A Duke's Temptation (19 page)

“Sir Renwick is doing this,” Samuel reminded him. “Not me. He’s trying one last time to resurrect the sister he murdered in the hope that she can save him from the damnation he’s got coming to him.”

Bickerstaff sighed. “It is quite romantic, Your Grace. We all know that Lord Wickbury will renew his strength to rescue Juliette, and Renwick’s forsaken sister.”

“I’m not so sure. I don’t know what either of us would do if some lady skeleton stuck her head through the stones and said, ‘Stop trying to resurrect me. I’ve earned my eternal repose.’ I might faint like a maiden myself.”

“Should I finish reading the spell or not? It will be another month until the next full moon.”

“I’ll have to write around the scene if we—” Samuel caught Bickerstaff by his coattails and pulled him behind the sheltering stones. “Put out the lantern,” he said in an amused voice. “We’re being watched from the corner of the west wing.”

Bickerstaff obediently extinguished the lantern, peering up into the mist. “Your Grace is mistaken. The—Ah, the housekeeper’s window.”

Samuel chuckled. “She saw us this time.”

Bickerstaff closed the tome of ancient spells, his nose twitching at the moldy effluvium that arose from the fragile pages. “It is obvious that Your Grace has another maiden to worry about.”

“A live one, too.”

 

 

 

Lily was snipping flowers in the garden the next morning when she spotted the village reverend at the moor gate. He was obviously angling for her attention. She would have ignored him if he hadn’t called to her until she had to look up and acknowledge his young, friendly face.

“I missed you at church last Sunday!” he shouted, his hand already unlatching the gate. “I’m the Reverend Cedric Doughty. My wife wants you to come to tea.”

Lily flushed, embarrassed by her muddy boots and the pigs rooting in her wake. She had not been told to expect company. “I’m just settling in, Mr. Doughty. You’ll have to excuse me. This is a large estate to manage.”

“It is an estate of undefined evil,” he said without preamble, and he stared Lily in the eye as if she were supposed to break down and give him reason to agree.

She straightened. “There is evil everywhere.”

He dropped his voice, looking past her to the peat wagon that sat in front of the barn. Lily wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if she saw a pair of feet standing in the wagon’s shadow. “Have you personally been tempted to participate in any acts of sin that you would like to confess?” he asked.

Lily stared. “Are you asking me if I spy on my employer’s personal activities?”

“Should the nature of these activities go against the laws of God, it is incumbent on you to bring them to salvation’s light.”

“It is incumbent on me to remember to take the eggs out of the sawdust for His Grace’s omelet,” she replied, glancing inadvertently to the hill, where last night the duke had been up to something unusual indeed.

He blinked, his face bright above his cleric’s collar. “You seem too decent a lady to be led astray.”

“You would be surprised. For your information, Mr. Doughty, it is my sanity that is in question. The duke took me on because no one else would hire me.”

“Your sanity.” He looked disappointed. “Then there is little help for that. Give the duke my regards. I shall hope to see his household—you included—at church on Sunday.”

Lily watched him mount his pony and ride around the hill. “You can come out from behind that wagon now,” she said, turning distractedly and walking straight against the duke’s unmoving form.

She had not guessed it was him hiding behind the wagon.

“Your Grace,” she said, shivering at the long, penetrating look he gave her. “I didn’t realize that you were here.”

He smiled. A sudden breeze stirred the folds of his impeccably crisp neckcloth. The pure white fabric played well against his charcoal gray frock coat and fitted trousers. “I always make a point of staying out of sight when someone hopes to save my soul.” His eyes searched hers. “You passed his interrogation like a—”

“Spymaster?”

“Strange analogy, but, yes.”

She moistened her bottom lip. “You heard everything?”

“Yes. I thought I would intervene, but you handled him better than I ever have. I usually confess to some outrageous sin whenever he confronts me so that he’ll grant me forgiveness and go away. This never works, mind you. He knows I’m lying, which is another sin by itself.”

“No wonder he’s convinced you’re in league with the devil.”

“You should not have told the pious busybody anything of your past. It is none of his affair. I give money to the parish.”

Unwilling pleasure stole over her. “I did not give any of Your Grace’s secrets away.”

“How do you know I have anything to hide?”

His dark stare filled her with unreasonable happiness. “Whether you do or not is not
my
affair.”

He glanced up at the house, his gaze musing. “It will be by tonight.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We are having a party at eleven o’clock in the east wing.”

Lily stared up at him as calmly as she could. He could have invited her to inspect the dovecote and made it seem like an adventure. “Eleven o’clock? If you have a request for a preferred menu, that is little time to prepare it properly. I . . .” She had to rein herself in. “I am still learning the rules, Your Grace.”

“We don’t observe many rules in this house. I suppose it is my fault for being too liberal.”

“Eleven o’clock,” she repeated, curbing the questions she longed to ask. “In the east wing. I shall do my best to set a proper table. How many guests does Your Grace expect?”

He gave her a smile that defied decency. “You’re to be my guest of honor, Miss Boscastle. Let me turn the tables and entertain you for the night. I think it’s time for the next step of your initiation into our household. As long as you accept. Attendance, however, is an irrevocable step. You will be discouraged from leaving here after tonight if you come to my table. Do you understand?”

It was all she could do to maintain a solemn demeanor. He was quite the thespian.

“Is the entire evening to be conducted in this furtive manner?”

“Yes.” He glanced at her cap. “Do you have a decent dress?”

“I have several.”

She had no idea what any of it could mean. It sounded slightly depraved and entirely intriguing. “Eleven o’clock it is,” she said. “As your guest of honor. I would not miss it for the world.”

L
ily could hardly wait for the evening. The suspense stretched her nerves. Shortly after lunch she dropped the duke’s finest china bowl on the floor. Then two eggs slipped out of her basket and broke in the sink. The servants—and it was
not
her imagination—smiled and elbowed one another like secret operatives assigned to report on her every move. Marie-Elaine’s daughter followed her as she gathered lavender buds in the physic garden to sweeten her bath. She could not fold a towel without the staff halting all activity to watch.

By teatime she was tempted to draw her apron over her head, pull a knife from the kitchen sink, and threaten the footmen in French to tell everything. Or else.

Another member of the staff appeared before dusk, a gentleman she had not previously met but who was introduced to her as the duke’s steward. His face looked mummified, and he wore the longest gloves Lily had ever seen. Marie-Elaine referred to him as “the elusive Mr. Lawton” because he visited St. Aldwyn House only twice a month. The rest of the time he disappeared on the duke’s business.

Then evening came. She bathed by candlelight and dressed in the blush-pink gauze gown that had been designed as part of her trousseau.

A housekeeper would never dare to wear such a dress. Tonight Lily was a guest of honor. She swept her hair into a prim knot upon her nape. She wore no jewelry. It was a relief to regard her image in the looking glass. Her housekeeper’s cap and unadorned muslin skirt added thickness to her face and hips, two areas that in Lily’s estimation required no avoirdupois. Her complexion had regained some color from her work in the garden.

She realized that she had begun to recover from her broken engagement. Her opinion mattered in this house. True, the duke provoked her at times, but with a tantalizing style. She provoked him, too, and yet she sensed he did not mind. On the contrary. He seemed to encourage her.

Would the evening live up to her expectations?

Would she discover that the duke supervised a secret society of eccentrics eager to draw another into its fold? It was all she could do to maintain a solemn demeanor when she descended the stairs to find him, in black evening attire, waiting to escort her to the east wing. She paused. At last.

The forbidden land.

They strolled through connecting torchlit corridors to an arcaded doorway above which a plaster frieze of biblical lions stood guard. Lily glanced back, gasping softly. The duke’s reflection dwarfed hers in a gilt-framed series of Venetian glass mirrors mounted upon the walls. From the terrace outside a fountain sent glittery spumes into the air, like liquid jewels.

“You look beautiful, Lily,” he said. She turned her head, unprepared for the pleasure in his eyes as he regarded her. She felt warm despite the moorland mist that crept through the open doors to curl faintly around the Ionic columns.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Thank you for accepting my invitation. I was afraid you would change your mind.”

She could see weapons mounted on the wall, statues grouped in mythological scenes, French fables depicted in the tapestries and frescoes on the soaring ceiling.

Busts of Shakespeare, Goethe, and Defoe occupied a high-arched gallery that faced the long windows. The hall appeared to be a tribute to the great storytellers of all time. At least his dedication to the arts had not been a lie.

“It is incredible,” she said, shaking her head.

He smiled. “I’m relieved you think so. I was hoping that you would not be overwhelmed.”

By him. Perhaps. But this wing of the house . . .

This was his domain, a world of whimsy, a secret place sculpted from dreams. And he looked as if he was its ruling prince, as if he had sprung from a fairy tale, his tailored evening wear enhancing his almost too-lean elegance. Any suggestion of slightness disappeared the instant he took her hand. Her fingers brushed a masculine torso that awakened her entire body. His hand tightened possessively over hers, steadying as well as disconcerting her. His grasp urged her to wait just a little longer for the surprise he had planned.

Wait. How much longer
could
she wait?

It didn’t seem like the time to ask for him to explain the anguished moans she’d heard in the night, the pleas for mercy, the hair-raising scene she had watched him enact behind the burial cairns. Perhaps she should be frightened. If she had not been met with so much kindness in this house, she would have been tempted to turn and flee. But she was compelled by her own curiosity to discover the truth.

Would she wish afterward that she had not been told?

The least plausible explanation for this mystery was that the Duke of Gravenhurst had formed a clandestine organization of wicked ladies and gentlemen who met on his isolated estate to live out their most undisciplined desires. Their master fascinated her beyond measure.

And that Lily was to be initiated as the housekeeper of their naughty society. To judge by the monuments in this hall, its members seemed to be a well-read if lascivious bunch.

An illustration from a risqué book she had once read about the Hellfire Club and its imitators formed in her mind. A lady in a half-unhooked corset standing in a candlelit chamber with a whip in her hand, shirtless gentlemen kneeling around her. Lily quickly replaced the picture with that of a decently clad gentlewoman stirring a teaspoon. Her imagination
did
take her to strange places.

“Lily?” the duke said gently, questioning her sudden hesitation. “I think our company is ready for us.”

Suddenly she decided
she
might not be ready for his company.

He smiled again.

How could she resist?

His gloved fingers squeezed hers and lent her courage. His presence infused her with a reckless excitement that overpowered her doubts. Despite her current status, she had been raised to be polite. It was too late to turn down this invitation. His eyes gleamed like smoke with underlying sparks of mayhem.

The doors opened before them.

She drew her breath.

Bickerstaff, in immaculate livery, bowed. Emmett and Ernest stood at either end of a massive table lit with long-branched golden candelabras. Heavily scrolled silver dishes shone on the pure white damask tablecloth. The guests rose as the duke escorted her forward: Marie-Elaine, Mrs. Halford, Wadsworth, other servants, the Reverend Mr. Cedric Doughty and his young wife, another gentleman whom Samuel introduced as Baron Ardmore, a friend and poet from a neighboring village.

She stared across the table at the serving platters she had not seen prepared. Samuel walked her to her chair. The gilt figures of a lady and gentleman embraced beneath the glass dome of the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. It was well past eleven.

“Sit down, Lily,” Samuel whispered, giving her another gentle nudge. “I’m sure you guessed that I have a secret. It’s past time I shared it. I know you will agree.”

She glanced down again at the table. “Yes, I do wish to be told the truth.” At least she thought she did.

The reverend’s wife smiled at her, looking too proper to belong to any amorous club. There also weren’t any whips, chains, or sacrificial altars in sight. Of course, the east wing had other rooms. Would Lily be led into another labyrinth of secrets?