How the Duke Was Won (19 page)

Charlene kissed her sister's knuckles. “Don't worry, sweetheart, I'll take care of Mother. She wants you to have this chance. She'll be so very proud of you.”

Lulu wavered between concern for their mother and joy at the chance. “Are you sure?” she asked tentatively. “Oh, Charlene. Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. There's nothing to be decided. Everything is settled.”

Lulu smiled, unable to contain her elation any longer. She danced over to her paint box and grabbed a brush, flourishing it at her painting. “Do you hear that, Your Grace?” she asked the half-­finished portrait of Wellington. “I'm to live in Essex, and I can finish you on real ivory, as befits a war hero.”

She turned back to Charlene. “Will there be meadows full of flowers in Essex?” She set her paintbrush back in the box. “Will there be crumbling castles?”

Charlene smiled. “I'm sure there will be billions of flowers and heaps of ruined castles. Now come downstairs, sweetheart. I'm famished.”

As the sisters descended to the kitchens, Charlene's heart was lighter than it had been in a long time. Lulu would have a safe, uneventful girlhood, away from the sulphur and coal smoke of London. She'd never climb the stairs to the Aviary and learn the sordid truth.

“You'll need a smart traveling dress,” Charlene said as she poured their tea. The ladies Lulu painted always wore silk and jewels, but she donned the same gray dress and smudged shapeless painter's smock every day.

“Will Mrs. Hendricks be very fine? She won't think me hopelessly plain, will she?”

“No one could ever find you plain.” And that was another reason Charlene had to send her sister off to the countryside. With all that red-­tinged hair and those wide hazel eyes, her sister's budding beauty would attract too much attention from London gentlemen very soon.

Dangerous men like Grant.

The good, strong black tea was bracing. No more rich chocolate or impossible dreams for Charlene. No more tempting green eyes.

No more kisses.

“You have a faraway air,” Lulu said. “There's something you're not telling me. Something mysterious. Are you certain a handsome suitor isn't going to appear and spirit you away on a magnificent stallion?”

Charlene steadied her hand as she poured more tea. “Don't be silly. That only happens in fairy tales.”

In real life, the prince married within his rank, and the serving girl swept ash the rest of her lonely life.

J
ames had been eager for the officious mamas, fawning daughters, and trunks full of feathers to leave. He'd wanted his solitude back. So why did the house feel too empty now?

He went down to the stables and saddled a horse, then mixed himself a mug of cocoa, but it tasted burned and bitter.

He paced up and down the echoing hallways, startling unsuspecting chambermaids. Catching sight of his reflection in a hall mirror, he realized why they shrank from him. He'd refused to shave, and there was dark stubble shadowing his jaw. His hair was unkempt, his eyes wild, and he was still wearing the same rumpled clothing from the night before.

He must be losing his mind.

As he strode through the oppressive passageways of his ancestral home, he circumnavigated the same mental circle. If Dorothea had plotted to be compromised, it followed that all the rest of her actions and words could merely have been a skillful act. If it had all been an act, maybe she didn't care for him, or Flor, as she had seemed to. And if she didn't care for him . . . why did that rankle? Had he been so arrogant as to expect his bride to fall in love with him, when he wanted to keep his own heart remote?

He paused outside of the Jonquil Suite. Maids had stripped Dorothea's bed of its linens. He resisted the urge to enter the room to see if the scent of tea roses lingered. Instead, he walked quickly away, not caring where his feet carried him.

Last evening, waltzing with Flor and Dorothea, something had eased inside his chest. A wall had begun to crumble. He'd envisioned the three of them together . . . as a family.

This house preyed on his mind, made him feel trapped and helpless. What did it matter if she cared for him or not? He needed an heir. Flor needed a mother. Nothing more was required.

Even if Dorothea
had
orchestrated the sordid moment of discovery, he'd been about to offer for her, so it didn't change the inevitable outcome. Shouldn't this simplify matters? He'd wanted a bloodless business arrangement. He should be applauding her cold-­blooded ambition. The way she and the countess had left so hastily after achieving their goal, with no good-­bye, besting him at his own game.

Or had Lady Desmond plotted to trap him and Dorothea had been an innocent accomplice to her mother's deviousness—­as innocent as a woman could be with that much wicked wit lighting her eyes.

He had no one to talk to about his suspicions. Dalton was ensconced back at the club in London. James had tried speaking with Josefa, but she hadn't understood why there was a problem.

She will bear you many strong and healthy sons and her important father will lower the taxes,
she'd said to James, as if that settled the entire matter. She approved of his choice.

Would his mother have approved of Dorothea?

The question caught him unawares, halting his forward motion. He gripped a brass door pull, bracing himself as the memories descended, too fast and vivid to stop.

The day he'd left for Eton, his mother, Margaret, had hugged him so tightly he'd nearly choked.
How big you've grown,
he heard her say in his memory.
How strong. Oh, James, I love you so much.

Fourteen-­year-­old James had been embarrassed by all that emotion. He'd pulled away, clearing his throat manfully and folding his arms across his chest to ward away a further embrace.

It had been the last time he'd seen her. He'd never let another woman hold him in her arms.

“Your Grace, are you well?”

James hadn't even noticed Bickford approach. “I'm fine.” He swiped a hand across his eyes.

Bickford nodded at the door in front of James. “Are you thinking of . . .
her
?”

James unclenched his fingers from the door pull, staring at the rose pattern imprinted deep into his palm.

With a start, he realized he was standing in front of his mother's chambers in the east wing.

“We've kept the rooms intact, you know,” Bickford said, his narrow face solemn. “May I show you?”

James backed away from the door. He couldn't go in there. But brisk, efficient Bickford was already opening the door. He bustled about the room, drawing the drapes and running a finger along the mantelpiece. “No dust,” he said with satisfaction.

James took a tentative step inside. Everything was exactly how he remembered. Curving draperies, plump chairs, and small round tables covered with lace. James half expected to see his mother sitting in her favorite rocking chair by the fireplace, a baby stocking forming below her whirring knitting needles.

As a young boy, James had thought her the prettiest woman in the world, with the Harland family diamonds around her slender throat and in her lustrous blonde hair, and a sweet smile for him on her lips.

When he grew older, she stopped wearing diamonds and dressed in high-­necked black gowns. He'd been too young to understand, but now he knew that after him, she'd given birth to six stillborn babes. She'd died birthing the seventh.

“I'm told you made a choice, Your Grace?” Bickford asked.

James pulled himself back to the present with an effort. “Yes, I'll be marrying Lady Dorothea.”

Bickford gave a rare smile. “A young lady with a great vivacity of spirit, if I may be permitted to say so. She reminds me of the duchess, when she was the same age.”

James stared at Bickford. “She does?”

“Oh yes, the duchess was always racing willy-­nilly across the lawn. With no bonnet at all.”

This was news to James. “Really?”

Bickford nodded, his eyes twinkling. James had never seen him so animated. Apparently Dorothea had managed to charm even his staid, dignified steward.

“You wouldn't have noticed, you were only a child,” Bickford said. “But she was quite spirited, your mother, until . . .”

James clenched his hands. Bickford didn't need to continue. They both knew why his mother had lost her spirit. His father had placed his wife in danger again and again, even when it had become clear she would never bear another healthy child.

If she wasn't producing more children, she was of no further use. The deaths of her children had crushed her. After every birth, every funeral, she'd faded more, until she'd been a shadow haunting these chambers. Crooning to the ghosts of her children. Knitting mounds of tiny slippers.

James could never become the duke his father had been. Obliterating all that was good and pure with impossible demands, stony silence, and an iron fist.

“I hope you won't mind me saying that your mother loved you very much, Your Grace. Yours was the last name she spoke before she left us.” Bickford wiped away a tear. “But that's so long ago now. How wonderful that you are marrying. She would have been so proud.”

Bickford stared at him expectantly. James felt paralyzed, as though his lips had forgotten how to form words. “Such a long time has passed,” he finally managed to say.

“Yes.”

They stood in silence.

“I've kept her jewels polished for just such a happy occasion, Your Grace. Shall I fetch them?”

James nodded, not trusting himself to speak again.

Bickford bowed and disappeared into the adjoining room.

Had the mournful Duchess of Harland truly been as impulsive and unconventional as Dorothea? It seemed impossible. James searched his memories for moments of impropriety. He did remember her laughter . . . silvery and unrestrained, pealing in his ears like church bells.

Bickford returned and opened the lid of the teak and ivory jewel box.

James waved him away. “You choose something suitable.”

Bickford lifted out a string of pearls with a faint peach tinge. They were worn from contact with his mother's skin. “These were her favorites. She was rarely without them.”

James remembered the pearls glowing against the austere expanse of his mother's mourning blacks.

“But they are rather subdued,” said Bickford. “Perhaps this would be more suitable for Lady Dorothea, Your Grace?” He opened a small blue velvet box and held a ring up to the light coming through the windows.

Rose-­cut diamonds sparkled in an openwork filigree gold setting.

Sturdy, yet delicate. The same intriguing combination he'd sensed in Dorothea.

James made a sudden decision. He hadn't thought to travel to London until next week, but he wasn't going to wait that long. He needed to confront his fiancée, demand answers to all the questions buzzing through his mind.

He rose from the seat and pocketed the velvet box. “Thank you, Bickford. Please send word to the staff in London. I arrive tomorrow.”

 

Chapter 21

“Y
ou've been keeping secrets from me.” Charlene's mother patted the bed next to her. “Come tell Mother all about it. What took you to Surrey? Your note was so mysterious.”

Charlene's mother, Susan—­or Madame Swan, as she was known in most circles—­reclined in bed wearing frothy lace around her throat and wrists. She was still luminously lovely, but there was a feverish tinge to her cheeks.

“Hello, Mother.” Charlene bent to kiss her cheek and sat down beside her.

“Mr. Yamamoto told me what happened with Lord Grant,” Susan said. “I had no idea he was back from Scotland.”

“It doesn't matter . . . we have the means to pay him now.”

Susan pushed herself up on the pillows. “How did you manage that?”

“I met a duke.”

“A duke?” Susan clasped Charlene's hands. “How wonderful!”

“It wasn't wonderful, or the answer to all your prayers. It was only this once. Never again.”

“But it
is
wonderful, darling. My first was only a lowly baronet. You've far eclipsed me. You'll be the most brilliant demimondaine London has ever known.”

“Stop, Mother.” Charlene took her hands away. “We're not going through this again. I'll never be a courtesan. We're going to repay Grant and close the Pink Feather, just as we agreed. I even found Lulu a painting apprenticeship.”

A coughing fit shook Susan's slender frame like waves battering a boat hull. Charlene hurried to the bedside table and opened the laudanum bottle. The hacking cough made her chest ache in sympathy and her throat raw.

When her mother was finally able to swallow some medicine, the cough eased, and she fell back against the cushions.

“I'm sorry,” Susan murmured. “I don't know what comes over me.”

“Hush,” Charlene said. “We'll talk tomorrow. You need to rest.” She laid a hand on her mother's brow, tracing the fine lines that etched deeper every day. Her mother's breath rattled in her chest, threatening to erupt into another coughing fit.

“You need a physician, Mother.”

“I don't want to hear what he'll say,” she whispered.

Charlene smoothed the thin skin of her mother's hand. “You must. Please. For me. For Lulu.”

Her mother nodded. Her eyelids drooped, and her voice grew dreamy as the laudanum took effect. “What was he like, your duke?”

“He's not
my
duke, and if you must know, I hate him.” Charlene's heart thumped an erratic, contradictory cadence. “He's arrogant and unfeeling.”

“Darling, dukes are
always
arrogant. Why shouldn't they be? They've got the whole world on a tether.” Susan's lips curved up. “But was he handsome? That's what I want to know.”

Charlene crossed to the window. It was raining. Sheets of silver driving against the cobblestones and flooding the gutters. She traced the path of a raindrop down the windowpane.

“He has the most vivid green eyes,” she said. “Every time he looked at me I felt like I was standing in a tree-­lined avenue, and the branches had interlaced into a canopy above me, surrounding me. It was the kind of green that told the sun what color to be as it filtered through the leaves.”

“Oh, gracious.” Susan smiled weakly. “It's worse than I thought.”

“I don't like losing control, Mother.”

“You never did, even as a babe. You always rearranged the covers and ordered me around in your forceful baby language. But there are ways to bring a man to his knees, Charlene, ways to ensure he never leaves you, until you want him to.”

“The earl left you.”

“Your father was a mistake. He plied me with jewels and flattery, but the second he found out I was with child, he cast me off, denying your claim, when anyone can see very well you are his. I would have given you up if it meant you could have been raised a lady.”

Charlene crossed back to the bedside. “I've had a taste of luxury these last few days. I can safely say that wealth and social position don't equal happiness, or even basic decency.”

“Still, why not let the duke provide for you?”

That was the best life her mother could conceive. To be owned. Set up in an apartment in a fashionable district, with a maid and three footmen and a generous allowance for gowns and jewels.

Exactly the bondage Grant sought for her.

“I told you,” Charlene said. “I hate him.”

“If you insist.” Her mother wiped the corners of her eyes with the handkerchief. “Just remember that sometimes hate has a strange way of feeling an awful lot like love . . .” Her voice trailed off and her eyes closed.

“Is she sleeping?” Diane, or Dove as she was known to the patrons of the Pink Feather, poked her sleek, dark head around the door.

Charlene nodded. She tucked the covers around her mother and kissed her forehead.

In the hallway, Diane hugged Charlene. “Welcome home. Everyone's dying to hear where you've been.”

“Nowhere in particular.”

“Don't give me that. Come upstairs with me and tell us.”

Charlene followed Diane down the hallway and through the door that hid the back staircase to the Aviary, where her mother's exclusive beauties entertained their clientele.

“I heard what happened with Grant. God, how I loathe him.” Diane shook her head as they climbed the stairs. “Do you know he's hired us to dance at an entertainment tonight? We daren't say no. He's in a rare bad temper these days.”

Charlene faltered, nearly missing the next stair. “You'll never have to dance for him again, Diane. I promise you that.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I can't tell you now. Soon, though. Trust me.”

The tables and chairs had been cleared to the sides of the Aviary, and the ladies were trailing after Linnet, like geese learning to fly in formation.

“Remember, you are Birds of Paradise. Flitting from branch to branch.” Linnet flapped gracefully around the room, her long white-­blonde hair floating behind her.

“This is for the performance,” Diane explained. “One of Lord Hatherly's notorious Cyprian affairs.”

“Will Grant be at the ball tonight?” Charlene asked.

“Of course. He has to make sure we perform to his standards,” Diane said bitterly. “The audience will be mostly peers, so we're sure to find new admirers, and Grant will secure new investors for his schemes.”

This could be Charlene's opportunity. She'd been thinking that it would be best to find a way to give Grant the payment outside of the house. Catch him off guard. She didn't want to be alone with him ever again. If he refused to take the money, Kyuzo would convince him, but first she would face him on her own.

“I'm going with you to the Cyprian's ball,” she announced.

Linnet stopped floating. “What was that? You're coming with us?”

All five ladies stopped dancing and stared.

“Are you certain you want to go to such an affair?” Diane asked.

Charlene nodded. “I need to give something to Grant in a public setting. I don't want him knowing I'm there until the last second.”

Diane lifted a pink satin mask lined with pink and white feathers and pearls from a table. “We'll all be wearing these. No one will recognize you.”

“Perfect,” Charlene said.

Diane fit the satin mask over Charlene's face and tied it in back with the long pink ribbon. One of the other ladies brought a mirror. The mask made Charlene's eyes tilt up. She looked entirely un-­Charlene-­like.

In the disguise, she wouldn't have to worry about encountering someone such as Lord Dalton. And the duke had said he wouldn't visit London until next week. She'd be in Essex with Flor by the time he arrived.

“Did I overhear you saying something to your mother about a duke?” Diane asked.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

Diane's eyes widened. “That bad? I'm sorry, darling.”

“I'm not thinking of him. There's work to be done.” She wasn't thinking about green eyes and charcoal hair. Playful lips. Strong, calloused hands, rough against her skin, stoking the blaze in her belly.

The more Charlene tried not to think about the duke, the faster the memories came. The one-­sided quirk of his lips when he smiled. What his hands felt like sliding down her spine and smoothing the curve of her hips. The taste of chili and chocolate on his tongue. The low hum of his voice.

Her defenses had frayed around the edges, unraveled. There were cracks in the shuttered citadel of her heart. Longing swirling like dust in a piercing shaft of sunshine.

She'd just have to shut the blinds, close her heart, and block out the memory of his eyes.

“Y
our Grace, we weren't expecting you in London for several days yet.” Lord Desmond offered his hand. He was fleshy, florid, and had a high-­pitched voice that grated on James's nerves. But when he'd determined to make a suitable marriage, James had known there would be one of these in the bargain. An avaricious father-­in-­law, hungry to secure his daughter a duke.

“Lord Desmond.” James accepted a cigar and a glass of port. “I'm here to speak with Lady Dorothea.”

Desmond shook his head. “Won't be possible, I'm afraid. My lady countess claims there was a bit of unpleasantness. Says you're not to be allowed near Lady Dorothea until the wedding.”

“I only require an hour. The countess may chaperone.”

“So sorry.” Desmond's jowls quivered when he shook his head. “There's nothing that moves that woman once her mind is made. Not even a ducal visit. I do believe she thinks you'll ruin the girl. Tarnish her lily-­white reputation and all that.” He winked. “Bit of rogue, are you?”

“I'll hardly ravish your daughter in plain sight of her mother.”

Desmond cleared his throat. “Again, I'm terribly sorry, but Lady Desmond was even making noises about taking Dorothea to the country, to visit her aunt until the wedding.”

James raised his eyebrows. There was something odd here. First the countess was throwing her daughter at him, and now she wanted to whisk her away to the countryside.

“I knew your father well, you know,” Lord Desmond said, changing the subject. “Such a damned shame. Gone too soon. And your brother, too.” He gestured for a footman to pour more port. “But you're the duke now, eh? There's something to be said for that.”

He raised his glass. Lowered it when James didn't join him in the toast.

“Heard you were engaging in a bit of commerce?” Desmond asked. “Not short on capital, I'm sure?”

Desmond's greedy squint made James's stomach roil. He settled back in his seat. “Not at all.”

Desmond heaved a sigh. “Glad to hear it.” Obviously his affection for his new son-­in-­law was contingent on solvency.

“That's part of the reason I came to speak with you, though,” James said. “I need someone looking after my interests in Parliament when I'm back in the West Indies. The duty import tax on cocoa is outrageous. I trust now that our families are allied, you will take up my concern. I would see the tax lowered on cocoa grown specifically on farms that don't use slave labor.”

“Decrease duties on cocoa. I shall make it my personal mission next session.” Desmond raised his glass. “To a partnership of mutual interest.”

This time James raised his glass. He disliked Desmond, but unfortunately he had need of him.

“Lady Dorothea is young and fertile.” Desmond swallowed his port. “I daresay you'll get your heir, and several spares, and she'll have . . . say, six hundred pin money per annum?”

The old weasel. That was highway larceny, but James didn't care to argue. If he couldn't see Dorothea, he wanted to stay as briefly as possible.

“Fine,” he said. “But I'll expect her to adhere to my rules of conduct. It will all be outlined in the contract.”

“No trouble there. Lady Dorothea is as pure and meek as they come. Never given us a moment's worry.”

That didn't sound like Dorothea, but her father would hardly suggest otherwise.

“I'll also ask that you monitor the progress on my gravest concern—­the abolition of slavery,” James said.

Desmond steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair, his waistcoat buttons straining to contain his ample belly. “The abolitionists are causing quite a storm. Quite a storm. I support the cause, don't misunderstand me, but I have interests in the African Company and would not wish to see anything hasty occur.”

James gripped his cigar so tightly that it nearly snapped in half. And so it was with the men who profited from the trade—­willful bigotry and ignorance. “You are wrong, Sir. Slavery must be abolished throughout the world.”

“Come, come, let's not talk of our differences,” Desmond said. “You say you're going back to the West Indies soon?”

“I'll return to England only rarely. I've grown accustomed to life in Trinidad.”

“Wish I could move abroad, sometimes. Escape my darling wife.” Desmond winked.

James couldn't stomach any more of this conversation. It would be better to conduct his future business with Desmond through intermediaries. Murdering his father-­in-­law wouldn't help his reputation.

James slammed his glass down. “I must visit my solicitor and some of my old set. There's an affair at Hatherly's tonight.” And every night from what Dalton had told him. Their old friend Nick, Lord Hatherly, had become quite the hedonist.

Desmond stood as well. “Hatherly? Now there's a fellow who knows how to throw an affair.” Desmond walked James to the door. “I'd join you, but there's some tedious charity event. Always something with my wife.”

“You'll inform Lady Dorothea I was here.”

Desmond nodded. “I daresay there'll be time enough to talk to the gel after the wedding. Only two weeks away, is it? You should be off enjoying your last days of freedom. I was no better at your age.” He winked again. “I remember the week before my wedding . . .”