The Duke (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 6)

by Mary Kingswood

  “No need for anything as hasty as that,” the duchess said, disparagingly. “We shall need to see about wedding clothes, but three months should be enough. Then we can settle Susan over the summer, although hers is nothing to yours, Ruth, dear. Only a barony. But there, as a younger daughter, what can she expect, and at least Crosby is a peer. I could not bear any of the girls to go to a younger son, you know. A mere Honourable, perhaps, or even a plain Mister!” She shuddered. “That would be a failure indeed. I shall write to my brother, I think. He will be pleased, I am sure. Should we invite him to stay for a while?”

  “He may come to this ball next month if he pleases, and Ramsey too, but make no plans for the next week or two. We are to go to Valmont. Falconbury wants to spend some time with Ruth, you see — get to know each other better and so forth.”

  “Oh. I should have thought they already know each other perfectly well. Sufficient for marriage, at all events. He is not wavering, I trust?”

  “Not at all, but it is his wish, and Ruthie will want to have a look about the place. See what changes she might make, that sort of thing.”

  “I should hardly do that yet, Papa,” Ruth said quietly. “Besides, Valmont is so well managed, I cannot imagine any changes to be necessary.”

  “Indeed, I hope a daughter of mine would never be so vulgar as to presume,” her mother said repressively. “She can hardly ask to inspect the silver safes, or anything of that nature.”

  “No, no, but… well, Falconbury will want to show her around, I am sure,” her father said testily. “It is a great undertaking, to be mistress of Valmont.”

  “And one for which she has been trained all her life,” the duchess said calmly. “Ruth, you will wish to inform Maria and Patience of the momentous news, and then you may return to your instrument.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  ~~~~~

  Dinner was the ceremonial high point of every day in Mallowfleet, home for two centuries to the Grenaby family. Once a mere manor house, it had been extended in all directions in the Tudor period to create a substantial mansion. In recent generations, however, the family fortune had suffered depredations at the gaming tables. Although the present occupants were more circumspect, there had not been the funds for rebuilding in the modern style and so they tried to make a virtue of the antiquity of the ancestral pile. This meant uneven floors, awkward stairs, oddly-shaped rooms and draughty corridors. Ruth fortified herself with a cashmere shawl before venturing downstairs at the precise hour set by her mother’s rules.

  As the daughter of one duke and the wife of another, the duchess felt the honour of her position extremely. In her opinion, which was clearly the correct one, it was the duty of persons of high rank to set the example in society, imposing the rules of good breeding on everyone around her. Punctuality and dutiful obedience were the twin pillars of good conduct that she instilled into her daughters, together with reverence for the obligations of rank. These obligations seldom led her to do anything more than to entertain whenever she could. So it was that, apart from the ducal family, there were eight local worthies at the table that evening. Although the duchess grumbled at the necessity, so many covers at table gave her an excuse to dine in the great hall, a setting that she felt more appropriate for the station of her husband than the rather paltry dining room.

  The meal progressed as sedately as always, despite the news from Valmont. The duchess would have considered it unspeakably ill-bred to have revealed any hint of Ruth’s impending change of circumstances to their guests, so the conversation ranged over the usual array of local matters, and no one outside the family, Ruth supposed, would for a moment suspect that her life had taken a decisive shift in direction.

  Ruth herself was by far too well brought up to betray the least consciousness, but she had thought of little else as Pinnock had dressed her for the evening. During dinner, when there was no call for her to engage in conversation, she let her mind drift back to Valmont. To Ran. She had begun to wonder whether he would ever come up to scratch, and why should he, indeed? Ruth had been intended for Gervase from their first meeting, when she had been a wide-eyed girl of twelve and he had been a dashing figure of nineteen. Her parents had taken her to Valmont, and there Ger had been, with his shy smile, his careless style of dress and a heroic willingness to entertain her childish self. He had gone riding with her, driven her round the estate in his own curricle, played duets with her for hours and, one memorable wet afternoon, read the whole of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, taking all the parts himself and infusing every character with dramatic life. Their two fathers had smiled and nodded and hatched their schemes. She had not even met Ran until two years later, and then he had been very much in his older brother’s shadow, with none of Ger’s cleverness or restless energy. Ran was the steady, serious foil to Ger’s mercurial brilliance.

  But Ger was dead, and Ran was alive, and she was to marry the duke and that was the end of it. Whether either of them wished it or not, they were to marry, because it had been arranged years ago and the death of the elder brother could not be allowed to interfere. The eldest daughter of the Duke of Orrisdale was to marry the Duke of Falconbury, and there was nothing more to be said. She would do her duty, and Ran, it seemed, would do his, and they would have one of those cool, distant marriages so often found amongst the nobility. Not for them the luxury of falling in love, as the common people did.

  The ladies rose serenely from the table and made their way through the lamp-bright corridors to the winter saloon, where Charlotte and her governess joined them. Ruth played gentle music, not intrusive enough to overwhelm the conversation, for the ladies loved to talk. After a while, the gentlemen arrived, Charlotte went away and the tea things were brought in. After that, there was whist, which her father preferred, and vingt-et-un, her mother’s favourite. Ruth played cribbage with Aunt Maria. At eleven o’clock precisely, there was a light supper and the guests mingled again for a short time before the carriages were brought round at midnight.

  So it always was, for her mother loved everything to be orderly, everything done by rule. Ruth found herself wondering how it would be at Valmont when she was mistress. Would she and Ran fall into the same sort of pattern, everything predictable and familiar? She could not say. The late duke — the Sixth Duke, Ran’s father — had kept to the old ways of dining early, with a hot supper at ten. Then the men and one or two of the ladies, too, had retreated to a room called the Pavilion, from the trompe l’oeil effect painted on the walls of drapery, like a tent. There the serious gaming had gone on, so that the following day often saw long faces from those who had dipped a little too deep. But whether such habits still prevailed she could not say. It was several years since she had stayed at Valmont as part of a large gathering. Once the old duke grew ill, the house had been quieter and her last visit, almost two years ago, had been very subdued, with everyone aware that his death was close at hand.

  The departure of the guests drew Ruth out of her abstraction. When the last of them had been seen into their carriage, the family would have dispersed to their beds, but the duke said gruffly, “Come into the library, all of you. We should mark the occasion with a few words — a toast.”

  Clearly, he had planned the event, for there was a tray of glasses set out ready, and a decanter filled with wine. It was the good wine, laid down by Ruth’s grandfather many years ago, for decent French wine was hard to come by at the present. Her father poured a little for everyone and they all stood silently, waiting for him to make whatever speech he had in mind.

  “Well,” he said gruffly, “you all know how it is. Falconbury will do what is rightful, and Ruthie will be a duchess at last. I know you will make us proud of you, daughter. You will behave just as you ought. Never given us a moment of worry, since the day you were born. You are a good girl, Ruth, and I congratulate you on your good fortune. You deserve it. Let us all drink to the future Duchess of Falconbury.”

  Ruth lowered her eyes demurely as they drank he
r health. The Duchess of Falconbury… but not the duke she had expected. How strange life was. How very strange.

  “I must say,” her father continued, “that I feel you have the better deal. Gervase was lively enough, but he had some odd humours now and then, very odd. Randolph is much steadier.”

  “So handsome, too!” Cousin Patience trilled. “A very well-looking man.”

  “That is hardly of consequence,” the duchess said, giving her a reproving glance, “although his manner and bearing are always appropriate for his station, that I will grant you, whereas his brother— However, let us not say a word against the poor fellow, now that he is dead.”

  “No, indeed,” the duke said. “Nothing wrong with Gervase, nothing at all, but Randolph will do very well by Ruthie, no doubt about it. He will behave towards you just as a gentleman should, you may be sure, and you will never have to tiptoe around him, daughter, or wonder where he has got to. He will always be just where one expects him to be. Very steady. No trouble from him.”

  He glanced at Susan momentarily, whose future husband was reputed to be anything but steady. She lifted her chin defiantly. “Better unsteady than dull, Papa.”

  The duchess put in quickly, “You have both made us proud, and secured husbands who will bring you consequence. I only hope Charlotte and Anne will be as successful, when their turns come.”

  Ruth sipped her wine and said nothing, hugging her thoughts to herself.

  ~~~~~

  For the journey to Valmont, Ruth had been permitted to wear her newest pelisse and bonnet, bought for the season in London but deemed suitable for the future duchess to wear when visiting her future home. The procession rolled ponderously through the tiny hamlet of Shallowford Green, no more than a collection of cottages and a duck pond, but the ducal crest on the carriages caused the few locals out and about to doff their caps or curtsy as they passed by. Then they were into a wooded lane and within a half mile had reached the northern lodge of Valmont, where the gates stood wide open in readiness for their arrival. A long, straight drive brought them after some time to the main entrance to the house. And such a house it was! Ruth had never been to Versailles and one could not tell merely from drawings, but Valmont was said to be built on the same palatial scale, a frontage hundreds of feet long and many stories high, constructed in a handsome grey stone. Used as she was to the great houses of the aristocracy, there was a majesty about Valmont that was unrivalled.

  Ran was there to receive them. That did not surprise her. Ger had been unpredictable in that regard, just as likely to be out fishing for the day, but Ran was punctilious in the courtesies. He came down the steps to greet them, and when the footman opened the door and let down the steps, he was there with a few words of welcome, and his arm ready to assist the duchess to alight. Then Ruth, whose elevation in status caused her to share the forward-facing seat with her mother. Finally, Aunt Maria was handed down, setting the carriage rocking. There was a greeting for the duke, too, alighting last from the carriage with a sigh of relief.

  “Do come inside,” Ran said. “Your rooms are ready, if you wish to rest after the journey, or there are refreshments awaiting you, if you prefer.”

  “A glass of something,” Ruth’s father said. “Canary, Madeira, whatever you have.”

  Cousin Patience emerged from the second carriage, which she had shared with the two lady’s maids and the valet. Ran assisted the duchess up the steps, then skipped lightly down again to offer his arm to Aunt Maria, but he threw Ruth a slight smile, as if to say that he would have preferred to escort her, but felt obliged to be polite to the older ladies in the party.

  Ruth delicately lifted her skirts with one hand and made her way up the broad steps and into the entrance hall. Ah, Valmont! She sighed with pleasure as she gazed about her. Mallowfleet had antiquity and a certain faded charm, but Valmont had both grandeur and elegance, built as if for giants, with great pillars and ceilings high above. Ruth always felt like a queen, walking amongst such magnificence, everything larger than it needed to be. And to think she would be mistress of all this!

  “Lady Ruth.” Ran made her a respectful bow, both the welcome from a host to a guest, but also, she fancied, the acknowledgement of her future position here. “I am delighted to welcome you to Valmont once more.”

  Delighted? Even as she made her curtsy, she wondered at his choice of word. A mere politeness, surely, but then Ran had never lacked courtesy. What could she say in response? Dared she speak of her own delight? Probably not, for it might seem too forward. “It is always a pleasure to visit Valmont,” she murmured.

  There were refreshments laid out in one of the ante-rooms, which was built on a more intimate scale than most of the Valmont apartments. Not that she minded the vast size of the place, but for their small numbers she thought the ante-room an excellent choice. Apart from Ran himself, there was an uncle of his, Lord Arthur, and an aunt, Lady Anne, but no other relations. The elderly chaplain, Mr Ponsonby, was the only other present. It was a dreadfully large house for a single man like Ran to occupy, almost alone.

  Ran served them himself, pouring wine and handing it round, and then offering biscuits and sweetbreads and hot pastries. Ruth sipped the sherry he gave her, refused the food and watched him surreptitiously as he moved here and there, always with ready words to set everyone at their ease. He looked, she thought, exactly as a duke ought to look. She had almost forgotten how handsome he was — better looking than Ger, whose appearance was so nondescript that he would have passed as a country attorney if one knew no better. But Ran looked every inch the aristocrat. His clothes were not ostentatious, but they were clearly fashioned by the very best tailors, his neckcloth was perfectly starched, his hair was carefully disordered and his bearing was noble. He was solemn-faced, but then he had always been the serious one of the two brothers. That was his nature, and she was not foolish enough to suppose that she could change him.

  Once or twice she caught his eyes on her, but each time he quickly looked away again. Naturally he was inspecting her. He had seen her previously only as his brother’s intended, but now… now she was his intended, and he was seeing her differently. Well, he would see nothing to disgust him. Her appearance, her deportment, her manners had been polished over the years and she knew them to be such as must please even the most fastidious. She was a nobleman’s daughter, and had been destined from birth to be a nobleman’s wife. She looked the part, of that there could be no doubt, and she would fulfil the rôle expected of her to perfection, just as he would fulfil his rôle, too. Both of them knew what was expected of them.

  Was she unreasonable to want him to like her, too? Please, please let him like her.

  3: A Courtship

  Ran had hoped for a private conversation with Ruth to determine her feelings on the proposed match between them, but he found himself thwarted at every turn, for she was accompanied wherever she went by two watchful guards. Her parents created no difficulty, for the duke quickly got up a piquet club in the library with Uncle Arthur, or else read the newspapers, and the duchess was happy to sit with Aunt Anne, pretending to work on her tapestry but actually gossiping endlessly. But Lady Maria Grenaby and Miss Patience Bucknell were Ruth’s designated chaperons, and they took their responsibilities very, very seriously. There was not a minute of the day when she was not attended by one or other of them, and usually both. Two determined spinsters were no match for a mere duke. Ran knew better than to ask formally for a private interview with Ruth, for only an offer of marriage could be the consequence of that.

  He showed no frustration, naturally, for he was a gentleman and knew how to curb his tongue. Besides, the watchdogs permitted him to spend as much time as he liked in company with Ruth, so long as they were never alone, and so he had ample opportunity to improve his acquaintance with her. Not that he felt it necessary to do so, for although he had never been invited to Mallowfleet, she had visited Valmont several times and they had met often in town during the three seasons she h
ad passed there. He knew her character well and had no doubt at all that she would make a wonderful duchess. Still, it was pleasant to be permitted to spend hours each day with her, for she was a gentle companion, never tongue-tied but not garrulous, either.

  On the first day, the rain was too steady to permit any thought of venturing outdoors.

  “What should you like to do this morning?” he said to Ruth, as they sat in the winter breakfast parlour.

  “Shall we walk in the Long Gallery?” she said. “I like to take some exercise each day, and I may walk for miles there, you know. How long is it?”

  “One hundred and fifty feet,” he said, smiling suddenly. The Long Gallery! That would be fun indeed, for the family portraits were there and he could tell her some of the Litherholm history. She blinked at him as he spoke, some fleeting emotion crossing her face, but he could not interpret it. Perhaps she was merely surprised that he had such information at his fingertips.

  Both Lady Maria and Miss Bucknell followed them at a few paces’ distance as they walked, far enough for the illusion of privacy but close enough to hear every word that passed between two young people designated as a courting couple. He tried not to mind.

  It turned out that Ruth had been to the Long Gallery several times before, and already had a good idea of the Litherholm ancestors.

  “Ah, the Second Earl,” she said knowledgeably. “He was the one who saved the day by arriving at the battlefield just when all was believed lost.”

  “He was the one who got lost,” Ran said solemnly. “He took a wrong turning and led his men into a bog. Almost missed the battle altogether.”

  She raised her eyebrows, surprised. “This one is the Fifth Earl, who murdered his two older brothers in order to inherit. I am sure that cannot be so.”