Page 48 of To Tame the Wild Rake
Whenever the Duke of Winshire was in London, he had a standing weekly booking for a private meeting room upstairs at Miss Clemons Book Emporium and Tea Shop. Miss Clemons was the only person who knew who had hired the room, and even she—as far as the duke knew—did not know who he met there.
No doubt she speculated—after all, he had ordered that the room be prepared with refreshments for two. But he trusted her to keep her speculations to herself.
As did Yousef, who was his usual guard on his visits. His old friend did ask, though only once, “Yakob, do you know what you are doing?”
No. I really do not. She is married, and even when she is a widow—which will be soon, by all accounts—will she want to marry again? Will I?
He had no answers. Unless it was already an answer that he could not resist these weekly meetings, and neither could she.
He stood when the Duchess of Haverford entered the room, shutting the door behind herself. “Eleanor. You made it.”
She threw back her heavy veils to disclose her smiling face. “James.”
“How was the baptism?”I missed you last week. He wouldn’t say that. Anything about their feelings was forbidden territory for as long as she was tied to another man.
Eleanor sat herself in front of the tea makings and he took the chair on the other side of the table, where he could watch the deft movements of her competent hands. “Such a sweet baby, James, and the couple, very happy. So lovely to see.” Her smile was wistful. “I wish Aldridge would settle down.”
“He and Charlotte seem to be moving in that direction,” James observed and was surprised when her lips stiffened and her eyes narrowed.
She shook her head. “Aldridge will not marry Charlotte, James. I am sorry, but it isn’t possible.”
Before he could ask why, the door crashed open. His niece Sarah stood in the doorway, her eyes flashing and her chest heaving. “Your Grace, how could you?”
James rose, protesting, “Sarah!”
She ignored him, slamming the door shut behind her and storming across the room to lean on the table so that her face was only a foot from Eleanor’s alarmed one. “We trusted you. Charlotte trusted you, and all the time you were working against her.”
“Sarah?”What on earth was she talking about. And how did she know to come here?
Sarah didn’t seem to hear him, her focus all on Eleanor, who was protesting, “No! I love Charlotte. It was to save her as much as Aldridge…”
Sarah shook her head, a vigorous repudiation. “Don’t you think they are old enough to decide their own fates, without your interference? You have broken my sister’s heart, and Aldridge’s too.”
“Better broken now, while there is still time for them to find another,” Eleanor insisted.
Sarah’s lip curled. “Is that what Aldridge was thinking when he stood on Westminster Bridge for several hours the night after you had told Charlotte to reject him?”
Eleanor had been pale, but at this she turned white as a sheet. “Aldridge? No! What are you saying?”
Sarah shook her head, impatiently. “He did not jump. At least as far as I know. He went off with an acquaintance. But he might have, Your Grace. If he is as heartbroken as Charlotte, he still might.”
“He has not been home since that night,” Eleanor whispered. “His staff will not tell me where he is. Oh, Sarah, he would not. What will I do?” She cast around her wildly for her shawl, her bonnet, her umbrella.
Sarah straightened, and seemed to see James for the first time. “I beg your pardon, Uncle James. I went to Haverford House and then I remembered it was Thursday, which is the day you meet the duchess for afternoon tea, and so I came here.”
With some part of his mind, James noted that Sarah—and so, probably, his other relatives—knew about his regular meetings with Eleanor, but that was a discussion for another time. “Sit down, Eleanor. You will gain nothing by rushing out of here in such distress. Sarah, you had better explain what has happened. What is all this about Eleanor interfering between Aldridge and Charlotte?”
In a few words, Sarah outlined what Eleanor had said to Charlotte, and how Charlotte had reacted. “But Eleanor,” he said, when he had heard Sarah out, “you have another son and grandsons by him, and Aldridge has a whole battalion of cousins, besides.”
“Distant cousins,” Eleanor dismissed them with a wave of her hand. Her colour had returned, but only in two hectic spots, one high on each cheekbone. “The Haverfords have always succeeded father to son, since the first foundation of the line. And I have worked my whole adult life to keep the duchy strong for Aldridge and his sons.”
She was up and pacing, all her attention inward, though she still addressed James. “You don’t know how many times I have had to manoeuvre to replace an incompetent steward that Haverford has installed with one who knew what he was doing, or how often I have smoothed over an alliance between houses that Haverford had come close to destroying. And all for Aldridge.”
James shook his head, trying to comprehend. “That is admirable, Eleanor, but what has that to do with his marriage? If he loves my niece…”
Eleanor’s eyes flicked from James to Sarah and back. “But that is precisely it, James.” She held out a hand, begging his understanding. “Grenford men fall in love, it is true. Aldridge is no different to his father in that way. He has been in love a number of times, and with the most unsuitable of women.”
She blinked at his growl. “I do not mean Charlotte. But the women before her. He has always got over them, James, even the mistress he wanted to marry. Better for Charlotte to suffer a little now than to live through his loss of interest.”
