Page 52 of My Darling Mr. Darling

“Sometimes,” the duchess continued, “family disappoints us.” This, with a compassionate look toward Serena, whose natural family could not be said to be particularly close. “Sometimes, our true family is who we choose to invite into our lives. Those bonds—the bonds of love given freely without obligation—are so much stronger than those of blood. And only look,” she said, with a grand sweep of her hand across the table at large, “at how fortunate I am to have such a lovely, large family. Exactly as I always wanted. But still missing a few ladies, I think,” she said, and her gaze tripped between John and Alex, almost accusingly. “So, yes,do please invite Violet to our table. I should so love another daughter.”

∞∞∞

There was a duchess in Violet’s drawing room.

How, exactly, this had come to pass, Violet was not certain. She did not receive visitors, as it were, and as of yet the only people who were even aware of Violet’s presence in London were those whom Serena had solicited as potential pupils. They did not—as yet—run in the same sort of social circles as aduchess, certainly.

Nevertheless, Davis had found her in the library some time ago to press a calling card into her hand announcing that Christine Dryden, the dowager Duchess of Davenport had come to call.

For what purpose, Violet could not possibly guess. Still, she had poured tea and offered biscuits and made polite—if stilted—small talk, while working up the nerve to inquire after the duchess’ reason for visiting.

The duchess, however, took pity on her before Violet could manage it. “I do beg your pardon for intruding,” she said. “I understand you must be terribly busy with your classes. But Serenadidsay that you weren’t conducting them today, and I did so wish to meet you. John suggested that I invite you round for dinner, but I thought I should at least call upon you before assuming—”

“John?” Violet squeaked.

“Oh, do forgive me—I mean to say, Mr. Darling.” The duchess swirled an additional lump of sugar into her tea. “We are on familiar terms, after all, but I suppose, as he is your guardian, you may be accustomed to calling him Mr. Darling instead.”

Guardian? “Your Grace, I’m so very sorry, but I think there is some mistake. Mr. Darling hasn’t been my—er, guardian for a number of years. I can’t imagine why he would prevail upon you on my behalf.”

“Probably,” the duchess suggested serenely, between sips of her tea, “because he thought I would like you.”

It was offered so decisively that Violet knew not what to say it that beyond, “Oh.” Why John thought a duchess would have any interest in her was quite beyond her imagination. She might claim Serena, now a marchioness, as a friend, but Serena was only at the fringes of social acceptance herself, and it was only by chance and circumstance that they had ever become acquainted at all. To have a duchess turn up at her doorstep in a gesture of friendship? It beggared belief.

“Of course,” the duchess continued, with a blithe gesture of her hand as she reached for another biscuit, “dearest Serena would have got round to bringing you with her eventually. But John got to it first, and I find thatmagnificentlytelling.”

“Serena?” Violet echoed, and then gasped as understanding dawned. “Oh—you must bethatduchess!”

The duchess’ brows, a rich gold, arched high over her sharp green eyes. “I beg your pardon. Which duchess am I?”

Violet felt her face wash hot with embarrassment. “That was terribly rude of me,” she said. “I only meant that—well, Serena said you were responsible for salvaging her reputation.”

“Oh,that,” the duchess said, with a tiny shrug. “That was nothing at all, truly. When my son asked for my assistance, I was only too glad to give it. A motherdoeslike to feel needed, you know.”

“Serena said that if it wasn’t for you, she’d have no reputation to speak of,” Violet said.

“Ah, well. It’s an incontrovertible truth that when a duchess speaks, people tend to listen.” The duchess bit into a delicate lemon biscuit and murmured, a touch crossly, “The words ‘incurable gossip’ were bandied about, quite unnecessarily I might add. Is it gossip, I ask you, merely to correct misapprehensions?” She patted at her perfectly-arranged hair, the picture of offended dignity, and at last said, “But that’s neither here nor there. What I mean to ask is this: Are you, by any chance, seeking a husband?”

Through sheer dint of will, Violet succeeded in keeping her face arranged in a neutral expression, though she was certain it had turned quite crimson. “I am not, Your Grace.”

“Pity.” The duchess made a moue of displeasure. “I have got a good duke going to waste, you know, and I would so enjoy being a grandmother.” She fixed Violet with a shrewd look. “You’re quite certain? He has got all his own teeth, and not a one of them has rotted.”

“He sounds…charming,” Violet managed. “But I couldn’t possibly—although you are very kind to offer.” She doubted very much, however, that the duke would take too kindly to being offered up on a silver platter.

“Hm,” the duchess said, her tone slipping into a sly, speculative cadence. “I wonder, Violet—Imaycall you Violet?—if perhaps your affections are already engaged. Possibly by our Mr. Darling.” She waved away Violet’s vague, awkward sounds of protest. “My dear, I have lived too many years to willingly admit to, and let me assure you I can tell when a man is smitten. A motherknows.”

Amother? Violet cleared her throat, stammering in her desperation to respond in a manner which sounded neither accusatory nor judgmental. “I thought—that is to say—”

The duchess gave a soft trill of laughter over Violet’s flustered mutterings, and said, “No, my dear; I did not give birth to him. But children need not be borne of one’s flesh to be loved in one’s heart.” She smiled softly down into her tea cup, her eyes distant. “My son found him wandering in the woods that form the border between our estate and that of his grandfather’s. John was just six years old at the time—Alex had only recently turned five. We’d been out for our daily walk, and Alex had paused just at the edge of the woods. I thought he was watching a deer, perhaps, or some other wildlife scurrying about in the undergrowth. But he turned to me and said, ‘Mama, I think there’s a boy in the woods.’ And before I could stop him, he charged in—so dramatic, my boy, from the very moment he was born—and a few moments later he came dashing back out, pulling John by the hand.” She swiped at her eye with a subtle motion of her hand, as if the memory evoked some strong emotion. “He was so very dirty; his clothes all rumpled and torn. And his eyes—they were so sad, so frightened. Of course, I took him home with me immediately.”

Violet felt something lurch in her chest; some strange and unfamiliar bit of her heart shifting into a new, painful position. Of course the duchess had taken in a strange child she’d found wandering about in the woods. Ofcourse. Becausea mother knowswhen a child is in need. For no other reason than that, and this woman’s heart was big enough, strong enough, to embrace a lost little soul in need of her.

“It took four days for his grandfather to come in search of him,” the duchess said, and her voice had sharpened to a razor’s edge—as if the thought pained her even now, more than twenty years later. “Four days, if you can believe it, and he didn’t even come personally. He sent a nursery maid—a more inept woman I’ve yet to meet—to retrieve him. Except I could not bring myself to give him up to her. I had the butler snap the door shut straight in her face and sent a message round to the earl that we would discuss it when he deigned to come himself. And from that moment on, John was mine. I had committed to it already, you see. From the very moment I held his hand in mine as we walked back from the woods.” Her fingers formed the shape of that childish hand clasped in her own, as if she could still feel the pressure of it within her grasp.

“And…John’s grandfather?” Violet prompted, surprised by the raspy quality of her voice.

“He didn’t want John,” the duchess said viciously. “Can you imagine it? He didn’t evenwantmy sweet, sweet boy. He never wanted him. And so I had John for seven years, right up until the point where his grandfather’s friends began asking questions about why there had been no mention of John being at Eton or Harrow. So to preserve his reputation, he finally came for John. And I had to give him up.” Her lips pursed into a flat, firm line, but her chin quivered with the strength of her regret. “He took my darling little boy from me and sent him off to school, and he came back so remote, so cold.”

A twinge of sympathy pulsed in Violet’s heart, because she could imagine it well enough. She had also perfected the art of aloofness; the pretensions to placid detachment. She had long ago turned her heart against any measure of kindness, ceased seeking friendship or familiarity. How could such softness ever hope to weigh against the hardness she had wrapped round that fragile organ? So long as one kept oneself apart, one could not be wounded, or betrayed, or surprised by the inconstancy of others.