“I didn’t know back then… I really believed him when he told me he had important duties that kept him from being with us. I was only ten years old.”
He tried imagining ten-year-old Lizzie, most likely fighting with the other children, and he had to suppress a smile.
“One day, I had the brilliant idea of going to St. James Park to see him, because my mother told me he regularly went promenading there. I went with Mary’s brother, Thomas.”
She sat without speaking for so long that Talbot had started thinking that she’d abandoned the subject altogether.
“We saw him there, Colin. At the Park. Walking with Charlotte. And he pretended he didn’t know me.”
Talbot felt like someone was ripping his heart from his chest, and he couldn’t even begin to fathom how Lizzie had to be feeling.
He reached for her hand. It felt limp and cold. Her lips looked pale and dry, and she seemed utterly drained of life.
“I called after him several times, and he just kept walking like I wasn’t even there, while he held on to my sister’s hand,” Elizabeth said in a whisper.
“Devil take him,” Colin cursed angrily and pulled her into a hug.
He squeezed her almost too tightly, trying to strengthen her, to prop her up, to heal her somehow. She wasn’t even crying. It was like she wasn’t even inhabiting her own body at the moment. The faraway look on her face scared Colin to death. He’d never hated anyone as much as he hated the late Duke in this moment, not even his own parents.
"What happened then? You must have seen him again after that? How did he explain his behaviour?" Colin asked when he noticed that she had calmed down a bit.
"I fell ill shortly after that, and by the time I felt better, we all sort of acted like it had never happened. I was a child, and I didn't really know what to say and clearly, neither did my parents. I would politely greet my father when he came to see us, and give him an answer if he asked me a question, but I never reallyspoketo him ever again. I don't think he really noticed or cared, to tellyou the truth. And then he was gone, and I was relieved," she admitted.
Talbot stroked his wife's hair and held her tight until the carriage stopped in front of her maiden home.
He couldn’t help but remember the three times he had found himself here in the past: when he had approached Elizabeth without knowing who she was, when he had come to tell her they would be wed, and then, finally, on their wedding day.
So much has changed since then, he thought.
A man opened the carriage door and helped his wife down.
“Mister Ed!” she shouted happily.
“Miss Lizzie,” the man replied with paternal affection, and Talbot was too happy to see some feeling in his wife’s countenance to worry about etiquette.
"Your Grace," the man bowed, and Talbot nodded.
“I’ve missed you all so much. Did Mary and Robert arrive safely?” Lizzie asked the man.
“They did, they stopped by early this morning.”
Mister Ed, who Talbot now deduced was Mary’s (andthe sailor’s) father, led his wife to the house, talking incessantly, and Talbot followed them. Elizabeth’s mother met them at the door and hugged her daughter.
Talbot had briefly seen her on their wedding day, and now that he had properly looked at her, he was startled to realise that he’d sooner think her Charlotte’s mother than Elizabeth’s. She was blonde and fine boned, and much shorter than her daughter.
The old duke had a type,he thought.
“Hello, Miss Williams,” he bowed politely.
“Welcome, Your Grace,” Catherine said warmly. “I hope you have travelled well.”
“We have, thank you.”
“We only stopped to say hello to everyone,” Elizabeth explained as they entered the parlour, “Don’t bother ringing for tea. I shall run downstairs to see Jane and Mrs. Barlow. Can you two talk for a moment?”
Both Talbot and her mother nodded, and she almost ran out of the room.
“She looks happy,” Miss Williams said with a smile.
