“Take the baby inside. Prepare some milk and arrange for a crib at the earliest notice.”
Eliza quickly agreed and grabbed the baby to take it inside. Mrs. Alridge put a sympathetic hand on Harriet’s shoulder.
“Your Grace, are you well?”
“I am not quite sure if I am….” Harriet replied, feeling as though her knees were going to give out at any moment.
“Would you like to take a seat?” Mrs Alridge rushed her inside, and then onto a chair. Grabbing a newspaper from nearby, she began fanning the duchess, who looked as though she was hyperventilating.
Harriet kept thinking back to Simon. Who could the baby belong to, if not him? It was certainly not hers. And none of the staff would dare to pull off such a stunt.
The more she thought about the possibility, the angrier she got.
“How could he do this to me?” Harriet spat out, anger blazing in her eyes. “To think — first he leaves his newly wedded wife, and then fathers a child from another woman. What a disgrace.”
Mrs. Alridge had been working for the family for a long time now and was someone that Harriet had grown to trust. She knew that she could air her most honest thoughts in front of her, without fear that they would be converted into gossip fodder for the scandal sheets the next day.
But right now, Mrs. Alridge seemed to be at a loss for words, herself.
“Your Grace… are you certain that this is what has happened?” she asked, cautiously.
“Well, do you have a better explanation for it? It seems like the most likely thing,” Harriet replied, the cool hair from the maid’s makeshift fan hitting her face.
“Perhaps there is something that we are missing here,” Mrs. Alridge nodded. “There was a note in the baby’s hand. I shall fetch it right away; perhaps it has some clue about where it came from.”
Harriet nodded, feeling grateful to have Mrs. Alridge by her side. She was so blinded by her own reaction that she did not even consider consulting the note.
A few moments later, she returned with a small piece of paper in her hands. It was folded into half, and she handed it over to the duchess.
Harriet opened it, trying to keep her hands from shaking as she did.
It said only one thing.
Her name is Catherine. Please, take care of her well.
“This is no use to me now, is it?” Harriet said, crumbling it up in her hands and putting it away. “I am afraid it only adds fuel to what I am already suspecting.”
“Your Grace, all the years that I have known the duke… it is not in his personality to do something like this….”
“Then, perhaps you are mistaken,” Harriet said. “Please make sure that the baby is being taken care of, and that she is fed. I need a moment alone to myself.”
Mrs Alridge nodded, scurrying off quickly. Harriet watched her go, her mind spinning with rage and betrayal.
She couldn't shake the thought that this baby was the result of one of Simon’s indiscretions. How dare he humiliate her in such a manner?
After all he had put her through already — the sheer abandonment. Did he really have to take a paramour as well, to add further insult to injury?
It felt unacceptable. She remembered what the duke had told her on their wedding day, that she should not even think of contacting him unless it was a matter of life and death.
To her, this felt even more serious. She stormed upstairs to her study, and furiously begin to pen him a letter.
She was going to give him a piece of her mind.
Simon Wylde, Duke of Atherton, sat in his study, perusing reports from his various estates. They sat in a large pile, though he made sure never to let it grow too excessive.
For the past nine months, he had completely drowned himself in handling the affairs of the estate. Whether it concerned solving grievances amongst his tenants, or making routine visits to theland to boost morale — he was there. On the financial side, he had grown the business even more so.
Things were good, and in a way, moving away from the estate was a largely positive thing for him. But no matter how much he busied himself, a thought remained that perhaps he was shunning the most important responsibility of them all.
