why didn’t you just marry me off to Mr. Forrester?” She played it safe with her pawn going head-to-head with his at D4. He shook his head and grinned at her perceived error, then took her pawn with his from C5 to D4. She frowned at the move, but refused to show any weakness, and in turn took his pawn with her own.
“Are you fond of Mr. Forrester?” He moved his bishop to her side of the board.
She countered with her pawn up one at C3 and looked at him through her lashes wondering if she heard a hint of jealousy in Nithesdale’s tone. “He’s kind, intelligent, and has good manners.”
“You’re describing a mount.” He quickly moved his queen diagonally one space.
She grinned. “Isn’t that the point, husband?” She made a play he wouldn’t expect, and moved her knight along the edge to A3 and put his queen in jeopardy.
Nithesdale looked up with such warmth in his deep blue eyes that for a moment she could see the virility of the man he was when he was half his age. Strong, passionate, caring. Nithesdale cared for her, of that she had no doubt. In the years she had lived at Caerlaverock, she had always been uncertain of her standing in the household. At this moment, however, she knew she was his duchess through and through.
“A mount is not someone you want in your bed for years, but rather for a quick romp in the hay.” He challenged with his pawn and exposed his king even further. She had forced his hand with her knight and had his queen on the retreat, then she moved her pawn on the opposite side of the board at G3 one slot, to face off with his bishop.
“Isn’t that what you enjoy most?” She asked.
He glanced at the painting on the wall. “No, but I’m afraid you will have to endure a few romps to inherit my kingdom and secure your future, and that of your sisters as well.” Her husband countered with a move she hadn’t expected with a pawn, and she matched it with one of her own.
“Most women expect that out of marriage.” She could hear the jaded tone of her voice and shrugged when her husband eyed her.
“I suppose you’re right, but if I had given you the dowry you deserve, there are men who would use force to compromise you for such funds.” Her eyes widened and she thought of the way the footman, Louis, followed her from room to room. “By the look in your eyes, I suspect I have not protected you as well as I should have over the years.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not true. It’s just that I … I know what it is like to have men think poorly of me—as if despite their lower station, I am beneath them.”
Nithesdale frowned. “Someone in my household?”
She shook her head and reached over to pat his hand. “It’s nothing, Nithesdale, really. Just the insecurities of a young girl coming out.”
“Tell me, Iseabail. If a man of lower station looks upon a duchess poorly, what do you think he might do to a scullery maid?”
For a moment she couldn’t breathe, because she had seen a few members of the female staff walk quickly in the opposite direction of Louis, the footman who sent shivers up her spine. Had he behaved in such a manner that would cause them harm? Had her silence hurt other women in the household? “I … I can’t imagine.”
“Unfortunately, I can.” Nithesdale growled. “On the morrow, I want you to give his name to Mr. Forrester. He will see the man gone.”
“But I don’t know if he’s guilty of anything?—”
“He’s guilty of treating my duchess as if she were a common whore, and if he is comfortable doing that, he is guilty of far worse, I am sure. On the morrow, Iseabail. I want him gone so that I know you are safe.”
She smiled at that because the man was a dear. If only she had known how precious he was before now. “Of course, Nithesdale. I will speak with Mr. Forrester.”
He grinned and looked down at the board and retreated one position with his bishop to H5, opening the door to the opportunity she sought. With a few sacrificial moves she put him into a position where he could not move without giving up his king and queen altogether.
“Are you admitting defeat, Your Grace?” she asked with a coy smile on her face. She couldn’t remember a match she’d enjoyed more.
“You have improved your game tremendously, and my king bows to yours in defeat.” He tipped over his king. “What I would like for you to take from this, however, is more than the joy of victory.”
Her brow furrowed. “What else is there?”
“The knowledge that if a king leaves his queen vulnerable, he leaves himself vulnerable as well. I refuse to leave my queen with her back against the wall. She will have the power of my kingdom behind her when I am gone.” With his strategy exposed, Nithesdale pushed from his chair with more power than she had seen in over a month. He bent down, kissed her on the forehead, and turned toward his bedchamber.
“I hope to see you and Lady Drake in a few hours, my dear.”
“Of course, Nithesdale.” She stared at the carved wooden door well after her husband closed it. She hadn’t dominated the game after all … but she had won something far greater when she married her husband, because her victory on the board was nothing compared to being championed by a king.