Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"I believe," the Duke said the next morning at breakfast, carefully setting down his coffee cup, "that it is my turn to cook today."

Five astonished faces turned towards him.

The Duke raised an eyebrow. "Why do I detect a distinct expression of incredulity on your faces?"

"Well, I, uh…you know, it's just that…" Theo hemmed and hawed before finally saying, "It's because none of us believe you can cook, Your Grace."

"You may be right about that, but I don't see why that should stop me from trying."

The look on their faces changed from incredulity to scepticism.

"I thought the agreement was that we would all contribute equally to the welfare of the family, no discrimination?"

"Yes, that's what we said," Les piped up.

"Well then." He nodded. "The kitchen is mine today. "

"Fabulous," Hector said with a grin. "I'll be your kitchen helper."

The Duke's gaze softened. "It will be an honour."

They were finally bonding, Lena realised with a soft glow in her heart. Hector was no longer as hostile to him as he had been at first. The Duke, it appeared, seemed to regard him with increasing affection. She was glad.

"Do you know what he did the other day?" Hector chattered. "When we flew the kite?"

"I thought that was supposed to be our secret?" he murmured.

Hector blithely ignored him. "We went to the meadow by the river to fly the kite. Only it got tangled in a tree, and we couldn't get it down. So he—" Hector pointed to the Duke "—took off his hat and coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves and climbed up the tree and untangled it, and do you know what happened then?" He laughed.

"What?" Theo and Mona asked in unison.

Hector could hardly speak he was laughing so hard. Les joined in.

"He got stuck in the tree! He climbed up so high that he couldn't get down again."

The Duke ignored the conversation as if they were not making fun of him and continued to drink his coffee.

"Oh dear." Lena held back her laughter. "What did he do to come down again?"

"He was stuck in the tree for a good half an hour, and there was no one to call for help. I would have run to the neighbour for a ladder, but I had a better idea." He grinned .

"What did you do to get down?"

"Hector and I found a pile of hay, and we carried it under the tree. With all that hay, it was safe to jump without breaking your legs," Les explained.

Lena's eyes grew round. "He jumped into the haypile?"

"I jumped," the Duke said with a deadpan face. "As you can see, my limbs are intact, thanks to the quick thinking of Hector and Achilles. Otherwise, I would still be up in that tree as we speak."

"He had hay all over him." Hector giggled. "In his hair, in his collar…"

Mona snorted a laugh, and even Lena couldn't resist a chuckle. She watched in amazement as a small smile flitted over his face.

Was that really the Duke of Aldingbourne? The stiff, starchy Duke without a sense of humour, who flew kites, climbed and jumped from trees, bought stockings, probably hung laundry on a rope, and now even cooked?

A warm smile tugged at the corner of Lena's mouth. "It will be a pleasure to have you cook today. I am looking forwards to this culinary adventure. Mind you, no cheating! No secretly ordering food from a tavern or asking one of your servants to do the deed."

"I will certainly not do so," the Duke promised. There was a hint of subtle teasing in his voice. She may have imagined the brief twinkle in his eye, but it was gone before she could register it.

The Duke was true to his promise .

He served a ragout made of hearty chunks of beef, carrots, potatoes and onions, and a hearty dose of paprika. He'd boiled it in the pot on the stove, ladled it out into bowls, and garnished the plates elegantly.

The boys sniffed at it suspiciously. Lena tasted it cautiously.

To her great shock, it was actually quite good. It wasn't charred to cinders, it wasn't over- or under-flavoured, and the soup had the right consistency. Mind you, the pieces of beef were huge chunks, and the potatoes were half cooked, but the overall flavour was excellent.

She put down her spoon and looked at them with astonishment. "How on earth did you know the recipe?"

Hector and the Duke exchanged glances. "That will be our secret," the Duke said. Hector nodded emphatically.

"I saw Hecki ask Frau Bauer!" Les declared. "She told him how to do it, of course."

"Traitor," Hector hissed.

Les grinned and proceeded to spoon the soup into his mouth. "If it is Frau Bauer's recipe, then of course it is good."

"It appears I missed my vocation," he said after tasting the soup. "This is not bad at all. What do you say, Hector, should I give up my duties as a Duke and become a cook?" There it was again, a twinkle in his eye. Was he now getting into the habit of joking?

Lena looked away in confusion and concentrated on her soup .

Theo said, "It is good! His Grace cooks better than Mama."

After supper, the Duke approached Lena in the kitchen as she dried the last bowl and put it away. "I would like to have a private word with you."

She dried her fingers on her apron. "Now?"

"If you please."

"Let us step outside for a walk, then," she said as she removed her apron. "The evenings have been mild, and it is not yet dark." She fetched her shawl and her bonnet and joined the Duke, who was waiting for her at the gate.

He offered her his arm, and after some hesitation, she took it.

They walked in silence along the riverbank.

"This is where the kite got entangled in the branches," the Duke said, pointing to a tree by the river.

"That's a huge tree! It's a wonder you didn't break any bones."

"Thanks to the boys' quick and creative thinking, I did not."

They walked on in silence, and Lena became acutely aware of him—the smell of his cologne, the heat he radiated.

She turned her head. "Was there anything in particular you wanted to talk about?"

"Yes." He paused as if gathering his thoughts. "A dispatch has arrived from England, along with some private items I requested." He must have been referring to the packet delivered earlier. He pulled an object from his waistcoat and handed it to her.

It was a small miniature that fit in the palm of her hand. It was a picture of a boy with dark hair, a serious expression, and sombre eyes.

"That's Hector!" She pulled the miniature closer to her eyes. "No, it's not. Hector would never have that serious expression on his face." She gasped. "It's you!"

"Yes. If you turn the miniature, you can see the date is 1787. I was nine years old."

"The resemblance is uncanny." She held it up to his face. He had been a pretty boy—softer, sweeter, and with a trace of loneliness in his eyes. Now his face was all angles and planes, high cheekbones and a strong chin. The thought that one day Hector might look exactly like the Duke of Aldingbourne gave her goosebumps. She dropped her hand.

"This is the proof, I suppose," she murmured more to herself than to him. "Have you shown it to Hector?"

"Not yet."

Her eyes flew up to his face. "What do you intend to do now?"

He turned away and walked slowly along the gravel path. "Isn't the question what are we going to do now?"

"Yes," Lena stammered. "I suppose so."

"I'd like to make it official," he said curtly. "With your permission, and that of your family."

She licked her dry lips and her heart began to pound. "Make it official. Like, an announcement in the Wiener Abendblatt : Dead English Duchess Returns to Life." Her hands framed the imaginary headline in the air .

His lips quirked upwards. "Not quite that dramatic. Now that you mention it, I suppose we must expect it. It will draw much curiosity, and there will be talk. It would have to be an official introduction to society here. You would appear at my side, as my duchess."

Lena swallowed. That sounded daunting.

"Your parents would also have to be informed."

"My parents…Are they well?"

He hesitated. "As well as one would expect them to be after the death of their only child."

She looked at him, stricken. "Poor Father. Poor Mother. I must write to them at once."

He nodded. "Then there is something else." He hesitated again. "We need to talk…about our marriage."

She braced herself. "Yes." Her eyes focused on the riverbank where some laundry women were washing clothes.

"It is difficult for me to find words, because I am, in general, not a man who is used to talking about these things. Feelings. Marriage." His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. "But you have a right to know the truth. Maybe it will help you remember."

"The truth. What is the truth?" she whispered.

"The truth, Catherine," he said with emphasis, as if he had deliberately chosen that name instead of Lena, "the truth is that our marriage was…not as good as it could have been." He did not meet her eyes.

A murder of crows rose up from the fields beyond, squawking.

"Why wasn't it good?" she asked after a pause, eager to hear his side of the story .

"It was…all my fault."

"How?"

"I failed to be a good husband. I take full responsibility for what happened."

A steep wrinkle formed between Lena's eyebrows. "A marriage, by definition, involves two people. It seems absurd for you to take full responsibility. Half of it might be yours. The other half is mine. As for what happened…what, specifically, do you mean?"

He looked to the horizon, where the sun was slipping behind the hills, his eyebrows forming dark, steep slashes against his pale face.

"The truth is that you could no longer bear it." There was a beat of silence. "And so, you packed your trunks and left me."

Lena's heart skipped a beat. "I did?"

He ran a hand through his thick hair. "We had an argument. Truthfully, I can't recall what it was about now. At the time, it must have seemed trivial to me, but to you, it must have been significant enough to leave. We didn't know where you had gone for three days. By the time we found a trace of you in Scotland, it was too late."

Lena rubbed the side of her nose, feeling a knot tighten in her stomach. There was so much more to the story. Why was he holding back? "Are you certain? It doesn't seem like me to run off over a minor argument."

There was a tightness around his eyes and mouth and a weariness seemed to settle over him. "Believe me, I have searched every recess of my mind, gone over it a thousand times, wondering what I could have said or done differently. I've thought about it every day for eight long years."

She did believe that to be true. His regret was genuine. She wanted to touch the line of suffering that had etched itself in the corner of his mouth but forced herself to hold back.

"Are you certain that I left you?" she asked softly. "Maybe I was visiting a friend or a relative. Didn't I leave a letter?"

"No." His expression tightened with some unspoken emotion. "But you did leave this." Once more, his hand reached into his waistcoat, pulling out the slim leather volume she had seen in his room. "I believe it is right that I return it to you."

Lena took the diary, her fingers brushing the worn cover. She'd seen it before, knew it was hers. Inside, the pages were filled with what she recognized as her own handwriting. "My diary." She turned it in her hand. "Papa gave it to me on my fourteenth birthday."

His lips twisted to a faint smile. "I see it is working, and your memory is returning. The answer to your questions might be in that journal, but the entries stop shortly before your departure for Scotland. You never wrote about why you decided to leave. I didn't give this to you earlier because—" He paused, searching her face.

"Because?" she pressed.

"Because I was afraid," he admitted. "Afraid of what you'd remember. Afraid it might drive you away."

She observed him closely. A breeze blew a strand of hair over his forehead, and suddenly he looked younger, more vulnerable.

"Why tell me all this now? You could have easily said everything was perfect, that our marriage was a success and that we couldn't have been happier."

"Truth be told, I wanted to do just that." He sighed. "To paint the past as a picture of bliss, to convince you that it was all roses, milk and honey, and that it couldn't have been better. But that would have been a lie, and I realised…I want a new beginning—with you. Now. Based on the present, not haunted by the past."

Her breath caught. "Are you sincere?" she whispered.

He brushed a loose strand of hair from her face and his knuckles gently grazed her cheek. He traced her lips lightly with his thumb.

She shivered at his touch.

"Yes," he said huskily.

Her heart quickened, an ache forming deep within her chest as she swayed towards him.

His pupils were dark and deep, endless wells in a sea of molten silver.

There was nothing she wanted more than to lean against him, lift her mouth and?—

A bang tore them apart, and the sky exploded in fireworks.

Lena licked her lips and pressed her hand against her racing heart.

"The festivities are ongoing," the Duke said, his voice slightly breathless. "I believe Count Razumovsky is hosting a party."

"Shouldn't you be there?" Lena asked after collecting herself.

"I prefer to stay here." He lifted his face to watch the fireworks in the sky, but Lena watched him instead—the line of his jaw, the delicate curve of his mouth, remembering how close they'd come to kissing.

She cleared her throat.

"I suppose we should go back. The children…"

"Yes. The children." After a moment's hesitation, he held out the diary. "Don't you want it?"

Lena glanced at the journal, its brown leather faded and cracked. She knew what it contained. Minute descriptions of her daily life at Aldingbourne Hall. Embarrassing, childish confessions for the man who had been first her betrothed, then her husband. Love poems, filled with naive hope. And later, entries that spoke of growing loneliness and longing.

All that pain, that sadness. She needn't relive all that.

She shook her head. "I don't want it."

An incredulous look passed over his face. "Don't you want to know what you wrote? Don't you want to remember?"

Once more, she shook her head. "Perhaps I will, one day. I trust you'll keep it safe for me. As you have done so far."

His expression softened. "It's my greatest treasure. I'll guard it with my life."

They walked back home in companionable silence, but Lena felt as if they had reached a new level in their relationship; something there that hadn't been there before. Was it friendship? Was it trust? Or something deeper? Whatever it was, she was certain, for the first time, that it was not the hollow memory of a bygone love.

That was why she had refused the diary—her past emotions confused her. She wanted what was here now. Something real, solid and present. Something new, and something to build on.

And it was all within her grasp.