The Accidental Duchess (10 page)

“I think not that you are sorry. I think not that you have another obligation. And, yes, I think not that I will wait.”

“You are calling me a liar on two counts.”

“I am calling you too sly by half. Had I known there would be all these delays, I would have demanded more consideration than I did.”

She glanced around, to see if anyone watched. He did not bother to check too. Should any of their friends notice this conversation, they would see a duke smiling graciously and a woman holding her own well enough.

“I cannot believe you speak of any of this here,” she hissed quietly.

“I will arrange to take you home after the play. Then we can speak of it in my carriage. When we are alone, you can explain this new obligation that interferes with your paying up in full.”

She just looked at him, her eyes wide and her lips parted in astonishment. She appeared much as she had after that kiss in his library. Enough so that he actually began calculating how he really could arrange that ride alone with her.

Her self-possession returned. “You will do no such thing. My brother will never allow it. I will return in his coach just as I came, of course. As for all this talk of paying up and considerations, I know that you are toying with me, just as you did that very first night at Mrs. Burton’s. You only seek to worry me, so that I will understand the foolishness of that wager. You can stop it now. You waste both of our times with this game.”

It was all he could do not to drag her away, and pull her outside the box. He moved enough to reposition them both, so she backed against the wall and he faced her. Neither of their expressions would be visible now.

“You give me too much credit now, after giving me so little when last we spoke. I am a man who would kill a friend over a minor matter, remember? Insisting that you pay up will be a very small thing after that, and no game. Your assumption that you will never settle that debt tells me that you are badly in need of some discipline, Lydia. I will enjoy providing it.”

That shocked the smugness out of her. She pressed the wall. Her gloved hand went to her mouth to stifle her gasp.

He stepped back. “I will see you at Crownhill, as planned originally.”

It was well past the start of the second act, so the party finally sat themselves to watch the play. He made it a point to sit behind Lydia. Quiet conversation continued, which gave him cause to lean forward and remark on this or that to Southwaite, who sat beside her. He always found a way to include Lydia in the exchange. She tried mightily to avoid that, to no avail.

“Heard from the coast yesterday,” Southwaite said over his shoulder. “Tarrington reports the French smugglers are getting bold, and going into Diehl. He wants to sink a few of their boats to protect his territory and was good enough to ask if it would interfere with any of our plans.”

The plans involved a network of watchers Southwaite, Ambury, and Kendale had helped establish on the coast, to be alert to any unwelcomed French visitors who slipped ashore with smuggled goods or refugees. The idea had been Penthurst’s several years ago, but the execution came during his estrangement, so had fallen to the others.

“Are you sending him a response through Lydia? Is that why she journeys there?”

Lydia, whose attention remained on the stage, shivered slightly, perhaps due to how his breath teased the hairs on her nape.

Southwaite looked at his sister. “I may, now that you have given me the idea. As to my sister’s grand scheme, I am, as always, ignorant.”

“Better to let me do it. I have some business nearby and will be there.”

Lydia’s crown rose a full inch as her body jolted with alarm.

“Besides,” Penthurst continued. “If Lydia meets up with smugglers, she may decide she wants to be one after she sees Tarrington’s lair.”

“I regret to say she has already seen his lair. Isn’t that so, Lydia?”

Her cool profile showed as she faced her brother. “You and I have known him and his family our whole lives. If I must repudiate everyone on the coast who has connections to smuggling, I must obliterate my past and present, I fear. As must you, dear brother, with more devastating results than I will ever know.”

Whatever she alluded to, Southwaite retreated on the point. “What takes you to the coast, Penthurst?”

“I need to collect on a gambling debt that has been lagging.”

“Hell of a thing when a gentleman’s debt is not paid. I hope if the fellow puts you off again that you will let the rest of us know his name.”

“I trust that honor will win out in this case.”

“Unless he is not good for it. That happens all the time.”

“This is a matter of property, not funds, so I am confident nothing was wagered that is unavailable.”

“Doubly dishonorable, then. Are you listening to this, Lydia? You think I lecture too often on gambling, but wagering more than one should in the excitement of the moment often leads to uncomfortable situations like this. Now Penthurst needs to travel to remind this man of his obligations, in the hopes of sparing the fellow’s reputation.”

Lydia’s head did not move an inch. Her dark tresses in their neat arrangement on her crown just stared at the man behind her.

“It is actually worse,” Penthurst said, angling close so his mouth almost touched her cheek. “Having first wagered and lost, the wager was then doubled, and lost again.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“Was this man a fool, or drunk?”

“Too confident, I’d say. Although the second time, I think—I am not sure—that it entered that desperate mind to cheat.”

“No.”

“It did not happen, as I said.”

“Still, best you settle this soon, so the temptation does not overcome him next time around.”

“That is my thinking on the matter.”

“You will be doing him a favor. He will pay the wages of sin, and perhaps lose the taste for it entirely.” He looked meaningfully at his sister.

“Or you can forgive the debt, and be known as a generous man.” Her voice projected forward, not back, and was barely audible.

He leaned very close to her head. “I have not been asked to forgive the debt. Instead it is ignored, as if the reckoning need never happen. That does not encourage notions of generosity. One might even say it does not encourage behavior appropriate to a gentleman.”

“Understandable,” Southwaite said. “Of course, he
will
be a gentleman, Lydia. Some pique is allowed, however, along with strict adherence to the points of the wager in the circumstances. I hope you are learning something from this. The rules are no different for women. When women get in too deep, they too must pay up. Or else their male relatives must.”

“I have never needed you to pay up for me,” she said emphatically.

Southwaite sighed, like it was just a matter of time.

“I have reason to believe that your sister has never wagered that which she can’t pay on her own. Isn’t that true, Lydia?”

She glanced back at him. If looks could kill . . .

“Quite true,” she said to her brother. “Your fortune is safe from me. Now, may I watch the play? I have half figured out what is going on, and I sat here in the hopes I would not have chatter buzzing into my ear like a bothersome bee.”

That made him the noisy insect, he guessed. He rested his forearms on the back of her chair and spoke into her other ear. “If you have half figured out this farce, it is better than I can claim, Lydia. Enlighten me so that I can follow the script too.”

N
o one in her family knew the people of Crownhill as well as Lydia did. Even Southwaite did not enjoy the same intimacy. He had always been the future earl to them, while she had been little Lydia.

Her years here as a girl, her closeness to Sarah, her visits while she rode her horse to villages and farms—her familiarity with the land and people made her more welcomed in the humble abodes on their property than she ever felt in the drawing rooms of the county’s best houses.

In treating her like one of their own, they covered her tracks sometimes. None of the servants really lied to her brother when he quizzed them about her activities, but they could possess very short memories. Now that she was a grown woman, a few would even deceive Aunt Hortense on her behalf. More egalitarian than her own class, the servants thought it odd when she was treated like a child by chaperones, and were inclined to believe her doings, for good or ill, were her own business.

So it was that within a day of arriving at Crownhill, her plan for leaving had been put in place. Penthurst’s stated intention to come to the coast to collect that debt had necessitated a more elaborate strategy than initially envisioned.

Did he seriously think to follow her here? Then what? He calls on her and Aunt Hortense? What could he say or do?
Your niece owes me her maidenhead, madame, so if you would kindly close the drawing room doors as you leave, we will get on with it
.

It had been an idle threat, to needle her into more worry. He did not like that she had assumed he would relieve her of the obligation, and had guessed his game. It had been a big mistake to throw that in his face.

He had implied that if she had asked for the debt to be forgiven, he might have agreed. Or he might have let her beg and plead, then refuse. A real gentleman of good character would have released her of the obligation by now without her requesting it. She already knew his character was not in truth what others thought, so she had no secure confidence in which way it would go when she did beg and plead, especially now after that conversation at the theater. It would kill her to apologize and petition for mercy now, but she supposed she had to try.

But not right away. It might shock Penthurst to know that she had larger worries than her stupid wagers with him. Trilby came first. She needed to resolve matters with this other scoundrel so the cloud of shame threatening to rain on her went away.

She would go to Buxton. She saw no way out of that. Once there, however, she would not help him cheat. She would convince him his plan was not worth the risk. She would bring three thousand pounds with her, to add weight to her arguments, and make him agree, finally, to take the rest in yearly payments.

It meant diverting all of her winnings away from her good causes, perhaps for years. Maybe forever. She resented that deeply. One would think, considering the two ways of spending the money, that fate would be kinder.

After a hard ride along the coastal ridge road, and a visit to the horse farm where her brother bred and trained some of the finest racing horses in England, she returned to the house on the day she arrived in time to have an early dinner with her aunt.

They had not visited Crownhill for several months, and her aunt had spent the afternoon collecting gossip on anyone worth knowing up and down the coast. Tall, buxom, and fearsome to those who did not know her well, the physical and temperamental opposite of small, soft Aunt Amelia, Hortense now treated Lydia to all she had gleaned. Her expressive soliloquy communicated her opinion of the potential scandal in each tidbit.

“Gone north until spring,” her aunt said in a theatrical tone of insinuation regarding the daughter of a respectable family several miles away. “Well, everyone knows what that means. The chit got with child by that rake of a cousin of hers, is what. Poor thing. He’ll go on preening his feathers while she is ruined. Utterly ruined.”

Lydia nodded dully. She stared at the decanter of wine. The facets of the cut crystal seemed to swim. She used her handkerchief to pat her dewy brow.

“Are you unwell, Lydia?” Her aunt’s eyes sharpened on that brow, then the rest of her.

“I am fine. A little warm, that is all.”

“It is not warm here. It is quite cool. Come here, child, so I can check you.”

Lydia rose and went over to her aunt, who pressed the back of her hand along her jaw.

“You do feel warm.”

Lydia chose that moment to feel a bit dizzy too. “Perhaps I will go out and get some air.”

“Heavens, no. The damp evening air will do you in if you have a fever.”

“I do not think I have a—”

“And what would you know of it? I have seen many more fevers than you have, and I think it likely you do have one.” She turned to the footman. “Call for her maid. Up to bed with you. I will send up instructions for your care.”

“Perhaps a physician—”

“Quacks, all of them. I know more medicine than they do. If not for the interference of physicians, my dear Jonathan would still be with me. Now, up you go. Once you are abed, send that maid down so I can tell her exactly what to do.”

Sarah appeared at the dining room door. She helped Lydia up the stairs. Once the door of her apartment closed, Sarah giggled. “I assume the brandy worked.”

“Better than I expected. Whoever guessed it would make me flush and feel dizzy.”

“You are not used to it, is all.” Sarah pulled a valise out of a corner. “All packed for the morning. I would feel better if I were coming with you. Not right for you to travel alone.”

“You do, whenever you come to visit your family here. You get on the coach all by yourself.”

“That is different.”

The only difference was society did not consider Sarah worthy of rules regarding the protection of her body and reputation. “You need to remain here taking care of the sick Lydia. Remember to have me starting to mend in the morning, then a bit better day by day. We do not want Hortense sending for my brother. Bring her regular reports, and promise to do everything she instructs. She fears catching maladies, so she will not insist on seeing me.”

“I am sure that I can put her off long enough.”

“I will travel by post chaise the whole way, and not stop, so I think I can finish this soon. Mr. Trilby will see the benefits of my proposal quickly.”

 • • • 

P
enthurst had a fondness for Crownhill, the county seat of the Earls of Southwaite. The grand house imposed itself on a bluff of a hill, backed by the sea. Salt sea air made upkeep a nuisance, but the inhabitants thought the bracing winds and tumultuous views worth it.

He did too. The wildness of the sea influenced the affairs of man on the coast. Society operated with slight differences. A bit less formality, even among the best families. Perhaps that was because when a bad storm blew inland, they all had to help each other, and niceties of station might get set aside for a day.

When a youth, he sometimes visited here during brief holidays from school. His own country manor sat far north, almost at the Scottish border, and too far away for short visits. Southwaite would invite him here instead. They rode along that coastal road, trying out his father’s racehorses, risking their necks in contests of speed or practicing dangerous saddle tricks.

As he approached the house, he remembered the first time he came here after his own father died. Too young to be formally invested with the title, he still had become Penthurst, superior in precedence even to Southwaite’s father. At school the manner of the tutors and fellow students changed immediately when that happened. Overnight he became more a title than a man, and he guessed at once that any friendship he had not already tested would never pass any test he created. Everyone wants something of dukes, even if it is only the social distinction of being friends.

Southwaite had spoken to him about that. First the father had, then the son who was not yet Southwaite. The earl sympathized, but cast it as the burden of duty. The son had mentioned it during one of those rides.

“Changes things, doesn’t it?” He had said as they slowly walked their mounts back to the stables at the horse farm. “Of course, you were always going to be a duke, and that is rare, while you can’t turn a corner at school without bumping into a future earl. But now that it has happened—do you mind, how it gives you authority you did not request?”

“The authority reminds me of that possessed by a tutor. Suddenly I am old before my time, seriously lacking in wit, and expected to forgo all fun.”

“It could be worse. You could be a
royal
duke.”

“I’ve heard nothing to indicate they feel obligated to behave well, so that would be better, not worse.”

Southwaite had a toothsome grin then, before his face caught up with his mouth and formed something handsome. “The girls should like it, though. Hell, you can probably command them at will. Their mamas will line them up for you.”

Would it have shocked Southwaite to learn then that the last duke of Penthurst had advised his son to dally not with those girls, but with the mamas in question? Less trouble that way.

“Well, I shan’t defer to you, so I hope you do not grow too accustomed to it. You start putting on more than the normal number of airs, and I’ll be done with you.”

“What do you mean, the normal number?”

“You’ve always had some. Comes with the expectations, I suppose.”

“I haven’t!”

“You have. Last spring when you were here you even scolded Lydia.”

“I did not scold her. I warned her that her governess was going to be angry that her shoes were covered in horse dung, and that it was dangerous to enter the corral with the stallions.”

“She was in there with
me
, so the scold was for me too, I suppose. Don’t deny it. But my point was who the hell are you to instruct my little sister? Yet no one said anything, did they? Because you were going to be a damned duke.” Southwaite reached over and gave his arm a good-natured punch. “I’m used to that much. More of it, though, and I’ll not be bowing to it, is all. You are not liking it now, but it could become a habit, having everyone grovel.”

No one had said anything partly because they thought he was supposed to marry little Lydia of the dung-covered shoes. Southwaite did not know that Lydia herself had not taken that scold in stride. Oh, her eyes had grown wide and her face had lengthened to the point shy of crying, but as he turned away he had seen her stomp one shoe back into a pile of dung, deliberately, and stick out her tongue at him.

In a manner of speaking, she had done the same thing at the theater last Friday, hadn’t she?

He pulled up his horse at the front of the house. Two grooms appeared at once, as if they waited for him. They led the horse away while he presented himself at the door.

The servant took his card away, then returned to escort him into the library. Lydia’s aunt Hortense, formally Lady Sutterly, widow to Sir Jonathan Sutterly, waited for him.

Like a ship’s figurehead, Lady Sutterly led with her bosom. Ample and broad in any style, it all but overwhelmed the current dresses. A discreet gauze covered the skin above her bodice, but that shelf of femininity announced the formidable personality in the head rising above it. Gray-haired and given to viewing the world through opera glasses attached to a long wand, “Aunt Hortense” appeared every inch a woman who did not suffer fools kindly.

“My dear duke!” Lady Sutterly performed a low curtsy of remarkable agility. “We are honored. Are you passing through the county? Are you in need of hospitality for the night?”

He had not intended that, but the offer opened all kinds of possibilities. “That is generous of you, if it will not inconvenience the household.”

“They will manage perfectly, as my nephew’s servants always do. The majority are in town with him, of course, but our comforts are met well enough.” She sat, and told the footman to bring brandy. “Lydia will be so distressed that she cannot come down for dinner. I am sure you would have enjoyed her conversation more than you will ever be amused by mine.”

“You are a most amiable hostess, and famous for spirited conversation, so I can have no fears about a dull dinner.”

Lady Sutterly smiled a smug acknowledgment of the rightness of her reputation.

“However, why will Lady Lydia not join us?” he asked.

“She took ill yesterday. She is on the mend, but must remain abed, of course.”

“Should not a physician be called?”

“To what end? To bleed her, or administer some tonic? She developed a small fever, but her maid reports that she is somewhat better today. I have seen such minor illnesses often in her. With several days of bed rest, all is well.”

“Does her brother know of these illnesses?”

“They pass so quickly there is no reason to write to him. Such things are easy to misunderstand from a letter’s description too. I would not want him to worry unduly, or to leave his wife to ride here. By the time he did, Lydia would be out riding herself, an instant reminder that he had wasted his time, if not his brotherly affection.”

She spoke as though all of this were a regular thing—Lydia turning ill, then sleeping it off in bed, and Southwaite never informed. Perhaps she believed that if Southwaite knew, he would not allow the aunt and niece to journey here together, alone, and her frequent respites near the sea would end.

They chatted awhile, then he left to make arrangements for his horse. With Lydia quarantined in her apartment, the evening promised to be far less fun than he had planned. Instead of goading her into a sweat about her debt, he would be listening to Lady Sutterly confide the local gossip.

Crownhill’s horse farm sat on distant property, across the main road. The manor house had stables too, however, and he assumed his mount had been brought there. Rather than send for his valise, he walked through the gardens and across the small field to the building.

Hay was being put down in the stalls. His horse appeared rubbed down and content to munch his dinner. Lifting the valise from where it had been set outside the stall, he turned to see an older groom laughing with a young woman with dark eyes and high, half-moon eyebrows. They sensed he watched and fell silent. The groom jerked his thumb at the woman. “Best get back to her.”