Free Strathmere's Bride by Jacqueline Navin

“The duke?”
    As if cued by the confidential tones of the adults’ voices, Rebeccah’s head came up. She and Sarah were digging in a dirt pit. They had constructed a fairly decent tower and were working on its twin. Sarah’s little tongue jutted out from between her lips as she concentrated on piling up shovelfuls of earth, but Rebeccah looked like a rabbit who sensed a hunter nearby—alert and all ears.
    “Come,” Chloe said, tugging Mary toward the hedgerow bordering the kitchen garden, where they would not be heard.
    Mary cast a worried glance behind them at the two children covered in filth. “Aren’t you concerned the duke will be angry when he sees them like that?”
    “The duke and his mother are visiting friends. We have hours before they are due to return.” Waving her hand airily in the air, Chloe spoke with confidence. “The children shall have their baths and be safe in the nursery before the carriage even turns up the drive. Now, tell me what is your huge secret?”
    Mary darted a glance at the children. Rebeccah had gone back to her digging. “It is wrong to gossip, I know.”
    “Gossip? We never gossip.”
    Mary was vexed. “But I should not carry tales.”
    “Well, is it unkind?”
    Mary thought for a moment. “Not at all.”
    “Good, then it is not gossip. So, tell me.”
    This satisfied Mary, who sat forward eagerly. “I was talking to one of the grooms and he said old Jarvis was once head groom and he knew the duke and his brother from when they were boys. He wastelling him—my friend, that is—that he remembers the duke as a delightful lad, and everyone loved him.”
    Chloe scowled. “Why is that such a huge secret? The duke was once human. Surprising, oui, but hardly something to shock.”
    Mary shook her head. “No, no. That is not the amazing thing. Jarvis said that once the duke—the old duke, Charles, that is, the elder brother—well, they were out on the lake in a boat and the boat capsized and Master Jareth—the duke, the new duke, I mean—”
    “I know who you mean! Now, what happened?”
    “Master Jareth saved his brother and Jarvis came upon them on the bank, sopping wet and bawling like a pair of babes, and Charles—the duke—was saying how he wished Master Jareth hadn’t done it. He kept saying, ‘Why didn’t you just let me drown? I hate it.’”
    Chloe’s eyes opened as wide as they could go. “Why was he saying that?”
    “Jarvis told my… the groom that Charles hated being duke. His mother always kept him inside, studying his lessons and talking with the solicitors, and he and Master Jareth, they loved to be outdoors. Master Jareth—I mean the duke—was even allowed to play with the village children on occasion, though no one ever forgot who he was for a moment. The two brothers were as close as two boys ever could be. They looked out for one another, but it was the younger son protecting the elder. The more experienced brother sheltering the poor young duke, who was put on such a tight rein.”
    The words were true, Chloe recognized that in aninstant. The something unnamable she had known about Jareth Hunt, Duke of Strathmere, was the boy he had been, still inside him somewhere, staring out of those large, soulful eyes with all the sadness of the world. The boy who had frolicked with village children and saved a brother who would, at that time, rather have died because the burden of being duke was too unbearable.
    Poor Charles, to feel such despair so young. “How horrifying he wished to die,” Chloe said, surprised to find tears of sympathy for the youth she had known as a man. Charles had been a good husband to her cousin, a good father, a good son and a good duke. He had seemed, all the times that she had seen him, as if it were all part of his nature, as easy as breathing, to wield the power and serve the obligation that came with his station. Who would have guessed at what cost such competence had been gained?
    “Jarvis told us…that is,