Kind Ella and the Charming Duke: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 2

  They would be at that man’s mercy for their safety and security; they would literally be giving up everything. And why? So that her selfish, ambitious mother could be known by all as the Countess of Dandridge and have even more servants at her disposal than she already did.

  And Ella would be forced to live in a strange house with a man she did not like and a family she did not yet know.

  “Mama, please, you must think about this. We would have nothing of our own anymore. We would be at that man’s mercy.”

  “You silly girl! We would have everything our hearts desire!”

  “No, we would have everything your heart desires, Mama, not mine. You do not know what is in my heart.”

  “And at this moment, I do not care to,” Ariadne said sharply. “For you are not being very sensible and you do not deserve my consideration if you are going to behave like this.”

  “I do not remember having your consideration before, Mama, so I shall not notice its loss.”

  “Perhaps you should leave now. I do not think I care to take tea with you after all.” Ariadne turned to look across the drawing room, casually dismissing her daughter as if she were staff.

  Without another word, Ella quietly made her way out of the drawing room.

  Chapter 2

  Rufus Darnley sat behind his great oak desk in the study at Hillington Hall, his elbows leaning heavily on a stack of papers whilst he rested his chin in his hands.

  “Your Grace, I think it is a very wise decision.” Henry Mercer, the attorney, looked at the Duke of Hillington through grey, kindly looking eyes. “After all, at five and thirty, I daresay the time has come.”

  “Yes, I am sure it has, Henry.” There was something defeated in his tone, something so resigned as if he were being led up the steps to the gallows. “I suppose I had always thought that I might one day happen across a young woman I had something in common with.”

  “I think it is so rare a thing, Your Grace, that to act practically is a very much more sensible solution. At least when you approach the thing with common sense, you are able to choose a young lady on her qualities, her very suitability to be your wife. I am afraid that when the heart is followed, such common sense flies out of the window.”

  “I cannot tell whether your words are making me feel better or worse, Henry. There is a part of me which applauds your practicality on the issue, and another which feels as if all hope is squashed.” Rufus laughed.

  “I think hope comes with practicality, your Grace.” Henry Mercer laughed also.

  It had been a very long time coming, but Rufus felt a certain sense of relief now that he had enlisted his attorney’s help in the matter of finding himself a suitable bride. At five and thirty, the time really was drawing near that he ought to produce an heir to the Duchy. With nothing but very distant male relations to inherit should anything happen to him, Rufus felt the sudden weight of responsibility.

  After all, his own very fine father had been proud to have a son to whom he could pass the title which had been in their family for generations. To not produce an heir of his own would be to let his father down, Rufus was certain of it.

  And, despite the fact that his own dear father had been dead for fifteen years now, still, he missed him greatly and wished to please him, even though he was not on the earth to see it.

  “Henry, what you say makes a good deal of sense. I suppose it is time for me to let go of the notions which have hung around me for so many years. I have wasted too much time waiting for a woman of sense to come along, one who attracts me with wit and intelligence instead of fine gowns and over-made faces. After all, it has been many years that I have searched for such a woman to no avail. Perhaps it is time to take the commonsense approach.”

  “And when it becomes known that you are looking for a bride, you will have your pick of all the county, Your Grace.” Henry smiled, his ageing face crinkling pleasingly as he did so.

  “The problem is, I have had the pick of the county ever since I became the Duke, and it has not helped me one bit. In all that time, I have not settled upon a woman who truly attracted me.” He shrugged.

  They both knew, of course, that that was not entirely true. The Duke of Hillington had been attracted once, very attracted, and he had been so scorched by the experience that he had spent many years after choosing not to repeat it.

  “Ah, but you will be looking with very different criteria from here on in, will you not?”

  “To be honest, Henry, I cannot begin to imagine what the criteria would be. What should I be looking for in a good match, in your opinion?” There was not another man on earth of whom Rufus would have asked so open a question, displaying such a great lack of knowledge of his own.

  “Well, a good background, obviously.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “A very solvent family.” Henry smiled. “By which I mean very wealthy.”

  “Presumably you think that I should be insisting on a very healthy dowry.”

  “Absolutely, Your Grace. The Duchy coffers are in good order, of course, but they are so because of many generations of good management and fine marriages. It may not speak to the last vestiges of romance in your soul, Your Grace, but these practicalities ensure the health and wealth of a fine estate like this for generations to come. As considerations go, it is of paramount importance.”

  “Well, if you say so,” Rufus said without any conviction, even though he knew the old attorney spoke sense.

  Henry Mercer had been an attorney for the Duchy for almost as long as he had been an attorney himself. He had been a young man when the old Duke had retained him as his attorney, long before Rufus himself was even born. Henry Mercer had been a feature in Rufus’ life, a very present figure, and a man who seemed as much a friend to his father as an attorney employed to see to Duchy matters.

  Rufus’ father had trusted Henry with everything, and Rufus realized that the time had come for him to lay yet one more matter in the ageing attorney’s hands. The matter of his own matrimony. And, of course, it was not simply a matter of Rufus’ marriage, but the very continuation of the Darnley line as Dukes of Hillington.

  “So, what else are we looking for?” Rufus said, noting that he needed to move on with it all, to accept the cold practicalities of an arranged marriage.

  “We need a sociable young lady, but not too sociable. Someone who will shine at your side at every event without overpowering it with her own personality.”

  “That seems like a lot to ask.”

  “Not really, again, it is just common sense. People must be pleased to be in your wife’s company, for she will so often be expected to be with you wherever you go. To have a young lady of an agreeable nature is very important indeed, but it is equally important that she does not have so strong a character that that character itself is very obvious to all around.”

  “This is more complicated than I thought,” Rufus said absently, all the while imagining his bride-to-be as a small, brightly coloured budgie, pretty to look at and pleasing to listen to as it chirped and tweeted, but also easily silenced by simply throwing a black cloth over its cage.

  He began to feel a little depressed by the notion.

  “It is not so complicated, Your Grace. I suppose I am merely saying that you do not want a young lady who is too gregarious.”

  “Oh, I suppose that makes sense,” Rufus conceded, wondering if it really did.

  “And, I daresay, you might quite like her to be pretty.”

  “Yes, I daresay,” Rufus said and smiled.

  However, Rufus knew that beauty often changed into something else altogether when the personality became apparent. He had spent a good deal of time in the company of young ladies who were truly beautiful on first glance and, no more than an hour later, suddenly unattractive when some disagreeable part of their personality became known to him.

  Rufus did not consider himself to be particularly discerning. He did not have a list of wants in a woman at all. All he ha
d ever really wanted was a certain amount of truth and openness, combined with the sort of intelligence that made a young woman more interesting. Instead, he was often presented with young ladies of great beauty and little else. Unless, of course, you counted their ambition as a quality.

  And Rufus was so attuned to the idea of ambition that he very quickly spotted it in others. It was as if the more he looked for it, the more he found it, and yet he yearned for something else, for something completely different.

  But, in the end, perhaps that was the lot of the man who held so high a title. Competition for his attention was generally fierce, and it was no doubt born of nothing more than ambition itself. Quite where he was supposed to meet a young woman who did not care about such things was a mystery to him. For surely such a woman, one who did not search for status, wealth, and title, would not seek him out in the first place. He felt as if he were trapped inside a great ball, being rolled down a hillside as his thoughts, the same old thoughts, tumbled all around him repeating themselves over and over again.

  It was nothing new, nothing that had not existed for fifteen years or more. So, just thinking over old ground again would change nothing. Identifying the problem would not suddenly result in a solution. It was not as if by knowing that he did not want an ambitious young woman that suddenly an unambitious one would appear before him, for that had yet to happen.

  “So, as you see, there is not really so much to it. I am sure that we will have identified just the right young lady for you in no time at all,” Henry said when Rufus had not spoken for a while.

  “And how are we to go about it all?”

  “Well, I shall set a little gossip abroad that the Duke of Hillington has finally decided to look seriously for a wife.” Henry laughed. “And such gossip is, believe me, Your Grace, very easy to spread.”

  “But once the gossip is out in the atmosphere, what are we to do next?”

  “Well, I propose you hold the ball here, or something similar. A big event such as you have not held for a good, long while. It will attract a great deal of interest, I have no doubt, and you can invite a great many young ladies whom you might care to consider. From there, we shall have something of a list, I think. Or at least a very good idea of which young ladies you might wish to see again. And then, once we have narrowed it down, I think it would be prudent to spend a little time in the company of each of them before making your final decision.”

  “You make it sound very much easier than I suspect it is.” Rufus laughed. “But that is not to say that I am not grateful to you, Henry, for I am. I must admit that this very question has been playing on my mind for some time, and it is a tremendous relief to me to have your help and guidance in it all.”

  “Not at all, I am only too pleased to be of assistance.”

  “So, how soon should I arrange the ball?”

  “Oh, I think you may go ahead and begin to make preparations immediately, Your Grace. It will not take long for the entire county to be aware that you are actively seeking a bride. I can hardly think there will be a household untouched by that particular piece of information inside of a fortnight, and that is the truth.”

  “I still cannot help thinking that there is something rather tawdry about all of this,” Rufus said and looked downcast.

  “Your Grace, you must stand firm. You came to this conclusion for a reason, and I think you have come to this conclusion very well. I understand your misgivings, truly, for they are quite natural. But they are only the misgivings of any man when he is embarking on the quest for the perfect wife, I assure you. Marriages are made in this way every day of the week, Your Grace, and they almost always turn out for the best, do they not?”

  “I suppose they do,” Rufus said, hearing the surprise in his voice as he thought of the myriad of marriages he had seen made in just such a way, marriages which ostensibly seemed to thrive.

  And yet, despite all of that, Rufus still would have given almost anything to have crossed paths with a young woman with very different ideals. But, of course, he knew he was back inside the ball again, rolling down the hillside with yet another repetitive thought. He was not going to meet such a woman, not now, and he would do well to give up on the idea and get on with things.

  “So, is it settled, Your Grace? Might I go ahead and propagate my little bit of gossip?” Henry looked amused, and Rufus was glad of it.

  It had somehow taken the edge off his melancholy, and he was pleased to have Henry Mercer there with him. There was not another man with whom he would entrust such a task, and he knew it. He had known Henry Mercer all his life and, if anybody knew Rufus Darnley well enough to be able to find him a suitable bride, it was his father’s old attorney.

  “Yes, you may go ahead and propagate your little bit of gossip.” Rufus laughed and felt a little lighter. The time had come for him to move along, and he knew it. He knew it well enough that the idea of it, the acceptance of it all, strangely gave him a little peace. “And I shall arrange a ball. In fact, I will speak with my housekeeper and butler today and start things moving.”

  “Now that is the spirit, Your Grace. That is the spirit indeed.” Henry nodded his approval and rose from his chair on the opposite side of the Duke’s desk. “Now, I daresay I ought to get started on things myself.”

  “Yes, of course.” Rufus nodded, releasing his attorney for the day. “And thank you, Henry. Really, I do appreciate it all.”

  Chapter 3

  Ella sat alone in the immense drawing room of Dandridge Hall. Afternoon tea was not due to be served for another half an hour, but she had been keen to get herself settled and spend some time in quiet contemplation before the rigours of tea and company were upon her.

  Ordinarily, Ella was not opposed to company at all, but the last few weeks had been a great trial to her, and she felt her spirits flagging daily.

  Her mother had been right; Dandridge Hall was just about the most impressive sight Ella had ever seen. The drawing room was so large as to be impersonal, or at least Ella thought so, and she wished with all her heart that she and her mother had never left Longton Manor. The drawing room there was small, but not so small that they had not been able to receive a good many guests. And it was only really small in comparison with the one in which she now found herself.

  For all its heavy oak paneling and impressive, immense portraits, it lacked something. The great curtains were made from a rich, golden velvet, the same velvet that all the couches were covered in. But there were so many couches, so many armchairs, and so many little side tables, that there really did seem to be too much of one colour. The room seemed to elaborately lack warmth of any kind.

  Ella thought that it might have benefitted from having the occasional armchair picked out in a very deep blue. Then she reminded herself that she did not care anything about Dandridge Hall, not for its drawing room, its ballroom, and certainly not its occupants.

  Why did she care about the somewhat ostentatious decoration of the drawing room when all she really wanted to do was go home again? But, of course, this was her home now. For all that she would ever sleep under the roof at Longton again, it might just as well not exist.

  Just as she had predicted, the moment her mother had become the Countess of Dandridge, she had surrendered all rights to Longton Manor. And, worse still, she had surrendered those rights on Ella’s behalf also.

  In the end, it was that which finally broke Ella’s heart. She had not been so very surprised when her mother had married, and even less so when it had occurred within days of Ariadne’s period of mourning reaching its conclusion. She had even let go of the hurt of what she had known was the most dreadful slight to her father’s memory.

  But when she had it confirmed that the marriage had seen the transfer of all property rights fall into the hands of Ronald Belville, Ella had been beside herself. She had known all along that it would happen, it was the way of things after all. But still, it had hurt her to hear it out loud, to know it for a fact. The home that had
been her father’s, that had been in her family for generation after generation, was now simply an adjunct to the great estate of Dandridge. It was nothing more than an outbuilding to the Earl, a man who owned so much and cared so little.

  When Ella had cried at the news, just days after the wedding, Ronald Bellville had just studied her with open contempt. It was clear that he had no concept of the attachment a person could form to their family home and all the memories trapped within it. And it was equally clear to her that her own mother had no concept of that attachment either, providing yet further proof that mother and daughter had very little in common.

  “You are very early to tea, my dear.” Her mother appeared as if she had been pulled right out of Ella’s thoughts.

  “As are you,” Ella said slowly. “Why are you here so early, Mama?”

  “I just want to make sure that all is well with the room before our company arrives.” And it was clear that she had come to do just that as she cast a critical eye around the place, ready to find some little fault with it, something that she could berate the staff for to satisfy her own need for that little bit of power.