Tolly Fitz-Grenford

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Tea with Eleanor: Paradise Lost Episode 9

Tolly blinked. Clearly, that was not what he expected.

“Blackmail?” he stuttered in response. “Is he… Has he…”.

Eleanor pursed her lips, considering how much to tell him, then nodded decisively. “I shall be frank, Tolly. You shall not be shocked, for you know the duke even better than I do, in some ways. Some time ago, when he gave me a loathsome disease he picked up from one of his intimate companions, you helped me broker an agreement with him. He intends to repudiate the agreement. I intend to prevent him from doing so.”

Tolly was reduced to stammering again. “I am sorry, Eleanor.”

Eleanor waved off his commiserations. “I need to a truce with him, Tolly, for he has the power to keep my children from me. I wish to live apart, but in the same house. Will you find me the ammunition to bend him to my will?”

Tolly sat back. She knew he admired her. Would he be willing to fight the duke for her? It would not be easy. The Duke of Haverford was one of the most powerful men in the country. He feared little and was embarrassed by nothing.

She was relieved when he said, “I think I may be able to help, Eleanor. I have a couple of ideas.”

Eleanor’s smile broadened. “I have in mind to be a proper mother to my children; one who spends time with them as real mothers do, and also to do good for others with my position and my wealth. I can build a good life, Tolly, if I can just keep Haverford at arms’ length.”

Tolly narrowed his eyes as he thought. “I shall investigate, Eleanor. He will have secrets that will embarrass even him. I will find them for you.”

“Thank you, Tolly.”

He gave her a distracted smile as he continued to list strategies. “Entertainments,” he said. “Eleanor, build alliances with the other great ladies of the ton and become a formidable hostess. You have it in you. If you have the support of the ladies, Haverford will have to think twice about acting against you.”

Perfect! She knew he would be the right person to talk to. “And if I continue to host his political cronies and support his public life, he will have far less objection to my removing myself from his private one.”

“You will have to fight him for influence over Aldridge,” Tolly warned.

“I know,” Eleanor agreed. “But I have an advantage there, my friend. I have never bullied or beaten my son.” She lifted her cup as if it was filled with port or brandy rather than tea. “To my freedom, Tolly.”

He grinned and returned the salute. “To your freedom.”

Haverford House, London, July 1812

She had been free, too; as much as a woman could be when married to the Duke of Haverford. She had been cautious about using the information that Tolly brought her. Haverford in a rage would ignore his own best interests, and any scandal would hurt her children and her other protegees as well as him. But usually, she had been able to live as she pleased.

She had considerable freedom, the opportunity to help others, and her children—what more could any woman expect?

At the firm rap on her door, she tucked the cloth rabbit away, slid the hidden compartment back into place and moved the panels to return the escritoire to its normal appearance. She knew that knock. “Enter,” she called.

As expected, the visitor was Aldridge. Also as expected. He had been coming to her to be calmed after he’d worked himself into a fury since he was a little boy.

“Brandy, rather than tea, I think, my dear,” she said to him. She was so proud of her son. In the silent battle for Aldridge’s spirit, Haverford had done some damage, but the young marquis still retained his kindness and his innate decency. Eleanor was grateful for that.

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Tea with Eleanor: Paradise Lost Episode 8

Chapter Four

Haverford House, London, June 1812

Eleanor had withdrawn to her private sitting room, driven there by His Grace’s shouting. Her son, the Marquis of Aldridge, was as angry as she had ever seen him, his face white and rigid and his eyes blazing, but he kept his voice low; had even warned the duke about shouting.

“Let us not entertain the servants, Your Grace, with evidence of your villainy.”

Unsurprisingly, the duke had taken exception to the cutting words and had shouted even louder.

Could it be true? Had Haverford paid an assassin to kill the sons of the man he insisted as seeing as his rival? An assassin with a pistol in the woods who had been caught before he could carry out his wicked commission.

His Grace’s jealousy made no sense. Yes, James was back in England, but what did that matter to Haverford?

He had been furious when James and his family attended their first ball, and beside himself with rage when Society refused to accept that the prodigal returned was an imposter. She expected him to continue to attack the new Earl of Sutton with words. Even his petition to the House of Lords to have James’s marriage declared invalid and his children base-born was typical of Haverford. But to pay for an assassin?

He had failed. She would hold onto that. And Aldridge was more than capable of holding his own.

As she sat there with her tea tray, sheltering from the anger of her menfolk, she gave thanks that her son had not been ruined by his father’s dictates over how he should be raised. She had been able to mitigate some of the damage, but more than that, his younger brother Jonathan and his older half-brother David had been his salvation, giving him the confidence that he was loved and the awareness that he was not the centre of the entire world.

Aldridge’s fundamentally loving nature helped, too. He was a rake, but not in his father’s mould. Rather, he loved and respected women, even if he did treat them according to the stupid conventions applied to aristocratic males. And he was a good son.

Putting down her tea, she fetched a little box of keepsakes from her hidden cupboard. The fan her long dead brother had given her before her first ball. A small bundle of musical scores, that recalled pleasant evenings in her all too brief Season. Aldridge’s cloth rabbit. She had retrieved it when Haverford had ordered it destroyed, saying his son was a future duke and should not be coddled. Aldridge had been eight months’ old. Anthony George Bartholomew Philip Grenford, his full name was, but he had been born heir to his father, and therefore Marquis of Aldridge, and by Haverford’s decree no one, not even Eleanor, called him by anything but his title.

Even so, the cloth rabbit had not been the first time she secretly defied her husband. She had been sneaking up to the nursery since Aldridge was born, despite the duke’s proclamation that ladies of her rank had their babies presented to them once a day, washed, sweetly smelling and well behaved, and handing the infants back to their attendants if any of those conditions failed or after thirty minutes, whichever came first.

It was not enough for Eleanor, if she had grown bolder and bolder and slowly taken control of her life, it was for their sweet sake.

Hollystone Hall, December 1791

Eleanor poured tea for Tolly Fitz-Grenford, wondering if he would agree to her plan. After Haverford had exiled David and sent Aldridge off to school, she had pleaded with him to bring them both home, but he had laughed at her; pointed out that she had no power over him. In fact, he declared, her open defiance was enough to cancel the agreement they had made before Jonathan’s birth.

So, she had then packed her bags and retreated to this lesser estate, the one place in the vast Haverford holdings that belonged to Her Grace and not His Grace.

“There, Tolly. Milk and no sugar. Is that not correct?”

Tolly took the cup. “Yes, Your Grace. Thank you.”

She smiled. “We are brother and sister, Tolly. Will you call me ‘Eleanor’?”

Tolly’s face heated. As Eleanor knew, his relationship to the duke was not precisely a secret, but he had never been acknowledged. The father they shared had brought the son of a favourite mistress to be raised on the estate, and had even kept on his half-brother’s tutor to train Tolly in the skills he would need to serve the duchy. Still, he had not been encouraged to show any familiarity, and the duke liked Tolly no more than Tolly liked the duke. “His Grace…”

Eleanor scowled. “I do not mean to concern myself ever again with the opinions of His Grace, except as I must for my safety and that of my children and the servants. Will you not call me by my name, Tolly, when we are not in company? Will you be my friend? For I stand in great need of one.”

Tolly leaned forward to pat her hand. “I will always stand your friend, Eleanor,” he told her.

“Good, for I need your help. Can you find me information with which to blackmail Haverford?”