Page 32 of A Landscape of Love

I wish I could ask you to write to me, but I will be allowed no correspondence now, and you must see anything from your hand would be confiscated at once.

Now it is too late I wish I had acted differently, I wish I had not been such a little fool and given you a disgust of me, for you are the only man who I shall think of during my banishment. I hope this revelation is of some pleasure to you, if not a fitting revenge for my idiocy.

Forgive me.

―Excerpt of a letter from The Lady Narcissa Ponsonby to an unknown correspondent.

1st March 1850, Hardacre Hall Estate, Hardacre, Derbyshire.

Fidelia hurried back to her bedroom, the pages of the diary sat uncomfortably in her bodice, and she was desperate to take them out and read them. Yet as she passed her sister’s door, she heard a crash, and a muttered oath, and she could not help but pause. Glancing around, Fidelia checked to see if any servants were in earshot, for many of them were loyal to the duke out of fear and would tattle to his grace if they saw her disobeying his command not to speak to Narcissa.

Fidelia knocked softly on the door. “Love? It’s Fidelia. Are you all right?”

There was a pause and a muffled sound before Narcissa spoke. “Lia? Oh, I thought you weren’t speaking to me either.”

“Don’t be a silly goose,” Fidelia replied. “He’s forbidden us from talking to you. Do you really think we wouldn’t have come to see you otherwise?”

“No, I-I suppose not, only I’m so miserable, Lia. I’ve… I’ve made a dreadful mess of things.”

Fidelia laughed softly, wondering what her sister would say when she discovered the mess Fidelia had made of her own life. “What happened, pet?”

“A man happened. Obviously,” Narcissa wailed from the other side of the door. “And I don’t care what his grace does to me, I only care that he thinks I’m awful… and I’m not, Lia, not really. Am I?” she added, sounding so despondent and unlike her usual confident self that Fidelia’s heart went out to her.

“Of course not,” Fidelia said at once. Her sister was headstrong and outspoken and far too reckless, but Fidelia was now seeing those as qualities to be admired when his grace tried so hard to squash any signs of independent thinking. She had always feared Narcissa would get herself into trouble, though. “But what exactly…? Hush, someone’s coming. I’ll come back when I can,” she hissed through the door and hurried away as the sound of footsteps grew closer.

Fidelia went directly to her room and closed her door, locking it behind her, and let out a breath of relief. She’d done it. With trembling hands, she plucked the pages from her bodice and went to the window where the light was better. Her father’s handwriting was small and spidery and hard to decipher, but she scanned his notes for each day in turn, shaking her head over the way he criticised everyone and everything he came into contact with. Nothing pleased him. Everything was less than satisfactory, there was nothing he could not complain about. Suddenly Fidelia felt a wave of pity for the man. Had he never known what it was to be happy? Her life had not been an easy one, but until her son had been so cruelly taken from her, she had found joy in her siblings, and in the pleasure of a new gown, or a sunny day. There was not one positive word to be found among the pages she read, and then she got to the day her son had been born.

Fidelia’s heart grew cold as she read the scant few words and any pity she had felt for her father was replaced with a furious hatred that stole her breath. If he had stood before her in that moment, she thought she could have driven a knife into his heart and not regretted it for a second.

The unwanted creature arrived today. I shall get rid of it tonight at the Foundling Hospital in Camden. The sooner, the better.

Fidelia swayed, and she leant heavily against the window, her hand pressed against her pounding heart.

“Heartless brute,” she said aloud, her voice choked with emotion.

Tears poured down her face, but at least she knew now where he had taken her boy. There was no time to lose, but how was she to escape Hardacre and make a journey to London? It was impossible, especially now her father was home. Ironic, really, that she had longed for him to return so she might get her hands on this information. There was only one person in the entire world who could help her, and though she had promised herself to stay away from him, she had no choice. She needed someone to get her away from Hardacre, to plan for her travel, for a place to stay. Where would she go once she had Ambrose with her at last? How would she live? For she had only the pin money her father gave her each quarter and no doubt that would cease the moment he discovered what she’d done. She had saved every penny since her confinement, so she had that and her jewellery, but how long would that last? How much did it cost to buy a little cottage somewhere with a garden? How much to pay for a maid, for a week’s shopping? She had not the least idea and the realisation of how ill-prepared she was made her heart beat so fast her head swam with terror.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said resolutely. “I will learn, and I will do whatever I must.”

With that one thought echoing in her mind, Fidelia knew there was nothing else to be done. She must speak to Mr De Beauvoir.

Hart trudged back to the cottage, thankful that the day was over. The usual satisfaction he found in a good day’s work was missing, his mood worse than ever after a surprise visit by Beresford. The duke had been at his cantankerous best and had found fault with bloody everything. Hart had been within aims ace of telling the bastard to shove his bloody garden, but he’d held his tongue. The men who worked for him needed this job, and he would fulfil his ambition to create something that would cement his name as one of the best designers in the country. He told himself it had been for those reasons he’d held his tongue, but that wasn’t entirely true. It wasn’t even mostly true, not any longer. He’d held his temper in check so he could stay close to Fidelia and wasn’t that the stupidest reason for doing anything that he’d ever had in his life before. He’d told himself from the start he must stay away from her, that she was trouble, and by God she was. She was trouble of the sort he really, really did not need or want, but… but…

“Bollocks,” he muttered furiously, turning his collar up against the icy wind that swept about his neck. The temperature had dropped fast the moment the sun had gone down, and he was looking forward to getting back to the cottage. He looked up as it came into sight, and his heart leapt as he saw a slender figure waiting by the garden gate.

Christ, what now, he wondered, telling himself he was annoyed at her for doing precisely what she had promised not to do and seeking him out, but that was a damned lie. He was glad.

Hart knew at once that something was wrong. She held herself stiffly, her arms clutched around herself.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?” he demanded.

She held out a hand to him, a small piece of paper clutched between her fingers.

The diary, he guessed, his heart thudding hard, and he wondered what she’d read, what that wretched bastard had done to hurt her now.

“Come inside,” he said, taking the paper and putting a hand to her back, steering her to the door, for she seemed far away, too unhappy to even put one foot in front of the other.

Once inside, Hart sat her down by the hearth and set about making a fire and lighting the lamps. Then he went and fetched the bottle of whiskey he kept and poured her a measure. Crouching down before her, he pressed the glass into her hand.