Page 79 of An Innocent Maid for the Duke
His hands gripped the chair arms, his knuckles white, his heart beating an unsteady rhythm. He didn’t need the portrait in order to recall his father’s face, it was there in his mind’s eye every time he took a decision on behalf of the Duchy, every time he drew a breath he had denied his brother.
Along with the shame he felt every time he thought about his father’s request and the way he had sloughed it off on to good old dutiful Ralph so he could go to a masked ball at Vitium et Virtus. It made him feel ill. How could he tell her what he had done? How could he ever explain what the look on his father’s face did to him when he couldn’t explain it to himself?
He chilled the heat of his emotions. Slowed the beat of his heart. Turned to face her. ‘You don’t understand.’
She stood her ground, eyeing him with concern and confusion. ‘How can I understand? You always keep me and everyone else at a distance. I do understand one thing. I would give anything to have a likeness of my family even though they didn’t care enough about me to keep me.’ Her voice filled with tears. She swallowed them down, fumbling with the hem of her sleeve to produce a dingy bit of linen tied in a knot, which she undid. The little half of mother-of-pearl button dropped into her palm. She held it up between forefinger and thumb, her hand shaking. ‘This is allIhave ofmyfamily. No memories, only this. And I had to beg for it to get it. I keep it to remind me that I did once belong to someone.’
She turned to look up at the picture. ‘I thought that if you saw them it might help you feel better about—’
‘This really is not your concern.’ The words were hard and cruel and intended to stop her questions. Intended to maintain his appearance of strength in the face of the guilt eating away at his insides.
Her eyes filled with hurt. The same hurt he’d seen the previous evening when he’d left her so abruptly.
Her shoulders straightened. Her chin came up. Amazed, nonplussed, by her dignity, he could only stare in silence. This woman was no longer the little maid who had polished the floors at Vitium et Virtus or the giddy girl who had laughed on the swing, she was a woman with a sense of herself.
Such strength. She put him to shame.
‘I apologise. I should not have put myself forward,’ she said coolly. She glanced up at the picture and back at him. ‘You are right. It really is none of my business, but if I had had a family like yours, I would want the world to see them. To celebrate their lives, not hide them like some shameful secret. You don’t deserve a family at all, if you cannot see that. I am done with you.’
He froze, waiting for the next words out of her mouth. The words that would part them for ever. But he could not allow it. ‘You are not leaving. We have a bargain.’
Anger sparked amid the sadness in her eyes. ‘I know my responsibility as well as my position.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I am your grandmother’s paid companion. Nothing more. Henceforth, my chamber door will be locked.’
It was as if an arrow had struck his heart. She’d seen him for what he was and she no longer wanted him.
‘I apologise if my words were overly harsh, Miss Nightingale.’ His gaze slid up to the portrait. ‘I—’ The gesture of his hand expressed the impossibility of trying to explain. ‘It is complicated.’
She nodded. ‘Too complicated for someone like me. I understand perfectly. Please excuse my transgression, it will not happen again.’
She bobbed a curtsy much like the first one she had given him. This time, she knew it was an insult and he could only admire her nerve. ‘I bid you good afternoon, Your Grace.’ She swept out of the room.
He closed his eyes at the odd painful pang in his chest and the sense of emptiness left by her departure. When he opened them again his gaze fell upon the portrait everyone had said was a perfect likeness. Everyone had agreed that the artist had perfectly captured the character of his subjects.
Rose had seen it, too. What he lacked. It didn’t matter that he’d done everything in his power to emulate his father and his brother, his relationship with Rose was proof he could never live up to their example. He didn’t have it in him.
No wonder disappointment had lurked in the grey depths of his father’s pain-filled eyes that last night. ‘You really didn’t expect me to make a go of this, did you, Pater?’ he said to those eyes looking down on him now. ‘You must have known I’d muck it up.’
He was a terrible substitute for his brother. He glanced down at the fabric in his hand. He balled up the scrap of cloth and threw it into the empty coal scuttle. ‘To hell with it.’ It wasn’t like he could hide the truth from himself. ‘I’m for the club.’ And a nice bottle of Nicholas’s best brandy.
Thank God he had work to do. There were always mountains of paperwork, both here and at Vitium et Virtus.
Again his unwilling gaze was drawn back to the portrait. He remembered the endless sittings, the admonishments from his father to stand his ground like a man, and Eleanor’s chatter. He frowned at it.
He would leave the picture undraped as a reminder of his shortcomings and the promise to his father.
More to the point, what was he to do about Rose?
* * *
Seated at the escritoire in Her Grace’s private sitting room, Rose waited, pen poised, while Her Grace reread the letter in her hand. This was their usual after-breakfast ritual. Replying to Her Grace’s correspondents. For an elderly lady Her Grace certainly had plenty of letters in want of reply.
‘My dearest Wellington...’ the old lady said.
Rose’s eyes widened. She was writing to the Duke of Wellington? The most famous man in England, after the King and the Prince of Wales? She carefully formed the salutation below the date.
After a long pause, she looked up to find her employer regarding her somewhat sadly.
‘Is something wrong, Your Grace?’
