The Duchess Diaries: The Bridal Pleasures Series (11 page)

The excitement Gideon would stir in Charlotte’s heart if he married her would live forever.

“There’s nothing to do for it, Daphne. I have made my bed and now I must lie in it.”

Miss Peppertree put her hands on her hips. “I hope you realize that you’re not going to be lying in that bed alone.”

“No,” Charlotte mused. “I suppose I won’t. That is a sacrifice I shall have to make.”

“Miss Boscastle,” Ogden the butler said from behind the locked door. “The marquess has sent his carriage to collect you.”

“If I didn’t know you better, I would suspect that you schemed to bring this scandal about.”

“I didn’t,” Charlotte insisted.

But she had dreamed of it.

And sooner or later, Miss Peppertree, if not the entire world, would know exactly how scandalous her daydreams had been.

“What will happen to the academy?” Miss Peppertree asked, trailing her to the door and then into the hall, where the butler waited in impassive silence. “I won’t be able to find another position—Lady Clipstone won’t
hire me to wash her floors if there is any truth to this scandal.”

“It is
not
time to abandon ship yet.”

“Maybe not.” Miss Peppertree’s eyes glittered with tears behind her spectacles. “But it might be time to lash ourselves to the wheel and ride out the storm.”

G
ideon arrived at Grayson’s Park Lane mansion three minutes before noon the day after his ignominy. Throughout the previous night he had thought up several speeches to plead his case, but as it turned out, he arrived in the middle of a family argument. Grayson stood in the corner, as elegantly dressed as ever. Heath sat in a winged armchair as Drake and Devon engaged in verbal combat.

Gideon settled back in the chair he was offered and glanced up to study the plaster Jupiter on the ceiling.

“We will wait until the toddlers can behave,” Heath said with a sigh.

“I admit it,” Devon said from the window where he stood. “I encouraged Gideon to talk to Charlotte at the ball. She looked lonely and wistful. It was my fault that—”

“It usually is,” Drake said from the sofa, where he was sprawled out lengthwise with his eyes closed.

Devon tunneled his hand through his hair. “I didn’t think that simple kindness would lead to this.”

“That’s the trouble,” Drake murmured, and steepled his fingers on his chest as if sending up a prayer. “You never think. I can’t remember a time from childhood when you did.”

Devon snorted. “This criticism from a man who for years drank so much he couldn’t remember his own name in the morning?”

“Past imperfect,” Drake admitted with a smile. “We are older now, aren’t we?”

“You are,” Devon said. “Not me. I’m still an infant.”

“My point exactly.”

The broad-shouldered man slumped against the wall straightened. His voice broke through the argument like a thunderbolt. “Cease, the pair of you.”

Drake smiled at Devon. “The marquess has spoken. Let there be silence.”

Gideon glanced up in expectation. He was only casually acquainted with Grayson, a situation that he assumed would soon change. As the story went, the marquess had reluctantly become the patriarch to the London branch of his scandal-prone family when his father, Royden Boscastle, died. Grayson was said to be honorable, fair-minded, and good-natured.

But then, Gideon had never been caught in an indiscretion with one of Grayson’s relatives before. The marquess appeared to be anything but of a good nature this morning. In fact, unsmiling and heavy eyed, he looked as irascible and disgruntled as Gideon felt.

Heath, however, sounded cordial when he ventured his opinion. “Squabbling like schoolboys will not help
anyone. Why don’t we give Gideon a chance to explain what happened?”

“Devon asked me to approach Charlotte at the ball as a favor. And I did.”

“Was it a favor to invite her to your house?” Grayson asked with a deep scowl.

Gideon hesitated. Should he lie to protect her, taking on the role of a Lothario? Not if she had already admitted the truth. Yes. The truth was preferable, no matter how much pain it might cause. “She came to my house.” He concealed a smile as he remembered discovering her on his bedroom floor. “She
broke
in, I should say, in an apparent search for her diary. She made quite a muddle of my drawers.”

“Your—”

“
Wardrobe
drawers.”

“Why did you take her diary in the first place?” Devon inquired. “It’s an odd thing for a man to do, especially one who is meeting his mistress.”

What mistress?
he wondered. By now Gabrielle would have let the world know she was back on the market and that he was a heartless swine. His housekeeper shared the same opinion, as she had so eloquently demonstrated by serving him stone-cold coffee and a plate of stale tarts for breakfast.

“I found the diary in my carriage last night after the ball,” he said. “I thought I was protecting your cousin’s privacy by keeping it out of another’s hands.”

“That’s all well and good,” Grayson said. “But why were the pair of you caught in a compromising position in the dark?”

Gideon smiled thinly. “I wish I knew myself how to explain what happened. I can’t really give you an answer.
One thing led to another. Does the reason matter at this point?”

Heath shook his head. “Not if the outcome is a wedding. Is that a possibility?”

Gideon let a moment pass. “I enjoy a good duel now and then. But a match isn’t going to solve anything in this instance.”

“I was hoping that you would say that, Your Grace,” Heath said in palpable relief. “I have no desire to kill you.”

“Nor I you,” Gideon admitted.

Devon cleared his throat. “Well, I’d like to kill him.”

“Nobody asked you, genius,” Drake said with mild scorn.

“Girls, do stop quarreling,” Heath said.

Grayson heaved a sigh. “The damn wedding will have to take place as soon as possible. Gossip grows like a fungus in this city.”

“I’ll need a special license.”

“I disagree with you, Grayson,” Heath said, leaning back in his chair. “There should be a short if concentrated period of courtship before the ceremony. A public courtship would help avert some of the scandal. Two weeks or so should do.”

Grayson considered the suggestion and nodded slowly in accord. “I concede there is an art to wooing a young lady whom one does not love while convincing the world that one does.”

“In a fortnight?” Gideon asked, not hiding his skepticism.

“Yes,” Grayson said. “I shouldn’t need to explain how to go about it to a man of your experience. But as one scoundrel to another it is an intense but rewarding bit of work.”

Gideon glanced away. “And what do you suggest I do within this intense period of courtship?”

“You were caught in the dark with her, Wynfield,” Drake said without a trace of pity. “I’d guess you are capable of taking it from it there.”

“If I pursued her as ruthlessly as I have other women,” Gideon said, “she would go into hiding.”

Grayson shrugged. “Then you will have to smoke her out. Make her burn for you. If you go about it the right way, it might prove to be very rewarding. I think it would be appropriate for you to at least pretend you are in love.”

Gideon shifted in his chair. “Love? You will have to be more explicit in your advice.”

“Don’t tempt him,” Drake said with a grin.

Grayson looked at Gideon. “If you’re going to be married, you might as well make the most of the situation.”

“In public or in private?”

“That’s up to you, as long as you are altar-bound. A discreet announcement will immediately be placed in the papers. A formal celebration can wait.”

Drake started to laugh at Gideon. “You’re damned fortunate her brothers didn’t discover the two of you together.”

“It’s all water under the damn bridge now,” Grayson said magnanimously. “Wynfield is behaving with honor and honesty.” He frowned at Gideon. “And if I may be honest, you have my sympathy for landing in this mess, and my admiration for accepting your responsibility.”

“Well, the damage is done. I did not lure Charlotte to my house to debauch her. For what it is worth I swear I was astonished when she confessed that she had broken
in to find the missing diary. What followed afterward is impossible to explain.”

Heath stared at him. “The unsettling thing is that I believe every word you’ve said. But I must add in Charlotte’s defense that until this imbroglio she has never caused her family a spot of worry.”

“It was only a matter of time,” Drake said with a shrug. “She couldn’t stay innocent forever.”

Gideon frowned. “I believe that she is still innocent. It’s her diary that isn’t. What I read was…incendiary. We should take care that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

“It has to be found,” Heath agreed. “Are you sure, Gideon, that you left it in your carriage?”

“Yes. My coachman and staff have searched high and low for it, with no success.”

Devon leaned against the windowsill. “What could Charlotte have written that anyone would go to the trouble of stealing?”

Heath picked up a pen from Grayson’s desk. “I have the sense that we should find the diary first and ask questions later. I will instruct Sir Daniel Mallory to begin an investigation.” He rose from his chair and extended his hand to Gideon. “In the meantime let me be the first to welcome you to the family. And may God have mercy on your courageous soul.”

Gideon laughed.

With this agreement, an ancient machine ground into motion. Grayson would be accepted into Gideon’s circle, and vice versa. The two houses that could have ended up enemies had merged. A link had been forged without even a single person raising his voice.

T
he ladies of the family had gathered around Charlotte in Jane’s spacious bedchamber suite. The marchioness presided over the meeting that included Julia, Heath’s wife; Jocelyn, who belonged to Devon; and Eloise, a governess until Drake had swept her off her feet. Last, but perhaps the most lively, was Chloe, a Boscastle by birth, which was why no one in the family had been shocked to learn that she had hidden the man she loved in her closet while he hunted a murderer.

“Who is missing?” Jane demanded, standing in a circle of mismatched shoes, a champagne bottle in hand.

Julia picked a path through Jane’s elegant footwear, holding up her glass for a refill. “Eleanor and Sebastian are in the Highlands. Alethea and Gabriel never leave the country or each other’s company. Emma and Adrian will be on the way as soon as they hear the latest. And I know there’s someone else I’m forgetting—”

“Where is Harriet?” Jane asked, filling Julia’s flute without a drop spilled.

Chloe turned briefly from the looking glass, where she stood fluffing her cropped black curls. “She told Weed that she would find Charlotte’s diary no matter what she had to do.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Jane remarked.

Chloe smiled. “I do. I wish she’d ask me to join the adventure.”

“Adventure,” Jane said with a frown. “That’s one way to look at it.”

“How did I allow this to happen?” Charlotte whispered. She was slumped in a blue velvet chair at Jane’s escritoire. Her head was buried in the crook of her arm. She presented a picture of classical misery, although the only earnest understanding she had provoked was from Jocelyn, who was expecting her second child and therefore was prone to universal empathy.

“There is no point in crying over spilled ink,” Jane said practically. “We must view this for the blessing in disguise it is. Grayson will persuade Gideon what a delightful wife you’ll make, and that is that.”

Charlotte lifted her head, studying the marchioness with skepticism. “Blessing? Either you have had too much Cliquot or I haven’t had enough. The duke will resent me for the rest of his life. He was my dream. I am his nightmare.”

“But if you had to be caught with anyone, at least it was a duke,” Julia said as she bent to prop a pillow beneath Jocelyn’s feet. “Besides, you would have to leave the academy sooner or later.”

“Why?” Charlotte asked bleakly, dropping her head
back on her arm. “Why did I ever write a single word? Why did I not take my own advice? How often have I warned the girls to never put their incriminating thoughts on paper?”

“Dominic read my diary when he was trapped in my bedroom,” Chloe mused. “He was quite nasty about it, too, as I recall. He mocked me. And then he seduced me, or I seduced him. It’s irrelevant now, I suppose. We are married and our past sins with each other were swept under the veil.”

“But at least you had an element of choice,” Julia said, walking in front of the window like a barrister in court.

“No, we didn’t,” Chloe retorted. “Dominic threatened every manner of vile misfortune on me if I gave him away. He was a dead man and a very desperate one, if you’ll recall. The beast bullied me around until I took charge.”

“But he adores you,” Jane said, frowning at Jocelyn in concern. “Are you comfortable, Jocelyn? You look like a hedgehog, the way you are sitting. All I can see of you is your nose and an enormous ball of brown taffeta.”

Chloe nodded in agreement. “Devon was uncommonly large when he was born, too.”

“He still is,” Jocelyn said, uncrossing her ankles with an incriminating smile that stopped the conversation for a full half minute.

“I appreciate what all of you are trying to do,” Charlotte said. “I even appreciate Harriet’s efforts on my behalf, despite the fact that it was her neglect, coupled with my romantic self-indulgence, that caused this misfortune. And—”

She broke off, distracted by the sight of Jane staring down the neck of her empty champagne bottle. “And
what?” Jane prompted, gesturing with an equally empty glass.

“And— Oh. None of you understand. I am not waiting for a well-intentioned scoundrel to reform or for the viscount I’ve concealed in my closet to ask for my hand.”

Jocelyn’s arms and legs flailed for several moments before she abandoned her efforts to sit up properly. “If it’s any consolation, Charlotte, Devon didn’t marry me of his own free will.”