The Duchess

Chapter 1Belgrave Castle sat in all its splendor in the heart of Hertfordshire, as it had for eleven generations and nearly three hundred years, since the sixteenth century. And aside from some more modern features that had been added, and a few decorative touches, very little had changed in its history. And its owners followed the same traditions they had for more than two hundred years, which was reassuring. It was the family seat of Phillip, Duke of Westerfield. The Latham family had built Belgrave Castle, it was one of the largest castles in England, and due to the duke's fortune, one of the most beautifully maintained.The land around it was extensive and stretched as far as the eye could see, with forests, a large lake-which the groundsmen kept well stocked for fishing-and tenant farms, which were run by farmers whose ancestors had been serfs. The duke had overseen all of it since his youth, when his father died in a hunting accident on a neighboring estate. And under his diligent care, Belgrave and all its land and properties had prospered. At seventy-four, he had been schooling his eldest son, Tristan, in the management of the estate for several years. Phillip felt that his son was ready to take it on, and handle it responsibly, but he had other concerns about him. Tristan was forty-five years old, married with two daughters. The duke's younger son, Edward, was forty-two years old, had never married, and had no legitimate children, though countless illegitimate ones. No one knew just how many, not even Edward himself. And he was given to strong drink and gambling, and every kind of indulgence one could imagine, preferably if it involved fast horses or women. It would have been a disaster if he had been the eldest, but fortunately he wasn't, although neither of Phillip's sons had produced a son and heir.Both men were the sons of the duke's first wife, Arabella, the daughter of an earl, and Phillip's second cousin, with a handsome fortune of her own. She came from an irreproachable family, of aristocratic lineage, and she had been young when they married. It had been a union both families had approved of, Phillip had been twenty-eight, and Arabella barely seventeen, and strikingly pretty. She had been the star of her first London Season, where she had been expected to meet her future husband, and she had done so very successfully. But Phillip had discovered that she had a cold nature as she grew older, and she was far more interested in social pursuits, and enjoying the benefits of being a duchess, than she was in her husband, and she had even less interest in her children. She was a very self-centered woman, though greatly admired for her beauty. She had died of influenza when the boys were four and seven, and with the assistance of governesses, the large staff he employed, and his mother, the dowager duchess, who had still been alive at the time, Phillip had brought up his boys alone.The young women of neighboring families, and the London hostesses who entertained him when he went to town, did their best to catch his interest in the ensuing years. But the boys were in their twenties before Phillip met the woman who enchanted him totally and became the love of his life the moment he met her. Marie-Isabelle was the daughter of a French marquis, first cousin of the late French king who had died in the French Revolution. She was a Bourbon on one side of her family and Orléans on the other, with royals on both sides. She had been born during the first year of the Revolution and her parents had been killed shortly after, their château burned to the ground and all their possessions stolen or destroyed. Sensing what was coming, her father had sent her as an infant to stay with friends in England, with provisions made for her, should the worst he feared happen in France. She had grown up happily in the bosom of the English family who had agreed to take her in, and doted on her. She was an enchanting young