The Light in the Duke's Shadow: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 28

  “I think even your governess would say that perhaps you are just reading too much into things,” Jules’ reasonable voice said in her ear.

  Penelope pursed out her lips and leaned her head back against his shoulder. “Maybe,” she admitted. “Speaking of Miss Lorraine, do you think that her captain fellow will really sign on with you?”

  “I made him a very generous offer, in writing I might add.” She felt the movement of Jules’ muscles as he shrugged. “He might refuse just to be stubborn, but I do not think that your Madam Lorraine is going to stand for that.”

  Penelope giggled. “You are right. She probably will not.”

  Jules’ voice said near her ear, “Now back to the topic at hand. Are you going to give up the separate bedrooms?”

  “Fine,” Penelope said as she admitted defeat with a laugh. “But do not come crying to me if I hit you and hurt your stitches in the middle of the night.”

  Jules assured her, “I promise that I will cry silently.”

  Penelope sighed in contentment as she swayed in the man’s arms. “Do you think that Clint fancies Gina?”

  Jules groaned. “Uh, thus it begins. I was warned you liked to meddle with the household.”

  “I am being serious, Jules.” Penelope wiggled out of the man’s arms and took her wedding gown over to a cabinet where she laid it down carefully. “Gina said that he enquired after her marital status. Does he have some sort of issue with children that I should warn her about?”

  Jules sighed and shook his head at her. “I have not honestly talked with him about children. If he spoke with her, then I am sure they will sort it out.”

  “Perhaps,” Penelope said with dissatisfaction. It was clear that her husband did not share her enthusiasm for helping others. “You do not enjoy my charity towards the staff?”

  Jules laughed heartily. “I am rather generous in that vein myself, but I do not take everyone’s happiness upon myself personally.”

  “I think that we have a certain amount of duty towards the society we live in,” Penelope said as she folded her arms across her chest and glared at her husband.

  Jules nodded. “As do I, and I am grateful for our sense of duty for it kept me alive. However, there is some wisdom in just letting things work out the way they are supposed to. Believe it or not, Penelope, people have been falling in love for centuries without any meddling from their betters.”

  “Oh, you mock me now, but you just wait,” Penelope said haughtily. She spun on her heel. “I am going to meet the staff.”

  Jules called out, “Do not scare them all away!”

  Penelope laughed despite herself as she walked down the hall away from her new husband. She might be destined to be miserable eventually, but thus far she found that there was nothing to be feared. At every turn, Jules had met her with kindness, but she did not truly think that would last forever.

  Perhaps that was what her mother had been trying to tell her. She simply needed to take what she could find in this life and be happy with that. This moment was a good one to hold onto, and Penelope intended to enjoy it.

  She wandered the grounds and met the staff of the country estate, which consisted of a lot of the same people but a few that she had never seen before who only worked at the large estate where the Duchy was centered. She admired the ponds and fields. There was so much land that she was sure it would take a long time to explore it all, and truly she might never find the actual time to do so.

  One day she imagined children roaming the yards, and Penelope pondered what that would be like. Would she tell her daughter or sons of the wonders or horrors of marriage? Perhaps she would tell them both. Penelope stopped in front of the wide doors of the main room. She smiled out at the stables and lawns. Better or worse, this was her life now. She just hoped that perhaps the mix would be slightly weighted towards the better than the worse.

  THE END

  Can't get enough of Penelope and Jules? Then make sure to check out the Extended Epilogue to find out…

  How will Penelope and Jules be able to repel the demons of the past and see their dreams come true together?

  How will the couple be able to show generosity and forgive Lord Portland's family?

  Will eventually the dark desire of vengeance strike again and destroy their chances of making a happy family together?

  Click the link or enter it into your browser

  http://abigailagar.com/penelope

  (After reading the Extended Epilogue, turn the page to read the first chapters from “A Governess in the Duke's Darkness”, my Amazon Best-Selling novel!)

  A Governess in the Duke's Darkness

  Introduction

  The somber, terribly handsome Duke of Wellington struggles after the death of his beloved wife. His four whip-smart, difficult children run circles around him, and his musical instrument business slips through his fingers. He desperately needs help, life is unbearable without the love of his life. Soon, a terrible illness robs him of his sight too. He’s cast into darkness. Angrier than ever, he has guarded his heart forever from any emotion. Will he overcome his wife's death or will he slowly drive himself to madness?

  Marina Blackwater is the youngest daughter of a very poor family. When she’s sent to the Duke’s house as a last-ditch effort for the governess position, she doesn’t know what she’s up against as the children push her through every possible challenge. But when she gets to listen to the Duke playing his violin furiously, she gets butterflies in her stomach and she can't find a way to resist his handsomeness and passion. How is Marina going to help the Duke soften his bitter heart?

  Even in the midst of darkness, will the Duke see the light his caring governess has brought to his shadowy estate? Or will she be cast out, as well, leaving the Duke in continued darkness, never able to feel love for his music, or for his children ever again?

  Chapter 1

  Sunlight crept over the yonder moors, glowing through the tips of the treetops. The Duke of Wellington stood, glowering at the windowsill, his violin tipped against his neck.

  Again, he’d spent another chaotic night without sleep, humming his violin until his emotion made him play far too quickly, making the notes screech. When he finished one fifteen or twenty-minute song or another, he always paused, found that his cheeks were damp—although he didn’t remember crying.

  He felt disconnected from that overzealous act: weeping. It was something other men did. Certainly not him, who’d spent the majority of his 20s as a soldier—his face stern, unafraid to peer out at the French armies with nostrils flared and posture straight.

  But that hadn’t ensured that horrible things wouldn’t happen in his life. His wife: the love of the previous fifteen years of his life, had died nine months before. It had been nine months of aching loneliness.

  Nine months of sleepless nights, knowing that the warmth of her body wasn’t felt atop the mattress beside him; knowing that they’d snuck a shovel into the soil and dropped her body within. She wasn’t coming back.

  And with that, another wave of emotion crashed into his chest, turning his lips downward. He slid his bow over and over the strings of the violin, causing it to screech wildly. Downstairs, at his large estate, he heard the servants and maids hustling about. He felt that they were little ants, trying to dart out of his angry step. If he were actually walking over them, he would crush them. And he knew he would feel nothing.

  It was nearly six-thirty in the morning, which meant the children would rise very shortly, and the hustle and bustle of another sombre day in September would begin. He swept his violin into its case, snapping it closed, and rubbed his fingers together, blinking.

  He knew it was probably just because he’d been awake all night, but his eyesight felt inarticulate. It was as if he couldn’t quite see the fine lines around anything. Like everything was blurring into everything else.

  “You really should get more sleep,” his doctor, Melrose, had explained to him several times since his wife’s passi
ng. “The body toils when you’re not giving it enough rest. And how do you suppose you’re supposed to care for your children …”

  At this, the Duke of Wellington had given the doctor a cruel look—peering down over his nose at the smaller, rat-like man. His tongue had burned with desire to say something whip-smart and cruel, as was the Duke’s custom when he felt most enraged. He didn’t need anyone else to care for his children. He needed only himself.

  He’d promised his wife that he would see to their care, himself. That they wouldn’t have strange nannies darting in and out of the estate, dampening the connection the children had with their mother. The Duke felt that the children needed to remember their mother through his teachings, through his stories. Although, as of now, it had been nine months, and he still struggled to speak of her. Of his darling Marybeth.

  They’d met when he’d been in his early 30s: a brash ex-soldier, who’d recently been injured in a battle in France. The injury had cast him back to England for recuperation. He’d struggled with a bum leg, limping through the woods alongside his father’s estate in Leeds.

  And one day, when the fog slipped deep within the trees, making him feel as though each breath was almost frosted, thick, he stumbled into a beautiful young woman—a young woman with electric green eyes, with blonde hair that curled down her chest (unwrapped, as she hadn’t assumed she would run into anyone that day, not that far in the woods). At once, she’d felt anxious, drawing her fingers through her hair. But the Duke, the stumbling soldier, made a soft joke to her, causing her to giggle in this way that seemed like their personal secret.

  Marybeth and the Duke had walked together out of the woods, easing slowly from one path to the next. Marybeth’s fingers had graced along the edge of the Duke’s. Electricity had shot between them. But, at the edge of the woods, Marybeth pointed towards the far hilltop, where she said her father awaited. Her eyes had burned towards the Duke’s, almost expectant. Yet, her lips didn’t dare say the words that he so wanted her to say to him: come find me. Come be with me. Make me yours.

  The Duke didn’t wait long to find her. Within weeks, he and Marybeth were courting—taking long walks along the wood’s edge, dining together with her parents, and his. The Duke was preparing to take over the operations for his father’s musical instrument shop—a grand, two-hundred-year-old affair that frequently provided instruments to the King and Queen, as well as all other royalty. The Duke sensed that Marybeth’s parents were pleased at the match. But regardless, he was head-over-heels, a man simmering with love.

  He hadn’t imagined it would turn out this way. One wasn’t meant to assume that death would haunt your most beautiful memories. Even after four children, after prosperous years at the estate they’d lived in together (the one he, himself, now haunted each and every night, playing his violin).

  He heard Christopher first. Christopher was the wildest of the pack—scampering up and down the halls, his feet stomping too loud for his eight-year-old weight. The Duke leaned heavily against the windowsill, wondering if he had the power to sit at the breakfast table with the four of them that morning.

  So often, as he gazed out over them—watching them nibble their biscuits, the crumbs falling to their plates, he felt unbearably sure that he would never be enough for them. He could never show the love they deserved. The love they’d lost, when their mother had passed. She’d been the more cheerful one. The one more apt to dot her finger against their cheeks, cackle as she poked fun at them. “Christopher, if you make that noise again, I swear I’ll lose my head!” Always, she’d scolded with a sense that nothing truly mattered. Like the five of them could get on, against the affront of the rest of the world.

  Claudia followed. Claudia—bright and nearly twelve years old, with those golden locks that snaked down her back (so much like her mother’s). She darted down the hallway after Christopher, calling, “Christopher, you have to calm yourself! Jesus, you’ll wake Father.”

  Always, she was worried about the Duke, trying to ensure that he didn’t fall into one of his “irritant” moods (as she so described it to others, when she thought she was outside of the Duke’s earshot). Claudia was, truth be told, probably his least favorite, the one that he most blamed when things went wrong. As the eldest, she was meant to uphold Lottie, Christopher, Max, and ensure they were safe, happy. And usually, when he blamed her for their defeat, he felt most anxious. He knew it was irresponsible to give her any sense that she’d done anything wrong.

  He knew it fell on his shoulders. That he, Aldolphus Caldwell, was the reason that she felt unsafe, that she felt she was meant to ensure that her siblings were happy, content—not weeping into the middle of the night, or not getting any sleep at all (like their father).

  But of course, much of her time involved straining to keep her father, the Duke of Wellington, smiling. Telling soft jokes, in that girlish voice of hers; ensuring that his room was kept clean and his violin shining. All this. Yet, still, the Duke continued to feel unloved, dark, volatile—on the fringe of a nervous breakdown, perhaps.

  He didn’t imagine a time in which he would ever feel love again.

  The Duke of Wellington walked towards the small basin in the side of the room, splashing water on his face. He scrubbed at his cheeks, digging his nails into his skin, and blinked towards the far wall. There she was—Lottie, calling out Claudia’s name. Asking for attention. But at four years old, wasn’t that warranted?

  She was his youngest, a dark brunette with another set of eyes just like her mother’s. Lottie was a far different breed than the other three—mischievous, whimsical. Since her mother had passed when she was only three, it was already clear that her memory of her was dwindling. It had never had time to fully flourish.

  Then, there was Max. He was the second youngest, a quiet, anxious kid, who, the Duke knew, he saw himself in (often, this was the most dastardly thing about having children, he knew: seeing something in them that you hate in yourself). How nervous he, himself, had been when he’d been younger! How he’d been so frightened about the weight of the world. Now, Max peered out of large, black eyes, seemingly marvelling at how horrendously difficult it all would be for him. And the Duke wanted to affirm this knowledge. Yes: it would be difficult. Yes: Max wouldn’t feel safe, most of the time. He would have to grow accustomed to that. Especially in the wake of his mother’s passing.

  The Duke dressed in a separate pair of pants, another shirt, wanting to make sure that his children didn’t know he’d been awake since the dinner before. He took a pause at the mirror, slashing his fingers across his eyebrows. “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing,” he marvelled at himself. “Just making it up as you go along.”

  The Duke stepped into the hallway, adjusting his coat. He gripped the railing at the staircase, his feet falling heavily on the wood, making it creak. Down below, the marble floor stretched out from the foyer, towards the yonder ballroom. He hadn’t been inside the ballroom since his wife had passed, as the pair of them had spent many a night twirling over the floor, their feet flashing quickly to the tune of whatever music they could find.

  Usually, it was a servant, or a random maid, with a slight affinity for the violin or the guitar. Sometimes, the Duke himself would just play the violin or the piano, watching with a wide grin as his wife twirled around and around. There was such a freedom to that time.

  Three of the four children were seated at the breakfast table, dressed in black. Lottie’s feet snuck back and forth beneath the table, while Max’s eyes were drawn to the empty, gleaming plate before him. Claudia looked up at him, expectant, her lips curved downward.

  Only Christopher was absent.

  “So, Claudia. You want to tell me where your brother is?” the Duke asked. His voice was much harsher than he’d expected it to be. It grated against Claudia, making her face grow tenser.

  “Um. He was only just… I’m sorry, Father,” Claudia said. She leaped up from her chair, whirling towards the kitchen. As she rushed, t
he Duke could hear a tiny whimpering from her throat. Already, he’d cast his oldest daughter to tears. What kind of monster was he?

  “Christopher! Come, now. Father’s here, and you can’t possibly think …” Claudia’s voice rang out from the kitchen.