Mad About the Duke (5 page)

Making her the perfect wife for you.

James coughed. Where the devil had that thought come from? He wasn't in the market for a wife. He wasn't.

As he opened the paper, he considered what he should do next.

Oh, bother, just confess who you are, then declare your undying devotion, carry her off and be done with the matter.

And for one impetuous moment James came within a midge's wing of doing just that.

Until he unfolded the piece of paper and read the neatly penned names.

I
wasn't on the bloody list,” James sputtered loudly as he entered the small dining room that was at the back of Parkerton House.

Jack and his wife, Miranda, glanced up from the nuncheon they were enjoying.

“Pardon?” Jack asked, wiping his lips with his napkin.

James slapped the paper down on the table and marched away in a state of high dudgeons. “Her list,” he declared, pointing at the offensive piece of paper. “Lady Standon's list of ducal candidates. I am not on it.”

Jack scooted his chair back in hasty retreat, as if wanting to distance himself from this budding storm. Miranda, however, had no qualms about picking up the paper and reading it.

Short reading that it was.

Two names. Two bloody names, neither of which was his.

Where it should have read
James Tremont, the 9
^th
Duke of Parkerton
, there were two other names.

Whatever was wrong with him that she hadn't bothered to set his name to her wretched list?

He glanced over at Miranda. Demmit, whatever was she smiling about? This was hardly funny.

“What do you care, Parkerton?” Jack asked, having taken a peek over his wife's shoulder. “You've no regard for this woman and she's certainly not under your protection.”

James set his jaw and paced a bit. There was the rub. She wasn't under his protection. Because if she was…

“Besides, what do you care? You've resigned.”

James paced a few steps, not daring to glance over at his younger brother.

“Good God, tell me you've resigned,” Jack insisted.

“How could I?” James said in his defense. “That foolish woman has Longford on her list. Longford, Jack!”

And not me.

Jack nodded in grudging agreement. As he should. For every man in Town knew what sort of doxies and warming pans Longford preferred.

“Still, I don't see what has you in this fettle of a mood. It isn't as if you're in the market for a bride,” his brother said. “Perhaps she didn't know you were looking for a wife.”

“I'm not!” James declared. “Looking, that is. But at the very least she could have included me as a likely prospect. I am a duke and I am unmarried.”

“And breathing,” the lone female in the room muttered under her breath.

Both men turned to stare at Miranda.

“Perhaps she has no desire to marry you,” she told him, handing back the list and crossing her arms over her chest.

Leave it to Jack's
cit
-born wife, blunt and to the point as always, to cut to the bottom line.

To the truth of the matter.

James clutched the list in his hand and resisted the urge to consign it to the flames. “The lady doesn't even know me.”

“Small favors there,” she muttered yet again.

Not that James didn't hear it. And whatever did she mean by that? However, given her forthright manner, he didn't press for an explanation.

He'd been insulted enough for one day.

Then it struck him what needed to be done. He didn't know why he hadn't thought of it before. As the head of the Tremont clan he had a lifetime of experience fixing others' problems.

“I shall make things right for Lady Standon. Whatever her problems with the Duchess of Hollindrake, or even Hollindrake himself, I shall smooth them over,” he announced. “Then she can forget this impetuous need to be married.”

“Her need to be married has naught to do with Hollindrake,” Miranda said, wiping her lips and settling her napkin down on the table. “It has to do with her stepfather, Lord Lewis. He is forcing her hand as to the guardianship of her younger sister. As long as Lady Standon is unmarried, Lord Lewis retains the guardianship of that poor young girl.”

James's gaze swung toward his sister-in-law. “How would you know such a thing?”

For certainly Lady Standon hadn't told him any of this.

Because she doesn't see you as her hero.

That irked James as much as not finding his name on her demmed list. He just took it for granted that nine generations of dukes, fourteen generations of earls and a barony held since before William's conquest gave him an undeniable air of heroism.

Miranda shrugged. “I ran into Lady Chudley this morning, and she was overflowing with information.”

What need was there for the
Morning Post,
James mused, when the ladies of London seemed to have a far more effective crier of news. Lady Chudley, indeed!

Nonplussed as he was over Miranda's superior grasp of the situation, her information actually made the task ahead much easier for him.

“Then I shall handle the matter directly. Lord Lewis can simply be dispatched so as never to bother Lady Standon or her sister again.”

“Have him blackballed from White's,” Jack suggested.

James snapped his fingers. “Excellent idea. I'll have Winston craft the letter.”

His brother wasn't done. “And then I would send Lewis off on a long trip across the Continent. Might cost you a pretty penny, but he'd be far from London. Unable to meddle with Lady Standon's happiness.”

“Jack, you're brilliant!” James said, already composing the exact wording he wanted Winston to use.

Until, that is, there was a loud snort from across the table.

As his tidy flow of scathing words came to an abrupt halt, James cast a suspicious glance at his sister-in-law. “You disagree, madame?”

It was a tone that would have warned most people off, but not Miranda.

“Not at all, Your Grace.” It never boded well when Miranda used such a formal, almost apologetic, tone.

The woman never apologized.

She glanced up from her teacup. “Just that you obviously don't know Lord Lewis.”

“Never met the man,” James conceded. “Low
ton
at best, by the sound of it. Bartering off children, indeed! Why, Jack was right, the man should be blackballed from White's.”

“And Brooks,” Jack added.

“Exactly!” James agreed.

“Do you truly suppose the man will act rationally just because you are threatening him? When he still has control over that girl's guardianship? As long as he holds it, he can do anything he wants to that innocent child. Including revenge.”

Such a scenario took James aback. But then again, no man could be that despicable, could he? “I don't see that the lady need rush into an ill-advised marriage over all this. This Lord Lewis can be reasoned with and at the very least paid off—”

He glanced over at Miranda, who was shaking her head. “Pay off Lord Lewis, by all means. Then go over like Galahad and explain to Lady Standon how you have rescued her, all with the flick of a pen. Well, Winston's pen, that is.”

James bristled. “You needn't sound so flip. It is my idea. And my money. Why, it is a most sensible plan.”

Miranda's brows rose.

He glanced over at Jack, waiting for his brother to second his plan. But he found no help from that quarter.

“Yes, Your Grace, women love sensible,” Miranda said.

The ironic note to her words sent a twinge of doubt
through James's resolve. Whatever was Miranda saying? Of course women loved sensible.

Didn't they?

“They clamor for it, Parkerton,” Jack told him, as if tossing him a line to pull him from a deadly mire. “This sensible plan of yours will undoubtedly put you at the top of her list.”

“I don't want to be on her list,” he told them. He didn't.

But he should, at the very least, be there.

Couldn't they see that? “I daresay she'll be overcome with relief,” he said with some confidence, until, that is, he caught his sister-in-law stealing a glance at her husband and the disbelief on Jack's face.

Doubting Thomases, both of them. What the devil did Jack know of women?

Mad Jack Tremont? A hell of a lot more than you do.

And yet when neither of them leapt in with a quick agreement, he continued, because he had the sense that he was floundering again. “I suspect she will be quite grateful. She'll see me for the man I am.”

It didn't do his resolve much good when Jack and Miranda exchanged a pair of wary glances.

“Do you want her to see you that way?” Jack asked.

“What is wrong with the way I am? With who I am? I haven't heard any complaints before,” he declared, trying to take a more ducal stance but finding it nigh on impossible to do it in Jack's ill-cut coat.

“Who would dare?” Miranda pointed out.

James clenched his teeth together. Oh, yes. Well, there was that. Honestly, he couldn't think of anyone, save Miranda and, on occasion, his daughter Arabella, who had ever voiced their dismay with his plans or intentions.

A realization that in itself sent a frisson of doubt down his spine.

But it didn't stop him from challenging her assumption.

After all, he was the Duke of Parkerton.

“So, Lady John,” he said, resorting to the same formal acknowledgement, “since you seem to be full of opinions, as well as being a member of the fairer sex, I ask yours. What do you think of my plan?”

She rose from the table, smoothing her skirt. Then she glanced up and met his gaze with her own steely one. “My opinion, Your Grace? You seek my opinion.”

It should be noted that at this point, Jack fled from the table.

“Yes, madame,” James said with a ducal wave of his hand. “I would like to hear your opinion.”

Miranda smiled. “I think the Earl of Clifton should have hit you harder.”

 

“It is all arranged,” Lucy Sterling Grey, now the Countess of Clifton, said, arriving in the salon. “Thomas-William will stay on. He'll not let Lord Lewis set one foot in this house.”

Elinor sighed with relief, for Lucy's formidable servant could likely hold off a French invasion with one of his dark glances. That, plus Thomas-Williams's rather shady reputation, would serve as a good deterrent in keeping her stepfather at bay.

For the time being.

After accepting a cup of tea, Lucy settled down onto the settee. The newly married countess had arrived to fetch her belongings just as Mr. St. Maur was leaving. “Oh, goodness, Elinor, I almost forgot. Whatever was
he
doing here?”

“He?” Elinor asked. “Oh, you mean Mr. St. Maur.”

“Oh, yes, Lucy, you've been a terrible influence,” Minerva said, jumping into the conversation. “Elinor intends to take him as her lover.”

At this, poor Elinor nearly sprayed a mouthful of tea all over the sitting room. “Gracious heavens, Minerva! I intend to do no such thing!”

“It does explain that gown,” Lucy said, winking at Minerva. “And your hair. Which is quite lovely like that, but who is this Mr. St. Maur?” She glanced from Elinor to Minerva and then back at Elinor.

“Lucy, I do think your runaway marriage has befuddled your memory,” Elinor said. “You met Mr. St. Maur yesterday. He was here to give you advice about the earl. You know, the man Hollindrake sent over. He was here in the foyer when you left, and I hired him.”

Lucy had just reached for her cup, and now the china rattled in the saucer, sloshing tea right and left. Ever so slowly and deliberately she asked, “You hired the man in the foyer yesterday to do what?”

“To help me sort out which duke I should marry.”

Lucy's eyes widened. As improper and scandalous as she was, it was evident that Elinor had shocked her.

Which was saying quite a bit.

“Whatever are you acting so odd for?” Elinor asked.

Minerva waded in. “Yes, I told her that Aunt Bedelia would never approve of such an idea.”

“It is a perfectly sound notion,” Elinor fired back as firmly as she could muster, while inside she was having some doubts. For their meeting earlier had hardly gone as she'd thought it might.

She'd handed him the list and he'd opened it up to read it, and then he'd begun acting so oddly.

“Sir, is there anything wrong?”

“Wrong?”

“Yes, wrong? With the list, I mean. Will you be able to provide me with the information I need about the Duke of Longford and the Duke of Avenbury?”

He nodded, and then he looked up at her and she felt the weight of his gaze right down to her toes. It sent dangerous shivers down her spine and she remembered what Minerva had said about taking him as her lover. Worse, she remembered her dream and how it had felt to have him hold her.

“Are you sure there isn't anyone else you'd like to add to this list. Any other dukes? Any other gentlemen?” he asked, his jaw set as he spoke, as if he barely trusted himself to ask that much.

“Other than you, why, no,”
she nearly said. “No. No one at all.”

His brow furrowed and his knuckles gleamed white as he clenched the paper in his hand. Then all of a sudden, he rose as if he were about to bolt from the house.

Elinor thought he looked rather like a pirate at that moment, albeit a mad one, ready to do battle, but what over she couldn't fathom.

But there was one other thought that ran through her head.

Don't let him leave. Not just yet.

His brow furrowed deeper and she was convinced he was about to say something very important…then…

“Elinor!” Minerva said, reaching over and nudging her out of her reverie. “Lucy asked you a question.”

Her lashes fluttered as she came back to the scene at hand. “Oh, I am sorry. What was it?”

“This Mr.—,” Lucy began.

“—St. Maur,” Elinor supplied.

“Oh, yes, yes,” Lucy said, her fingers tapping her chin. “This
Mr. St. Maur
is going to make inquiries for you?”

Elinor nodded. “Yes. He came over this morning to discuss the particulars.”