Jilting the Duke (3 page)

“Lord Wilmot was very specific. Your letter—and one to his widow—were to be delivered within a day of the first anniversary of his death.”

“Then it is convenient I am in town.” Aidan leaned against the edge of his desk.

Aldine held out a letter, its seal unbroken. “His lordship instructed I am to remain while you read.”

Aidan nodded acquiescence, and Aldine began laying out papers on the desk.

Tom's handwriting, though still legible, had grown less controlled.

Had Aidan been alone, he would have cursed out loud. Tom's letter was unwelcome, as unwelcome as Aidan's father's summons five years ago to return from the wars to care for the ducal estates.

Aidan turned to the guardianship papers, noting several contradictions between them and Tom's letter. “Let me make sure that I understand. Wilmot's son is to live with me part of the year?”

“If you wish. My firm disperses funds for the boy's maintenance, supported by the approval of both guardians, or one guardian and our firm.”

Aidan raised one eyebrow. “What is the rationale there?”

“If one guardian is unavailable or if you and Lady Wilmot cannot agree, the firm adjudicates on the child's behalf.” Aldine offered a long pause. “It is a right we prefer not to exercise.”

“Ah, money is tied up in this arrangement.” Aidan leaned forward toward Aldine. “Did Wilmot believe his wife would run through the funds?”

“No. His lordship valued his wife's judgment. She's an able manager.”

“He valued her judgment, but removed the boy's estate from her control?” Aidan let his voice convey disbelief.

“No, the estate remains under her ladyship's control until the boy's majority. This guardianship administers a trust for the boy's maintenance. Wilmot wished to provide the boy with a male mentor, but you can refuse the guardianship.” Aldine pulled another document from his portfolio. “Your signature on this makes Lady Wilmot sole guardian.”

“So it's me or no male guardian.” Suddenly, Aidan remembered Tom as a boy, playing King Arthur and his knights with Aidan and his brothers. He cursed inwardly: Tom had known honor would not allow Aidan to refuse. “Then I will accept.”

Aldine returned the refusal to his portfolio. “My clerk can witness your signature, unless you prefer someone of your household.”

Aidan rang the bell. “I always prefer someone of my household.”

Aldine moved Aidan's copy of the legal papers to the side and produced the official contract, a large piece of vellum, carefully lettered, with six signatures and seals already in place. Three signatures dated from shortly after Wilmot's marriage: Wilmot's own, large, flourished, and confident, and those of two witnesses. Wilmot's seal—a dragon's head—drew Aidan's attention. Something tugged at his memory, but wouldn't come clear. Lady Wilmot's hand was firm, but restrained; her witness, an Italian with a neat Continental script. Aidan read over the official document to ensure it was consistent with his copy.

When Barlow arrived, Aidan signed in his best, most official hand, adding flourishes to the tail of the
S
in Somerville, the curve of the
D
in Duke, and the
F
in Forster to mirror those in the ducal seal. An expansive signature to suggest full and willing consent. Barlow signed in a competent school hand, then slipped from the room.

“While the ink dries, have you any questions?” Aldine offered.

“I would like a sense of Wilmot's intentions beyond this.” Aidan waved his hand over the documents. “I leave London in three weeks. May I take the boy with me to my estate?”

“The guardianship papers stipulate you may, but it might be wise to delay exercising that provision. Though his lordship established the guardianship a decade ago, her ladyship appeared surprised it had been called into effect.”

“What you do mean?” Aidan knew Tom never kept secrets without a reason.

“Lord Wilmot sent the instructions related to the guardianship in three letters, to me, to you, and to her ladyship. All were folded together in a cover addressed to my firm, signed and sealed by Lord Wilmot and carried to England by her ladyship.” Aldine tested the edge of the ink for dryness. “It seemed rather like the scene in
Hamlet
where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern act as couriers of the papers that lead to their executions.”

“An interest in drama, Aldine?” Aidan quizzed.

“A student of human nature, your grace.” Aldine folded the contract until it formed a tall narrow book with a title already carefully lettered on its spine.

“Why do you think her ladyship was unaware of the guardianship?” Aidan asked, interested in Aldine's observations.

“Her ladyship rarely shows emotion. But her shoulders stiffened when she read the letter.”

“Then her ladyship is unhappy with this ‘partnership'?” Aidan replied, pleased at the news.

The solicitor returned the documents to his portfolio. “I simply report her response to the letter.” Aldine withdrew a slip of paper and held it out. “Lord Wilmot purchased a house for her ladyship quite close to your own. If you do not wish to meet at her ladyship's, my office is also available.”

Aidan looked at the address—Queen Anne Street, just around the corner. Near the park. The implications settled slowly. Aidan could likely look out his bedroom window and see her yard. “No, I will call on her.”

“Those copies are yours.” Aldine indicated the papers remaining on Aidan's desk.

Aidan extended his hand in parting. The solicitor's handshake was firm and confident.

Aidan waited until the solicitor reached the door. “Wilmot's letter claims that her ladyship is devoted to the boy. Is that correct? Women in the
ton
often find children merely an obligation to be fulfilled.”

Aldine paused. “Then her ladyship is unusual. Observe the mother and the son together to determine the depth of her ladyship's affection for her child.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You will charge me once more with a fondness for drama.” Aldine placed his hand on the doorknob.

“I'll refrain.”

“Then I'll answer. Only with her son does Lady Wilmot seem to be a woman, rather than a beautiful statue carved in marble.” With those words, Aldine, ignoring the requirements of rank, wished Aidan a good day and left.

* * *

From the window, Aidan watched as Aldine and his clerk, a thin, limping man in rumpled clothes, parted ways on the sidewalk. Aldine's walk was all efficiency, long strides in a fluid gait. The solicitor was more interesting than he ought to be, and all the more interesting because he tried to hide it. Perhaps Aidan should inquire at the Home Office about Mr. H. William Aldine of Leverill and Cort, 19 Cateaton Street.

Aidan had waited a long time for his revenge. To have it fall so neatly into his lap seemed a sign of Fate's approval. Tom had placed Sophia in Aidan's power. A shared guardianship required a devoted mother to remain in his good graces, to be civil, even courteous, lest she lose the ability to make decisions regarding her child. Perhaps, given how quickly Sophia had exchanged Aidan's bed for Tom's, she might even offer her body as a bargaining chip. That would be rich.

At his desk, Aidan reached not for his standard notepaper, but for the fine foolscap sheets he used for correspondence or when, as now, he wished to impress his reader with his wealth and rank. He wrote one sentence in the middle of the sheet, then folded and sealed it, pressing his ring into the soft wax until his signet came clear. He held the letter, feeling the same exhilaration and anticipation as he did before a boxing match or a horse race—or even a battle. Then he called decisively for his footman to deliver his first correspondence in a decade with the woman who had once been his fiancée.

Chapter Three

Charters twisted his spyglass. Lady Wilmot was in her library, reading. He could observe her so easily. Yet she had no idea he existed, much less that they had business together.

From his rooms, he could see her garden and her library. Well, the rooms weren't really his—just an empty house with insufficient locks and heirs abroad.

He had his own house in London, the one that came with his earldom. But if he used it, he'd have to resume his real identity as well, and he'd grown to like playing Charters. The disguise was simple, but a complete deception once in place: a pair of tinted spectacles, a wig of long brown hair pulled back in a pigtail, and thick-soled shoes with variable heels to make him limp. As he'd learned in the wars, he was more
himself
as Charters than as “his lordship.”

No, before the
ton
knew “his lordship” had returned, this business needed to be settled. Unresolved for too long, it put all his plans at risk.

He hadn't expected Lady Wilmot to return to England so quickly after her husband's death. But one could turn events into opportunities. She'd left so few servants behind at her villa that it had been easy to search. But the papers were not there. Wilmot had always sent his coded documents home in duplicate, each set carried separately by whatever unsuspecting fool he could conscript. Wilmot would send the key to decode the documents by a third method, equally inscrutable. Charters had acquired one copy of the document when he intercepted the courier, but the second copy and the code key had eluded him. After months spent waiting for the second set to arrive at its destination, Charters had decided to find the papers himself.

Back in London, anticipating that Wilmot might have sent the papers to his solicitor, Charters had found employment as a clerk with Leverill and Cort. It hadn't been luck that the firm had needed help. Rubbing the thick, raised scar on the back of his left hand, Charters thought of the clerk he'd replaced, a callow country youth lonely for home and willing to see traitors in Aldine's wealthy clients. Charters had intended simply to pay the clerk for information. But the boy had grown suspicious. Even so, the clerk had not expected Charters to throw him over the bridge into the Thames. The boy had even held out a hand as he fell, as if Charters would reach out and save him. At the water, the body had broken against a floating log. The log tipped and rolled with the weight, and the body had disappeared into the dark waters below. Another opportunity.

But even at Aldine's, Charters had still failed to find the papers.

Charters took one more look through his spyglass at Lady Wilmot. These were his favorite moments, setting traps as his quarry remained unaware. By the time Lady Wilmot realized she was in danger, she would not be able to escape. Did she know she had the papers, and what they meant? Or was she simply unfortunate? Either way, he would enjoy watching her play the game.

Chapter Four

With trembling hands, Sophia picked up Tom's letter to read it again.

Sophia turned her head toward the garden, toward the bed of pansies, marigolds, and forget-me-nots, and wept.

* * *

Some time later, Dodsley brought her a note on a silver tray. Breaking the dark wax seal, she found one sentence in the middle of a large expanse of white paper. An expensive use of paper, she thought, before the words registered.

Perfectly appropriate, with an ease of command suitable to his rank. The note a superior would send to a subordinate. There was no suggestion of their past intimacy and no hint of future amicability. No suggestion he'd seen her only hours before. With one signature, Forster—as Sophia steeled herself to think of him—established the limits of their relationship.

But he also prompted her to action.

Within fifteen minutes, she had called for her carriage, sent a message to Ian's tutor that she would return by dinner, and changed into appropriate dress for the forty-five-minute carriage ride to the home of her sister-in-law.

Ophelia Mason lived in the rural village of Kensington, some six miles away. Sophia wished she had someone to confide in other than Tom's unrufflable sister. Sophia needed a friend who hadn't loved Tom deeply and who wouldn't care that she had sometimes resented her husband for ignoring her wishes. But she couldn't think of any woman outside of Tom's sisters whom she knew well enough to burden with her troubles.

As she climbed into the carriage, musty from lack of use, she wished that she could take a horse instead, but full mourning disallowed it. On a horse, she could feel the wind in her face. Her first horse, a Spanish gray mare named Cob, had been a present from her uncle. Though too old for the hunt, Cob had loved to run, and Sophia, riding astride like her cousins, would let the horse run long and fast. Suddenly, she remembered Aidan racing beside her. She had held Cob back enough to let Aidan think he'd won, then she'd spurred the horse forward to victory. At their goal, she hadn't known to play coy, to wait until he helped her down. On dismounting she found him already beside her, laughing, calling her his “self-sufficient Sophia” and claiming the victor's kiss, even though he'd lost.

She opened the curtains of the coach to watch the town slip into countryside, her thoughts turning back to Tom's guardianship plan and how she'd only agreed because she had no choice.

Three weeks before his death, Tom had handed her tickets to take her and Ian back to England. She'd refused. “We can't leave you, Tom, not when . . .”

“Not when I'm dying.” Tom never had any trouble speaking the truth. Placing his hands on her upper arms, he'd made her look into his eyes. “The Carbonari talk revolution and nationalism all around us. As long as I am alive, my friendships with the Bourbon ministers protect us. But support for the Italian nationalists grows each day, as does sentiment against Ferdinand's British and Austrian allies. You and Ian must go home.”

“No.” She'd held her hands up in refusal. “Revolution is years away. Our friends will warn us when it's time to leave. And Ian will not understand. Both you and I know the pain of losing a father so young, how we would have traded anything for another year, or another day. . . .” She'd let the words drift off. Watching Tom slip away had taken all her strength.

“Death is never easy.” Tom had spoken softly. “Ian must learn his own country, not this mongrel society we have created for him.”

Sophia bristled. “Our life here is a hybrid, like our roses. From our Italian friends, he has learned to live joyfully; from our English friends, he has learned to be circumspect.”

“Then we will go together.” He'd pulled out a third packet of travel papers. “In six-week's time, we will have the best weather and the quickest winds; we should be in England within ten days.”

“If the trip doesn't kill you, the climate in England will. Either way you cut short our time. Propose some other plan.” Her hands tightened behind her back.

He'd watched her silently, then explained his four requirements. Each one, a promise she had to make.

Take up your place in the
bon ton
.

At the third requirement, she'd objected. “I was an orphaned parson's daughter; I don't have a place in society to take.”

“Yet Ian will need you to know and be known. In London, you were admired for your poise and your bearing. Here, invitations to your dinners were much prized. Set your mind to this, and you will create a community—perhaps form another salon. Besides, you will not be alone: my sisters and your cousins will ease the way. Finally, within a year, you must call upon Aidan and ask him to serve as Ian's surrogate father.” His hand lay on the tickets, his blackmail. He'd sat so still that she should have realized that he would not survive another year.

“No.” She'd turned away, hiding her face. “We've heard the rumors even here: he's grown hard, unforgiving, more like Aaron than Benjamin. If you want Ian to be guided by someone from your boyhood, Colin is well respected for his amiability, and Seth already manages your estate. Of my relations, Malcolm is devoted to his new wife's boys. Any would be more suitable.”

Tom had shaken his head in firm refusal. “Of my Somerville cousins, none were closer than Aidan and I. He must have felt our marriage a betrayal. We must, if that is true, try to undo the damage.”

“Sometimes the damage of the past cannot be undone. And you will not be there. Only I will.” She had met Tom's eyes. “You don't know what you are asking, or what it will cost.”

“I do know, but it will be worth the cost, for Ian as well as for you.”

The soft Italian breeze had carried the scent of rain through the open doorways facing the loggia. Sophia had suddenly realized that Italian rain smelled nothing like rain in England. The rain in Naples always had a hint of spice, of the dust that sometimes rained from nearby Vesuvius and fertilized the cultivated land. Rain in England smelled fertile, like field upon field of pasture, of crops not yet come in for the harvest, of waiting in the summerhouse with Aidan for a storm to end. She preferred the Italian rain: it held no memories and offered no secrets.

She'd looked at the set of botanical illustrations she'd just finished. “What about your book? If you die before it is finished, should I promise to see it through the press?”

“That needs no promise, for you will do it whether I ask or not.” Tom had smiled. “The others are burdens. But, Sophia, knowing I have your promises will allow me to die easy.”

“Then I promise.” There was nothing else to say.

And then Tom was dead.

* * *

“What was Tom thinking, Ophelia?” Sophia embraced her sister-in-law. “Aidan isn't a knight in shining armor. In fact if the rumors are true, he's far from honorable. I'm not sure that Tom was entirely himself when he put Ian under Aidan's control.”

“My dear, Tom didn't give Ian over to Aidan. You are also his guardian. But I'm afraid this partnership might be my fault.” Ophelia patted the open space next to her on the couch, and Sophia sat beside her. “When we were in Italy, Tom asked me all the latest news about Aidan, and I must admit I glossed over his more scandalous moments. Had I known Tom's intentions, I would have been less generous.”

“It wouldn't have mattered.” Sophia wiped away angry tears with the back of her hand. “Tom would have believed the good, justified away the bad, and ignored the middle. Most of the time, I found that endearing. Now . . . if he weren't dead, I'd kill him myself.”

Ophelia drew several handkerchiefs from her sewing stand and tucked one into Sophia's hand. For a moment, the women sat in silence, Ophelia's hand placed comfortingly on Sophia's.

“You must admit, my dear, this arrangement offers advantages,” Ophelia reasoned. “If anything were to happen to you, your brother would catch the scent of money and appeal to Chancery to serve as Ian's guardian over whomever you might have chosen. But Phineas will not cross Aidan. Since he has become duke, Aidan's natural magnetism has grown into an ease of command.”

Sophia wiped her eyes with the corner of the linen. “I wasn't thinking of it that way, but yes, you are right. As for Aidan's ‘ease of command,' you should have seen his note. One can't call it a summons, since he's coming to me. But he expects compliance all the same.” She rubbed the handkerchief between her fingers, distracting herself with the ornate curves of monogrammed initials. An
A
was obvious and an
F
, then with an artist's eye, she followed the line of the intertwined
S
. In shock she realized the shape of the pattern. “Oh, my word . . . Phee! Aidan has been to visit you!?”

“Oh, dear, forgive me.” Ophelia swept the soiled handkerchief from Sophia's hand and tucked it out of sight. “When Aidan came to us after Tom's death, I cried on his linen. I keep forgetting to return it.” Ophelia handed Sophia a new handkerchief. “After our parents died, we girls didn't live only in London with Aunt Millicent. We spent summers with Tom and our Somerville cousins. Even now, Aidan often acts as our brother. He escorts us to balls when Sidney is obligated at Whitehall, and he always dances with Kate and Ariel in the second half.”

“Of course, I should have realized. Forgive me, I'm simply . . .” Sophia searched for the right word.

“Overwrought, my dear. You've had an unwelcome surprise,” Ophelia offered with characteristic good sense. “But how do you intend to convince Aidan to reject Tom's plan?”

“I thought I'd appeal to his bachelor instincts, ask him to be Ian's guardian in name only, visiting as he sees fit when he is in town, advising me on whatever matters he finds important, but leaving the day-to-day oversight to me.” Sophia watched Ophelia's face hopefully. “If that fails, I would suggest that, given his reputation, his brothers or my cousins would more suitably fill the role of mentor for a young boy.”

Ophelia looked pensive, her straight auburn hair, unencumbered by a cap, twisted into a high bun. The gray ribbon banding her head was the only trace of half-mourning. “Aidan's reputation as a rake aside, he takes responsibilities seriously. He's never failed when we've called on his help. In fact, I was unable to say anything against Aidan when Tom asked because . . .” Phee shifted in her chair. “I suppose it won't hurt to tell you.”

Phee looked for assent from Sophia, who nodded.

“We arrived in Naples so unexpectedly because we left London in haste. Ariel's season had been lovely until she confided in that foolish gossip Susan Flanders the news of Tom's settlements on her and Kate. Suddenly every penniless scoundrel found my sisters the most attractive morsels on the market. One, George Winthrop, decided to convince Ariel to marry him by abducting her from Lady Mallory's ball.”

“If Aidan hadn't noticed Ariel was gone, well, she would have been ruined, or worse, married to a wastrel and a reprobate. Aidan found me, just as a footman delivered a message that Ariel, feeling ill, had caught a ride home with Lady Balmoral. When I tried to ask questions, the footman turned away without answering. Aidan pulled the footman into a withdrawing room and sent me to find Malcolm.

“By the time we returned, Aidan had the full of Winthrop's plan. Aidan and Malcolm caught up with Winthrop's carriage not too many miles out of town, with Ariel, still unconscious from a bump on her head. We feared that Winthrop might try to force the marriage, claiming he'd compromised her. We'd already received your letter urging us to visit, so we came to Naples.”