The Temporary Wife/A Promise of Spring (28 page)

Marriage was not employment.

Marriage was involvement and caring and loving. Marriage was—commitment.

She had thought him wrong when he had said she was a giver and not a taker. But perhaps after all he was right. She could not become a taker. She would lose her own soul.

Perhaps in time she would be able to forgive herself.

I
T SEEMED INCREDIBLE TO THE
D
UKE OF
W
ITHINGSBY
when he thought about it later that his wife had left him during the afternoon of his father’s funeral, yet he did not discover it until the following morning.

He returned from a long ride and a lengthy talk with Charles, feeling somewhat refreshed. But he understood that it had been a stressful few days for all his family. Charity had retired to her rooms for a rest, he was told. He hoped she would sleep and feel the better for it. He was busy with the remaining guests for the rest of the day. He did not call at his wife’s dressing room to escort her down to dinner. When she had not appeared in the drawing room by the time dinner was announced, he sent a servant to inquire. Her maid had been told, he was informed, that her grace would not need her for the rest of the day, that she did not wish to be disturbed.

He did not disturb her. He made her excuses to his guests. She had given tirelessly of herself ever since her arrival at Enfield. They had all made demands on her energies, most notably Augusta and himself. She must be exhausted. He did not go up to check on her himself—he was afraid of disturbing her rest. And for the same reason he did not disturb her when he went to bed, though he did let himself quietly into her dressing room
and noted that there was no light beneath the door of her bedchamber.

It was only when he went for a rather late breakfast the following morning, after attending to some other business first, and discovered that she had not yet been down that he went to investigate. And then, of course, he discovered the letter she had left on her pillow. Not that it was on her pillow when he first saw it. Her maid was coming from her rooms with it in her hand, a look of fright in her eyes. She curtsied and handed it to him after telling him where she had found it, and obeyed his nod of dismissal with alacrity.

“Your grace,” his wife had written, “I will be leaving on the stagecoach from the village inn this afternoon. I hope you do not discover this soon enough to come after me. I know you will wish to because we signed an agreement and being an honorable gentleman, you will wish to honor it. But please do not come. And please do not try to find me. I release you from your part of our agreement. I do not wish to receive payment for what I have done. It would be distasteful and distressful to me.”

He closed his eyes and drew a slow breath. He was still standing in the hallway outside her dressing room.

“I am taking with me as many of my own belongings as I can carry,” he read when he looked back at the letter. “I cannot resist taking my ball gown too. I know you will not mind. And my pearls. They were a wedding gift, I believe, and there was a wedding. I will not feel guilty about taking them, then. They are so very beautiful. I am also taking some of the money I found in the top drawer of the desk in your study. I will need to pay for a ticket to where I am going and for food during the journey. Again, I do not believe you will mind. It is all I will ever take from you. Please tell Augusta that I love her. She will not believe you, but please, please find some
way to persuade her to accept that it is true. I am, your grace, your obedient servant, Charity Duncan.”

Charity
Duncan
. It was like a resounding slap across the face. He crumpled the letter in one hand and really felt for one alarmed moment that he was about to faint. She was Charity Earheart, Duchess of Withingsby. She was his wife—his to protect and support for the rest of his life and even beyond that if she survived him. Whether she chose to live with him or live separately from him, she would always be his. She had written of honor. How did she expect him to retain his honor when she had done this to him?

Where would she have gone? His mind scrambled about in confusion for her probable destination. He was alarmed when he realized that he would not know where in England to begin looking for her. There were only her old lodgings in London. She would have given them up. It was very unlikely she would go back there. No one there would know where she had gone. He doubted she had even told them about Enfield. She had left on yesterday afternoon’s coach. The devil! Had no one seen her leave Enfield—on foot at a guess—and thought to comment to anyone else on that fact or on her failure to return?

His first instinct was to have a bag packed, to call out his carriage, and to set out after her. It seemed not to matter in that first panicked moment that he would not know where he was headed. He would stop at the inn. Perhaps the innkeeper would know her destination—though it might not be her final destination, of course. Somehow he would follow her trail.

But instinct, he realized, closing his eyes and drawing steadying breaths again—he was
still
standing outside her dressing room—could not always be followed. He could not rush off into the horizon. There were things to be done. A few guests were leaving after breakfast. He
must see them on their way. Tillden and his wife and daughter were to leave later. He had promised Charles that he would have a word with Tillden first. He had arranged to have a conference with Will later in the day so that they might set up a working relationship concerning the running of the estates. He had agreed to talk with him at the dower house so that Augusta would have a chance to play with the boys. He had been planning to invite Charity to go with him. There was—ah, there were a thousand and one things that must be attended to today.

Besides, she did not want him to go after her. She did not want to accept his support. She wanted to sever all ties with him. He did not know how much money he had slipped into that drawer in his desk. But he would wager that she had carefully counted out only just enough to purchase her ticket and the most meager of meals. She had taken her pearls, but he knew beyond a doubt that she would not have taken the topaz necklet, which was lying, somewhat incautiously perhaps, in a box on top of that same desk in his study. He had been intending to give it back to her during a private moment—as a gift from both his father and himself.

She did not want him. She preferred freedom and independence and poverty and the life of a governess to the alternative of being in some way beholden to him. He felt blinded by hurt.

Ah, yes, he had been right in his assessment of her the evening after his father’s death. She was a giver. She gave of herself with cheerful, warm generosity. She was not in any way a taker. But did she not understand that there could be a degree of selfishness in being all give and no take? Did she not understand how he would feel at the moment of reading her letter? Did she imagine that he would sag with relief? That he would cheerfully forget her and get on with the rest of his life?

He hated her suddenly.

He saw his guests on their way. He explained to them that his wife was indisposed and sent her apologies. He invited the Earl of Tillden into the library, explained to him that Lord Charles Earheart was to receive a sizable settlement according to the terms of his father’s will and that he himself was preparing to gift his brother with one of his estates, considerably smaller than Enfield, but consistently prosperous. Lord Charles had just the day before expressed his intention of selling his commission and of living as a gentleman, administering his own estate. Lord Charles had asked of his eldest brother—and been granted—permission to pay his addresses to Lady Marie Lucas. He asked permission now through his brother to address himself to the lady’s father.

Charles, the duke did not deem it necessary or even wise to explain to the earl, had had a fondness for Lady Marie all his life, and a deep passion for her for at least the past two years—a love that was reciprocated. His belief in the hopelessness of that love, since she had been intended for the Marquess of Staunton, had precipitated his decision to take a commission in the cavalry.

The Earl of Tillden blustered and bristled and was clearly offended at the offer of a younger son when he had expected the eldest. But Lord Charles
was
the son and brother of a duke, and he was a wealthy man and was to be a considerable landowner. The boy might talk to him, he agreed at last. He remained in the library while the duke went in personal search of his brother. He was not hard to find. He was pacing, pale-faced and stubborn-jawed and anxious-eyed within sight of the library door.

“He will listen to you,” the duke told him and watched his brother draw in a deep breath and hold it. “Remember who you are, Charles. You are no man’s inferior. You are our father’s son. Good luck.”

Charles walked purposefully toward the library, looking as grimly courageous as he might have looked if he had known for certain that an axman complete with ax and chopping block was awaiting him on the other side of the door.

Augusta could not simply be told that Charity was indisposed. She had to be told at least some of the truth. Charity had had to go away in a hurry, he told his sister while he was sitting on a low chair in the nursery holding her in the crook of his arm as she stood beside him. There was an aunt who was sick and needed her help. He was going to go too as soon as he was able, to find out for himself how long the aunt would need her. If at all possible he would bring her back with him. But sometimes sicknesses could go on for a tediously long time.

He despised himself for not telling the full truth. If he could not find Charity, if he could not persuade her to come home with him and be his wife in total defiance of their agreement, then he was going to have difficulties indeed with Augusta. There would have to be further lies or the confession that he had lied today. But he could not bring himself to tell the truth, to let Augusta know that Charity had never had any intention of staying at Enfield and being a permanent sort of mother to her. It would be unfair to Charity to tell the truth. It would make her sound heartless—and that would be an enormous lie.

Sometimes truth and falsehood were hopelessly confusing things.

Two days passed before he left Enfield in pursuit of his wife. The earl and his family had left—Tillden had come to an agreement with Charles, and the young couple had been permitted fifteen minutes alone together, during which time it had been agreed they might come to an understanding, though of course there could be no formal
betrothal until the year of Lord Charles’s mourning was at an end. Lord and Lady Twynham had returned home with their children. Augusta had been granted an extended holiday from the schoolroom in order to stay at the dower house with Will and Claudia. He had merely told everyone that his wife had had to go somewhere in a hurry and he was going to escort her home. No one probed more deeply—he guessed that for those two days he had looked about as approachable as his father had always looked.

Finally the Duke of Withingsby set out on his journey, following a cold trail to nowhere.

C
HARITY TRUDGED THE
three miles home from the coach stop and walked unheralded through the open front door of the house and into the parlor, where the children were just finishing their tea and were clamoring at Penelope to be allowed back outside to play. David was promising with loud insincerity not to get dirty again and Howard was declaring that his breeches had been torn quite by accident—he had been being very careful. Mary was proclaiming the fact that
she
had not got dirty
or
torn her breeches and so there was no reason why Penny should insist on her staying inside. Howard was just in the midst of pointing out the irrefutable fact that Mary did not even wear breeches when Mary spotted Charity standing in the doorway. She shrieked.

And then they were all shrieking or whooping and exclaiming and laughing and talking and hugging and yelling. No one in the Duncan family had ever learned the lesson that talking simultaneously with several other people resulted in little or no communication taking place.

“Well,” Charity said at last, “here I am home again to stay, and you have all grown at least one inch, and if I
may just sit down and be allowed a quiet bawl, I shall be myself again in no time at all.”

She proceeded to do just that while Penelope rushed for the teapot and an empty cup and Mary dashed for the plate of scones—or what was left of them—and Howard told Charity how he had torn his breeches quite by accident and had then been falsely accused of being careless. David handed his sister his clean but much crumpled handkerchief.

It felt good beyond belief to be home. She did not tell the truth, of course. But she consoled herself with the thought that there would be no need of any more lies after today—or very few anyway. She told them she had not liked her new employment and so had left it. She told them that she had come home to stay, which would please Phil even if now he would have to bear the burden of their support all alone.

She was not quite sure yet if she really would stay. Perhaps after a while she would try again to find employment, but for a time at least she would be quite happy to stay where she was, licking her wounds, trying to persuade herself that doing the right thing was a virtue in itself and would eventually bring peace and contentment. She had undoubtedly done the right thing.

Penelope was openly relieved to see her. She loved the children and cared well for them, but she did not have quite the firm motherly touch that Charity possessed. Besides, she had a beau—the same gentleman who had offered for Charity once upon a time. Penny was clearly eager to accept his addresses. She was only anxious for assurance that Charity did not want him for herself.

“Of course I do not,” Charity said quite firmly. “If I had wanted him, Penny, I would have had him when he was interested in me—before you grew up enough that he would see you are the prettier.”