How to Tame Your Duke (18 page)

“Oh! Well, I’m sorry for the mistake.” Alice looked down at her hands, which were knotted correctly in her silken lap. “She isn’t here.”

“Isn’t here at the moment, or doesn’t live here?”

“Doesn’t live here.” She said it in a whisper.

Ashland allowed a little silence to fall. “I don’t quite understand. Her quarterly allowance arrives here, according to my solicitor. One thousand pounds a year. A rather handsome sum. I hope this is not some unfortunate
mistake
.” He picked up one of the objects, a miniature golden-haired shepherdess, and turned it about his palm. “She is still
alive
, isn’t she, Alice?”

“Oh yes! Oh, of course. I . . . I had a letter from her just last week. I . . .”

A knock sounded on the door, and the maid came in with a groaning tray of tea things: pot and cups and cream, cakes and buns without number. She set it down on the round table next to the sofa, made a few adjustments, and straightened. “Will that be all, ma’am?”

“Yes, Polly. Thank you.”

The door closed behind the maid, and Alice leaned eagerly forward over the tea tray. “Cream and sugar, Your Grace?”

He didn’t give a damn. “Yes.”

She bustled about with the tea, hair gleaming in the lamplight. Ashland watched her without moving, the quick nervous flutterings of her hand, the tea spilled over the edge of the cup (
oh dear me! how clumsy
), the slice of cake laid carefully on his plate. “There you are, Your Grace. Isn’t it just the thing on such a frightful January morning?”

“Yes.” He laid the cup and saucer on the mantel and lifted the paper-thin porcelain to his lips. “Tell me about Isabelle. Is she well?”

“Oh yes. Very well indeed.”

“I presume you forward her the money each quarter, as it arrives?” He tilted his head to indicate the well-stocked room about him. “
All
of it?”

Her mouth was buried behind her teacup. “Well . . . that is, not all of it.”

“Most of it?”

“Well, that is to say . . .”

“Alice,” he said, setting his cup precisely in his saucer, “suppose you tell me exactly where the money goes each month, and why.”

“Oh dear.” She put her own cup and saucer on the table and wrung her hands together. “I don’t know if Isabelle would want . . .”

“I don’t give a
damn
, Alice, if you’ll pardon the expression. What I want to know is this: Where
exactly
is my wife, and what
exactly
are you doing with her allowance?”

Alice shot to her feet. “Oh, Your Grace. Please don’t be angry. I was only . . . Isabelle asked me to, you see, because she couldn’t care for the girl herself, not with . . . with her present company . . .”

“Girl,” Ashland said. His limbs went numb. “What girl?”

“Her daughter, Your Grace.”

A furious cheeping started up from some cluttered corner of the room. Alice sprang to her feet. “Oh, the silly bird. He sees the tea things, of course. He never could resist a lemon tart.” She picked up a plate and dashed to the birdcage.

Ashland watched her feed the bird, heard the chattering of female and parakeet distantly through his humming ears. A liquor tray sat at the far end of the room. He placed his cup and saucer on the tea table and strode toward it. The decanters were brimming, each with an expensive engraved label slung about the neck. He selected the brandy.

“I see.” He tossed back his glass in a gulp—half full only; he had that much discipline—and set it down on the tray with a crystalline clink. The brandy burned its way comfortably to his stomach. “This daughter. Where is she now?”

“Why, upstairs with her governess, of course. I hired a French governess for her. Only the best.” Alice beamed proudly. “She’ll go off to Lady Margaret’s next year.”

“How old is she?”

“Rising thirteen, Your Grace, and a fine handsome girl she is.”

Rising thirteen.
“May I see her?”

“I . . .” Alice tugged at the lace on her sleeve. Her brow had compressed into a multitude of worried lines beneath her razor-parted hair. “I suppose there’s no harm.” She went to the tea table and rang a small bell.

Ashland could not say another word. He turned away when the maid came, and looked out the window again at the deserted street, closing his ears to the whispered conversation behind him. It was nearly noon, but the air outside hung dark and murky as twilight. A few piles of tenacious slush clung to the bases of the streetlamps. A sudden ache invaded his breast: for clean, windswept Yorkshire, for one of Freddie’s jokes, for Grimsby’s wry ripostes. For Emily’s gentle voice, reading a book. Her quick smile, the velvet touch of her skin against his lips.

Home.

The door creaked. “Your Grace?”

Ashland turned. A dark-haired girl stood in the doorway, a tall girl, almost as tall as Alice, who stood behind her charge with ring-strewn hands upon those thin adolescent shoulders. He strained to see the girl’s face, but she stood just in the shadow of the lamp burning nearby.

“Good morning,” he said. “I am the Duke of Ashland. What is your name?”

She made a little curtsy. “My name is Mary Russell, Your Grace.”

The breath left his body. He only just saved himself from falling on his knees. “I see. How old are you, Mary?”

“Thirteen next month, Your Grace.” Her voice was reedy but firm, holding its ground before his beastly buccaneer’s face.

Thirteen next month.
Ashland made a swift mental calculation.

“Step forward, Mary, and ask the duke to sit down,” said Alice.

Mary stepped forward, sat down correctly on the sofa, and motioned her arm to the nearby wing chair. “Won’t you sit down, Your Grace?”

He eased himself into the chair. Mary’s face came into focus next to the lamp.

She was not his.

Her hair was dark, and her eyes were nearly black: the exact color and shape of the Earl of Somerton’s eyes, of which Ashland had seen enough to last him a lifetime.

So that was why his wife had left so abruptly. She had become pregnant by her lover. Had thought, perhaps, that a child would be enough to hold a man like Somerton.

“Have you traveled far, Your Grace?” Mary asked him.

“Yes, I have. I arrived in town yesterday, from Yorkshire.”

“I hear it is very bleak in Yorkshire.”

He smiled. “It is. I think it rather suits me, don’t you?”

She tilted her head. “Perhaps. But I daresay such a climate might make anyone bleak, unless one had a great many friends for company. Do you have many friends there?”

“Not nearly enough, I’m afraid, though the ones I have are very dear to my heart.”

Mary nodded her dark head. “That’s the important thing, of course. Have you had any tea? The cake is very good.”

He spoke with her for half an hour, about her studies and about Yorkshire, about the London fog and her recent visit to Hampton Court with her governess. They touched briefly on Henry VIII and all the Annes and Catherines. He rose at last when luncheon was called.

“Will you stay and have luncheon with us, Your Grace?” asked Mary, rising, too.

“I’m afraid not. I have a number of errands, and my time here in London is limited. I have an appointment in Yorkshire next week of the utmost importance.”

“I see. It was a very great pleasure to meet you, sir. I believe you are my first duke.” Mary offered her hand.

Ashland took her hand with his left and shook it gravely. “I am deeply sensible of the honor, Miss Russell.”

When she left, he turned to Alice. “The remittance will continue, but on no account is any of the money to be forwarded to my wife. I shall expect a full report of expenses every quarter. My solicitor will arrange payment of Miss Russell’s school fees. Should you have any need of an increase in income, you may apply to me at once.”

“Your Grace!”

“In the meantime, I should like you to give me my wife’s current direction. I presume she remains in Europe?”

“Why, yes, sir. Of course, sir. But . . . sir, I don’t think . . .”

“You will give me her address, Alice, or I shall be forced to begin inquiries. Do you understand me?”

She bowed her head. “Yes, sir.”

Ashland didn’t open the paper she gave him until he was safely stowed inside the hackney and crossing Putney Bridge into Fulham. He unfolded it and held it up to the meager yellow light from the window, until he could just make out the rounded black letters of his sister-in-law’s copperplate handwriting.

A
ll I’m saying, Grimsby . . .”

“
Mr.
Grimsby.”

“Look, I’ll bloody well keep calling you Grimsby if you insist, but I’ll be damned if I say
Mister
. It’s not right.” Freddie made an impatient flick of his riding crop.

“And yet, you have no difficulty employing the most offensive language in my presence,” said Emilie. “Against that, a male form of address should require no effort at all.” A lone snowflake landed on the tip of her nose; she resisted the urge to hold out her tongue for another. She and Stefanie used to do that, out riding in early winter, and while the gray Yorkshire moors bore no resemblance to the lush forests of the Schweinwald, the bite in the air, the unmistakable scent of coming snow, gave her exactly the same childlike thrill.

“Ha. I recall perfectly the expression that came out of your mouth last week, when you was locked out of the house. Absolute filth, Grimsby. I’m sick at the memory. And you not merely a lady, but a princess! Think of your subjects, Your Royal Highness.”

“I have no subjects. My sister is the heir.” She blew out a white cloud into the air.

“Right-ho. Which brings me directly to the point, now that we’re finally off by ourselves. We’ve got to lay plans.”

“Plans for what?”

“Why, for restoring you to your throne, of course!”

The horse moved comfortably beneath Emilie’s seat, an easy rocking gait. The wind blew against her cheeks, the same rapacious wind as before, but she minded it less now. It was like an old friend. Even the bleak landscape felt right somehow. “I don’t have a throne. And if I did, I wouldn’t want to be restored to it. I hated that life. I’m grateful I escaped.” As soon as she said the words, she realized they were true. She had no remaining desire to find her father’s killer. She had no desire to return to her thick-walled palace existence. She missed her sisters desperately, of course, but that was all. Even dressed as a man, hiding her true identity, she felt more free, more
herself
, than she ever had before. In her selfish heart, she didn’t want justice served.

“Oh, rubbish. What girl doesn’t want to be a damned princess? The first thing, of course, is you’ve got to marry Pater.”

Emilie nearly jumped from the saddle. “Marry your father? Are you mad?”

“In the first place, there’s your royal honor to consider. I don’t suppose he knows he’s rogering the lost Princess Emilie of Holstein-whatever-it-is every Tuesday evening in Ashland Spa Hotel, does he?”

“Your
lordship
!”

Freddie tapped his temple beneath the brim of his wool hat. “I can put a few things together, Grimsby. So firstly, he’s got to marry you anyway, having debauched you and all that. Secondly, you’re clearly in love with him, because otherwise you wouldn’t be trotting off to meet him every week. And thirdly . . .”

“I am most certainly
not
in love . . .”

“. . . thirdly, Pater would be the most immense use in protecting you and finding those deadly assassins and all that. Imagine him going after the poor chaps with all his vengeful might, doling out justice hither and yon! They wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“There is a small impediment, your lordship. You forget your father is still married.”

Freddie snorted. “I daresay that can be got around pretty efficiently, after twelve years of abandonment by my incomparable mother.”

They walked on in silence for a moment, horses playing contentedly with their bits, saddle leather creaking in sympathy with the wind. A few more snowflakes flew by, thicker now. Emilie bent her chin into her scarf and studied the dead winter turf passing between her horse’s ears.

“There’s another reason.” Freddie’s voice cut defiantly through the air. “The last reason.”

“What’s that?”

“You could stay here. Not
here
, obviously, if all this glorious natural beauty ain’t to your taste.” He waved his crop to the monochrome horizon, the diagonal jags of building snow. “But the three of us, together, wherever it is. I’d even . . . I’d always rather fancied a . . .” He ducked his head, in an uncharacteristic display of embarrassment.

“A what, your lordship?”

“Well, a brother. Or even a sister. A bit late now to be a companion in mischief and all that, but still . . .” He shrugged, a sixteen-year-old’s indifferent shrug, masking vulnerability.

Emilie looked up at the heavy sky and blinked her stinging eyes.

“The point is,” said Freddie, more brusquely, “you’ve got to come clean to Pater. The longer you wait, the more he’ll rant and rage. You can
trust
Pater, Grimsby. He’ll move heaven and earth to help you, you know.”

“I know.” Emilie was studying the ground ahead, where a great stone formation—known to locals as the Old Lady, because it had apparently once sported a long and wart-flecked nose, before some winter frost a century ago had broken it off—loomed against the lines of snow. Was it her imagination, or did she catch a flicker of movement behind the Old Lady’s right ear?

She glanced to the left, where the relative safety of the Ashland Spa road beckoned a half mile away.

“I’ll help you, if you like. Warm him up a bit.
Look here, Pater, have you ever imagined old Grimsby without his whiskers? He’d look a damned prime girl.
Or else,
That old Grimsby, what a priceless fellow. Make a fine wife, if only he were a she.
That sort of thing.”

“Oh, splendid.”

“You could tell him tonight, couldn’t you? It’s Tuesday.”

The noseless Old Lady loomed near. Nothing stirred about her right ear except the snow. It must have been a trick of Emilie’s eyes, her overworked nerves. “So it is. But you forget your father hasn’t arrived back from London.”

“Oh, he’ll arrive. You’ll see. Pater never misses an appointment.”

Emilie opened her mouth to reply, but it was Freddie’s voice that shattered the air.

“Look out!”

A shape blurred along the right side of her vision. Someone grabbed her reins, turned the horse to the left, and they were galloping, galloping, the snow stinging against Emilie’s face, the wind freezing her breath in her lungs.

*   *   *

T
he Duke of Ashland sprang from the carriage almost before the wheels had come to a stop. “Have Grimsby and his lordship attend me in my study at once,” he said to Lionel, tossing the footman his greatcoat and hat.

Lionel followed him down the corridor. “They have gone out, sir.”

“Out?” Ashland spun about, nearly knocking the sturdy fellow to the marble floor. An odd emptiness scooped out in his chest. He realized it was disappointment. “Out, in this weather?”

“Yes, Your Grace. The weather has in fact turned for the better today, and his lordship was eager to take advantage.”

“I see.” Ashland turned around and resumed his journey, less urgently now. “Have them come to me the instant they arrive, then. And tell Simpson to bring in some coffee,” he added, over his shoulder. “A great deal of coffee.”

In the study, Ashland lit the lamps himself and settled into his chair before the desk. A neat stack of papers lay atop the blotter, waiting for his attention, but the words blurred in his empty gaze. He glanced at the clock: half past two. He’d risen before dawn to make the earliest possible train, to make certain of reaching home in time. And he’d worked furiously in the days before: going over papers and agreements with Mr. Baneweather, instructing agents with Isabelle’s Italian address, concluding all his business in a burst of insomniac activity.

And that interview last night in the Duke of Olympia’s private study . . .

His gaze dropped down to the papers before him, just as a distant shouting reached his ears, accompanied by thumping and clattering. He raised his head and looked out the study window.

A loud crash. Raised voices carrying through the walls. Ashland sighed and rose to his feet.

It could only be Freddie.

Sure enough, a bare thirty seconds later, the study door burst open to reveal his long and angular son, greatcoat still attached to his body, hat askew. “Pater! You’re back!”

“I am.”

Grimsby slid out from behind Freddie’s back, and Ashland was surprised by the surge of affection he felt for the tutor’s slight form, for his wheat-colored hair emerging into the light as he removed his hat.

“Good afternoon, Your Grace. How was your journey?”

Ashland looked from one to the other. They were bristling with fresh air and energy, with some strange suppressed excitement, breathing hard with it. Freddie’s eyes gleamed so brightly, they nearly jumped from his head. Grimsby’s hand clutched his hat a little too hard.

Ashland wanted to leap over the desk and crush them both in his arms.

Being English, and being a duke, and being Ashland, he did not. He crossed his arms and said, “Tolerable, I suppose. Did you have a pleasant ride?”

“Oh, ripping,” said Freddie. “Especially that exhilarating dash at the end. Galloped along as if the Devil himself were at our heels, firing a pistol. Have you ordered coffee?”

“I have.”

Freddie tossed his hat and greatcoat in one chair and threw himself in another. “Grimsby and I have had the most cracking time whilst you’ve been away. I’ve learned all his deadly secrets.”

Grimsby sent Freddie a killing look and placed his hat upon a small tripod table, underneath a lamp.

“Is that true, Mr. Grimsby?” asked Ashland. “What sort of secrets?”

“His lordship is pleased to joke with us,” said Grimsby, in his gruff little voice. “I have little of interest to disclose, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, that depends on what one finds interesting,” said Freddie. “Where the devil is that coffee?”

On cue, the door swung open in a stately fashion. The next few minutes were occupied by the usual rituals of pouring and serving. Ashland inspected the coffee, a particular strain of arabica beans he’d ordered in London and sent down to the Abbey a few days earlier with instructions to brew at double strength, piping hot. Grimsby’s whiskers twitched as he sniffed his cup.

“Were your ears burning last night, Mr. Grimsby?” Ashland asked, settling back in his chair in a cloud of aromatic steam.

“Your Grace?”

“I was discussing your case with your venerable sponsor, the Duke of Olympia.”

Grimsby choked on his coffee. Freddie delivered him a hearty swat to the back, causing additional coffee to spill from his cup, causing his hands to jerk, causing more coffee to be spilled. Ashland rose silently and handed the poor fellow a napkin, while Freddie guffawed spasmodically in his chair.

“Go on, Pater,” he said, between gasps. “Tell us about Olympia.”

“There isn’t so much to tell, really. He asked after our Grimsby, and I told him he was getting along very well.”

“I agree. Grimsby’s getting along very well indeed. Giving
satisfaction
. That’s the phrase, isn’t it? A great”—Freddie coughed—“a
great deal
of satisfaction.”

Grimsby ignored Freddie and looked directly at Ashland. “How kind of you, sir. Was His Grace in good health?”

Ashland laughed. “When is he otherwise? Yes, he was looking very well. We discussed your excellencies as a tutor for some minutes. He takes a great interest in you, Grimsby.”

“I daresay,” said Freddie.

“Very good of him, of course,” said Grimsby. “Had he any personal message for me?”

“No, no.” Ashland ran his mind over the rest of the discussion: the political situation in Europe, the distressing affair in Holstein-Schweinwald. Ashland had forgotten that Olympia’s sister had once been married to the assassinated Prince Rudolf, that he had a personal interest in the issue. What had Olympia said?
I fear there may be a deeper game afoot.
Ashland’s attention had been wandering at that point, looking forward to the next day, aching with longing. At the conclusion of the meeting, Ashland had finally worked up the nerve to say aloud what he’d been burning to say for an hour:
I have decided to initiate a suit of divorce against Isabelle. I hope I may count on your support in this matter?
Olympia had looked at him for a long moment, with that hooded gaze of his, and then he’d risen from his chair, offered his hand, and said,
With all my heart
.

It had been . . . gratifying. It had soothed that persistent twinge of guilt still buried deep in his conscience, even now.

“No message,” he said to Grimsby, a little absently, and glanced again at the clock.

Freddie, setting to work on his cake, said crumbfully, “I say. Are we keeping you from an appointment, Pater?”

“Not at present.”

“Because one can’t help but noticing that it
is
Tuesday afternoon. Shouldn’t you be upstairs, bathing and shaving and making yourself pretty?”

“Frederick.”
Ashland brought down his cup with a crash.

“Oh, come, sir. We quite understand. We are all
men
here, aren’t we? Men of the world, I mean. Hmm, Grimsby?”

“Quite,” said Grimsby, with steely masculinity. He swung his fist upward against his chest. “Men of the world, that’s us.”

Freddie stuffed the rest of his cake in his mouth and rose. “So we shan’t keep you an instant longer. God knows it must take hours to make your frightful mug acceptable to the discriminating female eye. What do you think, Grimsby?”