Page 56 of His Illegitimate Duchess

A proposition and its negation cannot simultaneously be true.

The image of her pale face informing him that she would no longer be his friend was still burned into his brain. He turned his face away from her and squeezed his eyes shut to get rid of the image.

“I’m sorry you both heard that. I... Men talk like that sometimes, it doesn’t mean anything,” Colin turned back to her and said in what, for him, was an apologetic tone. “No wonder she was so nasty to me when I asked her to dance that one time,” he added after a while.

“Well, you deserved a bit of nastiness,” Lizzie said with a small smile, and he was relieved.

“I’m happy for them, and not only because I feel less guilty now,” Elizabeth then said, and Colin was hit with immense relief at the honesty in her face. “I hope Amelia will be a better wife to the Corporal than I could have been.”

You are the best of wives, Colin thought.

*

“We’re drawing closer,” Talbot said after he inhaled deeply. “Can you smell that?”

“I fear it’s impossible not to.”

“Have you missed it?”

“This smell of the city fog or the city itself?”

“The city,” Colin replied with a smile.

“Not as much as I feared I would.”

“Are you ready to see everyone again?”

“I’m looking forward to seeing my mother, Jane, Mrs. Barlow, and Mister Ed. And Elinor and Lady Louisa.”

“Don’t forget your aunt Isolde,” he said with a serious face, and Lizzie laughed. “If you wish, we can call on your brother on the way?” He offered.

Her face sobered. “No, thank you. I don’t think I’m in the mood for that today. I’m much too tired. Although I’d like to stop at the Mayfair house briefly, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.” Talbot frowned, taken aback and confused.

He’d offered to call on Hawkins in order to make his wife happy, but she didn’t seem thrilled by the proposition. It made no sense. She was obsessed with her brother, wasn’t she? Was she still under the impression that Nicholas was displeased with her marriage?

Talbot thought back on the letter he’d received from Nicholas a month ago, in which Hawkins had inquired about Talbot and Elizabeth and their time at Norwich.

Talbot had initially thought the other man was attempting to bridge the distance between them now that they were family, and buoyed by the good mood of his new marriage he’d composed and sent a warm and detailed response but now he had to wonder: had Hawkins needed the information because he hadn’t been in contact with Elizabeth?

“I don’t think you need to worry about him accepting our marriage any longer.” He tried reassuring her. “We’ve been corresponding, your brother and I. I dare say we’re on our way to friendship again.”

“How lovely,” she said in a disinterested tone as she gazed out the window.

“This is where we used to live after Father died,” she told him absent-mindedly after a few minutes.

He pulled the curtain to the side to see the neighbourhood she was talking about and was appalled.

This is so much worse than I thought, he realised.

“It’s a dangerous place,” he said slowly.

“As you yourself can attest, I am more than capable of defending myself,” she said while glancing at his groin with a raised eyebrow.

Oh, poor girl, I wasn’t some low-life scoundrel trying to overpower you , he thought while his whole body went into irrational panic over the thought that something bad could have happened to her more than four years ago, before he'd ever even had the chance to know her.

“Still, Mary and I mostly went to and from work together,” she added, oblivious to the turmoil her husband was experiencing.

“Why did you choose to settle in this part of the city?” he asked in a strained voice.

“I’ve told you about my inheritance, ” she said, “this was what we could afford while still remaining among somewhat respectable folk.”

“Perhaps that was what he wanted, your father,” Talbot mused out loud, “to force you to move, to find a house you could more easily afford in a village somewhere, far away from his family.”

“Perhaps,” she shrugged. “The city was the only home I knew, and my mother probably thought we stood out less here. And Church Street wasn’t so bad.”

Talbot looked at his wife, and she looked like she was attempting to suddenly fold into herself. She was hugging herself with both arms as she stared out the window sadly.

“Back in Belgravia, all the neighbourhood children used to mock me because my father was always gone,” she said, and he sat up at the raw pain in her voice, his own fears immediately forgotten.

“I didn’t know back then… I really believed him when he told me he had important duties that kept him from being with us. I was only ten years old.”

He tried imagining ten-year-old Lizzie, most likely fighting with the other children, and he had to suppress a smile.

“One day, I had the brilliant idea of going to St. James Park to see him, because my mother told me he regularly went promenading there. I went with Mary’s brother, Thomas.”

She sat without speaking for so long that Talbot had started thinking that she’d abandoned the subject altogether.

“We saw him there, Colin. At the Park. Walking with Charlotte. And he pretended he didn’t know me.”

Talbot felt like someone was ripping his heart from his chest, and he couldn’t even begin to fathom how Lizzie had to be feeling.

He reached for her hand. It felt limp and cold. Her lips looked pale and dry, and she seemed utterly drained of life.

“I called after him several times, and he just kept walking like I wasn’t even there, while he held on to my sister’s hand,” Elizabeth said in a whisper.

“Devil take him,” Colin cursed angrily and pulled her into a hug.

He squeezed her almost too tightly, trying to strengthen her, to prop her up, to heal her somehow.

She wasn’t even crying. It was like she wasn’t even inhabiting her own body at the moment.

The faraway look on her face scared Colin to death.

He’d never hated anyone as much as he hated the late Duke in this moment, not even his own parents.

"What happened then? You must have seen him again after that? How did he explain his behaviour?" Colin asked when he noticed that she had calmed down a bit.

"I fell ill shortly after that, and by the time I felt better, we all sort of acted like it had never happened.

I was a child, and I didn't really know what to say and clearly, neither did my parents.

I would politely greet my father when he came to see us, and give him an answer if he asked me a question, but I never really spoke to him ever again.

I don't think he really noticed or cared, to tell you the truth.

And then he was gone, and I was relieved," she admitted.

Talbot stroked his wife's hair and held her tight until the carriage stopped in front of her maiden home.

He couldn’t help but remember the three times he had found himself here in the past: when he had approached Elizabeth without knowing who she was, when he had come to tell her they would be wed, and then, finally, on their wedding day.

So much has changed since then , he thought.

A man opened the carriage door and helped his wife down.

“Mister Ed!” she shouted happily.

“Miss Lizzie,” the man replied with paternal affection, and Talbot was too happy to see some feeling in his wife’s countenance to worry about etiquette.

"Your Grace," the man bowed, and Talbot nodded.

“I’ve missed you all so much. Did Mary and Robert arrive safely?” Lizzie asked the man.

“They did, they stopped by early this morning.”

Mister Ed, who Talbot now deduced was Mary’s ( and the sailor’s ) father, led his wife to the house, talking incessantly, and Talbot followed them. Elizabeth’s mother met them at the door and hugged her daughter.

Talbot had briefly seen her on their wedding day, and now that he had properly looked at her, he was startled to realise that he’d sooner think her Charlotte’s mother than Elizabeth’s. She was blonde and fine boned, and much shorter than her daughter.

The old duke had a type, he thought.

“Hello, Miss Williams,” he bowed politely.

“Welcome, Your Grace,” Catherine said warmly. “I hope you have travelled well.”

“We have, thank you.”

“We only stopped to say hello to everyone,” Elizabeth explained as they entered the parlour, “Don’t bother ringing for tea. I shall run downstairs to see Jane and Mrs. Barlow. Can you two talk for a moment?”

Both Talbot and her mother nodded, and she almost ran out of the room.

“She looks happy,” Miss Williams said with a smile.

“I hope she is,” Talbot said.

“I was so worried, especially after everything that happened with Nicholas.”

Talbot frowned. “What happened with her brother?”

“She didn’t tell me anything, she never does,” her mother explained sadly, “but she has confided in Mary that she and her brother argued the night of your engagement.”

“Hawkins doesn’t particularly like me. I’m working on it,” Talbot said with a scowl.

“Oh, no, you misunderstand,” Catherine’s eyes widened. “Nicholas apparently insulted Elizabeth . He said some harsh words about her… breeding,” she said as she looked away in shame.

Talbot found himself angrily clenching his jaw. He couldn’t believe Hawkins’s stupidity and heartlessness. It had been plain for everyone to see how much Lizzie idolised her big brother. Now everything made sense. How could he do this to her?!

“She was devastated. Unfortunately, her solution in these matters is to hold on to her anger and resentment. My daughter never forgives,” Miss Williams sighed sadly.

The way she said it was a clear indication that she spoke from experience.

Since he had just witnessed a rather warm hug between them, Talbot deduced that Elizabeth most likely never forgave her father for what had happened in St. James Park that day.

His blood ran cold, and he was overcome with a sense of foreboding.

"What does she do instead of forgiving?" He asked apprehensively.