The Duchess’s Secret. Elizabeth Beacon
must stop sniping at him. She wrapped her arms across her shivering body at the thought of what a disaster it would be if he ever found out about Jenny. However much he had wronged her, she could not sue him for divorce since the law did not recognise her as a sentient human being, merely as her husband’s chattel. And if he was furious with her for lying by omission when he left her, how would he feel if he found out she had borne his child? Somehow she must get him to leave.
‘I am ready to do what you want because it is what I want as well. So you can go away with my promise to turn up to be insulted and defamed, now you have satisfied yourself I am really me,’ she said lightly.
She would leave Livesey first and make sure there was no trail for his bloodhound to follow this time. Then she could set out for London by an indirect route to act the adulteress for him, since that was the only way out of this prison they had made for each other all those years ago when they wed over the anvil.
‘You will bolt as soon as I turn my back,’ he said abruptly and that was annoyingly perceptive of him.
‘I agree to let you fabricate grounds for a divorce and I do not go back on my word.’
‘Hmm, we shall see about that.’
Inside she was raging at him for pretending her failure to confide in him before marriage was a deliberate lie, but that paled to nothing besides her worry his former lawyer would tell Ash the truth even if she did manage to get away without him finding out he had a daughter. The lawyer must know about Jenny, so why had he kept her secret? Blackmail, she decided. If what Ash said was true he had made provision for her before he left and someone stole it. The lawyer must be venal and lazy and if he could make money out of her to pay back what Ash would demand he returned to him he would still win, wouldn’t he? Most of that settlement, the conscience money Ash had intended to settle on her, would have to go on paying the man to keep quiet but it would be worth it, she assured herself as she shot this hard-faced stranger a sideways look. The headache she had come up here to cure thundered in her temples now as a new hazard was added to her list and how she wished Ash would leave her in peace to try to work out a way around them.
‘They expect me at the inn in Livesey, by the way, before you try to tell me the place is full to the rafters with benighted travellers.’
‘Why? What more can you want from me than a promise to go quietly?’ she asked rather desperately.
‘Nothing, but I knew I would be cold and weary after riding from London as fast as my horse can carry me. My former lawyer told me the inn at Livesey is comfortable and clean and Peg needs a rest even more than I do.’
‘Peg?’ she echoed hollowly and shock could make the strangest things seem important. It sounded a very odd name for such a noble steed.
‘Short for Pegasus—his last owner had high-flying ideas to go with his huge debts.’
‘Oh, I see,’ she replied vaguely and she wasn’t really interested in him or his horse, was she? ‘You could get stuck there and you would not want that, would you?’ she said as she fought those silly tears back and focused on the yellowish band of cloud now creeping across the sea and realised what it meant.
‘Why?’
‘Have you been away from England so long you have forgotten what yonder sky means?’
He followed her pointing finger as if he didn’t trust her to know snow clouds from a hole in her shoe. ‘Aye, you’re right,’ he finally had to admit. ‘There is a goodly fall of snow on its way.’
‘Best hurry back to Dorchester and be comfortable there for however long it lasts, then. I promise to be on my way as soon as the roads allow travel again,’ she urged, hoping she could escape while his back was turned and she wasn’t exactly lying, was she? She did plan to scoop Jenny up and run as fast as she could go in the opposite direction. She had not said where she would be on the road to—how could she when she had no idea herself?
‘I am not the soft aristocrat you seem to think me. A village inn will do me very well,’ he argued with a suspicious look that asked why she was so determined to get him away from her humble home.
She managed to shrug as if she didn’t care what he did. ‘Well, I am going home anyway. I have a great deal to do before it snows,’ she said with a warning glare as if to say Don’t even think about hauling me on to that great horse and making us ride double.
‘Chickens and things, I suppose,’ he said, Duke to peasant.
The old, impulsive Rosalind would have smacked his smug face for that taunt, but this one gave him a look of icy contempt and marched away from the bridle path he would have to follow as a stranger to the heath.
‘Don’t get bogged down, Your Grace,’ he shouted after her and she strode on even faster to stop herself turning around and sticking her tongue out like a street urchin.
* * *
What a fool—what a lunatic he was. Why not do as she said and avoid her until he had to see her again for whatever reason the lawyers dictated? He had this stupid, boyish impulse to break through her determined serenity because his body wanted her, so his tongue had said things he cursed it for even when he was saying them. Ash urged his horse along the track to Livesey someone told him was shorter than the toll road and with a fine view—nowhere near as fine as the one he found at the top of it. If only he had been prepared for the sight of Rosalind there he might not have sniped at her and given himself away as far less calm and cold about this divorce business than he thought he was until he saw her again. It was that silly boy talking; the one who wanted to jump off the grey and chase his wife down the snaky track he had not even seen until she bolted down it as if the devil was on her tail. A little bit of logic survived and wondered why was she so intent on getting back to the village so fast she was prepared to risk a sprained ankle as well as very muddy legs and torn skirts. He stared after her as she neatly twisted and turned to avoid hazards until she was lost to his sight. Then he shook his head to try to settle some sense back into it and sighed.
The boy he once was still wanted her mercilessly, but it was the man who said stupid things then stuck to them as if taking it back would be a sign of weakness. He didn’t really want to go to Livesey Village in the middle of nowhere and risk seeing her every time he walked down a road or looked out of the taproom windows. One look at the fine gold curls that had escaped the severe knot she had skewered it into and shining like a halo in the winter sun, those deep blue eyes and that glorious feminine mouth and he wanted her nearly as badly as he had on their wedding night. He should never have come here alone; better still he should have found another lawyer and sent him to bargain with the Duke of Cherwell’s unwanted wife. Instead he recalled her extraordinary beauty and decided not to trust even the most staid lawyer with the task, but he didn’t appear to be that trustworthy in the face of it either.
Despite his impatience with himself Ash managed to ride down to the village as if he was not in a hurry. Even running recklessly over rough ground and jumping streams and walls Rosalind could not beat him there by many minutes. He had been lucky to find this fine beast for sale at a livery stable to pay the bill his last owner could not afford and he had no intention of ruining the gelding’s legs by galloping on unfamiliar ground. Time for the Duke of Cherwell to pretend he was just a modestly well off gentleman with business in the area, except why on earth had he booked that room in the name of Meadows? Rosalind seemed to be pretending to be a widow and a snowstorm ought to stop her grabbing whatever treasures she had and bolting off into the blue to hide under another name in another obscure place for reasons best known to herself.
‘Joan, Joan—where on earth are you?’
‘Here, Miss Rosalind.’ Joan emerged from the little bakehouse-cum-scullery with the delicious smell wafting out behind her. ‘Heavens above, just look at the state of you,’ the maid gasped and took in Rosalind’s torn and muddied petticoats