Page 2 of His Illegitimate Duchess

“M a?” Lizzie called into the silent house as she unlaced her bonnet.

“I'm in the parlour,” her mother called, and Lizzie didn’t even attempt to squash the annoyance she felt whenever her mother insisted on calling their sad little drawing room “the parlour” but made sure to carefully hide any trace of it from her face.

Her mother, Catherine, seemed determined to live her life pretending that things were not what they were, and who was Lizzie to take that away from her? Especially since, after her father’s death, her mother had never fully recovered.

During those dark months, her mother sobbed and wrung her hands a lot, spent entire days in bed, complained of their fall in life to anyone who would listen, and never even considered hiding the mess they were in from her young daughter.

“How was work, dear?” her mother asked as Lizzie flung herself onto the worn settee left behind by the previous renters, exhausted.

“It was fine. Lots of new orders ahead of the Season, like every year. But also more pay, so it's worth the effort,” Lizzie shrugged as her mother called out to the maid to bring their tea.

When her father died, Elizabeth and her mother were left with one hundred pounds per year and the jewellery Catherine had been gifted during the years she shared with him.

The inheritance was barely enough to cover rent and coal and food for the two of them, and with the recent increases in the cost of food and everything else, it was plain to Elizabeth that someone in their household needed to find a way to make money, and her mother seemed unlikely to take such a step.

So, a decision was made in the dead of the night: she would find a way to care for and support her mother.

Catherine had always been somewhat lost in her own world, utterly consumed with the relationship she had with the Duke, and now she was absorbed in her role of grieving faux widow. Luckily, Elizabeth had the Barlows to help her navigate their new circumstances.

The entire family ( sans Thomas, who was still at sea) moved with them when Lizzie and her mother were forced to move from Belgravia to Church Street.

When Elizabeth turned sixteen, Thomas' sister Mary helped her find employment at the modiste’s where she already had a job as a seamstress, and finally, those hours of needlework her mother had subjected her to back when she was still attempting to make a perfect little lady out of her paid off.

Elizabeth started working as an improver, but after months spent observing, studying, and imitating the other women, she was recognised for her talent, speed, and work ethic, and advanced to a full-time seamstress. But her efforts didn’t stop there.

Whenever she had a free day, she taught the neighbourhood children to read and write in exchange for whatever food their parents were willing to part with that week, and Mrs. Barlow and Jane had found a million ways to combine those odds and ends into delicious stews.

Elizabeth smiled at their maid Jane as she set down the chipped ceramic tray that held their tea things, as well as some stale bread and a cut-up apple. She never knew a life without Jane in it, she realised, before turning to her mother.

“What about you, Ma? How was your day?”

Her mother pressed her lips together briefly. She didn't approve of not being called Maman , as was the fashion among the gentry, but Elizabeth lived for these small rebellions. Catherine waited for Jane to leave the room before replying.

“I actually had a very, very eventful day.”

“Oh?” Elizabeth couldn't imagine anything eventful occurring in the hovel-like house where her mother spent all of her time.

“Elizabeth,” her mother straightened her spine and focused all of her attention on her. Elizabeth's stomach tightened, and she felt slightly nauseous. It was like her body knew something was about to change.

“I don't know how much you remember about your late father,” Catherine began, and Lizzie's first instinct was to jump up and run from the room or to at least cover her ears, but she resisted both of those and instead held herself unnaturally still.

“I'm sure that at some point growing up, you must have realised ours wasn't a conventional arrangement. In fact, your father was married to someone else,” her mother said, and Elizabeth instinctively knew that the admission cost her a lot.

It required shattering the fantasy life she had convinced herself was true, and Lizzie didn't know what could have prompted her to do so now, after all these years.

“How can I have my father’s name if I was born out of wedlock?” she frowned.

“I took it upon myself to register you in the parish under the name Elizabeth Hawkins,” Catherine said with misplaced pride.

Elizabeth felt cold. Had her father been aware of that? Had he even wanted her to have his name?

“Why are you telling me this now, Ma?”

“Because your brother came to see me today,” Catherine said, and Elizabeth's insides felt like a limb that had fallen asleep. Tingly and painful and weird.

“My brother,” she said, clutching a teacup that had somehow made its way into her hands.

As she looked at her blonde, slender mother’s dignified posture, she could almost see the two of them from the outside, sitting together, a mother and a daughter who were nothing alike.

Elizabeth obviously favoured her father’s side in looks, which was obvious in her height and her brunette hair.

The thought of having a brother out there made her realise that she hadn’t seen a face that resembled hers in five long years.

“Yes,” Catherine nodded. “His name is Nicholas, and he is the current Duke of Ashbury. He inherited the title from your father,” she said conversationally.

This title was news to Elizabeth, but she didn't particularly care about it. The fact that she had a brother, on the other hand... She couldn't believe it. What was she supposed to do with that knowledge?

“What,” she started saying, but her throat felt constricted, so she produced an awkward little cough to clear it, “what did he want? Nicholas?”

Saying his name felt like one of her childhood confections dissolving on her tongue. A brother.

“He wants to meet you.”

Elizabeth's eyebrows rose.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why ? You're his sister!”

“Mother, you yourself have already said that all of this is a bit, er, unconventional . I don't think dukes go around seeking out their sisters from unconventional arrangements .”

“This one does. He is a kind young man, I liked him a lot. You can ask him all your questions next week when he calls on us again.”

“I -,” Elizabeth didn't finish that thought because she had no idea what she was thinking.

Dear God, please… She didn’t even know what to pray for.

Her mother just smiled into her teacup, already back in her fantasy world, in which all of this was wonderful news.

Catherine had no idea that Lizzie was saving whatever money she could to purchase a voyage to America, as was Mary and her husband, Robert.

The three young people were tired of living and working and never progressing in any way.

They were hoping to make a new life somewhere new. But now, a brother!

“Mind your manners when Nicholas gets here. You have to demonstrate that you are worthy of a place in his life. Wear the green dress.”

Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut and pressed them with her fingertips as strongly as she could without hurting herself.

*

Ten days later, Elizabeth was pacing “the parlour” they had collectively spent the last week scrubbing and dusting and polishing as her mother serenely worked on her embroidery. It was maddening.

Elizabeth's whole life was about to change in a profound way, and yet the world around her went on as if it didn't care.

Would her brother chastise her? Reject her?

Threaten her? All manner of possibilities had gone through her head as she awaited his visit, and she was exhausted from obsessing over it and not sleeping properly.

Jane soon announced the Duke, and when he entered the room, Elizabeth's heart stopped beating for a moment.

He looked so much like her father. Well, their father.

Seeing the familiar posture, his shoulders, his face – it all loosened a knot inside her heart that was made up of tangled anger, longing, resentment, and bone-deep love. Tears welled up in her eyes.

He just stood in the doorway, his intelligent, warm eyes trained on her face.

“Your Grace, let me introduce to you my daughter, Lady Elizabeth Hawkins,” her mother said primly, and Elizabeth couldn't even muster up annoyance at being introduced that way. Lady Seamstress, indeed! She thought and found it ridiculously funny.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lizzie knew she was supposed to bow or curtsy to the duke, but it was as if she was unable to move.

“It's lovely to meet you, sister,” Nicholas said, and even his voice reminded her of him .

“Likewise, Your Grace,” she said, just like her mother had instructed her.

“Please, call me Nicholas. I am your brother, after all,” he said sheepishly, and Elizabeth immediately knew he was kind and good. Nothing like their father.

“Only if you call me Elizabeth. Or Lizzie,” she retorted, her heart beating somewhere in her throat, making everything more difficult.

“Please, Your Grace, sit down and I'll call for tea,” her mother said, and they all found their places on the worn furniture.

Nicholas looked so out of place in their home, with his shiny, soft leather boots and his expensive, fashionable clothes.

When he took off his gloves, she briefly felt ashamed of her own calloused, dry hands that bore marks of the harsh winter that was finally behind them.

Lizzie wondered what he thought of their circumstances, but refused to feel bad about the life she had made for them.