Page 60 of A Feud with the Duke

“You will come home?” Ruth sniffed.

“Of course. I will leave with you now. After I have spoken to Harold.”

“Harold, is it? Not His Grace? Not the Duke? But Harold?” Ruth demanded.

“Yes, it is Harold to me. I’m sorry Ruth, but I have gotten to know him and that is just how things are. But, I am coming home with you and Simon. That home is a long way from London and a long way from Redwood. Please, try and be content with that.”

“Yes, I suppose, out of sight, out of mind. Once you’re back at home, I’m sure you will forget this man and find a decent husband. Like Gordon.”

I cannot imagine a duller man or a more tedious life. I am glad that you have found happiness and contentment, dear sister. But a dullard like Gordon is not my future.

“Well, I’m sure the man I marry will be a very decent man,” Alice said.

I will not openly lie to you, Ruth, and say that I will not see Harold ever again. I will be truthful. I will marry a decent man. Harold is a decent man. I just need to get to the truth of what happened to Teddy and clear his name.

Ruth smiled through her tears, produced a handkerchief from her sleeve, and dabbed at her eyes.

“Oh, you do put me through the wringer, my girl,” Ruth said.

Alice laughed. It had been the favorite expression of the governess who had been responsible for all four of the Hathway children. Though, doubtless, for Simon and Teddy it had been, my boy.

“Yes, Miss Trent. Sorry, Miss Trent,” she replied, reciting the rote response that had been expected from the children after a scolding from the governess.

Ruth laughed too and Alice was glad to see it. She did not think it could be good for a woman as heavy with child as Ruth to get too upset. Alice rested a hand on the bump at the front of Ruth. Ruth put her own hand on top of it.

“I know you have romantic ideas about the world but, trust me, there is no greater adventure than this one. One day, and I pray it will be soon, you’ll find out for yourself. It is the most glorious path a woman can choose.”

Alice smiled at the heartfelt words.

Dear Ruth, so earnest, with your heart on your sleeve. Gordon must have been smitten from the first moment he laid eyes on you. I will experience that glory. Just not yet.

CHAPTER37

Ruth stood in the entrance hall of Harold’s Middleton Street house. She had on her coat and bonnet, hands concealed in a muff. Harold gave her a formal bow as he emerged from the smoking room with Gordon. The man had kept him waiting for an inordinate amount of time and Harold did not want to think of what that entailed.

As the old soldier’s joke has it ‘How are you today? Passing well, passing well’ Good grief.

Alice stood next to her sister, her coat over her arm and bonnet in hand.

“I will return to the house with Ruth and we will then be leaving for Lindley, later today. I thank you for your help and your hospitality, Harold,” Alice said.

Ruth looked away, pretending to examine one of the paintings on the wall. Harold smiled and took Alice’s hand, kissing it.

“It has been my pleasure, Alice.”

He refrained from saying what sprang next to his lips. That he hoped to see her again soon and that he would correspond with her as often as he could. The guarded look that Alice shot from him to Ruth, still with her back to both of them, told him all he needed. Instead, he gazed into Alice’s eyes, taking in all of the sight that he could while in the precarious privacy of her sister’s deliberately misdirected attention.

Perhaps the woman does this not to slight me but to let her sister have some degree of privacy. It could be that she is not as hostile as her brother.

Watching her leave his house produced a wrench, as though he would not be seeing her again. Harold told himself that such feelings were pure foolishness. Alice must have shared those emotions to a degree, though. She kept looking back over her shoulder as she went. The last image of her was a half-turned, pale face, framed by her tumbling dark hair, large hazel eyes, and full lips that he had kissed so often. Behind her, the sunlight streamed through the open door.

Every detail was indelibly inscribed into his mind. The wrinkles of her dress where it had drip dried above the fire. The smile that had tugged at the corner of her mouth and made her beauty even more radiant. Then the door was closing behind her.

“You will see her again, soon, man. Stop acting like a love-sick adolescent,” Harold muttered as he lingered by the door.

There were no servants to hear him talking to himself, though he still looked around to check. For a moment, he felt lost. Then, annoyed at his own immaturity, he strode across the hall towards the stairs. He and Alice had made a decision to uncover the truth about Eloise. Even without the need to win the approval of Alice’s family, for her own sake rather than his own, the need to find the truth of her death was strong. For a long time, he had buried it.

The mystery of why a vivacious and lovely young woman should end her life was one that he hadn’t wanted to face or solve.

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