Page 21 of His Illegitimate Duchess

Elizabeth and Corporal Harding were right behind them, while Talbot, Powell, and the Baron were in the last group, walking with Powell’s young daughter.

“I had no idea Mister Powell had a daughter who was out,” Elizabeth had whispered to Sophie that morning when the girl had gone to her room to change.

“She is only seventeen,” Sophie had whispered back, “but they say he allowed her to come out in order to better keep an eye on her. This way, Miss Caroline can accompany him wherever he goes. He used to leave her with governesses and family before.”

“He must have married young.”

“Nicholas told me that he was only five and twenty when his wife… You know.”

Everyone knew. Well, some version of it at least. The tragic tale of the beautiful young new mother who, in a fit of madness, jumped from the highest window of her wealthy young husband’s country manor.

Elizabeth had observed that all the young women at balls were scared of Mr Powell, as if he were some harbinger of bad luck and misery. She herself had danced several dances with him, and he wasn’t an easy man to talk to. His daughter, however, seemed to adore him.

“How are you enjoying Winchester thus far?” Oliver asked Elizabeth, seeming genuinely interested in her answer, for which she rewarded him with a small smile.

“It’s been very enjoyable. I spent a lot of time with my niece, Emma. How was your grouse shooting this morning?”

“It’s not grouse season right now, we were hoping for a pheasant or some geese, but in vain. We all came back empty-handed, but I’ve enjoyed the exercise nonetheless.”

Elizabeth tugged on her gloves and sighed.

“I used to walk so much. And now I feel my face heating from this short walk alone.”

“It becomes you,” Oliver said, shyly, and Lizzie blushed even more.

They walked in silence for a while, enjoying the soothing sounds of nature and their friends’ voices.

Suddenly, one of the dogs ( Captain , she thought) ran towards them, probably in pursuit of a field mouse or some similar critter, before giving up and getting his muddy paws on Elizabeth instead.

She laughed and knelt down to pat the dog.

“Oh, he is lovely!” Miss Caroline exclaimed as her group came up to them. “ Papa , does he not remind you of Hector?”

“Hector is much better behaved,” her father teased, and it was the first time that Elizabeth saw him do such an ordinary, human thing.

The girl laughed and then turned to Elizabeth.

“Lady Elizabeth, have you grown up around dogs? You seem so comfortable with him.”

“I haven’t, but Captain here has won my heart.”

Oliver knelt down next to her and said, sotto voce , “I hope a corporal can also hope for the chance to win your heart.”

Elizabeth felt herself flush, and she averted her eyes only to find Talbot looking at the two of them with the dog, all of his features tense and cold.

Kneeling in the mud like this is probably not appropriate, she thought and got up as gracefully as possible with the dog still clambering over her.

As quickly as he’d gotten there, Captain ran off again, this time after a stick someone had flung far away from her.

He brought it back several moments later and laid it at Talbot’s feet.

The man then petted him and murmured something almost affectionately, before flinging the stick even further than before.

The two of them continued playing until they all reached the pond, where the servants had already set up tables and chairs because the muddy ground made a proper picnic with blankets impossible.

As she always did, Elizabeth felt guilty that the servants had to go through all that trouble. Surely, they wouldn’t have starved without a repast after their walk? She knew that none of the other members of their party felt the way she did.

There was still hope for the Corporal, due to his military experience, where he must have gotten a taste of hard labour. She looked at his strong arms and back as he sat down on the chair closest to hers, and felt restless. She tugged at her gloves again.

“I hope I’m not overstepping by asking, but why do you keep doing that?” Oliver asked, nodding his head at her hands.

“I’m not used to wearing gloves this much,” she admitted unthinkingly and immediately regretted revealing so much about her upbringing.

She felt Talbot’s gaze on her as she spoke.

He was sitting at the end of her table, Captain now resting at his feet.

Talbot held himself like he was the master of the field they sat in, like he owned the pond and everyone who visited it.

Not for the first time, Elizabeth envied him his confidence in his place in this world.

“My mother has never even dreamed of letting us leave the house without our gloves,” lady Helena chimed in, her uninvited response delivered in a sweet and clear tone, “not only because of such behaviour being uncouth, but also because she didn’t want our skin exposed to the weather and the dirt!”

As she said this, Lady Helena lifted a dainty, gloved hand, offering it palm up to those listening; the gesture seemed to be inviting them to imagine the soft, white, sheltered flesh hiding underneath the leather.

All the men seemed entranced. Oliver was frowning as if puzzled by something. Elizabeth wanted to sigh in annoyance.

She couldn’t fully comprehend Lady Helena’s impulse to disparage her.

The two women were in no way competitors or rivals - they did not vie for the same man’s affections, nor did they keep the same friends.

There was no reason why they shouldn’t more or less ignore each other’s presence.

But maybe the beautiful lady Helena was one of those people who could exist and find validation only in opposition to someone else, in being the day to someone’s night.

“And how right she was to instruct you so, lady Helena,” Talbot responded. “Good breeding is of the utmost importance in a woman, and a lady’s skin can never be too soft or too fair.”

Murmurs of agreement could be heard, and then, thankfully, Isabella came over from her table to invite them all to look at a bench her grandfather had had made. Elizabeth didn’t look at the duke again until dinner.

Mary took special care in making her look her best that evening, since, due to knowing her friend so well, she could tell that Elizabeth was feeling downcast. She took the time to carefully clean her hair with the cleansing powder, and then used the heated tongs to curl her mane into what looked like hundreds of delicate curls, which she arranged in a particularly romantic and dreamy style.

Seeing it in the looking glass lifted Elizabeth’s spirits slightly.

After she'd helped her put on her jonquil gown, Mary said, “The Corporal doesn’t stand a chance.”

After dinner, as she sat in the drawing room with the other women, Elizabeth thought about the amounts of food being served at this party, and the reactions all the Mayfair women would have upon hearing the extensive lists of dishes and courses she had the opportunity to taste this week.

Thanks to the memory of the leaner days of her youth, she was often tempted to eat as much as she could, but she’d then remind herself that The Mirror of the Graces advised against overindulging in food, and begrudgingly eat a small portion of whatever she was being served.

That tactic didn’t work so well where desserts were involved, but Elizabeth kept trying her best.

The arrival of the men roused her from her musings, and she realised she had been a most impolite companion.

She had been going over the details of the party in her mind in order to be able to tell her household everything about the food, the clothes, the servants’ livery.

Now, she forced herself to listen and talk and participate for the rest of the evening.

Soon, Elizabeth and Oliver joined Sophie and Nicholas in a game of whist. Lady Helena was demonstrating her skill at the piano while Louisa obediently turned the pages in between her glances at the younger Slaymaker, who was across the room from her, laughing at something Gideon Powell was telling him.

Young Miss Caroline was at her father’s side, and Lady Violet and the Marquess were with them as well.

Duke Talbot and Mister Pratt were playing their own game of whist with Isabella and Frederick, and Isabella seemed to be losing badly, judging by her raised voice that occasionally reached Lizzie’s ears. She smiled to herself because she knew the feeling.

“Evil temper is a more terrible enemy to beauty than the small pox”, Aunt Isolde had told her several times since she came into her life, and she tried taking the advice to heart and remembering it whenever she was losing a game.

Currently, she was too occupied with fantasies of her and Oliver spending their evenings with Nicholas and Sophie in the years to come to get upset over who was in the lead.

Elinor and Amelia were sitting with Sophie’s parents when the butler came in and handed a folded note to Sophie’s mother. Her perfect face revealed nothing as she announced to the room, “I think a stroll in the garden would do us all some good.”

They all agreed and even extolled the virtues of walking after a meal, adding that the weather was lovely and that some of them hadn’t had the chance to see the gardens yet, so all their games and activities were abandoned as they made their way outside.

Elizabeth was among the first ones to head out, since the card tables were closest to the door, and formal order was not observed, as it was whenever they went into the dining room.

In the grand entrance hall, they came upon two people.

The woman turned around, and suddenly Nicholas was moving towards her faster than Elizabeth had ever seen him. He enveloped her in a hug so tight that he even lifted her feet off the ground as he swung her in a half-circle.

“Charlotte,” Sophie exclaimed happily, “what a lovely surprise!”