Page 11 of An Innocent Bride for the Duke

“Why on earth should he be?” laughed her aunt. “You were both with the boy. I was watching, you know. I expect Ezra moved too fast in that long grass for either of you.”

“Aunt Beatrice, can I ask you one more thing,” began Louisa and then paused.

“You may ask me anything,” answered her aunt. “You always may.”

“Is the Duke of Northwick a good man?”

Lady Esher did not give a reply that was either straight or direct. Instead she laughed, frowned in thought and then nodded her head.

“In his own way, I dare say he is,” Aunt Beatrice told Louisa carefully. “The Duke and Duchess of Wexford would not have put their children in the charge of a man they did not believe to be good, would they? Has he said or done anything that makes you think he is not good?”

“I suppose not,” Louisa agreed hesitantly, sensing there was more to this subject than her aunt was telling her. “When I talk to him sometimes, his personal conversation is so strange and so cynical. Yet you saw him just now with Ezra, and when the coach broke down, he made sure that we weren’t hurt before he thought of anything else. He must be good, mustn’t he?”

“Oh my dear,” sighed her silver-haired aunt, patting Louisa’s arm affectionately and looking into her face with wise, kindly eyes. “I think that sometimes men and women ought not to have too-personal conversations, even when they are well-intentioned. Better to talk of books, of travel, of music, and so on.”

“Do you think I have been improper or disrespectful?” asked Louisa, her anxiety rising once again. “I have not met many dukes before, except Damien.”

“No, no. You are perfectly proper, my dear, but the duke is older than you, and he is a man of the world. While we are traveling together, be civil and polite but do not try to have familiar conversations as you might with your friends. Whatever his morals, he is not the right person for those conversations.”

Louisa thought about this with some confusion. Even at their cross and dusty first encounter yesterday, she had found the Duke of Northwick surprisingly easy to talk to, or even to reprimand, as she blushed to remember now. In the carriage, despite their differences of opinion, she had enjoyed their sparring and looked forward to proving him wrong.

Now, it seemed, she was somehow on the wrong track, without knowing why or how.

“I will do as you say, Aunt Beatrice,” agreed Louisa obediently, glad to have this further guidance on how to handle their companion and hoping she would understand it in time. “Thank you.”

She would not chatter to the duke again as she had done that morning, Louisa decided. It had not ended well and, from what Aunt Beatrice said, it was also somehow inadvisable, if not quite improper or disrespectful.

Louisa would be faultlessly polite, distant and focused on the children. That way neither the Duke of Northwick nor anyone else could find fault with her.

It should be easy, shouldn’t it..?

The next few days passed without any serious incident, Lady Esher and Louisa taking it in turns to sit with Fanny and her family of dolls in the second coach, and Ezra usually insisting on traveling in the carriage with the Duke of Northwick. Louisa kept her eyes constantly on the fast-moving little boy and knew that Aunt Beatrice would do the same.

Despite his protests and grumbles about being overrun by children, Louisa observed that the duke was always gentle and considerate with Ezra. Each day, he would declare that the child should travel with the nursemaids and allow him some peace. Each day, he acceded to Ezra’s enthusiastic entreaties to ride with him.

“The child knows already that he is a little boy and wishes to keep company with men rather than women,” laughed Aunt Beatrice as she saw Ezra take his seat in the coach and imitate the duke’s posture and exasperated expression.

“Ezra is copying all that you do, Your Grace,” laughed Louisa, finding this sight both very sweet and very funny. “Away from his father, he has taken you for his role model.”

“I had best mind my manners then,” muttered the duke, straightening out the hint of a smile that had briefly appeared on his face. “I am not sure Damien would wish his son to grow up to resemble me too closely.”

His response puzzled Louisa, whose honest reactions usually matched her feelings. Why must the Duke of Northwick mask his affection for the children? Why must he pretend to some secret wickedness of heart that was entirely invisible to Louisa? Why did he express such cynicism about the most important things in life, like love and marriage?

These things were all mysteries, but as Louisa was trying to follow Aunt Beatrice’s guidance and avoid personal conversations with this man, she could not ask him. When they were together, she talked only of the children, the road and the weather. This civilized stand-off seemed to work well enough for several days.

Occasionally, Louisa did see the duke regarding her with some benevolent amusement, usually after she had expressed a spontaneous view on something from the carriage window. Still, she bit her lip rather than ask him the source of his humor, not wishing to provoke any kind of argument.

“This coaching inn is always busy,” Aunt Beatrice remarked as they disembarked their carriages on the fourth evening, the duke standing ready with the driver to enter first and finalize the party’s arrangements. “I shall share a room with Louisa, close to the children and maids. Likely the manservants must share too, although I am sure the innkeeper will find a private room for you, Your Grace.”

Nodding, the tall, dark-haired man walked ahead into the inn, checking the pocket watch in his dusty blue waistcoat as he went, the coach driver at his shoulder. After the duke’s short exchange with the bewhiskered innkeeper, and then a visit to the retiring room, Lady Esher and Louisa were shown into a private dining room with the children while the servants went to prepare the bedrooms.

“Did you see how low the innkeeper bowed?” Louisa whispered to her aunt while the dining room door was still open and the duke still in the public rooms outside. “He did everything faster than when we travel alone and you send in a manservant to sort out the rooms.”

“Well, our companion this time is a duke,” laughed the silver-haired lady. “Do not be deceived by seeing him so often beleaguered by these two children in such an informal setting, my dear. Out in the world, the Duke of Northwick is a man of rank and a personality to be reckoned with. You may find our food arrives faster and our rooms are better tonight too.”

Louisa nodded, wondering at the unfamiliar influence that he wielded. She had no memories of her own father, only knowing him from a portrait with her mother that hung in Aunt Beatrice’s drawing room, and there had been virtually no other significant men in her life. There was the Duke of Wexford, of course, but Louisa only saw him at home with Seraphine and the children.

“There is roast ham and cauliflower tonight,” pronounced the duke as he returned to the room. “It should be served presently. I have told the innkeeper that our party is tired and wishes to retire as soon as possible. The maids will have their food upstairs and be ready to put the children to bed whenever we call them.”