Page 13 of Only a Fortnight with the Duke
CHAPTER 13
A fter dinner, everyone save for the two Dukes retired upstairs, exhausted from the ride and the games played after. Simon draped his body over a chaise with a book in his hand while George sat perched on a chair nearby, listening to his friend read aloud, both content to spend time in the same space together. Their friendship was more akin to brotherhood.
When Simon was quiet, George took the opportunity to start a conversation. “You and Lady Clark seem to be getting on quite well.” A sparkle of mischief shone in his eye.
“We do,” Simon answered, noncommittal, as he flipped the page in his book.
“What was it you said upon first meeting her? ‘I would sooner wed a woman with a plain face and a poor figure so long as she had something of substantial interest going on in her mind.’ I think you may have also called her a nuisance. What has changed? Very little time has passed.”
Simon heaved a heavy sigh and sat up, vexed by the smirk upon his friend’s face. “I thought there to be no gloating amongst friends.”
“You know very well that our friendship is more a brotherhood. There is a great deal of gloating and teasing amongst brothers.”
“Then let us be friends.”
“It is too late for that, Simon. Tell me. What has changed? You? The girl? The circumstances?”
“In fact, George, it is a matter of perspective.”
“Is that so?”
“Quite. I previously thought that marriage would interfere with my ability to work hard. That it was a frivolous form of folly that could be distracting. But, George, Lady Clark detests me.”
“I am afraid I do not follow. This does not typically bode well for a marriage.”
“You are not seeing my vision, George.”
“I suppose I am not.”
“It matters not whether her affections for me grow. In fact, I prefer that they do not. I told her that I would charm her, but I am thinking of the future. Marriage between two people who are in love takes a great deal of hard work to be sustainable.”
“Yes, Simon, I think that has been well-established.”
“And marriages of convenience are a task all their own, for they inevitably become cold and vacant and are prone to the chaos of silent rage.”
“You are a poet, Sir.”
“You jest, but I mean it. Think of a marriage between two friends! Two like-minded individuals who can approach matters of disagreement or change from a place unburdened by emotion.”
“Shall I marry you then, Your Grace, if it is friendship you seek?”
Simon shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose in his frustration. “You are not considering me with any seriousness at all.”
“Do you? Simon, we have known each other for many years.”
“Yes.”
“And in all of those years, you have not once thought of marriage as more than an abstract concept.”
“Why, yes, but–”
“Further, you have never before invited a lady who was not linked to you by a friend or by blood to spend time together on a weekend.”
“I am courting her. How am I to grow closer to her if we are not together?”
“This is precisely my point, Simon. You wish to grow closer to her. You do not wish to enter into a business contract with this woman.”
“No! I want to enter into a marriage. An efficient marriage wherein each party fulfills their respective duties to one another–to the dukedom. Is this not what you insisted I do earlier the night of the ball?”
“This is not about that, Simon. This is about Lady Clark.”
“I do not understand.”
“Perhaps you will in time, Simon, but do not discount your heart in this affair, lest it make things more difficult for you in the end. We both know that you are capable of convincing yourself of some remarkable untruths.”
“It is not conventional, so you do not approve. There are no examples to look upon, dear George, and that is understandable, for Lady Clark and I will make an example of this new model of marriage.”
George, stifling a laugh behind his fist as he considered this, nodded his head to appease his friend. “I shall wait and see, Your Grace.”
The rest of the weekend goes quite well. Simon finds that he is proud to have amassed a group of friends who gets on so very well as his do, and he saw them each off in kind until there was but one guest left.
“My father insisted that he come and fetch me himself. He very much hopes that you will invite him to stay for dinner, so I expect that is why he is overdue,” Emmeline explained to Simon as they walked together through the gardens of the home. “Please forgive him. He has taken a special liking to you.”
“Perhaps you have misunderstood, and he merely wishes to keep a closer eye on the man who will marry his daughter. He knew your Lord Bancroft well. He is not nearly as familiar with me.”
Simon felt something stir in his heart as Emmeline’s features softened into a laugh that bubbled out of her in gentle waves.
“You speak of marriage with such resolute confidence,” she accused.
“And you speak of marriage as if it is some fickle thing of your imagination, a fiction you’ve made up.”
“Not at all, Simon,” she sighed, wistfully, casting her gaze up to the sky. “The sort of marriage I seek is elusive, but real. My father so loved my mother that he speaks of her, still, as though she is alive. Her memory has never faded for him. She is kept alive in his devotion. If I am to be wed, one day, then I shall follow her footsteps and settle for nothing less.”
“What of your future?” he asked quietly.
“My future?”
The Duke nodded his head solemnly. “I do not mean to imply that you have not already thought of this, but I wonder what you will do should you be unable to find the romance you seek. When your father is gone, and you’re unwed, what will become of you?”
Emmeline sighed, her gaze falling to the ground before them. “I should like very much not to think of it. I prefer to live as though what I want is already written–I have only to turn the pages to get where I am going.”
“It is not my intention to steal the propensity to dream from you. In fact, Emmeline, it is only because I have found…I have found friendship between us. Don’t you agree?”
“I suppose I must.”
“In that regard, no matter what happens between the two of us at the end of the next week, I must say that I would like to know that you will be taken care of. It is something that has weighed on my mind all this time.”
His eyes met hers, and in them Emmeline thought she saw the sort of sorrow her father sometimes gazed at her with. Not all men were oblivious to the station of women in high society. But few of them had the power to change that station. That was their tragedy, and this was hers.
If love did not come, then she would simply have to find her own way in the world.
“My father has promised to live well and long,” she said, breezing past the earnest expression on Simon’s face. “But you should not worry. You, too, should assume what you want is already guaranteed, and simply believe that you will win our wager.”
“And when the wager is over?”
“Then believe alongside me that true love is out there waiting for me.”
Simon and Emmeline strolled together for a short time, both silent, both thinking of the many things between them that remained unspoken. Lady Clark, most especially, was so lost in her thoughts that she did not see Simon’s gardener emerge from a nearby bush until it was too late. He stepped out in front of her and the two collided. Thinking quickly, Simon reached out to steady her and glared at the boy who had been so clumsy.
“What is the meaning of such behavior, Stone? Are you blind? Or perhaps deaf?”
It was Emmeline’s hand on his arm that stilled him, and Simon fell quiet, looking at her with frenzied curiosity. But her eyes were trained on the young boy, who trembled beneath Simon’s admonishment.
“Mr. Stone, is it?”
“Y-yes, my Lady.”
“My apologies, Mr. Stone. I was careless and did not look in front of me. Please, be more careful from now on, lest I cause you injury upon our next meeting.” Then, she leaned closer to him with a gentle smile, and quietly added, “I will make sure that His Grace is not so offended that he gives you a hard time, yes? Please, resume your work.”
Simon watched, aghast, as his servant bowed to Lady Clark and disappeared back out into the grounds, inevitably to find work far, far away from his master. “Emmeline, what was that?”
“Oh, don’t make a big fuss, Your Grace. He’s just a child. Anyway, I wasn’t looking where I was going. It was not entirely–”
“Are you my wife, Emmeline?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“Then have you somehow acquired ownership of this property?”
“Why, Simon, I–”
“If you have neither agreed to marry me nor purchased the rights to the ground we now walk on, what could it be that possessed you to act as if such things are true?” Emmeline shrank beneath his gaze, realizing far too late just how upset this interaction made him. “Surely, your father did not raise you to speak with such familiarity to his staff, much less another man’s employ.”
“You’re mistaken,” she said, her voice rising and growing firm as it had been the night of the ball. “My father absolutely raised me to show all humans kindness no matter their apparent station. You frightened him!”
“No, Emmeline. I disciplined him–for an offense he made against you . And you took it upon yourself not only to coddle him but to undermine my authority. You gave him an order!”
“I made a suggestion!”
“You behave as though you do not care about your reputation at all.”
“My reputation? Your Grace, I would rather be perceived as kind and silly than needlessly cruel. You forget yourself!”
“It is you, Emmeline, who forgets herself. Your appearance affects those closest to you, not you alone. I see now why you have acted as you have all this time. I thought you brazen, of course, for insulting me publicly, for following me outside onto the terrace, for your behavior towards Lord Bancroft. But I was convinced that you just had exceptionally tight-held convictions. In fact, you think only of yourself, and act only in your own interests! What, had I not been here, would you have done if your kindness had been interpreted as an invitation?”
Lady Clark stepped away from Simon, lost as to what could have possibly set him off. She could see from the shadows in his eyes that she had upset something much deeper than his sensibilities, but could not fathom as to what.
“I will not speak to your staff again in such a manner if it displeases you so, but I believe you owe me an explanation or an apology at the very least for this outburst.”
Simon scoffed, turning away from her while he gathered his thoughts. When he looked upon her again, he had closed himself off to her again. She saw only the expression she’d last seen at the ball when they first met. “I will have the housemaid come out to fetch you. She may sit with you while you await your father’s arrival. I fear that I am not feeling well, and I will retire to my room at once. Please give him my apologies that I was not able to extend an invitation to dinner as I am spent from entertaining all weekend.”
Emmeline stood with her mouth hanging slightly open, astonished, as she watched him walk away.