Page 92 of His Illegitimate Duchess

“Don’t be. I don’t deserve your compassion. The irony is not lost on me that I am, indeed, my father's son. Seems like we cannot wed a woman without trapping her in some way.”

“It’s not the same!” Lizzie found herself protesting.

“Really? How am I any better than him? I’m not.”

Elizabeth wanted to say something, to contradict him somehow, but how could she? He had, after all, taken away her choice in the matter. Did the fact that she had rather liked being married to him change anything?

“What happened with your grandparents?” She asked instead of dwelling on that impossible riddle.

“As far as I know, my grandmother is still alive. But I’ve never had any contact with them, my mother refused to see them after her marriage.”

They were both silent for a while, then Lizzie said, “That must have been so confusing. Seeing your mother be bitter and unhappy, and knowing she had good reason for it, but not being the one at fault.”

“I did feel at fault, though,” Talbot explained. “Just by being his son, just by contributing to her unhappiness by existing, by being born.”

“Oh, Colin,” Lizzie said tearfully. “Don’t say that.”

“I’ve told you already, I don’t deserve your compassion, and I am not going to take it,” he said forcefully, then added in a more gentle tone, “You should rest a bit now, we’re going to be riding through the night without stopping.”

“That’s not a good idea, your shoulder…”

He interrupted her. “Please, I need to be at Norwich as soon as possible.”

Lizzie just nodded, but then she gasped, “Mary! She cannot…”

“Don’t worry,” Colin said as he held his palm up. “I’ve spoken to Ward. They will spend the night at our inn and join us at Norwich tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Elizabeth said, but he looked like he hadn’t even heard her.

*

She spent the night alternating between fitful sleep and worrying about the similarities between her own marriage and that of his parents. She also thought about Talbot’s unhappy childhood and about everything that he had told her.

She respected him for not using his painful past to explain away his behaviour when she’d discovered the truth about how their marriage came to be. She remembered Nicholas’s first description of Talbot, years ago.

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, her brother had said.

Why hadn’t Nicholas told her any of this before she married Colin?

With everything that happened in those two days, when would he have found the time to tell you? Besides, would that have changed anything? She wondered, then concluded it would only have softened her heart towards him more.

When they finally arrived at Norwich the next day, the carriage stopped and they both just sat motionless for a while. Colin took a deep breath, and Elizabeth could see the exact moment he put on his invisible armour and became Duke Talbot before exiting the carriage.

“Your Graces,” the chorus of voices greeted them as the familiar servants bowed to them.

They looked frightened of something, but relieved to see them. Thunder ran out of the carriage and sniffed everything around his new home.

“Madam is in her room, resting, ” Mrs Hughes said with special emphasis that Elizabeth was unable to decipher.

Colin pursed his lips in disapproval, but nodded. “Is she alone this time?”

“Yes.”

“All right. We shall rest until dinner as well, seeing as we’ve travelled without stopping for the night.”

“Yes, Your Grace. Stevenson is ready for you upstairs.”

“Thank you,” Colin said and offered his arm to his wife.

Elizabeth resisted asking him to rest together, because as much as she wanted it, she needed to be alone with all this new knowledge. She couldn’t wait for Mary to arrive.

All the intrigue and shock surrounding their unexpected trip to Norwich had distracted her from the dreamlike sensation of being here again.

It was only when she opened the door to her room that the memories overwhelmed her.

She could see it all: the love, the joy, the happiness and lightness that she had lived inside these walls.

That’s the difference between Colin’s mother and me, she thought. I was truly happy here.

When the dinner bell rang, she waited a bit to see whether Colin would knock, and then made her way downstairs by herself. Mrs. Hughes waited for her at the bottom of the stairs, looking ten years older than she had last summer.

“They are in the dining room,” she said cautiously, as if expecting Elizabeth to shout at her.

Lizzie wanted to laugh at the idea, but then she heard actual shouting.

She widened her eyes and looked at the other woman, who merely pressed her lips together.

Lizzie apprehensively walked towards the raised, raspy female voice and her husband’s eerily calm one.

They were both on their feet, on opposing sides of the large dining room table, when she entered.

The woman was staring at her with Colin’s eyes, which felt unsettling instead of familiar, because they held a contempt that was new.

Elizabeth could see that the Duchess Dowager had been a great beauty once, but now she looked…

spent. It didn’t resemble normal ageing, for Elizabeth knew and had known many lined, well-used, well-loved faces that looked wonderful.

This woman’s face looked like something had sucked the life and youth force out of her.

“Mother, this is my wife,” Colin started introducing her, and at the same time, his mother said, “There she is, the harlot’s daughter.”

“Your Grace,” Elizabeth curtsied to her husband’s mother, having already decided upstairs that whatever happened tonight was about Colin and not about her.

The woman threw herself into one of the chairs, and Elizabeth took her own seat next to her husband. Her heart swelled with sympathy for him. He looked so scared and ashamed.

“Careful, mother,” he said through his teeth. “I called out a man for a similar insult, don’t think I cannot think of a creative punishment for my own mother.”

“Ah, yes, I heard of your vulgar behaviour on that count as well,” his mother said as she filled her glass. “I did not suffer and sacrifice my entire life, only for you to think you can just do whatever you please! That’s not how the world works!”

No one said anything, and Colin nodded at Hannah, the already painfully timid maid, who had witnessed the entire exchange, to start serving them.

As Colin and Lizzie half-heartedly pretended to eat, Charlotte Talbot kept drinking.

No one said anything for over fifteen minutes.

At some point, Elizabeth noticed that Colin shook his head at Hannah, who promptly took the wine carafe from the table and disappeared.

“Look at how they obey him, his little servants,” the Dowager said bitterly after she, too, had observed the interaction.

“He’s always been close to them, closer than to his own parents.

He’d even started talking like them. His father was mortified when we came back from Europe, and the boy was talking like a villager.

I’m afraid he’s never grown out of his affections towards the unworthy,” she concluded with a pointed look at Elizabeth, who merely pressed her thigh against her husband’s in silent support.

He was clearly aggravated at the words, which worried her. What was this insane, very inebriated woman talking about?

“He must have made it easy to trap him,” Charlotte slurred as she leaned back in her chair. “He’s always… Father. I said, to the Duke, I told him…”

She was becoming less and less coherent, and Elizabeth whispered to Colin, “Should we send for a doctor?”

He looked at his mother with pity in his eyes. “No, this is rather common for her. I shall call for her maid and we’ll help her to her room, and then I think I shall also retire for the evening.”

“Colin, I…” she started saying, but he closed his eyes and shook his head. “All right,” she conceded.

Elizabeth sat alone in the parlour for a long time, going over everything that she had just witnessed.

How could that bitter old drunk be the mother of the man she had met all those months ago, the one whose presence had commanded every room he’d entered?

She had imagined a refined, intimidating, sophisticated duchess, but the way that woman had spoken to Colin, the way she had insulted both of them…

Suddenly, Lizzie understood why Colin had liked being at Eton, why he’d found comfort and control in the order and hierarchy of the Ton. How helpless he had to have felt as a child in such a violent household!

Dear God, please heal that part of him. Make his heart whole.

She stood up and rang for tea. When the housekeeper brought it in some time later, she lingered, as if waiting for the inevitable questions she knew would come.

“Is she always like this?”

“And worse, Your Grace,” Mrs. Hughes said with a sigh that sounded like a dam inside her was breaking.

“My poor master had such a hard time growing up with the two of them. His late father was a kind man, but deeply unhappy. It was a mercy that the two of them were absent so much of his childhood, and then they sent him away to school. He used to be such a warm, affectionate boy, but they never returned his love.”

The older woman had tears in her eyes and looked away hastily, as if regretting that she’d said too much.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hughes,” she said warmly, and the housekeeper scurried out of the room.

After almost an hour, Elizabeth decided she would be unable to sleep alone tonight.

So she confidently made her way upstairs, dressed for bed, went over to her husband’s door, and somewhat less confidently knocked.

He opened it immediately, like he’d been standing behind it and hoping she’d knock this whole time.

“Can we not speak tonight?” He asked in an uncertain voice, and Lizzie nodded.