Elizabeth Beacon - The Duchess Hunt

‘I always notice your absences, Princess,’ he said with exaggerated patience, as if preventing himself from physically taking hold of her and shaking her until some sense had been driven in by force. ‘In those days it was mainly because I was on pins to know what mischief you were in whenever you were gone, but that time we searched all night, then half the next day for you. I’ll never forget how it felt to look in vain for a child lost in the darkness. Rich and I tramped the hills round Winberry Hall so fanatically I could probably guide a party round them, day or night, without pausing to get my bearings even now.’

‘I didn’t know any of that. When I recovered from the fever I got from being so wet and cold you and your cousins were all long gone, so I thought you must have already left Winberry Hall by the time I was found to be missing.’

‘Not us, and just as well since your father was in such despair when you were not to be found that night and your brothers not much better, that if my Uncle Henry hadn’t organised a systematic search of the area, we might not have found you until it was too late to help you.’

‘Then why wasn’t I told?’ she asked faintly.

‘The doctor said you were not to be reminded of your ordeal and would need all the peace and quiet you could get to recover when the fever broke and you were out of danger at last. So we took ourselves off, certain you would soon be your usual irrepressible self after giving us such an almighty scare, but you never really recovered your old spark, did you, Princess?’

For once she didn’t argue with that nickname, too busy re-aligning events in her head to bother about small details. ‘No,’ she admitted at last.

‘Why not?’ he asked as if he was truly interested in her answer. ‘You were the most intrepid female Rich and I ever came across and then you became a paper saint.’

How to explain that it was plain to her by then that none of her dawning hopes for the future could ever be, now she was imperfect and he was not? Impossible when he would think her still in love with him or some such nonsensical notion, she decided, and cast about for an excuse for losing interest in the things she’d once loved so much, like riding for hours about the Northamptonshire countryside, running like the wind and climbing every tree on her father’s estate, then most of his neighbours’ as well.

‘As a way of preserving my dignity, I suppose,’ she said finally with a shrug.

‘It was a retreat—no, worse than that, a refusal to give battle in the first place,’ he condemned sternly.

‘How can you sit there and lecture me on cowardice when you have no idea what you’re talking about?’ she accused. ‘You never suffered a moment of doubt that your limbs would hold you up for as long as you asked them to. How could you understand what it feels like to face a crowded ballroom, knowing you will have to limp across the dance floor to reach the chaperon’s benches, where everyone knows you will stay all evening because you cannot dance? You never had to face the giggles and whispers of diamonds of the first water as they discuss you as if you’re either not there or must be deaf since you’re not perfect like they are. Some gentlemen even asked my mother if I would like tea or lemonade as if I couldn’t decide for myself.’

‘You seem to me to get on perfectly well with most of them. Rich and I could never get near you for a circle of assorted young ladies and spotty youths with fiercely protective expressions in their eyes when you made your come-out.’

‘So I can’t be quite as martyred and self-pitying as you say, can I?’

‘I never said you haven’t got a great many friends, just that you are very careful never to acquire lovers.’

‘Something my true well-wishers must be thankful for,’ Jessica said primly.

‘You know perfectly well what I mean. There wasn’t a single would-be lover or husband among those very young gentlemen. Not even one grown-up male with a mind and desire all his own, my dear Princess. You know, real, mature and rampant gentlemen who might take friendship for something more if you ever let them, so you’ve kept them sternly at a distance, haven’t you?’

‘No sensible female encourages the rakes,’ she said scornfully, although she knew he was quite right.

‘One fully aware of her own beauty and wit and who is prepared to take them and life on and win would, Princess, although a spoilt young woman who is too arrogant to play the game at all if she isn’t guaranteed to win would probably not dare do so.’

‘What an original take on my life you do have, your Grace,’ she said icily.

‘And how very much you would like to box my ears,’ he said with a whimsical grin, as if he’d prefer her to revert to the wild Jess of old and do just that.

‘Tempting, but not even you make me angry enough to risk being overturned, then having cause to limp on both feet ever after,’ she teased, because it was that or rage, then probably weep all over him since no words came close to being able to express her fury at being held up for his lofty scrutiny and found wanting.

‘Oh, Princess, what are we going to do with you?’ he asked with a weary shake of his handsome head.

‘Take me home and stop calling me that,’ she said just as wearily.

It seemed for a long time as if they’d reached deadlock. Jack had taken a wide sweep round the road at a handy village green to turn his light carriage back towards London without feeling the need for any spectacular feats of driving to prove his skill. Jessica already knew he could do most things he set his mind to superbly and hoped she wasn’t going to be his latest project, something mildly challenging to divert him from the more serious business of finding a wife.

‘What an obedient duke I am,’ he ventured after a few miles of wary silence.

‘No, you’re a devious, deceptive and dangerous one and I’m not in the least bit fooled by you, so don’t try your tricks on me,’ she told him grumpily.

‘At least I’m open to life and haven’t had my emotions preserved in aspic,’ he argued scornfully.

‘You’re certainly open to making the biggest mistake of your life this summer,’ she muttered under her breath at the arrogance of the man, thinking he could accuse her of being emotionless when he was contemplating taking a wife mainly to reassure his cousin he could finally come home, since the succession was about to be secured on to more direct heirs.

‘How lovely for you,’ she said insincerely out loud, but began to wonder anew about that cat-like hearing of his as he sent her a very peculiar look indeed.

‘Promise me that you will at least try, Princess,’ he admonished with a sigh after several more minutes of faintly hostile silence on both sides.

‘Try to do what?’

‘Join us erring and striving human beings for a change and come down out of your ivory tower for the summer. You might be surprised at what you find if you decided to embrace life instead of running away from it.’

‘And you might get your ears boxed after all,’ she snapped bitterly, for wasn’t this pot calling kettle black with a vengeance?

‘Promise?’ he said relentlessly and she made the mistake of briefly meeting his eyes and seeing genuine concern in the gold-rayed green depths of them before he turned his attention back to the road once again.

‘Only if you finally stop calling me Princess,’ she conceded and might have kicked herself for conceding that much if it would have done any good.

‘You would miss it if I did,’ he said with a wry smile as if he had suddenly realised how absurd they must look as they quarrelled most of the way round the almost countryside, then back into London again.