“None of Them Will Be My Mother!” the Duke’s Son Declared — Until the Cook Brought an Apple Pie
Chapter 14
Theme:
Font Size:
24px
The Duke's carriage was at the door of the Grosvenor Square house the next morning when the letter came, and it was not from his steward: it was from his son, in a hand that had been written, blotted, and rewritten at least twice:
Papa, Aunt Honoria has sent Rosamund away. I have not been sensible, as you asked. You must come at once. I have not eaten since Tuesday, and I do not mean to.
He read it standing in the hall. And then he read it again, and then he did not wait for his hat.He rode the 22 miles to Ashborne in an hour and 50 minutes with a borrowed horse and a face that made the stable boys at the posting inn step back from his stirrup without being asked.Mrs. Hollis met him at the door with red eyes and a folded paper. He read Rosamund's note on the steps, in her clear, upright cook's hand:
Lady Honoria holds my sister's cottage in her husband's gift. I could not stay, and I would not leave without telling you why. Please see that Master Edmund eats his greens. Your servant, R. Vale
He read it a third time. Then he went up the stairs three at a time and found his son sitting on the nursery landing with his knees drawn up to his chin and a hedgehog in his lap."She said she would never lie to me," said Master Edmund without looking up. His voice was dull and flat, and it frightened Theodore more than any screaming could. "Aunt Honoria told everyone you knew. You did not know, did you, Papa? She said I would learn to feel differently in time. I shall not." He lifted a pale, set face, and the gray eyes that were his father's looked straight through him. "I said none of them would be my mother, and I meant it, and I mean it still. But she was never one of them! Not one of them tried to be anything except a duchess. She never tried to be anything except Rosamund." His chin shook. "I do not want a mother who wants to be a duchess, Papa. I want the one who knows I hate raisins."Theodore sat down on the nursery floor in his muddy boots and gathered his son against his chest; and Master Edmund, who had not allowed it in two years, put both arms around his neck and wept like the child he was.It was a long time before either of them spoke. Over his son's tousled head, the Duke of Ashborne saw it with a terrible, quiet clarity—the thing his son had understood in an afternoon had taken him half a year to see: that a mother could not be chosen for her title or her family name; she could only be recognized, like a face in a crowd."You like her, too," said the muffled voice at his collar. "You go red.""I do," said Theodore quite steadily. "I go very red. I have been a great fool, Edmund, and I mean to mend it.""Are we going to fetch her?"