Page 93 of His Illegitimate Duchess

She led him to the bed and they both got in very slowly and very quietly.

He turned to her and watched her with tired, sorrowful eyes from his pillow.

She moved over to him so she could kiss his brow, and then hugged his neck, putting her chin on top of his head.

He helped her back onto her pillow and lay his head on her shoulder as he hugged her waist.

Elizabeth stroked and caressed his shoulders, hair, forehead, bestowed tiny, soothing kisses on his brow, his eyelids, his temples, and lightly scratched his scalp with her nails until she felt his head become heavier on her bosom and his breathing deepen.

It was exhilarating to watch his relaxed, open face as he slept, and to know that she was able to give enough safety and love for someone to find comfort and rest in.

The action of providing those things for another person fortified her and healed something inside her, for it showed her the value that her presence could have for someone who cared about her.

She’d never felt stronger or more important.

Like a port to dock in, where the weary traveller can rest, she thought.

The imagery reminded her of what Mrs Cooper had said about ports and lighthouses, and she thought about Colin’s mother again until she succumbed to sleep.

“Good morning,” her husband’s hoarse voice accompanied a kiss on her shoulder.

“Morning,” she replied sleepily.

They were both quiet for a while. Lizzie stared at the ceiling and tried clearing her head enough to get up. Colin stroked her hand with the back of his fingers.

“I imagine you must have a lot of questions,” he finally said.

Lizzie nodded.

“Ask away,” he said with a small smile, and Lizzie was relieved that he was himself again.

She propped herself up on one elbow and said, “What your mother said about the servants…”

She didn’t finish, instead allowing him to address whichever portion of that speech he wanted to.

He nodded and folded his arms under his head.

“I must have been five or six. My father had taken my mother on a tour around Europe, in one of his attempts to make her love him,” he said bitterly, “and I was, of course, left behind with servants and nurses. They had been gone for months, and when they came back, I had started speaking in a strong Norfolk drawl, because that was all I ever heard. They were horrified, to put it lightly. They immediately got me a tutor and forbade the staff to speak to me or to allow me to go play with the children.”

Elizabeth didn’t have the language to describe how harmful she considered what his parents had done, so she just put her hand on his chest. He didn’t move, nor did he look away from the ceiling.

Elizabeth thought about his penchant for carefully selecting lifelong members of staff and his obsession with not letting people leave, and it all made a little more sense now. Not to mention his lack of desire to travel.

“Those who knew how to write left me little encouraging notes,” he said with a wistful smile, but then sobered.

“I’ve thought about this event a lot recently.

I think that, in order to survive and be able to bear the loss of my favourite people, I had to start believing that my parents were right, and that they had a good reason to cut me off from them.

I had to believe that attachment was wrong, shameful, and unnatural, and I’ve carried those beliefs into adulthood with me, even reproaching you for your closeness to Mary.

I never wanted to think about my hurt. I never wanted to remember how devastated and lonely I was when the stable master was unable to write to me because he didn’t know how.

I cannot believe it took meeting those Magdalen girls for me to realise how important literacy was. ”

“You were a child, Colin, and you, unfortunately, had bigger things to worry about,” Lizzie tried consoling him, but he shook his head as if disgusted with himself.

“I should have done so much better, so much earlier. But I will now,” he vowed.

“I believe you,” Lizzie said, and he rewarded her with a bright smile.

As they dressed in their separate dressing rooms, Elizabeth dwelled on how damaged they both were, and how it was undeniable that their pasts had shaped them – their fears, their wants, and their goals. But she also felt hopeful, like both their wounds were starting to heal over.

When she had been found with Colin in that cloak room, she had been certain that her biggest nightmare had come true – that she had followed in the footsteps of her parents.

And now that she had learned about his past, she was certain that Colin was currently living what had to be his biggest nightmare – having a marriage like his parents’, in which both partners were sentenced to a life of misery.

Only, neither of their situations had really been like those of their parents’, had they?

“I really don’t want to deal with my mother,” Colin said dryly as he entered her dressing room.

Lizzie turned away from the looking glass. “Let’s just leave.”

He straightened. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t want to deal with her? Then don’t. Let’s just go to Ashbury, like we were planning to. Unless you think spending time here with her will change anything?”

“No, I’ve been thinking about that just now. There is nothing I can do or say to change my relationship with my mother, and believe me, I’ve tried almost everything you could think of. Perhaps it’s time to let go of the fantasy,” he said.

“I just feel bad for the staff,” Lizzie said with a grimace. “They all seem so terrified of her.”

Colin seemed to think about that.

“I shall inform Stevenson and Mrs. Hughes to give everyone the week off. My mother has her maid and her driver; once she sees there’s no one here to torture, she’ll hopefully return to the Continent.”

Elizabeth couldn’t hide her smile.

“Please take good care of Thunder,” she told Mary again.

“Lizzie, I heard you the first five times. Don’t worry.”

“Are you certain you and Robert will be all right in the gamekeeper’s cabin?”

“Of course,” Mary smiled. “It’s just a week. And when the witch is gone, we’ll return here, and a few days later, my parents and your Ma ought to arrive with the children, so we’ll enjoy our time with them.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth to instruct her to be careful, to write, to take care of herself, but Mary most likely saw her face and just lifted a palm up.

“I’m not an invalid, Lizzie. Don’t worry. Enjoy your time with your new nephew.”

*

“Ah, finally back at our inn,” Colin said that evening when they stopped for the night.

“It is ours in a way, isn’t it?” Lizzie smiled at him.

“I shall buy it for you, then it will be ours in every way,” he offered.

“I would think you were joking if I didn’t know what a spendthrift you were,” Lizzie said reproachfully.

“Only for you, wife.”

“Don’t you know me by now?” She asked. “Try being frugal, that would impress me far more.”

When they arrived at Ashbury, Nicholas (to their great surprise) hugged them both.

“Thank you so much for coming, both of you,” he said fervently.

“Your eagerness is unbecoming, Hawkins,” Talbot said with a raised eyebrow, and Lizzie knew something between them had changed when Nicholas laughed at the remark.

“Shut up, Talbot. Let’s go inside.”

“Oh, Sophie, he is so precious! And he smells heavenly!” Elizabeth exclaimed as she held her new nephew for the first time. “Colin, look at him!” She held the child up so he could see better.

“Ah, yes,” Colin said awkwardly, “what a... fine boy.”

Lizzie burst out laughing, and the baby in her arms started crying. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. It’s the bad man’s fault, yes, not your aunt Lizzie’s, remember that!”

She looked up from the baby to see everyone in the room looking at them: Charlotte’s stare seemed wistful, Isabella and Frederick’s fond, Sophie’s surprised, and Nicholas’s amused. She blushed and looked back down at her nephew.

“Will someone please tell me my nephew’s name!” She implored them.

Sophie and Nicholas exchanged a glance, and Isabella put both her palms on her heart.

“We actually…” Nicholas started, then cleared his throat. “We were hoping you would name him and record his birth in the family prayer book.”

If she hadn’t been sitting, she would have definitely dropped the baby. Talbot laid a hand on her shoulder.

“You… Really?”

Both Sophie and Nicholas nodded with tears in their eyes.

“But I have no ideas!” She turned to Colin, who gave her a gentle smile.

“You don’t have to name him today, kitten,” he said as he bent down to pretend to look at the boy again.

Before dinner, Nicholas and Elizabeth went for a walk in the gardens. It was cold and wet, but Lizzie was grateful to be outside. She closed her eyes against the cold wind and envisioned it blowing away the last three days.

“Elizabeth, I…” Nicholas started saying at the same time as Elizabeth asked, “How is Charlotte?”

They smiled at each other.

“Charlotte is… having an intermission.”

“Have any of you spoken to Sinclair?”

“Yes, he came here a day after she did. We all talked, and they decided to spend some time apart in order to deal with the wounds they inflicted on one another.”

“Do you think they can heal?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I realised that I’ve done a disservice to my sister by keeping her so sheltered instead of teaching her basic things about… men and women, I thought Mother would do that,” he said helplessly.

“Not everyone is the same, Nicholas. Your mother could have been teaching her something that made sense to her. Not everyone views these things the same,” she said, and really didn’t want to say anything more on the topic of bedsport to her brother.

“Not to mention that I shouldn’t have meddled in who Sinclair was going to marry.

The road to hell is truly paved with good intentions.

I wanted both my sisters to end up with good men and have good lives, and I’ve ruined it for both of you.

I am so sorry,” he concluded, sadness and self-loathing warring in his voice.

“I wouldn’t say you ruined it. I have a pretty good life,” Elizabeth said with a small smile. “With a pretty good man,” she added more shyly.

“Truly?” He asked, stopping so he could look at her face.

Elizabeth nodded, and he exhaled in relief.

“Who would have thought?” Hawkins said.

“He’s not perfect, of course, but he has been working very hard to show me how much he regrets hurting me.”

“He’s changed a lot, for the better,” Nicholas said. “Just don’t tell him I said that,” he added a moment later.

“Oh, absolutely not,” his sister said with a laugh. “I have been thinking about a name,” Lizzie said tentatively a few moments later.

“Oh?” Nicholas smiled excitedly.

“Maybe don’t smile yet,” she warned. “What do you think of naming him Charles?”

Nicholas’s eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline. “Charles? Like our awful father?”

“Just think about it. I think it would be a new beginning, a way to reshape the way we think of the past.”

“And we’d start by giving his name a new meaning,” Nicholas said pensively.

“Exactly. A Charles who would be raised right, who we would love and who would love us.”

Nicholas hummed. They walked back to the house in silence.

“I will talk to Sophie, and I will let you know.”

*

A week later, when Colin knocked to escort her to dinner, she could immediately sense there was something wrong with him.

“What is it?” She asked, sick with worry.

“I’ve had a letter. From my mother.”

“What does she want?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “I haven’t opened it yet.”

“Do you want to?”

“Not really.”

“Mary and I sometimes do this. I can read the letter if you wish, only to ascertain that there is no emergency that would require your response.”

“And you won’t tell me what it says?”

“Not unless you want me to.”

“Do you think less of me now?” He asked her that night after dinner as she was reading the letter.

“Shh!” Lizzie said impatiently. “Let me finish reading.”

He said nothing, but continued pacing the room like a madman. When Elizabeth was done, she stood up and threw the letter into the fire.

“No emergency,” she said with a bright smile, to hide how disgusted she was at the insults she had just read. “And to answer your previous question, I don’t think less of you. On the contrary, one needs to have a lot of strength to survive a person such as your mother.”

“Thank you,” he said and hugged her.

Lizzie hugged him back as strongly as she could.