Page 71 of His Illegitimate Duchess

Every night after dinner, Duke Talbot would join Lizzie and her mother in the parlour and would inevitably offer to read to them.

Catherine would accept the offer with great enthusiasm, and Elizabeth could tell that Talbot always carefully selected titles that he thought his wife would like, but she remained firm and indicated very clearly that she was unaffected by his efforts.

“Jane told me she found you sitting alone in the kitchen after midnight yesterday?” Catherine asked her one evening.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she admitted.

“Why not?” Her mother asked, as if Elizabeth would suddenly become a different person and bare her heart to her.

“I don’t know, Ma. Why do people have trouble sleeping? Who knows,” she shrugged.

Talbot looked at Lizzie a little bit too intently for the rest of the evening.

That night, as she tossed and turned, tormented by her own mind, Lizzie heard a scratching at the door. She grabbed the coverlet tighter, suddenly scared of whatever was out there. More scratching followed, then a bark.

Thunder? She thought as she carefully approached the door.

Indeed, her dog had somehow found his way back upstairs from where he usually slept near the kitchens.

“What are you doing here, thunderous Thunder?” Lizzie cooed. “Did you miss me? Is that why you came all this way?”

Thunder wagged his tail eagerly as he slobbered all over her hand.

“Well, come in then,” she said, opening the door wider, and the dog immediately curled up in front of the fire. “Must be nice being a dog,” Lizzie said with a yawn as she watched him and, before she knew it, fell asleep.

*

On a particularly bright December morning, as she sat by the large bay window in the morning room and watched the flurry of snowflakes fall from the sky, Elizabeth looked back at everything that had happened during this last year and took stock of her life nowadays.

As her mind wandered, her hands toyed with the vial Mary had given her that morning.

“What is this?” Elizabeth had asked, nodding at the parcel in Mary’s hands as she was arranging her long braid into a tight bun at the nape of her neck.

“Your husband instructed me to give it to you.”

“Is he trying to buy my forgiveness with trinkets? I do not need anything from him,” her upper lip had curled in disdain, but her friend looked excited as she began unwrapping the gift.

“What are you wearing?” Mary had asked with a frown. “I remember setting out a different dress for you.”

“I didn’t like it, so I chose this one.”

“You thought plain brown wool was the better choice?” Mary had asked doubtfully, but was thrown off course when her eyes beheld the contents of the parcel.

“Far be it from me to defend the duke, but this seems to be a great present. I’ve heard of this place; it takes them months to distil a fragrance!

I’m certain he ordered this a long time ago. ”

She’d handed Elizabeth a small bottle that resembled a glass egg, covered in what could only be described as lace made from pure gold. Lizzie had cradled it inside her palm, and it fit perfectly.

She now glanced at the label again. Floris .

She’d pocketed the vial but had refused to let herself smell it. Colin’s perfume was so intoxicating and unique, and she couldn’t stop wondering what he had ordered for her.

Many times ( Mainly in bed , she added to herself, unnecessarily, like she’d ever be able to forget where these events had taken place) her husband had burrowed into her hair (and, sometimes, other places on her body) and had talked about the floral scents she was partial to, all the while sniffing and breathing her in.

Once, Mary had washed her hair with chamomile, and Colin had loved the sweet smell but had told her it was deceptive.

You are sharper than you are sweet, my kitten with hidden claws, he’d whispered in her ear.

Elizabeth shuddered at the visceral feeling the memory of his nose tracing her skin elicited from her body.

She stroked the note in her pocket, another unopened item from the parcel.

Had the note been written when he made the order? What would it say?

This was, in a way, the first note her husband had ever sent her. She had long ago decided that she’d rather forget the letter in which he (impersonally and coldly) informed her they “were to be wed”, but she still remembered his perfect penmanship, as unyielding and proud as its owner.

She inwardly mocked herself for her cowardice.

It is but a note, Elizabeth, do you think it holds a grand declaration of love?

And indeed it didn’t.

Dearest wife,

The perfumer asked me to describe you and your character in great detail so that they could try and capture your essence. I told them that it would not be possible for them to accomplish such a thing, but that they were welcome to try.

I hope you shall attribute any dislike you might have for the fragrance to the perfumer’s lack of skill instead of your husband’s powers of observation and description.

Yours,

C.T.

Despite herself, Elizabeth smiled.

What had Colin told the faceless perfumer about me? I have to know, she decided and unplugged the bottle.

Years later, Elizabeth would realise that, although the letter hadn’t contained a grand declaration of love, the ornate glass vial certainly had.

The first thing that her mind conjured when she inhaled was the memory of waking up last summer with all the windows in their Norwich bedroom opened, and instantly smelling the jasmine that was diligently climbing up the trellis on that side of the manor.

Then, it suddenly felt as if the sun had warmed the earth and the grass and all the plants while Mrs. Clark was showing her the garden, and Lizzie’s hands smelled like tomato stems and the pear she’d eaten earlier as she brought a glass of lemonade to her mouth.

Another memory came to her, of a day when it had rained the night before, when she first felt the smell of what she later recognised as the sea in the distance. It was delicate and well-concealed, but it was there, the salt that she had tasted in Cromer.

Was this what Colin had seen in her: mornings, summer rain, salt, and life springing from the ground, the essence of the unforgettable summer they had spent together in Norfolk; or was asking about the recipient merely a salesman’s trick that they used at Floris to sell fragrances?

It was only last November that I came out, she thought wearily as she pressed her forehead against the window glass, yet it feels like I’ve lived three lifetimes since then.

Despite these numerous lifetimes, she was now in exactly the same place she had been in December of last year – sitting in her Mayfair house with a cup of hot chocolate; only now she had an ache in her heart that was entirely new.

We were so happy in Norwich, her traitorous mind whispered, but Lizzie quickly reminded herself that any happiness based on a lie was also a lie. Still, she couldn’t stop missing the feeling of lightness and freedom she’d experienced there. She opened the vial again and lifted it to her nose.

As she opened her eyes and set the vial down again, she returned to the life that kept asking so much of her that she sometimes felt like sleeping the days away.

In the days following her conversation with Lady Burnham, Elizabeth spent countless hours repeating to herself the cruel words she’d overheard about herself at the Fairchild ball.

It was a delicate form of self-flagellation that served to heighten her pain and anger to enable her to remain cold to the man who contritely met her eyes each morning and evening and demonstrated endless, patient gentleness when he spoke to her.

It was imperative for her not to forget how he truly felt.

The damned perfume made it more difficult to hold on to the anger. Which of Colin’s opinions of her was real? The one she heard with her own ears, or the image of her he’d supposedly laid out before the perfumer?

Not even reading could stop her from tormenting herself with these questions for the rest of the week.

A parcel had been delivered to her from Hatchards and, although she valiantly ignored it whenever her husband was around, she would sneak a book into her bedroom every night and, against every frugal fibre of her soul, waste her candle long into the night in her pursuit of a temporary reprieve, as Thunder calmly slept in his spot by the fireplace.

These were new books, something Elizabeth had never let herself enjoy.

And why would she, when there were so many shops selling used books in this city?

These are not better merely because they’re new, she kept telling herself, yet she continually ran her fingertips over their cloth binding and the uncut pages and mentally compared them to the worn copies she used to buy for her students.

The heroine in Emma had vexed her so much that she’d been unable to finish the book.

Another reason she had a hard time reading it was the continuous reminders of her niece, who was currently in Ashbury because Sophie had gone into confinement, and both of Sophie’s sisters were there with them.

Lizzie missed them as well, particularly Isabella.

Most of all, of course, Elizabeth missed Emma, but was also aware that she was the one to blame for their decreased contact.

She was aware that, as the adult, it was her duty to be in charge of building the relationship with the child, but it wasn’t always easy, and now the bond with her niece had suffered because of Lizzie’s issues with her brother.

Nicholas was writing to her regularly: long, effusive letters in which he revealed many hitherto unknown parts of himself.

Writing seemed to be a form that allowed him to express himself better than he was able to in person, and, although she initially replied only to inquire about Emma and Sophie, Elizabeth slowly found herself responding to his letters with increased warmth and enthusiasm.