Jane Lark - The Scandalous Love of a Duke

“Things stand not well, John.” Richard slung an arm about John’s shoulders and drew him to the stairs. “I’ll take you up. The family will be pleased to see you, your mother particularly.”

“And my grandfather?” John had to ask.

“He is near the end,” Richard answered, his arm falling as they began climbing the stairs. “He has been holding on for your return, I think. He will want to speak to you at once. I’ll tell him you are here. He is much changed, John. He’s been ill for many months.”

John nodded sharply, angry at the emptiness in his chest and the anxiety stirring in his stomach. For God’s sake, I am a man full-grown now. I need not fear him.

“Why not wait with your grandmother and Penny. They will be overjoyed you’re home. I’ll come and fetch you.” His uncle must have seen something of John’s feelings.

John felt like the child he’d been when he’d left. The child his uncle had always seemed to pity. He nodded, though, and walked on along the familiar hall as Richard turned the other way.

John’s head was suddenly full of pictures from the past. The most acute being the day his mother and his stepfather had come here to fetch him during that troubled tenth year of his life. The day he’d been returned to her after the scene which haunted him.

She’d taken John from school previously, in the middle of the night. John’s stepfather had been with her then, but he’d been a stranger to John at the time. They’d travelled north for miles and then she’d married that stranger.

It was only a couple of weeks after that John’s grandfather had come to take him back.

The day his mother had collected John here, his grandfather had acknowledged her for the first time.

The drawing room door was ajar. John could hear the women talking.

“I have no idea what else to do. He will see no other physician but he is so obviously in considerable pain and yet he will not take laudanum,” John’s grandmother was saying. Her voice sounded weak and worried.

Both she and his aunt Penny had been mothers to him until he’d been ten. His grandfather’s monster wanted to roar even now, and yell at them when he entered; why had they needed to be? Why had his mother not been here? He’d never understood who to blame for his loss.

He thrust his maudlin childish thoughts aside and pushed the door wider to enter. “Grandmamma. Aunt Penny.”

Both women stood, exclaiming at the sight of him then crossing the room, their eyes wide. He had shocked them.

“Grandmother,” he kissed the back of her fingers, bowing, but when he rose he saw tears in her eyes, and then he hugged her gently and pressed a kiss on her temple before letting her go.

“Oh John, your grandfather will be glad. I am glad. It is good to have you home. You look well. Your journey was not too difficult?”

“My journey was long, and difficult, but that is travelling, and particularly in winter. It is good to see you too, Grandmother. You have not aged a day.”

She smiled. “Flatterer.”

“You have an air of mystery about you now, John, and I think it suits you,” his aunt said.

John turned to her, smiled and opened his arms.

She hugged him. “Ellen must be overjoyed.” She was crying too when she pulled away and she reached for a handkerchief.

“I have not seen Mama yet. I thought it best to come here first. Is she in town?”

“Oh John, yes, she is in town, and she will never forgive me for seeing you first.”

“I shall have Finch send word,” his grandmother said. “The whole family are in London…” Because of my grandfather’s illness? “I shall have him contact them all.”

“John.”

John turned to face Richard, who stood at the open door.

“His Grace wishes to see you.”

A moment later, John was walking back along the statue-lined hall beside his uncle.

“How long is he likely to live?”

His uncle glanced sideways. “It could be hours or days or weeks, John. There is no certainty. He has defied a hundred predictions already.”

John nodded, feeling his anxiety rise again.

“You have nothing to fear,” his uncle stated more quietly.

John was thrown back into the position of a ten-year-old child.

Richard rested a palm on his shoulder.

John shrugged it off. He was not that child anymore, and if his grandfather was so close to death, he needed to earn respect not pity. “I am half his age and in my prime. He is on his deathbed. He can hardly dominate me now.”

“I was not challenging you, John,” his uncle answered with a smile. “I know you are capable, but I also know how cutting his words can be, pay no mind to them. I have never done so.”

John tried to recognise Richard’s good intent but only felt discomfort. He felt emotionally naked here. He was not used to the feeling. He was no longer used to people who knew him so well. He did not like it.

Richard knocked on the door of the state bedchamber and waited to be called in.

John’s heart raced when Richard turned the handle.

The red and gold decoration in the room was subdued by the low light. Just two candles were burning: one on either side of the bed, casting shadows. The canopy towered above them, and long curtains fell to the floor at either side, screening his grandfather from view. But John could hear his laboured breathing, and the chamber had the putrid smell of sickness.

His grandfather’s valet stood across the room and another man was beside the bed. The physician?

“Your Grace, I have brought John.” Richard moved forwards.

John followed.

The Duke of Pembroke was propped up on pillows and his head lay back, as though he could not lift it. He was extremely thin, a ghost compared to the statuesque giant who’d intimidated John as a child. He was unrecognisable. His skin was grey and his cheeks sunken. His hands, which rested on the red cover, were skeletal.

The old man took a breath, which looked painful, and lifted his hand an inch from the bed. He breathed John’s name and then it fell.

John passed his uncle, moving to take his grandfather’s hand. He pressed a kiss upon the bony knuckles. “Your Grace.”

“My… boy.” The words were barely audible as he fought for breath.

“John.”

John turned to see Richard had brought a chair for him. He sat, still holding his grandfather’s hand, and rested an elbow on the bed, leaning forwards.

“Grandfather, I was sorry to hear your situation.”

A condemnatory sound escaped the old man’s lips “Because… it… meant… you… must… come… home… Sayle.” The Duke was the only one who called him by his token title, the Marquess of Sayle.

“Because it meant you were dying,” John corrected. “I do not relish that, Your Grace. True, I do not hunger for the reins of the dukedom, but nor do I wish to see you gone; you are my grandfather.” It was probably the most honest statement he’d ever made to the old man. It was about bloody time he spoke truthfully.

“Unlikely… But… now… you… are… back… I… may… go… in… peace.”

“And that is equally unlikely.” John smiled as he met his grandfather’s gaze. The old man’s body may have been weakened, but his direct gaze and the mind behind it had not.

“Enough… of… your… cheek.”

John smiled more broadly. “So do you wish to know what I have been up to in my absence?”

“I-know… your… mother… has… read… your… letters… to… me—” the Duke’s words were cut off by a painful-sounding cough.

John rose and pressed a hand on his grandfather’s shoulder. “Perhaps I ought not disturb you.”

The Duke’s fingers lifted from the bed. “Stay,” he breathed.