Page 5 of The Secret Life of the Elusive Governess
Sunday evenings were her main respite from her weekly duties. She was allowed to do anything she desired; she could go to the nearest hamlet or wander the garden or stay in her quarters if she wished.
Unbinding her hair, Caroline changed into a soft blue dress and took up a book on philosophy that she had begun reading three days ago. The words, though enlightening, sounded monotonous in her mind, and soon enough she discarded the book for sketching.
There were two sketchbooks that she owned, one that had held beautiful representations of men, women, children, and curious objects but the second one was something of a shame for her.
The second book was a dark leather-bound book with intricate hand-tooled stitches. It was her most precious possession for two reasons; it was a parting gift from the nuns at the convent and secondly, and it held drawings of the Duke. When he was still mysterious to her, she had started drawing him one night on a whim, but her fascination with him had grown and every page thereafter had some depiction of him in one form or another.
She knew it was not right or proper for her to have such a predilection but Caroline fancied it a history of the Duke in an art form. She turned the pages to skim over her drawings, of the Duke one morning when she had seen him with his horse, to a bust of him in rare moments of anger. Smiling, she took out her box of graphite pencils and settled down with the wane of the day’s sun as her source of light.
Without thinking, her fingers started sketching the Duke’s face and then tracing the outline of his hair. His eyes were shaped but instead of filling them in, she went to shade the dark hood of his eyebrows.
She sketched the skewed cravat with a smile at his unintentional unkemptness and filled in his shoulders. She barely drew in his torso but went back to his face. Defining the line of his nose and the shape of his lips, she still left his eyes out for last. After shading in his hair and adding a line or two, she then rotated the page and though the image was wonderful and accurate—a virtual mirror of the Duke—she couldn’t find it in herself to smile.
The pencil was poised over the blank space of his eyes and the image in her mind flowed down her pencil and filled them in. She drew in the emotion in his eyes and when she saw the pain she had brought to life, she nearly ripped the page out.
Caroline pressed her lips tightly while her hand rested on the desk beside it.Why does his pain affect me so much?
After a moment of thought, she softly closed the book and went to wrap herself in a shawl.
He is hurting, and I know what it is like to hurt in silence.
It pained her, it truly did, to see a man as handsome, successful, and accomplished suffer in a loveless marriage but there was nothing much she could do about it.
Was he ever happy? Is there anything I can do to afford a little joy in his life…and would he accept it if I tried?
Chapter 3
The potion of Socrates’ Poisoned Cup, an ancient elixir of sacrifice, was what the Duke believed he was sipping with every day that he woke up to bleakness and a loveless marriage. He had reasoned out years ago, that the price of sacrificing his happiness to care and provide for his family and the people in his dukedom, was a fitting bargain.
However, with every passing routine and monotonous day, he constantly questioned himself if his marriage to Lavinia Hayward had been the smartest decision of his life.
Their courtship had passed very quickly and they had married relatively young—her one-and-twenty, to his four-and-twenty—and the first weeks of that marriage had passed with them associating themselves with each other. Lavinia did not speak much in those days and Moses had taken her silence as her trying to acclimatize herself to her new home and station.
However, when her lugubriousness stretched on, Moses had begun to wonder. Her displacement had grown deeper after she had birthed Nicholas. Many older ladies—even his mother before she had passed—had told him that the Duchess’ drawing away was normal for some women and Moses had believed them.
As the doting husband, he had deliberately ignored her downheartedness and done all in his power to give her some joy—buying her rich clothes, delicate confections, glamorous jewelry, and anything that caught her eye.
Nothing had worked.
Between balancing his duties to his people and the Crown, the Duke had found it hard to care for his family, and with a still mostly absent Duchess, he had resorted to employing nurses for Nicholas. When the boy was a little over three years, Lavinia had conceived again and delivered Josephine—his little angel.
“I wonder if…” Moses sighed, not having the strength to speak the words running through his mind.If anything had worked.
Moses dropped the quill into the inkpot, sealed the last letter to the Regent, placed it onto a stack of other letters, and then stood. The crack in his bones told him he had been stationary for far too long and he felt that some exercise was required.
It was nearing dusk, so taking his thoroughbred out was not reasonable and dinner was a way off, so he decided that the best and easiest way was to take a walk in the garden.
The flowers of the main garden had been the prize of his mother, Victoria, the late Duchess of Barley. She had declared that the garden be ordered in a like-by-like system instead of a chaotic mix of colors. The delicate petals were grouped by hues, not by type. Precious pink carnations, dog-rose, and foxglove lit up a section of the park, while cuckoo flowers, cornflower, and chicory were blue sensations in another section.
Long cobblestone walks meandered through the foliage and small stone fountains were encircled by velvety green grass. The garden lamps were not yet lit but the sunset provided enough light to guide his way. The garden was the place his mother had come to for peace, and Moses wondered why he had not yet utilized the powers of tranquility it gave in the months before.
He then heard a soft humming, and frowning, followed the sound to its source. To his delight, he spotted Miss Robins bending over to examine a blue flower.
“Miss Robins?”
Instantly he regretted his words as she startled so strongly, that she nearly fell over into the bush. Before he could reach her, she luckily regained her footing and stumbled back.
Her chest was visibly palpitating, and her face was flushed as she spun to meet him, “Your Grace, good evening. You startled me.”
