My Dear Duchess
Authors: M.C. Beaton
M. C. Beaton
is the author of the hugely successful Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, as well as a quartet of Edwardian murder mysteries featuring heroine Lady Rose Summer, several Regency romance series and a stand-alone murder mystery,
The Skeleton in the Closet
– all published by Constable & Robinson. She left a full-time career in journalism to turn to writing, and now divides her time between the Cotswolds and Paris. Visit www.mcbeatonbooks.co.uk for more, or follow M. C. Beaton on Twitter:
@mc_beaton
.
Titles by M. C. Beaton
The Poor Relation
Lady Fortescue Steps Out • Miss Tonks Turns to Crime • Mrs Budley Falls from Grace
Sir Philip’s Folly • Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue • Back in Society
A House for the Season
The Miser of Mayfair
•
Plain Jane
•
The Wicked Godmother
Rake’s Progress
•
The Adventuress
•
Rainbird’s Revenge
The Six Sisters
Minerva
•
The Taming of Annabelle
•
Deirdre and Desire
Daphne
•
Diana the Huntress
•
Frederica in Fashion
Edwardian Murder Mysteries
Snobbery with Violence
•
Hasty Death
•
Sick of Shadows
Our Lady of Pain
The Travelling Matchmaker
Emily Goes to Exeter
•
Belinda Goes to Bath
•
Penelope Goes to Portsmouth
Beatrice Goes to Brighton
•
Deborah Goes to Dover
•
Yvonne Goes to York
Edwardian Candlelight
Polly • Molly • Ginny • Tilly • Susie • Kitty • Daisy • Sally • Maggie • Poppy • Pretty Polly • Lucy • My Lords, Ladies and Marjorie
Regency Candlelight
Annabelle • Henrietta • Penelope
Regency Royal
The Westerby Inheritance • The Marquis Takes a Bride • Lady Anne’s Deception • Lady Margery’s Intrigue • The Savage Marquess • My Dear Duchess • The Highland Countess • Lady Lucy’s Lover • The Ghost and Lady Alice • Love and Lady Lovelace • Duke’s Diamonds • The Viscount’s Revenge • The Paper Princess • The Desirable Duchess • The Sins of Lady Dacey • The Dreadful Debutante • The Chocolate Debutante • The Loves of Lord Granton • Milady in Love • The Scandalous Marriage
Regency Scandal
His Lordship’s Pleasure • Her Grace’s Passion • The Scandalous Lady Wright
Regency Flame
Those Endearing Young Charms
? The Flirt • Lessons in Love • Regency Gold • Miss Fiona’s Fancy • The French Affair • To Dream of Love • A Marriage of Inconvenience • A Governess of Distinction • The Glitter of Gold
Regency Season
The Original Miss Honeyford • The Education of Miss Paterson • At the Sign of the Golden Pineapple • Sweet Masquerade ?The Constant Companion • Quadrille • The Perfect Gentleman • Dancing on the Wind • Ms. Davenport’s Christmas
The Waverly Women
The First Rebellion • Silken Bonds • The Love Match
Agatha Raisin
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death
•
Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet
Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener
•
Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley
Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage
•
Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist
Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death
•
Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham
Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam
•
Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell
Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came
Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate
•
Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House
Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance
•
Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon
Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor
Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye
Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison
•
Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride
Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body
•
Agatha Raisin: As the Pig Turns
Agatha Raisin: Hiss and Hers • Agatha Raisin and the Christmas Crumble
Hamish Macbeth
Death of a Gossip
•
Death of a Cad
•
Death of an Outsider
Death of a Perfect Wife
•
Death of a Hussy
•
Death of a Snob
Death of a Prankster
•
Death of a Glutton
•
Death of a Travelling Man
Death of a Charming Man
•
Death of a Nag
•
Death of a Macho Man
Death of a Dentist
•
Death of a Scriptwriter
•
Death of an Addict
A Highland Christmas
•
Death of a Dustman
•
Death of a Celebrity
Death of a Village
•
Death of a Poison Pen
•
Death of a Bore
Death of a Dreamer
•
Death of a Maid
•
Death of a Gentle Lady
Death of a Witch
•
Death of a Valentine
•
Death of a Sweep
Death of a Kingfisher • Death of Yesterday
The Skeleton in the Closet
Also available
The Agatha Raisin Companion
M. C. Beaton
Constable & Robinson Ltd.
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
First electronic edition published 2011
by RosettaBooks LLC, New York
This edition published in the UK by Canvas,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013
Copyright © M. C. Beaton, 1979
The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-47210-136-5 (ebook)
Cover copyright © Constable & Robinson
Everyone in the top ten thousand agreed that the weather was no respecter of persons. A heavy rain roared down on London town with unremitting violence, chuckling in the lead gutters, pouring down the drainpipes and setting the filth from the kennels awash over the roads. The Season had begun but two weeks ago and now the promising groundwork that had been assiduously laid by hopeful mothers and their equally hopeful daughters seemed to be in a fair way to being ruined. Rides in the park at the fashionable hour, shopping in Bond Street, ices at Gunters—the myriad of opportunities for chance encounters to further the acquaintance of the ballroom—were all being washed away.
Even Clarence Square, the most fashionable of Mayfair addresses, had not escaped the ravages of the deluge. Water soaked into the brick facade of its elegant buildings and ran in little waterfalls from its stately porticos. The pretty gardens of the square were pockmarked by huge depressing puddles and the battered rose bushes threw their scarlet petals over the sodden grass like summer warriors bleeding to death before an onslaught of watery spears.
Captain Henry Wright jolted into the square in the confines of a stuffy carriage and fretted for the hundredth time in the cage that was called love. Instead of putting on the gloves with his friends at Jackson’s or playing a rubber of piquet at White’s, here he was, all dressed up like a Bond Street fribble in a coat with twelve shoulder capes and buttons the size of soup plates, going to call on a young female and endure the cold glances of her odious mother.
Ever since he had set eyes on Clarissa Sayers but a se’enight ago at her come-out ball, his heart had been lost—to the great amazement of London society who had labelled the Captain a hardened flirt. His sister, Emily, could point out that Mrs. Sayers, whose vast fortune came from a series of thriving woolen manufacturies in the North, smelled of the shop and was an encroaching Cit. His friends could remind him that since he had just been honorably discharged with a leg wound after the long rigors of the Peninsular War, he was bound to be susceptible and ready to fall for the first pretty face he met. But all in vain. He had no sooner set eyes on Clarissa’s ethereal beauty than his heart was well and truly hers.
His goddess preferred the Dandy set rather than the athletic Corinthians that the Captain favored—hence the outrageous coat which was already beginning to make him feel uncomfortable.
In spite of the drenching rain, he walked slowly up the wide marble steps and then banged on the knocker with unnecessary violence. He was admitted by the butler and, with relief, was divested of his outer coat. Revealed underneath was an impeccable swallow tail coat which might meet with the butler’s approval, but he felt sure that his love would have been better pleased had he attired himself in all the glory of padded shoulders and a nipped waist.
His heart beating fast, the Captain followed the butler up the wide carpeted stairs to a morning room on the first floor and, straightening his cravat and feeling like a schoolboy, made his entrance.
But there was nothing in his manner to betray his feelings to Miss Clarissa Sayers or to her mother who were engaged at their embroidery. From his fair curly hair cut in a fashionable Brutus crop to his shiny hessians with their little gold tassles, he was the epitome of languid elegance.
Mrs. Sayers was a plump woman of middle years dressed in a green and white striped dress displaying a generous expanse of mottled bosom. An elaborate lace cap was balanced precariously on curls of an improbable gold. Her heavy jaw betrayed all the force of character that was necessary for a matron, however rich, with a background of trade, to storm the aristocratic bastions of London’s West End. She hid her heavy domineering character behind a mask of helpless girlish fluttering. When her bluff Yorkshire husband had departed this world in a fit of apoplexy she lost no time, once the regulation period of mourning was over, to realize her lifelong ambition. Her beautiful daughter should make her debut in London and marry a title. No less than a Lord would suffice. And with her fortune and Clarissa’s looks, she was in no doubt that she would soon succeed. She had paid a certain “lady of quality” handsomely to assure her daughter’s entree into the best circles and only certain hostesses, notoriously high in the instep, had kept their doors firmly closed.
She eyed the handsome Captain with a gleam of disfavor which she hurriedly masked by ringing the bell for refreshments. After all, the Captain moved in the first circles and his father’s death had assured him of an easy competence. And she had no fear of her darling throwing herself away. Clarissa was as ambitious to secure a title as her mama.
Clarissa betrayed none of her ambitions, however, as she smiled prettily at the Captain and thanked him in her soft voice for having ventured out in such terrible weather.