Page 31 of His Illegitimate Duchess

That was why he was glancing at him so often, he explained to Lady Amelia, unprompted. It had nothing to do with the ringlets of a certain chestnut head of hair or how the movement had coloured her cheeks.

As their dance progressed, he noted with unease that Lady Fairchild was colder than usual. This is not her usual reticence, he noted with a frown.

“Is aught amiss, Lady Fairchild?” he asked, raising an eyebrow arrogantly, lest she think he cared about her well-being.

“Nought, Your Grace,” the pale creature replied in what was almost a rude tone. “What could be amiss in a life such as mine?”

“Even those who live lives as grand as ours encounter obstacles every once in a while,” Talbot retorted, almost enjoying himself.

“Obstacles are part of life; they do not hurt people,” his dance partner replied mysteriously.

“Pray tell, what hurts them?” he asked.

Amelia Fairchild lifted her eyes to look at Talbot for what he was only now realising was the first time since they’d started dancing. They were a striking pale blue, almost grey, and they were accusing.

“Thoughtless, uncaring people hurt people.”

Talbot was taken aback by the turn this conversation had taken.

I believe I preferred her when she was timid, he concluded.

Between his dances with Lady Helena, they visited the refreshments again, and there they came face to face with the Corporal and Miss Hawkins, who had also just finished waltzing.

“Your Grace,” Miss Hawkins said, slightly surprised.

“Duke Talbot,” Harding said. “Lady Grey.”

“Corporal,” both Talbot and Helena said in unison.

“Miss Hawkins,” Talbot said in a hoarse voice as Helena merely inclined her head in acknowledgement.

Elizabeth nodded back.

“Will I see you at Gentleman Jackson’s this week?” The swain asked in that friendly way he had.

Talbot imagined landing a facer on him and thereby causing one of Harding’s eyes to swell shut, and said, “Absolutely, I’m looking forward to it.”

Elizabeth said nothing. She was holding her usual lemonade, and the liquid in the glass was trembling. Her eyes were fixed on something in the distance.

She can’t bear to look at me. Talbot thought.

His ribs were aching during the second waltz. Perhaps the boxing saloon is a bad idea , he thought. I clearly haven’t recovered from my last visit .

Stone had managed to hit his unprotected side twice last week. Talbot tried to take a deep breath, but it was difficult.

“Looks like we’re not the only pair who decided to dance two consecutive dances with each other tonight,” Lady Helena remarked with the satisfaction of a woman who had won the better man.

Talbot didn’t want to look.

“They are well-suited to each other, don’t you think?” She continued.

Talbot looked into Lady Helena’s sharp eyes, and it was apparent to him that, on some level, she must have always intuited who her biggest adversary was.

“I don’t concern myself with matches between impoverished soldiers and illegitimate daughters,” he scolded, but Lady Helena’s face glowed like she’d just been given the most wonderful present.

Talbot felt disgusted with himself, but at the same time, itched to make himself feel even worse. It was like picking at a wound and being unable to stop.

*

A week later, he was sitting in his Opera box with Pratt and the two ladies (he was, very impolitely, still unclear on Lady Helena’s friend’s name) and was trying to use his telescoping opera glass to examine the audience, but Lady Helena would not stop trying to include him in the inane conversation she was having with the others.

It is astounding that Lady Helena manages to keep her entire body so still, even when she talks about things that excite her, Talbot thought, impressed, right when he noticed movement in Hawkins’s box.

“He doesn’t even have his own box,” he heard Lady Helena’s friend whisper to her, and he realised they were all watching the same couple.

Talbot wondered whether the fortune hunter was touching Miss Hawkins’s hand while sitting next to her.

What does her skin feel like under her gloves? Are her hands calloused from working as a seamstress and the years of gloveless living? Or have they softened by now?

Colin was suddenly struck by an image of Elizabeth working at the modiste’s, sitting by a window, the sun beating down on her as she squinted at the fabric in her hands. He jerked upright, confused.

“Shall we go to Vauxhall after this?” he leaned to whisper into Lady Helena’s ear.

She smelled cloyingly of roses and some sort of powder.

“What a splendid idea!” she smiled approvingly, then turned to the auditorium to make sure everyone had seen their intimate interaction.

*

When the Corporal and Miss Hawkins, accompanied by Mister Powell and Miss Woodhouse, stopped to greet Talbot’s party in the Gardens, Colin took one look at Elizabeth’s dress and thought to himself, That is not a dress, that is a bayonet.

He remembered poring over the fashion plates he had impulsively purchased one day, months ago.

Love lies bleeding, he correctly recognised the colour.

“Stone has been asking for you,” Powell told him. “He’s in the dining area.”

“We’re just on our way there,” Talbot replied, wondering what his friend needed and trying not to stare at the bayonet aimed at his heart.

“It’s your fault I’ve lost a large bet at White’s,” Stone said when he pulled him aside later.

“Haven’t I taught you anything? I’ve told you a thousand times not to gamble. How can it be my fault?” Talbot asked impatiently.

“I bet on you and Hawkins’s sister marrying, and now that she’s engaged to the Corporal, I have to pay up.”

Colin couldn’t feel his legs.

Should I call for Doctor Cooper again? He wondered.

“Clever girl,” he said sincerely, confused by the pride he was feeling. “It’s a good match for her.”

“All I care about is my money,” Stone grumbled.

I seem to be getting worse, Talbot thought, now truly worried for his health.

*

The banns for Elizabeth’s wedding to Harding started being called on the second Sunday in June. Colin’s health wasn’t getting any better. Nowadays, he had trouble breathing and often felt like a noose was being tightened around his neck.

Despite struggling with his mysterious ailments, he tried being the better man and penning a congratulatory note to his (former) friend several times, but each time ended up tearing what he had written into tiny pieces, fortified by the anger he felt whenever he remembered their last conversation.

One evening in the second half of June, he decided to attend the Pearsons’ ball in order to regain a sense of normalcy, but unfortunately ended up spending the night stewing in anger and indignation at being ignored by a certain set of dimples.

As he offered empty, practised responses to Lady Helena and their friends’ questions, he never took his eyes off the newly engaged couple.

He stared daggers at Elizabeth’s fiancé’s proprietary hand on her waist during every single dance (for she only danced with the soldier now!), and he hated her from the bottom of his heart.

How dare she ignore me, a duke! He thought angrily.

Colin observed people continuously approach the happy couple throughout the evening to offer their felicitations, and noticed the increasing strain on Elizabeth’s face.

During a pause between the dances, Harding went to the card room ( to gamble with money he does not possess , Talbot thought reproachfully), and Elizabeth quietly slipped away into the cloakroom he’d seen when he’d entered the dance hall.

Talbot (rudely) interrupted Lady Helena mid-sentence and glanced at his pocket watch. A quarter to eleven, it read.

“Lady Helena, would you be so kind as to gather as many of your friends as you can and when the clock strikes eleven, come into the cloak room.”

“Why?”

“It shall be a fun game,” he told her pointedly, and her eyes shone with glee.

“Mind, be quiet as you approach, but make sure to enter abruptly,” he warned.

Colin entered the cloak room quietly and leaned his back on the closed door. His heart was beating in his throat, and there was a whooshing sound in his ears. The two of them were completely alone.

Elizabeth’s back was to him. She appeared to be pressing her forehead against the glass of the window. Her gloves lay discarded on the small table next to her.

Colin cleared his throat, and she whirled around in shock.

“What are you doing here?” Elizabeth asked, her voice as cold as her brother’s had been all those months ago.

“I wanted to personally congratulate you on your upcoming matrimony.”

“Thank you.” She glanced at the closed door behind him. “You should go now.”

“Are you happy?”

“About what?” She asked absent-mindedly.

Colin let himself look at her. Really look, not stolen occasional glances. He felt like a starving man who was finally given a meal.

“Your future husband. Your new life in the country,” he clarified impatiently.

“Yes.”

Colin took two steps towards her. “I wish to shake your hand, as your friend.”

“We are no longer friends,” she said as she lifted her chin.

There is that temper, he thought.

“Now, now, Miss Elizabeth,” Talbot said, as nonchalantly as he could. He loved the taste of her name but rarely let himself savour it. “Just because you say something doesn’t make it true. I should know.”

There . In his mind, the apology couldn’t have been clearer.

Elizabeth frowned. He took another step towards her and reached for her ungloved hand. He stared at it for a while (neither of them appeared to be breathing as he did so) before letting go of it in order to remove his own gloves and throw them on the table next to hers.

They were finally skin to skin. Colin turned her palm up and traced its lines with his index finger. Elizabeth’s chest was heaving, and he could see her heartbeat pulsing in the hollow of her throat.

Somewhere outside, someone laughed, breaking the spell between them, and Elizabeth snatched her hand away.