Page 1 of The Duke's Carriage Window
1
BURTON AGNES, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND - 1817
Meredith Montague’s heart was breaking.
She held her Uncle Benjamin’s hand as she watched his chest rise and fall in shallow breaths. All was quiet in the bedchamber of Burton House, the residence that she’d called home for the last five years. Dusk had settled in over the wild gardens beyond the windows of her uncle’s room.
She had seen death before, with her mother when she’d been fourteen. But even now, at nineteen, she was still not used to the creeping, foreboding presence of the end. It was not frightening, but it filled her with a quiet, choking despair. She couldn’t stop death, not even to save someone she loved.
“Meredith,” her uncle rasped. “There’s a letter in the top drawer of my desk… in my study. You must take it to my nephew in London.”
“Your nephew?”
“Yes… Darius, the son of my elder brother. He is the Duke of Tiverton.”
Meredith had heard about Darius a few times, but Uncle Ben was a very quiet, reserved man when it came to his family. He had been close with his elder brother and had not taken his death well. It had broken her uncle, just as surely as his death would break Meredith.
Uncle Ben’s blue eyes were still clear enough that she saw he was making every effort to convey the importance of the matter.
“Darius is a good man… I’ve asked him to take care of you, as I have done… I have asked him… to find you a husband.”
Her uncle coughed, and she went to fetch a glass of water for him. He lay back in his bed with a heavy sigh. She didn’t want to upset her uncle, but she had to understand what he intended for her.
“Darius… Darius must take me in? I cannot stay here?”
She wanted to stay at Burton House with its sunny rooms and splendid old white and blue china teacups, and the comfort of the quiet world here did not frighten her. This was her home. Uncle Ben was her home.
“We both know you cannot stay. I have left a provision in my will that Harry must provide you with travel money. But Harry… makes rash decisions. He will not handle the money and land well… But you… I can protect you in the way I cannot protect this house…and sending you to Darius will protect you.”
Harry, Uncle Ben’s only child, was a wild, reckless gentleman that Meredith didn’t trust, or like. He was the sort of man to kick a dog when the poor beast got in his way.
“I understand,” Meredith said softly.
“You can trust Darius, my dear…” Uncle Ben closed his eyes. “Go… find the letter now and I will rest.”
She didn’t want to leave him. Part of her feared that if she stepped outside his bedchamber, he would slip away without her having a chance to say goodbye.
He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Go on now, Meredith. I promise to be here when you return.”
It took every bit of Meredith’s strength to let go of her uncle’s hand. She paused at the door to look back at the kind, old man asleep on the bed. His illness had ravished his once handsome looks. This man had been a father to her more than uncle.
But in truth, he wasn’t even her uncle. Not by blood.
Her mother Mariah had once been in love with Uncle Ben, but she had chosen another man in the end. Her mother had lived for only a few years with the man who had sired Meredith. She couldn’t even remember what he looked like, only that he had left them penniless when he’d returned to his wife and then he’d died shortly after.
Uncle Ben, newly widowed himself, had taken pity on them and paid for a cottage by the sea near Fraisthorpe Beach on the eastern coast of England, not far from the village of Burton Agnes.
When her mother had died, Uncle Ben had moved Meredith into his home. The last five years had healed her and given her new life and peace. For a time, it had been the same for Uncle Ben, until the illness struck him down.
Now she was to lose her uncle and the peaceful life they had shared in this lovely, old house. There were to be no more morning rides across the estate, no more long walks to the village for midday luncheons. No more visits to the tiny bookshop to buy books that she and Uncle Ben would read and discuss over dinner.
Her mind played over a thousand things that would come to an end once he was gone. It was as though her own life was ending, and it was. This version of herself, the Meredith of Burton Agnes, would be gone forever. She would become someone new, a woman living in London with a stranger, a duke no less.
The idea was terrifying. This duke would have no time for her and certainly no need of her. He would have his gentleman friends, likely a wife, perhaps even a mistress. Uncle Ben had never mentioned Darius being married, but he so rarely spoke of his nephew except to express regret at some terrible quarrel they’d had a few years ago.
Surely, being saddled with her would upset any decent man. Despite her uncle’s assurances, she couldn’t envision a future where her very presence wouldn’t outrage a powerful, influential duke. She was a bastard, a nobody. He would dump her onto the first free man he could convince to marry her, wouldn’t he?
Meredith’s chest tightened with a fierce ache and she swallowed hard.
