His Scandalous Duchess

    The arrival of a hired post chaise in the middle of a mid—September night at the Old Mill House just up from Glenridding on Ullswater in the Lake District must surely have been thought curious——had there been anyone to witness the event, Certainly the figures of two women alighting from the closed carriage, one, seemingly ill and leaning on the other as they made their way slowly up the weedy flagstoned walk to the door, would have caused no little comment. In fact, had there been anyone to glimpse the faces beneath the deep hoods of the cloaks, both fair and lovely and as near alike as made no difference, there would have been a buzz of talk all through the dale. As it was, there was no one but the coachman and the elderly caretaker and his wife to know that Miss Althea Wintergreen and her sister Gloriana had come home at long last——not to Briersly, perhaps. That fine, old house that had seen generations of Wintergreens come and go had been sold some years since, some said to pay the colonel’s debts, others that it was too haunted with painful memories for the colonel after the death of his beloved wife Judith for him ever to contemplate returning there. Still, the colonel had kept the Old Mill House and a small acreage surrounding it no doubt for purely sentimental reasons. And it was in this relic of Elizabethan days that the colonel’s daughters took their refuge unremarked.
    It was, in fact, a matter of almost a fortnight before Thaddeus Elright, the butcher, commented to Miss Louisa Thedford, the rector’s spinster sister, that old Elias Treadwell up at the Old Mill House must be under the weather. In a single week, Mattie Treadwell had twice purchased soup bones. Then this, the very next, week she had already bought lamb cutlets, a fine standing roast, a loin of pork, and six plump capons, and here it was only Thursday. It was clear the old man must have been poorly and in need of a good sustaining broth, but then he had obviously recovered, and now old Mattie was bent on feeding him to build up his strength.
    “Fiddlefaddle,” retorted Miss Thedford, clearly skeptical. “Mattie Treadwell’s never indulged in lamb cutlets, a standing roast and a loin of pork all in a single week in her life, never mind the capons, which she’d never have put out good brass for at all. And six of them to boot. Why, it sounds like she’s setting a table fit for the quality.”
    It was inevitable that such extravagance on the part of one normally accounted a more than frugal housewife must elicit a deal of speculation among the local inhabitants of Glenridding. While it was generally known Mattie had on occasion helped out at the big house, it was common knowledge Briersly did not look to receive its lord and master anytime in the near or distant future, as he was reportedly abroad seeing to his foreign holdings. Since there was no other likely member of the quality for whom the Treadwells might be expected to be providing sustenance on the order of Mattie’s recent purchases, it was variously theorized that either Mattie or Elias had come into an inheritance of some sort, that their only son, Jonas Treadwell, had fallen into a small fortune while serving in India as Colonel Wintergreen’s batman, or that living for so long off by themselves in the relative isolation of the Old Mill House had finally addled their wits to such a degree as to lead them to fling every farthing away on a great carouse of all the things they had for so long denied themselves.
    Miss Thedford, more astute than the others, however, placed little credence in any of those farfetched notions. Furthermore, never one to pussyfoot around when there was fodder for her highly developed palate for anything that smacked of the queer or curious, the rector’s sister wasted little time in paying a morning call on Mattie and Elias Treadwell.
    She was not to be disappointed. Indeed, she had no sooner been ushered into the small downstairs parlor and the door hastily closed to keep in the warmth of the fire,’ as Mattie was quick to explain, than Miss Thedford detected the distinct creak of footsteps on the stair. “It’s only Peg, the girl we took on to help with the cooking and the cleaning, offered Mattie, correctly interpreting her visitor’s sharp—eyed glance, which she was later to liken to that of a ferret on the scent of a pheasant’s nest.
    An hour later, having been unable to pry anything definitive out of her hostess beyond Mattie’s prized recipe for gooseberry cream and the admission that there was already a distinct nip in the air for the twenty—fifth of September, Miss Thedford noted that the biscuit dish was empty and that, further, her hostess demonstrated little inclination to offer to refill it.
    “I suppose I should really be getting home," said the spinster, reluctantly discarding the notion of a fourth cup of tea in the absence of biscuits and unable to come up with a plausible excuse for prolonging her visit. She was rewarded with the faintest of impressions that Mattie could not be more relieved to be rid of her guest, which only added fuel to Miss Thedford’s already flaming curiosity. Still, there would seem to be nothing for it, save to gather up her reticule and gloves in preparation of taking her leave.
    “It was kind of you to drop by to inquire into Mr. Treadwell’s health, I’m sure,” murmured Mattie deftly guiding the rector’s sister out the parlor door. “Fortunately, you may tell everybody he’s fit as a trivet,” she added, as she helped Miss Thedford into her pelisse. “I daresay we’ve never been better.”
    “Yes, well, I’m sure I could not be more pleased to hear it. No doubt we shall see you in church on Sunday then,” Miss Thedford replied in the way of a last, hopeful effort to worm something of interest out of Mattie Treadwell.
    Without missing a single heartbeat, Mattie smiled for all the world as if she had been anticipating that final thrust. “I’m afraid I couldn’t promise you or the rector something I can’t be certain of. As it happens, Mr. Treadwell and I’ve been thinking of taking a drive over to Hartsop to my sister Harriet’s. It’s been some little time since we saw Harriet and the family. Perhaps we’ll stay a couple of nights and come back on Monday. Make it a proper holiday, y’see.
    Unfortunately, perhaps, Miss Thedford did see. In fact, glancing up at the second story, she saw, framed in one of the windows, the figure of a woman standing with her elbows back, her hands pressed against the small of her back in the manner of a female exceedingly close to the time of her lying in. Nor was Miss Thedford slow to realize the identity of the young mother—to—be. There was no mistaking the strikingly beautiful profile, the thick mane of hair shining a rich red—gold in the afternoon sunlight. She was the very likeness of Judith Wintergreen, who had died twelve years before giving birth to a stillborn son.
Mattie Treadwell, taking in Miss Thedford’s triumphant glance, smiled grimly to herself. So she thinks she has what she came to find out, does she? Mattie thought, as she watched the spinster drive off in her pony cart. Miss Althea Wintergreen’s come home, and now the whole town was about to know. A pity there’d be none to know the real truth of the matter.
    Mattie sighed, her gaze going to the face peering down at her from the bedroom window. Well, it was the way she wanted it, and now would begin the reckoning.
 

Chapter One

    Lucius Carroll Elbert Keene, the Duke of Traherne, came suddenly to the awareness that he had been regarding his private secretary in stony silence for what must have been several seconds. Wryly, he noted poor Phips appeared visibly to be wilting beneath the protracted stare of his employer.
    “She is in London, then,” Traherne said, taking pity on his highly efficient personal agent. “You are quite certain.”
    “There is no mistake, your grace,” replied Edward Phips, resisting the urge to mop his forehead with his linen handkerchief. “The woman staying at the Chesney under the name of Mrs. Praetorius is most definitely the Duchess of Traherne.”
    “And Mr. Praetorius?” The duke looked deliberately at Phips, who forced himself to meet that rapier glance unflinchingly. “Is he here with her?”
    “Yes, he is here with her,” snapped Lord Hilary Keene, a tall, elegant aristocrat in his middle fifties who, despite his fair hair in sharp contrast to the striking blue—black sheen of Traherne’s raven locks, bore a marked resemblance to his nephew, the duke. “He is considerably altered by the passage of the years, Lucius, but it is Mr. Xavier Praetorius, as he styles himself. I have not forgot him or his demmed silver—tongued oratory. He could talk the bloody bristles off a boar.
“Damme,” drawled Traherne, mildly sardonic, his strong, chiseled features betraying little of his innermost thoughts. “It would seem there is a deal more to Mr. Praetorius than one might have imagined. Twenty—six years, and they are still together.”
    “Curious, that,” Lord Hilary agreed, his gaze, wary, on the duke. “But then, all those years ago I should never have expected Olivia Traherne to fling all away for a traveling thespian. She was never a flighty gel. You may be sure Lady Stanton reared her daughter to know where her duty lay. “And where was that, Uncle?” queried Traherne, absently swinging his quizzing glass back and forth on its black riband. “Certainly not at Meresgate. In all these years my dearest mama has never so much as bothered to write, and now, suddenly, she is back. One is moved to speculate the reason why.”
Phips circumspectly cleared his throat.
    Traherne favored his secretary with an elevated eyebrow. “You have some theory to offer, my dear Edward?” he queried.
    “Indeed, sir. The duchess has expressed a desire to see your grace,” he offered carefully.
    “Really, Phips, you never cease to amaze me. And to what purpose, one must ask, would be such an interview? Personally, I cannot think of a thing we might have to say to one another.”
    Phips, who had served the duke for several years, evinced no surprise at what might seem a striking lack of curiosity on the part of one who had not had occasion to lay eyes on his mama for better than a quarter of a century. But then, Lucius Keene had been only nine when the duchess abandoned her husband and only child to elope with an itinerate actor. There had been no lack of news in the interim regarding the duchess and her paramour on the Continent, or in the East Indies and, finally, Africa and the Mediterranean, for that matter. Her grace, far from seeking to remain inconspicuous, had not hesitated to thrust herself into the center of Society in whatever foreign city she happened to make an appearance. She had, in fact, despite the scandal attached to her name, apparently enjoyed a more than modest success in the circles in which she moved. She was, by all accounts, a diamond of the first water, a woman of great wit and charm; she was, in fact, the delightfully Scandalous Duchess of Traherne. All of which the previous duke must have found more than a trifle galling.
    It was generally held that the dread of adding to the scandal had prevented the duke from seeking the formality of a divorce. Lucius, however, considered it far more likely his father’s hand was stayed by a harsh and vengeful nature. The previous duke had refused categorically to grant his errant wife her freedom. After all, there would have been nothing, in such an event, to prevent her from wedding the man she presumably loved to the exclusion of all else.
    Wealth, position, title, reputation——not to mention a husband and a son——she had gladly sacrificed all for an all—consuming passion. But then, no doubt the last had counted less to her even than all the rest, cynically reflected Lucius, who had long since relegated his esteemed mama to oblivion. Indeed, he could think of only one reason why the duchess should have returned and but a single motive for her to wish to see him.
    “No need to answer that, my dearest Edward,” he said with a cynical curl of the lip. “You will inform the duchess I am called away from Town for an indeterminate period of time.” Ignoring Hilary Keno’s sudden start at that announcement, the duke continued in his dispassionate, well—modulated tones, “You may further apprise her that I have commissioned you to set up a sizeable allowance for her grace on the condition that she is to make no further attempt to communicate with me, save through you. You will be quite clear on that point, Edward.”
    “I understand, your grace,” murmured Phips.
    “Well, I do not,” declared Hilary Keene, eyeing the duke’s tall, elegant presence with a fulminating eye.       “Have you forgot you are invited to Dustin’s house party, which is to be graced by five of the most eligible young beauties who are to make their curtsies in Society in the spring? And then there is Lady Crenshawe’s gala in celebration of her daughters’ birthday—--twins, by heaven. And from everything I’ve heard, as lovely as they are impossible to distinguish one from the other.”
    “Bookends, egad,” drawled Traherne with a singular lack of enthusiasm, which did little to smooth his uncle’s ruffled feathers.
    “Hell and the devil confound it, Lucius. Need I remind you of the matter we discussed a short time ago? You gave your word you would at least look over the new bevy of females making their appearance. You are five and thirty, my boy. It is past time you were setting up your nursery. We agreed on that."
    “Then no doubt you may be certain I shall give the matter my due consideration, Uncle,” replied the duke, favoring his kinsman with his gently mocking smile, which little reflected the immovable will that lay behind it.
    Hilary Keene, however, had had the rearing of his brother’s son from the time of the previous duke’s untimely demise in a duel when the boy was twelve. He knew full well how fruitless any further remonstrance with his grace would prove. Keene gave vent to a sigh. Traherne would keep to his word to think over the matter of finding himself a wife, but he would not be pushed into committing himself to more than that. It was little enough, but Hilary would have to be satisfied with that——and with the knowledge that the duke had a deeply ingrained sense of where his duty lay. No doubt Traherne would marry to ensure the title when it suited him. He would have to have done. After all, save for Hilary, whose dearest wife Ophelia had borne him five children, all daughters, Lucius was the last male of the line.
Cursing the whim that had brought Olivia Traherne back to London just when his nephew had been persuaded to set aside his aversion to green girls barely out of the schoolroom in order to find himself a duchess, Hilary suppressed a sigh of resignation.
    “Where, then, are you off to this time?” he asked, though he hardly needed to have done. Nor was he surprised when he received in reply that Traherne would be leaving for the Lake District for a few weeks of shooting.
    Whenever he wished to pull one of his vanishing acts, Lucius had, since his salad days, ever retreated to Briersly, his huntinglodge near Glenridding on Ullswater. It was something Hilary had never fully understood: How a man of Traherne’s polish and stature could actually choose to bury himself in the barren fastness of the Lake District for weeks at a time! But then, Lucius had always been something of an enigma. As a boy, he had demonstrated a dreamy disposition, which had manifested itself in a liking for poetry and music, pursuits fostered, undoubtedly, by his mama in the frequent, long absences of her husband, the duke. At least it had not been too late to nip such feckless tendencies in the bud, reflected Hilary with grim satisfaction. As the young duke’s guardian, Hilary had made sure Lucius’s time was occupied with more manly pursuits, with the result that there was not his match with pistols or swords and few who would willingly choose to engage him in fisticuffs. He was, furthermore, a top of the trees sawyer, a bruising rider, a Meltonian at the top of his class, and a Corinthian. That he was also an astute man of business who had tripled his already considerable income while many another noble fortune had been tossed down the River Tick his uncle accounted as a mere eccentricity, albeit a lucrative one.
    It was, in fact, an eccentricity that was particularly well suited to what was generally viewed in Traherne as a singular coldness of nature. The duke, it was agreed, was totally lacking in any of the softer human emotions. He was, furthermore, known to be utterly ruthless in the pursuit of his various business enterprises, which included, aside from his several prosperous estates, numerous textile mills and mining operations, both at home and in India. No doubt those who acquitted him of possessing any of the finersensibilities would have been considerably surprised to learn that he was highly regarded by those in his employ, from those who served him most intimately to those in the lowliest degrees. Everything the duke undertook was certain to prosper, but not at the expense of those whose labor profited him. He had, at considerable cost to himself, improved and modernized the machinery in his mills and his mines, instituted policies ensuring the welfare of those who toiled in his employ, including the exclusion of children under the age of fourteen in the work force and the limiting of shifts to a more humane ten hours, and had personally supervised the renovation of the workers’ tenement buildings to eliminate the health problems occasioned by overcrowding, poor drainage, and inadequate sewerage. With the result that, production was maintained at a highly profitable level and his holdings had remained untouched by the strikes and riots that had recently plagued the textile industry in Manchester and Bolton, not to mention the shipyards in Liverpool.
His Grace of Traherne no doubt would have been no little startled to discover he commanded from those in his employ something approaching affection, not to mention a fierce sense of loyalty. Having applied his considerable intellect to the matter of how to maintain his investments at the greatest efficiency possible, he had simply taken those steps which he had deemed necessary to achieve his ends. A reasonably happy, healthy work force at his command had not been a motivating factor or even an accidental by—product of his policies. It had been one of the several building blocks determined by logic for laying a sound foundation for a thriving business enterprise. Nor had it been any different with the upkeep of hisvarious estates, which boasted prosperous tenants and a healthy inflow of revenue, which in turn went to promote the latest in farming techniques, as well as the renewal and maintenance of the land upon which everything else depended. It was all a matter of cold, hard reason, he would have said, had anyone thought to ask him why he had instituted his various policies.
    The business of getting himself a duchess in order to provide Meresgate an heir should have been no different, Traherne reflected humorlessly some little time later as he gave Greaves, his gentleman’s gentleman, instructions to pack for a lengthy stay in the country. He was far too astute, however, not to acknowledge that taking a wife entailed the potential for just the sort of complications he would far rather have done without, had there been any other choice in the matter.
    His uncle had been right to remind him of the various functions to which he had promised himself in order to expedite the business of finding himself a wife. Good God, did he wait for the Season to begin the hunt, he would be forced to court and woo numerous simpering females with little more experience of the world than chicks in the nest, a process of elimination that must prove as tedious as it was promising of ennui. Worse, he would have to perform this onerous process in a milieu of sycophantic mamas eager to promote their single darlings. That he had a particular aversion to attending the assemblies at Almack’s, detested the commonality of dancing at Vauxhall Gardens, and abhorred the prospect of an endless round of balls, dinners, and soirees, not to mention all the impromptu musicales designed to display the dubious euphonic talents of middling young virtuosas, did little to sweeten his anticipation of a Season spent in hunting a successor to the scandalous duchess who had so dramatically demonstrated she was not up to the position.
And there was the crux of the matter, he admitted humorlessly to himself. Having had the example of his own mother and father as an extreme by which to gauge marital bliss in addition to having been made the object of numerous lures to ensnare his title and his fortune, he had come long since to intrinsically mistrust the institution of marriage. Indeed, he much preferred the sort of arrangement to be had with a mistress, who understood from the beginning there would be no possibility of anything of a longlasting nature. It was not only a far more practical and, therefore, reasonable arrangement than one predicated on the idea of willingly legshackling oneself for life to a single partner, but it was a deal more suited to human nature, which he cynically viewed as basically fickle. Nor could he console himself with his uncle’s bromide that, once married, he might find that, in time, love would come to cement the union, as it had come to Hilary and his dearest Ophelia. In spite of the example of his aunt and uncle whom the duke considered the exception that proved the rule, Traherne, as a man of logic, must inevitably question the romantic notion of love, premised, as it was, on an ideal of constancy, which, when applied to something as mutable as human emotions, could only be as difficult to realize as it was absurd to live in hopes of stumbling across one day.
Love, he judged in short, was at best a creation of fiction, a fantasy for the less logically—minded, and at worst an illusion that vanished in the revealing light of reality. After all, as an experienced man in the art of the physical aspects of love! he had found that interest rarely endured much beyond the act of conquest. More than that, however, he looked with distaste upon the accepted practice of married partners who, disillusioned with connubial bliss, sought solace in the arms of illicit lovers. Love affairs, by their very nature, were most damned untidy and invited complications that must inevitably prove fatiguing. More than that, however, he detested the notion of opening himself up to the humiliation of a wife who, once she had obliged him with an heir, took her pleasures elsewhere. Had there not been the succession to consider and his duty to the name he bore, he doubted not he would forego altogether the dubious pleasure of saddling himself with a duchess.
    Still, he found little to comfort himself in the fact that he had seized upon his mother’s arrival in London as an excuse to put off the inevitable. He acknowledged sardonically to himself that, while he had never before in his life run from an obligation or from what promised fair to be an unpleasant confrontation, he was doing both in retreating to Briersly at such a moment. Marry, he must, and the sooner the better. He was demmed, however, if he must feel any obligation to humor his long, lost parent in an interview that could serve little purpose other than to dredge up memories long buried and better left forgotten. Nevertheless, he had the uneasy suspicion that he had slipped a cog in his own estimation, a notion which he summarily dismissed as one predicated on some lingering feeling of childhood guilt and therefore an utterly wasted emotion.
    He was still vaguely displeased with himself when, little more than an hour later, he climbed into his traveling coach and, settling back against the squabs, gave the coachman the signal to drive on. No doubt he would be able to put everything in its proper perspective once he was settled in at Briersly, he told himself, and was immediately aware of a familiar tingle of anticipation at the prospect of trodding once more the wild environs of Ullswater and the Lake District, which he had not done for various reasons for better than five years.
    Briersly, of all his many houses, was the one that must be accounted singularly his own. He had purchased it on a whim while on a walking tour in the District with his tutor, Wendell Haverland. Even as a youth of eighteen, he had seen it as a welcome retreat from Meresgate, his castle on the coast, which his distant ancestor had caused to be built in 1475 in defense of England from the raiding Scots. Where the great pile that was his ancestral home reverberated with history, both ancient and more immediate, the picturesque sprawling country manor that he had purchased from a Colonel Wintergreen, presently with the King’s army in Egypt from all accounts, was thankfully free of any personal ties and, more especially, any memories that related in any way to himself. Despite his very real pride in Meresgate, Briersly offered the sort of solitude he had long since discovered he required from time to time and which he had found was nigh unto impossible to achieve anywhere else.
    It was undoubtedly the one thing he could attribute most certainly to his mother’s early influence, this need to be alone to think and dream. It was where his ideas came from, his strength of purpose, the same driving force that had made him one of the most powerful men in England in a time when England needed men who could provide prosperity and stability to at least a segment of the population plagued by war.
He had thought it all out while at Briersly——how he could best support his country in the fight against French tyranny. His holdings provided meat, wool, and grain to help sustain a country fighting for its very survival against seemingly impossible odds, even as his mills supplied textiles and his mines coal and iron ore for the war effort. If they could be made to produce more efficiently despite the reality of shortages of manpower, dwindling natural resources, and the drain on the public coffers, not to mention a growing unrest fueled by low wages, paltry working conditions, and the work of insurgents, he could contribute far more to his country’s war efforts than he could have done either in the diplomatic sector or directly as a soldier. More than that, he could provide a stabilizing influence of no little significance on the local economies as well as the populace to whom he provided lucrative employment.
    It had all been a matter of simple logic, logic, which had, in turn, prevailed over his more instinctive impulse to fling himself into the fighting as soon as he had reached his majority, an impulse made even more difficult to resist as news of the Reign of Terror began to reach England in the form of French emigres fleeing France to escape Madame Guillotine. It seemed that no one was to be spared the insanity of the mob. King Louis XVI was beheaded, followed shortly thereafter by his queen, Marie Antoinette. Reports were to reach England that, while sixty executions a month were being carried out in Paris, the Nantes tribunal had sent fifteen thousand persons to the guillotine in a period of three months alone. Nor had it helped to learn on his twenty—fifth birthday that British forces had been driven out of Toulon and only the British navy stood between the island nation and a French invasion.
    The withdrawal of the British forces from Toulon had been the catalyst that impelled him to a more active part in the war, that and the fact that his various personal projects were already well advanced. He had been one and twenty when the French mob stormed the Bastille and already an astute scholar of the intricate workings of politics and political institutions. Having come into a dukedom at the age of twelve, he had come naturally to acquire a knowledge of those forces that motivated the people around him as well as those over whom he exercised no little influence. In his maturity he had made a study of it. It had been practically inevitable, considering his elevated position as a premier nobleman of the realm second only to royalty and his undeniably vast network of connections both at home and abroad, that he should be drawn finally into the political intrigue behind the scenes of war. But then, he had proven particularly adept at matters of intelligence—gathering, analysis, and counter—strategies.
    He was only a little surprised when, six years later, he was approached by Jean Duval, the former Comte d’Arbolet. He had been sought out by agents of the government before with the intent of wooing him to exert his considerable influence on behalf of French emigres with families still at peril on the Continent. Doubtless it had never been intended for him to place himself at personal risk in frequent forays into France itself. His lean jaw hardened at the remembered horror that had determined him on a course that was to plunge him in the end into a nightmare of suffering and near death.
    His hand clenched about the silver head of the walking stick propped between his knees. God help him, he would have done it all again, suffered the wound, chanced death itself, had it meant he could expose those who traded in human souls for gold. It was his one failure, the single, bitter drop in his cup, that he had not.
Feeling the throb of the long healed wound in his left thigh, he deliberately unclenched his hand along with his despair. In the long weeks of delirium and pain, the feverish eternity of tormented dreams, he had gone over and over it in his head until he had been driven nearly mad with uncertainty. Had he been too arrogant, too bloody sure of his own infallibility? If he had trusted Duval with the twisted threads of clues he had uncovered, would things have turned out differently? The bits and pieces had been enough to quash the network of smugglers who had dealt in human suffering, but the evil genius who had dreamed up the horrific scheme had escaped. It would begin all over again——the bodies of men, women, and children, brutally murdered and cast adrift, some to wash ashore, as had Duval’s young wife and daughter.
    “The devil! It’s over and done,” Traherne muttered. Shutting his eyes tight, he leaned his head back against the squabs. “Bloody well time to forget the whole rotten mess.”
    He would find respite from his cursed thoughts, he told himself, in the seclusion of Briersly set in its sylvan glade overlooking the sprawling lake, the fells crouched all about like sleeping giants breathing clouds of mist.

    Smiling to herself, Althea Wintergreen gave the huge pink bow a final adjustment then stepped back to admire the delectably intriguing wooden box boasting a fanciful array of faerie figures and elves flitting over its enameled surface. Effie would love the soft velvet ribbon and the sprites. Althea could only hope the surprise inside the box would please the child equally well. She had stayed up most of the night to complete the final small touch—ups and now felt a tingle of anticipation at seeing her newest creation put through its paces.
    Taking up the box, Althea let herself out of her attic work room, careful to shut the door behind her, and made her way down the narrow wooden stairs to the house proper. Down the hall Effie would just be coming awake in the nursery with the awareness that it was her birthday, thought Althea, wondering where the time had gone. Truly it did not seem possible that her little Effie was five years old today.
    With a rueful grin, Althea thought back to that night when Effie had first made her appearance. Gazing down into that very human little face, she had realized for the first time what was meant by the term ~~miracle of birth.” It was indeed miraculous that anything so tiny and so fragile and yet so perfect in every detail could issue from a woman’s body. Watching the wash of pink dispel the greyish color, which had made the infant appear something molded from wet clay, had been on the order of viewing creation in all its mystery. And then to face the fear and wonder of the daunting responsibility represented by that fragile little form only just budding forth with life! It had come then to Althea Chat she had never been so uncertain of anything in her life before. Indeed, she had not known how she could manage all by herself.
    But then, she had had Mattie to help her and dear Mrs. Fennigrew, who, like a gift sent from heaven, had presented herself at Althea’s door one afternoon shortly after Effie’s birth. In all the years following her father and the drum, Althea had never imagined that her own former nanny would still be in Glenridding seemingly waiting for the day when she might take up her old position again. Yet, there she had been, rather greyer and carrying not a little more bulk, but still manifesting the same brusque competence that she had demonstrated at three and thirty. It had been Mrs. Fennigrew who resolved the problem of a wet nurse and Mrs. Fennigrew who, bullying and coaxing, had brought the child’s ailing mama back to health. Together, they three had managed to nurture that tender bud of life that was Effie until she had grown into sturdy childhood.
    And they would continue to do so, Althea told herself firmly, as she entered the breakfast room and set the gaily decorated box down on the breakfast table. Because Althea did not like to eat alone and because she enjoyed nothing more than to spend meal times listening to childish prattle, Effie had been allowed, since she grew out of the necessity for nappies, to take her meals with Althea rather than in the nursery. No doubt it was partly due to Althea’s practice of talking to the child as if she were an equal and partially because Effie was an only child growing up among adults and without childhood playmates that the little girl exuded a maturity beyond her meagre years. Althea, had she paused to think about it at all, would have undoubtedly attributed it to what she considered the child’s natural precocity. She was unabashedly proud of her Effie and could not have been more pleased to see a great deal of herself in the little person growing up before her very eyes.
    Inexplicably, a shadow darkened those eyes, the green—gold of a verdant glen in early autumn, as they came to rest on the exquisite china doll fitted out in purple satin, which lay on the table beside the enameled box. It was the gift Althea’s sister Gloriana had sent to Effie in celebration of this special occasion. Gloriana never forgot Effie’s birthday or Christmas or Valentine’s Day. Even Easter would see some little something arrive by post for Effie. A pity Gloriana could never bring herself to deliver the gifts in person. But then, Gloriana had made a splendid match. She was the Viscountess Winslade now, one of London’s leading hostesses, the wife of a man who was distinguishing himself in the diplomatic service. It was one thing for Althea to take Effie to the unpretentious house in the unfashionable part of London for a short, secret visit with her only sibling. It was quite another for Gloriana to invite scandal by openly coming to the Old Mill House to see the sister who had disgraced herself.
    It was a fact of life with which Althea had long since come to terms, but it was the sort of cruel social absurdity that she abhorred. How could love or a child of love ever be a shameful thing? The act of love itself was an expression of a sublime passion, a rapturous joining of the universal masculine and feminine, male and female, to achieve a wholeness for which every soul yearned. It was an inborn need, an irresistible force, an inescapable mechanism of nature and therefore, of itself, neither good nor evil. It was the superimposition of social mores on an essential human behavior which dictated a woman should be shunned for bringing into the world a fatherless child.
    Althea’s lips quirked in sardonic amusement. A “fatherless” child indeed. As if there ever could be such a thing. Anymore than there could be a ‘~ motherless’ child. And how much greater the absurdity to visit shame upon the child of such a union. A child, any child, was by its very nature a creature of innocence and beauty, a never—ending source of wonder——a miracle of creation to be loved, nurtured, and treasured. And any set of social standards that dictated otherwise was not one she cared a fig for.
Indeed, it did not bother her in the least that she was treated as an anathema, a pariah——a Fallen Woman, egad. She had Effie, and she had her attic work shop. What more could she really ask? The truth was, she was perfectly contented with her life. That was a deal more than most people could say, she told herself and dismissed the momentary pang of regret that Gloriana would not be here to see Effie’s glee when the child first beheld her lovely new doll and the surprise waiting for her in the intriguing box. There would not be a cloud on this day, Althea vowed. She simply would not allow it.
    Then, hearing the excited clatter of footsteps beyond the door, Althea turned, an expectant gleam in her eye.
 

    There was, Traherne decided, propping his fowling piece over one broad shoulder, a decided bite in the air for late September. He took in with an appreciative eye the first faint sheen of red and gold among the press of beechwood and oak. There would be an early fall, followed, no doubt, by an equally unseasonable winter, he decided, aware of a small pang of regret that he would not be here to witness the full glory of autumn with its October pageant of brilliant colors. He had yet to experience a winter along the shores of Ullswater, something he suspected would be quite spectacular, if confining.
    Following the course of a purling beck, Fitz, his red Irish setter at his heels, he was sardonically aware of a new spring in his step, of a quickening of his blood. The crisp air sharpened his senses and cleared the cobwebs from his brain. It was not only the six months he had spent in and out of sickbeds as he fought off infection and struggled to re—build his strength that made the keen scents of gorse and thyme and sorrel, wet with dew, even sweeter to his senses. Nor was it the sudden relief from the constant pressure of his numerous responsibilities that made him feel light and clear—headed as he had not done for a very long time. He had been engrossed in the matters of war for too long, he realized, until he had forgot what it was to awaken with an appetite whetted by a chill mountain dawn, clean—scented with pine and mist. He felt like a boy again, freed from the schoolroom for a holiday, he thought with cynical amusement, and for once was free of pain as he skirted through the furze with long, easy strides.
    It was the magic of Briersly, he told himself, wondering that he had not thought to come sooner. Perhaps some deeper instinct than the impulse to avoid his uncle’s censure had prevailed in bringing him back, he mused with a rueful twist of the lips——something deeper, even, than his aversion to the notion of encountering his prodigal parent someplace, sometime when he was least expecting it. Not that it would signify. The mother who had walked out of his life twenty—six years ago had long since ceased to exist for him. If they chanced to meet, it would be as strangers. There was the distinct possibility he would not even recognize her.
    Traherne frowned, nettled nonetheless at having allowed even the thought of the dowager duchess’s return to impinge on his pleasure in the day. It served to remind him, as well, of that other less than eagerly anticipated matter that awaited him——the courting of a new Duchess of Traherne.
    But all that was for later, when he made his return to London. Now, the sun was burning the mist away, and before him, fringed with willows and gleaming silvery in the sunlight, lapped the waters of the lake. Beside him, the setter went suddenly still. Traherne, treading softly, eased into the thick cover of a stand of willows and peered out over a creek formed by a shallow fold in the hills.
    The honk of wild geese brought the fowling piece to his shoulder, his finger, ready, on the trigger.
A rush of wings, a sudden body in flight. He raised the barrel and——.
    ‘NO—O--O!’ shrilled across the silence.
    His finger jerked and the gun discharged.
    The feminine shriek that chilled his blood brought him spinning about, precariously off balance.
For an instant, Traherne stared, transfixed, into the gilt—green eyes of a wood nymph with glorious red—gold hair. Then he felt his boot slip on the wet, treacherous bank and, flinging up his arms to catch himself, plunged backwards, full—length into the water.