‘Damn, Tattershall.’ Cal broke eye contact with the fearless woman still glaring at him, and groped around for his discarded shirt. His cousin leaned against the doorframe as he studied Cal and his newly acquired spinster. Cal could only imagine how it looked: a half-naked man towering over a small and rather moist lass. ‘Didn’t anyone ever teach you to knock?’
‘We did.’ His grandmother, Lady Faye, the dowager marchioness, pushed her way into the library, practically toppling Owen over on her way through the door. ‘Nobody answered. Don’t you have any servants?’
Reaching just over five foot, his grandmother was shorter even than Miss Smith—and round. While she’d always been pale, now her eyelashes were almost invisible and he could see small, broken veins on the side of her nose where her skin had turned almost translucent.
‘Don’t just stand there,’ she snapped at Owen. ‘Light more candles. I refuse to conduct any sort of conversation in the half-dark. Barbarous!’
Her voice, of course, hadn’t faded. She had a pair of lungs on her that could fan a forge. And it was a voice she put to constant and steady use. A veritable dragon was his grandmother. Any man—soldier, sailor or shoemaker—would quake in their boots if she had a mind to make them.
Hell, she probably could have won the whole damn war in a single afternoon.
And now she had in her employ an equally determined companion, a feisty drone to do her bidding. Cal shuddered. He was quickly becoming outnumbered and out manoeuvred, and in his own house of all places.
‘Your ladyship.’ The drone curtseyed. ‘I assure you, this isn’t what it looks like.’ She tossed Cal’s bare chest an accusatory glower.
‘None other than the glorious ducal warrior in the flesh,’ mocked Owen with an exaggerated bow.
Cal pulled on his shirt, his fingers fumbling with the remaining buttons. ‘None other than the family’s black sheep in an overabundance of Chinese silk,’ he retorted.
‘You must be Miss Smith.’ Lady F interrupted the men, giving Ellen the once-over. She tugged aggressively at the fingers of her kidskin gloves until they came free. ‘Mrs Nott provided me with an excellent character reference, but I have to say that I’m still not completely convinced.’ She slapped her gloves against her other palm.
Miss Smith blanched. ‘Oh, your ladyship, I assure you I’m a diligent worker. Not quick to temper. I can sew and draw and sing a little. I love to garden and can arrange flowers tolerably well. I can relate all the Greek myths and dance a full country set,’ she said hastily, clearly reciting a prepared speech. ‘I promise I’ll do everything in my power to be the perfect companion. You’ll not regret—’
‘How do you take your tea?’
‘My tea?’ Miss Smith blinked, glancing at Cal again as if he were going to help. She was on her own. He moved back a step, seeking refuge in the shadows even as Owen lit more candles.
‘Yes,’ demanded his grandmother. ‘How do you take your tea?’
‘B-black. With sugar.’
‘What do you think of afternoon naps?’
‘Not enough time in the day.’
‘Town or country hours?’
‘Country. I’m a light sleeper.’
‘And the gossip columns?’
‘Never read them.’
‘Hmm.’ Lady F paused as though ticking off a mental list. ‘And before, when my grandson wasn’t wearing his shirt: what was that all about?’
‘It wasn’t what it looked like, your ladyship,’ Miss Smith repeated. He could practically hear her thoughts as she silently cursed him into oblivion. Using only the most respectable language, of course. Spinsters didn’t actually curse.
‘I see.’ Lady F paused again with another suspicious look, then a smile broke across her face. She clapped her hands. ‘It looked a lot like you were putting my grandson back in his place, as I’m sure he rightly deserved.’ She tossed her gloves at him, quickly followed by her travelling cloak and bonnet.
‘I most certainly deserved nothing of the sort,’ he scowled, dropping her outerwear onto the footstool without ceremony.
This abrupt change had Miss Smith blinking in confusion, and Cal’s eyes were drawn to the enchanting rose blush creeping out from under her modest neckline.
Enchanting? When did he ever use words like enchanting?
‘Your shock is a perfectly natural response to meeting Lizzy for the first time,’ Owen assured her, with a bright smile. He tossed his greatcoat at Cal too, but Cal tucked his hands in his pockets, letting Owen’s coat drop to the ground at his feet. With a frown at Cal, Owen bowed over Miss Smith’s hand, raising it to his lips in an over-exaggerated show of appreciation. ‘It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.’
Owen Tattershall: never one to do anything by halves.
Miss Smith curtsied in response, looking even more baffled as she managed to extract her hand from Owen’s fervent clutches. Owen was…a handful. This evening he was looking dapper with a three-green waistcoat. He was also clutching the most ridiculous-looking walking cane Cal had ever seen. It had a large porcelain handle on the top, like a spherical doorknob. He used the end of the cane to hook his jacket up off the floor and ran a hand over it to brush away the dog hair that had already began to transfer from the rug.
Cal turned his attention back to his grandmother, looking down at her with the most formidable scowl he could muster at such short notice. ‘Now that you’ve both finished scaring the woman half witless, would you care to explain exactly what you’re doing in my library at this god-forsaken hour?’
‘Is that any way to greet your most beloved grandmother?’ Lady F raised a hand to her forehead in a show of dramatics that would be more welcome on a stage than a ducal library. ‘I’m nearly eighty years old and I’ve been travelling all day. Surely I at least deserve a welcoming kiss.’ She presented him with a papery cheek.
‘You’re only sixty-eight.’
She gave his chest a light slap with the back of her hand, and he quickly pressed a kiss to her cheek. An overabundance of sensibility in an elderly relative was never a good sign. Like he’d said: a veritable dragon.
‘It was your choice to travel to London,’ he reminded her. ‘And you didn’t even bother to write ahead. I didn’t know you were coming to Town until…’ He gestured towards Miss Smith. Enough said.
Miss Smith’s gaze flickered between him and Lady F as though she were watching a game of shuttlecock. Her eyes were wide and her mouth slightly open. She was staring. Again.
He tapped a finger to the underside of her chin. Her mouth snapped shut.
‘I shouldn’t have to write begging permission to visit my only living grandson,’ Lady F was saying. She bent down to scratch Tzar under the chin. The old dog lifted his head as high as it would go, granting her full access. ‘You should be absolutely delighted to see me and welcome me into your home with open arms.’
‘Of course I’m happy to see you,’ he ground out between clenched teeth. ‘But you can’t stay here, which you would have known if you’d bothered writing ahead.’ She’d written to him constantly these last four years, but she couldn’t put nib to paper for a quick warning? Years had passed since her last visit, so what had changed to send her scampering to London now?
Ignoring him entirely, the dowager glided across the room towards her new companion. ‘Miss Smith, it really is a pleasure to meet you at last. I’ve been excited all day. I’ve never had a companion before.’ Only then did she seem to register the state of Miss Smith’s damp gown, which was still clinging indecently to her curves. ‘Didn’t you have an umbrella, gel?’
Unfortunately, Owen had long since noticed Miss Smith’s curves. His gaze was firmly fixed on her flushed décolletage, his eyes as wide as cart wheels.
Cal grunted a warning. The randy dandy.
Owen completely ignored him, so Cal grabbed the knee blanket from the armchair, folded it in half to form a triangle and wrapped it around Miss Smith’s shoulders like a shawl.
He knew that look in Owen’s eye. It was the same look Cal would have given her had it been four years ago. He scowled again and felt the left side of his mouth pull uncomfortably tight. He could always feel his scars; they were never far from his thoughts.
Miss Smith clutched the blanket tighter and for the first time all night Cal realised she was shivering. If he hadn’t been trying so desperately to make her leave, he might have realised sooner she was on the verge of catching her death of cold, for all that she’d warned him.
Conflicting feelings warred inside him but most of all he felt guilty. Guilty she was so cold. Guilty she was still under his roof.
His grandmother was still talking. ‘…running rather late, but it wasn’t my fault. Owen did insist we stop at each and every posting-house for tea as though I’m some sort of invalid. Oh, aren’t you a pretty young thing.’ She took both of Miss Smith’s hands in her own. ‘I’m sure we’re going to have a lot of fun together.’
Miss Smith still looked rather startled, but then she smiled a smile that could have felled a whole regiment of battle-hardened soldiers. ‘I do hope so, my lady.’
He quickly averted his gaze.
‘Excellent,’ cried Lady F. ‘Now, how about some supper? I’ve barely eaten anything all day.’ She picked up a candle, pushed her way back past Owen and hurried down the passage towards the kitchen stairs.
Miss Smith followed. Of course she followed.
Am I ever going to get that lass out of my house?
‘Cal.’ Lady F called so loudly she could have still been standing in the library. ‘Be a dear and bring Miss Smith’s and my trunks inside before it gets any wetter.’
Apparently not any time soon.
‘You could have warned me she was coming,’ he hissed at Owen.
‘Where would the fun be in that?’ Owen smirked. ‘Besides, I know you wouldn’t have let us in if I’d warned you.’
‘I didn’t let you in,’ Cal reminded him.
‘No need, old man. I have a key.’ He patted his waistcoat pocket, flashing Cal a full mouth of straight teeth.
‘What key? I never gave you a key.’ He lunged towards his cousin, but Owen ducked easily out of the way, using his cane as leverage. They weren’t actually cousins; there was no blood connection, but Owen’s parents had died when he’d still been in leading strings and Lady F had taken him in. Now Owen and Lady F were almost inseparable. Except, of course, when Owen was gallivanting around Town, chasing beautiful married women left, right and centre. His reputation was almost as bad as Cal’s, though for entirely different reasons. ‘What’s the dammed stick for?’ Even as he spoke, Cal knew he was going to regret asking.
‘Upon my honour! It’s dernier cri.’ Owen gave Tzar a pat and the little turncoat wagged his tail. It thumped against the rug almost as loudly as the thunder rumbled outside.
Cal looked towards the window. It was still storming. Apparently, the one and only upshot of having Miss Smith barge into his house was that she’d proved herself to be a worthy distraction from the rain. Not that he’d ever tell her that.
‘…matches the waistcoat,’ Owen concluded with a flourish.
And there it was: regret for asking about the cane. ‘It bloody well doesn’t.’ How could a cane possibly match a waistcoat? Owen might as well have been speaking Mandarin for all Cal understood.
His cousin gasped in exaggerated shock. ‘Didn’t you hear me? It’s the height of fashion. And, if you ever bothered to leave this dank house anymore, you’d know that too.’
‘It’s not dank.’ More regret. Owen was much too cheerful. How could anyone be cheerful when their head was pounding so hard it might actually split in two? ‘Don’t insult my house. I don’t see you for years, and then you just show up—’
‘I called in a few months ago, but you wouldn’t open the damn door.’
Cal shut his mouth and shrugged. Had that only been a few months? The days tended to blend all together like the faded colours of over-washed clothes.
‘That’s why I dug out my old key.’
‘Which I’ll have back now, thank you very much.’ Cal held out his hand.
Owen made a show of checking his pockets and coming up short. ‘Sorry, old man, must have misplaced it.’
‘Moonshine!’ He could see the shape of the key through the silk of Owen’s waistcoat. But his knee started aching just thinking about tackling him for it, so he limped from the room to follow the women, resolutely ignoring all their trunks.
He’d deal with Owen later. Preferably when he had a glass of whisky in hand. Preferably when his eyes had stopped watering.
The women’s voices were coming from the back of the house where the kitchen was. It was easily the largest room in the house; situated at the end of the long hallway, it was as long as the house was wide. It was also his favourite room and the only one he spent any time caring for.
Though, apparently with the storm, he’d completely forgotten to bank the fire and it had burned itself out, because Miss Smith was kneeling on the flagstone hearth, coaxing life back into his large cast-iron range. He pressed hands to his hips and glared at her back, hoping she could feel his angry eyes prickling her skin, as well she deserved.
She’d wrapped two corners of the blanket right around her waist and tied them off behind her back to form something similar to a hands-free sontag. Practicality in a woman was never something to be admired. It usually resulted in a tireless need to ‘improve’ other people’s lives and a plethora of decidedly displeasing lace caps.
His narrowed gaze moved to the back of her head. She’d finally removed her dishevelled bonnet to reveal, not a tumble of luscious brown hair any man would want to run his hands through, as Cal had hoped, but a mob cap, just as he’d suspected. White and lacy with an excess of frills.
A chit and a spinster Miss Ellen Smith may be, but there was a revolting lace cap on her head where a revolting lace cap should not be. A pretty face and a fine figure such as she possessed should not be sullied by an ugly cap.
There was a commotion coming from the other end of his kitchen. He turned his attention to his grandmother lest she create too much mayhem in his pantry while his thoughts were preoccupied with a pair of fine eyes and a shapely arse. He looked in behind Lady F but had to quickly limp out of the way as she emerged carrying a large cake tin and a couple of biscuit tins.
‘Even as a child, you always did hide the best at the back,’ she told him, placing the tins on the battered kitchen table.
‘You can’t eat that for dinner,’ he chastised, for all the good that it did. If ignoring other people’s advice were an art, Elizabeth Debelle would be a master craftswoman. Her head was a much more appropriate place for a frivolous lace cap—a head which was suspiciously bare. If he hadn’t caught Miss Smith climbing through his front window, he’d have thought she the sensible old biddy and his grandmother, who was this very minute ogling cake, the green girl.
‘Plates,’ she instructed Miss Smith, whose handiwork had a cheerful fire illuminating the room. A moment later, the two women had loaded four plates with fruit cake and sweetmeats—and stale tea biscuits which he’d forgotten about weeks ago.
‘I’ll never understand why you refuse to keep servants,’ Lady F chided, taking his place at the head of the table, completely disregarding the fact that this was the kitchen and not the dining room.
‘They just get in my way.’ He leaned down, resting the heels of his hands on the table beside her plate until they were almost eye level. ‘You can’t stay here. You know I don’t receive visitors.’
‘Cal, dear, stop being so tiresome and eat your cake.’ Standing for a moment, Lady F reached across the table to take a scoop of marmalade from a cooling stockpot and lavished it onto her slice of cake. The sweet and tangy smell of orange permeated the room and made his nose tingle. It smelled clean and fresh like the beginning of spring. Clean and fresh like Ellen Smith.
‘I don’t want cake.’ He sounded like a child even to his own ears.
‘Of course you do. You baked it.’
Baking: just another thing he liked doing that dukes weren’t supposed to.
‘He did?’ Miss Smith looked up. She sat to the right of Lady F and was digging into her cake with almost as much enthusiasm.
He did a double take. Spinsters were certainly not supposed to enjoy cake quite that much. Crumbs had caught at the corners of her delectable lips. And he had a sudden urge to lick them clean.
‘That must be why it tastes suspiciously like whisky,’ she concluded.
‘I like it.’ Owen had taken the seat beside Ellen even though there were five other perfectly functional chairs at the table he could have chosen. He flashed her a roguish grin, pushing his spectacles further up his nose all the better to see.
‘Tattershall,’ Cal warned again. He was sitting much too close for anyone’s comfort. But Owen completely ignored him. Following Lady F’s lead, he leaned forward to take a scoop of marmalade, brushing his arm lightly, and completely purposefully, against Ellen’s shoulder.
‘So, Grandmother, why are you here?’ Cal asked the dowager for what felt like the tenth time. She couldn’t avoid answering forever.
‘Dinner is not the time for philosophical conundrums, dearest.’
‘I mean: why are you here, in London, in my kitchen, eating my food, dearest?’
‘I like London.’
He grunted his disbelief. Lady F liked London about as much as he did.
Beneath the table, Tzar was moving from person to person, giving each his largest, most pathetic hungry puppy dog eyes. Quite an achievement considering he was so old most of his fur had turned grey and wiry.
‘Still up to your old tricks.’ Lady F reached under the table to pat his head.
Cal didn’t bother keeping the anger and frustration from this voice. ‘Don’t try to change the subject, Elizabeth Debelle. I want it out with you: why are you here?’
‘Phiff. You sound just like my mother. She was the only one who ever called me Elizabeth.’ She fidgeted beneath his stare, then let out an exasperated sigh. ‘If you must know, I’m not here to interrupt your sulking. You needn’t worry on that front. I’ve come to enjoy the Season.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Isn’t that what people of the ton do?’
‘Not you.’ He knew his grandmother. Since her husband’s death, she’d been running Faye Park in place of the new marquess, a distant cousin, who’d moved to Canton as a child and apparently wasn’t in a hurry to return to England despite his large inheritance. Cal couldn’t help but envy the man. ‘You’re up to something.’
‘I’m up to nothing of the sort.’ She rapped his knuckles with the back of her fork, and he pulled away. ‘What a ridiculously provincial idea.’
He threw another questioning look at his cousin, but Owen simply smiled back at him. He was feeding cake crumbs to Tzar. The dog had clearly decided Owen was the chink in the armour and had parked himself firmly at Owen’s feet.
‘You haven’t been to London since…’ Cal faulted.
‘Since Pierce’s funeral,’ she finished for him matter-of-factly. ‘That was four years ago. When are you going to stop mourning your brother?’
‘Brother?’ Miss Smith looked up.
‘I’m not—’ Memories flashed before his eyes. Pierce. The ship. The fire. The screaming. Napoleon might have packed up but there was still a war raging—a war inside Cal’s own head. ‘He shouldn’t have died,’ was all he could say.
‘No. But he did.’ Lady F’s expression softened, her hand touching the gold and pearl mourning brooch she wore. ‘Come now, you needn’t worry about me interrupting your private time. I have Miss Smith to look after me, and Owen. You’ll hardly notice the three of us at all.’
He looked from one to the other. His grandmother blinked innocently up at him. Miss Smith was deliberately avoiding his gaze. Owen was staring at Miss Smith as if he hadn’t seen a pretty companion with lips the colour of strawberries before.
‘Tattershall!’ Cal marched around the table, took hold of his cousin’s chair and dragged him away from Miss Smith. Owen grabbed at the table with a yelp, but Cal didn’t relent until Owen was at the other end. Then he turned back to Lady F. ‘You can finish your dinner’—if you could call cake dinner—’but then you have to leave. You absolutely cannot stay here.’
‘Yes, my darling,’ said his grandmother in soothing tones that suggested she was going to do nothing of the sort. Turning in her seat, she gave her full attention to her new companion-in-arms. ‘Do you like fireworks, Miss Smith?’
***
‘Fireworks?’ Ellen paused, a forkful of cake halfway to her mouth. The marchioness was absolutely nothing like she’d imagined. Then again, she’d never have imagined a duke quite like Calum Callaghan. Had anyone? ‘I’ve never actually seen any fireworks, my lady.’
‘Dear me.’ Lady Faye touched her arm in condolence. ‘We must fix that immediately. The fireworks at Vauxhall are always spectacular this time of year.’
‘You hate fireworks,’ said His Grace. The only one still standing, he was glowering over the table at Mr Tattershall. His hands were crossed over his chest again and his brows were low over his eyes. Arguing with his grandmother had brought a red, angry flush to his face, and his Scottish accent had completely disappeared.
Now she thought on it, his Scottish accent had disappeared as soon as his family had come bursting into the library. On purpose or not, she wasn’t sure. Whatever the reason, she didn’t much care for his English voice—his Oxbridge drawl. It did not suit.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Lady Faye responded lightly. ‘How does that saying go?’ She drummed her fingers on the table.
‘It’s a lady’s prerogative to change her mind,’ Ellen suggested.
‘That’s the one.’ Lady Faye turned her radiant smile on Ellen. ‘How was your journey into Town? Mrs Nott wrote to me to say you’re from…Evendale? I haven’t been out that way in years and years.’
‘Nobody’s been out that way,’ Lord Woodhal interjected, sulkily.
Lady Faye laughed. ‘Whatever did you do to him, gel?’
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘I’m sure he was already like that when she found him,’ teased Mr Tattershall.
‘Arghh! Owen, why can’t they stay with you?’ Outside, the storm raged on; inside, Lord Woodhal raged on.
‘My place simply isn’t big enough, old man.’ He was completely unaffected by the duke’s temper. The way he was acting put Ellen in mind of a brother or a cousin but he looked nothing like either the marchioness or the duke. Where the duke had dark hair, Mr Tattershall was blond, and where Lady Faye had an aquiline nose, Mr Tattershall was blessed with a button.
‘I’m not staying with Owen. He has a dog.’ Lady Faye had finished off her plate of sweets in record time.
‘So do I!’ The duke pressed a fist to his solar plexus as though to release some tension in his chest.
The dowager shook her head, waving a hand haphazardly in Ellen’s direction, which she took as her cue.
‘It’s a lady’s prerogative to change her mind,’ she repeated.
‘Perfect.’ The old lady beamed at her, a twinkle in her eyes. ‘We’re going to get along handsomely.’
‘Not perfect.’ Lord Woodhal ran a hand down his face. There was a strange beauty in his scars. They spoke of hardship and loss.
If she kissed his cheek, would his scars be rough like sand or soft life feathers? Rough, hopefully. Rough suited him—made him somehow larger and stronger.
Kiss? Wherever had that idea come from?
He caught her looking. There was a kind of cowardliness in turning away, so she kept looking, drinking him in. She was suddenly hot under the collar, her dress too tight, the blanket about her shoulders too warm.
‘I need a drink.’ As abrupt as ever, he turned on his heel and stalked towards the door. ‘This isn’t over, Elizabeth. There’s no way in hell you’re all staying here.’
‘The trunks!’ was her only response.
Ellen watched Lord Woodhal’s retreating back. Drawing rooms hadn’t been designed for men of his stature. Only in the kitchen did his sheer size not look out of place. The muscles in his neck and shoulders jumped as though he could feel her watching him. A second later, he was out of sight.
‘Ever the gentleman,’ chucked Mr Tattershall, returning his chair to its original location and flashing her a toothy grin.
‘Is he always so…disagreeable?’
The smile slipped from Lady Faye’s face. Even Mr Tattershall looked halfway serious. Her question had touched a nerve.
‘I’m feeling rather tired all of a sudden. Ellen, gel, could you show me to my room?’
‘Of course.’ Ellen jumped to her feet. She had absolutely no idea where the bedrooms were or even where the staircase was, but that didn’t seem to matter because the dowager took the lead. As the old lady passed Owen, she pressed a kiss to the top of his head. ‘Do help him with the trunks, dear. And don’t be too hard on him.’
‘Me?’ He feigned surprise. ‘Never!’
Ellen curtsied her goodbye to Mr Tattershall whoever-he-was and hurried to follow. She adopted a brisk step to impress upon her ladyship just how superior a companion she was going to be and just how seriously she was taking her employment.
The passage was narrower than she’d first noticed, and there were doors down only one side. Ellen looked ahead and saw a single front door where there had been two doors on the outside. Where the second door would have been, there was a wall, which presumably meant the house had been divided in half.
Whoever had heard of such a thing?
‘This way.’ Her ladyship led Ellen into another room. Most of the ceiling had been removed to make way for a narrow staircase. It was dark and miserable, and she had to light the three-arm candelabra on the small table by the door.
They climbed on past the first storey, stopping at the second, where there was another long and narrow passage with doors down only one side, echoing the passage on the ground floor.
‘I don’t suppose Cal told you about the house?’ Lady Faye asked, opening a bedroom door. Ellen hurried to hold it for her.
‘No, my lady. He said nothing.’ Nothing about the house, although he’d probably revealed more about himself than he’d have liked in an effort to scare her away.
The guest bedchamber was the picture of neglect. There was a musty four-poster bed with heavy curtains, a dressing table with a cracked mirror, a chest of drawers missing two handles and a porcelain washstand with faded bluebells painted on the inside.
A middle-aged woman was waiting for them. She curtsied as they entered. Judging by her dress and manner, she was Lady Faye’s abigail. ‘I’ve laid out your nightdress, my lady, although the rest of your luggage is still outside. And I’m afraid the bedding is quite dusty. I tried shaking it out, but it really should be thrown straight into the fire. I don’t think anyone’s been in this room since we were here last.’
‘You’ve done excellent work, Pamela. Miss Smith will help me change this evening. There’s cake in the pantry for your supper. And remember to take no notice of His Grace.’
‘Thank you, my lady.’ Pamela curtseyed again, gave Ellen a friendly smile and left, closing the door behind her.
‘I don’t know what I’d do without that gel.’
Ellen helped the dowager change into her nightgown and climb into bed. The musty mattress sagged in the middle.
‘You and I are going to have to take this house into our own hands,’ Lady Faye said. She removed her white wig and started pulling pins from her hair. Wispy strands dropped to frame her face like cobwebs—silver in the light from the gently crackling fire Pamela must have lit. ‘Cal can bake a scrumptious cake, but we really need a proper cook. Not to mention a butler, two footmen and a small army of maids.’
‘Won’t that just make him angrier?’ His Grace clearly valued his solitude. Although, as Ellen had learned these last few years, valuing solitude and actually being happy were two entirely different matters.
‘His ranting and raving does nothing to scare me.’ Lady Faye patted the bed, indicating Ellen should make herself comfortable.
Emboldened, Ellen asked the question she’d been dying to ask all evening. ‘What happened to Lord Woodhal? He showed me the scars on his chest and back, but he said nothing more than that there’d been a fire.’
The dowager sighed. ‘There was a fire, yes. At sea. Pierce died. Calum didn’t.’ She patted Ellen’s cheek affectionately which Ellen took to mean Lady Faye wasn’t unset by the question and she was free to keep talking.
‘Pierce. His brother?’ The son Debrett’s had said had died the same month as their father, the old duke.
The dowager nodded. ‘Younger half-brother.’
‘I see.’ Almost. ‘What did you mean when you asked if His Grace had told me about the house?’ She asked an easier question.
‘Oh, that.’ Lady Faye settled back against her pillows. ‘Well, I guess the story starts a good few years ago, when my daughter married a very handsome young man.’
‘Hammond Callaghan, the fifth Duke of Woodhal.’ Debrett’s had gotten that bit right at least.
‘Yes. Hammond had been married previously, but his bride, Finella, wasn’t happy in England, and soon after their wedding she ran back to Scotland. Hammond went looking for her, but by the time he found her she’d already died in a carriage accident.’
‘Back to Scotland…’ Ellen frowned.
‘Calum’s mother,’ Lady Faye confirmed. ‘Finella McKenna. The thing is, nobody told Hammond that she’d given birth to a son before her death. I think her family thought if Hammond knew there was a son, he’d take the child back to London with him, which I suppose he would have done. Finella’s parents had already lost their daughter. I cannot really blame them for not wanting to lose their grandson as well.’
‘The old duke didn’t know Her Grace was expecting before she ran away?’
‘Finella never said a word. And I’ve been told Cal was a particularly small newborn.’
They shared an amused smile.
‘Hammond knew nothing of Cal until he was ten,’ the dowager continued. ‘His grandparents died of consumption, and their lawyers contacted Hammond. By that stage, of course, Hammond had been married to Grace for eight years, and Pierce had been born.’
Ellen could see where the story was going. Everyone would have believed Pierce to be the Woodhal heir. But Calum was—she quickly counted—close on three years older and a legitimate son. Assuming, of course, there was proof Calum really was Hammond’s progeny.
‘There’s a portrait hanging over the fireplace in the drawing room of a fair-haired gentleman,’ Ellen remembered.
‘That’s Hammond’s father; Cal’s grandfather. They don’t much look alike, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ said Lady Faye perceptively. ‘Cal looks a lot like his mother. But Hammond believed Calum was his son, without a doubt.’ She gave a forced smile. ‘Grace wasn’t happy.’
A shout echoed through the house. Downstairs somewhere Lord Woodhal and Mr Tattershall were arguing, although it was impossible to make out their words.
Clearing her throat, Lady Faye continued. Nothing seemed to faze her when it came to those two. ‘Grace blamed Hammond for not knowing about Calum. She was very angry…heartbroken. She wanted a divorce but didn’t want the scandal, so instead she divided the house in half.’
‘And that’s why the corridors are so narrow.’ And why there were two front doors.
‘Pierce lived on the other side of the house with Grace, and Calum lived with Hammond on this side.’
‘Does your daughter still live next door?’
‘Goodness, no. Grace moved out the month Hammond died. Less than a sennight after we received news of Pierce’s death. He was a first lieutenant, you know.’ She took one of Ellen’s hands in both of hers. Her skin was lovely and soft but wrinkled and marked with age. ‘Does all this talk make you want to run away from us?’
‘Of course not, my lady.’ Both my parents are dead, my brother beats me and I’m hiding little Gwen away in the country. Maggie is risking my brother’s wrath by helping keep Gwen safe, and Verity lied about my identity in her recommendation letter so you would employ me. ‘Every family has their own story. Do you know why Lord Woodhal hasn’t taken down the dividing wall now your daughter has moved out?’ After all, as he kept reminding everyone, this was his house.
‘I guess because he still believes the other half is Grace’s. And Grace isn’t his mother.’ She rubbed a hand over her eyes. ‘My daughter is…heartbroken. She won’t have anything to do with Cal, even though he provides her a generous allowance.’ Her shoulders drooped and she seemed to shrink in on herself.
The dowager duchess wasn’t the only one with a broken heart. Lady Faye’s family was divided and the thought clearly distressed her. Ellen searched for a change of topic. ‘Who exactly is Mr Tattershall?’ The man downstairs currently arguing with the duke was a breath of fresh air. He had a ready grin, which she was quickly coming to think of as ‘the Tattershall Twinkle’. And she’d had the distinct impression he’d been flirting with her at dinner.
He could not have been more different from the stern and grumpy Lord Woodhal if he’d lived on the moon.
‘Ahh.’ Lady Faye straightening, looking instantly happier. ‘He believes himself to be a veritable Bond Street beau, but in my opinion his waistcoats are a little too magnificent to be considered entirely fashionable. Don’t you ever tell him I said that though!’ She nudged Ellen with an elbow. ‘What you really want to know is that he’s my ward. Owen’s mother was a good friend of mine although she was close to twenty years my junior. In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t heard of the Tattershalls. I don’t mean the Tattersalls of Tattersall’s London horses,’ she added quickly as though that was exactly what Ellen had been thinking, despite being only newly arrived to London. ‘Owen’s family is also from Evendale.’
‘No, I haven’t heard of his family.’ She was surprised. There were only seven and twenty families in Evendale. Although, as Mr Tattershall was an orphan, it was quite possible his parents had died before Ellen had been born. By the looks of it, he was a year or so older than herself—and a couple of years younger than Lord Woodhal. Probably about the same age as her brother. Or even Lieutenant Callaghan, had he not died.
One reclusive grandson, one dead grandson, one heartbroken daughter and one sweet-talking ward. The Woodhal-Faye clan was a peculiar bevy indeed. ‘This is all very personal, my lady. If you don’t mind my asking, why did you tell me? We’ve only just met.’
‘To be frank, gel. We may be a family of dukes and marquesses, but that doesn’t put us above reproach.’ Lady Faye squeezed her hand. ‘I’d prefer you heard all of this from me rather than the London gossips.’