Page 7 of His Illegitimate Duchess

“I beg your pardon, Sir?”

The man said nothing at first, just looked her over rather rudely.

“He moved you right into his old mistress' house,” he finally scoffed. “And he lectures me on a man's loyalty to his family, the duplicitous scoundrel!”

“I'm not sure I understand what you are talking about. I don't know you, I shouldn't be talking to you,” Lizzie darted her eyes along the street in search of her carriage.

“No need to play coy, pet. Where did Hawkins even find you?” the man said in a different tone, stepping closer to her, crowding her.

She was confused, since it was clear that the man knew her brother by name. But the rest of the conversation eluded her. The man was a whole head taller than her, and when he stepped towards her, she stepped back. She now felt the wrought iron of the gate on her back.

He smells so good, she realised with a start and was embarrassed by her own thoughts. Still, she took another deep breath.

“Please, Sir, I wish to leave,” she said and tried side-stepping him, but he anticipated her move and took his own step to the side, which caused his leg to become lodged firmly between her skirts.

Elizabeth felt trapped, and the old reflexes honed during months of walking home from work in the evenings took over, so she lifted her knee and aimed for the man’s baubles.

As he gasped and cursed, she turned around, opened the gate, and ran back into her house. She closed the door and locked it, then slid down to the floor as her knees gave out.

She couldn’t catch her breath. She was terrified.

God, please don’t let him follow me into the house, she prayed fervently.

She kept her ear to the door but heard nothing.

When she regained some of her strength, she went up to her room and hid under the covers.

She kept reliving the encounter with the man.

Her heart was beating in her throat, but it was not all fear.

She kept remembering how close to her he stood and how good he smelled.

Soon, she was able to piece together some of what had happened. The man, who had clearly seen her brother leaving her house that morning, had assumed she was Nicholas’s mistress. And he claimed that her house was her brother's old mistress's house. She didn't want to believe that was true.

Nicholas seemed so taken with Sophie, so devoted to his young family. Was he like their father, after all? Would Emma be holding his hand in the Park one day while another little girl called out for him in vain?

Lizzie pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes to contain the oncoming headache. She felt the old sting of accusation acutely. Was there something on her brow that betrayed the impurity of her origins? Would another woman be so easily accosted and maligned?

She excused herself from tea with her mother that afternoon, citing her headache as a reason. Catherine was the last person on Earth she'd want to discuss this topic with. But since she needed a friendly ear, she did end up confiding in Mary.

“You need to tell your brother about this,” Mary was adamant. “Imagine that man going around, spreading lies about your brother keeping a mistress in this house, what if the Duchess hears them!”

“You're right, I hadn't even thought of that,” Elizabeth was aghast at the idea of her brother’s kind wife being hurt.

She hated drawing any kind of attention to her existence, seeing as her position was precarious already.

Yes, Nicholas had taken her to that lawyer's office and gifted her the house, and the lawyer had explained how much money was put aside in an account for her, but in Elizabeth's world, very little was immutable.

In her heart of hearts, she knew there was no one she could rely on, as much as she wished otherwise.

She penned a note to her brother, asking for his presence for the first time since they’d met. And when he came over the next morning, she related the incident as best as she could without including her thoughts of the man’s perfume.

“Thank you for coming to me with this, Elizabeth,” Nicholas said, not as perturbed by the incident as she would have liked him to be. “The man who so rudely accosted you on the street used to be a friend of mine,” he said with a frown.

“Due to his own unorthodox family history and the world-view he espouses, this individual cannot find it in his heart to believe that marriage and family can be sources of happiness. This incident, I suspect, was due to a disagreement I had with him on his last visit to Ashbury. As belligerent as I’m sure he seemed, he is essentially harmless.

I’m sorry you were upset by this unfortunate incident. ”

Elizabeth steeled herself to ask about the unsavoury accusations made about her brother when he asked, “But why in Heaven's name were you alone?”

”Pardon me?”

”A young lady is not to go places unaccompanied. We'll have to see about getting you a chaperone. I should have thought of this earlier!”

Now her brother was agitated for (in her mind) all the wrong reasons. Lizzie didn't think that another woman could have saved her if the man from that morning had turned out to be dangerous.

“I'll make sure to take Mary or my mother with me in the future,” she said in an effort to placate him.

“Your mother, why, yes, well,” he cleared his throat. “No, we need a person whose sole obligation would be accompanying you and introducing you to the right people. We can't put that burden on your mother. I'll contact my aunt Isolde, our father's sister.”

She remembered Lady Burnham telling her that her mother was not part of polite society, and realised that it would, indeed, be impossible for her to introduce her to anyone.

She felt embarrassed at her mistake of suggesting her mother at all, but she perked up at the idea of having an aunt! Would wonders never cease?

“That sounds lovely. Not only will I be accompanied, but it will also allow me the chance to get to know my father's sister. I am looking forward to it very much, thank you, Nicholas,” she said sincerely.

“I'm glad to provide you with the opportunity to spend time with our aunt. She is a wonderful woman. Now,” he shifted in his seat like he always did before approaching a topic he found difficult to navigate, “I sometimes forget how new all of this is for you.

You may be unaware of some rules that for us are as natural as breathing.

Such as not leaving the house alone and going who knows where.

A proper young lady is never alone with a man.

If you are to be introduced to society and if an advantageous match is to be made, your reputation needs to be beyond reproach.

You do understand what I'm saying, don't you, Lizzie?”

With her brother's gaze heavy on her, Elizabeth was tempted to lie, to reassure him that she understood perfectly, when, in truth, she didn't. She actually understood very little – her previous experiences of relations between men and women, observed through Mary and the other girls at Miss Euphemia’s, were all so different from each other and seemed to depend on the girl.

Mary had only ever had eyes for Robert, but Annie had many friends .

Martha had a man she lived with, and Susannah was married and had children.

She had been subjected to a mortifying conversation with Anne and Jane some time around her thirteenth birthday, during which they had instructed her to simply stay away from men until she was married, which, due to Lizzie’s reserved nature, mistrust of men, and the problems life kept throwing at her, she’d never had problems obeying.

“I think I do,” she settled on a half-truth.

“Elizabeth... The things that lead to a good match for a woman are her breeding, her title, her dowry, her virtue, and only then her beauty. Do you see why it is paramount for your reputation to be unassailable?”

Tears were blurring her vision as she whispered a yes.

Nicholas exhaled in relief.

“I'll have Lady Burnham work on this a bit more. And of course, you can ask Sophie any questions you might have.”

And there was nothing Lizzie could do but thank him for all his help.

Later that night, she told Mary about their conversation.

“I don't know, Lizzie,” Mary said as she brushed Lizzie’s hair. “You turn into a different person whenever you talk to him. All I hear from you is yes, Nicholas, of course, Nicholas, whatever you think is best .”

“You don't understand, Mary. Your brother loves you.

Mine probably loathed my existence since the moment he learned of it.

And now he has changed his mind, but my place in his life depends on my being accepted into his society.

When I was young, I didn't realise the significance of having a brother or father. Now I do,” Lizzie said, and Mary squeezed her shoulder compassionately.

Lizzie smiled at her friend in the looking glass.

“I want this. I want Nicholas in my life. So what if I have to go to a few balls to make him happy? So what if we all have to move to a grand house and not worry about money any more? Is that truly such an awful thing?”

“I guess not,” Mary sighed.

*

“How old are you?”

“Cousin Elizabeth, my question was posed in order to discover whether you had any questions about the conjugation of the verb être in the past, not questions about me.”

“I don’t. So, how old are you?”

“I must admit, I was wondering the same thing,” Lady Burnham added mischievously.

“Lady Burnham,” Andrew said in mock reproach, “I didn’t expect this from you.”

“We’ve been working on French for the last forty minutes, please let us just converse for a little while,” Elizabeth begged.

“Very well. I am five and twenty.”

“What will you do after Oxford?”

“I shall marry.”

“Do you already have an intended?”

“I do, her name isMiss Amelia, and we were promised as children. She is my cousin on my mother’s side.”