Heartless (18 page)

“Not silly,” Derringer told her gruffly. “Caring. You seem to care about everyone and everything you meet. I don’t know how you do it.”

“Yes you do, Hart. You care, too, or you would not even consider taking a boy with you on such an important journey. If you did not care about his dreams you would order him to stay home.” Her eyes flashed. “If you did not care, Hartley St. Clair, you would have dismissed every lame servant I hired in your absence.” Her body tensed, shoulders straightening as she leaned closer. “If you didn’t care, you would never have looked at me twice in Maidstone. You would have left me to fend for myself. So do not try to tell me that you do not care, sir.”

“Calm yourself, Merri,” the duke murmured. “Do not distress yourself over something you cannot control. I am heartless like they say. Everything I do has some benefit to me. I do nothing from altruistic motives.”

The duchess closed her eyes again and whispered, “Say what you will, your grace. I will never believe you are heartless.”

“He did what?” Martin exploded.

Leandra took a cautious step back. “He sailed to France to get your brother.” She stared at him in consternation. “I thought you would be pleased.”

“Oh, I am,” he quickly assured her. “I was just surprised, is all.”

Leandra cocked her head to one side, not entirely convinced of his claim but finding it very difficult to believe anything untoward of Martin St. Clair.

Dismissing her suspicions with a flick of her hand, she added, “He should return with him in a week or so. Meanwhile, I wished to speak to you because I have decided to hold a small house party.”

“You have?”

Leandra crossed her arms over her chest at his disbelieving tone. “Yes, I have. I want to invite Lord and Lady Greville to stay for a few weeks. My family is already here and have made no imminent plans for departure. I may as well invite someone I can actually like.” She looked away from her husband’s cousin. “I hope,” she added under her breath.

The look Martin gave her then made her want to step back again but she held her ground and lifted her chin a fraction. Her wide eyes glittered gold behind her spectacles. She wasn’t about to bow before the duke’s secretary. He was there to help her, not rule her.

“Is there something you wish to say to me, Mr. St. Clair?”

“No, your grace,” he replied with the slightest emphasis on her title. His blue eyes glinted like chips of ice for the barest moment before they became the usual soft blue. His face eased into his normal placid expression.

Leandra wondered what he was thinking but decided she’d rather not know. The unnerving look in his eyes vanished so quickly she was unsure of its existence. So she brushed it aside as her overactive imagination. When had Martin—kind, gentle, sweet tempered Martin—ever given her cause for worry?

“When would you like this invitation to go out?” he asked.

“Immediately, please, Martin.”

Leandra knew that the invitation went out that very afternoon. Liza informed her that Billy, one of the new grooms in the stable, was sent personal to deliver it to Warwickshire. Leandra was pleased and settled herself to wait for her guests to arrive.

Her time was divided between her duties as hostess to her still present family and her duties as mistress of Derringer Crescent. The former was a strain on her emotions and her patience and the latter was just time-consuming. But she threw herself into them just as if she relished every second of it.

Two days after the duke’s departure, three more guests arrived in the form of Martin’s mother, sister, and brother-in-law, along with three nephews. The boys were sent to the nursery to play with Leandra’s nieces and nephews and the ladies were shown into the drawing room where Lady Harwood and Lady Schuster were chatting and the gentleman went off with Martin. Leandra joined the ladies in the drawing room the same time as the Dowager Lady Harwood and Lady Michaella.

“Oh, Merri, have you met Lady St. Clair? She is quite as frightening as mama,” whispered Michaella.

“No, is she?” Leandra asked with a twinkle. “I have had much experience dealing with your mama, my dear. I have little doubt how to handle Hart’s aunt.”
I hope the Grevilles arrive soon,
she thought as she led the way into the room.

“What has happened to the paintings that were in here?” demanded Lady St. Clair haughtily.

“I had them removed,” Leandra murmured as she sat on a striped sofa with Michaella.

She studied her new family members. Derringer’s aunt was nearly as wide as she was short with fat gray curls all over her head in a style much more suited to a young girl. Her white muslin gown sported a gold key pattern, high-waisted but thankfully high-necked as well. She sat up straight in her chair and glared about her with the air of a… well, duchess, casting disapproving looks at all those around her.

Her daughter, Lady Kathryn, was the opposite of her mother. She had masses of dark hair with a shy, barely expressive countenance. Her height was closer to that of her brother and Leandra decided that the late Lord St. Clair must have been quite as tall as Derringer. She sat beside her mother, hands clenched tightly in her lap. Leandra realized the young lady was nervous and uncomfortable.

“
Why
did you remove them?” Lady St. Clair demanded with a pointed look at Leandra as if to imply that she had no business removing anything from the castle walls.

“I didn’t like them,” Leandra replied evenly. “They were crude and barbaric and I found I had not the stomach for them.”

“A real duchess would never think so,” sniffed the lady.

“A real lady would never make such a rude comment,” retorted Lady Michaella, in a rare show of spirit.

Leandra patted her sister on the arm and barely shook her head. “It is all right, my dear,” she soothed. “Lady St. Clair is entitled to her opinion. This was her home, after all, until Hart was old enough to say otherwise.”

“You are a fortune-hunting upstart, young lady,” declared Lady St. Clair. Lady Kathryn gasped slightly and muttered something that no one could understand.

Leandra stared at her husband’s aunt for a full ten seconds, trying very hard to stifle her rising laughter. But she failed. She couldn’t help it. The idea that she was a fortune hunter when it was Derringer who’d had to marry to get his fortune was just too ironic for words. And she had not even known until the deed was done!

Everyone stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. Perhaps she had. She was married to a man that she’d not seen more than a few days at best and was forced to entertain his family along with hers and none of them liked her much at all. What was the world coming to?

“What is this world coming to when a duke marries a little nobody and then welcomes her upstart family to visit as well?”

“Mama, please,” protested Lady Kathryn.

The fat old lady turned a glare on her daughter. “Please, what, Kathryn? I will not oblige this bunch of mushrooms by pretending that they are welcome. They are not.”

“Well, I never!” declared Leandra’s stepmother. “You, madam, are the mushroom. I am the Dowager Countess of Harwood.”

“And I am the Countess of Harwood,” that young lady told them all proudly.

“I don’t care who you are,” retorted Lady St. Clair. “I am Derringer’s beloved aunt and that has more power than any twenty titles.”

“Ladies, if we could have some calm, it would be much appreciated,” inserted Leandra quickly before her stepmother could say another word.

There came a scratch on the door that silenced the ladies more effectively than anything Leandra could have said. “Enter.”

Stark opened the door with such a pained expression on his old face that Leandra stood to ask if he was well. He nodded and swallowed hard. “Your grace, there is a... person… here, requesting entrance.”

“Who is this person, Stark?” Lady St. Clair demanded imperiously, just as if she were still the mistress of the house.

“It is not your place to ask,” snapped the dowager. “It is Merri’s.”

So nonplussed by this about-face on the part of her stepmother, Leandra did not ask the butler who the visitor was. She stared at the dowager until that lady demanded imperiously, “What ails you, child?”

“Who is this person, Stark?” asked Michaella in her soothing tones.

The butler bowed to Lady Michaella but his words were directed at Leandra. “Her name is Nicolette and she says that his grace is expecting her, your grace.”

“Nicolette? My lord has never mentioned her.”

Stark grew noticeably red while his mouth opened and closed several times. Dawning light flashed through Leandra’s brain and she fought the sudden anger and dismay that welled up within her.

She stalked over to the embarrassed old man and whispered. “She is his mistress, is she not?”

“That is what I am given to understand, your grace.”

What was the world coming to? Family converged on her, her husband’s mistress dropped in for all the world like she was welcome, and no one seemed able to find their manners.

Leandra smiled brightly though her eyes glittered dangerously behind her spectacles. “Have her shown into the Egyptian Saloon, Stark. I shall be with her presently.”