Page 49 of The Curious Life of the Unfortunate Duchess
“Catherine, leave us,” Leonard ordered and Catherine frowned.
“Will you speak of me in my absence?” she demanded. Elizabeth chuckled but stopped when she realized the girl was sincere.
“Of course not!” she cried indignantly, casting Leonard a look of worry. “Why would you believe such a thing?”
“You would not be the first,” Catherine muttered but she did leave the pair alone in the study, the door slightly ajar.
“Why would she think that?” Elizabeth asked in amazement.
“Catherine oft believes that people speak ill of her in her absence,” Leonard explained. “I have no idea if she imagines such things or if she has a legitimate complaint.”
The revelation was both stunning and hurtful.
“She cannot believe I would be a party to that!”
“I do not know what she believes,” Leonard replied. “She is partly why I wished to speak with you alone. I do worry about my sister.”
“Why? She is charming and gay!”
“She has changed much since our father died,” Leonard explained, gesturing for her to sit across from his desk where he remained seated. Elizabeth obliged his request, her head cocked with interest.
“How?”
“Before my father passed, Catherine was a shy girl. She did not make friends with great ease and her social graces left quite a lot to be desired. My mother did not push her, knowing that she was apt to retreat into a shell of make-believe if pressed too firmly. My father indulged her, urged her to read, and lose herself in the world of fantasy she so eagerly longed to embrace. She adored my father.”
Elizabeth tried to imagine the Catherine she had gotten to know over the past three weeks as the lady Leonard had described. The two personas bore no resemblance to one another.
“Many adored him,” Elizabeth commented, turning her gaze toward the portrait of the late Duke still mounted behind Leonard’s desk. “From what I have heard, there was good reason to admire him.”
“Indeed.”
Leonard paused and cleared his throat. Elizabeth realized he was choked with emotion.
“When he passed, a darkness sank into Brookside, a strange, black shadow that took hold over everything. It seems to me that it had always been there but my father was so strong, he kept it at bay with his will.”
The Duke sighed deeply and moved his own eyes toward the painting. When he spoke again, Elizabeth wondered if he spoke to her or the portrait of Aylmer.
“Mother became an abyss of despair. She was inconsolable, unwilling to move from her bedroom, unable to eat. I had doctors at her side for two months before she finally left the bedchambers or put a morsel of food to her lips but to this day, she will not leave the estate. I ran. I wandered away for weeks on end, coming home barely long enough to deal with the matters at hand before mounting my horse and disappearing again. If not for Herbert, I fear the duchy my father had worked so hard to sustain, to grow, would have fallen into a state of disrepair.”
Elizabeth was flabbergasted. She had not known any of this about the Duke of Pembroke and his family. How had it been kept from prying ears? How had the servants not spoken of the chaos ensuing within Pembroke?
“But Catherine…she fared worse of all.”
Elizabeth perched at the end of her chair, her eyes fixated on Leonard as she silently willed him to continue.
“I had returned one day, after being away two weeks. I could not even tell you now where I had gone on that venture. Ireland, most likely.”
For a moment he fell quiet, possibly losing his train of thought but Elizabeth dared not speak.
“The Catherine I knew was gone. She was cold, hard, cynical. She fought with me and if she had lacked social graces previously, she was feral then. I did not recognize my own sister and she appeared to despise me.”
“But that was months ago,” Elizabeth finally breathed. “Grief does bring out the beast in people.”
“We did recover slowly,” Leonard agreed. “But the Catherine I knew died with my father. This lady now, she is not the same girl.”
“There is nothing wrong with this version of Catherine,” Elizabeth insisted. “She is the only one I have ever known and I love her just fine.”
A bemused smile fell on Leonard’s lips.
