Duke of Haverford

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Tea with an apologetic duchess

The following excerpt is from a Christmas special I wrote about the mend in the breach between Haverford and his mother. It was a made-for-newsletter-subscribers story called Christmas at Hollystone Hall (password is in two-monthly newsletter). Another version of the same scene is told from Eleanor’s perspective in Paradise Triptych.

It was the day before Christmas, and the incessant rain had let up long enough for an expedition to bring in the greenery for decorating, and the windfallen log that had been marked as a Yule log for the massive fireplace in the great hall.

Four wagons set out for the woods, each driven by one of the party’s gentlemen, with the littlest children riding in the tray watched by various of the older sisters and mothers, and everyone else tramping along beside.

Haverford drove one of those conveyances known as a break, inviting anyone who did not want to walk or sit on the floor of the wagons to take their place in one of the long benches behind him, but found himself travelling alone.  No matter. The wagons would be full on the return trip, and the break would come in handy for the little ones.

Groundsmen, grooms, and footmen trailed the party, ready to lend a hand with the heavier hauling, but—for the most part—the family planned to collect their own raw materials for the garlands and other decorations they planned.

The woods were beyond the water gardens and up a small rise. Each wagon took a different turn from the main track, and Haverford carried on to the central clearing, where servants had started a fire and set up blankets and cushions for those who needed a rest from their excursions. Maids were already unpacking refreshments, and footmen hurried to the back of the break to offload the steaming kettles of hot chocolate, coffee and two different kinds of punch, with and without alcohol.

Haverford left them setting the kettles near the fire to stay warm and followed the sound of voices to join in the fun. Before he reached the main crowd, however, he encountered his mother, lifting Nate’s sister, little Lavinia, up into a tree to reach for a pine cone, while one of Lechton’s daughters, Millicent, held onto Mama’s gown and watched.

“Do you need help, Lavie?” Haverford asked.

Mama started. “Haverford! I didn’t see you there. The little girls wanted to help, and I remembered that last year some of the trees along here had pine cones under them, but the only ones I can see are still on the branches.”

“There are some further along, the way I came,” Haverford told her. He reached up and took Lavie’s hand, guiding her to push the cone up so that it detached from the branch. It evaded her snatch at it and plummeted into the undergrowth, and Millicent let go of Mama and dived in after it, emerging triumphant with it in her hand.

Mama lowered Lavie to the ground, saying, “The two of you make a good team.” She darted a glance at Haverford. “Perhaps I should take them back to the others.”

She wouldn’t meet his eyes. Cherry was right. He had to fix this, or at least try.

“They know the little girls are safe with you,” he said. “Bring them this way, Mama, and they will be able to fill their basket with cones to paint.”

Lavie sealed Mama’s fate by slipping her hand into Haverford’s. He would have taken Millicent’s hand, too, except she was shy of him. Besides, that would leave Mama carrying the basket, which was hardly gentlemanly. He picked it up and led the way to a small cluster of fir trees of different kinds, with cones scattered on the nearly clear ground beneath.

Mama would have helped the little girls who were scurrying to and fro, picking up all the cones they could find, but Haverford said, “Mama. A word, if I may.”

She stopped, and the anxiety in her eyes had him hiding a wince as he added, “Would you meet with me in private when we get back to the house? I think we need to talk.”

She inclined her head, her social mask firmly in place and her eyes opaque. He had learned the skill from her—to hide his feelings behind a bland and unreadable exterior, but neither of them treated family to that distancing. Given the situation between them, he had no right to feel bereaved at her shutting him out.

Cherry would remind him that his armour was most impenetrable when he felt most threatened. Doubtless, Mama was the same. “Nothing too terrible, Mama. Even if I had stopped loving you, which I haven’t, I wouldn’t want to upset Cherry.”

She gave him the ghost of a smile. “The pair of you are good together,” she acknowledged, then turned her attention to Lavie, who had dropped her side of the basket so that all the cones the little girls had picked spilled onto the ground.

Haverford crouched to help pick them up, while Mama soothed the wailing child.

The afternoon had been set aside to create and put up the decorations. The foliage and other items they had collected was spread out on tables in the ballroom, where it would be formed into garlands, wreaths, and kissing balls decorated with ribbons and paper chains and flowers that the ladies had unearthed from previous Christmases or made from their own supplies.

Mama was seated with a flock of girls, watching them dip pine cones into paint and set them to dry. Haverford beckoned to her, and she murmured a word or two to Jessica, who was helping her and the girls.

He took her to the library, to a chair near the desk he’d taken over for the work that followed him everywhere. He was neglecting it today, but it wasn’t going to go away. He’d get back to it after Christmas.

As he settled in his own chair, and before he could pour her tea from the waiting tray and start his prepared speech, Mama spoke. “Haverford, I have apologised for interfering between you and Cherry, but I would like to do so again. I have known all along that I was wrong to go privately to Cherry as I did. You are adults, and I should have said what I thought to both of you and trusted you to make your own decision. I am truly sorry for the distress I caused you.”

Haverford opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Mama put up a hand to stop him. “I have a second apology to make, Haverford. Watching you and Cherry together in the past week shows me that I was wrong again—wrong to believe that your love for Cherry was less deep than hers for you. Wrong to think that you would fall out of love once you had achieved your prize. All I ever wanted was for both of you to be happy. You are perfect for one another, and I shudder to think how close I came to preventing that happiness.”

Mama had rendered him speechless, taking all the best lines from what he had been about to say to her. All he had left to say was, “Thank you, Mama.”

“I will never interfere again,” Mama promised, then, with a slight frown, “or, at least, I will try my very best.”

Haverford smiled at the thought of his managing mother keeping her fingers out of any situation she thought she could improve. “I shall not ask such a sacrifice, Mama. Both Cherry and her mother have pointed out what a marvellous gift you have for interfering, as you call it. All I ask is that you consult us first on any plans you have that involve us and don’t proceed without our agreement.”

Mama had tears in her eyes. “I can promise that,” she agreed.

Cherry had been right to push him to reconcile. All his irritation had melted away. “Tea, Mama?” he asked.

They enjoyed a peaceful cup of tea, and the kind of conversation he had so enjoyed in the past, ranging far and wide on topics as diverse as family, the corn tax, and the Luddites.

“Come on, Mama,” he said, when her cup was empty, “We have a house to decorate.”

He offered her his hand to help her rise, and his elbow to escort her back to the ballroom, just in time to see a footman moving a ladder away from the arched doorway. A kissing ball hung in the middle of the arch. Cherry stood looking up at it, and she glanced their way and smiled to see them together.

Haverford put his arm around his mother, reached up for a mistletoe berry, and pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek. “I love you, Mama,” he told her. “Merry Christmas.”

She patted the side of his face, the tears welling again. “It will be,” she agreed. “I love you, Haver… I wonder, would it be a great impertinence of me to call you Anthony, as Cherry does?”

“I would like that, very much,” Haverford assured her, blinking back a little moisture of his own. The candles must be smoking.

She patted his cheek again, then reached out to Cherry, who was beaming at them. “Here, Anthony. You would be better off kissing your wife than your old mother.”

Haverford thought both was better still, but he was certainly glad to follow up his peace-making kiss to his mother with one of gratitude and jubilation shared with Cherry. He drew her into his arms, and sank into one of their soul-moving kisses, while around them the family stopped what they were doing to applaud, laugh, cheer or jest, according to their natures.

It was, indeed, going to be a very Merry Christmas.

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Tea with Eleanor: Paradise Lost Episode 4

Chapter Two

Haverford House, London, April 1812

Eleanor had seen James—the Earl of Sutton, she supposed she must call him. Not that she would have a chance to call him anything. The Duke of Haverford had ordered his household and his dependents and allies to cut the entire Winshire family, and to refuse to attend entertainments where they were present.

Eleanor would have to make do with the glimpse last night at the Farningham ball. She had looked up when the room fell silent, and there he stood on the stairs, surrounded by members of his family, whom she barely noticed. James looked wonderful. More than thirty years had passed, and no person on earth would call him a fribble or useless now. He had been a king somewhere in Central Asia, and wore his authority like an invisible garment. And he was still as handsome as he had been in his twenties.

Eleanor caught herself sighing over James like a silly gosling. Silly, because women did not age as well as men, as the whole world knew. She no longer had the slender waist of a maiden, her hair was beginning to grey, and her face showed the lines her mother swore she would avoid if she never smiled, laughed, frowned, or showed any other emotion. Of course, she had not followed her mother’s instruction, but those who had were no less lined than Eleanor, as far as she could see.

Besides, she was a married woman, and he was a virtuous man who had, by all accounts, deeply loved his wife. Even if he was willing and she was a widow, she would never take a lover. Somewhere within her might lurk the monster that was consuming her husband. Perhaps not. According to the physician, she had a better than even chance. But she would not know until she was sick, or until she was on her deathbed and still clean of the dreadful thing.

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Haverford Castle, East Kent, 1784

The Duke of Haverford did not bother with greetings or enquiries about Eleanor’s health. He flung open the door without knocking and marched into Eleanor’s sitting room, saying, “What is it, duchess? I have a great deal to do today.”

Inwardly, Eleanor quailed as he stood over her, threat in every line of his posture.  Unlike her father, he had never beaten her in cold blood, but she had every reason to fear his temper.

But fear would not serve her here. She was fighting for her life and for the wellbeing of her son. She maintained an outward semblance of calm and gestured to a chair. “Will you not be seated, Your Grace? As I said in my note, I have an important matter to discuss with you.”

Haverford grumbled, but sat; even accepted a cup of tea. The delicate porcelain cup might not survive the next few minutes, but its sacrifice was a small price to pay for giving the discussion a façade of normality.

As she’d hoped, the good manners drilled into every English gentleman in the presence of a lady, even his wife, kept the duke sitting during the ritual of preparing the cup, but he burst out as soon as he accepted it from his wife’s hand. “Well, duchess?”

Eleanor prepared her own cup, glad to have a reason not to look at him as she spoke. “Your Grace, you will be aware that I have been very ill this past six weeks. It is, indeed, why I removed myself to Haverford Castle.”

“Yes, yes. And I’m glad to see you much improved, madam. I have need of you in London.” He condescended to provide an explanation. “The bill I am sponsoring—those idiots who will not listen are much easier to convince after you’ve given them one of your excellent meals, and invited their wives and daughters to your soirees. How soon can you be ready to travel?”

What an excellent opening. “I can pack tomorrow and leave for London the day after, Your Grace.”

Haverford smiled. “Excellent, excellent.” He put the cup down, shifting as if to stand.

“If I do not have a relapse,” Eleanor added.

Haverford sank back into his chair, frowning.

Now to get to the meat of the matter. Eleanor grasped hold of her dwindling supply of courage with both hands. This is about saving Aldridge. The situation in the nursery was fit to ruin him. His attendants had always indulged his every whim, egged on by the duke, who considered himself to be the only person the infant marquis needed to obey. Eleanor’s frequent visits and threats of dismissal allowed him to be raised with some sense of structure and decorum. He knew she would not tolerate rudeness or temper, to her or to his nurses and the maids.

After spending four weeks too sick to leave her bed, she found the nursery in disarray, the young heir ruling the roost. He was in a wild tantrum when she arrived, and the next hour left her drooping with fatigue, and she still had to hunt down the boy’s missing head nurse and find out why she had allowed such chaos to reign.

The memory prompted her to deal with the minor issue first. “Your affair with Aldridge’s nurse, Your Grace.”

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The villain of the piece on Work in Progress Wednesday

This week’s challenge is to post an excerpt with your villain. I’m looking for his entry onto the stage; as always, just post your piece into the comments.

I’ve been rethinking To Wed a Proper Lady. It had mired in the last third, and I needed to take a step back. I’ve now done a hero’s journey chart for both protagonists, and mapped the overarching plot line for the series, and one of the things I’ve decided is to introduce my series villain early on. He has been lurking in the background of a number of my books, but it is in Children of the Mountain King that he steps up into the key negative protagonist role. He dies somewhere before the fifth book, but the nastiness he foments isn’t all solved till the end of the sixth.

The Duke of Haverford had been at the ball for nearly two hours, which was unusual enough to catch Sophia Belvoir’s attention. He’d been attending more events in polite Society than usual this Season, the first for two of the duchess’s wards, but this was the first time Sophia had known him to stay beyond the first half hour

He was strolling through the crowded reception rooms, stopping from time to time for a brief conversation, then moving on. After a while, a pattern emerged: all the people he stopped were men, peers, and members of the loose political group that voted with Haverford in the House of Lords. What was his Grace of Haverford campaigning for now?

The Earl of Hamner asked Sophia to dance. She was sought as a partner by husbands and confirmed bachelors who wished to dance without giving rise to gossip or expectations. Twice-betrothed, she was clearly not a wallflower. Twice-bereaved, she was nearly, but not quite, a widow. The never-wed sister of a protective earl, she was off-limits for seduction, but at twenty-five she was too old to expect a proposal of marriage. Being outside the expected categories for high-born females was a sort of freedom, she had discovered.

When Hamner returned her to the matrons with whom she’d made her debut, she was the only one not to blush and turn away as Haverford paused in front on them. His attention was on Hamner, another of his acolytes, and not on the ladies, but they fluttered as if a fox had strolled into the dovecote.

Not far from the truth, though if the elderly rakehell was on the hunt tonight, it was for naïve politicians and not the young wives of other men.

Sophia, protected by her virgin status and her relationship with the evil old man’s wife, curtseyed and said, “Good evening, Your Grace.” He cast a wintery eye in her direction. He had no time for women who did not conform to his expectations, and she was surprised even to receive a stiff nod. “Lady Sophia.” She had heard the man had charm; had even seen him executing it. Clearly the elderly spinster sister of the Earl of Hythe did not warrant his further attention. “Hamner, a word, if you please.”

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Tea with Aldridge

 

Aldridge paced the room, not able to keep still for a moment, his body expressing the agitation his face refused to display. “He is getting worse, Mama. Whether it would have happened anyway, or whether the arrival of Sutton lit the flame, he lives on the point of explosion.”

“I know, my dear.” She knew better than Aldridge, in fact. Despite the long estrangement between her and her husband, they nonetheless lived in the same house, attended some of the same social gatherings, worked side-by-side for the same political causes. Aldridge kept largely to his own wing when he was under the same roof as his parents, which was increasingly rare. He managed all the vast business of the duchy, but Haverford had long since let go those reins to the extent that his only association with Aldridge tended to be through the bills and notes of hand that arrived regularly to be paid.

Aldridge thumped the mantlepiece. “This latest start… if word gets out that Haverford was behind the attack on Sutton and his family, it will be a disaster. Sutton would be well within his rights to demand Haverford’s trial for attempted murder. This family is no stranger to scandal, Mama, and there’s no doubt in my mind His Grace deserves to be hanged, silken noose or not, but…”

Eleanor’s distress was such she found herself chewing her lip. “Thank God no one was seriously hurt.”

“Thank Sutton and his sons for their warrior-craft, and me for finding out in time to send a rescue.” Aldridge heaved a deep sigh and took another fast turn around the carpet. “He intended murder, Mama, and when I confronted him with it, he laughed and said he did it for England. He has gone too far, Mama. If he is found out, he puts us all at risk. What if the Regent decides to regard a murder attempt on another peer as treason?”

Eleanor had not considered that possibility. The title could be attained, the lineage considered corrupt. Aldridge had worked for years to rebuild the wealth of the duchy after his father’s mismanagement. He could lose it all, including the title, and the Prince would be delighted to benefit.

Haverford had become more and more erratic as the year progressed. He insulted and alarmed other people at every event he attended, completely ignoring social conventions and saying whatever he thought, often using the foulest of language. Thankfully, he was showing less and less inclination to go into Polite Society. Even so, the duchess frequently needed to use all her considerable tact and diplomacy to soothe ruffled feathers and quiet the gossip that claimed the duke was going mad.

“He is going mad,” she acknowledged to her son, the one person in the world who could be trusted with the knowledge. “It is the French Disease, I am sure. It is rotting his brain.”

“We cannot bring in doctors to examine him, Mama. Who knows what would come of that; what he would say and who they would tell? He cannot be allowed to continue, however.”

Eleanor frowned. It was a conundrum. Who could prevent a duke from doing whatever he pleased?

Aldridge, apparently. “I have made arrangements. He has been persuaded to travel to Haverford Castle. When he arrives, trusted servants know to keep him there. He will be comfortable, Mama. I have arranged for him to be entertained, and have nurses on hand in case he needs them. The disease will kill him in the next year or two, probably, and he is likely to be bedridden long before the end.”

He was brave, her son. He was breaking the laws of God and man in showing such disobedience to his father and a peer of the realm. She was sure God would understand, but the Courts might not. She would not ask about the entertainment Aldridge had provided. Knowing Haverford as she did, she did not want to know details. “He must never be set free,” she concluded. Should anyone find out he was insane, the scandal would be enormous. Worse still for Aldridge.

“Never,” Aldridge agreed. “My instructions are to keep him from understanding he is imprisoned for as long as possible. With luck, the confusion in his mind will prevent him from ever working it out. I needed you to know, Mama, for two reasons. First, we need a story for the ton. Second, if anything happens to me, it will be for you to keep him confined until Jon returns to be heir in my place.”

“I hope dear Jonathan comes home soon, Aldridge. I miss my son. But do not speak of your demise, my dear. I could not bear it.”

Aldridge stopped beside her and bent to kiss her forehead. “You are the strongest woman I know, dearest. Fret not. I am careful, and I intend to live to grow old.”

Eleanor hoped so. She certainly hoped so.

 

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Make ’em laugh, make ’em cry – emotional scenes on WIP Wednesday

Never Kiss a Toad is set at the beginning of the Railway Age

Never Kiss a Toad is set at the beginning of the Railway Age

It’s our job to pull our readers out of their world and into the one we’ve created: to, as I say above, thrill, intrigue, and delight. In this week’s work in progress Wednesday, your challenge is to find me a scene that provokes a strong emotion in your readers: laughter, sorrow, fear. You choose.

I’ve chosen one from Never Kiss a Toad. This is a tender moment between Sally and her father, one that ends all too soon. Does it work?

“Can you spare a minute for your Papa, Sally?” he asked.

“Of course.” She followed him through to his study.

“You always seem to be hurrying somewhere, sweetheart,” he said. “I miss having my little princess curled up in a chair in my study, keeping me company.”

It was true, she realised. Before her debut, she had sought her father out whenever she could escape the schoolroom. Since she came out… “I have so much on, Papa,” she said. But it was Toad’s exile that came between them, even more since her father began believing lies about him. They were lies. They had to be lies.

Papa smiled, sadly. When had the last of his hair faded to grey? “I know, my love. You are very popular. If a sennight goes by and I do not receive an application for your hand, I know to expect two the following week. Am I to expect a visit from Lord Elfingham? He would make a fine husband, Sally.”

She suppressed a surge of fury. Papa should know that she waited for one proposal, and one only. Would he even tell her if it came? No. That was unfair. Papa had said from the beginning that he would not choose her husband, but would allow her to make the decision.

“He will make Henry a fine husband, Papa, when her mourning is over. If she will accept him. She has this notion that she is not fit to be a duchess because of her mother’s… Um.” Oh dear. She had not meant to discuss that with Papa of all people.

“Henrietta, is it? I hoped it was you, Sally.”

“We decided early on that we would not suit, Papa. It has always been Henry for Elf.” And Toad for Sally.

“You shall be nineteen soon, sweetheart. What would you like for your birthday?”

“Toad to be allowed home.” She had not meant to say that out loud. Her father flinched as if she had hit him, and his eyes, before he hid them by turning away, were pools of pain.

“I know you miss your childhood friend, my darling, but he… He is not as you remember him. If he came back you would suffer for it, and neither his parents or yours are prepared to risk that.”

“You say that, Papa, but you will not tell me how he has changed. You won’t give me any real reasons. And I do not believe it, Papa. Someone has been telling you lies. I know him, and I know you are wrong.”

He had his face shuttered again when he turned back to her, the cold ducal mien that she never used to see before the day it all changed. “You must trust that we know what is best for you, Sarah.