Page 5 of The Duke and His Jilted Bride

There were whispered words, barely audible behind the maid setting the tea and fruitcake down on the table. But Aurelia could not have missed what was said next. Her aunt, turning with a calling card, her mouth agape.

“It is the Duke of Sandacre,” she said. “He is asking to speak with you.”

The Knowles house was smaller than he'd expected. It was a modest townhouse in Mayfair, well-kept, the brass on the door recently polished. It was the kind of house that said, “We have standards, and we maintain them, and we would like you to know it the second you arrive.” How unfortunate for them, that the morning had unfolded in the manner it had.

Evander waited in the entrance hall, casting his eyes up the carpeted stairs. A maid hummed to herself as she polished the bannister. She saw him after a time, blushed crimson, and promptly disappeared. He had hoped, almost, that it would have been Miss Knowles standing there – that he could have spoken to her informally and alone, without the aunt interfering.

He could hear the voice of Violet Hartwell from a distance. She said his name, he could have sworn it. Seconds later, the butler who had greeted him returned and showed him into a small beige parlour. Evander stood for a moment, taking in the room. The potted plants. The ash-stained brick of the hearth. A portrait above the mantelpiece of a young woman, dark-eyed, and painted in the last twenty years by the look of it. It was not Aurelia. Her mother, perhaps. The resemblance was there if you looked for it. There was the same stillness in the face, the same suggestion of someone who had decided not to give very much away…

And the face looked at him now from her seat. From it, he heard, “So it’s true. You have come, Your Grace.”

She was still in her wedding gown. The wrongness of it struck him, a woman still dressed for something that had not happened and never would. Her hair was still pinned up but somewhat undone. Her gloves were gone. Her eyes were red. She was very beautiful but downtrodden. It was like he had never seen her before in his life.

Mrs. Hartwell appeared in his periphery, sending the staff away discretely. “Your Grace,” she said, visibly stunned to see him but trying to conceal her shock. “How good of you to visit. Pray, come and sit with us. We have just,” here she choked on her words, “called for tea. I heard you take yours with milk rather than cream. Do you like fruitcake? I’m afraid that’s all we have…”

She was a compact woman of perhaps fifty, with hair that once had been a shade of brown like her niece’s but was now turning grey. She looked at him extensively, especially when she thought his attention was elsewhere.

But it was Miss Knowles who concerned him most, sitting stony-faced, not even bothering to rise to greet him. Did she blame him, somehow, for what had happened?

He waited, and he was a little surprised when Miss Knowles said, “Well then, why have you come?”

“Aurelia,” her aunt said in an admonishing tone. “What are you doing?”

She gestured toward Evander. “I am asking the Duke of Sandacre why he has come, obviously – unless you want to keep talking about milk.”

“Asking is not a crime,” he said quickly but firmly, not wanting to encourage Miss Knowles further but showing some compassion. The aunt sat, leaving a free space beside the niece. He remained standing. “You are feeling better, I take it.”

Her resolve faltered. She blinked quickly, glanced down. “I am still conscious, which is an improvement on my earlier state.”

“Quite. You will need to maintain consciousness for what will follow.”

“I am made of sterner stuff than you think,” Miss Knowles said with a weak smile. “I have never fainted in my life before today. Not even when I have felt so afraid I could not feel my hands. To have succumbed this morning, before all those people, shames me more than… more than, well…”

When she trailed off, Evander felt his heart clench. He stepped forward, placing a hand on the back of the settee she occupied. This close, he could see how young she was. It was a foolish thing to think. She was a year older than Frederick, for heaven’s sake. Only four years younger than Evander. But her face had not matured fully yet. Her cheeks were full and her nose flicked slightly upward. Maybe she would look like that for ever. It was not displeasing. Not in the slightest.

But it was obviously not, he thought privately, the type of beauty preferred by his brother.

“You need not speak of shame, dearest,” the aunt cut in gently, leaning forward. She began serving tea, freckled hands around the teapot. “What occurred today would have floored even the sturdiest of individuals.” She paused, and addressed Evander. “My niece was left at the altar, Your Grace, by your brother, on her wedding day. We were of course delighted by the match in the first place, but things have changed indelibly now. You must forgive her fragility this morning and not hold it against her.”

“That had not been my intention”, he clarified. “And if I have given the impression by coming here that I am cross with Miss Knowles, then I have been misunderstood. I departed from Sandacre House almost as quickly as I arrived. A search is underway.”

“For Fred–” Miss Knowles shifted eagerly in her seat, then corrected herself. “For Lord Canterbury, you mean?”

“Not his person, not physically,” Evander replied. “I doubt we shall be so lucky as to find him hiding in a larder with Lady Seraphina in his lap.”

“Then what?”

“We are hoping to glean something from his belongings, to understand where he has gone, or where he intends to go once they have eloped. I have sent someone to the Whitmore house to enquire about my errant betrothed – though I am not confident we will find much there. Lady Seraphina was, and this has become more salient than ever today, a private woman.”

Miss Knowles furrowed her brow. “How can you make jokes about her at a time like this? In your place, I would be furious at Lady Seraphina.”

He had not realised that was how he ought to feel. He was irritated by the new demands of the situation, discomfitted by what had happened, worried for Frederick, wherever he had gone. But no, he was not furious at Seraphina. He was not pleased with her – wished she had thought twice before bringing down such embarrassment on his family and had just rejected him in the first place, if this was how she felt all along, if she preferred his brother.

But Evander had never yearned to marry her in the first place. The marriage, which would now not come to be, could just as easily become another, with another woman. Seraphina was pleasant enough, abscondence aside. But they had not made a robust match to say the least. His father, before his death, had suggested Salsburgh’s girl because he liked their family and trusted her breeding. Evander had accepted because… well, why not? Marriage was the least of his concerns. Better to get it over with.

“It is not your place to question His Grace’s feelings in this difficult moment,” the aunt corrected again, putting three tea cups into a row on the mahogany table. She took her own, topped it with cream, and paused right before sipping. “And yet… one of us must ask how this was permitted to happen, and what will happen next. A search is a promising start. But what more?”

He had some ideas. But he considered his next words a moment, doubting he would ever be able to speak candidly with Miss Knowles while her aunt occupied the same room, determined to cut in and speak for her niece at every opportunity. He frowned, staring through the windows onto a small terraced garden. How he wished he were outside, elsewhere.