Four Nights With the Duke (13 page)

“Lives in irregular circumstances with a vice-admiral,” Mia finished.

“Goodness me,” Chuffy exclaimed, clearly delighted. “How do you know? Have you met her?”

“Irregular circumstances covers so many possibilities,” Vander drawled. “Could you be more explicit so that we can better judge the moral fiber of all living novelists by the vice-admiral’s mistress?”

Mia scowled at him. “You may jest, but I assure you that the greater part of Britain considers female novelists to be little better than concubines.”

Vander looked even more amused. “Concubine is such a delightfully biblical word, isn’t it? Are you saying that the reason I have not yet met a concubine is because I’m not part of a literary set?”

“You are entirely too dismal about the reputation of novelists,” Chuffy said, ignoring Vander’s nonsense. “Miss Fanny Burney was a member of Queen
Charlotte’s circle, at least until she married General Alexandre D’Arblay and left the court.”

“That’s very good to know,” Vander said. “I have recently realized that I need a connection at court. All dukes should have them, as my solicitor informed me after the debacle of my father’s letter. We’ll forward your manuscript to Her Majesty immediately.”

“Novelists are
scandalous
,” Mia told him, marshalling her patience. “My father was appalled.”

“I have to say, Lord Carrington showed a great deal of nerve in expressing distaste over fictional exploits,” Vander observed. “According to Sir Richard, our marriage is practically incestuous, given our parents’ love affair.”

“Nothing of the sort,” Chuffy said indignantly. “Why, my poor brother wasn’t confined to an asylum—and the late duchess didn’t meet Lord Carrington—until you were well out of short pants, Nevvy.”

“Nevertheless, my point stands,” Vander said, tossing back his drink. “Many in polite society will be so scandalized to learn of our union that they might faint upon encountering one of us unaware. Nothing you can do on the literary front will top what my parents did for the ducal reputation—which we have exacerbated by our marriage.”

“He tends to look on the dark side of things,” Chuffy told Mia. “You must forgive him.”

“I think you are underestimating how frightful it would be if my other identity were discovered,” Mia said. She was feeling perversely irritated, because Vander not only wasn’t shocked; he didn’t even turn a hair at the revelation she had a secret identity.

“Vander is right, my dear,” Chuffy said. “My brother and his wife exposed the family to intense scrutiny; your marriage has increased that; frankly,
even if you publish a novel one day, it will merely be grist to the mill.”

“In fact, I think you should publish,” Vander said. “Why not? I like the idea that the Duchess of Pindar might be excoriated for something other than adultery. It would throw a luster on the family name that we haven’t managed to this point.”

“Why do you assume that I haven’t published a novel?” Mia inquired.

Vander raised an eyebrow.

“
Have
you published a novel?” Chuffy cried. “Because I assure you that I shall order bindings for your novel that will put Lucibella Delicosa’s to shame! Jewels—or no, velvet with embroidery!”

“I have published several novels,” Mia said, enjoying herself. “Six, to be precise.”

“You are a
published
novelist?” Vander asked.

There was a touch of disbelief in his voice that Mia didn’t like. “Not only am I published,” she stated, “but I am Lucibella herself.”

Chuffy gasped audibly and put a hand to his chest.

“So I cannot possibly remain the Duchess of Pindar,” Mia said, trying to study Vander’s expression out of the corner of her eye. Did he look alarmed? Or did he think she was fibbing? It was hard to tell.

He definitely didn’t look outraged, the way her father had been when she told him that her first novel had been published (she had decided it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission).

Given that her audience seemed struck dumb, she added, “It is only a matter of time before one of my readers discovers the truth about Lucibella’s true identity.”

“You refer to yourself in the third person?” Vander asked.

At the same moment, Chuffy seized one of her hands and cried, “You are a treasure! A national treasure! Your books mean the earth to me, and I never thought to meet you.”

“I’m very glad that you enjoy my novels,” she said sincerely.

“
Enjoy
them? They have saved my sanity, such as it is. Truly, my dear, in the darkness of the last year, when I lost my beloved sister-in-law and my brother shortly thereafter, your books became my refuge.”

“Oh,” Mia said, startled by the fervor in his eyes. Readers did tend to confide that sort of thing in their letters, but insofar as she’d always had to conceal her real identity, she’d never before met one.

“My refuge,” Chuffy was saying, “and my joy. Where, my dear lady, is
An Angel’s Form and a Devil’s Heart
? I’ve already ordered it in the matching binding. I’ve been waiting for months!”

Mia withdrew her hand. “I’m afraid the book is yet unfinished,” she told Chuffy, turning to Vander. “You must see how impossible it is that I continue as Duchess of Pindar.”

“As long as you don’t take to publishing odes to members of my household, I can’t see that it matters.”

“‘Matters?’” Mia echoed. “Certainly it matters! I don’t write solemn epic poems or—or historical dramas or great literature. Do you know what
Grapple’s Ladies’ Magazine
said of my last novel?”

“It doesn’t matter what they said,” Chuffy said instantly. “Your work is genius, my dear, pure genius.”

“They said that it was a mystery that any human being could try to read the book without committing suicide, that’s what they said. They called it a ‘compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors.’”

“Now that’s just unkind,” Chuffy said. “I’m quite certain that the reviewer had a depraved home life herself. That’s why she couldn’t recognize the true goodness of a Lucibella heroine!”

“My books are
depraved
,” Mia told her husband, who still did not seem to be registering the import of what she was saying.

“I haven’t read many novels,” Vander said, pouring some brandy into her empty glass and handing it to her, “but I might start. They sound quite informative. Even inspiring.”

“You’ve never read a single novel,” Chuffy corrected.

“That’s unfair,” his nephew replied, unperturbed. “One could make an argument that
The Sporting Magazine
is akin to a novel: luridly untrue, and fond of recounting unnatural horrors.”

“I shall sully the Pindar name,” Mia insisted. The brandy was quite good, though she had the vague sense that it was supposed to be drunk only after a meal. Her father had never allowed her to drink spirits, on the grounds she was a lady. She took a hearty swallow, in his honor.

“Vander couldn’t divorce you, even if he wanted to,” Chuffy said. “It’s impossible to get rid of a wife. There’s many a British peer who has tried, believe me.”

“I’ll have to read your so-called depravity to judge for myself,” Vander said. “Perhaps I can help you act out scenes for future books.”

She glared at him.

“Just so that you can better visualize them,” he added.

“There’s no escaping marriage, my dear,” Chuffy said, ignoring Vander’s nonsense. “Your bed is made, so lie in it!”

Vander’s eyes had taken on that wicked glint
again, and a shock of heat went through Mia. He was just so—beautiful: raw and masculine and proud, even though she’d supposedly defeated him with her blackmailing letter.

No one
could defeat Vander.

He cocked an eyebrow, as if he could read her mind.

“Never mind this foolish talk of divorce,” Chuffy said, topping up his glass. “I want to know what’s happened to your new book.”

“I haven’t written it yet,” Mia confessed. “That is, I’ve written bits and scraps of dialogue, but I have a few plot points to resolve.”

“Tell me everything!” Chuffy cried. “I’ll be your muse, your guardian, your mentor, Jonson to your Shakespeare!”

Mia managed a weak smile. “I would rather not discuss it just yet. I have some delicate aspects left to work out.” She managed to stop herself from adding, “
around three hundred pages’ worth
.”

“At least tell us what happens to the heroine.” Chuffy turned to Vander. “A Lucibella heroine is always in peril. I shiver in terror from the first pages, knowing what’s in store for her. Just give me one hint about the plot,” he implored.

“Her name is Flora, and she is jilted at the altar,” Mia stated.

At that, surprise crossed Vander’s face. “As you were yourself?”

“The circumstances are entirely different.”

“A Lucibella heroine is nothing like our Mia,” Chuffy chimed in.

Mia winced. If she had ever managed to think well of her figure—not that she had—having near and dear relatives like Vander and Chuffy would clearly knock her down to size. So to speak.

“That is true,” she admitted.

“In what way?” Vander asked.

“Oh, my heroines are invariably and incomparably beautiful,” she explained. “Slender, blue-eyed, all the usual. The genre demands it.”

“You are beautiful,” Vander said flatly. Mia blinked at her husband, but he didn’t appear to be mocking her.

“I generally don’t pay much attention to those parts of the book,” Chuffy said, “but now I think of it, Lucibella heroines aren’t precisely beautiful. They’re always emaciated owing to their poverty. Sometimes when I finish a book I take a moment to imagine how happy they will be to have all the food they want.”

“My heroines aren’t emaciated!”

“Starving,” Chuffy said. “Why, one of the heroines floated downstream simply because of all the air in her ribs.”

“The air in her ribs?” Vander repeated, seemingly quite struck.

“I don’t mean ribs. In her stomach, of course! Why, the poor lady had nothing but air in her so she popped to the surface like a bubble. Until a duke towed her to shore, of course.”

“Naturally,” Vander said, taking another swallow of brandy. “I would hope that any man of my rank would do as much.”

“He risked his own life,” Chuffy said. “The adventuresome bits are my favorites. When the duke saw his beloved bobbing downstream like a cork, he dove straight into the river. The icy water closed over his head more than once, but he got her to shore.”

“I would do the same,” Vander said, grinning widely. “Trained for it from the cradle.”

“My novels have nothing to do with real life,” Mia
insisted. “The fact my heroine is jilted is purely coincidental.”

“There’s nothing wrong with spinning your novels from real life,” Chuffy said. “Your life is easily as interesting as those of your heroines.”

“Only in the last few weeks, I assure you,” Mia said.

“Are all your heroes dukes?” Vander inquired in a way that suggested she may have modeled her heroes on him.

Which she had.

“No!” Mia exclaimed. “Of course not. My current hero is a count. At any rate, a title is merely a way of conveying a man of worth and substance.”

“Mia’s love scenes are famous,” Chuffy said. “I expect that’s why that perishing magazine got a little tetchy. Her characters go on and on about how much they adore each other.”

“Would you say they are lyrical?” Vander asked, oh so innocently.

Mia felt helpless, as if she were one of her own heroines, bobbing in a river that was carrying her somewhere beyond her control. Vander was eyeing her in a way that suggested he knew that she had spun him into the heroes of six novels. The only words coming to her mind were profane.

“You must have really loved that fiancé of yours,” Chuffy said. “Here, have some more brandy. I hope you don’t begin writing tragedies now that you’ve been disappointed in love. He was unworthy of you, my dear. You’re better off with Vander, for all he smells of the stables.”

Mia grabbed onto that lifeline as if it had descended from heaven itself. “That’s why I’ve been unable to finish my current book. A broken heart . . .” She let her voice trail off.

Vander stopped laughing and his eyes went steely. Good. She had suffered all the insults that she could take for one day. Although he
did
say she was beautiful. She stored that compliment away to think about later.

He set down his glass with a sharp click. “Have you any idea as to your former fiancé’s whereabouts?”

“No,” she said wearily. “He wrote that he planned to travel to India.”

“I certainly hope your heroine—Flora, isn’t it?—won’t return to her jilter, any more than you did the blackguard who treated you so rudely,” Chuffy cried.

“Actually, she will,” Mia said. “She loves the count so much that she forgives him.”

“I think you’re damned lucky that Mia was between fiancés when she thought of you,” Chuffy said, turning to Vander. “You never would have found a woman on your own. You’re too wrapped up in those horses of yours, and last time I checked, there ain’t any ladies out in the stables. Damnation, that’s more good brandy I’ve spilled on my coat. I’d better change.”