The Duke of Wyvernstone ascended the marble staircase of the Bexley townhouse and was reminded of the impressive entrance of his own ancestral home. Where white stone gleamed in the sunbeams here, his own Hall shone from polished onyx but wrapped the bannisters in much the same opulent way. He loved the quiet appeal of the country in which Wyvernstone Hall was situated but was equally as enraptured to be as far from his stepmother as humanly possible. She had decided on eschewing the start of the London season to begin plans for their Annual Summer Ball the following week, and her lapse offered him a brief respite from her constant badgering. Although his brotherly love for Cain was unparalleled, ever since the duke's farce of an engagement was announced it had prompted every other mother in the borough to foist marriage onto their own sons. As if Jay needed another reason to despise his stepmother.
He much preferred thinking of the Dowager Duchess of Bexley as his mother since his own true flesh had long since passed. It offered him some small comfort to know that the two women were at one time fast friends. So, it was with haste that he answered her mysterious summons and leaped the stairs two at a time. On arrival at the Bexley Manor he had been expecting to be seated as usual in the comfortable sitting room or the spacious parlour that overlooked the ton parading on the wealthy streets. Instead, he was quietly informed by the Duchess's personal chamber maid that her mistress awaited him in her private lounge upstairs.
For a dire moment in time he felt his chest clench with stale air and he feared that she was truly ill, but the serene countenance of the chamber maid indicated that the lady in question was well. Jay reached the beautifully gilded white door panels and resolved that nothing short of a natural disaster would claim a woman as formidable as the one that waited for him beyond the walls. A small cheeky smile crept to his lips and he managed to tug half of it back into cool nonchalance before the door swung open and he stepped within.
"You're late." The Duchess looked up over the golden rim of her teacup and beamed at him welcomingly.
"Ah, but what pray tell am I late for Madam?" Jay knelt before her kissing the tips of her fingers briefly.
"Would you care for some tea, Jay? Or perhaps something stronger?" The Duchess gazed at the early morning passage of the sun to determine the propriety of pouring brandy before noon.
The young duke flicked back his coat tails and eased into the soft feminine upholstery with a quiet confidence. The Dowager Duchess was stalling, and she never stalled unless she was not in a position of power. The situation was so infrequent an occurrence that it took him a moment to recognise it.
"Oh, I think tea should be just fine, Catherine." He interlaced his fingers and clasped his hands loosely in his lap as he waited for her to pour.
An eyebrow arched upwards on her still-beautiful face and she continued pouring. "Catherine, your Grace?" She asked handing him his steaming cup.
Jay's eyes twinkled but his lips did not give away the game so early. "Well, I assume you wanted to talk to me about something personal since you have asked every single one of your maids to vacate this lovely room." He gazed slowly around their silent surroundings.
The Duchess rolled her eyes and regained her seat. "Honestly Jay, sometimes I think my son has been a bad influence on you."
Jay smiled finally, "Yes, I would have to agree my lovely Lady."
Her demeanour softened and she took a deep breath as she slid a locket on her necklace between her fingers over and over. She rubbed the smooth finished surface as if it was Aladdin's lamp, hoping for a genie's answered wish to her resolve her unspoken thoughts.
"Are you well, your Grace?" He asked sincerely
She seemed to not hear him and continued her quiet reflections.
Jay leaned forward with elbows on his knees and tried to catch her eyes that he could almost believe swam with the ghost of tears. "Please, my Lady, is there not anything I can do for you? Truly, you do not seem well."
The Duchess snapped out of the distracted pathways of her mind and settled her cup back in its porcelain saucer with the barest hint of a tremor. "Jay," she smiled softly, "I have known you since you were a baby in your mother's arms and from almost the same time I knew that one day I would have to have this discussion with you now. It is a thing that has weighed a great deal on an old woman and has required careful planning from infancy."
She paused for breath and attempted to read the countenance of his face, but Jay was always one to hide his deepest thoughts by fortifications of strength. Jay had led an exemplary life and no mother could be prouder but, if they had surrounded China by walls of his substance, the Mongols would not have dared enter.
"I must ask you for a favour and you cannot question me as to why. More than one life hangs in the balance in the space between your agreement and dismissal."
Jay remained silent still, and Catherine wondered at the woman who would one day have the strength and subterfuge to see beyond the walls.
"Are you and your mother still at odds?" She questioned
"You know that we are. And she is not my mother, which you well know."
"It is a secret that you also know the importance of so, just humour me even while we appear to be alone." Her voice became a touch firmer with the resonance that so frequently accompanied her presence. "I have often thought that if your mother had been a shade more malleable all our lives would have turned out so very differently, but the years have seen her become less and less accommodating."
Jay scoffed, "She tolerates me but I imagine this is only as I am her lone access to our family's fortune. I do not know how much more you would expect from the woman who did not bear me and yet openly acknowledges me as her son."
The Duchess looked up at him sharply. "I expect a great deal more. Do not tell me you pity her?"
"In some ways, yes." He sighed. "But, her behaviour in all this time has not won me to her. I understand that it could not have been easy to watch my father love another, but then she never loved him either, or gave him reason to love such a manipulative witch. She will always be the woman who drove my true mother from me and my father will be the man that did not stop her. Those are sins not easily forgiven."
"And now here we are, in a difficult position made all the more problematic because you have not yet thawed your stepmother's cold heart. Instead, you have placed a barrier solidly between the two of you that has become impenetrable."
Jay tensed and he carefully replaced the delicate crockery on the small table between them with gooseflesh pulling at the hairs on his arms. "Are you saying that my stepmother's disposition is my fault?" His voice turned as cold as the conversation.
The Duchess shook her head with slow deliberation. "No, of course not Jay. But, have you ever thought of how you could one day bring in anyone else into a house that has become even icier since your father's death?" She seated herself next to him on the pastel lounge and placed a warm palm over his.
Jay narrowed his eyes doubtfully. "Do not tell me that you are also pushing me into matrimony. To tell you honestly, marriage never seemed to make anyone in my family too happy."
The Duchess brushed at the suede patterning of his lapel with a maternal touch. "No... I know that you will find love in due course. I have instead someone else who needs the protection that you now can offer as the Wyvernstone ducal heir."
Jay clasped her frail hand between his own strong fingers. "Ask anything of me and the Wyvernstone walls will surround this person with all the protection that we can offer. I have... other means of security if you also require it." Jay hesitated to tell his friend's mother the extent of which he could protect both her and the Crown. Some things he surmised were best left in the safety of the dark.
This time the Duchess smiled truly before continuing, "I know you will do your best but your mother also has a powerful hold on you. Where I once was able to persuade her to keep you, the task shall now fall to your shoulders to help out someone completely apart from you."
"My life and all I own are at your disposal, my good lady." Jay offered with the simple sincerity of a son.
She lay a soft palm against his cheek and stared at him with sad eyes, "Oh, my dear you were asked to be a man far too early, and now I must ask you to be a brother too."
The duke stilled beneath her touch.
"A what?" The usually thin steel of his voice branded hotter than usual like a blade being tempered in a forge. Jay dared not believe that he had heard correctly and his fist clenched quietly against his knee and waited for her answer.
"In a manner of speaking only," the Duchess hastened to explain. "There is a girl I need to place inside your home and I would like very much for you to care for her as one of your own. She is a simple, unassuming, beautiful young woman and very much in need of your care."
Jay felt the tension flow out of his body and instead of a half-sister with his mother's full cheeks he foolishly saw Mina's face flash before him. He shook the image from his mind. There were plenty of other beautiful young women who might need him. He needed to stop dwelling on the one woman who seemed to float through danger like a leaf on the wind. Mina found walking in a straight line dangerous to her health.
"What would you have of me?" He asked steering his mind to safer paths.
"Very much like how I welcomed your own mother into my house, this girl also needs a place to stay unharmed... and she cannot stay here." She edged further with hidden trepidation at a well laid plot finally seeing fruition. The lifeline of her most precious maid was possibly her greatest and most dangerous mission, entrusted to her by a friend who formed one third of their triumvirate.
"You wish this woman to be instilled into the Wyvernstone servantry?" Jay inferred with a frown.
"No." The Duchess of Bexley knew the moment to lay her cards forth was upon them. "I need you to accept her as your ward, or your late Uncle's ward on your father's side to be exact."
The dukes frown deepened, "But, she isn't, is she?"
"No, she isn't." Catherine nodded.
"Then who is she?" He questioned directly.
"Someone who desperately needs your help- that is all you ever need know."
Jay took a measured breath. "You should know that there are other ways to protect a British citizen. Perhaps if you told me something about the nature of the danger she was in?"
To the Duchess's credit as the Director of the Secret Intelligence Agency she did not appear in the least patronising while explaining further. "I can only imagine what means you are considering but please believe me when I say that all other avenues have been exhausted. The only option left is for you to assist her." She paused with bated breath and waited to see if the love and care she had fostered in this young lad had meant as much to him as he professed.
"You expect me to shelter a woman I do not know? You do not even offer me the barest hint as to her background. How am I to trust her?" He asked frankly.
"Because I trust her, implicitly." She stated.
Jay stood up slowly and paced the wide room now shielded by clouds from the sun's warming rays. It seemed too that the laughter he usually shared with this woman was gone. She had always truly loved him and no doubt did so still, but if Jay's measure of her was correct she was not a woman to be trifled with even amongst the ton. It seemed all the motherly talks, the memories and the safety of the Bexley home when his own had felt unbearable was being called into repayment. The weight of it fell like chips at a gambling table.
The Duchess sat calmly and waited. She looked just like the woman he had known since birth but everything had changed. She openly admitted to planning this exchange and it felt like she was bartering with their history. She was not simply asking a favour as a friend, this was something else.
"You once told me that trust had to be earned." He countered her appeal with calm rebuttal.
"Then I hope that I have earned yours." She almost left the sentence hanging in the air. She knew its mere utterance would have granted her wish. The Duke of Wyvernstone was not his father, and he never left a debt unpaid or unacknowledged. However, she could also feel his pain at the possibility that she had played him like harp, strumming and plucking till she achieved the notes she desired. It was true that she often danced people like puppets to her tune but in this case there was nothing further from the truth. He was a far too astute an Agent to not notice the hum of mystery around her but she could not bear to see distrust in his eyes.
The threads of this tapestry were delicately interweaved and it would only take one dropped stitch to fall apart. Perhaps she should have told him of his sister earlier, perhaps she should tell him the truth now... perhaps she should do a lot of things, the Duchess reflected with pathos. Who was to say that what was once a mistake was not instead a fortunate twist of fate?
She raised her arms to him beckoning him close and watched him fight the desire to seek a mother's comfort. In the end, he returned to her side and she clasped his hands within her own. "Jacob, you know I would never cause you harm. You are as dear to me as your mother was and no one will ever truly know how much of my heart that woman had. I could not have even loved a sister more, so how could you imagine I would hurt her own child?"
Jay remained resilient, safe behind his fortress.
"I want to show you something," The Duchess began, "it is something that very few have or will ever see." She pulled at the tips of her silken gloves from her right hand and slowly withdrew the cloth before laying it to one side. Turning over her hand, she placed it palm upwards over his and a white long scar swelled from the tissue in a line from smallest finger diagonally to the base of her thumb. It was almost clean like an incision but thicker and softened from time.
Such a scar was rarely, if ever seen on a lady of standing. Yet, Jay did not greet it with abhorrence.
His chest clenched as breath was stolen from his lungs and his mouth became parched and dry without the passage of air. Memories fell over him in waves crashing against rock forcing it to bow to its will and remember a time when a similar scarred hand held his own. It had tousled his hair and tended his wounds, and was so deep a remnant of a time gone by that the sight of it breached the emotions he had laid to rest in the same tomb as its owner.
Jay cradled the older woman's hand between his and stroked the marred flesh with the soft pads of his thumbs. A single warm tear droplet fell into the well of her hand and she did not move to wipe it away. He gazed with the deepest of yearning at so simple a mark and there was a tremor to his voice when he finally chanced speech. "My mother... she had the same wound on her palm. I remember it, I remember..." he trailed off with the quiet pain of a boy clinging to the fleeting memories of a parent long passed.
The Duchess wrapped her small arms around his large form and held him between his mother's matching scars. No more tears fell, no more needed to. It was easy to see that the loss of a mother was a sorrow that he would carry until the end of his days. When the moment seemed to lighten from the heaviness of heartache she spoke softly into his ear. "One afternoon when we knew, we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we would always look after one another, I grabbed my father's old pocket knife and with clasped hands became sisters by blood."
She lifted his eyes to hers and pulled him into the present. "I love you like my own son, Jacob, and sometimes a little more." She cracked a small smile then and saw the old spark of familiarity between them reignite. "Trust me. Doubt can tear apart more than families and friends so have faith in the trust you place in me and take this girl and keep her safe."
Jay offered a single nod.
He rose once again and inhaled deeply of the scented air. The clouds had moved away and the room was awash with light once more. There were parts of his life and his emotions that he liked to keep carefully ordered and managed away from the stark gaze of the day. Sometimes though it seemed to creep up on him like a vine winding its way up a great oak and before he was sufficiently prepared it hastened to strangle him.
The Duchess continued to speak as he swiftly regained his composure. "You will meet and introduce her on the night of the Wyvernstone Annual Summer Ball, but I would ask you to prepare your stepmother for this girl as soon as possible and keep me apprised of her response. You may wish to visit her to discuss this personally but it is important that she does not suspect my hand in this."
Jay nodded again.
"Once I have your confirmation that your stepmother has been breached then I will have sufficient discreet rumours circulated to ensure the success of the story regarding my girl's background."
Jay paused, understanding of the magnitude of what they were about to attempt had been drifting as softly as snowflakes. At first it was barely noticeable until the moment you gazed around and found the thick dense coating of frost upon the ground. "A ward is not a ploy easily unravelled, it is a deceit for life."
The Duchess stared at him unflinchingly. "Yes, it is."
"So be it." Jay commanded and grasped the golden door handle of the sunlit chamber, eager for safety of shadows once more.
~
"Come in Verushka." The Duchess called as soon as Jay had shut the chamber door.
The young maid slipped out from the inter-leading door to the Duchess's private study where she had first discovered the truth of the British Secret Agency.
"Why did you not tell him the truth about me?" she questioned with quivering uncertainty, wondering at the change in plans.
"He was not ready to hear it." Her employer patted the seat next to her welcomingly and Verushka took the place of her brother not minutes before. She could imagine the warmth of him still clinging to the upholstery and tried to not feel the emptiness in her myopic vision of their reunion.
"I have prided myself on reading people over the years and even I could hear the scepticism in his voice as he questioned me, a woman who has practically been a mother to him. If we supplied him with the full truth we would have lost him and in doing so your entire position in the agency and in society. It takes a great deal to break through the Jacob's veneer but when it happens I can assure you he would not care about his mother, me or even the Queen."
"Is that such a bad thing?" Verushka's own Wyvernstone temper flashed.
The Duchess patted her shoulder with calm assurance. "Yes, it is. Should he proclaim you as his own flesh in anger, his stepmother may extract her own revenge. She has always hated you the most, perhaps since you are the perfect image of the woman she never was, perhaps because it pained your father the most to be apart from you. Camilla will know the truth of your identity the moment she lays eyes on you, so I need for her to openly accept the idea of you before that happens. As it is, I fear what punishment she may then extract on either of you; she will make you both pay if she can."
"So, I need to pretend to be his Uncle's ward?"
"Yes. I must admit, you are handling that part of this ploy rather well." The Duchess awarded the praise with ease.
"To be honest, my lady I don't think it has sunk in just yet. I can only reel from one major life upheaval at a time. I didn't think that I would ever get a chance to really know the Duke of Wyvernstone let alone be welcomed into his home. I mean, I may have some of my father's blood in me but I am still just a bastard child. A month ago I was simply a pantry maid, last week I was supposed to be a chamber maid, and next week I will be someone's ward!" Verushka let out a huge sigh as if she had climbed a large mountain in Wales and reached the summit. "I think it's going to take a little time for me to process."
More tea was poured and biscuits consumed amid the flapping of choreographed fans and conversational lessons but when Verushka smacked herself in the forehead with the thin papered edge for the fourteenth time she threw the flimsy item on the floor with more aggravation than it deserved. "I highly doubt that anyone will believe I am someone's long lost ward! I will probably bow instead of curtsy and use the wrong fork at dinner and the jig will be up."
The Dowager Duchess handed her another chocolate biscuit to ease the strain. "Of course, some may speculate that you are perhaps the late Duke's unclaimed bastard as has happened in many families before. But there was never even a hint of scandal at you or your brother's birth and no one will dare mention it outwardly and definitely not with the endorsement from Jacob and myself."
She passed Verushka a napkin to tidy up the crumbs that now coated her mouth and hair before continuing. "Together we can be quite intimidating, and if we present a diamond of the first water with a dowry to boot, no one will care either way. After all, the most lustrous gems are formed under incredible amounts of pressure." The older woman smiled and rang the bell pull for fresh tea.
Verushka discreetly picked crumbs from between her blonde strands and only succeeded in smashing the shortbread firmly between clumps. She doubted that she would be a diamond of any water regardless of how much she was pressed but she had a more pertinent question in mind. "And then will you tell him who I am?"
"If your brother is the man I believe him to be, I won't need to."
***
Stay tuned for part 2....
Thanks again dear Readers for continuing to offer your patronage to the Bexley Manor!
Some of you may be wondering about the Duchess's reference to the Great Wall of China. The fortifications across the northern borders of China were built to protect the Chinese states against the raids and invasions (pic included in the top banner). However, Genghis Khan started the Mongol invasion of China which spanned six decades in the 13th century and caused the defeat of the Chinese in 1279 by using several passes between the Wall. The Duchess is definitely up to scratch on her war history and seems to think that if it were made with something of Jay's make up the Chinese would have had better success in guarding the border. Do you agree?
Speaking of conquering, #Wattys2016 are coming up. What do you think, should I enter Persuasion in the Pantry??
If you would like to support me then head on over to https://twitter.com/inararoseauthor and follow! I'm a bit new to social media but I will try to keep it interesting. Perhaps Jay might drop by and say hi...who knows ;)