Page 90 of His Illegitimate Duchess

However, despite her carefully observing the other men, she was unable to detect any changed or suspicious behaviour in any of them. And Lady Genevieve wasn’t being nasty to any of the women, which gave Elizabeth hope that the paramour was unattached.

“That is most likely because you don’t know enough about them,” Elinor, whom she had told her suspicions earlier, mused.

“You are probably right,” Lizzie concurred with a sigh. “Who do you think it is?”

“I hope it’s Pratt. Or the Baron. They are the only ones who wouldn’t be betraying anyone by being with her.”

Elizabeth gave her an incredulous look. “What about Lady Louisa?”

“What about her?” Elinor asked.

“Sometimes you truly make me wonder, Elinor. What have you been looking at these past few days?”

“To be honest, at the food, mostly,” Elinor laughed, and Elizabeth soon joined her.

Later that night, Elizabeth slept in her husband’s bed again. And the night after that.

On the morning of their sixth day at Basingstoke, they heard a great commotion right before joining everyone for breakfast. Once in the dining room, they were informed that Lady Louisa and the Baron were newly engaged to be married.

Elizabeth’s eyes immediately sought out Elinor, and she lifted her eyebrows at her victoriously. Both Frederick and Isabella looked like they had been crying.

“Please accept our most heartfelt congratulations,” Talbot told the happy couple in a very strained voice.

Luckily, the Baron was too busy staring at a beaming Lady Louisa to notice anything amiss. The young woman looked at least five times more beautiful than she usually did.

Yes, happiness will do that to a woman, Lizzie thought.

“I’m so happy for you, Lady Louisa,” she told her with a squeeze of her hand.

Louisa tearfully thanked her, and the Talbots moved away from the couple to allow others to extend their felicitations as well. Lizzie’s husband was silent for the rest of the meal, only speaking when directly spoken to, and even then without any of his usual spark and wit.

“Are you feeling all right? Did we jostle your hand this morning?” Lizzie whispered to him when they exited the dining room.

“I’m not an invalid and I’m perfectly capable of bedding my wife,” he said rather crossly, but immediately shook his head. “I apologise. I am feeling rather downcast, but at the same time, I feel like I don’t have the right to feel that way.”

“Please explain,” Lizzie urged.

He pulled her into a small room next to the dining room, which looked like another sitting room.

“The news of Waldegrave’s engagement made me realise that you never got to announce ours so happily and so proudly, and that is solely my fault.

And not only that,” he said, and the tension on his face reflected all of his anguish, “I never asked for your hand and you never accepted mine, and I have only myself to blame. I am begging your forgiveness and I shall apologise for it in word and deed for as long as I live, but I am fully prepared for you to never ever forgive such a vile offence.”

“Oh, Colin…” Elizabeth didn’t know what to say.

Saying everything was all right would be a lie, as would promising him forgiveness. So she hugged him. And held him for several minutes, until she felt his tension bleed from his body and his arms wrap around her.

“Better?” She asked.

“Much. Thank you.”

“I would like to think about this and talk some more,” Elizabeth proposed, and he nodded.

They exited the small room and were soon approached by their host.

“Talbot! I was looking for you!” The Earl said. “We are all going to the stables; we were just waiting for you.”

“All right,” Talbot said slowly and suspiciously. “Let me just walk my wife to wherever she needs to go, and I shall join you.”

“Luckily, she doesn’t need to go far. All the women are still at breakfast, listening to Lady Louisa’s tale of love,” Sinclair said a little too brightly.

The two men escorted her the three steps back to the dining room, and then Sinclair practically dragged Talbot away.

What an odd man, Lizzie thought. The dining room was empty, and a maid informed that the ladies had decided to move over to the Blue Room.

“I’ve just had a letter from Sophie yesterday,” Isabella was saying when Lizzie entered. “I cannot wait to tell her about your engagement,” she told Louisa.

“How is Sophie?” Lizzie asked as she sat down. “Did she tell you the baby’s name yet?”

“Not yet, she’s an odd one, my Sophie,” Isabella smiled and then glanced at Louisa with a question in her eyes.

Louisa nodded eagerly.

“Since we’re sharing good news today, I must inform you all that after our visit to Ashbury, I shall make my way to Winchester, for my… confinement!” She announced dramatically.

“Oh, how wonderful!” Lizzie clapped her hands together, and almost everyone else in the room started talking at the same time.

When the congratulations died down, Isabella turned to their hostess and said, “Charlotte, you should come too! We can all spend some time together before I’m locked away at Winchester.”

Lizzie nodded, but Charlotte didn’t seem as enthusiastic as the two of them.

“You’re both so lucky,” she said petulantly, and somewhat despondently. “Sophie has just given my brother an heir, and you are with child.”

Silence fell across the room.

Surprisingly, it was Lady Genevieve who was the first to offer consolation. “Sometimes these things take time.”

“Yes, look at me!” Isabella said. “It’s been two years since my wedding, and I’m with child only now, despite all the trying we did,” she added, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, which made Charlotte frown.

Upon seeing her face, Isabella decided to soften her approach. “Look, Charlotte, I know you cannot wait to have a child of your own…”

“It’s not that,” Charlotte shook her head impatiently. “I just want to enjoy married life.”

No one said anything for a while.

“And you don’t enjoy it now?” Elinor was the only one brave enough to ask.

“I do, parts of it. The hosting and the travel, and the events during the Season. But other parts… I’m sure you all know very well what I’m talking about,” she indicated Isabella, Elizabeth, and Amelia with her hand.

The women exchanged confused glances.

“Charlotte, dear, is there some problem you’re having that you want to share with us?” Amelia asked, looking anxious and concerned for the young woman.

“I just… how much longer will I have to… endure, ” she said with special emphasis and a lift of her eyebrows.

Suddenly, Elizabeth understood.

“Charlotte, are you talking about… the marital bed?” She asked carefully, praying that she was wrong.

“Yes!” Charlotte said and buried her face in her hands. “I just want to give him an heir and be done with it!”

Louisa and Elinor looked horrified, Amelia was red as a beet, and Lady Genevieve looked like she was trying not to laugh. Isabella and Elizabeth were merely… confused.

Charlotte quickly deciphered the other women’s emotions when she looked up.

“What?” She asked quite coldly. “You don’t mean to tell me I’m the only one who feels this way?”

Isabella glanced at the mortified faces of the unmarried girls and straightened her shoulders.

But before she could say anything, Lady Genevieve said, “Well, if you’re not enjoying yourself, one of you is doing something wrong.

I was married to Ian’s father and, well, let’s just say some things are perhaps a family trait. ”

The door of the small parlour flew open, and an enraged Ian Sinclair rushed out of the room.

One by one, all the other men (who were supposed to be in the stables!) slowly came out and passed the women by without looking at any of them.

All the women had their heads down and were staring at their hands or skirts or feet, or the floor.

In Elizabeth’s entire life, she’d never felt so embarrassed, and let’s not forget that she’d been caught in flagrante with a man during a ball.

Poor Charlotte, she thought. Poor Ian, she added. What a mess.

Once all the men had left, Charlotte stood up and ran after her husband, and that is when all the other women looked up.

“Why were the men in there?” Lady Genevieve was the first to speak.

“Let’s go find out,” Isabella said, and they all dispersed.

Lizzie immediately went to Colin’s room, but he wasn’t there, so she returned to her own.

“I’m in here,” he called out as soon as she started opening the door. “I didn’t want to give you a fright,” he explained once he laid eyes on her.

“What happened down there?” Lizzie sat down on her bed, and Colin joined her.

“When Sinclair and I left you in the dining room, he informed me that the men were retaliating against the Secret Lady Society, and that we were going to steal your embroidery things,” he said, and the expression on his face made it very clear what he’d thought of the idea.

“So I reluctantly followed him into the small parlour, and right as we were gathering the things, all the ladies unexpectedly came into the Blue Room. We decided to wait until they left. No one could have predicted how well sound carries into that room, nor the topic of conversation that we would overhear.”

“I know first-hand about overhearing things,” Lizzie said pensively. “Poor Ian.”

“I say poor Charlotte, she’s the one not enjoying herself.”

“I don’t know. I get the feeling that he only enjoys himself when he’s off hunting.”

“Hmm,” Colin hummed thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Nothing, really. Just a suspicion I have.”

“Would you be so kind as to share it with your wife?”

“I would not,” he teased.

“Colin,” Lizzie said reproachfully, and he winced.

“Could you please not?”

“What?”

“Use my name in anger, reproach, or criticism? Let Colin be reserved for the more tender moments in life, and use Talbot for the rest.”

“I shall think about it,” Lizzie promised.

They were both quiet for a while.

“How are we going to survive dinner?” She asked.

“We’re leaving tomorrow after breakfast anyway, just keep reminding yourself of that fact.”

Dinner was depressing and awkward. A pale, shaken Charlotte presided over the dinner table, still exhibiting perfect manners and holding herself like a queen, which Elizabeth considered quite impressive, given the circumstances.

Their host was nowhere to be seen. Lady Genevieve had left before dinner, as had cousin Andrew and Pratt and Stone.

The rest of the party was leaving the next morning.

No one dared broach the subject of what had happened until breakfast the next morning. Lizzie got the chance to briefly exchange impressions with Isabella, but they decided they were going to dissect everything at Ashbury.

“I’m so glad we’re all going together, I really want to use this time with you,” Isabella said.

“Oh, come on, you’re only going to Winchester, not America,” Lizzie teased. “By the way, it’s so interesting that you’ve chosen Winchester for your confinement over one of your husband’s estates.”

“That’s where I feel most at peace, and I think that’s important to consider when bringing a child into this world,” Isabella said, and Lizzie suddenly remembered all the poor married women and the conditions in the charitable lying-in hospital.

She set her toast down, no longer hungry.

This is the first time I’ve thought of them in days, she realised guiltily. Being part of this world really does something to you; it draws you in completely.

“And Frederick loves it there too,” Isabella concluded what had probably been a much longer sentence, but this was the only part Elizabeth heard.

Luckily, Talbot walked in right then, sparing her from having to scramble for a response she didn’t have.

“Are you ready for our trip, Your Grace?” Isabella asked cheerfully, but he looked as stricken as his wife.

“I’m afraid I’m not. We have to head to Norwich,” he said as he turned to Elizabeth. “I’ve just received word that my mother has arrived.”