Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“But you must have encountered your share of society mothers?” Frances said lightly, praying that he would not notice how far they were getting from the main event. “I am still surprised that you do not have a horde of them at your gates every morning, hurling their daughters at you.”
Dominic shook his head. “I have encountered very few of those formidable women, in truth. I was not involved in the ton’s events for long enough to really contend with any, nor was I presented with any need to contend with them.”
“How so?” She held her breath, as if inhaling too loud might distract him.
He shrugged and his arm tightened against his side, bringing her arm flush against his ribs. It did not appear deliberate, but more like an instinctual need to brace himself.
“I spent three weeks in London when I was twenty,” he said, after a pensive pause.
“I was a student at Oxford, my father summoned me to the city, I had exactly three dinners with one woman, and I was married to her at the end of those three weeks. Once the wedding was over, I returned to Oxford to finish my education, and then… I have been at Alderwick ever since.”
Frances’ heart missed a beat, a thousand questions jostling each other in her mind like those spiteful socialites, but she said nothing at all.
If she spoke, she feared she might break whatever spell had encouraged Dominic to speak of such things, of his past and the wife that she knew almost nothing about.
“Althea and Harriet spent most of their time in London, until Althea fell ill and insisted on returning to Alderwick,” he continued, his voice thick.
“I did not understand why she would move further away from the country’s finest doctors to be in a manor she abhorred.
Rather, I did not understand until a couple of years ago. ”
Althea… It was a beautiful name, and if his wife had been anything like Harriet, then she had had a beautiful face to go with it.
“Why?” Frances asked carefully.
Dominic tilted his head up, a sigh straining those poor waistcoat buttons. “Because I was a fool,” he replied. “She did not come back to Alderwick for herself, or to try and be the wife that neither of us wanted her to be. She came back for Harriet, so that I could get to know my child better.”
“You did not know much of her before that?” Frances could not hold back the question, for she could not imagine any father being entirely absent from their child.
Her father could be in the same room and feel as if he were a thousand miles away, but at least he was there. Present in person if not in mind or feeling. To live apart from one’s children: that was something she could not comprehend at all.
His face twisted into an awkward sort of grimace.
“Althea and I agreed to live separately. We tried to reside together in the first year after Harriet was born, and we very nearly killed one another.” His voice went strange, as if he had something lodged there.
“The birth nearly killed her. The least I could do was let her do as she pleased once she was well again.”
“You never tried again?” Frances said, her face flushing. “For sons?”
Dominic shook his head. “It would have been too cruel in all regards. Too cruel to put her through another birth, too cruel to make her stay, too cruel to be so…” he looked away, a muscle ticking in his jaw “… intimate with someone who barely tolerated me, and with whom I am afraid I felt nothing but obligation.”
She dropped her gaze to the ground as if she had wandered in on a confessional, her face flaming with the very notion of intimacy. It was not something that was spoken about where she came from, and she could see that he, too, was uncomfortable with the conversation.
And then there was that word again. Obligation. The theory he had had about Frances’ parents. She had wondered if he was speaking from experience, and now she knew.
He did not love his wife…
Her thoughts grew foggy, layers of confusing feelings piling on top of one another, merging together until she had nothing close to clarity.
Should she feel glad that he had not loved his wife?
It did not mean he would love her. Should she feel sad for the woman he had married, to have been forced into such a union?
It was what she had feared for herself, up until the slap that stopped it all.
Should she feel sad for him, to have had no choice either?
And what of Harriet, growing up without her father present, only returning when her mother was unwell?
It was too much to think about all at once, ruining the peace of the private walk she had been relishing.
“I am sorry.” Dominic stopped walking, his arm releasing hers from being pressed to his ribs. “I do not know why I told you that. I never speak of her. I should not have changed that now.”
A sensation akin to panic prompted her to hold tighter to his arm. “Not at all, Your Grace. It is good to hear of your story, to hear of Harriet’s mother.” She covered his hand with hers. “I imagine it is of benefit to you too, to talk of what must have been a… very difficult situation.”
“I am not sure about that,” he replied, with a short, cold laugh. “Some things are best left buried.”
Frances shook her head, willing him to meet her gaze. “I do not believe that is true, for the things we wish to bury always find a way to resurface. It is better if we choose to dig them up and share them with those we trust, to lighten the burden.”
His eyes widened as if remembering something, his hand slipping into his front pocket. From within, he withdrew what appeared to be a handkerchief, somewhat crumpled, with a thin pink ribbon tied around it.
“For you,” he said, holding it out to her.
She frowned at the handkerchief. “Thank you, Your Grace, but I do not need one.”
Am I crying?
She did not think she was. Perhaps she had something on her face that needed to be wiped away, or her nose was running from the chilly night air and the sadness of his story. Sadness for everyone involved, who had been given no choice in the matter, just pawns controlled by the parents above them.
“It is merely wrapped in a handkerchief,” he explained, as he swept a hand through his hair, looking decidedly uncomfortable.
“What is it?” she asked, gingerly tugging on the ribbon.
He cleared his throat loudly and looked away, back toward the lights of the fair. “A gift, I suppose.”
Frances stifled the gasp that attempted to escape her throat, worried that she might genuinely need a handkerchief to dab away tears. He had bought her something. He had thought of her, and he had bought her something. Whatever was in the handkerchief wrapper did not matter.
“It is nothing, really,” he muttered with that odd catch in his voice. “If you do not like it, you can dispose of it.”
In the shadows of the plane trees, with just enough light from the fading sunset to see by, Frances unfolded the handkerchief to discover what was inside.
The moment she saw the sheen of the folded square of delicate fabric, her heart fluttered, her chest heaving as a funny, involuntary whimper managed to slip from her lips.
“I overheard what you said to your maid. It was not meant to upset you,” he explained, misunderstanding. “Please, let me return it. It was a foolish thing to do.”
She clasped the exquisite piece of muslin to her chest, shaking her head. “Do not dare,” she rasped. “It is… beautiful. It is probably the most beautiful thing I own.”
Ladies of her standing and heritage across the country would have turned up their noses at a mere square of perfect muslin, asking why it was not a full gown or a fichu at least. They might have been upset or insulted, but not Frances.
To her, it was as precious as a diamond, for it was something she had wanted and had known she could never have, not even a square of it.
Yet, there it was, pressed against her heart.
“Just a token of thanks for all you have done for my daughter,” he said quickly.
It was a thin needle to the swell of her gratitude, not popping it altogether but causing it to deflate a little.
She did not know why, for what else had she expected—some manner of confession with the gift?
Some magical reprieve that might permit her to stay here in Bath and never have to return to London at all?
Just because had confided in her about his wife did not mean that he felt anything for her, just as it did not mean that he had changed his mind about remarrying. Why would he marry again, when the first time had evidently been such an unpleasant thing?
“It is my pleasure,” she said as brightly as she could, her thumb brushing the fabric, so silky and slippery it was almost like liquid, cold to the touch. “Now, how can it be that your wife barely tolerated you, when you do something as kind as this?”
She had meant it in clumsy jest, but wished she could pluck the words from the air like cherry blossoms and crush them in her hand as she watched his expression harden. She had been too familiar; she had spoken out of turn.
“Because I was not the same man then,” he answered gruffly. “I was not a good man at all, and I am not certain that I am now.”
Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean? Of course, you are a good man.”
“You say that as someone who does not know me, Frances,” he replied, his eyes squinting as though a sudden headache had attacked him. “Come, we should return to the others before our absence is noticed. I did not realize how far from the path we had wandered.”
He looked as if he might walk off without her but seemed to remember his manners as he paused at her side, his arm rigid as he held it out to her, his hand curled into a fist.
Frances held the muslin in a fierce grip, uneasy in the wake of his declaration.
Why did he think he was not a good man? At first, perhaps she might have believed he was cruel or brutish, considering how he had appeared to her on the night she arrived.
But, in the time she had been at Alderwick, she had seen no sign of him being anything but a decent gentleman.
No airs and graces, as one might expect from a duke, but that was more to his merit than his detriment.
“Now,” he growled, as if he meant to prove that he was not the good man she thought him to be.
Swallowing thickly, Frances took his proffered arm and walked back with him along the quiet path, beneath the canopy of those majestic trees. The sheen had faded, the quiet excitement with which she had wandered into those trees with him now waning.
What did you do, Dominic? What did you do?
As they found the others, obliviously indulging in a game of hoops, she could not muster the courage to ask.