Never Deceive a Duke (27 page)

She laid her hand on his arm. “Gabriel, don’t treat me like a child.”

“But in this respect, Antonia, you
are
a child,” he gritted. “You have a childlike view of the world—and that is as it should be. You are a lady, and ladies are to be shielded from evil and filth. But I—I took it upon myself to tell you…because—hell, I don’t even know why. I guess I wanted to give you a good and proper disgust of me.”

Antonia grappled with her temper. This was not about her, and she knew it. “Gabriel, I am not a child,” she said again. “Kindly do not patronize me or take it upon yourself to decide what I should or should not know.”

“That is what a man does,” he gritted, turning his face away. “That is his job.”

“Then it is a damned disservice,” she snapped, striding around the column until he was forced to look at her. “Perhaps if my father had not shielded me from all the world’s filth, I would have known it for what it was when I brushed up against it.”

“You are talking nonsense,” Gabriel muttered.

“If I had known what iniquity was, perhaps I would have seen my first husband for the liar and cheat that he was,” she pressed on. “Perhaps I would not have been so naïve as to think married men didn’t keep mistresses. Perhaps I would have known that fathers sometimes barter their daughters away for expediency’s sake, and that innocent little girls do in fact die young—and for no good reason.”

“Antonia, don’t,” he said. “Don’t do this to yourself. These things are not at all the same.”

“They are precisely the same!” she insisted. “They are part and parcel of why women are left ignorant and vulnerable. I was not prepared for life’s ugliness, Gabriel. That is what hurt me. That is why I came apart.”

“Oh, so now you know the man you’ve been so cheerfully bedding was a whore,” he rasped. “Do you honestly feel better about yourself, Antonia? Do you?”

She felt herself go rigid with anger. “No,” she snapped, her whole body trembling. “But at least this time, I know what I am up against. At least it will be a fair and even fight.”

He looked at her with unutterable sorrow in his eyes and cursed again beneath his breath. Then he turned on one heel and strode from the pavilion.

Antonia grabbed the basket and followed him. “Gabriel, wait.”

But he did not wait. He kept walking, and at a pace which made clear his intentions. He did not want her. She would not disgrace herself by running after him.

Antonia sat down on the white marble steps and let the basket drop. Her hands—no, her entire body, inside and out, was trembling. Never in her whole life had she felt such raw, barely restrained anger. Anger at what had been done to him. A rage against all mankind for allowing such evil to exist. But with the tumbling rush of emotion came a realization. She was alive; alive to the pain and to the anger. To the injustice. Antonia felt as if she had been living in an emotional wilderness—a wasteland with no feelings, save for grief and hopelessness—and now the pain was surging back into her limbs, as she had been frozen numb for all these years.

Gabriel. Poor Gabriel. With a knot in her throat and tears in her eyes, she watched him stride up the hill and into the wood. But Gabriel never looked back.

G
abriel walked the deck in the gloom, one hand feeling his way along, the other carrying a pewter tray. Not for the first time, his stomach churned. He swallowed hard, struggling not to be ill. The captain’s quarters were just a little further along. He found the door and went in.

Captain Larchmont sat at his map table, thoughtfully stroking one end of his mustache, his booted legs splayed wide. He glanced up at the sound of the door. “That had best be my tea, you little whelp,” he growled.

“Y-yes, sir,” Gabriel whispered. “W-with biscuits.”

“Set it down, then,” the captain ordered. “No, not over there. Here, by God.”

Gabriel approached the map table with trepidation, set the tray down hastily, and stepped back.

Larchmont looked at him and grinned. “You’re a pretty little thing,” he murmured. “Come here.”

Gabriel stepped forward an inch.

“I said come here, damn you!” Larchmont’s huge fist pounded the map table, making his teaspoon jump.

Gabriel did as he was ordered. Larchmont dragged him between his legs, one arm banded about his waist. “Why, you’re as pale and pretty as a girl,” he said, wrapping one of Gabriel’s blond curls around a dirty, callused finger. “Tell me, laddie, has the crew been too rough?”

Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut and felt a tear leak out. Larchmont laughed. “Perhaps I ought to just keep you myself,” he murmured, stroking the backs of his fingers along Gabriel’s cheek. “What would you say to that? A real bed? A little more food? No more rough, stinking sailors up your arse at every turn? Not too bad, eh?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

Larchmont wheezed with laughter. “Well, let’s have a little more enthusiasm, laddie!”

“Y-yes, sir,” he said, more loudly this time.

Larchmont stood and began to unhitch his breeches. When Gareth backed away, the captain grabbed him by the hair and shoved his face down against the map table. “Drop your trousers, lad,” he growled, his mouth pressed to Gabriel’s ear, his body bearing him down.

Promptly at twenty past three, the last of the kitchen maids rose from Mrs. Musbury’s worktable, taking the dirty cups and saucers along with them. Tea was over, and it was time to begin the preparations for dinner. Mrs. Musbury had taken up the tablecloth—she was appropriately particular, Kemble had noticed, that propriety be always observed—and begun to lay out her account books for the afternoon.

The housekeeper was a small, colorless woman, but her quiet demeanor, Kemble had learned, hid a spine of Sheffield steel. She peered over her wire spectacles at him. “May I help you in some way, Mr. Kemble?”

Kemble smiled. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I was wondering if you might be so kind—”

“—as to answer another question for you?” She gave a prim frown. “You really are quite full of them, are you not?”

Kemble tried to look shamefaced, but it was a stretch. “It is true I am possessed of a naturally inquisitive nature,” he confessed.

“It is more than that, I think,” murmured the housekeeper. “But go ahead, Mr. Kemble, and keep your secrets. I am sure the new master knows what he is about. How may I help?”

Kemble pulled out a chair. “Might we have a seat?”

“Dear me,” she said, laying aside her spectacles. “By all means.”

Kemble crossed one leg over the other and flashed another of his smiles. “I was just wondering, Mrs. Musbury, what became of the lady’s maid who was here before Mrs. Waters?”

The housekeeper looked surprised. “Miss Pilson?” she said. “Why, she came here in service to the duchess—the third duchess—and after her tragic passing, Miss Pilson went to one of the duchess’s sisters, I believe. She was an old family retainer.”

“While she was here, were you on good terms with Miss Pilson?”

“Oh, indeed!” said the housekeeper. “She was a most amiable creature, and very diligent in her duties.”

Kemble carefully considered how to pose the next question. “Might I ask, ma’am, did Miss Pilson ever confide in you anything of a personal nature? About the duchess, I mean.”

Mrs. Musbury looked vaguely affronted. “I cannot think what you are trying to suggest.”

“Nothing at all, I do assure you.” Kemble gave a dismissive toss of his hand. “But I should think, frankly, that her job was very worrying. She must have been constantly concerned about her mistress when—and pardon me for listening to gossip—when her mistress was so decidedly unhappy.”

Mrs. Musbury was silent for a long moment. “You are not really here as a valet or a secretary, are you, Mr. Kemble?”

Kemble deepened his smile. “Let us just say that His Grace has some things he would like tidied up,” he said. “And who better to tidy things up than a good valet? Or a good secretary, for that matter?”

The housekeeper seemed to consider his argument. “You must understand that I have been at Selsdon a relatively short while,” she said quietly. “I manage the household and all the female servants associated with maintaining the house. The lady’s maid does not fall under my purview. I joined the household during Miss Pilson’s tenure, and we became friends, after a fashion. Yes, she was very worried about her mistress. The duchess was not an especially happy woman.”

“Was she ill?”

“She was under a great deal of strain,” said Mrs. Musbury. “She was also a shy lady who was not comfortable with people she did not know well.”

“How about people she did know?” asked Kemble. “Did she have friends?”

“A few,” said the housekeeper. “You must understand that as the duke’s wife, there were not many people hereabouts who were her social equal. But she enjoyed the company of the local gentry.”

Kemble smiled. “I’ll bet Lady Ingham was here quite regularly.”

Mrs. Musbury’s smile was muted. “Yes, she was,” agreed the housekeeper. “Mary Osborne, the doctor’s mother, was often with her. They quite doted on the duchess. And about the time I arrived here, the Hamms came to St. Alban’s. She and Mrs. Hamm were close in age, but Mrs. Hamm always visited with her husband. The late duke seemed to enjoy their company vastly.”

Yes, I’ll bet he did,
thought Kemble.

“Was he a religious man?” he asked, trying to keep a straight face.

“Not particularly,” said Mrs. Musbury. But she would not be further led.

“Is it true the late duchess used a vast deal of tonic? Specifically, a tonic with laudanum in it?”

Again, the housekeeper gave her faint smile. “She came to depend on it, I believe, to sleep,” she answered. “I think the doctor in West Widding prescribed it initially, and when Dr. Osborne came down from university to practice, he continued it.”

“Was Miss Pilson worried about the amount she consumed?”

“A bit, yes.”

“I wonder, Mrs. Musbury—did Miss Pilson ever confide in you that the duchess was having problems…well, problems of a female nature?”

Mrs. Musbury was silent a long while. “What strange questions you do ask, Mr. Kemble,” she murmured. “As the duchess’s weight slowly dropped away—she never had any sort of appetite—Miss Pilson confided in me that some…well, some female troubles arose.”

“Could she have been with child?” asked Kemble pointedly.

“It would have been a natural assumption, given her symptoms,” said the housekeeper. “But Miss Pilson was reasonably confident that was not the case.”

“Would the duchess have discussed these problems with Dr. Osborne?”

The faint, doubtful smile returned. “Oh, I doubt it,” said Mrs. Musbury. “Perhaps she would have discussed them with her lady friends.”

Kemble tapped his finger upon the worktable. “I see,” he murmured. Abruptly, he rose. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Musbury, for your help.”

The housekeeper accompanied him to the door. “Might I ask, Mr. Kemble, if you are anywhere near finished with your questions?”

His hand already on the doorknob, Kemble paused to consider it. “Very nearly, I believe,” he murmured. “Yes, very nearly finished.”

Gareth was in the study, regretting almost every word he had ever spoken to Antonia, while mindlessly signing the huge pile of letters which Mr. Kemble had left out for him when the gentleman himself came into the room. Gareth was almost glad to see him. He was tired of sitting in this dreary room with no company save his own, and guilt enough for an entire cricket team.

“Good afternoon,” said Gareth, flicking a quick glance up at him. “It appears that you have been busy today.”

“Yes, thanks,” said Kemble vaguely. He went to the bank of windows which overlooked the somewhat gloomy north gardens and simply stood there, staring into the afternoon shadows, his hands clasped behind his back. His usual mordant personality seemed to have deserted him, and the man was quite obviously deep in thought.

Feeling inordinately weary, Gareth laid aside his pen and pushed away the letters. He did not ask Kemble why he had come in; he did not care. He was simply glad for a distraction. Still, he kept looking about the somber, sunless room, and thinking of Antonia. She hated Selsdon’s northerly rooms, Coggins had said.

Antonia. Good Lord. Gareth pushed himself away from the desk in disgust. What had he been thinking to confess to her such horrors? He doubted he would even sleep tonight for having so freely relived them. One could only imagine what Antonia’s night would be like. She was the last sort of person with whom one ought to share such things. She had seen so little of the world, and that which she had seen had too often hurt. He still was not sure why he had told her.

But there was only one reason a person would do such a thing, wasn’t there? He had wanted to see how she would react. And now he had seen. She had been disgusted. Physically disgusted. Gareth pushed his chair from the desk with a violent shove. He had never confessed that filth to any living person, and then he had chosen perhaps the one person in his life who was the most fragile. A woman who knew so little about the dark side of human nature, she had not even grasped his meaning.

Well, if he had been looking for an answer, he now had it. Antonia would never get past what he had once been. There could be no future. Every time they made love, she would look at him and remember just how he had honed his skills. He had traded his body for shelter and for safety. For the chance to stay
alive
. For over a year, he had been a whore. The fact that he had not chosen his path did not change what he had done or what had been done to him. He was forever altered by it. And even Antonia, guileless though she might be, had to know that.

Suddenly, Kemble turned from the window. “What is it, Lloyd, that drives a man?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The essential nature of man,” Kemble said, slowly pacing along the bank of velvet-draped windows. “I am pondering it. And I think at base, all men are driven to attain the same two things, are they not? It is either money or sex—or both. Money, of course, equates to power. And power gets you sex.”

Gareth was not entirely clear what they were discussing. “There is always revenge,” he remarked, the late duke being much on his mind today. “Men will do a great deal to attain revenge.”

Kemble paused, his brow furrowed. “It is odd, but I have always thought revenge more a woman’s motivation,” he said musingly. “Men will do it, yes. But usually to maintain power—whereas a woman will seek revenge out of spite, I think.”

Gareth just shook his head. “You are waxing philosophical today, old fellow,” he said. “I am not capable of such deep thought and—”

Just then, the door opened again. Coggins stood in the doorway, looking a little confused himself. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace,” he said. “But a guest has arrived. It is Lord Litting, a nephew of the late duke.”

“Litting?” Gareth rose. “What the devil can he want?”

“Do you know him?” asked the butler.

Gareth propped one hip on his desk. “Yes, but only from childhood,” he answered. “There is nothing he could possibly want from me.”

Coggins gave a little cough. “Might I show him in, Your Grace?”

Gareth motioned at the door. “By all means,” he said. “Bring him in and let him have his say.”

Litting! Today of all days, damn it. As the door closed, Kemble leaned near. “It may be that I have inadvertently caused Litting’s visit,” he said quietly. “May I remain?”

Gareth wanted to roll his eyes. “Say no more,” he answered. “I should probably rather not know the details of what you’ve been up to. And yes, you are staying.”

A few moments later, Coggins returned. Litting came in like a whirlwind, still wearing his driving coat, and quite obviously agitated. With his rapidly receding hair and an ample paunch beneath his expensive waistcoat, he looked very little like the boy Gareth had once known.

As soon as the door was closed, Litting tossed a letter onto Gareth’s desk and sent it skidding almost into his lap. “I should like to know the meaning of this, Ventnor,” he demanded, stripping off his driving gloves. “You have a lot of gall setting your hounds loose upon me.”

Gareth picked up the letter and skimmed it. To his shock, it was signed by the Home Secretary. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat. “I can assure you, Jeremy, that I have not even a passing acquaintance with Mr. Robert Peel. In fact, I am so far removed from that lofty sphere, I don’t even
know
anyone who
knows
Peel.”

“Actually, Your Grace, you do.” Kemble leaned gracefully across his desk, and snatched the letter from his grasp. His eyes swept over it, then he glanced at Litting with a simpering smile. “Allow me to introduce myself, my lord. I am Kemble, the duke’s personal secretary. I think perhaps I indirectly caused this letter to be sent.”

“Sent?” bellowed Litting. “It was not
sent
. It was hand carried to my house by some Grim Reaper of a chap from the Home Office. And he has been back
five times
.”

Kemble gave a breezy smile. “Well, he must find you simply fascinating!”