The Accidental Duchess (9 page)

“I
f it rains again, I may cry,” Lydia said while she and Sarah once more trod through Hyde Park. It was already damp enough without any rain and the air carried a frigid bite, such as autumn days could do unpredictably.

“If it does, do not blame me.”

“Why not? We came this morning so you could flirt.”

“I think we came so you could talk to that pale, thin gentleman again. He is waiting up ahead.”

Algernon Trilby indeed waited, much more conspicuously than the last time. He stood cockily, propped up by a walking stick angled away from his leg in a strong diagonal and locked in the hand of one outstretched arm.

The militia paced through their formations. Lydia had not asked her brother to obtain the schedule of which militias used the park which days. Rather she had approached his secretary, and confided Sarah’s infatuation. The sandy-haired citizen soldier now bestowed one of his smiles when he noticed her.

Leaving Sarah to gawk, Lydia walked a further hundred feet to Mr. Trilby. She did not allow him a greeting before she launched into her rehearsed speech.

“I have a good amount of what you require, Mr. Trilby. Not on my person now, of course. However, things are well under way, and we only need to reach an understanding and I will hand it over, and set about obtaining the rest.”

He pivoted his walking stick to and fro while he gazed out on the park. His eyes narrowed beneath the brim of his hat. He shifted his weight, placed one hand on one hip, and looked like a man pretending to be in a fashion plate.

That made her notice his garments. They appeared new, and a cut or two above what he normally wore. His yellow waistcoat bordered on flamboyant. The scoundrel must be spending freely, based on his expectations of fleecing her.

“I think not,” he finally said. “I am sorry. I misspoke on the amount.”

Overcome with relief, she almost hugged him. “I knew you to be a decent man. Ten thousand pressed your advantage rather steeply. Even a thousand would, although of course if that is what you want I will—”

“You misunderstand. It was not too steep. Rather it was too low.”

“Good heavens, have some sense. There is no point in demanding more than I can ever lay my hands on.”

“I have been contemplating that conundrum. I have hit upon a way to ensure you can pay it.”

“I trust it is a fair solution.”

“Fair and generous, I believe. As I pondered the question, an idea came to mind. Your reputation for luck at gaming kept presenting itself to my thoughts. Combined with my own at magic tricks, we might make a good partnership.”

He meant that he and she could cheat in partnership. He would use sleight of hand to stack the decks, but she would win. No one would question if she did, since she always won. Almost always, she corrected herself.

“Not here, of course,” Trilby added. “One of the spa towns, I think. Buxton, for example. It is far enough from London, and not too fashionable. We will not be well-known there.”

His intentions revolted her. His clear delineation of his plan surprised her. He had thought it through with distressing thoroughness. Buxton’s wells and spa attracted the right sort of people. The sort who gambled after a day taking the waters. Being up in Derbyshire near the Peaks, it did not attract the same circles that spent most of their time in London, however.

She would not do this. She would find a way out of it. For now, however, she needed to appease him rather than anger him.

“If you are determined, I agree that Buxton would do,” she said.

“See how already our partnership is productive? We should each go there next week, I think. Why, in two days you should find your luck has created untold riches.”

“The week after would be better.”

His lids lowered. “You are the one who demanded a rapid settlement. Shall we agree to both be in Buxton by Thursday? We will spend a day discussing strategy and plans, then get to it right away.”

She agreed, then walked back to Sarah and dragged her maid away.

Whenever she thought she had found a resolution to Mr. Trilby’s threats, she only ended up in more trouble. She was supposed to go to the coast next week. Penthurst would be writing with the plans any day now.

She would just have to put Penthurst off again.
My Lord Duke, I regret that my deflowering will have to be postponed another week or so. I need to help my blackmailer cheat innocent people out of thousands of pounds on the day you have in mind
.

She might as well actually write that. It was so absurd he would never believe it, anyway.

 • • • 

L
ydia had spent the last year restless, almost frantically so, and dissatisfied with her very ordinary life. Suddenly it had turned extraordinary in the most bizarre ways, and she rather longed for the old predictability and lack of even minimal drama.

So it was that the invitation to the theater appealed to her. A night surrounded by family and closest friends would be a respite.

Then she learned that Penthurst was coming too.

“Why is
he
going to be there?” She and Emma sat in Cassandra’s dressing room discussing the evening, and Cassandra had tacked on that unwelcomed name after rattling off the usual ones.

“The whole purpose of the party is to help Kendale and Marielle, by showing the world they have friends who accept Marielle despite her birth. If a duke is in the box with us, and that duke in particular— It will do more than the rest of us can hope to achieve in years of effort,” Cassandra said. “I coached Ambury for an hour on how to propose the evening in Penthurst’s presence and try to have him included.”

“But Kendale does not even approve of Penthurst.”

“Kendale did not object, so why should you?” Emma pointed out. “The duke might be doing it as a peace offering, or to at least put Kendale in a more friendly frame of mind.”

That left her with no alternative except to sulk. “It will not be as much fun as I anticipated. Now I regret putting off my visit to Crownhill.”

“Do not be a goose. Aunt Hortense said that she could not accompany you until Monday,” Emma said.

“I fully intended to travel to Crownhill by myself.”

Cassandra became engrossed in unsnarling a silver chain that lay on her dressing table. Emma chose that moment to pull over a footstool and prop up her feet.

“Without a chaperone,” Lydia added.

Her friends looked at each other. Cassandra sighed and let the silver chain drop to the table. “Lydia, the truth is most everyone worries what you will do if allowed to go about on your own.”

“For all we know, you would become a pirate,” Emma said. “Or a highwayman. You ride well enough for that.”

Cassandra swallowed a giggle. “That smuggler that Southwaite knows asked after you once, and Ambury told me your brother almost killed him. Ambury said he thought Southwaite suspected the fellow had a partner’s interest more than a lover’s. A peculiar notion for a brother to entertain, so he clearly fears what you are capable of.”

“Like going to gaming hells like Morgan’s,” Emma said.

Lydia groaned. “How does he know about that? Penthurst must have told him! He promised he would not. See? Penthurst is not a man to be trusted or admired and—”

“No one told him. If anyone had, I think you would be on your way to a convent in France, and damn the war,” Emma said. “I learned of it, but your brother did not.”

Cassandra’s guilty expression showed who had done the telling.

“Cassandra was with me,” Lydia pointed out. “I did not go alone. And that hardly means that if left to my own devices, I will become a pirate or a highwayman.”

“I speak metaphorically, Lydia,” Emma responded. “Replace pirate with anything thrilling, daring, romantic, and of questionable legality.”

Like being a sharper with Algernon Trilby.

Cassandra, instead of defending her, picked up the silver chain again. “So, it is settled. You will tolerate Penthurst, and he you, and we will all have a wonderful time while we help Marielle brave it out in that box.”

 • • • 

P
enthurst found Lydia’s efforts to avoid him at the theater comical. He only needed to shift his weight to set her moving, seeking spots where at least two people served as a barrier from him.

On the few occasions they acknowledged each other, her color rose fast. That had just happened, and now Lydia spoke with Lady Kendale, keeping all of her attention on the bride, pretending the wall they stood beside were not less than fifteen feet from the wall where Penthurst stood.

Kendale’s wife probably was the loveliest woman in the box, if one judged by the strictest external qualities. Willowy, and blessed with delicate, elegant features and luxurious golden brown hair, Marielle made as good a viscountess as she had made a spy. Not that she had actually been a spy. Or so Kendale believed. Her French accent, long suppressed, still colored her inflections when she spoke, and French insouciance still touched her manner.

She had sought a few private words with Penthurst when he first arrived, and spoken with disarming honesty. “My husband, he tells me that he gave you a little book that I brought out of France, and that you made arrangements for it to go back, to men who are trustworthy. He tells me that you reported all worked as planned, and that the contents of the book were used to bring down he who threatened me. Thanks to you, I am safe now, forever.”

She had taken his hand then, in an unexpected gesture. Holding it in both of hers, she had kissed his ring.

Kendale, noticing, had stepped in and gently extricated hand from hand. “We do not do that here, Marielle. He isn’t a Catholic bishop.”

Marielle proved incapable of embarrassment. “However the gesture is made, you have my gratitude forever.”

“He simply saw that justice would be done,” Kendale said.

“A fine and fair justice it was,” she said, her eyes gleaming with gratitude.

“That is the only kind,” Kendale said, taking her away.

The look Marielle shot over her shoulder as she left indicated she knew justice often came with ambiguities, even if her husband did not agree.

Now Lydia spoke with Marielle about something that animated them both. Yes, objectively Marielle was the lovelier, but he preferred Lydia’s appearance. Tonight her dark eyes did not stare like opaque disks but showed depths with lights and thought. Her pale skin did not appear ghostly, but fashionable and touched with healthy little flushes high on her cheeks. Her pale yellow dress flattered her height and, he realized, her figure. Her breasts swelled in perfect high mounds above the beribboned high waist and the soft fabric flowed around a lithe, long-legged womanly shape.

His imagination followed where these observations led, and soon Lydia stood there naked except for her headdress and hose. He liked what he saw. Enough that he watched while she moved again, walking to the front of the box to chat with the other ladies, her gently curved hips swaying just enough to be provocative, her bottom beautifully and erotically swelled.

He tore his gaze away, thinking it was a damned shame that honor demanded he let Lydia out of that debt. As he shifted his attention, he noticed that two pair of eyes had been watching him.

One pair belonged to Ambury who watched so blandly he might not have detected the thoughts behind that long gaze at Lydia. Except men always knew when other men were thinking such things, and Ambury surely had. He displayed no curiosity and no surprise as he returned his attention to his wife. Ambury more than most would know that carnal calculations enter men’s minds all the time, and often for little purpose.

The other pair of eyes, however, belonged to Southwaite. There had been surprise in Southwaite’s expression in that moment when Penthurst caught him watching. Confusion too, as if he had never considered his sister a potential object of lust. Then again, perhaps Southwaite merely wondered what if anything he should do, and how much trouble this might herald. Their world generally agreed that a man did not seduce a friend’s sister, aunt, or—heaven forbid—mother, but that did not mean it never happened.

Feeling guilty for his friend’s dismay but not for the reason, Penthurst walked to Lydia.

It was time to let her know that he would not hold her to the wager.

As he approached, he overheard her speaking to Emma.

“I will wait on Aunt Hortense until Monday, but not a day later. I will be at Crownhill by week’s end with or without her.”

Emma noticed him behind Lydia. Lydia turned with a start. Seeing no escape, she collected herself and greeted him, finally. Meanwhile Emma turned aside and became immersed in a conversation with Cassandra.

“The play is humorous, don’t you think?” Lydia asked, choosing to look at the stage rather than at him.

“I would not know. I have not heard a word the actors spoke thus far.”

“This playwright is known for humor, however.”

“Then humorous it must be.” Out of such inanities were conversations made. “I could not help but overhear that you intend a journey to the coast next week.”

She tried to become a sphinx, but the mask would not form. She flushed from hairline to neck, and sneaked worried glances at him. He was about to launch into a quick, merciful announcement of clemency, when she managed to collect herself.

“I do intend that journey,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes. “However, not for the reason you may assume. The purpose you have in mind will have to wait . . . due to this other engagement that I have. I am so sorry.”

His good intentions disappeared in a blink.

She displayed no sense of obligation even though the wager had been at her insistence. Instead of simply asking for his mercy, she meant to put him off indefinitely. It was damned well safe to say that if she had won instead of him, she would have demanded the ten thousand in gold bullion within the day. Having lost, however, she treated the entire matter as her prerogative to ignore.

So much for learning her lesson.

“I think not, Lydia.”

“You think not that you will have to wait? There can be no choice on that, I assure you.”