His Secret Heroine (11 page)

"Reggie says his father cares nothing about his son's happiness, only that he remains under his father's control."

"Oh, surely not. He must love his son, or he would not care about controlling him."

Chloe sniffed. "Aunt Daphne, you know there are such men. You have told me so, yourself. Lord Cottingham
, the late one, was just as bad, and look what he did to Mama and the girls. And now his heir is even worse." She sniffed again. "Though perhaps in some ways it might be better to have a controlling papa than one like mine, who never troubled to assure himself the guardian of his child was worthy."

"Do not think so ill of your papa, Chloe. He did not plan to die, you know. And I must say, I also had no notion your Uncle Lowell would commit such a fraud, and you know I pay close attention to such things."

Chloe supposed that was so, but it seemed to her a father should have planned better for his child. Becoming aware of the chilly air, she lifted the shawl that had slipped to the seat and wrapped it over her shoulders.

"Perhaps Lord Reginald overstates," Aunt Daphne argued. "Young men are often at odds with their fathers. Surely the man would come to accept it."

"But that would accomplish nothing, Aunt Daphne. At best, the duke would accept it, but he would not help me get Madeline and Allison free of Cottingham, and that is what I must have."

"Now, how do you know if no one has asked him?"

She didn't know. Chloe sniffed and dabbed as the coach pulled up before their Leicester Square town house and the door opened. The young footman she had hired to relieve Cargill handed them out and preceded them to the front entrance.

Reggie didn't think they had a chance. His father had banished the duchess, and abandoned his older son and heir for their disobedience.

In any event, he would never stand up to his father for her. Harsh though the duke might be, he was still Reggie's father. How could she have been so foolish as to fall in love with the son of such a man? She knew better. Her mother had twice fallen in love, and both times devastatingly, for herself and her children. Both Chloe's own father and Lord Cottingham, father of Madeline and Allison, had been handsome, utterly charming, but had cared for no one but themselves.

But despite Chloe's best intentions, she had fallen in love just the way her mother had. She could blame no one but herself. Tonight she would mourn her loss and the pain she had unwittingly brought to Reggie. But she had to be practical. Tomorrow, she must begin her search anew.

* * *

The first thing the next morning, Chloe dragged herself from bed to begin the new campaign. She stumbled to the wash basin and splashed cold water to her face. It didn't help. She had hardly slept, had broken into tears several times, and couldn't stop thinking about Reggie. But all that had to change now. She couldn't leave Madeline and Allison to suffer at Cottingham's violent hand, no matter what it cost her.

It was just that she could not muster enthusiasm to find another husband. If she had only not met Reggie.

But she had. Well, she'd best just forget him. It wouldn't do to have a husband, yet be forever brooding about another man.

Chloe dressed with greater care than usual, but that could well have been because she couldn't decide between the blue muslin and the green. She spotted smears of mud on the green slippers that no amount of scrubbing would budge. But the blue ones were frayed at the toes. Yellow looked silly with either dress, but her yellow sprigged muslin had torn when a rather large gentleman had stepped backward onto the flounce. Something seemed wrong with everything she tried. Her hair was disastrous, flattened on one side and bushy on the other, and her eyes were red-rimmed. She sat down on her bed and stared at the tall mirror, seeing the ugly truth bounce back to her. She was every bit the fortune hunter of Reggie's accusation.

She rather wished she had explained to him, but she had been too angry, and in any event it would have made no difference. Yet it hurt to have him think so little of her.

Chloe sighed and put together a hodge-podge ensemble, the green dress with the yellow slippers, because the bonnet seemed to unite the two. More or less.

Descending the stairs felt like going down into a dungeon to begin an interminable sentence for her crimes. But if she hoped to have invitations where eligible young men could be met, she had to begin with morning calls. Or old men. At least one was not likely to be married to an old man quite so long. Nothing at all about them mattered if they could not be Reggie.

She was doing it again. She must not think about him.

"You're quite sure?" Daphne asked her as she pulled on her gloves.

"I'll do what must be done," she responded, tying the bow of the bonnet as they descended the stairs.

The pounding of the knocker echoed down the corridor. Daphne raised a hand, and they paused to listen.

Cargill's voice. "Miss Hawarth and Miss Englefield were about to depart on morning calls, but if Your Grace would care to wait, I am sure they would be happy to receive you."

Chloe exchanged wide-eyed stares with Daphne.
His Grace? Was her aunt acquainted with a duke? The only one with whom she might have connection was Reggie's father.

Of course Cargill could not turn away such a person, but they could not rush out to greet him, either. They waited, and Cargill came to present the mysterious duke's card.

"Marmount," Daphne said, studying the card. "Well, my dear, perhaps there is some hope. I cannot think why else the man would call on us."

Chloe wanted to believe. Hope and trepidation hammered in her heart as she stripped off the bonnet, and she wished she had somehow done a better job of dressing, but she followed Aunt Daphne into the drawing room where the duke awaited.

The duke stood before the chimneypiece wearing the most perfectly tailored coat of dark blue superfine she had ever seen. Silver-streaked dark hair was severely slicked back, unlike Reggie's golden hair with its distinct wave, but she would have known instantly this man was Reggie's father. The blue eyes were precisely the same shape, the same shade of summer-sky blue, and the duke had the same trim, deeply masculine shape on a tall, straight, broad-shouldered frame. He was an incredibly handsome man for his age. It pleased her to imagine Reggie looking like him in another thirty years.

The duke straightened from his close examination of the chimneypiece. Chloe recalled the careful touches of paint she had used to conceal flaws and signs of age in the old stone, and hoped he hadn't noticed, but from the minute flare of his nostrils, she feared he had.

Dukes did not, as a rule, pay calls on barons' daughters. Had Reggie swallowed his pride and gone to his father, after all? Chloe caught herself squeezing her hands together and forced herself to stop. She tried to smile and found herself stretching her lips ridiculously thin.

She squared her shoulders as the bright blue eyes swept a gaze from her aunt to her, and came to an abrupt halt. A shiver ran up her spine, and she wriggled out a weak smile as she managed a shaky curtsy. Still the duke fixed his completely unreadable and overly lengthy gaze on her. People didn't stare like that. Not even dukes. She cringed inside and studied her tan kid gloves.

"Miss Daphne Hawarth, is it not?" said the duke to her aunt, for it was a statement, not a question. "I believe you are the second daughter of the sixth Baron Hawarth. And you," he said, turning to Chloe, "will be Miss Chloe Englefield, daughter of the Seventh Baron Englefield. You will pardon me for making my own introduction." He didn't ask. He simply stated. "I am Marmount. But of course, you are familiar with my son, Lord Reginald Beauhampton."

"But of course,
Your Grace," said Aunt Daphne, giving over her hand, which the duke took graciously. "We are acquainted with your son. He is such a fine boy."

The nostrils flared again. "Yes."

Chloe followed her aunt's example. She thought her hand shook just the smallest bit, and she caught a hard gleam in the duke's eye that led her to believe he noticed. He was all that was proper, but something bothered her, something more than the social distance between them.

"Miss
Hawarth, I should like to become better acquainted with your niece, which is fitting, under the circumstances. You will not object if I drive out with her this morning."

Chloe's gaze met Aunt Daphne's with a question. Her aunt clearly did not have the answer.

"Your Grace, my niece would be delighted, would you not, my dear?"

"Yes, of course," Chloe said, swallowing hard between words. The Duke of Marmount meant to take her up in his carriage? Surely Reggie was wrong, then. Perhaps they had merely been quarreling before, but the duke wanted to see his son happy after all.

Chloe installed her bonnet once more and accepted the duke's escort out to the waiting carriage, a sedate model of coach that she guessed had been maintained to perfection for a number of years. Glossy black enamel showed not a flaw, and the ducal crest shone bright, picked out in blue and red, with gold leaf. She suspected if she inspected it with the same scrutiny the duke had shown toward her chimneypiece, she would not have found a speck of dirt. The interior was equally as spotless.

The duke handed her up in a paternal manner. Chloe's mind stumbled about in confusion trying to match what she saw with Reggie's description of his father. His tiger barely leapt aboard as the duke snapped the ribbons and the carriage pulled out, driving with the smoothness of an accomplished whip, without the frightening speed. The man drove for comfort, not for show.

She had a hundred questions she wanted to ask, but refrained, remembering the code of etiquette Aunt Daphne had so carefully instilled in her over the years. Patiently, she waited for the older gentleman to begin the conversation.

"I knew your father," he said. "He was the seventh Baron
Englefield."

"Yes, Y
our Grace," she replied, concentrating on being the most perfect young miss the duke might ever have met.

"He attended Eton at the same time I did, but he went on to Cambridge then. Of course I encountered him numerous times in Lords. And the eighth baron was your uncle, was he not?"

"Yes, Your Grace. He was my father's brother and of course my guardian before I came of age. The ninth baron is my cousin Bertrand, his son. "

"Which was but a few months past. A bit of a spendthrift as I recall. The eighth baron."

Did he know? "I was not well acquainted with him, Your Grace, as I lived with my aunt. Uncle Lowell felt it best I be raised by a female."

"Indeed." He fell silent, continuing his drive almost as if she were not there, reached the gate and continued along Knightsbridge. Once along the tree-lined street, where no other carriage drove so early in the day, he tossed a long assessing look, as hard as ice, at her. Chloe felt a sudden chill.

"You met Reginald at a house party. Mythe's, was it not?"

"Yes,
Your Grace, at a reading, actually. He—"

"Mythe was always a ridiculous bluestocking. That wife of his, as well. Reginald is not writing poetry again, is he?"

Chloe almost gasped, but caught herself. He said it in the way one might accuse a son of drunkenness or worse. Reggie had said he loved to write. But if his father disapproved, then no wonder he kept it secret. But he hadn't actually said he was doing so. "I do not know of any, Your Grace."

The duke's mouth worked sideways minutely, reminding her of a mouse sniffing about for a dropped tidbit. "He is doing something, I am sure of it."

He flicked his whip, and the tip danced eloquently above the backs of his cattle. The elegant carriage picked up speed.

"I am not one to mince words, Miss
Englefield. I wish to discuss your connection with my son."

"
Your Grace—"

"You are quite lovely. I can see why Reginald is taken with you. But he is quite above your touch. He will in all likelihood become the next duke, and a baron's daughter will not suit as the next duchess."

"But Your Grace—"

"Do not think I am ignorant of your situation. I am not as easily bamboozled as those silly matrons and fops who are so taken in by you. You, Miss
Englefield, are an adventuress."

Chloe's jaw dropped open. She stared at the duke, and the ice in his sideways glare grew colder.

"You, Miss Englefield, are up the River Tick and mean to make a marriage of the greatest of convenience to you. I wish you good fortune in your endeavor. But it will not be with my son."

"But I
—he— Your Grace, we do not—"

"Do you think to fool me, Miss
Englefield? You waste your efforts to try to soften me with your charm."

"No,
Your Grace, but surely you must know that Reggie and I have already decided we will not suit."

The man's gaze sliced over her, through her like a carving knife through cold meat. "Really, Miss
Englefield. I am appalled that you think me an innocent. You were seen together only last night. Women of your kind do not simply decide they do not suit a man of means and position such as my son. You cannot persuade me you have not assessed your chances and found Reginald useful. But you overreach yourself, young lady. You will either renounce your ties to Reginald or face the consequences."