Along Came a Duke (6 page)

Worst of all, they could do it. They'd both inherited a tidy fortune from their mother—Hen having added to her own coffers with three advantageous matches—so neither of them truly needed him.

And neither did society, for that matter. The
ton
would blackball him without a second thought and he'd be
persona non grata
in London.

Glancing down at the paper in his hand, he asked, “Is this the only way?”

Hen's gaze rolled skyward. “Oh, good heavens, Christopher! Whatever is wrong with marriage?”

“I'd say we ask your late husbands,” he muttered.

Chapter 3

“T
his will never do,” Lady Essex declared as she stared out the window of her carriage. The lady, who had planned to take Harriet to Town, had agreed to bring along Tabitha. Unwilling to be left behind, Daphne had managed, in true Dale fashion, to reason and arrange her way into the party.

Now their grand trip to London, which should have taken only two days, had come to a grinding halt a good half a day away from the city gates, much to Tabitha's relief and dismay. After pressing on in a terrible spring squall earlier in the day, all their hopes of reaching the city before nightfall were dashed. The mired roads had slowed their pace so much so that as evening had fallen, Lady Essex had declared they must take shelter, news that had brought a sigh of relief from a beleaguered and exhausted John Coachman.

“Tomorrow! I cannot believe we shall have to wait until tomorrow to reach London!” Daphne said as she secured her pelisse and checked her hat to make sure it didn't blow off.

Tabitha said nothing. After all, ever since her uncle had declared that she was to be married, Tabitha had found herself in the middle of a maelstrom, with her aunt and uncle refusing to listen to her protests against this match.

“Your uncle has chosen well for you
,” Aunt Allegra had stormed. “
A man well connected, and an heir presumptive to a great title. Think of how you will be able to help your family, your dear cousins!”

Then they had proceeded to treat her with such overreaching care and kindness—after all, one day their very own, dearest Tabitha would be a marchioness!—that Tabitha had found herself wishing for her corner in the attic and the solitude of her former chores.

“Come now, Tabitha. You cannot tell me you aren't the least bit disappointed about not getting to London tonight,” Daphne asked as they dashed across the inn's muddy yard. “Of meeting
him
. Mr. Reginald Barkworth.” Daphne couldn't say the man's name without adding a soft sigh. “It is all so very romantic.”

Much to Tabitha's chagrin, Daphne had taken the position that Tabitha's arranged marriage was the most efficient and practical means of finding a husband. And Mr. Reginald Barkworth? The heir to a marquisate? Well, obviously the perfect gentleman.

Harriet, however, was not so optimistic and liked to remind them both of the fate of Agnes, the most infamous bride of Kempton. Poor Agnes had gone mad on her wedding night to the unfortunately named John Stakes, a man her parents had forced her to wed.

Agnes
, Daphne would argue,
knew nothing of men.

And a little too much about how to wield a poker
, Harriet would mutter back.

Yet there it was. Whatever did Tabitha know of men? Or as that wretched Preston had put it,
. . . of men's whims or, for that matter, the desire a lady feels?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Save how unsettling it had to been to meet Preston.

Preston with his open shirt and bare chest. Preston with the broad shoulders. Preston with the tangled mess of chestnut hair. Preston, whose eyes burned with a wicked light.

Even the very remembrance left her a little breathless and off-kilter. Oh, he was the path toward madness if ever there was one.

And she blamed him entirely for her reluctance to get married. Whatever would she do if Mr. Reginald Barkworth was merely half as handsome?

“Tell me you are thoroughly excited at the prospect of meeting Mr. Reginald Barkworth,” Daphne pressed as they got inside and waited while Lady Essex ordered up rooms. “Or I will be most disappointed with you, Tabitha.”

“Mayhap a little,” she admitted. Terrified might be a better description.

“I wonder what he looks like,” Daphne said, her hands clutched in front of her. “Do you think he will be handsome? Did your aunt or uncle say anything about his countenance? As long as he doesn't have a wen. It is quite impossible not to find oneself staring at one, especially if it sits there like a button in the middle of their forehead. That could be quite worrisome. If he has a wen.”

While Daphne seemed to ponder this possibility silently (thankfully), Tabitha realized that a wen had been the least of her concerns, but now that she thought about it, she added that to her ever-growing list of fears.

“Whatever will you do if he does have a wen?” Daphne posed.

“Who has a wen?” Harriet asked, dashing up from behind, having returned to the carriage to fetch her reticule.

“Tabitha's betrothed,” Daphne told her. “Well, actually we don't know if he has one, but we were considering the possibilities.”

“Oh, that would be dreadful,” Harriet agreed. “I still say you forgo all of this nonsense and move into the Pottage. Marriage is fraught with peril, or so my brothers vow.”

On this dour note, Lady Essex returned and declared their surroundings “suitable.” The indomitable spinster had bullied the landlord into giving her and her young charges the best room—the one with a parlor. Once they'd climbed the stairs, “away from the rabble,” as Lady Essex said, she took to her bed and left her three charges on their own.

For the next few hours, Tabitha paced the room as she had every night for the past two weeks—torn between her anxieties of continuing on and the prospects of what, or rather whom, would meet her there.

Mr. Muggins, who could not be left behind in Kempton, watched his mistress from the rug before the fireplace with an air of curiosity, while Harriet snored softly from a narrow couch.

“Whatever is the matter?” Daphne finally asked, glancing up from the London newspaper she'd purloined from a downstairs table. “You aren't still worried about Mr. Reginald Barkworth, are you?” She laid her paper aside. “Surely your Uncle Winston would not desert you to some terrible roué.”

“He all but abandoned my mother when she married Papa.” She'd loved it when her mother would tell her how she had been destined to marry a lofty lord and then run away with Tabitha's father instead. It was such a romantic story and spoke of true love, not this willed union and business agreement her uncle had devised.

“Perhaps your Uncle Winston is making up for his shortcomings by providing you with an exceptional groom.” Practical to a fault, Daphne found Tabitha's arranged marriage ever so tidy. “At the very least, Mr. Reginald Barkworth can be counted as a gentleman of good breeding.” With that said, she went back to her paper.

Who was willing to marry me for my fortune, sight unseen,
Tabitha resisted pointing out.

Though Harriet would have, if she were awake.

Not that Tabitha was in the mood to hear them begin debating the subject yet again, not when she was tired and famished. As if to punctuate that thought, her stomach growled. Loudly.

“Good heavens!” Daphne declared, peering over the edge of her paper. “Whatever was that racket?”

“My stomach. I'm famished.” While her friend gaped at her, Tabitha tried to fathom how it was that Daphne and Harriet and Lady Essex could subsist on tea and toast all day.

Even Mr. Muggins appeared unsympathetic—but then again, the innkeeper had sent up a bone for the terrier, most likely to keep the dog from chewing up the furniture in his best room.

“However do I get something to eat?”

Daphne was no help; enthralled as she was by some notice in the paper, she barely looked up. “How would I know? Father usually goes down and then the trays are brought up. Not that I ever partake. Never do like to eat when I'm traveling.”

Tabitha wished she shared that inclination. But being hungry only intensified the nervous gnawing that had been churning in her gut for a fortnight.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Daphne asked, all the while looking longingly at her newspaper. She read the ads and legal notices like Harriet devoured serial stories and Miss Briggs's infamous Darby novels.

“No, no, you enjoy your paper,” Tabitha told her.

“It does seem quiet down there,” Daphne said, tipping her head toward the door. “Lady Essex will be none the wiser if you were to just pop downstairs to ask for a quick supper.”

“Do you think it would be proper?”

“You could take Mr. Muggins with you,” she suggested. “There isn't a man alive who would come between you and that beast. A far better chaperone than Lady Essex.”

They both laughed, for their towering guardian, with all her rules and strictures about proper decorum, most likely wouldn't wake until dawn—leaving them quite unprotected.

Tabitha's stomach growled again, and Daphne shook her head. “Do you like being hungry?” With that said, she continued on, “I might remind you that Lady Essex does not believe in taking breakfast while traveling—or did you forget about this morning?”

How could Tabitha have forgotten? The lady had hustled them out the door and into the carriage without even a warm scone.

Or a bite of bacon. A slice of ham. Not even a hard-cooked egg. Oh, she'd arrive at her aunt and uncle's house tomorrow afternoon on her last legs.

And what if Mr. Barkworth was there? Awaiting her? She'd be a sullen, hungry, bedraggled wreck.

She'd probably be so delirious with hunger she'd marry him without a second thought just to get to the wedding breakfast.

That decided the matter. Tabitha nodded and went to the door. Immediately, Mr. Muggins was on his feet, following his mistress.

“Oh, Tabitha, before you leave—” Daphne began.

“Yes?”

“Will you fetch my writing desk?” Daphne pointed at the black box near her valise.

Tabitha retrieved it, and as she handed it over, she glanced at the long line of advertisements. “Found something worth inquiring about?”

“Nothing of note,” Daphne replied. “But it might be worthwhile—” Already she was pulling out a sheet of paper and organizing her pen and ink.

From the doorway, Tabitha said, “If I find the company unseemly, I shall bring a tray upstairs immediately.”

“If you run into any handsome gentlemen, practice your wiles,” Daphne teased.

“I possess no wiles,” Tabitha reminded her, but by now Daphne wasn't listening, only waving her hand in a distracted flutter and settling back into composing her inquiry.

Thus dismissed, Tabitha made her way down the dark stairs, Mr. Muggins tight on her heels, only to be dismayed to find that the common room was empty. The storm had chased everyone to the cozy warmth of their beds.

But as she rounded the corner, a bit of light illuminated the end of the hall, the one that led toward the kitchens. Someone was in there.

Oh, yes, please
, she thought as the singular and enticing smell of roast beef wound around her.

Even Mr. Muggins perked up, his wet brown nose tipped in the air.

If there was roast beef, there might even be Yorkshire pudding. Tabitha sighed with something between hope and rapture.
Yorkshire pudding!

She hastened her steps, hurrying along the corridor, visions of pudding and roast beef luring her forward, so that she swung around the corner and instead of finding the kitchen as she'd hoped, she found herself colliding with a large man. The two of them became an immediate tangle of limbs—her hands grasping at his coat lapels to keep from toppling backwards, his arms winding around her to keep her upright.

Truly it was rather like hitting a side of beef. As her fingers splayed out to steady herself, they found a wall of unmistakable male muscle that rose like the walls of Jericho beneath his wool coat.

She might be just a spinster from Kempton, but the woman inside her recognized that unmistakable power surrounding her, and something, oh, something like that odd, tempting hunger she'd felt once before reawakened.

Tabitha tried to breathe, tried to even remember how or why she'd gotten to this place. For this man hadn't just kept her from falling but he was also holding her still, intimately so, his fingers moving over her back, his warmth enveloping her on this cold night, curling inside her limbs and enticing her to edge closer. Her feet, instead of finding their footing, wavered, her toes curling inside her boots.

This feeling, this languor, good heavens, it was utterly. . .

Familiar
, she realized, looking up and shocked to discover by whom she'd been undone yet again.

“Oh my!” she gasped. “You!”

Preston.

Scrambling backwards, she nearly tangled with Mr. Muggins, and again, the man reached out to catch her from falling, but this time she managed to save herself and avoid his clutches.

“I suppose I am,” he replied, leaning back against the doorjamb and crossing his arms over his chest. “And you are not the maid with my supper.”

“The maid? I think not,” she sputtered, feeling even more put out and catching up Mr. Muggins by the collar, just in case he felt the urge to bite this villain.

Which apparently he did not. Mr. Muggins shook off her grasp, ambled inside what appeared to be a private dining room and settled down by the fireplace, absolutely unworried at having entered such a den of iniquity.

Preston eyed the interloper who had just taken up a place on the rug and then back at Tabitha. “No, definitely not the maid.”

“Which I am heartily thankful I am not, since it seems you are in the habit of accosting them.” She brushed her hands down her sleeves, as if wiping away his touch.

“Accosted? I hardly think so,” he told her, looking quite amused and proud of himself. He pushed off the wall and walked past her. “Not in the least, miss. And not with you.” Then he leaned forward, peering through the shadows. “Good God! You're that scrawny, saucy minx from that village—”

Scrawny, saucy minx? Well, I never—

“Miss—Miss—” He tipped his head to one side and examined her, an assessing glance that landed on her as if he were running his hands over her.