Page 87 of His Illegitimate Duchess

O ne by one, the ladies excused themselves in the course of the evening, while those who stayed behind exchanged secretive and amused glances.

It took Isabella only ten minutes to go to her husband’s room and find his boots, but it took Louisa more than half an hour to go through an acquaintance’s belongings.

When it was Elizabeth’s turn, she made her excuses and left the Blue Room.

Outside, the housekeeper, Mrs Holloway, who had been instructed on what to do by the mistress of the house, helped her find Colin’s room.

Once she was inside it, Elizabeth was almost knocked over by a wave of sadness. Just a few short months ago, she would have been sleeping in this room with her husband and wouldn’t have had to rely on the housekeeper to find it.

She took her time examining all the items on his escritoire (no awe-inspiring letters this time!), touching his clothes, and smelling his pillows like she wanted to.

She then quickly deduced where Stevenson could have stored the boots, pulled them out, penned a brief note mentioning the Secret Lady Society, left it where the boots used to be, and all but ran back to her own room, feeling like a child again.

The prank was discovered the next morning, so breakfast was a merry affair, despite the awful weather.

Sinclair was really the only man who seemed truly downcast because he couldn’t go hunting, whereas the rest took the prank for what it was – a fun game among friends.

Surprisingly, the unmarried men seemed to have enjoyed the prank the most and were eager to hear all the details of its execution.

“We shall retaliate,” Frederick swore in a solemn voice, while raising his butter knife in the air like a general might do with a sabre.

Isabella’s eyes glittered with so much joy and mischief and love that Lizzie had to look away. Not for the first time, she was jealous of how well-matched the couple were and how much fun they seemed to have together.

Colin didn’t say much about the prank, but he did seem to notice the change in her, so he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I shall rather enjoy a walk after breakfast, if you’d be so kind to join me, wife?”

Elizabeth blinked several times, uncertain if he was being serious in his offer. It had rained all night, and the ground was most likely all mud.

“Of course, I would need my boots back first,” he added with a smile, and Lizzie found herself smiling back.

“Of course.”

After breakfast, they dressed (Stevenson had come to her door to pick up his master’s boots with an almost amused expression) and went out into the gardens.

Despite the gloomy sky and muddy ground, Elizabeth enjoyed the landscaped vistas and carefully curated and symmetrically arranged paths and lawns.

It was obvious that whoever maintained this garden not only had great skill but also great love.

“Did you enjoy stealing my boots?” Colin asked her after a while, and the tone in which he said it awoke this irrational fear in her heart that he had somehow seen her smell his pillow.

She examined his face for any trace of that knowledge, but could only detect friendly curiosity.

“More than I thought I would,” she admitted with a smile. “I hope you’re not too sad that you can’t go shooting today. I thought that because of your arm…”

“Don’t worry,” he interrupted her. “I wasn’t planning to participate anyway.”

“Good,” she said with a small smile. “How are you enjoying our stay here?”

“It’s all right, although I find myself a bit bored lately. After a while, all these country manors start to look the same.”

“Colin Talbot, tiring of England? I can hardly believe it,” Elizabeth teased him. “Next thing you know, you’ll be on a ship to America.”

“You never know,” Colin said with a small smile.

They walked in silence for a while.

“Does your arm bother you?” Elizabeth asked.

“Frankly, what bothers me is your sister’s presence,” he said with a frown, then widened his eyes. “I didn’t mean to offend you, I apologise.”

Elizabeth was surprised by her own laugh. “I assure you I’m not offended, but I had no idea you felt that way.”

“And I usually don’t, because the Lord in His infinite kindness allows me to forget just how vexing it is to listen to Lady Charlotte’s vapid stories and observations,” he said. “You two are so different, I sometimes forget you are sisters.”

Elizabeth said nothing, shocked by the knowledge that all the polished manners she coveted and admired in her sister were being interpreted like this.

“When we were at Eton,” Colin said suddenly, “I came home with Nicholas a few times for school holidays. And Lady Charlotte was insufferable even then; she always followed us around, especially Sinclair.” He smiled. “Well, now she finally has him.”

“You think she liked him even then?”

“Who knows? She was a spoiled little girl, and she wanted what she wanted. I just cannot,” Talbot stopped walking and shook his head, then turned his whole body towards his wife, who had also stopped walking.

“I just cannot stop thinking about this lately. If Nicholas hadn’t found you, you, my precious, kind, Elizabeth, would have spent your life living close to the rookery, working your fingers to the bone until you’d lost your eyesight.

” He appeared to be struggling to breathe as he said these incredibly emotional, confusing things to Elizabeth.

“Every Wednesday, I am assailed by visions of you bent over some lady’s dress, your body thin and frail like it was when I first saw you in front of your house. ”

“Colin,” she said gently and put a hand on his shoulder, careful not to jostle his arm. “Don’t agitate yourself.”

“But I must! Don’t you see how wrong I was!

It doesn’t matter! You and your sister were both born to the same father, a duke, the only difference being that one of you has had the good luck to be born inside marriage, the other no.

How arbitrary it is of society to ascribe such vileness to the very notion of your existence, a thing so utterly outside of your control?

And how much more impressive, interesting, lovely, hard-working, clever, and resilient are you than all the other women in existence? ”

Elizabeth’s chest was heaving. She felt like she was going to faint.

“I was so wrong,” he repeated once more, and Elizabeth briefly thought she was crying, but then realised it was only the rain.

“Let’s go inside. You need to keep your wound dry.”

They walked side by side, both their steps weighed down by different things.

*

“Let’s play a game,” Charlotte proposed that afternoon when they had all gathered in the Blue Room.

“What do you suggest?” Elinor asked politely, while Pratt announced, “I don’t feel like it.”

Charlotte glared at him. “Something fun.”

Elizabeth heard Colin’s sigh next to her, and she pressed her lips together to hide her amusement.

“Hide the thimble?” Lady Louisa proposed shyly from where she was sitting next to the Baron.

“Thimble rigging!” Pratt fired back enthusiastically.

“I thought you didn’t feel like playing,” Lady Genevieve said accusingly.

“Let’s vote,” Charlotte suggested.

Most guests voted for hiding the thimble, and Pratt returned to his armchair to sulk.

“All right,” Isabella said, “someone give me their thimble and I shall hide it.”

“Why do you have to be the one to hide it?” Oakley teased her.

“Because I know everyone present in this room; all the other ladies are too kind, and they will try to avoid inconveniencing anyone by selecting a too difficult hiding place, whereas some of the men might not follow the rule that the thimble needs to be somewhere where it can be seen without moving furniture or opening drawers.”

“I see. So you’ve appointed yourself arbiter.”

“Someone has to undertake these difficult tasks.” Isabella shrugged as she affected a put-upon expression.

“Very well, you all heard my wife. Now, someone hand her a thimble.”

“What does the person who finds it get?” Elizabeth asked as she handed Isabella her thimble.

“Nothing. He or she is the winner and gets to hide the thimble for the next round. Oh, my,” Isabella exclaimed as she lifted the thimble to see better. “E and C. Would that happen to be Elizabeth and Colin?” She teased, and Lizzie felt her face heat.

All the women gathered around Isabella to admire the Duchess’s golden thimble.

Elizabeth glanced at Colin, who was wearing his bored-but-arrogant expression, and then, as she looked away, she saw the Corporal staring at the thimble as a muscle in his jaw twitched.

A stricken-looking Amelia noticed it too and quickly left the room.

“Did you purchase this, Talbot, or did you send Stevenson out to get it, be honest!” Stone asked, and Pratt laughed.

Lady Genevieve frowned and straightened in her seat.

“Not only did I purchase it myself, I was also the one who instructed them on exactly what I wanted it to look like,” Talbot replied, not a trace of insecurity in his voice.

“I’m surprised that you didn’t get your wife something more extravagant, Your Grace,” Lady Genevieve said with a false smile, “like a bracelet or other jewellery.”

Elizabeth imagined herself ripping out a handful of the woman’s black hair, and it made her feel better.

“A good gift is purchased with the recipient in mind. My wife enjoys needlework; she’s quite the artist with a needle and thread, actually, and she appreciates useful gifts.

I wanted her to think of me every time she used it, and as you can see, she always has it on her person, which I hope translates into thinking of me a lot,” Colin said conversationally.

“Now, Lady Isabella, do we need to leave the room for you to hide this, or?”