Mad About the Duke (31 page)

“And that isn't the worst of it,” Aunt Bedelia announced.

The worst of it? There was more? Elinor closed her eyes and braced herself.

Aunt Bedelia paused, examined her tea and went back to stirring. “I had hoped to come over this morning with a suggestion of another
parti
for your consideration, though I've been loathe to bring up his name and now I am most glad I did not, for I fear he was there last night, at Longford's!” Again she shook her head. “I know not what the men of this Town are coming to!”

“Sad indeed,” Minerva added, slanting a wink at Elinor.

“Yes, yes, very sad,” Aunt Bedelia continued. “For whoever would have thought such a dull stick as Parkerton would take up with some doxy. But there he was at Longford's, flaunting this Jezebel for all to see.”

“Parkerton?” Elinor said, hardly able to get the name out.

“Jezebel?” Minerva said, her lips twitching.

“Yes, can you believe it? The Duke of Parkerton. Spedding said he was towing along a harlot all done up in red velvet and diamonds. Why men waste a king's ransom in good jewels on those sorts, I'll never know.” Aunt Bedelia huffed before she continued, “Gone to blood he has. Those Tremonts are such a mad lot, and here I'd always thought he was going to escape that Tremont penchant for turning daft.” She sighed. “Instead he's a decided rogue.”

“Parkerton?” Elinor repeated, a chill running down her spine.
Red velvet and diamonds.
Oh, there had been plenty of ladies there last night, but…

“Oh, make no mistake, Spedding is a rumpot, but he rarely is amiss when it comes to a good
on dit
.” The lady took a taste of her tea and nodded in satisfaction. “Sleeping lions, my mother always called those Tremonts! You just never know when they are going to wake up and roar.”

“And you say the Duke of Parkerton left with this woman?” Minerva posed, glancing over at Elinor and smiling. “A lady in red velvet and diamonds. How utterly fascinating.”

“Hardly fascinating,” Aunt Bedelia told her. “It is disgraceful. And if she was at Longford's last night, she was no lady. That is for certain. But the terrible tragedy of it all is now a good duke has gone mad over some tawdry woman. Why, it hardly favors the
decent and respectable ladies like ourselves when men chase after these calculating sorts.”

Minerva pressed her lips together, for no one in Society was more calculating than Aunt Bedelia, but that was no matter, for Elinor was still trying to reconcile this news.

Parkerton had left with a woman in red velvet and diamonds.

He'd left with her.
But that couldn't be, she'd gone with St. Maur. And he couldn't be…

Then she remembered the ring. The thick signet ring on St. Maur's hand.

In a flash, she shoved her chair back and bolted from the dining room.

“I say,” Aunt Bedelia said to her niece. “She's taking the news very hard.”

“Oh, she'll recover,” Minerva said, taking a sip of her tea. “Mark my words.”

Elinor flew up the stairs and dashed into her room. Her gaze darted about until it landed on the one thing she sought.

Felicity's volume of
Debrett's
. Grabbing it up, she paged through the entries, past the baronets and earls, until she found the long and lengthy entry for the Dukes of Parkerton.

And she didn't need to read the detailed history of the Tremonts to know the truth. It was right there in the engraved copy of the duke's family crest. A lion flanked by angels.

The crest that would sit on the duke's plates, his carriage, his stationery, and, of course, his signet ring.

The air rushed out of the room. He'd deceived her. Utterly! But why?

Because he's a Tremont. Because he's as mad as they come.

Egads, he'd given her a house! And he'd proposed. He'd asked her to marry him.

Elinor paused.
He had, hadn't he?

Oh, dear, it was difficult to remember, she realized with a blush as other images from the night before crowded in. Well, there was only one way to find out the truth of all this.

Snapping the volume closed, Elinor stormed downstairs,
Debrett's
held tightly to her chest. When she got to the dining room, she found that Minerva had taken a new interest in her tea and was stirring it with the same vigor as her aunt had done earlier.

“You knew!” Elinor said, circling the table and slamming down the thick volume of lineage so that the entire table rattled. “You knew and you didn't tell me.”

Minerva closed her eyes and shuddered. “I told Lucy it wasn't a good idea to keep his identity from you, but she insisted.”

Elinor closed her eyes and shuddered. “Lucy knew as well?”

“As does Tia, and if Tia knows—”

Elinor's lashes sprang open. If Tia knew, everyone in the household knew, with the possible exception of Aunt Bedelia, who appeared to be wavering between utterly shocked at this scandalous display and completely delighted to be witnessing it.

It was hard to tell with the old girl.

“This is unbearable,” Elinor said, throwing up her hands. “How could you deceive me so? Let him make a fool of me?!”

“No, no, it was never like that,” Minerva rushed to explain. “I do believe he intended to help you, at least at first. Before he…” Her words trailed off, but the sentiment was there in the room.

Fell in love with you.

Yet now Elinor didn't know what to believe, how to know whom she'd fallen in love with.

A mad duke, or the most perfect man she'd ever met.

She closed her eyes, images flashing in her mind—of St. Maur shopping in Petticoat Lane, bringing a kite for the Duke of Avenbury, teasing her, laughing with her, showing her Colston like a delighted connoisseur, of him kissing her, holding her, making love to her.

He loved her, didn't he?

Elinor's eyes were filled with tears when she opened them to look across the table at Minerva. “I don't know what to believe,” she whispered. “Do you really think he loves me?”

“I think you know the answer to that already.” Minerva smiled. “After all, he came to rescue you last night. He wouldn't have done that if he didn't…”

But Elinor was already gone, out of the room and off to confront the mad duke who'd stolen her heart.

 

“Minerva Sterling, I demand you explain this all to me at once!” Aunt Bedelia said as the front door slammed shut. “Am I to believe that Elinor was the—”

“Yes.”

“And that this solicitor she hired is actually—”

“Parkerton, yes.”

“So when Spedding saw Parkerton with a do—” It appeared as if the old girl was about to say
doxy,
but she checked herself and said, “—lady, that Elinor was the—”

Minerva nodded.

Aunt Bedelia sank back in her seat. “Heavens, I wish I'd known that earlier.”

“Why is that, Auntie?”

“Because then I wouldn't have stopped at Lady Finch's earlier. You know she's a terrible gossip, and she'll have this tale all over Town before nuncheon.”

Not if you don't beat her to it,
Minerva thought wryly.

 

James had awoken to find Elinor gone. No note, no sign of her, save the soft air of her perfume still clinging to the pillow beside him.

She must have been as anxious to start this day as he was now, he thought as he gathered up his clothes and got dressed. There was much to do.

Like get married. He paused, his jaw setting. And he would be married now if it hadn't been for the interference of his staff.

His meddling, overreaching staff. Oh, he had some choice words for their behavior…

But when he went to lock the door on the house and return to Cavendish Square, he paused, for he caught a glimpse of his profile in the window and barely recognized himself.

And it wasn't just the black eye, which was now starting to fade. Nor was it the fact that he was disheveled and unshaven; it was something even deeper than that. Something else.

A soft morning breeze ruffled his bare head and whispered its secrets all around him. It held all the calm beauty of the dawn, and all the mystery that a new day offered.

And in that breeze, James knew that what he had really found was a sense of contentment. After years
of control, of order, of his commanding all those around him, the blow that had laid him low more than a week earlier had set him on the path to meet Elinor. Meeting her, falling in love with her, had diminished—nay, banished—all those things that had seemed so vastly important to him.

Now all that mattered was seeing her smile, making her laugh. Filling her life with love. Yes, if anything, he'd discovered that being true to his heart,
following his heart,
was the true legacy of being a Tremont.

Still, he had to confront the other half of that legacy—the fact that his staff thought him utterly mad. He knew that they were used to his old demeanor, but things had changed, and like him, they would have to change as well. But first he needed to give them a dose of the old Parkerton.

Overbearing and high-handed. Then he could set them straight.

James grinned. For if this was madness, he was determined to become the family's most infamous March hare.

 

Elinor didn't go back to the house in Bloomsbury but rather went straight to Cavendish Square, where the Duke of Parkerton resided. The streets were now thick with traffic, so instead of hailing a hackney, she walked, storming down the sidewalks in a great huff.

She didn't know whether to be furious or relieved.

Furious. Yes, that was the best way to describe her current mood, as she marched along and ignored the stares of strangers and acquaintances.

St. Maur was the Duke of Parkerton? It seemed utterly outrageous to believe, but then again, if he
was a Tremont, it wasn't that much a stretch of the imagination.

“I will demand the house he gave me last night,” she muttered under her breath. “And Tia's guardianship!” she said out loud.

“If you want that, mum, it should be yours,” a wary-looking man said as he hurried across the street and out of her path.

Oh, goodness, she was going as mad as St. Maur. But then again, he was the one who'd given her the house, and he could hardly deny her now.

He was far too honorable to disavow such a gift. Elinor paused and flinched at the notion. Oh, dear! He was ever so honorable.

Damn the man! He was just that and more. Wretched cur!

Well, this time, he had better be full of apologies, she mused as she continued on, thinking of his unrepentant ways after her meeting with Avenbury.

He had better be ready to beg for her forgiveness. Humbly and modestly, with the full weight of this deception lying at his feet. Not that she was in any mood to forgive him. Why, of all the high-handed, deceptive, outrageous…

But her determination to see him humbled for fooling her so utterly came to a pause when she came to a stop on the corner opposite the duke's residence on Cavendish Square.

The grand house quite took her breath away, just as Colston had.

“
Oh, good heavens,
” she whispered. “
He lives here?
”

She bit her lip and tried to remember how furious she was with him. How he'd deceived her. But her
fury was starting to go the way of the smoke rising from the numerous chimneys on his house—which, she wagered, never smoked or let in drafts like the ones in the house on Brook Street.

Elinor walked slowly up the steps, only to find the front door slightly ajar. As she moved closer to the opening, she heard St. Maur's voice, deep and clear, and utterly sensible coming from inside.

Parkerton, she corrected herself. Botheration, however would she get used to calling him that?

Not that she would need to. She wanted nothing to do with him. With all his riches…her gaze fell on the marble floor and the gilt on the stairwell beyond, all as glittery and rich as a sultan's palace.

Then his voice piqued her interest, for his tone was so utterly commanding that it was hard not to draw closer.

“I am most displeased with what is nothing short of treason in this household,” he was saying.

Elinor peeked inside and found that he had his entire staff gathered together—the butler, a long line of footmen, valet and secretary by the looks of the two on the right, maids, a cook, stable hands, housekeeper and even the pot lads lined up like a regular regiment.

Even his family was there, for she could see Lord John and his wife and a young lady, most likely Parkerton's daughter, on the stairs above them.

Apparently no one was immune from the duke's wrath.

And their commander, their master, marched in front of them, every click of his boot heel on the marble floor like the cock of a rifle. “I am most displeased,” he was saying. “Your conduct with regards to Lady Standon is unforgivable.”

With his back to the door, he didn't see her slide inside, though more than a few brows were raised at her arrival, along with a bevy of curious glances.

She smiled at all of them and put a finger to her lips.

But that didn't stop a large, elderly man from saying, “Your Grace—”

“Cantley, not now. I am not finished. Besides, there are no excuses for your part in this.” Hands folded behind his back, he paced in front of them. “Now I understand that there has been some concern amongst you as to my well-being, but as you can see, I am in full control of my senses, as well as still being in full control of this household, and the first order of business is to make some changes.”

Elinor felt the force of his words down to her slippers, for here was the true Duke of Parkerton, an overbearing, arrogant fellow. Even his staff appeared a bit shocked and more than cowed.

Parkerton paced a few more steps. “Missing buttons on my jacket, Richards?
Tsk. Tsk
. Driving me around in circles, Evans? You claim to be a London man, yet you can't find your way from the mews to the front door? Diverting my correspondence, Cantley? Treasonous!” he roared.