Chapter 30 #2
“Oh my, you have been sent on a wild goose chase. Beatrice stayed overnight with a neighboring family after a dance last night and I do not expect her back until after breakfast. Might Frances have gone to the dance too?”
Ambrose shook his head, disappointed and bewildered. If Beatrice had not been here, where would Frances have gone? In such a state as she left Westall Park, it did not seem likely that she would have wanted to attend a party.
“Come and have some breakfast while we work this out,” proposed Lady Scovell, taking Ambrose’s arm. “You look as though you need to sit down and rest in any case.”
The duke let himself be steered into the breakfast room where Lord Scovell was sitting at the table with his newspaper and a pile of hot buttered toast.
“Ambrose!”
His father-in-law rose from his chair upon seeing him, although whether as a mark of respect, or surprise at his disheveled appearance, Ambrose could not say.
“Ambrose was expecting to find Frances here,” said Lady Scovell with a sigh, ushering the duke into a chair and waving to a maid to bring more coffee and a plate.
“Was he indeed?” said Lord Scovell, his voice less warm than his wife’s and his eyes rather appraising. “Why would that be?”
“We had a misunderstanding yesterday afternoon,” Ambrose decided to admit honestly now rather than have this emerge later. “Frances was angry at me and rode off, apparently to Scovell Hall.”
“Dear me, we need more toast and eggs but I’ve already sent Betsy for coffee,” Lady Scovell fussed. "I’ll just go and speak to the kitchen.”
“And did my daughter have reason to be angry at you?” Lord Scovell demanded, his hostility becoming more direct once his wife was out of the room.
“What do you mean by that, Sir?!” Ambrose returned hotly.
“I mean, are the rumors now around half of London true, Your Grace? Have you a mistress? You’re not even married half a year yet. No wonder Frances is angry with you. She is probably breaking her heart.”
Heartsick himself and exhausted besides, Ambrose could not take this. His fist slammed down hard on the table, making the crockery shake.
“No! I would never do to Frances what you did to Lady Scovell. Do not judge everyone by your own standards.”
“It wasn’t the way you think,” retorted Lord Scovell looking shaken at having this thrown back at him when he had expected to play the role of the righteous husband and father. “I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
“You still did though, didn't you?” Ambrose told him bluntly. “Your actions scarred Frances for life in ways you’ve never imagined. You’re only lucky that your wife never discovered you.”
“I always knew,” said the soft sweet voice of Helen Harcourt, returning to the breakfast room on light feet and closing the door with a sigh. “Now, both of you calm down and listen to me. A long time ago, Edmund made a mistake. It was not because he was wicked but because he was human.”
“I am so very sorry,” Lord Scovell said, bowing his grizzled head as his wife came over and laid her hand on his shoulder. “I wish it had never happened.”
“We talked about this long ago, Edmund. I was ill and you had needs that I could not meet. Neither of us talked to one another and we both went down the wrong path. I forgave you then, and I’ve never stopped loving you since. I only wish that Frances could forgive you too.”
“I don’t deserve you,” Lord Scovell told his wife with undeniable affection. “But I will spend the rest of my life trying.”
At any other time, Ambrose might have been touched by such a display of genuine feeling. His own parents’ happy marriage had inspired him to wed Charlotte and conceive Winnie at a young age, hoping to experience something like this.
Today, however, the blind love of this pair almost infuriated him.
Lord Scovell had strayed and Lady Scovell had forgiven him, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t consequences.
It only meant that they had been blind to some of the most negative and formative experiences in their elder daughter’s life.
“I am happy that you were able to reconcile,” Ambrose said. “But I also understand why Frances can’t forgive you, Lord Scovell. This didn’t end for her on the day you returned to the marital fold and begged your wife’s forgiveness.”
Both Lord and Lady Scovell looked at him with incomprehension.
“It is always a shock for children to realize that their parents are not perfect,” noted Lady Scovell, “but Frances is an adult now. Why must she judge Edmund as though she were still a child, and he were still the man he was then?”
“Two children stumbled on your affair and were scarred by it, Lord Scovell,” the Duke of Westall stated with some impatience.
“Frances and your lover’s son, Oswald Keeton.
Frances grew up fearful of all intimacy and Oswald grew up twisted, obsessed with the wrong that he thinks your family have done to his, and determined that Frances should pay for it. Did you really not know this?”
“What do you mean?” asked Lady Scovell uneasily, sinking into a chair beside her husband. “What has Oswald Keeton done?”
“He has harassed and tormented Frances for her entire adult life, in a fashion that makes my skin crawl. When I learned of this, I made it clear to him that if he persists, I will take the strongest possible measures.”
“Dear God,” muttered Lord Scovell, his face flushed with a mixture of shame and wrath.
“Frances never told us anything of this,” Lady Scovell said unhappily. “Why did she not tell us?”
“She did not think she would be believed,” Ambrose answered evenly. “Nor did she wish to be blamed by others for encouraging him. It would have been Lord Mulford’s word against hers, and he is a very vicious and manipulative man. I understand her fear.”
Lord Scovell’s face reddened and worked as he tried to make sense of all that Ambrose had just said. Eventually, he rose to his feet with clenched fists.
“How dare he! If Oswald Keeton was any kind of man, he could have called me out for whatever happened between me and his mother all those years ago, not molested my daughter. I should go to Mulford Manor now and call him out for this myself…”
With tears in her eyes, Helen Harcourt hushed her husband, taking one of his hands and kissing it.
“I know you want to do that, Edmund. If I were a man, I would feel the same, but listen to what Ambrose has just told us. He has already stepped in to protect Frances as we never did. It is his job now, not yours.”
“It is,” Ambrose confirmed. “However our marriage began, I love Frances and I would protect her with my life. I promise you that…”
Before Ambrose could complete his earnest declaration, the breakfast room door had swung open again and with youthful gaiety, Beatrice came skipping into the room.
Her eyes were bright and she held a letter in her hand.
Seeing Ambrose and such serious faces at the table, Beatrice stopped and looked around with puzzlement.
“Good morning, what a wonderful dance we had last night! Oh… What is this? Am I missing a family meeting? Is Frances here too…?”
“We don’t know where Frances is,” Lady Scovell began to say cautiously, looking to Ambrose for what further explanation he might wish to give.
Ambrose’s attention, however, was more on the envelope in Beatrice’s hand..
“That’s Frances’ handwriting,” he observed urgently. “Look, she has written to Beatrice.”
“Do open it, Beatrice,” Lord Scovell prompted his younger daughter. “It might tell us where she has gone.”
“I am becoming quite worried now,” confessed Lady Scovell, watching anxiously as Beatrice broke the seal and unfolded the paper. “What does she say Beatrice?”
The young woman scanned the paper rapidly and then looked up with a frown.
“She doesn’t want Ambrose to know where she is…” Beatrice said slowly, looking thoughtfully at him, but without hostility.
“Then only show the letter to your parents,” he said quickly, making an impatient gesture. “I want to know that Frances is safe and to ask her to speak to me. I will never pursue her against her will.”
“Is this about that scandal sheet?” the young woman asked calmly. “Everyone has seen it, Father. There is no need to look so shocked at my knowing. I didn’t believe a word of it personally, and didn’t think that Frances did either.”
“It was completely false,” Ambrose confirmed to his sister-in-law. “But Frances was very upset when she left Westall Park. Can you tell me at least if she is among friends?”
Beatrice seemed to make up her mind and tossed the letter onto the table so that anyone might read it.
“Well, she was at the old folly here last night… You don’t think she’s still there do you? It was so cold and rainy outside but Frances can be very stubborn when she makes up her mind to something.”
“Why on earth should she go there?” Lady Scovell asked, her brow now creased with worry. “Oh, the foolish girl. Do go and find her and bring her back to the house. I can’t bear to think of my Frances out there alone all night. You don’t think she might have wandered into the woods, do you?”
Ambrose was already on his feet, with Beatrice and Edmund not far behind him out of the door.