Page 48 of His Illegitimate Duchess

“A man came to the house one day, and he was in the parlour with my mother for over an hour. When he left, she had to be taken to bed; she was just so utterly devastated. I heard the servants whispering the entire day, but no one said anything to me directly. The next day, Maman called me into her room and told me Papa had died.”

“That must have been quite a blow for a young girl,” her husband said compassionately. “How old were you?”

Lizzie shrugged.

“Twelve. I only rarely saw my father, so I wasn’t too affected by his passing,” she said bitterly. “I was, however, indignant at the fact that he left me and my mother only 100 pounds a year to live on.”

Her old, rancid anger had caused the words to unthinkingly rush out of her, and she regretted them immediately. She didn’t want her husband to know how little she’d been worth to her own father. She heard the violent scrape of his chair against the floor as he got up.

Lizzie looked up at his tense, furious face.

“He did what ?”

“He left us 100 pounds a year to live on. My mother was utterly incapable of surviving without someone else taking care of things, so at first we had Mister Ed selling off the jewellery she’d been gifted over the years, but ultimately we had to move to a much smaller house in a different neighbourhood.

Then I started teaching and working at Miss Euphemia’s, and I was seriously saving money for the voyage to America.

And then Nicholas found us, and the rest you’re more or less familiar with,” Elizabeth recounted haphazardly, certain that if she stopped talking even for a moment, she’d never get another word out.

“I had no idea,” he said dejectedly as he sat back down.

“Well,” she replied in the same vein, then shook her head slightly. “Anyway, Jane, Mrs. Barlow, Mister Ed, Mary, Robert – they all moved with us to the Mayfair house, and that is the end of that story. Now, tell me about our outing,” she said with false cheer.

Talbot seemed to consider whether to insist on discussing her past further, but ultimately gave up.

“Has your maid truly revealed nothing to you?” he asked, and when she shook her head, he said, “Well, today I shall be the teacher. We’re going horse riding.”

Despite the knot in her stomach, Elizabeth felt genuine excitement at the prospect.

“I’ll get dressed and we can leave immediately,” she said and almost, almost , ran to the door as her husband looked at her back with worry creasing his brow.

Her new riding dress was French grey, braided at the front, with a high waist and a full skirt.

It was a bit longer than her usual dresses in order to prevent any immodesty when mounting the horse.

Mary prepared a round hat to go with it, as well as soft York tan gloves and leather boots of the same colour.

“She did a good job,” Lizzie remarked. “I like that the skirt and the bodice are joined together.”

“I was also surprised when I saw it,” Mary agreed, “one would think it was made by a London dressmaker. It has pocket slits in the skirt so that you can put your gloves in them when you inevitably take them off.”

“Let’s hope I won’t rip or ruin it falling off the horse,” Elizabeth joked.

“I’d pay a ticket to see that,” Mary replied.

*

Talbot, who had also changed, walked her to the stables, where a young man in shirtsleeves was waiting for them.

“Your Graces,” he bowed to both of them.

“Duchess, this is William Cook, he takes care of our stables,” Talbot introduced him, and Elizabeth immediately knew who he was.

“You’re Susan’s husband,” she said, and the young man smiled.

“Aye, Your Grace.”

“Your wife is a wonderful storyteller, she helped me become more familiar with my new home,” Lizzie said bravely, hoping there was nothing untoward in expressing the sentiment this freely.

“She’s told me she enjoyed your conversations very much,” William replied, his affection for his wife clear on his face.

He then gestured towards a beautiful, kind-looking sorrel mare, “This is Miss Judy.”

Lizzie bit the inside of her cheek to stop the laughter that wanted to bubble out of her throat. She had been around horses in the past, thanks to Mister Ed, but those were carriage-pulling, hard-working horses with names like Partner or Brimmer.

The serious tone in which William had introduced the mare to her, combined with her name, was threatening to undo her. Was the “Miss” part of the name, or were Talbot's workers required to be polite to the duke’s horses? Was she supposed to curtsy to Miss Judy?

Talbot looked at her askance, most likely wondering why his Duchess looked like she was holding her breath.

“She is lovely,” she managed to say, and the groom nodded approvingly.

“And she is mild-mannered, used to the side-saddle, and very clever, the perfect horse for a beginner like yourself. No one but you shall be riding her.”

“Thank you very much for choosing her for me,” Elizabeth told him.

“I di-,” he started, glanced at her husband, then said, “You’re welcome.”

She looked at Talbot, who nodded encouragingly, and then slowly approached the mare.

“She is stunning. And look at that mane,” she exclaimed breathlessly. “Can I braid it sometime, or does that bother her?”

Susan’s husband glanced at the duke, who shrugged.

“We can try it, Your Grace, not all horses like it.”

“I see. Well, thank you again.”

Elizabeth felt airy and light and carefree as she walked her mare ( Miss Judy !) down the long, straight lane that led from the manor to the woods.

Even though her mission of entering matrimony with a suitable and respectable man hadn’t been accomplished in the way she’d originally intended, Elizabeth had to admit that, since the day of her wedding, she’d finally, for the first time in years, been relieved of the burden of decision-making, of having to take care of things, and, most importantly, of attending endless events at which she needed to put her best foot forward and be judged by a room full of people who believed themselves to be above her.

The weight that had been pressing down on her neck since the day she realised how dire their financial circumstances were when she was but 14 summers old had started gradually shrinking, and Elizabeth suddenly found herself.

.. living. Enjoying. Observing the beauty of the world around her without forever calculating and planning what needed to be done or taken care of next.

Her only remaining worry was that she wasn’t good enough for the title that had been thrust into her unwilling hands, but since she was used to similar sentiments, she worked hard at adapting to it.

According to Lady Burnham, she needed to worry less, but Elizabeth firmly believed her friend was simply being kind in order to spare her feelings. There was another thing Lady Burnham had said, and it was something that Lizzie only rarely allowed herself to dwell on.

“Your husband cares about you a great deal,” Lady Burnham had said one day after Colin had dropped by to tell Elizabeth some news from the city.

Elizabeth had felt conflicted when she heard the observation; on one hand, thrilled that her friend thought that, but at the same time, afraid of what the truth was.

“What makes you say that?”

Lady Burnham had smiled mysteriously. “A woman who was married for as long as I was knows these things. Don’t you see how he always finds reasons to be near you, or the way he looks at you?”

Elizabeth had wanted to cry. She didn’t trust herself any longer. She’d been so wrong about her brother, hadn’t she? She'd believed he cared for her and even loved her in his own way.

No . She firmly stopped the thoughts of Nicholas.

She'd smiled at Lady Burnham and hidden her words deep inside her mind to re-examine them when she was alone in her dressing room. And she did, many times over since then. Even now, she looked at her husband out of the corner of her eye and wondered, Could it be true?

The haughty, arrogant man she used to dance with all those months ago, where was he now? Who was her husband really?

The man who'd said those cruel things about her unworthiness to be his wife behind her back couldn’t be the same man who had proudly written her name in the Talbot family prayer book.

Was he simply making the best of the hand he’d been dealt? Would he grow to love her as the months went by? Lizzie didn’t dare hope. This was already so much better than anything she’d dreamed of.

“What’s your horse’s name? Mister John?” she asked Colin playfully.

“Bruiser,” he replied, deadly serious.

Now there was absolutely no way for her to stop the laughter. They had to stop because she bent over at the waist to catch her breath. She had tears in her eyes when she finally straightened up.

“I’m sorry. I just never…” She inhaled deeply to compose herself. “I don’t know what I expected you would name your horse.”

“I bought him already named and broken in,” he explained, then shifted from one foot to the other. “Starlight. That’s what I would name a horse.”

“That is a wonderful name,” she admitted, then briefly wondered what he would name a child, then reddened in mortification over her own thoughts.

“And you are wonderful, too, Bruiser,” she apologetically turned to the stallion, whose arrogant air, so similar to that of his owner, made her smile.

“He’s not wonderful,” Colin scoffed. “He is brutal, powerful, a priceless Arab warhorse.”

“But look at his fancy white stockings!”

“Wife,” he said sternly, but his eyes betrayed his amusement.

Lizzie simply patted her mare and told her, “I’ll braid only your mane then.”

Some twenty minutes later, Talbot tethered Miss Judy to a short branch protruding from the side of a tree and led Bruiser to a tree stump, where he showed Lizzie how to mount him.

“But you have no reason to worry in any case,” he concluded his explanation, “I’ll be in the saddle already and I shall help you.”