Page 27 of Married to the Forbidden Duke
She spent the morning in the drawing room, reclining on the sofa and pretending to read, when the butler announced the Dowager Countess of Rutland. Alice just had enough time to sit up and process that she had a visitor when the dowager swept in with authority.
She was a woman in her fifties, hair pinned up in soft gray locks on the top of her head. Although there were lines around her eyes, she was a beautiful woman, and there was an immediate resemblance between her and the Duke.
Alice had studied the Duke’s family tree, and she knew that this woman was the Duke’s aunt. They hadn’t met at the wedding, but as soon as the dowager took a seat, Alice understood why.
“There you are! I wish I had not been north, or I would have done you the honor of calling on you before now. Being the mistress of a great estate is all very well and good, until one’s husband leaves it to you in sole ownership, and you suddenly find yourself in need of doing every little thing to it.”
Alice grabbed her stick, hauling herself to her feet, and held out her hand, wishing her head didn’t pound quite so much. “You were in the north?”
“Northumberland.” The older lady chimed, nodding her head like a peacock. “A week’s journey, and Frederick did not so much as have the consideration to inform me he was marrying before the moment, or you may be sure I would have traveled down sooner. Hiswife! Let me look at you.” She stepped back, her gaze sweeping over Alice’s body.
Although Alice had acted out at the ball, determined to make thetonbelieve the worst about her and her suitability as a Duchess, she didn’t want this self-possessed woman—mistress of her own estates—to think the same. She clutched at her skirts with sweaty palms.
“You find me a little… unwell today,” she said with a trying smile.
“Overdid it last night, did you?” The dowager tutted, but her eyes sparkled with amusement. “I heard the gossip before coming here. But no matter. We all make mistakes when we are young, and I daresay you have reason enough. Marrying my nephew can’t have been easy for you, poor girl.” She clucked her tongue as she took the seat beside Alice.
There was a sound from the doorway, and Alice glanced up to see the Duke there.
His presence sent blood rushing to her face.
She had done what she could to avoid him that morning, both wanting not to think about what had happened the night before and his response to it.
And hers.
She wasn’t ready to face that reality. And she especially wasn’t ready to face the embarrassment of knowing he could see her suffering from her excesses.
But although his gaze swept up and down her body, no doubt taking in her clammy skin and the tangled mess of her hair—she hadn’t been able to endure Jenny doing much to it at all—he made no comment to her.
“I hear my aunt has come to visit and find her disparaging me to my wife,” he chuckled, the ease in his voice making it plain this didn’t trouble him overmuch. He crossed the room to the dowager and kissed her cheek. “I see you have met Alice. Alice, this is my aunt, and if you ever find her too nosy, you have my permission to tell her where to put it.”
Alice flushed still harder, looking down at her knees as she awkwardly sat. The Duke reached out a hand to steady her, but dropped it as soon as she was safely back in her seat.
“Oh,tosh,” the dowager scoffed. “I daresay she will find me a necessary ally. WeBlackwellwomen must stick together, you know.”
The Duke made a sound under his breath, but then finally turned his full attention to Alice. “Do you need anything?”
She shook her head. Nothing from him, at any rate.
“The physician will be in to see you shortly,” he said, a tinge of disapproval in his voice. Alice glanced up at that, but the Duke was already striding to the door. “Don’t put any ideas of insurrection in her head, Aunt,” he cautioned lightly to the dowager, giving her a grin that made him look almost boyish. “I doubt she needs any suggestions.”
Alice gritted her teeth at the temptation to curse at him, but the familiarity of his relationship with his aunt intrigued her. She knew both his parents had died in unrelating incidents—his mother when he was born and his father a couple of years ago—and this display of familial affection was…surprising.
When she glanced at the dowager again, the woman was looking at her with sympathy. “I cannot imagine how you must be taking this, my dear,” she sighed, the gentleness in her voice making Alice want to cry. No doubt a product of her bad head. “If I were you, I would despise him with every breath in my body.”
“I…” Alice had not expected that from someone who seemed so evidently fond of him. “Do you not like him?”
“I? Well of course I do. He is my brother’s son, and he is a good man, whatever you may feel. But that doesn’t change facts, does it?” She looked at Alice as though she saw straight through her. “And resentment like that is hard to get over. You might not even want to.” She exhaled heavily and shook her head. “I understand why Frederick married you, all things considered, but he should have thought a little more about it.”
Alice leaned forward. “You think he shouldn’t have married me?”
“I think he is pig-headed when he thinks he knows something, or thinks that something is right. He realized he had done wrong by you and attempted to do right by you in the only way he knew how.”
“Throughmarriage?”
“Oh, my dear. I know you must see it as being trapped with the man who ruined your life, but he sees it as giving you everything he possibly can.” She paused, and Alice could almost see her choose her words carefully.
“I am in no way excusing his actions. When he was a young man, he was wild, and I know it would have saddened his mother had she been around to see it. He made mistakes, as did we all—and his mistakes were greater than most. Instead of drinking at a ball and suffering the next day, he was drinking while driving a phaeton, and…” She let her words trail off delicately, but Alice could not stop revisiting that moment in her mind. The dichotomy of it all—everything had been so perfect one moment, and so ruined the next. “But he has been forced to face the reality of his actions. And I know he only wants to do the best he can by you.”
