The Rusticated Duchess (42 page)

As expected, broken by months in the Tower, Troutwell had said all he knew and boarded a ship for the Caribbean. Winchester had been heavily in debt to him, but the earl had no way to repay, and Troutwell was hardly destitute.

Winchester had appeared in Court, a broken man who raged incoherently about justice and privilege. For years he’d apparently used a blend of snuff and opium to bring sharpness to his mind—denied it while imprisoned, he had nearly gone mad. In the end, Gloria knew, he’d live out his life in an asylum, confined to a tiny room.

“Your mind is wandering, Glory,” Jeremy intruded, chuckling as his hands tangled meaningfully in her golden locks.

Gloria smiled, squirmed in his arms in reaction, and set herself to loving his attentive mouth.

The word stopped her, held her still. Was that what she was doing?

Jeremy had moved one of his hands to fondle her bottom, plunging his thumb inside her sheath and slowly thrusting it back and forth.

“I love you, Glory,” he whispered.

Sharp emotion sat her up in the bed, and her heart pounded. She blinked back tears, but Jeremy wiped away the wetness and he put his finger to his lip and kissed it.

“No one has ever said that to me before,” she eventually confessed.

“Then it is about time, don’t you think?” he asked.

She nodded. Burying her head in his shoulder, Gloria mumbled so that he couldn’t hear her.

Jeremy laughed and adjusted them so that she was tucked against his side and shoulder, where he could stroke her hair and kiss her forehead. “I know you do,” he responded. “I know you do, too. And someday you will return my words as openly as you return my regard.”

A half-laugh escaped her, but then she lifted her head and stared at him. “Someday I will,” she agreed softly. “Someday I will.”

Also available from Total-E-Bound Publishing:

The Misbegotten Misses: The Outcast Earl

Elle Q. Sabine

Excerpt

Chapter One

October 1822

Suppressing another futile bout of anger, Abigail stared out of the window of the carriage, contemplating the dreary landscape. It was tedious progress, particularly given the crosswind blowing against the horses and the heavy old coach. Above her, Abigail knew, the coachman and her maid had been sitting on the box for hours under a light, cold rain. By now, they must be miserably chilled, but no one had spoken of stopping. Indeed, the outriders from Meriden Park, riding both in front and behind them, urged them on with what seemed relentless patience. Through the mud-splattered windows of the carriage, Abigail could see their horses were caked with mud, while the riders pulled their hats low over their heads and covered their faces.

The company would, Abigail decided, make a perfect portrait of her mood when she finally arrived.

On the bench seat opposite, Aunt Betsy stirred from her nap and sat up, blinking. Aunt Betsy—Lady Arlington—was a dear soul once one accepted her perspicacity, but often she was too flamboyant and outspoken for good taste. Today, her travelling gown was a florid pink edged with large scallops of red lace. The matching cloak was woollen—though the same tawdry hue—with red trim. Even her red bonnet, with its pink ribbons, feathers and ruffles, matched the appalling display. Abigail couldn’t help but smile every time she looked in Aunt Betsy’s direction.

Aunt Betsy struggled to resettle her spectacles on her nose before adjusting her bonnet over her old-fashioned wig of grey curls. A frown that wrinkled the corners of her eyes and her lower chin pursed the lady’s lips.

“I am simply appalled at your father’s behaviour!” she fussed, glaring out of the window at the dim landscape of grey pasture that seemed desolate in the late twilight. “One would have thought he would have found a way to be here—and better sense than to contract you to an arranged marriage at all. The entire affair is a travesty.”

One of the few remaining luxuries of the ancient trap they were in was that it did not leak. Abigail gave a silent word of thanks for the mercy and smoothed the blanket that covered her layers of stockings, petticoats, gown and pelisse.

She couldn’t envision any profit from pursuing the discussion yet again. It would only infuriate both of them, as it had every day—every hour—since her father had called Abigail to his study a week earlier, a drawn but determined look on his face. “We should be close to Meriden Park,” she said evenly, determined not to rise to her aunt’s bait. From the comments Aunt Betsy had littered along their two-day route, it was obvious that Abigail’s father had not shared the same reasons for the match with his sister as he had with his daughter.

The elder woman snorted. “I thought you had more gumption than this, girl,” she scolded again, retrieving her cane from the bench seat and rapping it against the upholstered cushions. “You might not be the prettiest of the four girls, or even the smartest, but I always liked you the best. I must say, I’m disappointed in you this time.”

Abigail considered a repressive glare in the manner of her mother, but refrained. Visibly, she tightened her lips and calmly removed her gloves to examine her fingers. Long years of familiarity with Aunt Betsy, and constant reminders from her mother, were enough to prevent any vocal response to her aunt’s jousting.

Abigail’s nails were prettily cut and her fingers well-formed and soft, with only a hint of use along the edges of her two middle fingers on each hand. She mercilessly scrubbed and treated them each and every day to maintain the illusion of fashionable uselessness that her mother deemed compulsory.

Still, Abigail was unable to ignore her aunt’s words. “Of course, Fiona is the brightest of the four of us,” she finally ventured, “and Genevieve is the prettiest.” She paused for a moment, and continued gently, “And I do think Gloria is the most…” She paused, refrained from uttering the word ‘ambitious’, and finished, “Capable in society.”

“One generally would have considered her marital prospects to be excellent, were she not so set on that poor example of a man,” her aunt replied pertly, then grimaced.

“Most would consider marriage to the heir apparent of a duke to be something to celebrate,” Abigail acknowledged a bit pointedly. “Your standards aren’t exactly the ones embraced by most of society.” Privately, Abigail agreed with her aunt. Despite the title and all its inherent benefits, the man in question was no more than a drunk, prone to violence and public foolishness.

“I don’t understand,” Aunt Betsy sighed, less indignantly but with more resignation. “And at this point it seems apparent neither you nor Gloria will confide in me.”

Abigail considered, but shook her head. “It is Papa’s prerogative, if he so wishes, to explain this fiasco in which I find myself.”

Her aunt frowned again. “I offered him money, you know,” she grumped, then rapped her cane again, her voice rising in indignation as she went on. “Fool man wouldn’t take it. Said the engagement was already announced. Said he wouldn’t take a pound from me anyway. Your father is nothing if not a proud—”

Aunt Betsy didn’t have the opportunity to issue her last, damning injunction. The word was ripped into a screech as the carriage lurched dangerously and began to list sideways. Abigail, seeing the woman collapse forward, lunged across the carriage and blocked the door even as the coach landed with a vicious jolt on its side. A terrible vision of the catch breaking and the door opening to spill them both into the road and ditch gave her the extra determination to hold desperately onto the seat when Aunt Betsy fell senseless onto her.

The men above were shouting at one another as the horses screamed into the late evening air. As if on cue, Abigail heard the light patter turn into heavier rain and the natural light in the coach dimmed to near darkness. On top of her, Betsy lay still, but with some relief Abigail heard her breathing in shallow gasps.

“Aunt Betsy?” she whispered softly, aware now of the scramble outside the coach. A pistol shot—unexpected—made her heart leap but, with it, the screaming horse was relieved of its pain, and Abigail breathed again cautiously. “Are you all right?” She reached around the older lady and found what she guessed to be the cause of the woman’s unconsciousness—a sticky, swelling wound on the back of Aunt Betsy’s scalp.

Abigail knew immediately that her hand was covered in blood.

There was no question of moving Betsy off her. Aunt Betsy was a healthy, robust woman old enough to no longer be concerned about her figure. Abigail simply wasn’t strong enough, and there was nowhere in the cramped, upside-down cavern of the carriage to move her. Above them, past the long, black, leather-covered benches, a window framed in black wood looked out to the darkening sky. Betsy’s cane lay off to the side, obviously cracked, and Abigail wondered if the falling stick was at fault for Betsy’s injured head.

With a grunt, Abigail continued to hold her hand against the wound, reminding herself that head wounds bled heavily. With her other hand, she managed to rip some of the fabric from her thin, innermost petticoat and move it to press against Aunt Betsy’s head. Pressure, she knew, was the best help she could provide right now.

To Abigail’s dismay, rain began to drip from the window latch down onto Aunt Betsy’s woollen pelisse.

Coachman John, his hood over his face, appeared a few seconds later at the window above them, a lamp in hand, which he shone down onto the pair. His face creased with worry and pain as he realised Abigail’s dilemma and the condition of his mistress.

Abigail called up to him, “She’s breathing but unconscious, I think. Hit her head—she’s bleeding quite a bit.”

He nodded, pointed to the sky and called some comment to the other men. He pointed to Abigail.

Focusing, Abigail mentally ran down her body from head to ankle, squirming as she shifted the bones and muscles in her arms and her back. When Abigail stretched her calves, then her ankles, she immediately wished she had remained motionless. “My ankle!” she called, despairing. “I’ve injured it somehow!”

John’s creased lines turned to a definite frown. “M’lady,” he shouted through the glass, “I’m going to try to open the window!”

The coachman struggled with the latch. When he forced it open, a draught of cold air blew in and Abigail shuddered. Water dripped onto her skirts where her pelisse was askew from the accident. “Those outriders we met up with in Northampton have gone for help. We can see the turn into the Park’s front lane, m’lady, so help shouldn’t be long in coming. But there’s no way we can move this heap upright and rescue you without more men!”

Abigail sighed and nodded, moving her head back to rest against the pane of glass under her head. Although miraculously unbroken, the glass was cold, and had apparently moved out of its frame. It, too, was beginning to leak and Abigail could feel rivulets of cold water slipping beneath the curve of her shoulder so that her gown, once comfortably cosy, was quickly turning into a clammy, cold costume. Above her, John slammed the window closed and shut out the remaining daylight that had provided Abigail with a connection to the world by stretching a length of oilcloth over the glass.

Grateful that John was trying to keep them as dry as possible, Abigail struggled to keep from thinking of the pain in her ankle or of the unconscious woman pressing her into an increasingly cold, wet position. With a wry groan at what seemed like the opening of a cheap Gothic novel, she even determined to put her would-be rescuers—and her future—from her mind.

She knew without thinking that John had done the best he could. Aunt Betsy had volunteered him to drive her father’s old travelling coach north, so that the de Rothesay coachman could continue the customary round of social outings Abigail’s mother and sisters daily required in the elegantly styled town landau.

Abigail’s father had agreed, so the old vehicle had been pulled from the back of the carriage house in the mews and meticulously cleaned. Still, nothing except complete refurbishment would have been able to conceal the age and wear on the old equipage.

Abigail had seen John inspecting the undercarriage at earlier stops and making small adjustments. He’d said nothing critical, naturally, but after they’d left Northampton with the two mounted footmen from Meriden Park, he’d driven more carefully than he had before. It had slowed the day’s progress, the tedium further exacerbated by the weather.

Still, the rain and roads could have been at fault instead of the coach. Not that it really mattered now.

Abigail could feel her heart beating against Betsy’s elbow. Stilling completely, she moved her free hand—the one not putting pressure on Betsy’s wound—to her aunt’s chest, taking comfort in the regular rhythm of its beat. Although she didn’t know for sure, Abigail surmised that a strong, regular heartbeat had to be better than a frantic or faint one. It was certainly better than none at all.

All she could do was wait to be rescued by a man she’d never met. Thinking about him—about her bigger dilemma—simply made the present situation more untenable. Thinking about her lost dreams, her secret desires and lost intentions now ruthlessly set aside and best forgotten, was too painful. She had to hold herself together, so as not to cry. To not think about the pain in her ankle, or her confused sisters and melancholy mother.

Abigail had to be strong, and she was
good
at being strong, responsible, reliable, practical, sensible. ‘Helpful’, they called her. The words filtered through her brain as she reminded herself of all that her sisters had said of her. At that moment, she didn’t feel so very helpful. She felt helpless, actually. So she stared up into the blackness and tried with all her might to not think of weddings, or brooding, moody men, or grieving family members. It was better, she decided wearily, not to think of anything at all.