A Duke Too Far

by Jane Ashford

  I know you have been disappointed by my efforts, particularly that investment with such a large sum lost. Of course so have I. More than you can ever know.

  I maintain that I am not unintelligent. Quite the opposite, I trust. But I have no head for money. I never seem to make good judgments in that arena. I’m not sure why that should be. Something about the pounds and pence makes my head swim. Talk of shares and percent returns and loan guarantees slips away as if it were gibberish.

  But the reason hardly matters, does it? The result is the problem. A long excruciating slide into disaster. And I leave you with this. Not an iota of improvement since your grandfather died. Matters are worse, in fact. I am overcome with humiliation.

  Peter winced again. Looking up, he found he was alone. Out of tact or discomfort, the others had gone, and he was glad of it. He looked down.

  Peter, there truly is a possibility that the Rathbone fortune was hidden away. There are indications, oblique mentions. Delia is like a bloodhound, tracking them down. I pray she finds the answer, and soon, for both your sakes.

  I know your belief in me died long ago. When we argued over that canal scheme, and then the manufactory. Both times you turned out to be right when I was wrong. I take pride in that, actually. I’m certain you will do a better job as duke than I ever have.

  Your loving father,

  The signature wandered over the bottom of the page. Peter swallowed. His arm fell to his side, the letter dangling from his fingers. Why had his father not talked to him, instead of writing? They might have resolved their differences. Or, if not that, they might have found paths around them and ended on the note of loving father and loving son. Rather than long silences and simmering resentment.

  But he knew the answer to that question. He had been as great a barrier as Papa’s reticence. Neither of them had made a place for reconciliation.

  He swallowed again, his throat thick. Setting the letter on the desk, he walked over to one wall and examined a curling page. It was a list of household items from 1615. Could his ancestor really have possessed twenty-four gold knives and matching spoons? Next to this was a description of the Rathbone tiara, of which he had never heard until this moment. Diamonds and rubies set in a filigree of gold, he read. Peter touched his pocket, where the small box containing the ruby rested. That seemed to him clear evidence that the ornament had been broken down and sold years ago. Along with the golden spoons and all else. He turned away.

  The labor in this room represented just another layer of melancholy in the family’s waning history. It made him sad to think of his young sister immured in here.

  Once again, Peter was glad that he’d sent Delia to school. She’d found friends. Friends who were determined to take up this quixotic quest, he remembered. In his sister’s memory. Their determination was heartening, if futile. A small chamber full of chattering young ladies was a different thing altogether.

  Peter folded the letter and put it in his pocket, with the ruby. He decided to leave the doors unlocked. Miss Deeping would be vociferously annoyed if she couldn’t get through.

  He went out and down the short corridor. When he opened the door to the modern wing of the house, Miss Ada Grandison stood there, lying in wait. Her lovely lips were pressed together. Her dark eyes snapped under those lowering brows. At her feet, her tiny dog barked at him.

  Ten

  “Be quiet, Ella,” said Ada. The dog heard that she meant it and subsided. Ada gave Compton the kind of raking glance that her aunt used to chasten the impertinent. It was the first time she’d really achieved that level of militancy. “You were beastly to me,” she said.

  “No, I wasn’t.” He edged sideways as if to get around her and escape.

  “Bite him if he moves, Ella.”

  “What?” He looked down at the tiny dog.

  Ada wished there was a chance that Ella would do it. “You are going to speak to me. And tell me why you humiliated me in front of everyone.”

  “That’s an exaggeration.”

  “So you admit the intention but not the degree?”

  “No, I… This is ridiculous. You must know that I was right.”

  Ada hadn’t realized that one could actually see red. She’d thought it was just an expression. But at that moment, she did. She’d never been so angry in her life. She clenched her fists at her sides and struggled to be maturely furious. “You called me a sneak!” Ada’s friends had told her what he said.

  “I did not name any particular person.”

  “Because it was obvious.”

  “I don’t see that.”

  “Really? Sarah and Charlotte and Harriet all knew that you couldn’t mean them. Or my aunt.” She hadn’t yet confessed to the kisses. With the way he’d behaved, perhaps she never, ever would.

  “I may have chosen the wrong word,” he answered. “I’m sorry you are offended. I was trying to protect you. In the drawing room just now. We can’t be alone.” He gestured as if to say, as we are now. “It’s not right when nothing can ever come of it.”

  “Nothing,” repeated Ada. “But that’s all changed.”

  “What do you mean? What change?”

  “Now that we know about the treasure—”

  “There is no treasure.” His voice was harsh.

  “But your father and Delia—”

  “Clearly spent years searching. With their…obsession, they must have looked everywhere. There is nothing to find.”

  “But Delia had thought of something new!”

  His expression grew sad. “I’m sorry my sister was pulled into my father’s plots.” He looked away. “She might have married, gotten away from Alberdene.”

  “She didn’t want to! She wanted to save it.”

  “Papa had more schemes to recover our fortunes than a traveling mountebank, and they all failed. Completely.”

  Ada wondered if it would help to shake him. “This is not a scheme. It’s a hunt.”

  “Are we children? To believe in fairy tales?”

  “I’m not a child.” She was barely able to control her voice, and just managed not to say that he was behaving like one.

  “No.” He turned back to her, his eyes dark with loss. “So you know that we must observe the proprieties. There can be no more wandering about the house in the night. Indeed, I think it’s time for you to go.”

  For a moment she thought he meant go back to the drawing room. Then she saw that this was more. “You are throwing us out of your house?”

  “Hardly throwing—”

  “Before we have a chance to solve the mystery?”

  His sigh was as irritating as anything Ada had heard in her life up to now. Only to be eclipsed by his woeful expression. “This isn’t easy for me.”

  “Really? Not easy to give up without trying? Not easy to reject help when it is offered? To send me away.” Her voice trembled, and she bit off the final word.

  “I’m trying to protect you.”

  Did he imagine this air of smug melancholy looked noble? Ada tried to recall some scathing curse, and was frustrated when none came to her.

  “I must take care not to rouse expectations.”

  “Expectations!” As if she was at her last prayers, setting her cap at him. Ada’s anger went cold. How dare he?

  “It is another of the things I cannot afford,” he said, actually putting a hand over his heart.

  Did he imagine she was some sort of purchase? Was he calling her kisses a commodity? Ella barked, perhaps sensing her agitation. Ada bent and picked her up.

  “The very many things,” he added with what he might have thought was a soulful gaze.

  Did he actually expect sympathy? Ada felt as if steam might burst from her nostrils, like the dragon he’d imagined his house to be. She longed to give him the setdown of his life, but properly searing phrases still refus
ed to come. The muddle of her emotions was too distracting.

  “So you must understand,” he began.

  “I’m sick to death of understanding!” Clutching Ella, Ada turned away. She was afraid her face would reveal too much as hurt began to overwhelm her anger.

  “You must allow me to escort you back—”

  “I don’t have to allow you to do anything! You said you want me gone. You mustn’t be alone with me. Very well then, go away!”

  She had to escape for a while, Ada thought. She couldn’t go to her room. Sarah would be there. Perhaps the others as well. They would see her agitation and demand the whole story, which she was in no mood to share. Where else? The thought of a refuge came to mind. Ada pushed around the duke and through the open door behind him.

  “You shouldn’t,” he began.

  “Let me be!”

  Ada hurried off. She heard no footsteps behind her, of which she was glad, of course. Extremely and wholeheartedly glad!

  She reached the entry to Delia’s tower. Settling Ella more firmly under her arm, she rushed up the winding stair. She’d forgotten a candle, but the slits of windows gave enough light to see the steps. She raced up several turns, trotted up a few more. By the time she reached the top, she was panting.

  Ada pushed into Delia’s old bedchamber, shut the door, and set Ella down. As her lungs pumped and her heart pounded, her mind filled with crushing retorts she could have made, if only she’d thought of them in time. Why did the right words never come when they could do some good? And how was she going to show the master of Alberdene that he was wrong?

  Gradually, her pulse slowed. She looked at Delia’s things, still just as they’d been left before her friend’s death. She’d come to Alberdene for Delia, first of all. For her connection to Delia. That hadn’t changed. In fact, the impulse was stronger than ever, since she’d seen the mass of information Delia and her father had assembled. If Delia’s brother chose to be impossible… Well, let him!

  Ella sniffed at the hem of one of the curtains, moved on to the next.

  Compton had the key to this room, Ada thought. She couldn’t lock it. Should she shove a chair against the door? But he wouldn’t be looking for her. He’d been clear that he offered…nothing. He refused to even try.

  Fatigue washed over her. She’d been too excited to sleep much last night. Her mind had been full of the duke and his kisses. More than that, of the conversations they’d had, the looks they’d exchanged. What had she thought they meant? Not nothing. But what sort of something? Certainly not that she was offering herself as a thing to be afforded.

  Ella scratched at the corner of a small rug, turning it up to examine the underside, then as quickly abandoning it.

  If only Delia was here, Ada thought. She ought to be. This room, the whole house, felt like her. One could so easily imagine her walking into a room—this room—and pouring out stories about her family, her searches. They would have stood together against her brother, put him firmly in his place. But…she didn’t want to oppose him.

  Ada remembered the way he’d pulled her close, the sudden surge of urgent strength in his arms, the tenderness of his lips. He’d enjoyed the kisses, she thought indignantly, however he might pretend that he hadn’t.

  He hadn’t said that, she admitted silently. Now that her anger had cooled, she realized that he’d been speaking of the same things Charlotte meant when she called him unsuitable. A man of no prospects. So he had liked kissing her, liked it enough that it made him think of an unreachable future. The last of her indignation drained away, to be replaced by uneasiness. Surely they would find a way?

  Ella examined the hearth as if wondering why there was no cheery flame to curl up before.

  There hadn’t been a fire here for months. The room was chilly. Ada rubbed her arms to warm them. She ought to go. But she still wasn’t quite ready to see the others. She went over and climbed onto the high bed, burrowing under the thick coverlet and pulling it over her. She wanted to think.

  But she found herself lying down instead, nestling into the thick pillows. She was tired. And it was pleasant to be warmer. She would just rest here a bit. There was time.

  Gradually, she drifted from waking into sleep. For some time her slumber was peaceful, but then it shifted into the all-too-familiar dream.

  She was back home, moving through the grounds of her parents’ house. She knew the path, the trees and bushes. The day was cold and gray, with spatters of rain. Not a time for strolling outdoors, but she had to. She had to find something. The need drove her.

  Filled with a rising sense of dread she went on, more floating than walking, it seemed. As always, the scene was curiously colorless. And dark around the edges, as if black draperies fluttered there. There was no sound—no wind, no birds, no gurgle from the stream that ran beside her.

  The ground on her right rose into a cliff. Though Ada knew what she was searching for, and what she would find, she couldn’t stop. The dream drove her on, pushed her forward, and made her look.

  There was the cliff path, slanting up the escarpment, and there was Delia, a huddled heap at the bottom. In a final dizzying rush, Ada was kneeling beside her friend. Delia’s face was paper white, her dark eyes vacant, her limbs skewed at impossible angles. When Ada reached out to touch her cheek, she found it icy cold. Just as it had been, just as it always was in the dream. Delia was stiff and still as she’d been when Ada found her.

  Now Ada would put her hands on the wet ground to keep from collapsing. She would fight nausea and horror. She would scuttle backward and make herself stand. She would run for help even though it was too late.

  That was what had happened on that dreadful day.

  But this time, in this dream, Delia sat up.

  Ada’s pulse jumped with startled fear. She jerked back, sprang to her feet. Delia’s head turned. Flat black eyes fixed on her. Delia’s ashen lips moved. She leaned a little forward, as if the message she wished to convey was urgent, but no sound came. Ada stood frozen with dread.

  Delia’s white hand reached out. She grasped Ada’s skirts, her pale fingers curled tight, ready to hold her there forever. Ada backed away, yanking at the cloth, trying to escape. But no matter how hard she tugged, she was caught.

  Ada jerked out of sleep with a gasp, her heart pounding as if it would leave her chest. She was smothered in darkness. She couldn’t get out. Something damp rasped on her cheek. She gasped again and flinched away. Then a low whine told her it had been Ella, licking her face.

  Reality came flooding back. She was in Delia’s bedchamber, Ada remembered, high in her tower, in her great four-poster bed. Ada wrapped her arms around her chest. Despite the coverlet, she was cold.

  Not as cold as Delia had been, her mind insisted on pointing out, lying dead on the earth. But she was thoroughly chilled, outside and in. Ella cuddled closer, and Ada held onto her little dog, a warm and living presence.

  She’d thought that the dreams reliving her discovery of her friend’s body were a wretched burden. Now she knew there was worse.

  Ada set Ella aside and slipped off the bed. She felt her way to the post at the foot and then moved out into the darkness of the room. Two steps and she was lost, still disoriented by the world of the dream.

  She tripped over a fold of rug and fell to her hands and knees. An intense need to escape fluttered in her chest. She scrambled up and went on, holding her hands out before her. Where had that candlestick been? Was there a tinderbox on the desk? She couldn’t remember.

  She knocked over the small table by the armchair, scattering books. When she felt about on the floor, she found no light. She made it to the desk and ran her hands over the surface, encountering many small items but no candle. There had been a lamp. She was sure she remembered an oil lamp. Where had it been? Ada kept groping, but she couldn’t find it, and she didn’t dare try those twisting spiral st
airs in the dark. That would be foolish beyond measure. But that sensible conclusion meant she was trapped in the dark. No one would hear her calling from this isolated room.

  Several stories below, Miss Julia Grandison distributed frowns around the dinner table. “Where is Ada?” she asked. Her companions responded with shaken heads and shrugs. “I haven’t seen her since we finished our cleaning,” said Miss Deeping.

  “She was going to take Ella for a good walk,” said Miss Moran.

  “She went outdoors alone?” asked Miss Grandison. “Why didn’t one of you accompany her? And why don’t you know where she’s gotten to?”

  The three girls looked away.

  They probably knew Miss Ada had gone off to confront him, Peter thought. They seemed to tell each other everything. Ought he to mention the encounter? How could he put it that would not bring Miss Ada a scolding from her chaperone?

  Suitable words didn’t come. It had been hours ago anyway. But he had seen her rush into the old part of house. He oughtn’t have let her do that. But he hadn’t imagined that she’d stay. And he’d felt lacerated by her scorn. Hard to call it anything else, Peter thought. She’d been more than angry.

  He’d botched the whole matter, from start to finish, Peter thought. Speaking to young ladies seemed the most difficult sort of conversation. He’d tried to make her understand that he was thinking only of her. And either she hadn’t, or she didn’t care what he was thinking.

  Miss Ada didn’t realize how painful it was to admit poverty. None of them did. And why should they? They’d never experienced the thousand disappointments and deprivations it brought. And he was glad of that. Happy for them. He shouldn’t have allowed humiliation to make him pompous, however. And tactless. That was not acceptable. “I wonder if she might have gone to Delia’s room?” As soon as the words popped out, he saw the likelihood. Of course she’d run there. But why hadn’t she returned? A horrific vision of Miss Ada crumpled and broken on the tower steps overcame him. He stood.

  All eyes turned to him.