The Duke's Tattoo: A Regency Romance of Love and Revenge, Though Not in That Order (15 page)

Her heart tripped when she glanced up and saw his slight, crooked smile. His modesty surprised her.

“Of course she will! You’re very…masculine-looking.”

“Am I?” He looked away.

“You mustn’t fish for compliments, Your Grace,” she chided. “It’s unbecoming.”

“Oh, I’ve no illusions about my appeal, Miss Haversham. I’m irresistible as duke, hideous scars and all, whereas I was tolerable as the duke’s brother and invisible as an infantryman. Except when I had the ready to pay for popularity.”

“You served in the infantry?”

“Only briefly. My father intended me for the clergy.”

“No!”

“Mmm. So I ran off to take the king’s coin in the infantry. When he realized I was determined to serve in His Majesty’s Royal Army, he bought me an officer’s commission in the Royal Horse Guards Blue of the Household Cavalry.”

“And then you were wounded?”

“Not immediately. Give me some credit,” he retorted, a bit tetchy.

“I…my apologies. Where did you serve?”

“The war’s over, Miss Haversham.” Ainsworth changed subjects abruptly. “Why are you awake so late? Hoping I’d return, hmm?”

“Hardly,” she scoffed, “I had trouble sleeping.”

“Anything to do with what upset you this afternoon?”

She hesitated before answering, “It doesn’t concern you.”

The duke said gently, “If I’m able to help, I shall.”

“I don’t see how you can. My brother sold this cottage and the apothecary building but you needn’t pity me,” Miss Haversham rallied, “I’ll contact the new owner and hire both properties back once I learn his identity.”

“The owner’s identity? Won’t that be difficult? That is to say, aren’t there intermediaries that conduct that sort of business so owners can remain discreetly in the background?”

“That’s how the sale was conducted but Mr. Smithson is quite confident we can unearth the owner’s name and direction. It will just take time for the sale to become part of the public record.”

“Who is this Mr. Smithson to you?” Ainsworth asked rather more sharply than necessary.

“He’s the lawyer upstairs in the Trim Street building. He’s helping me.”

“How fortunate.” The duke sounded crestfallen. “Are you a forgiving person, Miss Haversham?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Have I proven to be a forgiving man, all things considered?”

She blushed, “You’ve been gracious about…well, about everything.”

“Sadly, I’m not always gracious. When angered, I’m at times too hasty,” Ainsworth continued.

“You were justified in your anger and your reproaches have been restrained given the provocation.”

Ainsworth interrupted her
mea culpa
, “The trouble is that I am prone to act without forethought. Perhaps we’re similar in this.”

“No, I believe we’re opposites,” Miss Haversham said, considering carefully. His abrupt turn in the conversation confused her. “By training and of necessity, you must act decisively. It’s kill or be killed for a soldier, no? I, on the other hand, think too much and do too little.”

“I disagree. You’ve done quite enough.”

“Yes, well, I see,” she stuttered, “b-but for years I contemplated what you refer to as my ‘Vile Assault Upon Your Person.’ I schemed and fantasized about it yet I didn’t do the simplest thing. I didn’t make sure you were the man I meant to take. Worse, if what you say about your brother is true, and I suspect it is, I failed to confirm his true character. If only I had, I wouldn’t have tattooed him, or rather you. Too late, I realized I should never have done it.”

“I can sympathize,” the duke responded.

E
xhilaration joined the horde of emotions laying waste to Miss Haversham’s peace of mind. It had been nearly a week since she last saw the duke, or rather, since he last crept into her bedroom for an unorthodox chat. During that week, she told herself he would not return and tried to ignore the pall his absence cast over her life. Then last night at the Upper Rooms, the duke asked her to dance twice. The memory of it still left her breathless.

He appeared without warning to sweep her up into his arms and swirl her under the tiered crystal chandeliers while the stringed quintet played. She would never forget any of it: how high she reached to touch his shoulder, how small her other hand felt clasped gently in his much larger one and how safe she was within his arms.

Her reverie ended abruptly when into her apothecary shop swept one of the marriage-minded young misses stalking Ainsworth. Lady Jane Babcock appeared just before 1 o’clock, the time appointed for the duke’s treatment. As the Duke of Bath’s youngest sister, she arrived in all her highborn, icy blue-eyed, blonde-haired splendor accompanied by a much plainer friend, Lady Iphigenia Thornton.

Looking about with a pale brow arched, Lady Jane spoke without bothering to conceal her voice’s serrated edge, “What a quaint little shop, don’t you think Iphigenia? Hello, Miss Haversham. Do you work here?”

“I own it,” Prudence replied. To Lady Jane’s friend she said, “I am Miss Haversham, Lady…”

“Oh yes, how silly of me,” Lady Jane cut in, “Lady Iphigenia Thornton, this is Miss Haversham, the apothecary I mentioned.” She finished the introduction with a taut smile.

Lady Iphigenia blushed and mumbled the usual pleasantries about being pleased to meet and added, “You own this lovely place?”

“It was my father’s folly. And now it’s mine, Lady Iphigenia,” Prudence replied, smiling at the shy young woman.

“How interesting,” said Lady Jane, not at all interested. Her friend receded from the conversation and drifted to the window to look out at the flowers in the boxes just below. Nor did Lady Jane keep her in the conversation because, as she explained to her on the way there, she had a few matters to explain to ‘that pushing mushroom of an apothecary.’

“Did you enjoy yourself last night?” Lady Jane inquired, sweet as treacle. “I was told you were a spinster not much in Society. So imagine my surprise when I saw you dancing not once but twice with Ainsworth.”

“His Grace and I are a little acquainted,” Prudence replied, intentionally vague.

“More than a little, I should say. Two dances and waltzes at that! I don’t hesitate to tell you it raised eyebrows,” Lady Jane wagged a finger. “Have a care, Miss Haversham. You wouldn’t wish to be seen as overreaching.”

“He was merely expressing appreciation.”

“I should think one dance — a country dance — suffices to convey gratitude.”

“Perhaps he was carried away in a moment of irrational goodwill.”

“Indeed,” Lady Jane said, ignoring her sarcasm, “You dance passably well. Did you have a Season in Town when you were younger?”

“No, Lady Jane,” she gritted out. Lady Jane’s emphasis on the word ‘younger’ made Prudence’s seven and twenty years sound positively ancient.

“Well, the duke is a gracious man and entirely too compassionate.” Lady Jane turned to address herself to Lady Iphigenia, “He’s forever taking in strays.”

“Indeed,” Prudence murmured, her temples pounding.

“Ainsworth’s a lovely man but too ramshackle by half,” Lady Jane continued. “It’s as if he would liefer be a second son — doing just as he pleases because no one notices or cares. Well, he is a duke and ought not make a cake of himself. He becomes the object of absurd speculations, or so Lord Seelye tells me.” Current
on dit
in Bath even linked a certain apothecary with the duke, precipitating Lady Jane’s admonitory visit.

“I hadn’t heard,” Prudence said.

“Of course you hadn’t!” Lady Jane replied curtly, “Even here, you live on the fringe of Society after all. In London, he clomps around Hyde Park with a pack of mongrels that terrorize people willy-nilly. His name’s been connected with notoriously fast women — he is not discreet, shall we say. His duchess would do well to see that he puts such public nonsense aside and assumes his proper role.”

Lady Jane wandered further into the front room, among tall cabinets filled with small drawers neatly labeled with Latinate names. Now begun on the topic, she continued with the enthusiasm of one who knows all and never hesitates to share her abundance, “Ainsworth House is overrun by misfits and mongrels. He has a one-legged valet and a one-armed butler. I don’t doubt the cook’s a reformed whore. What’s more, he allows his clutch of misbegotten beasts to eddy and flow about one’s legs alarmingly. He welcomes any mangy cur that scratches at the door. The large one, Caesar or Augustus…”

“Attila.”

“…is a monster with a great blocky head and vicious toothy jaws. Utterly terrifying. A fighting dog or some such. Extremely dangerous. That dog will no doubt eat the heir.”

“Then one can only hope the duke sires several.”

It must be said, Lady Jane was not in the least reticent on the subject of the Duke of Ainsworth or his betterment. It was clear to everyone in the
ton
that he needed a firm hand; she was born with such a hand. What’s more, everyone expected her to make a brilliant match and told her so. Frequently. After three seasons unwed, her older brother the sixth Duke of Bath, made it abundantly clear that if she came to Ainsworth’s attention, it behooved her to cultivate the connection.

Lady Jane was loath to do so until the most vexing man of her acquaintance set her on her current course.

Having known her since childhood, Lord Seelye felt free to inform her she was nothing but an overindulged female to whom everything came easily because she was well born, well heeled and passably well made. His lordship had snorted that she ‘mustn’t set her cap at Ainsworth, old thing.’ He concluded rudely that it would ‘never happen, ne-ver!’ Thus, Lady Jane found herself doing whatever she must to prove the detestable Lord Seelye wrong
.
That it wasn’t going well only made her more unpleasant and opinionated.

“Disgraceful how he lets them run riot!” Lady Jane sniffed. “Not just the dogs, his staff, too. They treat him with shocking familiarity. His duchess must put his household to rights, of that there can be no doubt. She’ll clear the principal houses of all the refuse, staff, mongrels, the lot of them.”

“Surely not!”

The door of the apothecary shop closed with a light click. After greeting the Duke of Ainsworth with a timid whisper, Lady Iphigenia moved away hoping to catch Lady Jane’s eye but the beauty stood facing away from her friend and the door. Nor did Prudence notice the patron who entered. She was too distracted by Lady Jane Babcock, who at that very moment gathered a full head of steam.

“I don’t mean, turn them out entirely, mind you, Ainsworth has too much affection for them to allow that. Just move them to a lesser property. The duke has so many scattered about. Surely one won’t fall to pieces in the care of the crippled and unruly. They’ll be perfectly suited to the life. Little to do, the invigorating effects of country living…” Her pale blue kid-gloved hand made languid circles in the air to encompass all the benefits to which she referred. So carried away was Lady Jane, she ignored Lady Iphigenia’s anxious throat clearing.

“That defeats the purpose, doesn’t it, my lady?” Prudence asked in a distinctly tart tone not lost on Lady Jane.

“The purpose of his staff,” Lady Jane responded with greater hauteur, “is to serve the duke, his duchess and eventually his children. In their condition, they can hardly do so!” Huffing, Lady Jane concluded, “Surely even you see that, Miss Haversham.”

“The duke’s object, I presume, was to employ people useful and loyal to him.”

Lady Jane gave a moue of distaste.

“I’ve found in my work, there’s a greater injury to a man than the loss of a limb. That is the loss of his livelihood. Perhaps, His Grace understands such men are still capable and need employment to restore their dignity.”

“There are charities for such causes,” Lady Jane sniffed.

“It’s not charity they need, but purpose,” Prudence retorted with heat. “No doubt, the duke has a devoted, discreet staff, which is more than most of the nobility can claim.”

Ainsworth felt something warm and bothersome seize in his chest. He swallowed hard. She truly was an irksome chit, reading his mind like a broadsheet. No man should leave a part of himself behind on a battlefield only to be told he was useless if he survived. The duke was only too happy to find positions for a couple of these men, especially his own batman. He returned his attention to the serrated pronouncements of Lady Jane.

“His staff discreet? Ha! Everyone knows about his indiscretions. His doings are scandalously common knowledge.”

“I’d wager it wasn’t his staff but his inamorata who gossiped,” Prudence said with answering asperity, “And they grossly exaggerated his romantic skills to gain greater notoriety for themselves.”

Like hell they did.

Ainsworth almost spoke up in outrage but Lady Jane waxed on, “No matter. Taking in a one-armed butler and a peg-legged valet is simply beyond the pale. He may indulge his whims for now. I’m confident, however, his duchess will establish his principle estates with staff that befits a duke. Why just a few months ago, I witnessed his valet remonstrate with him in full view of the street. It was misting, nothing of consequence, yet his man chided him like a fishwife about taking ill and his butler cajoled him into a greatcoat he was loath to wear. I was mortified.”

“I admit, so was I,” Ainsworth said, finally stepping into view. His deep voice rumbled with good humor. “But Smeeth’s insolence comes from long association, Lady Jane, and Thatcher has more sense than I.”

• • •

Prudence looked up into laughing indigo eyes and her heart did a flip-flop in her chest. She wondered how Lady Jane had known of his appointment time. Had he mentioned it to her? It seemed as if he welcomed her intrusion, grinning like a chaff wit. Do they already have an understanding? Is that why she spoke so candidly about what his duchess would do? Prudence shook herself. The doings of nobility were not her affair. She resolved immediately to curtail her untoward feelings about a certain duke.