Page 62 of Manufacturing a Duchess

With an abrupt “Damnation!” he launched himself out of the carriage. His arrival had been noted, and a footman had raced down the front stairs, followed closely by the butler. Knowing he was being impossibly rude, Alec barked, “Where is Miss Hardcastle?”

Both men gaped at him. Then the butler—Moore, was it? He could never be sure of the man’s name—stammered a response, “In the kitchen gardens, Your Grace.”

Alec turned to look at his daughter, leaning out of the carriage window. “For you, Marjorie, I will parley again. And then we leave. We go home. We make our own way. Yes?”

“Yes, Papa,” and Marjorie retreated all the way back into the carriage’s interior.

“Show me the way,” he demanded of the footman.

“Yes, Your Grace. This way, Your Grace.”

Alec followed the man around the side of the house, past the French doors which looked down onto a sloping lawn, and around to the back, where a wicket gate led into a small, walled garden.

“Thank you. You may leave me.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Alec yanked open the gate and shut it behind him with a snap. He faced a tidy and snug garden, filled with a variety of flowering plants and vegetables, planted in neat rows. Where was she? There was no room for her to hide in here.

And then he saw her. She was seated on a small stool, with a basket and a knife for cutting at her feet. She appeared to be staring at a large carrot she was holding in one hand, as though she had never seen it before. Her bonnet had fallen back, and the sun was picking out strands of red and gold in her hair. He stopped. It was her, not the image in his dreams or in his imagination. It was really her, living and breathing in front of him. A feeling of overwhelming tenderness swept over him. He froze; he could not breathe.

The sound of the gate closing prompted a heavy sigh, which he could hear from where he stood. She pushed herself to her feet, picked up basket and knife, and tossed in the carrot. She reached back to pull her bonnet back onto her head, and in that moment she saw him.

Aurora gasped and drew herself back to stand as tall as she was able. Alec watched her tuck in a curl which had fallen out from under her bonnet and was hanging over one eye. He both wanted to touch that curl himself and run away as far and as fast as he could. Her eyes looked haunted. Was her face thinner than it was the last time he saw her? The pain of seeing her again, just standing there, after he had mentally tried to banish her from his mind, was intense. But he was here. He had to parley, even if it killed him. His mind a complete blank, Alec somehow moved forward to stand within two feet of her. He stopped, then bent into a short bow.

“I come to bring my deepest sympathies on the loss of your father. And I, I have come to parley with you.”

* * *

Aurora swallowed. Just breathe, Aurora, just breathe. It seemed to have become a common instruction she gave herself of late. All these months, having him gone, telling herself she would never see him again, and then abruptly having him appear in front of her hit her like a blow to the stomach. All the air left her, and she struggled to take her next breath. The hard-fought equanimity, the acquiescence, the acceptance she had believed she had brought herself, vanished in an instant.

Alec was here, the actual person, and not the figure who stalked her dreams. The sight brought with it the ache of losing him all over again. It was like being back in the office, hearing the door slam, then later, listening to the sound of the carriage’s wheels as it rode away, back up the drive. Back up to Scotland.

But he was not in Scotland. He was here. This could not be. It was impossible. But he didn’t waver or vanish like a ghost. The man in front of her was definitely solid, with the same dark eyes and vivid physical presence she had tried to erase from her memory. She remembered what it felt like to be kissed by him, what it felt like for her to kiss him.

“Why are you here? After all this time? I thought we said all that needed to be said,” Aurora finally managed to reply.

“Clearly, we have not. Clearly, there is more to be said. It has driven me all the way down from Scotland. Yes, you said your piece. Yes, I said mine. I confess, I do not know how we are to bridge the gap that lies between them. I take it you have not changed in your intent to run the manufactory. Especially now that your father— Again, my condolences. I know how close you were to him. Nevertheless, I am here to parley.” His words were clipped and short. She watched how stiffly he was holding himself. Why was he here?

To break what was becoming an agonizing silence, Aurora spoke first. “I offered you a partnership.”

“And I am looking for a wife.”

Aurora’s reply was swift, “No, you are looking for money. And a mother for your daughter. And you wish to command the woman who can bring both of these to you. I am able to agree to—acquiesce to—the first two propositions. I cannot agree to the third.”

Alec shook his head at her. “Whyever not? It is the way things are. It is the way things are done. If you wish to be a duchess, you must behave like a duchess. And my daughter—” he abruptly cut off what he was saying, his mouth snapped shut into a tight line. But there was something about his eyes, Aurora could see. What was it about his eyes?

Aurora took a quick breath, but kept her voice measured. “I can agree with you that I do not know all I need to know to be a duchess. For that, yes, I will need to take advice and direction from you as, clearly, in this area, I am lacking. But how I conduct my life? No, that direction must come from me. I know it needs to come from me. After these many months, I am more certain of that than before.”

Alec said nothing. He simply stood there, looking at her. Aurora let out a sigh, and pressed on, “Alec, why are you here? You do understand. I know you understand. Well, at least I very much hope you do. But it is not what you are used to. And I was wrong. I thought, even if it is not the thing that is done, you might, at least for your daughter’s sake, be open to considering a duchess who is like me. Really me. Not some made up version of me. I hoped, you would see me for myself. I also see I was a fool.”

Alec did not interrupt her, but she saw him flinch. Yet he remained silent, not stopping her words.

Like a blind woman, she desperately kept pushing herself toward clarity, all her self-doubt tumbling out, accusing him as much as revealing her own fears. “Do you believe it lowers you in the eyes of the Ton? Being with someone like me? Someone who wants to chart a different path?”

That provoked an outburst on his part. “I don’t care a farthing for what the Ton have to say about the way I live my life. They can piss themselves into pots until the cows come home. I do not care. I do not wish to disadvantage my daughter in any way, however.”

“And neither do I.”