The Confessions of a Duchess (10 page)

It did nothing to raise her spirits when she saw the new Duke of Cole, her cousin by marriage, and his wife, Faye, shepherding their daughter Lydia through the crowds in the ballroom. Faye Cole had the unfortunate appearance of a farmer presenting a prize heifer at market, encouraging her daughter along with little shooing motions of her hands, smiling flirtatiously at every gentleman in sight and pushing Lydia forward to meet them. Lydia was two and twenty now, and very definitely considered an old maid, and Laura realized that Faye must be taking advantage of the Dames’ Tax to find her daughter a husband at last. The new duke and duchess did not live in Fortune’s Folly, but Cole Court was certainly close enough to take advantage of all the suitors flocking to the village. And Lydia, tricked out in unbecoming pink satin, looked as miserable as sin at the prospect.

Laura watched as the Coles paused to return the greetings of Warren Sampson, an occurrence that struck her as odd since Faye Cole was the sort of snob who would normally cut a
cit
dead. Sampson was fulsomely flattering to Lydia, which made the poor girl blush even more uncomfortably. Then Henry Cole’s eye fell on Laura herself and he hailed her with surprising enthusiasm.

“Cousin Laura!” Henry kissed her hand with heavy gallantry. Faye was a great deal less affectionate and gave her a tight little nod. Her cold gaze itemized Laura’s appearance with pursed lips and narrowed gaze, assessing the gown and jewels as though placing a cost on each. Laura suspected that Faye already knew the gems were paste and was merely judging how good a counterfeit they were.

“I trust we shall see plenty of you, cousin, during our stay in Fortune’s Folly,” Henry said, and Faye’s mouth turned down at the corners.

“Thank you, cousin Henry, but I do not go much into society,” Laura said.

“Which is quite as it should be,” Faye snapped.

“Dowagers should neither be seen nor heard?” Laura inquired sweetly, and saw Miss Lydia Cole stifle a smile. Then Lydia’s gaze fell on Dexter Anstruther and her face lit up, making her look pretty and animated. Laura felt a pang of raw jealousy spike her inside.

Dexter and Lydia had met four years before at Cole Court and had seemed to enjoy one another’s company. Laura knew that if Dexter genuinely wished to find a conformable bride he could do a lot worse than Lydia Cole. And Henry and Faye were so desperate to see her settled now that they would probably accept a man with an old family name but no fortune. Laura knew it would be a good match for both of them. The fact that she felt sick with envy to think of Lydia and Dexter together was something she would have to keep to herself. Her ungovernable feelings were her own problem.

A tide of panic rose within her as she realized that if Dexter and Lydia married it would bring him into the Cole family and therefore closer to his own daughter. Except that she seldom saw Faye and Henry socially, of course, and they had never showed any interest whatsoever in Hattie. That was the way it would have to stay, Laura thought. But it was damnably awkward for in the small world of the
Ton
people were always falling over distant relations and it was most unlikely she could hide Hattie from Charles’s family forever. She sighed as she felt the web of deceit weave a little tighter about her. It was starting to be a tangled web indeed and one that taunted her with a lifetime of emptiness.

“I will leave you to renew your acquaintance with Mr. Anstruther,” she said wearily.

She had seen how Faye’s face had sharpened into interest to have an eligible gentleman in her sights. “I am sure that he will be delighted to see you again.”

“He is extremely handsome, but he has no money, has he?” Faye said thoughtfully, sizing Dexter up like a horse trader. “Still, that should make him grateful to secure a duke’s daughter in marriage.”

“Mama!” Lydia gasped, turning bright red at her mother’s barefaced gall.

“What?” Faye looked impatient. “There is no need to be missish, Lyddy. We all know why we are here, so you had better give him some encouragement.” Laura shot Lydia a sympathetic glance as the poor girl looked as though she was about to bolt from the ballroom.

“Yes, Mama,” Lydia said, in a stifled whisper.

As Laura went out Faye was already dragging Lydia across to accost Dexter whilst Henry watched with the calculating expression of a man working out how much the wedding was going to cost him. Laura saw Dexter take Lydia’s hand and bow over it and the same shocking spear of jealousy pierced her to the core like a physical pain.

When she reached the door she could not prevent herself from looking back. Dexter was leading Lydia into the set that was forming for a country-dance. He did not look at Laura. It seemed he had already forgotten her.

LYDIA COLE WAS an observant girl. She had already noticed that Dexter Anstruther, though pretending to be utterly indifferent to Laura, had watched her covertly all the way out of the ballroom. She had felt the tension in his body as he led her into the country-dance. She had even noticed that although Dexter was making perfectly pleasant conversation with her, part of his mind was preoccupied with something—or someone—

completely different. She was not the main focus of his attention. In truth, she barely had his attention at all.

She was hugely relieved. Dexter Anstruther, with his tawny golden hair, his deep blue eyes, his commanding physique and authoritative presence, scared her to death. He was far too handsome, far too clever and generally far too overwhelming for her.

Lydia understood her mother’s absolute determination to marry her off. She also knew that Dexter was looking for a rich wife. It should have been the perfect, convenient combination. Except that it was not, for she was sure that Dexter’s feelings were already engaged elsewhere and she…Well, she had formed a
tendre
for a totally unsuitable man.

She was almost certain that she had fallen in love at first sight.

She glanced over at Faye and sighed. The duchess had the instinct of a major predator where her daughter’s marriage prospects were concerned and was watching Lydia with a mixture of smugness and vague threat as though she was about to pounce on Dexter and carry him off to announce the banns immediately. Matters, Lydia thought, might well become complicated. She had to ensure that she did not end up being bullied into marrying Dexter and she had to try to cure herself of her hopeless passion for another gentleman. She hoped she had sufficient will to succeed. She was not sure that she did.

Lydia glanced at Dexter’s face as the steps of the dance brought them together. He smiled at her but she knew he was not thinking of her. She knew that all his interest, all his energies were concentrated on thinking about Laura. She shivered and felt a secret rush of relief that all the complex emotion and ruthless, sensual demand that she sensed in Dexter was not for her. Never in a million years could she deal with that. There was a hardness, a cynicism and a level of experience in him, for all his outward conformity, that she could not begin to handle.

But Laura could. She sensed that, too. She knew they were well matched and that they should be together.

Lydia sighed. She had lived long enough and knew well enough that things that were meant to be did not always happen as they should.

After that brief smile, Dexter’s attention had wandered from her again. It did not matter in the least to Lydia, for she was no longer thinking of him, either. Across the ballroom her eyes met those of the gentleman who was the object of her affection. He held her gaze and smiled gently but meaningfully at her and she forgot everything else in that instant. It seemed that he was as interested in her as she was in him. The thought made her heart pound. Love at first sight felt wonderful.

“SO,” LAURA SAID TO
her cousin, “when are you going to tell me what is wrong, Miles?

You have been like a cat on hot bricks all afternoon.”

They were standing in the long gallery watching Hattie as she played with the spinning top Miles had brought for her from Hamley’s toy shop in London. Rachel was showing her how to use the little stick to get the top to whirl so fast that its bright colors all merged into a spinning rainbow and Hattie was squealing with excitement. The sun, shining through the mullioned windows, illuminated her eager little face and brought out the chestnut tones in her black hair. At one point she looked up at Laura, her head tilted in precisely the same mannerism that Dexter had. Laura’s heart missed a beat at the betraying gesture and she glanced quickly at Miles, but he appeared to be studying one of the portraits of some seventeenth-century Asthall ancestor with intense concentration.

On the threadbare carpet lay Miles’s other gifts—a book of nursery rhymes, a set of tiny carved wooden animals and a doll dressed in pink with a matching bonnet. There was also a new dress for Hattie in crimson brocade, but Laura had insisted on putting that aside for Christmas so that Hattie did not become too ridiculously spoiled. He had also brought some presents for Laura herself—sugared almonds from Gunters and a book she had particularly wanted—and Laura was touched because she knew Miles’s financial state was almost as hopeless as her own but he had insisted that she should not reimburse him.

Hattie had monopolized Miles for the first hour of his visit and Laura thought that he had coped admirably well. It was clear that a part of his mind was elsewhere, though, so whilst Hattie played with the top, Laura drew her cousin to one side.

“Miles?” she prompted, and her cousin straightened up and sighed.

“There is something that I need to talk to you about, Lal,” he said. His gaze was fixed on Hattie and he spoke softly. “We need your help.”

Laura looked at him sharply. She knew that tone, half firm, half apologetic. It meant that she was not going to like what she heard but she was going to have to do it anyway.

She walked over to the carved balustrade that overlooked the great hall below and rested her hands on its smooth wood.

“Lord Liverpool?” she asked quietly. “I always knew that though he said it was ended, that would not be the last of the matter.”

Two years previously she had helped the Home Secretary in return for a free pardon for her role in the Glory Girls. The matter had been hushed up to avoid scandal and Liverpool had assured her that it would never be mentioned again, but Laura had not been naive enough to believe him. And now here was Miles two years later, asking for her help again, and she knew she could not refuse because Liverpool would always have the whip hand with what he knew about her.

“It is only information,” Miles said soothingly. “We need to know anything you can tell us about Warren Sampson. Or rather, Dexter needs to know because this is his case—”

“I have to speak to
Dexter?
” The words were out before Laura could help herself.

Both Rachel and Hattie looked up, startled by Laura’s horrified gasp, and Miles stopped, raising his brows. Laura moderated her tone quickly. Her heart was slamming now. “Miles, I have no objection to talking to you about Sampson but why must it be Mr. Anstruther?”

“Why not?” Miles said. “This is Dexter’s case, Laura. I am in Fortune’s Folly on quite another matter.”

“I know,” Laura said bitterly. “Fortune hunting! I saw you practicing your charm on Miss Lister last night.” She lowered her voice still further. “And I
hear
from servants’ talk this morning that you spent the night with one of the barmaids at the Morris Clown Inn. I don’t approve of you, Miles, and if everyone hears of your rakish ways you will never catch a wife.”

Miles laughed. “We are here to talk about the consequences of your misdemeanors, Lal, not of mine. Now, Dexter is leading this case for Lord Liverpool and I am only here to back him up, so he is the one you must speak to.”

“But I can’t talk to Mr. Anstruther,” Laura protested. She felt panicky and breathless at the thought. “He was the person sent to arrest Glory four years ago,” she argued. “He has never known that she was me. I mean that I was her…Oh, you
know
what I mean! How will he feel to discover—” She broke off in despair. When Dexter knew the truth he would see her rejection of him as an even more calculated and manipulative act. She could hardly bear the thought. “He does not know already, does he?” she asked.

“Not as far as I am aware,” Miles said cheerfully. “Why does it matter? You have your pardon now, Lal. All you are doing is helping us with a bit of information. I am sure that Dexter will see the benefit of it and not feel too outraged that you evaded capture four years ago.”

“I am sure of nothing of the sort!” Laura snapped. She was feeling very unsettled now. The prospect of going to Dexter Anstruther and revealing herself to have been Glory the highwaywoman was intolerable. She spread her hands in a gesture of despair. “You know how odiously stiff-necked and upright Mr. Anstruther can be, Miles! He is bound to lecture me on the evil of my ways and come over all virtuous and principled! Oh!” She threw her hands up. “I could not bear it!”

Miles was laughing. “I’ll allow that Dexter can be rather righteous at times,” he said,

“but you must remind him that you took the role of Glory to avenge the poor and the weak.

You are not without principle yourself, Lal.”

“I doubt Mr. Anstruther will see it like that,” Laura said bitterly.

“What does it signify?” Miles asked. “Unless…” He eyed her shrewdly. “Unless his good opinion matters to you.”

“Hardly,” Laura said untruthfully. “He already holds me in dislike,” she added with a sigh. “This will see him despise me.”

“You could have fooled me,” Miles said caustically. “I saw you together at the assembly, Lal. Never have I felt so much
de trop.
Dislike is not what Dexter feels for you.” Laura could feel herself coloring up fierily. “Well, he will do after this,” she said.

“But you will do it?” Miles pressed.

“Of course,” Laura said tartly. “You have presented it as though I have a choice, Miles, but in fact I have none at all.” She sighed again. “Tell Mr. Anstruther that I will meet him tonight at Half Moon Inn. I can scarcely have him calling here. All the village tabbies would notice and I am already quite scandalous enough. And please send to warn Josie to put the private parlor aside for us, as well.”