"I'm not trying to place blame, Mrs Simmons. My father was a man in a position of great power. He made his decisions, and I hold him alone responsible for them. I’m just trying to understand this situation, to comprehend this child who was born before me, to such a different life..."
"I do not know whether your mother knew or not. If she did, she never said anything to me. But then, that didn’t surprise me. She was a woman born to be a duchess, your mother – she handled everything with grace."
James nodded, but he was surprised to find that his thoughts were not of his mother, but of the woman who was now to be his duchess: Lady Penelope.
Had she been born to be a duchess? Her silly behaviour in tricking him and testing him might suggest not, but then she was young…and he had never known his mother when she was only two-and-twenty.
"May I ask, what do you plan to do with this information?"
"I do not know," he said honestly.
"I shouldn’t like…my son…to find out about this from anyone other than me. If he ever must learn of it at all."
James nodded. "Understood." It would certainly be even more shocking for this man than it had been for James to discover his existence. He would find he had been lied to for his entire life – and that he wasn’t truly who he thought he was.
"If you do feel that you need to meet him," Mrs Simmons said, continuing without further response from him, "I would appreciate it if you could inform me, so that I might make a plan with my brother..."
"I have no intention of turning your life upside down, Mrs Simmons," he said, reaching for a half-drunk glass of port on his desk. "I just…needed to know."
Mrs Simmons gave him a friendly smile, and he wondered if it had been hard on her to be separated from her son – a son who did not even know she was his mother – for all these years. It surely had, and yet she had never complained, never sullied the name of the Duke of Dunloch, even though she had the ability – and quite possibly the right – to.
"Thank you, Mrs Simmons," he said, feeling ready to end the conversation and retire, although he was not sure he would manage to sleep.
"Good night, Your Grace," she said, standing and straightening her skirt. "I did want to ask, if I may – did you discover the identity of our mystery guest? I heard she had left..."
James rather thought that she had probably heard a lot more than the fact that Lady Penelope had left – probably how she had been distraught, how James had sent her away. No one else in the household had dared to ask him about her, but he did not feel he could refuse to answer Mrs Simmons’s question, not when she had answered his without hesitation.
"Lady Penelope Strachan," he said, resisting the urge to grip the desk at the strength of his emotions at saying her name, at the anger he felt towards her for deceiving him, for making him feel…and then making him regret doing so.
And then it seemed like the appropriate time to inform the housekeeper, who would surely disseminate the information to the rest of the staff, that he was to be wed. It would not changetheir lives particularly, especially with Lady Penelope residing on another of his estates, but he supposed they ought to know. "She is to return in two months, when we will be married."
Mrs Simmons’s eyes widened, and then a smile grew on her face. "Congratulations, Your Grace. I am very pleased, for both of you. She is a sweet girl, and I’m sure she will make an excellent duchess."
James did not tell Mrs Simmons that she would be residing elsewhere, for he had no wish to explain his decisions to anyone else.
Chapter Twenty-Three
He heard the banns read for the first time in church that Sunday, and he presumed Penelope had done the same in her own church. He felt the eyes of all gathered settling upon him, at the news that he was to wed, and he heard the gossip as he left:
"I wonder what’s provoked that sudden change of heart."
"Seemed like he’d be a bachelor forever!"
"That castle needs a woman’s touch."
"Who is this Lady Penelope? Where is she now?"
As always, he did not engage. He listened to the sermon, and the banns, and was the first to leave, top hat in hand, at the end of the service.
He could have sped things up, of course – money could easily circumvent the rules. But he wasn’t ready to jump into an immediate marriage, even if it would only be in name. And besides, to do so would surely court scandal, which was exactly what they were trying to avoid by marrying.
He wondered if he ought to write to his sisters and inform them of his betrothal, or whether he could just wait until the marriage had taken place to inform them of the news. It wouldn’t particularly impact them, other than that he supposed Lady Penelope, as the duchess, could present Francesca at court,rather than needing to find a lady of the ton willing to sponsor them, as he had done with Cecily and Antonia.
It wasn’t going to change his life, either, he told himself as he rode back up the hill to Dunloch Castle. Yes, while she had stayed with him, she had disrupted his daily routine – but she wouldn’t be staying with him. She would be far away in England, perhaps in his home in Southampton or even his London townhouse, his wife in name but without any impact on his life.
Heirs would certainly be a consideration, but that did not need to be for a few years. After all, he hadn’t even planned to marry yet, so he was ahead of schedule. And then perhaps he would visit his children, or send for them to come to Scotland.
Nothing would change, other than that there would once again be a Duchess of Dunloch.
