Page 101 of Rules for a Bastard Lord
“It was scarlet fever,” Eleanor explained. “It struck my grandfather first. There were so many of us gathered for Christmas. Everyone was there.” She swallowed, her gaze going very distant.
“This is how the seaman came to be the duke,” Maybelle said.
Eleanor nodded. “Looking back, it happened so quickly. Grandpapa. Then my uncles and cousins. My brother, Seth. Papa tried to be strong. Mama had passed a few years back, but as the new duke, he tried…” She swallowed and looked down at the pages of dress sketches beneath her fingers. “Well, Papa tried to be strong.”
The countess patted Eleanor’s hand as she took up the tale. “It is the usual procedure when men die that the solicitors look to the heirs. Every effort is made to keep one safe, but in this case, everyone had already gathered. They were at His Grace’s bedside when he died. They were there—”
“To catch the illness,” Maybelle said. “So it was too late for the heirs.”
“Yes,” Eleanor whispered. “That is when I met Bram. He and his mother came up from London. The entire county was reeling from the disease. It wasn’t just us. It was the servants and their families. I have never seen so many people die before. So many people mourning. So much…” Her voice faltered.
Maybelle had heard of such things. Entire villages wiped out. It usually began with a few victims, but fear quickly took over. People barricaded houses, locking the healthy in with the sick. No doctor would come, no supplies delivered. No one to cook or clean. No one but the ill tending the ill, and nothing for the dead.
The countess spoke again. “A mistress always hopes to become the wife. With Eleanor’s mother gone and her brother passed, there was no heir. Everyone had forgotten the seaman.”
“Papa remembered,” Eleanor said.
Maybelle tried to piece it together. “So with everyone dying, Bram’s mum went there to…” She shook her head. “To marry a dying duke?” That was ghoulish.
The countess nodded. “It was that, or let the title die.”
Maybelle sighed, her heart breaking. “But your father wouldn’t do it, would he?” she said to Eleanor. “He would rather the title die than go to Bram.”
Eleanor looked down. “He knew about Radley.”
The countess shook her head. “What a terrible choice—a seaman or a by-blow. How he must have suffered.”
Suffered? As if either man were less, simply for not being reared as an aristocrat. “How could he have done that to his ownson? Cast him aside like that?” Maybelle couldn’t fathom it. And yet to these two ladies, it seemed like the most logical choice in the world.
Eleanor’s gaze was vague. “I’d never met Bram before, although I’d heard whispers. People in our set don’t discuss by-blows. Certainly not with unmarried ladies.”
“Was he terribly angry?” the countess asked. “When he didn’t get the title?”
“Angry?” Maybelle asked. Why not hurt? Betrayed? Bitter?
“He didn’t expect it,” Eleanor answered. “It was his mother’s hope. And when my father passed, she left as soon as could be. Returned to London and…”
The countess clucked her tongue in disapproval. “And the life she had here.”
Which meant the woman had a new protector. “And what of Mr. Hallowsby?” she asked.
Eleanor twisted her fingers together. “You understand that there was no chance by this point.” She swallowed. “My father was gone, and the title passed to Radley, though I didn’t know him at the time. Bram had no reason to stay behind where everyone was ill.”
“But he did,” Maybelle guessed. “He stayed to help.”
Eleanor nodded. “Two months. He did everything. He helped with the dead. He cooked, he cleaned, he even worked the harvest. I have never seen a man do so much.” She bit her lip, clearly fighting tears. “He would have made an excellent duke.”
But he hadn’t been legitimized. He hadn’t received the title. He had helped because that was what Bram did.
“And you still won’t recognize him.” It wasn’t a question. “He has to come through the servants’ entrance!” She hadn’t thought anyone could be so hard-hearted.
The countess shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
Eleanor echoed the statement. “How can I recognize him when my own father would not? When he’d wanted the title go to a seaman no one knew instead of his own son? How can I ignore what my father decided when so much was at stake?”
And that was the final word. Maybelle could see it in their nodding heads. In their teary eyes and the way they held each other’s hands for support. They were so enmeshed in what was proper that even when they saw Bram’s worth, they wouldn’t acknowledge it. They didn’t see him.
She could rail at them. She could point out the illogic of educating a son, but not allowing him entrance to the very world in which he’d been reared. She could talk until she was blue in the face, but that would make no headway with these women. It was too entrenched in who they were.
