A Scandalous Connection, page 8
Her eyelashes fluttered, ever so slightly. His Grace drew in his breath. Miss Mayhew was not being flirtatious, merely hesitant, and he realized that upon the instant, though his pulses still quickened annoyingly, just as if he were a green boy rather than a man of the world with a wealth of experience at his fingertips.
“I should get back to my party. This is a terrible imposition. I—”
“Might I speak for Lady Caroline when I say it is no imposition at all?”
Amy did not stop to wonder at the butler’s presumption. She had long since dismissed his claim to be a mere butler, though quite what he was she failed to guess.
“Then I shall say yes, most thankfully. The ride and its”—she just stopped herself from saying “annoyances” and skillfully slipped in the word “excitements”—“has fatigued me, I fear.”
“Then I shall ring for some hot water to be sent up, and I shall lay back the covers on the bed. Doubtless a nap shall revive you. Have you a lady’s maid I may call upon?”
“No, for Mrs. Murgatroyd did not wish to go to the expense of an extra chaise. I shall be perfectly fine in a few minutes, truly.”
But the butler did not appear to hear, for he led her up one further flight of steps, then threw open the rose chamber. It was very prettily decorated in a delicate fleur-de-lis pattern, with tiny pink rosebuds at the skirt-ings of both floor and ceiling. Amy looked longingly at the comfortable bed, with its sweet-smelling sheets and cherry-striped drapes that hung from their mahogany posts.
The duke set down the envelope and busied himself with the tinderbox, waiting silently for the fire to flare. The chamber, though clean, was nonetheless suffering from the same deficiency as all his rooms: biting cold.
“Leave that!” Amy’s tone was sharp.
“Beg pardon?”
“Your . . .” she stopped, in confusion.
“Yes?” The gentleman took up a poker and began stoking the small blaze. When he moved to the coal scuttle, however, Amy showed renewed signs of agitation.
She colored up helplessly, but continued, nonetheless. “Your breeches. They shall be ruined.”
A certain gleam appeared in Pemberton’s eye. He continued with his task, though, until the cold room was perfectly cozy, and his offending nankeen breeches—cream, and utterly without crease—were a trifle blotchy from the exercise.
“See! I told you! Lighting fires is no work for a gentleman!” Amy scolded, for she was now hideously embarrassed at finding herself alone with this elegant nonpareil who, she was perfectly certain, had never worked a day in his life, never mind been butler to His Noble Grace.
“Ah, but I am not a gentleman, Miss Amy. The lower orders, you forget, do not count. It is therefore perfectly permissible for me to get my breeches dirtied in your service.”
Despite her predicament, Amy’s eyes twinkled.
“You are a rogue, sir, for drawing my attention to those unmentionables. Yes, yes, save your breath! I know it was I who first brought up the subject, but it was certainly you who chose to pursue it!”
Pemberton made some placating noises which included such humdrum phrases as “Begging the miss’ pardon” and “no offense meant,” he was sure, and “only doing his lawful duty,” so that Amy wanted to either laugh or shake him. Certainly, he was an excellent remedy for her headache, for it had vanished completely.
“You can stop shamming it, sir! I may look in my first youth, but I assure you I was not born yesterday! You cannot—no matter how superior your talents—bam me into believing you are a commonplace butler.” She laughed as he regarded her comically and said something whimsical under his breath. “No, no, sir! Not even a duke’s butler. Not even, let us be blunt, a king’s butler! Now, tell me, please, what—and I mean what—in the world happened to Lady Caroline’s actual manservant? You have not, I trust, murdered him?”
“Murder? I? ”His Grace contrived to look hurt even as he thought on his feet.
“Don’t look so innocent, sir, or I shall certainly suspect the worst.”
“Very well, then, I shall be plain with you, Miss Amy.” His Grace straightened his shoulders and slightly—infinitesimally—regained something of the air of authority that Amy had first noticed about him.
She shook her head. “Miss Mayhew, you mean.”
“Oh, very well then, if you must stand on ceremony. . .”
“I must.” Amy’s tone brooked no nonsense.
His Most Noble Grace cast her a glance of rueful appreciation.
“The flat truth is, Miss Mayhew, that Hedgewig, the Darris butler, is sadly under the hatches.”
“Drunk, you mean?”
His Grace’s eyes twinkled at her instant understanding of cant. She had brothers, then, the little Mistress Amy.
He nodded. “As a lord, madam, as the saying goes.” He looked cheerfully unabashed as he set about drawing back the starched white bedcovers.
Amy flushed.
“Stop!”
“What now?”
“Surely you see how unacceptable it is for you to be performing such tasks? Indeed. . . .” She looked about her in sudden mortification. “Indeed, we had best return immediately to the guests! I shall be horribly compromised if we don’t and you shall doubtless—”
“Be turned off without a character?” His voice was silky, smooth and a trifle laughing as he stood up from this, the most delightful and unsuitable of all chores yet assigned him.
“No! Worse! You shall be forced to marry me. I may be only of the merchant class, but I was reared as a lady and my Aunt Honoria has horrible hopes for me.”
“Oh! Is that all? Then climb in, little Miss Mayhew, and I shall most certainly tuck you up.”
Her lips twitched. “Sir, if you refuse to recognize the gravity of our situation, then I, at least, must be sensible! ”
He moved away from the bed, closer to her, so that their eyes were level, although she was just slightly the shorter, so that where he looked down, she must needs look up, straight into those brilliant dark eyes, deep, perceptive and infinitely dangerous.
“Sensible?” His tone mocked her, for he could see her lips trembling, and the pulses racing about her pretty neck. Miss Mayhew may pretend to a serene calm, but her eyes betrayed her, and her fingers would not be stilled.
“Yes. Now, if you will excuse me, sir . . .”
“You do not even know my name!”
“No, for we have not been introduced. Do we move in the same circles?”
“Possibly. I think not.”
“No, I am certain I would have remembered you.”
He smiled. A little too jauntily, she thought.
“I shall take that as a compliment, madam, for I must tell you I am the greatest coxcomb at heart.”
“Truly? Then it is as well you eat humble pie, today. A butler’s life must be rather dreary.”
“It has its compensations.”
He was still looking down at her, and had not made so much as one move to release her gaze and exit the door, as must surely be the most admirable—and sensible —course.
“You are flirting, and I cannot abide flirts.”
“You are teasing, and I cannot abide teases.”
“I am not teasing!”
“Yes, you are! You must know that your hair is tumbling delightfully from your bonnet and that your lips curve in the most subtle manner imaginable. You are, in short, a menace, madam.”
“A menace! Good God, I am nothing like it! My aunt calls me pert, at best. At worst, she calls me an intolerable bluestocking who is blessed with none of the gentler arts!”
“And which might they be?”
“Oh, the art of fascinating and driving sane men wild, and—”
“Your aunt lies.”
“Beg pardon?”
“You heard me.”
“You mean that I. . .”
“Precisely, Miss Mayhew.”
There was a stunned pause. Then, ever honest, Amy regarded the duke.
“You are not exactly inestimable yourself.”
He smiled at this faint praise and bowed. “I cannot say how you relieve me, Miss Mayhew!”
“Relief? I thought you said you were a coxcomb!”
“And so I am, in the ordinary way of things. But you forget, of course, that my unmentionables are filthy and that I am not standing on my credentials, which of course give me a decided advantage.”
Had he said too much? His Grace did not altogether want Amy to guess who he was. It was fascinating, he found, to conduct a flirtation without his blasted rank standing in the way of everything.
“Are your credentials so unimpeachable, then?”
“Oh, decidedly so! They give me entrée into most drawing rooms.”
“How felicitous.”
“Yes, is it not? Though I am usually condemned to talk to either the companion or the potted plant.”
Amy’s lips twitched.
“How sad, and what a terrible waste! You must have very poor hostesses!”
“Alas, the lot of all impoverished gentlemen!”
“Ah, so you are impoverished.”
The duke bowed, a little mockingly. Well, he spoke no more than the truth. And if it misled the fair Amy a smidgen, so much the better.
He expected her to withdraw a little. He braced himself for this, in fact, for Miss Mayhew was clearly a sensible girl and encouraging impoverished gentlemen masquerading as butlers was neither sensible nor prudent.
In his wildest dreams, he did not expect what happened next. It happened so quickly, too, that it was all over before he had collected his wits sufficiently to respond in a satisfyingly enthusiastic manner.
Miss Amy Mayhew, late of the emerald green traveling dress, flung her arms skyward, thereby tangling them in his excellently tied cravat, tilted her head slightly—thereby touching the shadows of his clean-shaven cheek—and kissed him. Not brazenly, not wantonly, not even carelessly or exotically. No, just swiftly and deliciously, with a rare smile of sweetness that knocked the duke out more decidedly than even the gesture itself.
“There! That should make up for all the potted plants! And now, my dear sir, you really must allow me to rejoin my party.”
She seemed to have no fears that he might have any wicked designs upon her person. Indeed, the thought had not crossed her mind. Or rather, if it had, it had been entirely in the sense of her being a willing participant in all this debauchery. Which of course was nonsense, just as it was to suggest that the impoverished gentleman would not be all that was perfectly chivalrous, if not entirely proper.
“No so fast, Miss Mayhew! Has no one ever told you that you cannot do that to a gentleman—however poor his pocketbook—and not expect repercussions?”
“Repercussions?” Miss Amy regarded him blandly, but it was quite clear to both that her pulses were racing horribly and her smile, though pretty, was undoubtedly a trifle wobbly.
“Repercussions.” Demian was quite firm as he made this remark. Then, flinging all thought of the Honorable Lady Raquel Fortesque-Benton to one side for a moment, he took Miss Mayhew’s chin in hand and regarded her thoughtfully.
Miss Mayhew did not wriggle, or slap him, or any of the undeniable things she ought to have done. Instead, she stood perfectly still and regarded him stare for stare with as much composure as she could muster with a heart that was spinning cartwheels.
“Step a little closer, Miss Mayhew.”
“If I were any closer I would be nestled in your arms, Mr. . . . ?”
“Hartford.” The duke conveniently supplied her with one of his lesser titles.
“Mr. Hartford, then.” Amy said it softly, as though tasting the name to herself. The duke could not help but smile, though his eyes never left Amy’s for an instant.
“You are obviously blessed with no mean intelligence, Miss Mayhew. Your assessment of the matter is entirely correct.”
“That I will be nestled in your arms?”
“Precisely.”
“I must tell you, sir, that this is very improper behavior for one raised such as myself.”
“Is it, indeed? How very unfortunate. Nevertheless, you shall do it.”
His Grace’s voice was quietly compelling. Amy was just about to comply when a shadow appeared at the half-open door. The duke looked up in annoyance, only to find Miss Bancroft bustling about in a fever of agitation, flushing to the roots and murmuring something unintelligible about “counting linen.”
The moment was lost, and neither, truth to tell, was entirely sorry. Amy was relieved that she had not been so foolish as to lose all her carefully nurtured decorum, and the duke—though struggling a little with his breathing—was glad he had not committed the unutterable social solecism of finding himself betrothed to two young ladies of inestimable quality. For there was no doubt in his mind that had Miss Bancroft not timely intervened, his heart would have ruled his passionate, curly, dark head.
This did not stop him from glaring at poor Miss Bancroft, who had been sent on this particular errand by a laughing Caroline. It had just struck his naughty sibling that while ordering him there in the first place had been the greatest of good giggles, compromising Miss Mayhew’s virtue—not to mention his own—was another matter entirely. So, she had excused herself from the amble through the Gothic library—all banisters and curves and dark, arched windowpanes—and hurried to find Martha, who could be relied upon in just such an emergency.
Thus it was that Miss Bancroft now appeared, and by the look of her stormy gray eyes, the duke would be in for a thundering scold when the delectable Miss Mayhew had been returned to the bosom of her party. Now, however, it was his turn to glare, for truly, a less suitable moment to be pouring over lists of bed linen he could not imagine.
“You forget, Your—”
“Mr. Hartford.” He spoke quietly, but with such rigor that even dear, dithering, entirely respectable Martha took his meaning at once.
“You forget, Mr. . . . er . . . Hartford, that it is imperative we look over the bed linen! Then there are all the blankets to be aired and we will need to organize hot bricks. The kitchens will be in a spin to get pails of hot water up here at a moment’s notice—”
“Pardon me for interrupting, but I believe your concerns are all groundless. The party, as I understand it, is leaving before dark.” The duke’s tone was even, so Miss Mayhew was not able to read what was behind the inscrutable words.
The lady in the dark stuff seemed more agitated than ever. Poor Martha had encountered the combined forces of Mrs. Murgatroyd and the equally overbearing Mrs. Corey in the gallery. Though they considered her of little account, they had nonetheless made it plain to her—and to all who could hear—that they had precious little intention of removing to the inn.
“The snow seems to be halting, for the moment, but Mrs. Murgatroyd fears for another flurry.”
“She would!” the duke said this under his breath, but there was no doubt that Miss Amy’s eyes lit up in sudden appreciation.
“We can put three of the young ladies in the west wing chambers with—”
“No!”
“No?” Martha looked up in some surprise. “They have the sunniest aspect, Your . . . I mean, Mr. Hartford.. . .”
“That they might have, but I forbid it, nonetheless. The west wing is reserved exclusively for His Grace. I cannot think that he will be happy to return to residence and find Mrs. Corey ensconced in his private wing.”
Martha smiled at this vehement understatement, the last traces of her frown vanishing.
“How true!” Then she smiled at the duke, as if daring him to countermand her next unarguable phrase.
“But I fear His Grace will not return for a sennight at least. Lady Caroline mentioned something of the kind to me.”
What Lady Caroline had mentioned, of course, was the impudent letter she had penned practically ordering Demian to stay away. Demian knew this, for his eyes twinkled outrageously, so Miss Bancroft was hard put not to either blush or give the game away completely by proceeding with her scold.
In the event, neither calamities occurred, for Demian took the lists from her hand and consigned them all to the devil, remarking that if the weather turned foul, they would have no option but to house the party in the south wing.
“But that has been in holland covers for a year at least!”
Demian took up the envelope full of banknotes and slipped it in his jacket pocket.
“Then I fear it shall be dusty.” The duke’s tone was suddenly unsympathetic. Martha looked up at him sharply. Though his eyes were hooded and entirely unreadable, she could swear his lips quirked. It was just a fleeting notion, gone quite suddenly, and almost as swiftly, she could swear, as it had come.
Eight
Mr. Thomas Endicott was not quite certain how to proceed. For once in his life, he was at that interesting kind of crossroads that could lead him anywhere, and frankly, for the life of him, he was not certain where he wanted to be led. This was both annoying and charming to him, for it stripped him of his natural arrogance—annoying—but it also promised of adventure—charming. So, he tossed back an excellent glass of Madeira, shook hands with Lord Darrincourt—whom he had just beaten to smithereens in a game of chance—and checked the time.
Ten past eleven. Early, perhaps, but if he was to beat the snow he had no time to waste. Consequently, he returned to his town house in Grosvenor Square, where he lost no time at all in donning a casual—but becoming—pair of doeskin breeches. He also tossed on a hunting jacket of elegant crimson with brass buttons, rummaged through his drawers for a cravat—despite his enormous wealth he did not hold with valets—and came up with something that was remarkably well starched for its habitual level of abuse. Mr. Endicott was no fool. Though he shunned the services of a valet, he very gratefully accepted those of his housekeeper and several upper chambermaids. They all spoiled him horribly.
At noon, precisely, he left his calling card for Lady Raquel Fortesque-Benton. He was permitted to kick his heels in the receiving room for quite a quarter of an hour before he was honored with her presence. She wore a spencer of turquoise jaconet with dainty little half boots to match. Her hair, he noticed, was elegantly braided, though a little too severe for his taste. Despite this defect, the matching ribbons that curled gaily down to her waist were delightful, and softened her classical features admirably. She cast a sheer silk shawl of azure blue carelessly across a chaise longue and folded her arms.
