Once a Duchess
Elizabeth Boyce
Avon, Massachusetts
This edition published by
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
Copyright © 2012 by Velva George
ISBN 10: 1-4405-5737-3
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5737-8
eISBN 10: 1-4405-5738-1
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5738-5
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © 123rf.com
For Jason. Thanks for keeping me high on support.
Acknowledgments
My heartfelt thanks to Michelle Grass and Sarah Zuba, my dear friends and tireless companions on this journey. To Catherine Milne, thanks for helping me kill the horse.
Merci
, Oasis, for cheering me on. Many thanks to the wonderful writing community of SCWW Columbia I for helping me grow from fumbling novice to published author. Particular thanks to the incomparable C. Hope Clark for your guidance and advice.
I’d like to express my appreciation to everyone at Crimson Romance, to my editors Jennifer Lawler and Julie Sturgeon, and to my fellow authors for holding my hand, calming my fears, and kicking my tootkus as needed.
Thank you, Amanda and Debbie, the world’s best sisters and sometimes ruthless beta readers.
Finally, thank you, Mom. You believed in me, and that made all the difference.
1813
Isabelle Jocelyn Fairfax Lockwood, the former Duchess of Monthwaite, knelt on the stone hearth and prodded the weak fire in the grate of her small cottage in southern Leicestershire. The flames gave a half-hearted attempt to brighten before they settled back to a feeble glow. She blew into the coals. Again, the flames briefly intensified. She held her hands out for warmth, their cracked skin pained by the January chill.
“Another bit o’ peat, do you think, Mrs. Smith?” asked Bessie, Isabelle’s lone servant and companion.
The middle-aged woman’s round cheeks were pink from cold, she noted with a pang of conscience. Bessie wore stout wool stockings under her dress, a shawl, cap, and fingerless gloves. Isabelle wore much the same; her attire was of only marginally better quality. She felt chilled, but she knew the cold did not seep into her bones the way it did Bessie’s. It wasn’t fair to make the woman suffer on account of Isabelle’s thriftiness. “Certainly.”
She rose from the hearth and picked up the dress lying across the back of a chair in the cottage’s parlor. It was a fine gown at odds with the humble abode: sky blue silk with silver embroidery down the long sleeves and around the bottom hem, and seed pearls adorning the neckline. It was a heaven of luxurious elegance, a dress fit for a duchess, and it had several small moth-eaten holes in the skirt. Isabelle had cursed under her breath when she discovered the damage this morning. She had so few nice things left to her name, she’d be damned if this dress would feed those insidious creatures.
She settled into the chair near the fire, took up needle and thread, and began carefully repairing the fabric.
“Wouldn’t you like me to do that for you, ma’am?” Bessie hovered beside her, one hand extended. “Such a lovely thing. Where’ve you been keeping it?”
Isabelle flinched inwardly. It was foolish of her to have the dress out where Bessie could see it. She ran the risk of spoiling the false identity she’d cultivated to escape notoriety. “Mrs. Smith,” the parson’s widow, had no business owning such an extravagant gown.
She should have sold it with the rest, she chided herself. Goodness knew she needed the blunt. Alexander was late with her allowance — again. The last money her brother sent in October was nearly gone.
But sentimentality had gotten the best of her. Everything she owned now was simple, serviceable, sensible. She had precious little left to remind her that she was a gentleman’s daughter and, for a short time, a noblewoman.
“No, thank you,” she said, pulling the gown against her stomach. Isabelle cast around the immaculate cottage for something to occupy the maid. “Do you have any mending of your own?” she asked.
Bessie frowned thoughtfully, deep lines marking her cheeks. “My nephew did drop off a few shirts when he brought the peat on Monday.”
“There you are.” Isabelle smiled brightly. “Go ahead and see about them.” She watched the maid disappear into her small bedchamber. The door shut.
Foolish, stupid girl,
she chided herself. If she weren’t cautious, Bessie would discover Isabelle’s true identity. The past year had passed in peaceful anonymity. Her only correspondents were her brother and her last remaining friend, Lily. They both knew to address their letters to Mrs. Jocelyn Smith.
Isabelle stroked her hand down the gown’s limp sleeve, the embroidery’s ridges a textural contrast to the slippery silk beneath. She’d never worn the dress. It was a winter gown, suited for a fête in London. That party never came.
What had come was her mother-in-law Caro, hurling accusations of adultery against Isabelle and Justin — while Isabelle was still bedridden with a broken rib.
What had come was Justin’s disappearance. She never saw or heard from her friend again after Caro came to Hamhurst.
What had come was Marshall, confused and angry. He asked her over and over whether she had betrayed him. But what was the word of his wife of only months, compared to the wisdom of the woman he’d known all his life? He believed the worst, that Isabelle was the fortune-hunting, title-hungry jezebel his mother had always known her to be.
What finally came, after months of agonizing uncertainty, was the divorce.
• • •
Isabelle stood on the walk in front of the village’s little posting office, clutching the letter from her brother. Finally, her allowance. She tore it open as she started toward the mercantile where the owner would exchange a bank draft for currency. There remained no money to purchase peat for the fireplace, nor tallow candles, or Bessie’s wages — or much food, for that matter.
With fingers aching in the cold, she unfolded the letter and blinked in surprise. Instead of a bank draft tucked inside, there were only a few lines in her brother’s hand. She stopped and read the note in the middle of the walk:
Having given the matter due consideration, I find I must discontinue my financial support. While I was obligated to look after your welfare when you were unmarried, and would be again if you were widowed and destitute, I simply cannot afford to maintain you further in your present situation. My own circumstances no longer allow for such an expense, as I’m sure you understand.
A. Fairfax
Cut off. Alexander had finally done it. She’d wondered, with her pittance of an allowance coming later and later every quarter, whether this was where it was headed. She scanned the letter again, searching for any sign of filial affection. There was none. Rather, she detected anger behind his words. Her
present situation
could only refer to her being divorced. If he truly felt no obligation to support his divorced sister, why had it taken him nearly three years to say so?
Isabelle reversed direction and trudged back to her cottage with her brother’s letter buried in the pocket of her heavy wool coat. There was nothing remotely feminine or decorous about her outerwear, but neither was there anything refined about the bitter wind that lifted last night’s snowfall from the ground in swirling clouds that stung her eyes.
The mile-long walk would not have been so burdensome if she had money in her pocket, instead of the cruel letter. Twice she lost her footing on snow-covered ice.
“All it needs is a broken ankle to complete the Gothic tragedy,” she muttered.
She passed the rest of the trip home playing out the novel in her mind: the ill-used maiden, broken in body and heart, taken to bed with consumption. The doctor shaking his head sadly. No hope for it, he’d say, nothing more to be done. Alexander, contrite, kneeling beside her bed, clutching her hand and weeping, begging her forgiveness and promising all the peat she could burn, if only she’d recover. She would turn her fevered eyes upon him, open her mouth as if to speak, and then sigh her last. Her brother would gnash his teeth, and pull out clumps of hair in his despair, cursing himself for being such a fool.
She opened the cottage door no richer, but a little lighter in spirits.
• • •
The following Saturday, a visitor arrived to alleviate the winter doldrums. Though the cottage door opened into the front hall just off the parlor, Bessie took the unnecessary step of announcing the identity of the new arrival.
“Miss Bachman to see you, Mrs. Smith.”
Isabelle was already on her feet, flinging her needlework aside to embrace her friend.
“Lily!” she exclaimed. “Whatever are you doing here?”
Lily’s abigail sidled in behind her mistress, carrying a valise. She scrutinized her surroundings with a dismayed expression on her face.
Both women sported bright pink cheeks. “Never say you walked in this inclement weather!”
“Nothing like a bracing bit of exercise to shake off a post chaise trip,” Lily said.
She divested herself of her fashionable bonnet and cloak, revealing a fetching red traveling costume. Isabelle took the items and passed them off to Bessie.
“You must be freezing,” Isabelle said. “Can I offer you some — ”
Behind Lily, Bessie emphatically shook her head. No tea.
“That is, perhaps you would care for some coff — ”
Bessie shook her head again.
Isabelle’s face burned. Oh, this was low. She silently cursed her brother and the Duke of bloody Monthwaite, but most of all, she cursed herself for being in this predicament.
Lily patted her lovely chestnut coiffure and pretended not to notice Isabelle’s discomfiture. Her brown eyes lit up.
“I just remembered.” She gestured to her maid who pulled a small wooden box from her own coat pocket and handed it to Lily. “I brought some tea. It’s a new blend I haven’t tried.” The container was about the size of her palm, and a couple inches deep. “I know you probably have your own favorite,” she said apologetically, “but if it’s not too much trouble, would you try this one with me?”
Isabelle blinked back the tears burning her eyes. Only Lily could come bearing charity and make it sound as though Isabelle would be doing her a favor by accepting.
She took the proffered gift, her fingers cradling the box. “Of course,” she said, her voice thick. “Tea, please, Bessie.” Her mouth twisted into an ironic half-smile. “In the good service.” She only had the one.
Bessie gave the faintest of curtsies and bustled off, carrying Lily’s outerwear and the tea. Isabelle directed Lily’s abigail to take her bag to Isabelle’s own bedchamber. They would have to share a room, as they’d done when they were girls.
When the maids left, Lily started to sink onto the faded couch, but Isabelle scooped her up again in a fierce hug. “Thank you,” she whispered against her friend’s ear. They sat down and Isabelle took in her friend’s lovely ensemble. “It’s so good to see you in a cheerful color,” she said kindly. “The black never suited you.”
Lily nodded. “Believe you me, you cannot be happier to see me in a color than I am to be wearing it. What an odd thing it was, to mourn a man I scarcely knew — to be a widow before I’d even wed. I’m glad the year is over, but neither do I quite look forward to being thrust onto the marriage mart. My whole life, I never had to wonder who I’d marry; I always knew. But now my future husband is an enigma. Which makes me like every other female in England, I suppose,” she finished matter-of-factly.
Isabelle smiled sympathetically. Through the designs of all parents involved, Lily had been born with her wedding date already set. She was to marry her betrothed the first of June, 1811, when she was twenty years of age. January of that year, however, Ensign Charles Handford and the rest of the Nineteenth Lancers were sent to reinforce Wellington’s Peninsular force. Charles didn’t make it home for the summer wedding, and in November 1811, he’d been killed in battle. Isabelle knew her dear friend did not truly grieve him, but neither was she glad to have escaped the match at the cost of the groom’s life.