The Duke Who Loved Me

by Jane Ashford

  James was glad to hear it. “He had to get clothes somewhere.”

  “If it was his. Surely all this cannot be.” She gestured at the sea of fabric.

  “I wonder.” James was very weary of his own dusty coat. Unthinking, he shed it and pulled this new one on. “It doesn’t fit like one of Weston’s, but it might do.”

  “Do? You look like a stripling who has outgrown last year’s wardrobe.”

  James swung his arms. The coat was tight.

  “The sleeves are too short, and the shoulders clearly bind,” Cecelia added. “I wager you can’t button it.”

  James tried. The coat wouldn’t close. “Uncle Percival was a wiry old fellow,” he acknowledged.

  “You look silly, James. If you are actually staying here, send for your own clothes.”

  The briskness was back in her voice. He had missed his moment. The kiss—the compelling possibility of a kiss—was gone. “Hobbs is incapable of keeping his mouth shut,” he replied. “He would bring all of society down on me.” He quickly slipped off the coat and resumed his own. “I suppose we must cram this back into the wardrobe,” he said.

  “Why not take some down to Mrs. Gardener?” asked Cecelia. “It is all fine cloth. She can use it to make new clothes for her family.”

  He thought of their ragged layers. “A good thought.” He started to gather up an armload of fabric.

  “I wonder if she has sewing supplies?” said Cecelia as she followed suit.

  “I believe all that exists in this house somewhere,” said James.

  Together, they made their back to the kitchen with their spoils.

  But Mrs. Gardener didn’t seem grateful for the offerings. “You should sell those garments if you don’t want ’em, milord,” she said. “I know a place you could get a good price.”

  “That’s not necessary. You can alter them.”

  “Cloth that fine? I’d look a fool. And I couldn’t work in such stuff.”

  “But Effie would like a silk dress, wouldn’t you, Effie?” James asked.

  The smallest Gardener, who had been fingering a silk dressing gown, dropped it guiltily.

  “Effie don’t need any such thing,” said her mother.

  James dug out the coat that hadn’t fit him. “Here, Ned, try this.”

  The boy hesitated, not quite believing but clearly drawn. His mother made an uneasy sound. Ned couldn’t resist. He put the coat on. It was large on him, but not excessively so. “You’ll grow into it,” James told him.

  “This is a good weave, this is,” Ned said, fingering the cloth. “And ever so well made. Look at that stitching.” He preened.

  His mother and sisters went very still, giving James nervous sidelong looks. He was puzzled by their reaction. It was almost as if they expected an attack.

  “He can’t have a coat that fine,” said Mrs. Gardener then. Her voice was tight. She frowned at Ned, seeming to convey a message.

  “Of course he can.” James looked from one Gardener to another.

  Ned was swiftly removing the coat. “Somebody’d steal it off me,” he said. His voice was tight with regret and something more. Fear?

  “They wouldn’t dare.” James was irate at the idea.

  The entire Gardener family looked back at him as if they despaired of explaining the truth of their world to someone who’d never experienced it.

  “Those who belong to my household will be properly clothed,” James declared. “We will present a proper appearance, one that warns off thieves.” He met each Gardener’s eyes in turn. “Is that understood?”

  Mrs. Gardener curtsied. After a moment Jen copied her. “Yes, milord,” said the woman. “I’ll get to work soon as I find some thread.”

  “You might want to hire a seamstress,” murmured Cecelia.

  He turned to her.

  “Mrs. Gardener might well know of a suitable one,” she added.

  James thought that Cecelia was looking at him as if she’d never seen him before. Which was odd because he was feeling rather the same about her.

  Ten

  Cecelia couldn’t resist. The next morning she slipped out while Aunt Valeria was in the garden checking her beehives and took her customary circuitous route to the Tereford town house. Finding the back door locked, she knocked, waited for a stir at the kitchen window, and knocked again.

  The lock turned, and the smallest Gardener opened the door. “Mam says you can come in,” she said.

  “Thank you, Effie.”

  Mrs. Gardener was in the kitchen, which looked even cleaner and tidier than before. The woman wore a muslin dress that had probably come from the store of clothing in the wardrobes. It was loose on her thin frame, and Cecelia thought she looked self-conscious about its suitability for kitchen work. Cecelia saw her run reverent fingers over the fabric, however. Effie had settled on a stool in the corner and wrapped herself in the blue and scarlet silk dressing gown she admired. There was an enticing smell of baking. “His lordship is clearing out,” Mrs. Gardener said. “Next room down from where he was.”

  “Thank you,” said Cecelia.

  She made her way there and found James, Ned, and Jen maneuvering a large disintegrating wardrobe out the window. Bits of chewed wood flaked off as it teetered on the sill, threatening to fall to pieces in their hands. Jen started to lose her grip on the massive thing, and Cecelia hurried over to lend a hand. The four of them managed to tip it over and out. It landed with a crash on a new pile in the walled garden, next to the one from the cleared room.

  “Thank you,” said James. “That one was rather nasty. We found yesterday that it had a large rat’s nest inside.”

  “Made Jen scream,” said Ned. “She hates rats.” His sister shuddered. “On account of one bit her once,” Ned added.

  “A rat?” Cecelia was shocked.

  “Long time ago, when I was little,” Jen said.

  She couldn’t be more than eight years old now.

  “We are sure the rat has abandoned the house now that its den is gone,” said James.

  Neither of the children seemed convinced, and Cecelia didn’t blame them. She’d heard that seeing a single rat meant that there were many more unseen, but she didn’t say so. She did eye the corners of the room for signs. Then she noticed that her gloves were smudged from the worm-eaten wood. She removed them.

  “Never mind,” Ned said to his sister. “I got a plan. Fixed it up first thing this morning, before you was awake.”

  “What plan?” asked James.

  “A first-rate one. You’ll see.” Ned grinned up at him.

  “You need more help,” Cecelia said to James. The sooner the house was cleared, the better.

  “Yes, I think I must hire some workmen so that we can go faster. And certainly to haul away the rejected bits.” He pointed at the discarded furniture outside, which was beginning to fill the walled area.

  Belatedly she realized he was wearing different clothing—his own. “Have you been to your rooms?”

  “I sent Ned over with a note for Hobbs. My landlady said he’d packed up his things and gone.” James had been annoyed and then relieved at this news. “I expect he was lured away. Bingham was always trying to poach my valet.” He shrugged. “It’s just as well. Hobbs gossiped like a washerwoman.”

  “You don’t care?”

  “Strangely, I don’t, much.” James had wondered about this himself. A few weeks ago he would have been livid. Now it didn’t seem terribly important.

  “What is happening to you, James?”

  It was true that something was. He didn’t know what. So instead of answering, he said, “Come and see our room of oddities.”

  He led Cecelia to the first room he’d emptied, the children trailing behind. “See here,” he said, picking up an item from the long table they’d set up there. “This clever impl
ement combines a spoon and a fork. Good for stews, I suppose.”

  “We’re calling it a foon,” said Ned.

  “Foon,” Jen repeated with a giggle. She wore a pink gown that had been chopped off at the hem to fit her small stature and tied around the middle with a scarf. Ned had on a billowing lawn shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It hung nearly to his knees and was liberally streaked with dust.

  James set the implement down and picked up a large pair of calipers. “Didn’t that fellow who told fortunes use something like this?” he asked Cecelia.

  “He predicted temperaments, not fortunes. He was a phrenologist.”

  “Ah, yes.” James moved on from this unfamiliar word. “We have powder horns for muzzle-loading muskets, and look at this.” He whirled an ornate, rotating bookstand carved with miniature gargoyles. “You can spread your book open here and read sermons to a reluctant audience. The carvings show what becomes of the inattentive.” He grinned at her. “Ned thinks it’s better than a museum.”

  “Never been to a museum,” muttered Ned.

  “We got knives, too,” said Jen. She held up a long, slender dagger in a tarnished silver sheath.

  “Indeed, Jen.” James pushed the bookstand aside and revealed a litter of knives. “Uncle Percival seems to have been particularly fond of short blades. We’ve found them stuck in everywhere. Daggers, poniards, dirks, a stiletto. I would call it a collection if I could perceive any organization.”

  “I was thinking the old man was afeard for his life and wanted a knife to hand wherever he was,” said Ned with a ghoulish relish.

  “An intriguing idea,” James replied. “But a bit too adventurous for Uncle Percival, I fear.”

  “You said you didn’t know him so well,” Ned pointed out.

  “That’s true.” James grinned at the boy. “It is gratifying to picture the old fellow skulking through the place always ready to whip out a dagger.”

  “Mebbe he had secret passageways underneath the piles,” added Ned.

  “No, Ned, now I am seeing him as an oversized rodent.”

  “Like a rat-man? Ugh.” Jen shuddered.

  “Exactly. But he wasn’t, Jen. He was a perfectly…” He stopped.

  Cecelia could almost hear him running through descriptive words in his mind—normal, no; kindly, no; sane, no.

  “Quiet old man,” James finished. His eyes laughed into hers.

  “Who are you?” Cecelia said to him. “And what have you done with James Cantrell?”

  He laughed as if she was joking, though he knew she wasn’t. Indeed, he scarcely recognized himself lately. For example, if anyone had told him a month ago that he would rather enjoy sorting through broken-down furnishings with two street urchins, he would have told them they were demented. He had been a creature of the ton, and now he was…what?

  Cecelia was staring at him. She wanted an explanation. He had none. Like him, she would have to wait until one emerged.

  He set that puzzle aside. Cecelia was here, just as he’d planned. They were nearly alone together. Turning to the children, he said, “Why don’t you go and ask your mother for some of her splendid muffins.”

  Ned and Jen didn’t hesitate. Their history had left them susceptible to any offer of food. In a twinkling, they were gone.

  “I have nowhere to ask you to sit, do I?” James surveyed the room. “If I pull that chair out, the rest will fall on us. And I’m certain it’s as dusty as all the rest.” There were seats in his bedchamber, but he didn’t think he should invite her there again. He was not made of steel.

  “I don’t need a chair,” Cecelia said.

  “What do you need?” The question popped out of his mouth, surprising James almost as much as it evidently startled Cecelia.

  “I…” She blinked. Her cheeks reddened. Her lips parted, then closed again without a word.

  James very much wanted to know what she was thinking. What had made her blush? She’d come back, as he’d known she would. But could he hope that more than curiosity had brought her? “What are you…”

  “I passed one of Lady Wilton’s footmen as I was coming here,” she said at the same time.

  That was clearly not the answer to his question. She had not been thinking of a footman a moment ago. “Yes, he’d been pounding on the front door,” James said. “I ventured a look and recognized the livery.”

  “He didn’t try the back?” she asked.

  “No, the fellow was clearly hired for his appearance rather than his intellect. I can’t imagine what he wanted.”

  “Lady Wilton is concerned about her lost earl.”

  “Ah, that. Concerned or incensed at the fellow’s rebellion?”

  “Both?” said Cecelia.

  “I shall have to talk to her. And set some inquiries in motion, I suppose. I believe there are people who do that sort of thing. I will do so, in a few days.” He couldn’t face it yet.

  “You’ve decided to take up your familial duties then?”

  She seemed to be marveling at the idea, which rankled. “I don’t have much choice,” James said.

  “You do, you know. Look at Fleming or Pendle. You could be a wastrel like them.”

  James acknowledged the point with a shrug. “I find that I can’t, actually. Perhaps it is due to your example.”

  “What?”

  “Through all those years, while you more or less managed my affairs, you never drew back from necessary tasks. Even those you disliked the most. And now for your father, it’s the same. I understand better than I did.”

  Cecelia’s mouth hung open in astonishment. James savored the expression. He hadn’t ever confounded her before, not that he could recall. It was quite enjoyable. “You’ve been calling me selfish for years,” he added.

  “Because you are!” She frowned. “You have been.”

  “Perhaps so. But I never really had a job, did I? Now that I’ve inherited, many people are looking to me.”

  “As I told you!”

  “You did.”

  “And you scoffed. What has changed?”

  She seemed fascinated, which was good. But James didn’t have a proper answer. The only thing that occurred to him was, “Did you know that children like Ned get no schooling? He can barely read.”

  She blinked, bewildered. “There are charity schools, I believe.”

  “I have heard of them. But according to Mrs. Gardener, there are difficulties.”

  “What sort?”

  “I couldn’t quite understand that. I suspect a patron is needed to procure a place. And on that front, I am increasingly convinced that the late Mr. Gardener was a criminal. A housebreaker perhaps or a footpad. And that the ‘accident’ he died in was a stabbing.”

  “Good heavens. Why do you say so?”

  “Things the children have let drop. And then looked anxious about revealing. Particularly about the array of knives we’ve found. Mrs. Gardener’s marked silences are also suggestive.”

  “Do you think they’re in danger?” Cecelia asked.

  James shook his head. “Only of starving in the street. Which they are not going to do!” Was that admiration in her eyes? He discovered that he hoped so.

  “That is good of you,” she said.

  “Do you think so?”

  “Anyone would.”

  “But do you?”

  “Yes, James. I said so. What is the matter with you?”

  “I believe your good opinion matters a great deal to me,” he found himself saying.

  Cecelia stared. “You have never seemed to value it much,” she replied.

  Had he not? He had brushed off her criticisms. That was true. He had resented them. But was that because he disagreed or because they stung? He’d had to fight back. “Did I hope for something else beneath the surface?”

  “What doe
s that mean?” Cecelia asked.

  “I have no idea. I’ve begun to speak quite at random, without any idea what will come out next.”

  “That makes no sense, James. And it sounds like an affectation.”

  “Which concerns me far more than it possibly can you.”

  “I think this disordered house is affecting your brain.”

  “Could that be it?” He felt an urge to take her hand. But she’d refused him that. Her hand remained her own. “Or perhaps the interminable sorting is uncovering treasures within as well as without.”

  She stared at him.

  “Not knives,” James added, and then wondered if she was right that Tereford House had addled his mind.

  “I’ve never heard you sound so cryptic.”

  “Is that how I seem?”

  She hesitated. “Not exactly. But you are much changed. It’s…unsettling.”

  He knew that she worried about him; that had long been evident. Didn’t that mean she could not dislike him? “It’s all this seeing things in a new light. You, for example. What would I have done without you?”

  “I thought I was the bane of your existence.”

  “You did not.”

  “Well, you always said so, James.”

  “Fortunately, you never listened to me.”

  Cecelia laughed. The lilting sound made James smile, join in, and then realize that he wanted to laugh with her for the rest of his days. This had nothing to do with estate work. He cared for her far more than he’d ever understood. He opened his mouth to say…something.

  Jen hurtled in and spoke in a rush. “Mam has made the tea and wonders if you’d like to come to the kitchen for a cup as she’s very sorry there’s no place for her to set a tray up here.” She took a breath. “We have raspberry jam for the muffins!” Her eyes sparkled with longing.

  “Well, we must have some of that,” said Cecelia.

  She followed the girl out before James could summon words to deflect the interruption. It was an acute disappointment. With every step, he was more conscious of the lovely young woman ahead of him.

  The tea, muffins, butter, and pot of jam were arrayed on the scrubbed kitchen table. Mrs. Gardener hovered, looking proud and anxious in equal measure. They had just sat down when they were interrupted by a sharp rapping on the back door.