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They spoke at length until Louisa noted that she had to get back to the Montagu home before it started to get dark. Reaching for her bonnet, she placed in on and tied the strings. “I wish I could stay longer, but I cannot, not this evening. I’ll send a note again to tell you when I can come to see you.”
Standing, Amelia embraced her tightly.“I am so glad to see you, Louisa, and don’t fret, if you cannot come to me, I will come to you.”
After a warm goodbye, Louisa set back on the backroad and took the road back down to the Duke’s estate. It was nearly dusk when she arrived at the manor house and instantly took off her coat and bonnet, then dressed in her working clothes and tied a clean apron around her waist.
She hurried off to the kitchen and immediately added herself to the staff there. She helped to clean up after the food was made and was wiping down the tables when Mrs. Wickham came in and said, “MissStone, His Grace is asking for you.”
Her head darted up, and for a moment, Louisa felt as if she lookedlike a scared rabbit.“Yes, Mrs. Wickham.”
“He is in his study,” the housekeeper advised.
After washing her hands, Louisa left the kitchen and took the stairs, dually wondering what he wanted from her and secondly fearing that all she had learned about him earlier that day would show on her face. She was heavily reticent when approaching the door but took a quick breath and knocked on the door.
“Enter MissStone,” Duke Westwood said.
Stepping inside, Louisa halted a mere foot inside.“You have sent for me, Your Grace?”
“Yes,” he said.“Please sit, and do not worry, this is not something against you. I would like to talk to you.”
Nervously, Louisa took the seat across from his desk, and folded her hands on her lap. He looked tired, pallid, the dark circles under his eye were a bit more prominent and the lines around his mouth were deep-set. His eyes however were just as piercing as ever and when his gaze settled on her, she tried not to squirm.
He closed the book he had been reading and set it aside, then seemed to sag into his chair. “I want to know more about you, Miss Stone,” he said. “I could easily have gone to Mrs. Wickham and asked about you, but I will not. I would like to speak with you.”
“About what, Your Grace?” Louisa asked.
“Your life,” he said. “I have seen you, MissStone and pardon me for making conclusions but you do your jobs with this smile on your face and with what you have told me about your life; I wonder how you can have such a… cheerful disposition.”
With all the pain in his life, he is asking me how I surmount my past. Maybe this can be one of the ways Amelia told me.
“Because I know my life can be worse, Your Grace,” Louisa replied. “People like me, orphans, are the one who are most expected to become the worst scourges of our society. A lot of boys become thieves and murderers while women become…er…I should say courtesans. I know a seldom few of us who have gained bigger positions; an older girl from the orphanage got a sponsor and she became a governess, and another one grew to be a clerk in an investigator’s office. I escaped that life.”
His fingers drummed on the arm of his chair, “How old were you when you were taken into the orphanage?”
Louisa’s fingers dug into her skirt and a horrid memory flashed behind her eyes.“I was seven. My mother died when I was four and I never knew my father. A lady who had enough children of her owncould not take care of me anymore and sent me off with a member of the local church.”
“And while you lived with that woman, what was your life like?” he asked.
This time, Louisa’s eyes clenched tightly—she did not want to answer himbut could she refuse a Duke when he asked her a question? “I was cold and hungry, but there was a roof over my head, and I had somewhere to sleep, so it was not all bad.”
Duke Westwood did not speak, and when he did, his tone was sorrowful.“I apologize, MissStone, I should not have asked you that. I can see it isa painful memory.”
Daring to look at him, Louisa found it in herself to smile.“You’re forgiven, Your Grace, but looking at my past now, I realize that it was probably for the best. Through all my hardships, and facing my fears, I came to know how strong I was, and how much better I am because of it.”
The Duke’s eyes shifted to the left and there was a twitch in his jaw, and while Louisa waited for him to say something, the silence stretched on. Pressed to break the silence, Louisa added, “I try not to let the disappointments and heartbreaks I suffered to define me. It’s a lot to carry such pain in one’s heart.”
“I do wish…” Duke Westwood started, then after a pause ended,“That I had not asked you.”
Louisa’s head inclined to the right, havinga strong feeling that he had not meant to say those words but had substituted them for another. Even then she could not ask him about it. The questions he had asked her too were very thought-provoking and suspicious as they were questions that she had never expected to hear from him.
With no power to ask him, Louisa could only sit—uncomfortably so—under Duke Westwood’s gaze. His head had twisted just an inch away and he was staring over her head instead of upon her.
After a prolonged stint of discomforting stillness in the study, Duke Westwood rubbed his eyes.“Thank you, Miss. Stone, I can only imagine how strange and upsetting this was for you. I promise that I will not ask you such troubling things again.”
He had given her every reason to escape more personal probing. Still, Louisa felt, that for once, she had a way to use her past pain for good, so she said, “No, Your Grace—” Duke Westwood visibly startled at her refusal, giving Louisa more bravery to add, “—I would like to answer any questions you might have, so please, do not hesitate to ask me.”
“Are you sure?” He asked.
“Yes, Your Grace, I am,” Louisa replied, feeling a surge of happiness inside her.
