The Accidental Duchess (23 page)

“A few farms in Derbyshire kept him in cravats and brandy. He could eke out something resembling a fashionable life on those rents, but he had to watch every shilling.”

“He used to joke when in his cups about his country manor. I assumed from how he referred to it that it was not a manor at all. Was that house in Derbyshire?”

“You mean Dunner Park.” Ambury chuckled. “I knew him two years before I realized the name was a joke. I don’t think Dunner Park, whatever its size or condition, was up there. Hampshire, I think it was. He had a spot of property there that he would go down to on occasion. Maybe fifty acres.”

Cassandra arrived then to steal Ambury away. Penthurst wandered out to the street amid the remnants of the guests. Ambury’s information had not told him much on the face of it. It had added some nuances regarding Lakewood’s lack of fortune, but little more.

Unless he wanted to count the information about “Dunner Park.” That all but confirmed that Lydia had gone to Hampshire to find answers to questions that involved the man who had been lord of the manor there.

 • • • 

“N
ow, this is odd,” Lydia said upon reading a letter that came in the post from London. “Do you remember how I said that I could not find my trunk? I looked everywhere. The attics and cellars and every chamber. It had disappeared. I wrote to my aunt Amelia asking what had become of it.”

“Did your aunt send it back to town, when she knew you were not going to return?”

“Here is what she wrote:
I had the man put it in the barn with the other things, so it would not be in the way
.” She looked over at Sarah. “What other things? What man? The caretaker?”

“What barn? There is no barn here.”

“Perhaps she meant the carriage house. Let us go see.”

They crossed the garden toward its back portal. Lydia glanced at the stone bench when they passed it. She could sit there now and not be sucked into nostalgia. With effort and sheer will she had banished any ghosts from the house and garden.

The rest still waited. The paths of those long walks, the kiss under the tree deep in Forest of Bere, the words both ambiguous and incriminating. Tomorrow she would start looking honestly at the hardest parts.

The carriage house stood to one side of the garden’s back wall, about a hundred feet behind. No carriages lined the left wall. No horses ate hay in the enclosed stalls on the other side.

She walked down the center, looking for the trunk. In the third horse stall she found furniture heaped in a jumble. She recognized some of it as having once graced the house. She peered around and through the pile.

“Help me. I think I see it.”

Together she and Sarah moved small tables and chairs. Underneath it all lay her trunk.

“This furniture perhaps holds memories of my aunt’s husband, and she had it removed. As long as a man was doing that, she must have decided to move this too.” Lydia crouched down and examined the latches on the trunk. She had never locked it. She flipped the top open.

Clothing lay at the top. Sarah shook out and held up each piece.

“Take what you want, and sell the rest for your own purse,” Lydia said while she moved aside some books.

“Are you sure? This dress—”

“I am very sure.”

She stacked the books on the stall’s floorboards. She plucked out a little doll that she had forgotten she had packed. She could not remember why she had brought it. She had not been a child that visit, and had left dolls far behind.

More followed. A small box of jewelry, filled with simple but favored items she had concluded were lost. The sheet music of a song she was trying to learn. A sketchbook. She resisted flipping through it because she knew what it contained.

Long before she hit bottom she knew the manuscript was not there.

She sat back on her heels and surveyed the contents. She knew she had not brought it back to London, but she had searched her apartment in her brother’s house anyway, to make sure her vague memory was correct. She had placed that novel in this trunk, and now it was gone. So Trilby indeed had it all, most likely. She had hoped perhaps he did not.

She piled the books and the rest back into the trunk. “Bring the garments if you want. I must write to my aunt again.” She needed to know the name of the man who moved the trunk, and whether anyone else had access to its contents after she returned to London.

 • • • 

T
wo mornings later Penthurst shared breakfast with his aunt. She made sure he regretted it.

“Her absence from town is all the talk. You allowing it is very odd. You must make her return or people will think you are one of those men who indulges his bride to the point of idiocy.” She sank her teeth into a cake with a firmness that suggested the cake would suffer what she thought Lydia deserved—a thorough chewing out.

“I doubt my reputation will be affected at all,” he said.

“How like a man to believe that. There are names for men made weak like Sampson by a female.”

“There are? Enlighten me.” He raised his gaze from his paper and feigned curiosity.

She blushed. “It would be vulgar for me to repeat them. They are very rude names. Not something to be said in decent company.”

“Yet you know them, and I do not. I suppose that means my company is more decent than yours.” He returned to his paper. Tsking and sputtering sounded across the table.

The butler brought the first post’s mail into the breakfast room. Rosalyn’s big stack would occupy her for a good while. Penthurst’s smaller one heralded a week of private meetings while the government considered some secret overtures from France for negotiations to end the war. Not only ministers had written, although the number who wanted a private word was interesting. Two junior treasury appointments and three members of parliament had requested audiences too. He assumed some controversy was brewing and most of these letters came from men wanting him to exert influence, not impart useful information.

At the bottom of the stack, a different sort of letter waited. Thick, and written in a hand he did not immediately recognize, it had been posted in London the afternoon before. He set it aside while he read the others and calculated which he could decline.

“Has she at least written?” Rosalyn asked while pretending to be distracted by her own letters.

“I received a letter yesterday afternoon. I am sure you do not expect her to write twice in twenty-four hours.”

“I can guess what happened, and I think you are handling it wrong.” Her voice dripped with sympathetic understanding. “Her maid can hardly give her advice. She needs to talk to an older woman with experience in these things. Her aunt Amelia, for example.”

The oddity of her new tone and words eventually settled into his mind. He set aside the letter. He rested his chin in his hand. “What do you think happened?”

“Surely you do not expect me to speak of it.”

“I do expect it. I am very curious. Your insights are often enlightening. ”

She flustered while she avoided answering. He just waited. She found her courage and firmed up her face and tone. “You shocked her, of course. Everyone thinks so. All those older mistresses jaded you and you became too . . . ambitious with her.”

“You mean in bed.”

His bluntness horrified her so much that he wondered absently if she had her salts on her, should they be necessary.

“By too ambitious, you mean that I made her—”

“There is no need to say what you made her do, thank you very much. I am sure that if you write and apologize and promise to confine such vulgarities to the women who are paid well to tolerate them, Lydia will return and all will be well.”

“And everyone thinks this is the reason Lydia went down to the country?”

“Of course. Why else would you allow her to leave?”

He returned to his breakfast. “I am very sorry she was not here for this conversation, Rosalyn.”

“No doubt. It would avoid your having to raise the subject yourself. Yet you must.”

“I promise to do so, in great detail.” That odd letter caught his eye again. Still imagining Lydia’s laughter when he described this extraordinary breakfast with Rosalyn, he lifted it and broke the seal.

Two pages fell open. One had been torn from an agenda or diary book. He recognized Lydia’s hand. Puzzled, he scanned down the words. It consisted of a list of ships.

He picked up the other page. None other than Algernon Trilby had written.

My Lord Duke,

As you can see, both your and the duchess’s reputations are in grave danger. She has put me off repeatedly as to the fair reimbursement for my time and trouble in procuring the documents from which the enclosed page derives. Her last attempt to do so resulted in a laughable amount. I am sure that you will comprehend the seriousness of the situation more than it appears she does, and will want this settled and behind us all.

He read both pages again while his temper grew darker and darker. Two thoughts managed to survive the onslaught of fury. The first was that he was sorry he had not followed through on that duel with Trilby. The second was that he now knew what the hell Lydia had been doing in Buxton. This tiresome man had not been courting her. He had been blackmailing her.

He collected all the mail and strode up to his chambers, calling to the servants to get his horse ready. Appointments with ministers be damned. He intended to find Trilby and thrash him senseless.

 • • • 

M
arcus Trilby, artist, lived in an airy loft of an attic, one full of light, canvases, paint smells, and a chaise longue on which his model, a girl who looked to be about fifteen, lay stark naked. She held a broken urn that presumably symbolized her lost innocence. The painting in progress made the most of that urn, to impart a moral context to a sentimental and erotic painting that looked like it would appeal to the kinds of men who favored the girls that Lydia’s school sought to save.

The artist bore some resemblance to the magician with his fair hair and thin face. Excitement descended on him as soon as he read the card in his hand. “Oh! Please come in, Your Grace. Whatever I can do for you— Cover yourself, Katy! Uh, unless, Your Grace, you would prefer—”

“Tell the girl to leave, please.”

“Out with you, Katy. Take your clothes and dress down in the kitchen.” Trilby the artist threw the child out, then offered his guest a seat on that same chaise longue. He began pulling paintings from their stacks and setting them out for view. “I am overwhelmed, Your Grace. That a collector such as you sought me out—it is a dream come true, especially after the Royal Academy disappointment. Did you learn of my art from a friend? If so, I would be grateful to know the name so I can express my gratitude.”

“I am sorry that you have misunderstood. I did not come here to add to my collection. I am seeking a relative of yours that I am told lives here. Mr. Algernon Trilby.”

He stopped his busy activity. He stood before the paintings, disappointed.

“Algernon is my cousin. He does not live here as such. When he comes to town he uses an extra chamber I have, that is true, but it is not his primary residence.”

“Is he using it now?”

“He left just this morning. He said he might return in a week or fortnight.”

Damnation. The blackmail letter was burning a hole in his pocket. He had looked forward to making Algernon Trilby eat it, quite literally.

“If this is not his primary domicile, where does he live?”

“At his family home. He came by it when his father died. He and his sister live there, although of late he has been coming up to town. He does these silly little tricks with cards that the ladies think are fun. He has been doing quite well since I made his first introductions.” He looked at his paintings and spoke the last sentence with resentment.

“I would like to write to him. Would you be kind enough to give me his postal address?”

“Of course. However he may not be there now. He spoke about going to Brighton, to a house party of some lady who likes his tricks. I expect he will be performing there before going back home.” He pushed aside some palettes to reveal a writing table underneath. He found a scrap of paper and a colored chalk stick and began jotting. He stopped quickly, and looked over cautiously. “Say, he is not in some trouble, is he?”

“Do you think he might be?”

“Not at all.” He wrote a bit more, then stopped again. “It is odd for a duke to come around looking for him, however. He has not done so well as that. And those magic tricks of his—some men use them for ill gains.”

“Does he?”

“If you are here because you think he does, you are wrong. I think he tried, but he became clumsy so he gave up.”

“Yet he did try.”

Trilby the artist flushed. “Once or twice, I believe. Not so long ago he did again, and failed. He returned here the next time very disappointed in himself. I wondered if he was lying, because he seemed to have a nice amount of money suddenly.”

“That is all very interesting, but this is not about his magic tricks.”

He waited to hear what it was about. Penthurst gestured to the desk. “The address?”

With a startle, he recalled his intentions. He jotted several lines, folded the scrap so the chalk would not smear, and handed it over. “I will write myself and tell him that you called.”

“Please do not. I would prefer that my own letter be a surprise.” He rose to go, but paused to examine the paintings. “Your technique reminds me of Claude. Perhaps you should try landscapes.”

“Claude? Do you really think so?”

“Absolutely. The best part of landscapes is you do not have to pay models. Which reminds me—that girl who was here—in the future, I would like you to require her mother come with her. If I ever return to look more closely at your art, I would not want to walk into a situation that compromises one so young again, and by association me. Having a guardian present is how it is done in France.”

“It is?” Trilby shadowed him all the way out. “Oh, yes, absolutely. I will insist her mother attend too. I look forward to your return, and will try to have some landscapes for you to see.”