Never Deceive a Duke Page 4

  He did not, but he nodded anyway. “I will always do my duty, Mamma,” he vowed. “I will be a gentleman. I promise.” His mother sighed, and relaxed again into the blessed oblivion of sleep.

  “All I am saying, my lady, is that it does not seem quite fair.” Nellie drew the brush down the length of her mistress’s heavy blond hair. “A woman ought not be put out of her own home—not even a widow.”

  “This is not my home, Nellie,” said the duchess firmly. “Women do not own homes. Men decide where they will live.”

  Nellie grunted disdainfully. “My aunt Margie owns a home,” she said. “And a tavern, too. No man will be putting her out of ’em anytime soon, depend upon it.”

  The duchess looked up into the mirror and smiled faintly. “I rather envy your aunt Margie,” she said. “She has a freedom that women…well, women like me are brought up never to expect.”

  “Noblewomen, you mean,” said Nellie knowingly. “No, my lady, I’ve seen how some folk live. And I’d rather earn my crust with my own sweat any day.”

  “You are very wise, Nellie.”

  The duchess’s gaze dropped to her hands clasped tightly in her lap. They had been together, she and Nellie, for ten years now. Nellie’s competent hands had begun to show her age, and her brow was permanently furrowed. And when they were alone—which was often—the maid frequently regressed to her mistress’s former names or titles, sometimes even a combination thereof. The duchess did not bother to correct her. She had no fondness for the lofty position fate had bestowed upon her. Before this marriage, she had hoped only to live out her years in quiet widowhood. Now, perhaps, she might at long last get her wish.

  “Has there been nothing, then, from Lord Swinburne?” Nellie laid aside the brush, to pick through a porcelain dish filled with hairpins.

  “A letter from Paris.” The duchess tried to brighten her expression. “Papa is to be a father again—and quite soon. His wedding trip has apparently been all one might wish for.”

  “But what about you, my lady?” Nellie’s eyes met hers in the mirror. “Can’t you go back home? Greenfields is such a big house—not quite as vast as this, I know, but surely ’tis enough for the three of you?”

  The duchess hesitated. “Penelope is very young, and newly wed,” she said. “Papa says that perhaps—perhaps after the child is born…” She let her words drift away.

  Nellie pursed her lips, and twisted up the first section of her mistress’s hair. “I think I see the way of things,” she muttered, wrestling with a pin. “One house, one mistress?”

  “Penelope is very young,” the duchess said again. “And why should I wish to return home? I would feel out of place, I daresay. Papa is right—in this, at least.”

  “Lord Albridge, then?” Nellie suggested.

  “Heavens, Nellie! My brother is a gazetted womanizer. A sister underfoot is the last thing a rakehell would wish for.” She stilled the maid’s hand by covering it with her own. “Do not worry, Nellie. I am not poor. Once we know the new duke’s wishes, why, perhaps I can lease a small house?”

  “Something, ma’am,” said the maid. “Anything. There’s been a cloud hanging over this place since the old duke’s death. And people do talk.”

  “It is gossip, and nothing more,” the duchess answered. “But we shall find something—in Bath, I think. Or Brighton? Would you like that?”

  Nellie wrinkled her nose. “Ooh, I don’t think so, ma’am,” she said. “I’m a country girl. And it’s not myself I’m worried for. I can go to work for my aunt Margie.”

  The duchess smiled wanly. “Has she room enough for the two of us?” she asked. “I think perhaps I should make a tolerable chambermaid.”

  “Poo!” Nellie snatched up her fingers. “With these hands? I doubt it, my lady. Besides, I’ll go where you go. You know that.”

  “Yes, Nellie. I know that.”

  Just then, the room dimmed, as if a lamp had been turned down. Nellie glanced over her shoulder at the wide bank of windows. “Here it comes again, ma’am,” she warned. “That dratted rain.”

  “Perhaps it will pass us by,” the duchess murmured mechanically.

  “Aye, well, you can wish,” said the maid. “But I feel it, ma’am. I truly do.”

  “Feel what, precisely?”

  The maid lifted one shoulder. “There’s something queer in the air,” she said. “Something…I don’t know. Just a storm, I reckon. It’s this miserable August heat. We’re all wilting.”

  “It has been unpleasant,” the duchess acknowledged.

  But Nellie just shrugged again, twisted another hank of hair aloft, and studied it. “I think I’m going to do this up high,” she said. “Something very…duchessly—is that a word?”

  “It is now,” said the duchess. “But the hair—really, Nellie. Do not waste your time. Just throw it up.”

  “Come now, ma’am,” the maid cajoled. “He won’t be like all those other fellows who’ve been trotting down from London in droves. He’s the wicked prodigal cousin. You ought to get all togged out and properly impress him.”

  It really did matter to Nellie, the duchess realized, so she forced anther smile. She had worried very little about her appearance of late. Still, as Nellie pointed out, it had not stopped the suitors who sometimes vied for her hand. Oh, they called, ostensibly, to express sympathy, and to see how she “got on.” But the duchess knew vultures when she saw them—polite, well-bred vultures, of course, but in search of carrion, just the same. Apparently, every scoundrel in London was fishing for a fortune. The more respectable men kept their distance.

  “Of course you are right,” she finally said. “Yes, by all means, Nellie. Let us be duchessly.”

  The maid’s deft hands made short work of the duchess’s tresses, drawing them up into an elegant pile of gold, which spilled into curls at the nape of her neck. “Will you wear the aubergine silk, ma’am?” asked Nellie as she wound the last strands into place. “I’ll thread some black ribbons through here to match.”

  “Yes, and my black shawl, I suppose.”

  Nellie unfurled a length of black ribbon, which was looking a little worn. “I reckon this ought to be replaced,” she muttered. “But just a few more weeks, my lady, and you can put off this black for good.”

  “Yes, Nellie. That will be lovely.”

  But she would not put off her mourning. Not really. She would, the duchess imagined, wear it all the days of her life—inwardly, if not otherwise.

  Suddenly, a commotion sounded in the cobblestone courtyard below. The clamor of horses’ hooves along with the grind of carriage wheels, and, above it all, the butler barking anxiously at the servants. Inside, footsteps began to thunder up and down the servants’ stairs. The house was on edge today—and not without reason.

  “Sounds like a carriage coming through the gateposts,” said Nellie grimly, going to the window. “Ooh, and it’s a fine one, too, ma’am. A glossy black landau with red wheels. And black-and-red livery, too. Must be a regular nabob, that one.”

  “Yes, our poor little orphaned cousin!” murmured the duchess.

  “Oh, I’d say the new master hasn’t lived hand-to-mouth in a mighty long while, ma’am,” said Nellie, peering round the drapery. “And now he’s about to get the royal treatment. Coggins is queuing the staff down the steps, somber as a row of gravestones.”

  The duchess cut her gaze toward the windows. “Isn’t it raining, Nellie?” she asked. “Mrs. Musbury still has that dreadful cough.”

  “Aye, it’s peppering down all right.” The maid’s nose was almost pressed to the glass now. “But Coggins has the evil eye on ’em, ma’am, and no one’s so much as twitching. And he—wait! The carriage has stopped. One of his footmen is getting down to open the door. And he’s getting out. And he’s…oh, holy gawd…”

  The duchess turned around on her stool. “Nellie, what on earth?”

  “Oh, that’s the very thing, ma’am,” said Nellie in a voice of quiet awe. “He doesn’t look e
arthly. More like an angel, I’d say—but one of the grim, bad-tempered kind. Like the ones on the ballroom ceiling slinging down those lightning bolts and looking all angry?”

  “Nellie, please don’t be fanciful.”

  “Oh, I’m not being fanciful, ma’am.” Her voice was oddly flat. “And he’s awfully young, ma’am. Not what I expected a’tall.”

  For a long moment, they listened to the murmur of the introductions below as Nellie kept up a commentary about his hair, the breadth of his shoulders, the cut of his coat, and precisely which step he now stood on. The new duke was taking his time, it would seem. The audacity of him to keep loyal servants standing in the rain!

  Slowly, the duchess felt an almost foreign emotion begin to stir. It was anger. It surprised her to feel it. She dearly hoped Mrs. Musbury would not worsen. She half-hoped the new duke took consumption. And she really wished Nellie would not continue to rattle on about lightning bolts. A bad-tempered angel indeed!

  Just then, thunder rolled ominously in the distance, and the sound of the rain on the roofs ratcheted up into a cacophonous roar. Downstairs, doors began to slam. Shouts rang out. Harnesses jingled and the carriage began to rattle away. For an instant, everything was chaos.

  “See, ma’am?” said Nellie, turning from the window. “It’s about to happen.”

  The duchess frowned. “What, pray, is about to happen?”

  “The lightning. The storm.” Brow oddly furrowed, Nellie smoothed her hands down the front of her smock. “It’s about to break, ma’am. I—I feel it.”

  The great entrance hall of Selsdon Court was almost grandiose in its emptiness. Only the very rich could afford an empty room containing little more than marble, gilding, and fine art. Gareth stood in the midst of it and slowly turned in a circle. It was the very same. Vast, polished perfection.

  Even the collection of old masters, Gareth noted, hung in precisely the same arrangement. The Poussin above the Leyster. The van Eyck to the left of de Hooch. The three Rembrandts in a massive, magnificent grouping between the drawing room doors. There were a dozen more, each of them well-remembered. For an instant, Gareth closed his eyes as the servants swarmed around him; the footmen attending to the luggage, the maids and kitchen staff returning to their tasks. It sounded the same. It even smelled the same.

  And yet it was not. He opened his eyes and looked around. Some of the under servants, he had noticed, looked perhaps vaguely familiar. But other than that, he recognized no one. Perhaps that was because few dared lift their eyes to him. What had he expected? They had doubtless heard the rumors.

  Gone was Peters, Selsdon Court’s condescending butler. Mr. Nowell, his uncle’s favorite flunky, must have gone on to his great reward as well. Even Mrs. Harte, the grumpy old housekeeper, was nowhere to be seen, and in her place was a thin, mouse-haired lady with kind eyes and a frightfully bad cough. Mrs. Musgrove?

  No. That was not quite right.

  “Coggins,” said Gareth, leaning nearer the butler. “I want a roster of all the staff by name and position, to include their ages and their years of service.”

  The servant’s eyes flared with alarm, but it was quickly veiled. “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “And this estate agent, Mr. Watson,” Gareth added. “Where the devil is he?”

  Again, the faint look of alarm. That instant of hesitation. It made Gareth wonder what these people had been told of him. That he ground servants’ bones to make his bread?

  “I did not have an opportunity to inform Mr. Watson of your arrival, Your Grace,” the butler murmured. They all murmured—as if the house were some sort of mausoleum. “I fear he has gone to Portsmouth.”

  “Portsmouth?” said Gareth.

  “Yes, sir.” The butler gave a strange, stiff bow. “He is to collect a piece of equipment—a threshing machine—which is coming down from Glasgow.”

  “They make such contraptions nowadays?”

  The butler nodded. “It was ordered by the late duke prior to his death, but”—here he paused and let his eyes dart about the room—“they are not popular in certain circles. There have been, shall we say, difficulties further south.”

  “Ah.” Gareth clasped his hands behind his back. “Put men out of work, do they?”

  “So some would believe, Your Grace.” A passing footman caught Coggins’s eyes, and nodded. The butler swept his hand toward one of the magnificent staircases which rose in splendid, symmetrical curves from the great hall. “Your chambers are ready now, sir, if you would care to follow me?”

  “What I wish to do is to see the duchess,” Gareth returned. His tone was sharp, he knew, but he was anxious to get it over with.

  To his credit, Coggins did not falter. “But of course, Your Grace,” he said. “Will you wish to freshen your wardrobe first?”

  Freshen his wardrobe? Gareth had forgotten that the denizens of Selsdon Court changed their clothes about as often as regular folk drew breath. No doubt the duchess would be appalled to receive a man still attired in clothes which he’d had on for…oh, all of seven hours. Gareth would be considered unforgivably travel-stained. Quelle horreur! as Mr. Kemble was fond of saying.

  “Have you no valet, sir?” asked Coggins as they started up the stairs.

  “No, he was insolent, so I chopped off his head.”

  Coggins stopped abruptly on the stairs. He began to quiver almost imperceptibly, but whether from fear, outrage, or barely suppressed laughter, Gareth could not say.

  Outrage, no doubt. These folks took clothing seriously. “Good God, Coggins, get on with it,” Gareth said. “It was a jest. No, I haven’t a valet at present. I shall send for one eventually, I suppose.”

  Suddenly, he had a mental flash of Xanthia, who never gave a fig what anyone wore. Indeed, she had herself been known to wear the same gown three days running—not because she had so little but simply because such things were beneath her notice. She thought only of the business which needed doing on any given day.

  He was going to miss her, he suddenly and acutely realized. Their lives had diverged now and would likely never join again in any meaningful way. His old life—the life he had fought so hard to build out of the rubble which had been his childhood—was gone. It felt as if he was back where he started. This dukedom was not a boon to him. It was a curse. A bloody damned curse.

  Just then, they arrived at a set of double doors, which looked to be carved of solid mahogany. With another sweeping gesture, Coggins pushed them both wide, then stepped aside so that Gareth might take in the glory.

  “The ducal bedchamber, Your Grace,” he said, motioning about the vast room. “To your right is your dressing room, and to the left, your sitting room.”

  Gareth followed the butler and tried not to gape. These were rooms which he had never before seen—and they were, he conceded, truly magnificent. The bedroom was hung with ice-blue silk, and a darker shade of blue decorated the massive canopied bed. The blue-and-silver rug was Persian, and looked big enough to cover half the hold of some of Neville’s smaller ships.

  They crossed into the sitting room, which was similarly decorated but fitted with furniture that looked rather dainty by comparison. On the opposite wall was another door. Gareth drew it open. “What is this?” he asked as the soft scent of gardenia assailed his nostrils.

  “This is the duchess’s bedchamber,” said the butler, “when, of course, there is a duchess in residence.”

  Gareth drew in the scent again, deeper this time. There was something exotic and alluring about it. An underlying hint of lotus blossom, perhaps? “There is a duchess in residence, Coggins,” he finally said. “What’s become of her?”

  The butler inclined his head again. “The dowager duchess has moved to another suite of rooms,” he explained. “She believed it was what you would wish.”

  Gareth set one hand on his hip. “Well, I do not wish it,” he said, abruptly shutting the door. “Put her back again. Where is the second-best suite? I shall have that.”

 
On this point, however, Coggins was not cowed. “It would be best, perhaps, Your Grace, if you had this discussion with the duchess herself?”

  “Very well,” he said. “I shall.”

  Two footmen had brought in hot water and were filling a hip bath which had been drawn into the center of the dressing room. Gareth’s hands went to the knot of his neckcloth. “You will tell the duchess to expect me in twenty minutes,” he said, stripping it off. “I shall see her in the study.”

  Coggins hesitated. “Perhaps, Your Grace, I might suggest the morning parlor?”

  Gareth’s hands paused at the buttons of his waistcoat. “The morning parlor? Why?”

  Again, there was an instant of uncertainty. “The duchess greatly dislikes the study,” the butler finally answered. “She…does not care for dark rooms. The study. The library. The north parlors. Indeed, save for dinner, she rarely leaves the south wing.”

  Gareth frowned. This did not sound like the indomitable woman he had known. “Since when has she adopted such odd notions?”

  The butler’s lips thinned. “I wish I knew what further to tell you, sir,” he answered. “The duchess is…unusual.”

  “Unusual?”

  “Er—delicate, Your Grace,” he answered.

  “Ah!” said Gareth, shrugging out of his coat. “You mean she has been indulged. Very well, then. It isn’t my job to disabuse her. The morning parlor—in eighteen minutes.”

  “Eighteen?” the butler echoed.

  “Yes, Coggins.” Gareth hurled the waistcoat onto the bed. “Because time is money—and it is time everyone here learnt it.”

  Chapter Four

  G abriel pressed his ear to the keyhole, frightened. Zayde was sobbing. But men were not supposed to cry. Zayde himself said so—at least once a week.

  “Gone, Rachel!” he cried. “Everything. Gone. Oy, a shkandal! A thousand curses on them!”

  “B-But they are English gentlemen,” whispered his grandmother. “They must pay it. They must.”