The Scoundrel Duke of her Heart by Violet Hamers

Chapter Thirty-One

Your Grace,

It is with a heavy heart that I write you this letter. You have committed a grave crime against my daughter by denying her her rightful place as the Duchess of Seaton, and I demand you rectify it.

You appear to have forgotten your vows and taken another wife. Not once have you acknowledged the existence of your former wife in England and over the years. Will you claim that it never happened? Will you claim that you did not ask my Vanessa to marry you that night in our home in Versailles when we invited you to dine with us? The very night you called the local parson to marry the two of you in the drawing room because you could not wait a day longer. If you have forgotten, then let the document attached to this letter remind you.

The woman you are married to now is not your wife by law. I will demand you introduce your real wife to the world or I will do it myself.

Lady Digby

His hands held the letter so tightly he began to crumple it around the edges. His teeth were clenched and his throat almost had no room for air to pass to and from his lungs. He recalled seeing Vanessa at his wedding.

Vanessa had been raised in England but after her father’s death, she and her mother had been forced to move to France—her mother’s homeland—by the man that had inherited the title and fortune where they had fallen into dire straits. Nicholas had met her and they engaged in a brief affair that ended when she and her mother mysteriously disappeared one night.

He had cared for her, even funded a life of luxury for them in Versailles, but he had not loved her. After coming up empty in his search for the two Whittaker women after their disappearance, he had simply moved on with his life. Or so he had thought, for his past now seemed to have come back to haunt him, fill his life with venom.

He picked up the marriage certificate and peered at it, willing the contents to differ. They could never be different because they were true. That was his signature he was staring at. It could not be any other person’s.

“Bloody hell!” He rubbed his hands over his face, taking his fingers through his hair.

For the life of him, he could not recall the particular dinner he had been invited to by Vanessa and her mother. The morning after was no better because he had woken up to an empty house. That had been the night they had disappeared. His memories of dinner and the events after were vague due to the amount of liquor he had consumed.

Nicholas glanced down at the date on the marriage document. It was the same night that he could not remember. When he had asked around for them, the neighbors had seemed clueless. Some purported that they might have left sometime during the night as they had been seeking passage to Portugal for a while.

However hard he sorted through the details, nothing came up in his memory of him signing a marriage contract. He could not believe he had been so drunk as to have married. Yet, the signature could not be anyone else’s.

Releasing a shaky breath, he poured himself some gin he found in a cabinet in the study, then sat back down in his chair, mulling over past and recent events. He read the letter again, taking down the contact address that had been included and penning a reply to it.

Lady Digby,

We must meet at the earliest opportunity to discuss this matter in detail. I cannot tell whether or not your claims are true.

Seaton

He needed answers. He could not have his life fall to pieces again just when he had begun putting it back together.

The image of his wife’s worried and disappointed face when he had left her last night flashed in his mind, twisting his heart. It seemed unreal that he was happily married to his best friend just last night and finally ready to consummate his marriage and make her his. Now, he was no longer sure to whom he was truly married and legally bound.

* * *

Brightness enough to blind jerked Jenny awake from her sleep and she scrunched her face, her arm going up to cover her still closed eyes. “Wake up!” came the dowager’s commanding voice.

With some difficulty, Jenny opened her eyes. Her grandmother-in-law was yanking open the curtains in her husband's bedchamber. She had not been able to fall asleep immediately after Nicholas's hasty departure and after lying awake for a while, she had helped herself to a generous amount of liquor to cure her pain. Instead of the pain being cured, she had lost consciousness.

She sat up, her head pounding and her stomach turning. "What are you doing in here?" she asked groggily, wincing at the light that was streaming into the room through the uncovered windows. "Why are you even in the mansion this early?"

"Early?” The dowager raised a brow. “It is nearly noon and you have overslept."

“Do I not have the right to sleep as long as I want?”

“Not today, you do not.”

"You seem to have forgotten the festivities we had that stretched into the night?" Jenny massaged her throbbing temples.

"I have not forgotten but I need you to wake up," the dowager pursed her lips, glancing around the bedchamber. "I must say that I am pleased to find you here this morning. And judging by the state of the bed, it has been quite an eventful night for you, has it not?” Jenny sighed, catching on the woman's insinuation as the memories of the earlier hours of that morning stung her like a swarm of bees.

"Duchess,” she said, “I will ask you to refrain from barging into my matrimonial chamber." She was in both physical and emotional pain and cared not about how she spoke to the dowager. One did not care for propriety when one was wounded.

"It was mine before it was ever yours,” the dowager retorted and Jenny rolled her eyes, immediately regretting the action because it intensified her headache. “You don’t look well,” she added, placing her hands on her hips and watching Jenny through narrowed eyes.

Jenny swung her legs over the side of the bed and touched them to the carpeted floor. However, when she tried to gain her feet, she was suddenly overcome by a wave of vertigo that saw her falling back onto the mattress.

"Look at you! You are woozy." The dowager stepped closer to the bed and asked, "When last did you see your courses?"

"What business is it of yours?" Jenny snapped. She took hold of the bedpost for some support and tried to stand but the spinning in her head was not subsiding. Thus, she leaned back and closed her eyes as she realized the futility of forcing her body to do what it did not want to do.

"It is my business since the continuity of my line now rests upon your shoulders," the dowager said.

"Fine," Jenny grumbled. She did not have the energy to argue with the Dowager. Not this morning. "Nip whatever hope that is budding in your chest. I saw them not two weeks past."

The dowager’s eyes narrowed dubiously. "I don't believe you."

"Suit yourself." Jenny thought she would need to use the chamber pot soon.

Sooner than she had expected because her stomach churned violently, and of its own volition now, her body moved, carrying her to the chamber pot where she cast up her accounts. She felt considerably better after that. It was as though the alcohol had left her system and taken some of her pain with it.

She took her time to wash her face and clean her teeth before going out to meet the dowager. She was waiting for her with her hands on her hips and a wide grin on her face. “Lie to me all you want, girl but there is no disputing what I just saw. You are with child!”

Jenny laughed despite herself. Unless Nicholas had taken her in her sleep some time ago, which she could swear he had not—the man had done all he could to avoid bedding her—she was certain she was not with child. And only one woman ever got with child without a man.

“What is funny?” the dowager asked dubiously.

“I had my courses recently. I am not expecting,” Jenny said, walking to the bell pull to summon Sarah.

“Well, that is unfortunate.” The dowager looked positively disappointed.

“Unfortunate, indeed.”

"I will have you know that I had an heir and a spare at once on my first try," the dowager declared pompously.

Jenny’s tolerance of the old crone was wearing very, very thin. She swiveled round to face her. "Oh, really? What happened after that? Did you get two more spares on your second try?”

"I…” the woman was flustered, much to Jenny’s satisfaction. “Well, there was no need for more."

More like you never were able to have more, Jenny thought.

In a different circumstance, Jenny would have cheered at having the upper hand here, but right then, she was neither in the mood nor in possession of the energy for it. She was worried about her husband, his tenants, and their marriage.

"I am here for my portrait," the dowager shamelessly tried to change the subject now. "The painter is already here. I shall be downstairs. Do join me as soon as you can." She walked to the door then paused and turned. “Where is Nicholas?”

Jenny laughed again for some strange reason. “I thought you had eyes and ears everywhere.”

The old woman “I did not ask. Where is he?”

“There was a fire at Heartsbay. He left before dawn.”

“How unfortunate.” There was no expression of concern on the dowager’s face.

“You seem unconcerned.”

“Oh, I am. Stoicism is one of my best qualities. A good duchess must be stoic.”

“I see.” Sarah arrived not long after the dowager had left and Jenny requested some mint tea to help with the after-effects of her drinking. Instead of tea, Mrs. Wells sent Sarah up with a horrid concoction that smelled like a swamp.

Jenny downed it without complaint. After a warm bath with some citrus oil, her body felt somewhat rejuvenated but her mood remained unchanged. She wrote a note and asked Sarah to deliver it immediately to Daphne before making her way to her laboratory, ignoring the dowager’s request for her presence. Perhaps her rocks could succeed in accomplishing what the bath had failed to. They had always occupied her enough for her to forget her troubles.

Her note to Daphne was an invitation asking her to call if she could that afternoon. Jenny desired better company. There was no telling how long the dowager would be around. Mrs. Wells came into the laboratory, bearing a tray with the breakfast Jenny had skipped.

“You must eat something, Your Grace. It will help you feel better,” the kind housekeeper insisted. “You will feel good as new once you eat.” She set the tray down and left Jenny.

She was only able to stomach half a toast and some tea, and still did not feel better. Barely an hour later, Bentley announced Daphne, then handed Jenny a letter with plain sealing wax and nothing else to identify its origin.