Page 39 of The Duke's Forbidden Bride
She peered down at the red kiss of the sun on her skin. “Ah, it seems I am.”
“Perhaps a break from the sun today would be wise,” Frances suggested gently.
Despite her reluctance to stay inside the quiet but beautiful estate, Eleanor nodded.
“I am sure there are rooms you have not discovered. The library, perhaps?”
She scowled. “I am well enough acquainted with it.”
“The music room, then?”
Eleanor considered that suggestion as Frances finished styling her hair, fluffing out the natural curls.
In the end, she decided to explore the music room and then find her way from there.
After thanking Frances for her suggestion, she set out for the morning. She did not think the manor could get any quieter, but it did. For a master who was so reclusive anyway, the Duke’s absence could be felt.
She stepped into the music room to find it covered in sheets, dust motes flying around as if no servants had ever come there to clean.
Immediately, Eleanor was curious. Her music room at Quinley House was usually spotless, and she had once hosted musical evenings for her suitors before her father rejected them for one reason or another.
Now, she brushed her fingers along a white sheet that she realized covered a harp. It was strange how the room had not been emptied yet remained frozen in time.
And then she saw it, surprising enough to make her breath catch.
A portrait was half-covered by another sheet as if it had slipped off the corner of the frame. In the painting, a girl gazed back at her, a mirror image of the Duke. She looked as though she had not yet reached adulthood, but those eyes…
Eleanor took in the honey-toned irises, the hair that looked brandished with copper, and the ghost of a smile, as if the girl had been trying to stifle her amusement.
She could only stare for a moment.
Why would a portrait be hidden away in a room covered with sheets?
A creak of floorboards behind her had her whirling around, an excuse hanging on the tip of her tongue. But she found not the Duke and his anger at her being where she might not be permitted, but Mrs. Winters.
The housekeeper’s eyes darted from Eleanor to the portrait. They softened slightly even as she grimaced, as if she knew that a barrage of questions was inevitable.
“Who is she?” Eleanor asked outright, her voice gentle. “She looks exactly like the Duke.”
Mrs. Winters entered the music room and closed the door behind her. “That is because she is Lady Anna Vanserton.”
“Who?”
“You do not know?” When she was only met with silence, she sighed. “She was His Grace’s twin sister.”
Twin sister?
Eleanor looked back at the portrait, startled. There was no denying the resemblance, but…
“I did not know there was another Vanserton sibling.”
The housekeeper nodded. “Hmm, yes. Three of them in total. For a very long time, it was just His Grace and Lady Anna. Lady Charlotte was not born until the twins were two-and-ten.”
“She looks very different from them,” Eleanor noted. “He… he has never mentioned Lady Anna.”
“That is to be expected. Lady Anna died fifteen years ago.” The housekeeper winced.
If the Duke was two-and-thirty, and his twin sister died fifteen years ago, that meant that Lady Anna was barely a debutante when she passed.
