Disciplining the Duchess

He moaned inwardly, or perhaps he moaned aloud, since his mother and Mrs. Lyndon looked up at him with curious glances. The footmen took forever to serve, or maybe time was taking forever now that Harmony wanted to leave him. Of all things, he had not expected her to give up.

As soon as the last uniformed coattail swished out of the room, his mother turned on him.

“Where is the duchess this evening?”

Court picked up his spoon and hunched over the bisque. “She is unwell.”

“Unwell or unhappy?” his mother persisted.

He frowned into his soup. “Both, perhaps. Does it really matter?”

Silence spun out across the table. The soup, though rich and flavorful, tasted like ashes in his mouth. His mother glared at him from beneath bunched eyebrows.

“I did not think you a foolish man, Courtland.”

He paused as Mrs. Lyndon’s spoon clattered onto her plate.

Court blinked and began to eat again with renewed focus. It was bad enough for Harmony to think him silly, but his mother too?

“Do you think you will fix her by breaking her?” she prodded when it became clear he would not engage her in this conversation.

“It is none of your business.”

“I have had letters of her father,” the dowager said. “I don’t know what to tell him anymore.”

It was Court’s turn to fumble his spoon. He put it beside his plate and stared at his mother. “You have been in correspondence with Lord Morrow?”

“Ladies will engage in letter writing,” she said with a subtle note of reproach. “It is one of the few pastimes allowed to us.”

“One of the few,” Mrs. Lyndon parroted, with her eternal head bobbing.

Blast. Of course the old women would know everything that had gone on the last pair of days, from his wife’s misbegotten letters to Court’s ignoble and jealous reaction.

“Will you take her side?” he asked. “That is certainly a change.”

“There can be no sides in this,” said his mother. “If we are to have our heir—”

“Courtland will have its heir,” he snapped. “Courtland will continue on, if only from your heavy-handed insistence that nothing else matters.”

The old woman’s eyes went wide as Mrs. Lyndon feigned a swoon. “Whatever do you mean by that exclamation?” asked the dowager.

“I mean that—” The footmen entered with the main course of roast quail and vegetables, plunging all of them into tense silence. As soon as they left, Court dug into the small, tasty corpse, feeling destructive in the extreme. For long minutes there was only the sound of utensils clicking on bone.

“Lord Morrow believes his daughter unhappy in marriage,” his mother finally said, eyeing the carnage on his dinner plate. “I have endeavored to convince him otherwise, but now I must say—”

“What? That we are unhappy? Were you and father ever happy together? Was I a happy and joyful child?” He stabbed a fork in the air. “It is the Courtland legacy. Refined misery. Why should things change now?”

“Well,” Mrs. Lyndon gasped.

“Because,” his mother said, speaking over her friend. “I did not have a choice in your father. You had a choice. I thought, when you chose her, that you had made the correct choice. That you would find rare happiness in marriage. Now I am not so sure.”

Court stared at the herb-seasoned haricots verts beside his quail, befuddled by his mother’s words. “You did not wish me to marry Harmony. You wept and sobbed. Don’t you remember? You took to your bed.”

“It was a shock.”

“What changed, that you will support her now?”

His mother poked at the bones on her plate. “You changed, my son. For a short time, anyway. She made you happy…but not anymore?”

She was fishing for information, practically pleading for it. What had gone wrong? If he could explain it to his mother and the gawking Mrs. Lyndon, he would not be so miserable himself. He rubbed his forehead and squelched the urge to run like a coward from the room.

“I—I cannot say what has gone wrong,” he said. “She wants to leave.”

His mother stiffened. “You cannot let her leave.”

He shook his head, burning with shame. Guilt. “I thought we could have a good marriage. I wished for her happiness.” Make a wish… Why couldn’t he have made one damn wish for her? One wish for them?

Why did she want to leave?

“I wished for more children,” his mother said in the silence. “Not because you were not a perfect son, but because it was the way of the world. A man wants many sons for peace of mind. I often thought, as you suffered—”

“I did not suffer, mother.”

“As you suffered,” she insisted, “that if only I had been able to bear more children, you would have had a lighter burden. I prayed on my knees to conceive, thinking of your large, solemn gaze and all the weight of responsibility on your small back.”

“Mother,” Court said, rubbing his eyes. “I beg you. Please.”

“I also tried to be perfect for your father. It never mattered. He had no use for me and went about with hundreds of other women. Oh, I knew,” she added as Court turned to her in shock. “What could I do about it but grow old and bitter and nurse a vast emptiness in my heart? But you, my son. You and Harmony had love. I recognized it, though I was never fortunate enough to experience it. I was angry. Jealous. I wanted you to fail as your father and I failed, but that was the emptiness in my heart speaking.”

“Oh, Mother,” Court said. He had no idea what this confession cost her, nor what to say in response.

“The two of you had love,” she went on, “and you are destroying it. I tried to destroy it with my own treatment of your wife.” She shook her head, her face drawn with regret. “I thought you could fix her and she would still love you. Now I’m not so sure. But I am sure of one thing. It is more important to love and be loved.”

“More important than what?”

“Everything else.”

Mrs. Lyndon heaved a quiet sob, swiping at tears, but his mother’s eyes were clear with the staunch spirit that defined her. “Courtland, I’m sorry for the ways I failed you. I wish things might have been different, but they weren’t. Your marriage to Harmony, like my misfortune in bearing children, is something which cannot be changed. But you can make the most of things as they are, as your father and I made the most of your qualities and talents. You have been a resplendent son,” said his mother with quiet affection. “I daresay if you give Harmony a chance to prove herself, she will make you a resplendent wife.”

“But…I’ve been trying… I’ve been giving her chances,” he said in a choked voice.

“You’ve been trying to force things, out of fear, or worry,” his mother said. “We did the same to you and I think you suffered greatly for it. The sins of the father should not be repeated by the son.”

“What do I do?” he asked over the sound of Mrs. Lyndon’s sniffling. “I want her to be happy, but she won’t be happy…none of us will be happy if she’s not accepted by the ton.”

“She is a very perceptive girl.” His mother nodded and put down her silverware. “I think with a little more time, and a little less pressure, she may discover her place in our world.” Her lips tightened into a small smile. “I have come to know your wife rather well over the course of my recuperation. I have some vague hope for her eventual success.”

It was a resounding commendation coming from his mother. Court excused himself to the sounds of Mrs. Lyndon’s emotional exhalations. He went in search of his wife, to apologize, to beg her forgiveness, only to be brought up short by a stammering maid. He pushed past her into Harmony’s rooms. Her bed was empty, made up and smoothed over to perfection as if she hadn’t been frowning at him from there a short time ago.

“What do you mean, she is not here?”

Mrs. Redcliff wrung her hands and curtsied for the tenth time. “As I said, Your Grace, she wished to go home. She

will doubtless return when she has visited with her family.”

“Doubtless,” he said. “But how will she reach them without horse or carriage?”

The maidservant paled. “How else would she go?”