The Wild Duchess/The Willful Duchess (The Duchess Club Book 1) (13 page)

Poor thing! It makes a person want to steal her away and do whatever it takes to teach her how to blink…

“She has also come out this Season, though of course, with a presentation to Her Majesty, it is an altogether different experience than yours I suspect.” Lady Durham reached out a gloved hand to finger a bolt of fabric laid out on the counter, her lip curled in distaste.

“Yes,” Scarlett replied softly. “How wonderful for you, Miss Charlotte.”

Charlotte was stone and Scarlett abandoned the effort to appease the girl.

“Well, we were just on our way to—”

“Miss Blackwell, if I may say, I am extremely close friends with Lady Aldridge and can scarce believe the rumors that you have brought Chesterton to heel. Is it true?”

Scarlett gave her Ivy a look, begging her silently for privacy and after a few seconds, she obliged, retreating from a woman who was clearly not interested in anyone’s company but Scarlett’s. Ivy gave her an apologetic glance, retreating far enough for decorum but close enough to still come to her friend’s aid should the need arise.

I can do this. I am a woman grown. She is an unkind gossip just fishing for a bite and once she realizes there’s nothing to be gained, she’ll beg off and dear Madame Beecher can endure her for a while.

“I am sure you did not mean to compare His Grace to a foxhound, Lady Durham,” Scarlett said with a smile. “Rumors are so rarely trustworthy.”

“Yet these persist,” Lady Durham said firmly. “Everywhere I go, someone is spitting out your name, Miss Blackwell.”

“Oddly, I hear almost nothing of it for which I am very grateful.”

“Grateful? You should be terrified, Miss Blackwell.”

“Terrified? That is—what a strong word. I am…simply enjoying my first Season and honored to meet so many illustrious people.”

Lady Durham shook her head slowly, her eyes filled with a mockery of sympathy. “Such a pretty thing as yourself—has no one offered you a bit of guidance? It’s a pity but allow me to see if I can amend the oversight. For you see, women do not climb. They cling to the rung of the ladder they are born to and if they are smart, they never loosen their hold for a single moment. If they let go, they fall. Down is the only direction a woman can tumble.”

Scarlett did her best to hold her ground. “A woman can marry well, can’t she? Improve her situation?”

The dowager’s laugh was like ice breaking over sharp gravel, sending chills down Scarlett’s spine. “Of course, undisciplined infatuation can on a rare occasion overtake reason and civilized social order. It has happened. Naturally never without consequences and not often enough to give decent people of good breeding and taste much tolerance for it.”

“Naturally.” She echoed the word without any emotion, hating the flood of shame that threatened to overtake her.

“If a woman is very foolish and strives to overreach, if she looks too high above her position and strives to tread where she should not…” Lady Durham sighed for effect but it came out more as a snarl of disgust. “I have no sympathy for them when they discover that it can be very cold on the wrong side of people’s doors and for that matter, on the streets of London if that is where they land.”

Scarlett’s shock and anger was instantaneous. She shifted to try to get around the woman and her skirts without a care to decorum. “I think I should go.”

“Yes, I agree.” Lady Durham smiled. “Though I did enjoy the entertainment of seeing you for myself. I had heard so much of Blackwell Beauties that I was afraid I would have to buy a ticket and attend some grubby gypsy tent for my chance. But see? You saved me the indignity. How very generous of you.”

She attacks me without realizing that it’s all a ruse with Chesterton. But what would she say if she knew about Stafford?

“I find that generosity is easy when I perceive a lack of it in others.”

Lady Durham stiffened, triumph bleeding away from her expression. “May I speak more frankly to you, Miss Blackwell?”

“You…weren’t being frank before?” Scarlett blinked in horror. “By all means, your ladyship. Do express your thoughts as directly as you desire.”

“Finer ladies from the best families have long been in pursuit of the Duke of Chesterton for a match. If, and I would stress that word,
if
the duke is finally considering abandoning bachelorhood, then it will not be a woman like you who will win him. He will marry where there is an advantage for him to do so.”

“How pragmatic of him.”

“You doubt the veracity of my words?”

“Not at all.”

“Your great grandfather may have made a fortune in trade but I have it on good authority that before Gordon Blackwell, your family consisted of carters and shipbuilders.” Lady Durham sniffed the air as if the very mention of men in the trades evoked the smell of sweat and grime. “Carpenters and shifters without an acre to call their own.”

Silence engulfed Scarlett as she had to bite her tongue so hard that she brought tears to her eyes. “How is that not a compliment? Is it not a better testament to those men that they did more than survive, but thrived?”

Lady Durham shook her head. “Careful, dear. Your American blood has watered down your sensibilities. Best not let Chesterton hear you sputtering such nonsense.”

Ivy came up behind her the sweetest smile on her face, a small sample of lace in her hand. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. It is generous of you to note how resourceful her ancestors have been but I must collect my friend and see her off to another shop. The air has grown stale in here and we are sorely in need of fresh and less hateful air. Pardon us, your ladyship but if you don’t stand aside to allow us to pass, it may become quite the tale, wouldn’t you agree?”

“What?” Lady Durham asked sharply.

Ivy’s smile never changed. “Gossip. I wonder what they will make of a woman of your standing throwing temper tantrums in a public shop and insulting a young girl who has done nothing to earn your displeasure beyond accepting a few dances with a duke
when he asked her to dance.
Would it not draw attention to your situation? Would not those same wagging tongues ask how many times the Duke of Chesterton has waltzed with your animated offspring? Or would that answer provide a better clue to your attack today?”

“H-how dare you!”

“Come, Scarlett. Lady Durham was about to stand aside and let us leave. Wasn’t she?” Ivy asked the last directly to Lady Durham. “Or was there more about bloodlines and ladders she wished to convey?”

If Lady Durham had disliked Scarlett, she loathed Ivy with a savage and open expression of disgust, but in any case, she stepped aside trembling with rage.

Ivy dropped the lace at Lady Durham feet and pulled Scarlett away. “Come away, dearest. Let’s leave Lady Durham to the delights of shopping with her lovely and vivacious daughter and see if we cannot make a stop at the milliner’s.”

Scarlett nodded and numbly allowed herself to be led away.

It wasn’t until they were nearly at the carriage that she found her voice. “Ivy?”

“Yes?”

“Can you do me a vast favor?”

“Of course! Anything!”

“Swear you will always be my friend because…as an enemy, I think I should throw myself into the Thames rather than face you.”

“Was I terrifying?” Ivy asked, preening happily.

“Like a villain out of Aunt Grace’s penny dreadfuls!”

“Just so! I was trying to sound like that evil empress, do you remember? The one who could drink people’s souls out of them just by looking into their eyes?”

“Oh! You were brilliant!” Scarlett stared at her in wonder. “You were incredibly brilliant! Aren’t you nervous about what she’ll do?”

“I’m the daughter of a painter and as obscure as a ghost to her. And who will she tell? What would she say? That an eighteen-year-old dressed her down publicly and left her speechless? I think she’d rather die first.”

“I am in awe of you, Ivy Hastings.”

“I shall perform whenever you need me if you’ll do me an immense favor in return.”

“Yes!”

“Wait!” Ivy laughed as they climbed up into the waiting carriage. “You don’t know what the favor is yet!”

“I don’t care! Now that I know your hidden talent, I feel immensely better and just a little bit invincible.”

Ivy sighed as they settled into their seats. “It’s a deal with the devil but I’m holding you to it!”

“I find those are the best bargains and when they are not, I always have a better story to tell at the dinner table.” Scarlett announced and then both of them dissolved into giggles, any pretense of being grown-ups abandoned to mirth and friendship.

S
carlett made it home
, exhausted from the shopping trip but less bruised than she might have been without Ivy’s swift defense. She removed her bonnet to hand it over to the footman and realize that her handsome father was waiting for her on the stairs.

“Did Starr buy a few things as well?”

“No, Father…she preferred to stay home and I ended up going with Ivy.”

“She promised me she would go shopping.” He furrowed his brow, a man unused to being disobeyed.

“Did you specify that she must shop for dresses? For I warrant she will happily comply and be on Burke and Waters’ doorstep tomorrow for as many books as she can carry.” Scarlett took his arm to walk up the stairs together. “Don’t be cross with her please, Father. If you wish it, I could drag her out for a new gown but I think she would rather be beaten. Or a better solution, since she and I are the same size, I can shop twice as often and spare everyone the misery of it!”

“This alliance of yours is daunting.”

“You cannot fuss at her. After all, she takes after Mother, doesn’t she? How is that not pleasing to you?”

“It pleases me beyond measure.” He sighed and covered the hand on his arm with his own. “You both please me beyond measure. Are you having a good Season, dearest?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Is there…anything you’d like to talk about?”

“No, Father.”

“Are you sure? Tell me what has you looking so anxious over there, Button.”

“I think I’m just flummoxed by the puzzle of men.” Scarlett looked at him as they hesitated on the first floor landing, tipping her head to one side as if studying him from a different angle would yield a better view. “Father, were you truly a rogue when you were younger?”

Ashe smiled. “I was. It is a miracle your mother saw anything worth salvaging when she met me. Though perhaps, not at first…”

“When you met Mother, did you like her right away?”

Ashe smiled. “Upon our first meeting, I wanted to strangle her. Love came later and when it did, I was…transformed.” He didn’t need to say anything else.

“I don’t believe that is true for most men, Father. I think if they are villains then they remain villains. I think it is foolish to think that love alone can change someone if they are set against it.”

“You are probably right, Button. Best to choose a man who requires as little additional training as possible.” He cleared his throat. “So, tell me about your duke then.”

“My duke?” Scarlett stiffened. “I…have no duke.”

“Scarlett. I may be older but I am not yet senile. The dances, the crowd of callers outside my doors, the press, not to mention the man going out of his way to introduce himself at Pellham’s. I know what a man in pursuit looks like and the Duke of Chesterton is in the hunt.”

Thank God. I thought he meant Talon for a moment and—then what could I say?

“What do you think of him?”

“I like him. I want to play cards with him. He’s nearly my age, Scarlett.”

“Then he is not
so
old, Father. Besides, he has been a gentleman and a true friend. He is nothing like—some of his peers.” Scarlett looked him directly in the eye, unwilling to yield. “Do you object to him?”

“As a friend to you, no. But I…”

“I find that I value friends in the wilds of a London Season far more than I value keen admirers. Don’t you think that wise?”

He sighed in defeat. “God, you have your mother’s craft for debate, don’t you? I know I was the one who insisted on a glorious Season and it may seem as if I was shoving you out of the nest but that wasn’t the intention. Don’t settle, Scarlett. Don’t settle for anything less than a man who worships you from head to toe and who
you
adore entirely. Do you hear me? A title isn’t any compensation and it will carry no weight if you marry for less than true love.”

She hesitated, unwilling to admit that she didn’t have a stake in the game with Chesterton but was quickly losing her heart on a very different battlefield with Stafford. “Are you so sure? Most of society would preach otherwise…”

“I was a rake, remember? Desperately unhappy women with titles used to be a specialty of mine. I was a cliché but so were they, Button. You deserve better.”

“Aren’t you supposed to advise against mad passion, Father?”

“Let me be clear, Scarlett. I was madly in love with your Mother before we married. If you are delicately trying to determine where I stand on the love growing over time after marriage philosophy, I think it’s bollocks.”

“Mr. Blackwell!” Mrs. Clark interrupted from the top of the main staircase at the second floor landing. “I am pained to interrupt such—wise and tender advice! But Mrs. Blackwell wasn’t feeling well and I wondered if—”

Ashe was up like a horse at the sound of a gunshot and racing up the stairs to take them two at a time. Mrs. Clark shook her head and gave Scarlett an apologetic smile. “It’s likely nothing, Miss Scarlett.”

“Should I go to her?”

Mrs. Clark shook her head firmly. “She’s forbidden it. And as I said, it’s likely nothing, Miss Scarlett. You mustn’t worry too much, if you can manage it.”

“Please let me know if they send for Uncle Rowan.”

“You needn’t ask.” Mrs. Clark retreated and left Scarlett to her thoughts as she resumed her climb at a much slower pace.

Mother’s health was notoriously unsteady and her father had never grown accustomed to it. None of them truly had though for the twins, they had never known a time when there wasn’t an undercurrent of anxiety in the Blackwell household. But it wasn’t something anyone ever truly discussed and the girls in particular had been instructed not to ask too many questions. Instead, they had learned to accept terror as part of the landscape, an ocean at their backs that no one in the house ever turned to face.

As if looking at it meant we would drown.

She picked up the pace of her steps, determined to find Starr and alert her to their mother’s illness, to advise her to buy something pretty to please their father and to tell her that their eternally polite auburn-haired friend, Ivy Hastings, was an Amazon in disguise.

“
I
’m pleased
to see you but a little surprised.” Elgin gestured toward the comfortable chair across from him in his library. “I heard Gastonbury is coming back to England with his lovely daughter soon. I thought you might have gone into hiding by now.”

“Is he really or are you saying that to see if I’ll bolt from the room?”

“He really is. Not that watching your color change just then wasn’t also satisfying.”

The men laughed and Elgin signaled his footman to bring the brandy and leave them alone. They had always been comfortable in each other’s company and this afternoon was no different.

Except that for Talon it was different.

He had kissed Scarlett far more times than he could claim to have been a momentary lapse of reason. No. Kissing Scarlett Blackwell was not a simple trespass he wanted to abstain from or really wished to forego—ever. But despite Scarlett’s wish to be the one to tell Chesterton, Talon was certain that as a gentleman it fell to him to make things clear with his friend and mentor.

“What brings you here, Talon? You look like a schoolboy trying to compose his best excuse for losing his Latin book.”

“I did always despise learning Latin.”

“It’s because you did not have the benefit of a tutor with a sense of humor.” Elgin leaned back in his chair, his brandy glass in hand. “God bless Mr. Pillicher! I was the luckiest boy in England when he began to teach me how to curse, recite filthy limericks and compose insults that would curl the hair of a sailor—all in perfect Latin.”

“To Mr. Pillicher!” Talon raised his own glass to toast the man. “Wherever he may be.”

Elgin lifted his glass solemnly. “He is buried in a plot on my estate near the Folly by the lake. I brought him to my home for his golden years to repay him for his kindness to me. He died when I was only thirty. The man always looked like he was two hundred years old so I shouldn’t have been shocked for things to end so quickly for the man. Good journey, Pillicher.”

Talon took a sip of is brandy and studied his friend. “You’re a good man.”

Elgin shook his head. “Nonsense. I am always a work in progress, the rough draft of a better man. My father always said that if you are not improving yourself, you are done. And since I am not done, I don’t think I can claim to be good just yet.”

“I like that,” Talon said as he leaned back, mirroring Elgin. “It gives a man permission to try.”

“And to fail,” Elgin added quickly with a laugh. “But come on. Let’s have it. I’ve plied you with brandy, told you about dear Pillicher and given you the greatest piece of advice ever uttered. What brought you so sorrowfully to my door today?”

“Scarlett Blackwell.”

Elgin straightened in his chair, his mirth fading fast. “What happened? Is she unwell?”

Damn it! The man is so obviously attached to her and now I’m here to play the cad!

“She is very well and as…feisty as ever. I wanted to tell you that I am quite…taken with her.”

“What? How is that possible?” Elgin asked gleefully. “You were ready to expose her for being a huntress of the worst sort, weren’t you?”

“I’m an idiot but I’m a work in progress, Chesterton. I’m striving to improve.”

“And this is bad news? Your change of heart toward Miss Blackwell?”

“You are—clearly and openly interested in her as well. I should have steered clear of her completely and not put myself in this position but it was an unexpected turn. I respect you too much not to be honest about how things are shifting. I am…softening to her and it is causing me a great deal of worry. Your friendship is more important than I can say and I don’t want to sacrifice it for a woman.”

“But Scarlett Blackwell isn’t just any woman.”

“No, apparently not.” Talon set his drink aside. “I am sorry.”

“I’m not.” Elgin waved a hand the air as if conducting an invisible choir. “I think it makes the Season ahead even more exciting in a way.”

“Pardon me?”

“I am not intimidated by a younger rival, Stafford. I have no formal claim to Miss Blackwell. She is free to choose her own path. Surely there is enough happiness in the world for everyone to have some?”

Talon leaned forward in his chair, unsure if he’d misunderstood what Chesterton had said. “I think you’ve mistaken love triangles for Christmas baskets. Rivalry over a woman is not…an everyone ends up happy scenario. I don’t think Miss Blackwell would appreciate any hint of sharing in this matter.”

“I do appreciate your sense of humor, Stafford, but I do see your point.”

“You are stepping away then?”

Elgin shook his head. “Not until I am assured that she wishes it and not until I am assured that all is well.”

“She should come to you with just such an expression very soon. No hard feelings, Chesterton.”

“You are overly confident, young man. Mind your step. Are
you
afraid of a rival, Stafford?”

Talon smiled. “Not at all.”

“Good. Then do me a favor and steer clear of Sussex House tomorrow night. I’m expecting the Blackwells to attend and I wish to give Scarlett a chance to tell me where things stand. What do you say? Can you trust her to me for one night?”

“I trust you both.” Talon held out his hand. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you, friend.”

“May the best man win her.”

Talon couldn’t stop grinning.
The best man will!