How to Tame Your Duke, page 19
“I see.” Mr. Baneweather glanced down at the neat stack of papers before him. “May I ask what brought about this change of heart? I recall you were adamant, most adamant, that the marriage should be allowed to stand, despite my advice at the time.”
“Twelve years have passed, Mr. Baneweather. My son is nearly grown. In addition, I have recently formed an attachment to a most worthy young lady.” The words came out more easily than he expected. He had chosen them carefully; they sounded much more respectable than the bald truth: I have debauched and deflowered an innocent young lady of unknown background, and it seems I cannot live without her.
“Ah. Of course. I confess, Your Grace, I had been hoping for something of this nature. Your case has always . . .”
“To that end, Mr. Baneweather,” Ashland went on, “I wish you to supply me with Her Grace’s current direction. I shall wish to make such a delicate interview in person. I expect she is abroad?” As if a runaway wife could be anywhere else.
Mr. Baneweather cleared his throat. “In fact, she is not. She lives—that is to say, the address at which she collects her allowance—that particular address is in London. Putney, to be precise.”
“Putney!” Ashland started forward in his chair. A sharp pulse shot through his blood: Isabelle in Putney, a mere few miles away. Doing what? Living with whom? He had always imagined her in Europe somewhere, some fashionable place by the sea, Nice or Portofino. He had allowed her a thousand pounds a year, enough to give her an independence, so she should not be obliged to find another protector when Somerton inevitably left her. A thousand pounds ought to give her a luxurious style of life abroad.
Putney. Fashionable, expensive Isabelle, living in the dreary London suburbs. What had happened?
“Yes, Putney. Five or six years, in fact.”
“And you did not inform me?”
“You asked not to be informed, Your Grace. With respect.” The flush was fading at last from Mr. Baneweather’s face.
So Isabelle had been within reach, all this time. Within reach to . . . what? Divorce her? Take her back? The Earl of Somerton had married some beautiful young debutante about five or six years ago; the papers had been full of the news. Was that why Isabelle had returned to England? Ashland pressed his forefinger into his leg to stop the whirl of thoughts in his head. Discipline. Focus. “Very good. So I did. You will please write down this Putney address for me, Mr. Baneweather, and await my further instructions in the matter. In the meantime, I have a contract of sorts for you to draft.” He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a few folded sheets of paper. “I have written down the salient points. I shall need it drafted up properly within a week’s time. I can be reached at Brown’s hotel.”
Ashland rose from his chair and placed the papers at the edge of Mr. Baneweather’s endless and gleaming desk. The thin sheets wilted mournfully downward in the warmth.
Baneweather was scribbling furiously. “Here you are, Your Grace,” he said, rising. His mustache twitched eagerly. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Isabelle in Putney.
Ashland looked down at the paper before him. The familiar scent of fresh ink anchored him to reality as he read the impossible lines. “Nothing else at the moment, Mr. Baneweather.” He looked up. “But I expect I shall have further instructions for you shortly.”
* * *
The hackney deposited him at the end of the street, as he instructed. “Wait for me,” he said, tossing the driver a few shillings, and settled his hat snugly on his head.
The London fog was thick today, that grotesque and dank miasma of coal smoke and river damp. It burned his Yorkshire lungs and obscured the details of the houses as he passed: comfortable suburban villas, semi-detached, stained gray by years of fog, with neatly tended gardens and barren January window boxes.
Isabelle’s house lay near the end of the street, exactly like its neighbors. The left-hand house of the pair, with a neat number 4 painted above the door. He paused for an instant at the little gate outside the steps. He hadn’t the faintest idea what to say to her. An awkward interview, that was inevitable; and entirely unexpected on her part. What if a man lived there, too? What would he say? He drummed his gloved fingers on the cold wrought iron. Oddly enough, he felt not a hint of nervousness. No rattling heartbeat, no tingle of anticipation. Only curiosity, mingled with impatience: an eagerness to have this interview over, to snip off this dangling thread in his life.
He opened the gate, crunched up the gravel path, and let fall the knocker on the door.
A woman answered, dressed in a neat black uniform. She gave a start at the sight of his broad chest before her eyes, and looked up slowly to find his face. She started again. “Good morning, sir,” she squeaked.
“Good morning. I am here to see Her Grace, the Duchess of Ashland.”
The maid’s mouth rounded into an astonished O. “The . . . the duchess?” she said, in the same helpless squeak.
“The Duchess of Ashland. Or perhaps she no longer affects that name. The lady of the house, if you please.”
“I . . . I don’t . . . I . . .” She swallowed, evidently torn between Ashland’s intimidating appearance and her duty to protect her mistress from unwanted callers. “May I give her your name, sir?” she said at last, clutching the edge of the door.
“Certainly. I am her husband, the Duke of Ashland.”
“I . . . Oh!”
“May I come in?”
“Sir, I . . .”
Ashland stepped forward through the doorway, causing the maid to fall back a step or two. “I’ll wait in the parlor, if you’ll show me through,” he said.
“Yes, sir. Your Grace. Of course.” She scuttled ahead, showing him into the front room, an overstuffed parlor thick with photographs and mantel cloths and great potted palms. He spared not a glance for the photographs and went to the window, staring out at the foggy brown streetscape. A delivery van ambled by, pulled by a dark and elderly horse whose ears swung listlessly back and forth. Above Ashland’s head, footsteps rattled about, voices muffled through the plaster. Isabelle’s voice?
A light tread came down the staircase. Ashland turned to the doorway.
“Your Grace,” said the maid, humbly, as she held back the door.
A woman swept in with a loud rustle of blue and yellow silk. Her hair was dark, pulled back severely from her face into a cascade of impossible dark curls; her bustle was so high and proud that Ashland feared for her balance. She stretched out her hands. “Ashland!”
For an instant, he didn’t recognize her. And then, incredulous: “Alice?”
His sister-in-law took another tottering step. “My dear brother. You ought to have warned me.”
Because it was the polite thing, he went to her. He took one of her outstretched hands and kissed the air above it, and he passed her gently into a chair.
“My dear Alice,” he said, standing awkwardly by the mantelpiece. “How are you?”
“I have called for tea. Do you like tea?”
“I haven’t much time, I’m afraid. I only came to ask after Isabelle. I thought she was here, or so my solicitor informed me.” He knew the words sounded stiff and bloodless. He lifted his arm and laid his elbow on the mantel, in a tiny nook of emptiness amongst the bric-a-brac.
“Oh! Well, I’m sorry for the mistake.” Alice looked down at her hands, which were knotted correctly in her silken lap. “She isn’t here.”
“Isn’t here at the moment, or doesn’t live here?”
“Doesn’t live here.” She said it in a whisper.
Ashland allowed a little silence to fall. “I don’t quite understand. Her quarterly allowance arrives here, according to my solicitor. One thousand pounds a year. A rather handsome sum. I hope this is not some unfortunate mistake.” He picked up one of the objects, a miniature golden-haired shepherdess, and turned it about his palm. “She is still alive, isn’t she, Alice?”
“Oh yes! Oh, of course. I . . . I had a letter from her just last week. I . . .”
A knock sounded on the door, and the maid came in with a groaning tray of tea things: pot and cups and cream, cakes and buns without number. She set it down on the round table next to the sofa, made a few adjustments, and straightened. “Will that be all, ma’am?”
“Yes, Polly. Thank you.”
The door closed behind the maid, and Alice leaned eagerly forward over the tea tray. “Cream and sugar, Your Grace?”
He didn’t give a damn. “Yes.”
She bustled about with the tea, hair gleaming in the lamplight. Ashland watched her without moving, the quick nervous flutterings of her hand, the tea spilled over the edge of the cup (oh dear me! how clumsy), the slice of cake laid carefully on his plate. “There you are, Your Grace. Isn’t it just the thing on such a frightful January morning?”
“Yes.” He laid the cup and saucer on the mantel and lifted the paper-thin porcelain to his lips. “Tell me about Isabelle. Is she well?”
“Oh yes. Very well indeed.”
“I presume you forward her the money each quarter, as it arrives?” He tilted his head to indicate the well-stocked room about him. “All of it?”
Her mouth was buried behind her teacup. “Well . . . that is, not all of it.”
“Most of it?”
“Well, that is to say . . .”
“Alice,” he said, setting his cup precisely in his saucer, “suppose you tell me exactly where the money goes each month, and why.”
“Oh dear.” She put her own cup and saucer on the table and wrung her hands together. “I don’t know if Isabelle would want . . .”
“I don’t give a damn, Alice, if you’ll pardon the expression. What I want to know is this: Where exactly is my wife, and what exactly are you doing with her allowance?”
Alice shot to her feet. “Oh, Your Grace. Please don’t be angry. I was only . . . Isabelle asked me to, you see, because she couldn’t care for the girl herself, not with . . . with her present company . . .”
“Girl,” Ashland said. His limbs went numb. “What girl?”
“Her daughter, Your Grace.”
A furious cheeping started up from some cluttered corner of the room. Alice sprang to her feet. “Oh, the silly bird. He sees the tea things, of course. He never could resist a lemon tart.” She picked up a plate and dashed to the birdcage.
Ashland watched her feed the bird, heard the chattering of female and parakeet distantly through his humming ears. A liquor tray sat at the far end of the room. He placed his cup and saucer on the tea table and strode toward it. The decanters were brimming, each with an expensive engraved label slung about the neck. He selected the brandy.
“I see.” He tossed back his glass in a gulp—half full only; he had that much discipline—and set it down on the tray with a crystalline clink. The brandy burned its way comfortably to his stomach. “This daughter. Where is she now?”
“Why, upstairs with her governess, of course. I hired a French governess for her. Only the best.” Alice beamed proudly. “She’ll go off to Lady Margaret’s next year.”
“How old is she?”
“Rising thirteen, Your Grace, and a fine handsome girl she is.”
Rising thirteen. “May I see her?”
“I . . .” Alice tugged at the lace on her sleeve. Her brow had compressed into a multitude of worried lines beneath her razor-parted hair. “I suppose there’s no harm.” She went to the tea table and rang a small bell.
Ashland could not say another word. He turned away when the maid came, and looked out the window again at the deserted street, closing his ears to the whispered conversation behind him. It was nearly noon, but the air outside hung dark and murky as twilight. A few piles of tenacious slush clung to the bases of the streetlamps. A sudden ache invaded his breast: for clean, windswept Yorkshire, for one of Freddie’s jokes, for Grimsby’s wry ripostes. For Emily’s gentle voice, reading a book. Her quick smile, the velvet touch of her skin against his lips.
Home.
The door creaked. “Your Grace?”
Ashland turned. A dark-haired girl stood in the doorway, a tall girl, almost as tall as Alice, who stood behind her charge with ring-strewn hands upon those thin adolescent shoulders. He strained to see the girl’s face, but she stood just in the shadow of the lamp burning nearby.
“Good morning,” he said. “I am the Duke of Ashland. What is your name?”
She made a little curtsy. “My name is Mary Russell, Your Grace.”
The breath left his body. He only just saved himself from falling on his knees. “I see. How old are you, Mary?”
“Thirteen next month, Your Grace.” Her voice was reedy but firm, holding its ground before his beastly buccaneer’s face.
Thirteen next month. Ashland made a swift mental calculation.
“Step forward, Mary, and ask the duke to sit down,” said Alice.
Mary stepped forward, sat down correctly on the sofa, and motioned her arm to the nearby wing chair. “Won’t you sit down, Your Grace?”
He eased himself into the chair. Mary’s face came into focus next to the lamp.
She was not his.
Her hair was dark, and her eyes were nearly black: the exact color and shape of the Earl of Somerton’s eyes, of which Ashland had seen enough to last him a lifetime.
So that was why his wife had left so abruptly. She had become pregnant by her lover. Had thought, perhaps, that a child would be enough to hold a man like Somerton.
“Have you traveled far, Your Grace?” Mary asked him.
“Yes, I have. I arrived in town yesterday, from Yorkshire.”
“I hear it is very bleak in Yorkshire.”
He smiled. “It is. I think it rather suits me, don’t you?”
She tilted her head. “Perhaps. But I daresay such a climate might make anyone bleak, unless one had a great many friends for company. Do you have many friends there?”
“Not nearly enough, I’m afraid, though the ones I have are very dear to my heart.”
Mary nodded her dark head. “That’s the important thing, of course. Have you had any tea? The cake is very good.”
He spoke with her for half an hour, about her studies and about Yorkshire, about the London fog and her recent visit to Hampton Court with her governess. They touched briefly on Henry VIII and all the Annes and Catherines. He rose at last when luncheon was called.
“Will you stay and have luncheon with us, Your Grace?” asked Mary, rising, too.
“I’m afraid not. I have a number of errands, and my time here in London is limited. I have an appointment in Yorkshire next week of the utmost importance.”
“I see. It was a very great pleasure to meet you, sir. I believe you are my first duke.” Mary offered her hand.
Ashland took her hand with his left and shook it gravely. “I am deeply sensible of the honor, Miss Russell.”
When she left, he turned to Alice. “The remittance will continue, but on no account is any of the money to be forwarded to my wife. I shall expect a full report of expenses every quarter. My solicitor will arrange payment of Miss Russell’s school fees. Should you have any need of an increase in income, you may apply to me at once.”
“Your Grace!”
“In the meantime, I should like you to give me my wife’s current direction. I presume she remains in Europe?”
“Why, yes, sir. Of course, sir. But . . . sir, I don’t think . . .”
“You will give me her address, Alice, or I shall be forced to begin inquiries. Do you understand me?”
She bowed her head. “Yes, sir.”
Ashland didn’t open the paper she gave him until he was safely stowed inside the hackney and crossing Putney Bridge into Fulham. He unfolded it and held it up to the meager yellow light from the window, until he could just make out the rounded black letters of his sister-in-law’s copperplate handwriting.
SEVENTEEN
All I’m saying, Grimsby . . .”
“Mr. Grimsby.”
“Look, I’ll bloody well keep calling you Grimsby if you insist, but I’ll be damned if I say Mister. It’s not right.” Freddie made an impatient flick of his riding crop.
“And yet, you have no difficulty employing the most offensive language in my presence,” said Emilie. “Against that, a male form of address should require no effort at all.” A lone snowflake landed on the tip of her nose; she resisted the urge to hold out her tongue for another. She and Stefanie used to do that, out riding in early winter, and while the gray Yorkshire moors bore no resemblance to the lush forests of the Schweinwald, the bite in the air, the unmistakable scent of coming snow, gave her exactly the same childlike thrill.
“Ha. I recall perfectly the expression that came out of your mouth last week, when you was locked out of the house. Absolute filth, Grimsby. I’m sick at the memory. And you not merely a lady, but a princess! Think of your subjects, Your Royal Highness.”
“I have no subjects. My sister is the heir.” She blew out a white cloud into the air.
“Right-ho. Which brings me directly to the point, now that we’re finally off by ourselves. We’ve got to lay plans.”
“Plans for what?”
“Why, for restoring you to your throne, of course!”
The horse moved comfortably beneath Emilie’s seat, an easy rocking gait. The wind blew against her cheeks, the same rapacious wind as before, but she minded it less now. It was like an old friend. Even the bleak landscape felt right somehow. “I don’t have a throne. And if I did, I wouldn’t want to be restored to it. I hated that life. I’m grateful I escaped.” As soon as she said the words, she realized they were true. She had no remaining desire to find her father’s killer. She had no desire to return to her thick-walled palace existence. She missed her sisters desperately, of course, but that was all. Even dressed as a man, hiding her true identity, she felt more free, more herself, than she ever had before. In her selfish heart, she didn’t want justice served.
“Oh, rubbish. What girl doesn’t want to be a damned princess? The first thing, of course, is you’ve got to marry Pater.”
