How to Tame Your Duke (23 page)

He couldn’t breathe. The pain in his chest was too great. He took a step back, and his foot seemed to sink forever into the weave of the carpet beneath, holding him fast. “You’re correct, of course. I have no right, at present.”

Her face began to soften. “Ashland . . .”

Behind him, Olympia coughed a delicate cough. “Ah yes. Your unfortunate previous marriage. As to that, I believe I have a solution.”

“There is no solution,” said Ashland, without turning. The blue of Emilie’s desperate eyes held him fast. “Not even you could effect a divorce so quickly. Even if you could, the haste of the engagement would be the scandal of the century.”

“Ah.” There was a rustle of papers, and a creak of floorboards beneath the rug. “After your recent visit, I took the liberty of making inquiries through my own channels. I received this reply within hours, just this morning.”

A slip of paper appeared before Ashland’s chest, just within the periphery of his vision. An odd skip moved his heart, whether dread or hope or anticipation. He grasped the note without looking and let his gaze drop slowly to the typescript message.

REGRET DUCHESS OF ASHLAND DIED RESULT OF TYPHOID AT HOME ON VIA NATALE ROMA ITALIA ON 19 SEPTEMBER 1887 STOP BODY INTERRED ANGLICAN CEMETERY ON 21 SEPTEMBER 1887

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” said the Duke of Olympia.

*   *   *

W
hen Emilie found the Duke of Ashland again, he was wearing a thick wool greatcoat that made his large frame even more imposing, and a footman was handing him his hat and glove.

“Going out?” she called, from the bottom of the main staircase.

He turned, and Emilie’s breath died somewhere at the base of her throat. His face was hard and pale, the mask like a black slash across his skin. At the sight of her, dressed once more in her feminine clothing, his massive body went still.

She crossed the hall. “May I have a word with you?”

He motioned with his hand to the small morning room overlooking the park. His silence unnerved her. He’d hardly said a word since Olympia presented him with that fatal telegram an hour ago; his face had taken on that same bleak expression it wore now, and he’d handed the paper back to her uncle with a low, “Thank you.”

He had bowed to them both and left the room.

He said nothing now, simply allowed her to precede him into the room. A fire did its best to chase away the late January chill beneath a simple white marble mantel; Emilie crossed the room and held her hands above the glowing coals. “Did you speak to Freddie?” she asked.

“Yes. He took the news quite in stride.”

“He never knew her, of course. He once told me she never really seemed alive to him at all. She was like a phantom to him.”

“Yes.”

Emilie turned. The duke stood near the window, staring at the skeletal row of Hyde Park trees across the street, his hat and glove dangling from his hand, the stern and beautiful lines of his perfect leftward profile turned toward her. A thin ray of winter sunshine turned his hair an almost ethereal shade of gossamer white. “Who is this man your Miss Dingleby has set to guarding the house? Hans, I believe?” he asked.

Emilie started. “My father’s valet. He helped us escape.”

“You’re certain of his loyalty?”

“As I am of my own heart,” she said.

He watched the scene outside the house with his eye narrowed in thought.

“Where are you going?” Emilie asked.

“I have a brief errand to run,” he said, “and then there’s much to arrange. A visit to my solicitor, wires to the Abbey. I should like the wedding to take place by March, if that does not inconvenience you.”

“March!”

He turned at last. His broad shoulders nearly blocked the feeble light from the window. “If you must have something lavish, that should allow us enough time to make arrangements. In the meantime, I shall not rest until I discover and destroy this threat against you and your family. I find wholly unsatisfactory the efforts your uncle has made on your behalf thus far.”

“We are not . . .”

“I shall also look about for a house in town. I daresay you won’t want to stay in Yorkshire year-round. You are welcome to accompany me in the search, as the home will be yours. The staff from Ashland will be called down to service it for the time being; do you have any objection? I shall give orders for the strictest discretion regarding your previous disguise.”

Emilie drew in a long breath, which was truncated abruptly by the unexpected dig of her stays into her ribs. She could not meet him in anger, not now, when he’d just received such a shock. “I have not agreed to marry you, Ashland. I have not agreed to any of this. The engagement, the ball, all of which will occasion danger to you and your son. A marriage; a house in town, so far away from my own homeland.”

He fingered the brim of his hat and tucked it under his right arm. “I am not particularly keen on your uncle’s ideas myself. I see no reason to risk your life at a damned party, but Olympia always did prefer his grand schemes to a more subtle approach. Still, at least we may have the opportunity to rid ourselves of this menace at a single go, and you will be well protected. I shall not leave your side for an instant.”

Emilie thought of Ashland’s half-clothed and gleaming body, beating his fists with machinelike strength into the leather punching bag in the basement of Ashland Abbey.

“You’re avoiding the question, Ashland. You know I wasn’t speaking of the ball by itself.”

He regarded her calmly with his bleak blue eye. The fire glowed warm on Emilie’s back, but her front was warmer: The skin of her face and bosom and belly burned under Ashland’s steady gaze, as if she were naked before him. He took two long and deliberate steps forward, reached out his hand, and traced the line of her jaw with extraordinary gentleness.

Emilie couldn’t speak. Ashland’s touch snaked through her body like a live electric charge.

His hand dropped. “I shall not force you to marry me, of course,” he said, working his fingers into his glove. “A mere English duke, nearly forty years of age, maimed by war, widowed and with a child already, is perhaps a poor catch for a young and singularly beautiful princess of Germany. But as I have already taken the basest advantage of you, and as you find yourself in precarious and uncertain circumstances entirely without justice to your merit, I beg you to do me the immeasurable honor of allowing me to devote my life to ensuring your safety and happiness. Good afternoon, madam.”

The Duke of Ashland bowed, put on his hat, and left the room.

*   *   *

A
lice’s high voice carried across the room like an anxious lapdog. “Why, Your Grace! What an extraordinary surprise!”

Ashland turned. His sister-in-law stood in the doorway, wringing her hands against her blue silk waist. The lamp cast a warping shadow along one side of her face.

“Indeed,” he said. “The day has been chock-full of surprises, from its earliest hour. I am not certain my constitution can handle another, in fact, so I beg you to be as candid as possible with me, Alice.” He walked forward until he was almost breathing on the sharp part of her dark hair. “As candid as possible.”

Alice stumbled back with a nervous trill of laughter. “Why, Your Grace! I can’t conceive what you mean. I have been perfectly candid with you.”

“Ah! I suppose, then, it merely slipped your notice that my wife has, in fact, been dead for over two years. Died in Rome of typhoid, and buried there. Your remittances to her, perhaps, were claimed by another?”

Alice’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “Sir! I’m sure I don’t . . .”

Ashland took his watch from his pocket and examined the face. “The hour grows late, Alice. I’m afraid I have no time to waste on your denials, followed by my own threats and imprecations, and then by your own inevitable collapse and confession. Dreary, dull, and quite unnecessary. Pray sit down, and I will explain matters to you in the concise and matter-of-fact fashion to which I am accustomed. You needn’t speak at all, in fact.”

Alice tottered forward and lowered her trembling backside into a chair.

“First and most urgently: Does Miss Russell know of her mother’s death? Nod your head yes, or shake it no.”

Alice’s head swung slowly from side to side.

“As I thought. You are, as of this moment, relieved of your duty as her guardian. You will order her things packed at once, and you will quit this house yourself within the week. I shall allow you to keep your belongings and whatever savings you have managed to accrue during the course of your fraudulent guardianship, but you will be allowed no further allowance, nor any contact with Mary. Is that clear?”

Alice sat frozen.

“You will please nod your head, Alice, if you are quite clear on the matter.”

Alice nodded her head.

“Very good. Now rise, if you will, and make the necessary orders. Mary and her governess will leave with me in half an hour.”

Alice rose from her chair, white-faced and round-eyed. “But Your Grace! What do you propose to do with her?”

“To raise her as my daughter, of course.”

“
Her?
But she’s not yours. She’s Isabelle’s spawn, her and that earl, deceiving you in your own bed . . .”

Ashland spoke with slow precision. “I don’t know what you mean. Lady Mary Russell was born to my wife during the course of our marriage. She is my legitimate daughter, and she has lived her life unclaimed and unwanted by those from whom she has a right to expect love and protection. This injustice will continue no longer. You will send her ladyship down to me at once, so I can deliver the news myself.”

“Yes, sir.” She moved to the doorway as if in a trance.

“Alice,” he said softly.

She stopped.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t find out? Did you really think you could carry on forever?”

Alice whipped around. “And what would it have mattered to you if I did? Isabelle finally got what she deserved. She had you all fooled, all of you, and still you followed her about like the dogs you were, sniffing under her skirts. You couldn’t help yourselves around her, could you? You never saw what she really was. You couldn’t believe someone so beautiful could be . . . oh, not evil, not that, but such a
child
, such a selfish child. I expect you thought the earl was her first lover, did you? I expect you thought you could traipse off to India with your regiment and Isabelle could do without the attention, she could do without everybody admiring her and flirting with her. I suppose you thought she was as faithful as you were.”

Ashland looked down at her. His fist clenched and unclenched at his side. “I suppose I did.”

Alice turned away, took a step forward, and paused in the doorway. She said, in a lowered voice, “It wasn’t
you
, Your Grace. What she did, why she left you. Just so you know. It was
her
. And I always thought she was the greatest fool alive, walking away from you.”

Ashland folded his arms against his chest.

Alice looked at her feet. Her hand touched the doorjamb. “I did Mary a favor, I did. She never knew what a whore her mother was.”

“No,” said Ashland. “And God help me, she never will.”

*   *   *

T
he windows were already dark by the time Ashland knocked on Emilie’s bedroom door. It was answered by a long, thin woman with neat hair and a pair of extraordinarily bright hazel eyes.

“Ah! Miss Dingleby. May I have a moment’s privacy with my fiancée?”

Miss Dingleby’s eyebrows lifted. Her rosebud mouth—far too innocent, Ashland thought, but Olympia always did have a strong sense of irony—curled upward in amusement, and she glanced over her shoulder into the lamplit interior of the room.

“It’s quite all right, Dingleby,” came Emilie’s brusque voice. “He won’t ravish me, I assure you.”

Miss Dingleby turned back to Ashland. “I have talked some sense into her, thank goodness. So I’d be obliged if you didn’t ruin anything with your masculine blustering and all that.”

“I assure you, I have no intention of ruining anything.” He paused. “Have
you
?”

Miss Dingleby raised a single challenging eyebrow and swept past, leaving the door open a respectable pair of inches.

Ashland closed it.

He walked forward to where Emilie sat in her chair before a fine mahogany escritoire, pen in hand, lamp shining on her golden hair and brushing her delicate features. The pen trembled slightly in her fingers. Ashland’s heart dropped away from his chest.

He found a nearby chair and carried it next to her and sat down, perched on the edge. The light struck her spectacles in such a way that he couldn’t quite read the expression in her eyes. Expectant, perhaps. Or wary. He took her cool hand and pressed it between his fingers.

“Your Highness, I ask a boon.”

T
he Marquess of Silverton blinked, removed his spectacles, wiped them with a disreputable handkerchief, and replaced them on his nose. “Good God, Grimsby. Look at you!”

Miss Dingleby adjusted the trim of Emilie’s bodice by a fraction of an inch. “
Not
Grimsby. Her Royal Highness, the Princess Emilie of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof.” She took a step back, passed a critical eye up and down Emilie’s figure, and turned to Freddie. “And you will endeavor to recollect the fact, your lordship.” The words
your lordship
dripped with scorn from her mouth.

Freddie whistled. “Regardless, that’s a ripping frock you’ve got on, Grimsby. Has Pater seen it yet?”

“Not yet.” Emilie swiveled one way and another before the mirror, hoping neither Freddie nor Miss Dingleby noticed the flush spreading rapidly over her damned telltale cheekbones.

“Then he’s in for a shock tomorrow night. I do hope the poor fellow can keep his wits about him.” He made a theatrical yawn, patting his mouth with one lazy palm. “I only wish I were there to see it.”

“Freddie.”
Emilie turned and planted her hands on her elegant silken hips. “You and your sister are not to move from your father’s house tomorrow.
Not one step.
Is that understood? The ball is a
grown-up
affair.” She cast him her sternest Grimsby glare, communicating a wealth of meaning and warning, which could be summed up pithily as:
Don’t spill the beans, or else.

“Not even a turn about the garden?”

“Don’t be clever. If I see one hair of your excitement-seeking head lurking about the ball, I shall . . . I shall . . .”

“Tell tales to my father?”

Emilie looked at Mary, who sat in the corner, sketching Emilie’s dress in furious strokes of her pencil. “Mary, my dear, do try to make sure your brother behaves himself.”

Mary raised her dark head and smiled. “Shall I lock him in his room?”

“That’s the spirit.” Emilie turned back to the mirror. She hadn’t meant to allow herself to become close to the girl, but how could she help it? Freddie dragged his new sister everywhere, and Emilie could hardly shut out Freddie. And then, after a week or so, Mary had begun to shed her careful reserve. She began to make her clever remarks, her flashes of humor, her startling questions, and suddenly they were all laughing and talking together, and the gaping sister-shaped holes in Emilie’s heart had begun to trickle full again. Ashland would walk into the room, and his furrowed brow would smooth out, and though he wouldn’t say anything—he rarely said anything now, as if conversation were taxed by the word—Emilie noticed the warmth in his eye, the softening around his mouth.

She was surrounded now, a hostage to this new family peopling itself around her, laying its claim to her. The lease for a splendid double-fronted house in Eaton Square had been signed a week ago, and Mary and Freddie had just been moved in, but they still spent most of their time in Park Lane, under the vigilant eye of the Duke of Ashland.

The Duke of Ashland, who, as the society columns breathlessly reported, was so in love with his royal fiancée, he scarcely left her side.

Even to sleep.

“Well, it’s dashed dull about the old place. Hardly any furniture, and no company except the servants and that old beanpole of a French governess Mary’s got. Good Lord, I’m glad I’m not a girl. Governesses are a devil of a nuisance.” He cast a meaning glance at Miss Dingleby, which she ignored.

“Mademoiselle Duchamps is not a beanpole,” Mary said. “She has a long and elegant figure.”

Emilie studied the corner of the mirror, in which half of Mary’s face caught the reflection. From the window, a pale February sun revealed a distinct upward curl at the side of her mouth. Emilie smiled back. “There are always your studies, Freddie. Or had you forgotten your Oxford examinations?”

“Oxford? Who the devil cares about that anymore?”

Miss Dingleby clapped her hands. “Out, now, the both of you! The dress is quite in order, as you can see, and I must whisk it off Her Highness before she spills her tea and ruins it. Off, off!”

When Mary and Freddie had been bustled away, Miss Dingleby applied herself to the infinity of fastenings at Emilie’s back.

“You’re very good at that,” said Emilie.

“At what? Acting as your lady’s maid?”

Emilie smiled. “That, too. But I meant managing people. When I was tutoring Freddie, I found myself using your tricks. Your tone of voice.”

The bodice loosened at last, and Miss Dingleby helped her out of the voluminous dress, the multitude of frothing petticoats. “You are quite ready for tomorrow’s ordeal?”

“I believe so. I suppose if I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anybody.”

“Quite true.”

“Do you really think these men will strike? We’ve had no sign of any danger since I arrived in London.”

Miss Dingleby held out an afternoon tea dress of rose chiffon. “That may mean anything. But your uncle knows what he’s doing. These sorts of events tempt such organizations into the open. They offer a prestigious target in an unguarded setting, they offer crowds in which to hide, they offer numerous opportunities to infiltrate and strike. Most importantly, they offer publicity. Think of the Tsar’s assassination. Think of the opera house bombing.”

“Both of which were
successful
attacks.”

Miss Dingleby attacked the buttons of the tea dress with ruthless efficiency. “But we will be prepared. Your duke has the instincts of a guard dog, and we’ll have our operatives posted throughout. As long as you don’t turn missish, young lady. I want no last-minute airs and vapors.”

“Of course not.”

“You won’t plead indisposition at the top of the stairs?”

“Miss Dingleby,
really
.” Emilie tilted her chin.

“Very good. Because I did not whisk you and your sisters across Europe in the dead of night, agents at our heels, in order to have you disappoint me at the crisis.” Miss Dingleby fastened the last button with her cool and efficient fingers and turned Emilie to face her. Her hazel eyes were all Dingleby: bright and searching, exposing Emilie’s hidden corners like the uncompromising beam of a Channel lighthouse. “And now, my dear, I have an impertinent question for you.”

“You, Miss Dingleby? I’m shocked.”

“You must be quite honest with me, Emilie, my dear. I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me.”

“I can’t imagine what you mean.”

Miss Dingleby took Emilie’s hand between both of her own and pressed it. “My dear, I am trained to notice details, and having lived in such close proximity to you these last weeks—sleeping in your very bedroom—it has not escaped me that a certain visitor, ordinarily quite reliable, has not made its regular appearance. Hmm?”

Emilie tried to pull her hand away. “You’re right. It’s an extraordinarily impertinent question.”

“Is the duke aware of this anomaly?”

“Which duke do you mean?”

Miss Dingleby arched one eyebrow. “Either one.”

The room seemed to have gone quite cold, despite the warmth of Miss Dingleby’s hands squeezing her own, the fiery light in the governess’s eyes.

“There’s no need to speak of it to anyone,” Emilie said. “The visitor is not long overdue.”

“How long?”

Emilie hesitated. “A week. Perhaps two.”

“Two weeks. Long enough, then.” Miss Dingleby pressed even more tightly. “And what are your intentions in the matter?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I’ve hardly had time to think about it. After the ball . . .”

“After the ball may be too late. Come, sit down.” Miss Dingleby drew her to the elegant leaf green settee at the end of the bed. “Now. You are to speak of this to no one, do you understand me?”

“I must tell Ashland, if . . . if the situation does not resolve itself.”

“Nonsense. If you tell him, what will happen? You’ll be obliged to marry him. This campaign of his, with his constant presence and his alluring ready-made family, will end in your becoming the Duchess of Ashland, if you’re not careful.”

Emilie forced a smile. “Not so terrible a fate, really. I’m becoming more reconciled to it by the day.”

Miss Dingleby jerked back. “Good God, Emilie! I rescue you from that stifling German court of yours, from royal marriages and etiquette and the lot, and you tumble headfirst into the same chains from which I’ve delivered you? An English
duke
, Emilie? I thought better of you. I
taught
better of you.”

“Ashland isn’t like that.”

“Don’t be obtuse. I suppose you fancy yourself in love with him.”

“If I do?”

“Then enjoy him, by all means, but don’t make the mistake of marrying him.”

Emilie jerked her hand free and stood. “I can’t believe you’re saying these things, Dingleby. You, who taught me about virtue and duty and
honor
.”

“Think carefully, Emilie. Think about what I allowed you. The books I gave you. Our discussions, late at night. When did I discourage your ambitions?”

Emilie stood silently, her pulse snapping in a quick rhythm.

“You don’t really want to marry him, do you? Out of the frying pan, into the fire. I’m only saying the very things you’re thinking.”

“I
do
love him. I want a life with him. I want . . .”

“But on your own terms, isn’t that right? Without encumbrance, without obligation. As your husband, he can control your every move.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“You’re arguing against yourself. Come, sit down again.” Miss Dingleby patted the cushion next to her.

Emilie remained standing.

“Very well. Listen to me: You have made an unfortunate error, but there are ways to correct it, without anyone the wiser.”

For some reason, Miss Dingleby’s words didn’t sound as shocking as they should. Emilie heard them distantly, matter-of-factly, as if the two of them were back in the palace schoolroom, going over lessons. Luisa would be listening attentively, pencil poised, and Stefanie would be staring out the window, admiring a butterfly. Emilie’s chest ached with longing.

“To rid myself of the baby, you mean,” she said at last. “If indeed there is a baby.”

Miss Dingleby sat on the settee with her arms folded in her black gabardine lap, forehead stretched with expectancy.

If indeed there is a baby.
Emilie hadn’t allowed herself to think about the possibility yet. She had pushed the suspicion away, had concentrated on other things. She had expected every day to see the signs that everything was normal, everything was quite all right, and every day the signs had not appeared, and still somehow she’d convinced herself that it was a mistake, that the very idea of being with child by the Duke of Ashland was absurd.

Absurd.

Her belly was quite flat. She felt quite as she usually did. Perhaps her breasts were a little sore, a little swollen, but that was surely the result of being back in corsets again, her body being shoved and squeezed into position; or perhaps because the tardy visitor was on the point of returning.

Should we be so fortunate as to conceive a child.
Ashland’s child, the child he wanted. She forced herself to imagine it: Ashland, standing by a window, cradling a sleeping infant in his enormous arms. Her heart began to slow down, to thud in a hard and steady rhythm, returning warmth to her belly and limbs.

Ashland’s child.
Their
child.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

“I am being perfectly reasonable. Women do it every day.”

“Perhaps they do. But I couldn’t do such a thing without telling him,” said Emilie.

Miss Dingleby threw her hands up. “Listen to you! You’re laying your neck conveniently on the scaffold, after all I did to free you.”

“I see no reason to act at all just yet. Once the ball is over . . .”

Miss Dingleby rose. “Once the ball is over, and the danger is past, you’ll have no escape. You’ll be relieved, you’ll be grateful to Ashland, you’ll do whatever he asks. I am quite ashamed of you, Emilie. I’d thought you made of sterner stuff. I’d thought, if I gave you a taste of independence . . .”

Emilie’s hands fisted at her sides. “Yes! Yes, I quite perceive that everybody thinks they know what’s best for me. Everyone makes plans for me. Everybody moves me about at will to suit their own purposes. But I do have a will of my own, and I intend to exercise it this instant. Miss Dingleby, you will leave this room at once, and allow me
for once
to make my own decisions.”

Miss Dingleby did not move. Her tender rosebud mouth tightened almost imperceptibly around the corners; her eyes regarded Emilie without blinking.

“Brava,” she said at last, and left the room.

*   *   *

T
he Duke of Ashland, ascending the grand staircase of the Duke of Olympia’s Park Lane town house two steps at a time, was not particularly pleased to encounter the neatly dressed figure of Miss Dingleby just as he achieved the top.

He stepped aside. “Good afternoon, Miss Dingleby.”

“Good afternoon, Your Grace. You are here to see Her Highness?” she asked, as she might ask,
You are here to snatch the Grail of Our Lord from its sacred altar, you unscrupulous dog?