Page 8 of A Duke in Pursuit of Passion
"Really, Papa, it is nothing," Ella insisted though the second that the words were out she felt guilty. This was definitely more than nothing; it was everything, and Louisa might have ruined their entire family's reputation. Bile rose in the back of Ella's throat just thinking about it.
"Ella, I am your father, and I demand that you give me your sister's letter!" her father said firmly.
With gritted teeth and a terrible pain in her chest, Ella handed over the letter, feeling sick to her stomach as she watched the colour draining from her father's face.
"Oh no! Oh, lord, no!" he cried, his hand flying to his mouth. "This cannot be true! It cannot be!"
Watching her father sway from side to side, Ella knew it was only a matter of time before the worst would happen.
"Papa, please, be calm." She instinctively reached for him, only catching his elbow before he stumbled sideways into a wall.
"Oh, no! Never! This cannot happen!" He cried again and trembled in Ella's arms as she tried to coax him towards his bedroom.
"Please, Papa, you must be calm," she insisted, but it was too late. Her father was wandering into full-blown hysterics, muttering and wailing and beside himself with shock and horror. And the way he clutched his chest sent a shiver of dread down Ella's spine, the likes of which she had never felt before.
Oh, Louisa, what have you done?
"Whatever is going on out here?" came her mother's voice after the clicking open of her mother's bedroom door just a few metres down the hall.
Though they were similar in age, the earl and the countess, Lady Partridge looked at least ten years younger after all of the lord’s recent illnesses, and in some cases, she had even been mistaken for the sister of her daughters rather than their mother.
But the very moment she saw her husband's state, the age started to show upon her face, her brow furrowing with several more wrinkles than had been there in the weeks before. The earl's illness had clearly taken a toll upon them both, and Ella was suddenly terrified of her mother's reaction to her sister's letter. If she were to lose both of her parents to hysterics, what would she do?
Yet, there was little that she could do, and knowing that her father needed her most right now, she grabbed the letter from his hand and shoved it at her mother. All she could do was pray that Lady Partridge did not have a similar reaction.
"Papa, please, come and sit," Ella instructed, leaving her mother only a few metres away to sit her father upon a nearby window seat that overlooked the forecourt. "Sit while I ring for one of the servants."
She hurried into her father's bedroom through the open door he had likely just come out of when she bumped into him; she grabbed the cord beside the bed and pulled again and again until certain that the servants would sense the urgency.
And even before she returned to the hallway, she could hear her mother yelling, "Help! We must have help immediately!"
The scene that welcomed her when she returned to the hallway shocked her so badly that she thought she could never wash it from her memory. Her mother stood over her father, propping him up and slapping his cheek slightly while his head lolled and his eyes rolled back in his head, leaving nothing but the whites.
"Papa!" Ella exclaimed, hurrying forwards, yet she was blocked by Alice as the butler and several other male servants hurried down the hall to jostle the earl to his chambers.
"Alice, return Lady Ella to her room, and she that she is made comfortable," Lady Partridge ordered as she followed the servants and her husband. "I must write to the Duke of Worthington immediately."
Though she was relieved that her mother appeared to have some sort of plan, Ella wasn't certain what good writing to the duke would do. Of course, he was her father's closest and most trusted friend, but even that could not protect Louisa now.
Chapter 6
Having returned home to his house in London after several morning errands, Nathaniel did not expect to find a letter awaiting him with instructions to head directly to the country. It had been a long time since he had visited the county of Nottingham, and immediately upon receiving such a letter, he had known that it must have been of the utmost importance.
Dropping everything, as the good and loyal son he was trying to be, he took a small carry trunk, leaving servants behind to pack the rest of his things. With only a note left for Arnold, Mack at his side, and a coachman to escort them to their destination, Nathaniel set off for his father’s country home, anxious to know what chaos could ensue for him to be requested back in the first place.
“I am certain all is well, My Lord,” Mack told him several times throughout the journey, though Nathaniel couldn’t help wondering. After all, he had been saying to Arnold just a day earlier, was it possible that his father was not in such good health after all?
The journey felt painfully longer than usual, and by the time he reached his father’s home, he quickly learned that the duke was nowhere in residence. At least, he could take that as a good sign. And upon asking the butler, he learned that his father was on the next estate with his good friend Lord Partridge.
“You are to meet him there posthaste, My Lord,” the butler explained with a bowing of his head and a small flushing of his cheeks as though he was slightly embarrassed to be giving such orders to the son of a duke.
This just continues to get more and more worrisome,Nathaniel thought as he and his manservant hurried from the country house and started to head down the lane that connected one estate to another.
“I am certain it can’t be anything too disastrous, My Lord,” Mack insisted again, hurrying after Nathaniel as though he was struggling to keep up. Nathaniel had to grit his teeth, determined not to yell at his man to shut up. It was clear from how he kept repeating himself that he was just as worried as the duke’s son.
Though they had journeyed all night just to get there, Nathaniel found his legs carrying him swiftly down the lane. It was an odd sensation to be walking such a track again. He hadn’t done so since his youth before heading to Scotland at just a little over ten with his father to care for an ailing grandfather.
And yet the countryside around him seemed largely unchanged with its tall hedgerows lining the lane and its fields of harvest crops and wildflowers, the landscape dotted with small outcrops of woodland here and there.
