He went over to the portrait of his mother and picked it up. He looked down at her gentle face, at that tentative smile, and once again whispered how sorry he was.
‘Right, let’s hang this where it belongs,’ he said, heading out of the attic door, the portrait tucked under his arm.
They retraced their steps down the narrow attic stairway, onto the slightly wider stairway that led past the servants’ rooms, then down the grand staircase that took them to the entranceway. The efficient footman had removed the stepladder, so he stopped a passing servant and asked him to bring a ladder and a duster.
A quick, bemused frown flicked across the man’s face before he bowed and rushed off. The servant was right to look surprised. It was unusual for a duke to wield a duster, but his father had dumped this portrait in the attic and left it to gather dust. It was only right that her son would be the one to clean it and place it where it belonged.
The man returned, carrying the stepladder, followed by a maid with a duster. The footman placed the ladder in front of the empty spot where his father’s portrait had been, and the maid moved towards the painting, cloth at the ready.
‘Thank you,’ he said, holding out his hand.
The maid looked towards the footman, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders, then she placed the duster in his outstretched hand.
‘Right, off you go. I can manage.’
Still looking at him as if he might have gone mad, the maid bobbed a quick curtsey and the two retreated. Jacob set to work, removing the build-up of dust on the gilt frame and gently stroking the cloth across the portrait to ensure none remained on her lovely, kind face.
‘So you dust as well as lighting fires,’ Margaret said, an amused lilt in her voice.
‘I am a man of many talents,’ he said, stepping back to examine the portrait to assure himself it was spic and span. Then he climbed up the steps and hung it where it belonged.
Once he’d climbed down, he stood beside Margaret and they both looked into the eyes of a woman he wished he’d known.
‘She’s transformed this entranceway,’ Margaret said. ‘Instead of being confronted by a scowling man who appeared to be saying you weren’t welcome in his house, you’ll be greeted by a woman with a kind and gentle expression.’
Jacob nodded. She was right. Hopefully, generations to come would see his mother looking down at them and feel her love.
His eyes slammed shut. Where on earth had that thought come from?
There would be no generations to come, or if there were, they would be from a distant branch of the family, not his progeny. He looked over at Margaret, who was still gazing up at his mother, and sadness descended upon him once more.
This marriage really was a travesty. She too would make a wonderful, loving mother but this forced marriage to him had deprived her of that chance. She was trapped in a situation she did not want, just as his mother had been. He looked back up at that kind face and wondered what advice she would give him in this situation.
As expected, his mother said nothing, just continued to gaze down at him with that tender expression, leaving him to speculate what she would have thought if she’d known what kind of man her son had grown into.
Jacob was certain she would not have been impressed. He’d spent his entire adult life taking pleasure in horrifying his father with his dissolute ways. If his mother had lived, would he have become a different man? Would he have tried to make this woman proud of him? As pleased as he was to find those letters, or rather, that Margaret had found those letters, he now felt completely off-kilter, no longer knowing what to think and not entirely sure of who he was any more.
Margaret had expected Jacob to be buoyant after discovering that his mother was not as he had believed, but he was strangely subdued.
Was it because he was thinking of all he had missed out on? Was he wondering how different his life would have been if she had lived? He would not have been that sad, traumatised child who had to flee to the hermit’s cottage. He would have had one parent who loved him.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
He turned towards her, his expression sorrowful. ‘I let her down,’ he said quietly.
Margaret shook her head slightly as he turned to look back up at the mother he had never known.
‘I can’t imagine what she would think of the man her son has grown into.’
‘I’m sure she would be pleased her son became such a good, kind, thoughtful man.’
He looked at her sideways. ‘We’re talking about me, remember? The man whose antics regularly appear in the gutter press.’
‘I’m not saying you’re not without your faults,’ she said with a smile to soften her words.
‘That’s somewhat of an understatement.’
‘But, well, everything that has happened since we met would not have happened if you weren’t good, kind and thoughtful.’
