The Duke Who Loved Me

by Jane Ashford

  Then when James went out to discover how one arranged for an apprenticeship with a fashionable tailor, he was nonplussed to discover that the Terefords’ positions in the world were now reversed. His minor, personal success in securing a new valet was utterly eclipsed by Cecelia’s triumph over Prince Karl. Everyone was talking of her assurance and aplomb, admiring her courage. The tale of her confrontation at the ball was told and retold. James was the nonpareil—or he had been—and yet all anyone thought of now was his wife. On top of that, he was taxed with a day of drudgery. How had this happened? It was hours before it occurred to him that Mr. Dalton was the man to deal with apprenticeships and dispatched a note to the man of business saying as much.

  James retreated to Tereford House, fully aware that this was what he had done the last time he felt vexed by society. But the situation was quite different, he told himself. Tereford House had become an active place. Men called back and forth from room to room, vying for Nordling’s attention. Mrs. Gardener was kept busy providing refreshments to fuel the search. And one never knew what would turn up. Yes, most of it was detritus. There were long, boring stretches. But once in a while a gem emerged, sometimes, as today, quite literally.

  James headed back to the rented house with a velvet case in his pocket containing a diamond necklace. He bore it to Cecelia as a lavish gift, imagining her surprise and praise. When they were apart, he yearned for her. Yet when they were together, outside of the bedroom, they could not seem to avoid friction.

  He found her in the small back parlor surrounded by a mass of papers. Before he could bring out the necklace, she said, “I had Mr. Nordling send over the basket of letters from the Tereford House library. Can you imagine, I’d nearly forgotten about them!”

  There it was, the basket they’d found that first day, as long as his arm and nearly as deep, mounded with correspondence. “Without asking me?” he said.

  “Asking you what?”

  She seemed to have no idea of consulting him. “About the letters,” he replied, jaw tight.

  “We can’t neglect them any longer, James.”

  “They have been neglected for months. More than that perhaps. And nothing dreadful has occurred.”

  “We don’t know that.” Cecelia gestured at the papers around her, which he realized now were these letters. “Who knows how many tragedies have befallen the writers in that time?”

  “Tragedies! You exaggerate.”

  “How would you know? You’ve never even glanced at them.”

  “They are not addressed to me. They are begging letters to Uncle Percival. Very likely from people making unwarranted demands. Or even false appeals, fabricated to extract funds.”

  “People in distress,” she began.

  “As you imagine,” he interrupted.

  She frowned at him. “We cannot know until we look. I shall read them and make some response. It is not a task I look forward to, but…”

  “Yes indeed, you are the poor martyr who must do everything. Fortunately, you are eminently capable and always right. Don’t worry, everyone admires you.” James regretted these words, and the cutting tone, as soon as they were uttered. Particularly when Cecelia drew back as if he’d struck her. “I did not mean…”

  “That is why you married me,” she interrupted. “So that the work would get done. How can you complain now when I do it?”

  “That is not why I married you!” James snapped, exasperated by this repeated accusation. She started to speak, and he held up a hand to forestall her. “And do not throw my first proposal back in my face again. You know very well that things changed after that.”

  “Do I?”

  “You are a fool if you do not. And everyone knows you are not a fool, Cecelia.”

  “Everyone but me, perhaps.” Her voice had gone softer. “You said that love was a ridiculous illusion and that you would marry as a duty.” She recalled his words so clearly. “Add another portrait to the long line of languishing females in the gallery. You called marriage dreary.”

  “It is inexpressibly annoying to have my foolish opinions thrown back in my face,” he said. “Might we make a pact never to do that again?”

  “Why did you marry me, James?” she asked.

  “Because I love you, of course.” He knew his first utterance of those words shouldn’t have sounded angry. But it did.

  “You…”

  “These past weeks have made me see how much.” That sounded so flat to convey all he meant. “I brought you a diamond necklace.” He pulled the case from his pocket and dropped it among the letters. “Nordling’s people found it today.” This was all going wrong. She was staring at him as if he was mad.

  She didn’t open it. Instead she said, “I’ve loved you for years, you know. Even when I was the bane of your existence.”

  James’s heart began to pound. “You never were.”

  “Are you sure?”

  There was a small smile on her face. A vast relief. “Oh yes.”

  “It took me longer than that to understand love,” he said.

  “And now you do?”

  She was teasing him. Thank God, she was teasing him. James’s heart seemed to expand in his chest. “A large claim, I am aware. But I believe it is made up of desire and friendship and respect.”

  “Like a recipe?”

  “More a magical spell. Some mystical power takes those elements and makes them into a greater thing.”

  “How poetic, James.” She looked happy. She truly did.

  He opened the jewel case and held up the necklace.

  “It’s lovely!” she exclaimed.

  He stepped over to fasten the glittering stream around her neck. “You outshine them.”

  The kiss that followed was soul deep. It would no doubt have led to more intimate caresses, but a clatter of footsteps heralded the entrance of Lady Wilton, waving a sheet of paper. Ignoring their embrace, she said, “I have had word from Ferrington Hall.”

  “Have you?” James was lost in his wife’s gorgeous eyes. He refused to let go of her. His grandmother could simply endure the sight.

  “I have!” she replied. “Which is more than your useless agent ever managed. There is a group of Travelers camping on the land near there.”

  “Travelers, like the lost earl’s mother?” asked Cecelia.

  The old lady scowled at the mention of this supposed disgrace. “Yes,” she replied curtly.

  “That is suggestive,” said James.

  “Very,” answered his entrancing wife.

  “Perhaps we should pay them a visit.”

  “I think we must.”

  “Well, someone must,” said Lady Wilton. “And it seems that all I have are two mooncalves with no more sense that a booby. Nevertheless, you will depart immediately!”

  “Yes, Grandmamma,” said James.

  “You know, I still mean to read these letters,” said Cecelia, gesturing at the flood of paper.

  “Yes, my darling duchess, I do,” said James.

  Keep reading for a sneak peek of Earl on the Run, the next book in The Duke's Estates, coming soon!

  Jonathan Frederick Merrill, apparently the thrice-damned ninth Earl of Ferrington, known to himself and his old life as Jack, encountered the Travelers on the third day after he left London. They were ambling along the road he was walking, and he caught up with their straggle of horse-drawn caravans and swarm of children when the sun was halfway down the western sky. The sight of them was the first thing to lift the black mood that had afflicted him since he’d fled the city. “Grãlt’a,” he said to the man apparently serving as the rear guard.

  This produced a ferocious scowl and a spate of words he didn’t understand. “I only know a few words of the Shelta,” he replied, naming the language these traveling people spoke among themselves. The adult men had begun to gather round h
im, looking menacing. “My mother was born to the an lucht siúil, the walking people, over the sea in America,” Jack added. “She left them to marry my father, but many a tale she told me of life on the road.”

  The first man surveyed the landscape around them, an empty stretch of forest. “You have no horse?” he asked contemptuously.

  Jack had thought of buying a horse. He had a sizable sum in a money belt, his passage home and more. But he’d put it off, thinking he would soon be leaving England. “Only my own feet and a bit of coin in my pocket. I’m happy to work for my keep, however.” Nobody needed to know the extent of his funds.

  The group scowled at him. Jack had already noticed that his accent puzzled the English. They were accustomed to judging people by the way they spoke, but his mixture of North American with the intonations of his parents didn’t fit their preconceived notions.

  “Perhaps we just beat you and take your coins,” the man said.

  Jack closed his fists. “You could try, I suppose.”

  A wizened old woman pushed through the circle of men. Leaning on a tall staff, she examined Jack from head to toe.

  Jack stiffened. He wouldn’t be enduring abuse from another crone. He’d had his fill of that and more from his newfound great grandmother. She’d discovered nothing to like about him. His brown hair, dark eyes, and “undistinguished” face were nothing like her noble English get, apparently. A poor excuse for an earl with the manners of a barbarian, she’d said. Though how she could tell about the manners when she’d hardly let him speak a word, he did not know.

  “We are not brigands,” said the old Traveler woman to her fellows. “No matter what they may say of us.”

  “Nay, fine metalworkers and horse breeders, or so my mother told me,” Jack replied.

  “Did she now?” Jack caught a twinkle of good humor in the old woman’s pale eyes. Perhaps she wasn’t like the ill-tempered Lady Wilton after all.

  “She did,” he replied. “And inspired me to be footloose. I’ve been a frontier explorer, a bodyguard, and a sailor.” He’d been told he had charm. He reached for it as he smiled at the small woman before him.

  “And now you are here.”

  Jack nodded. He wasn’t going to mention inherited earldoms. That would be stupid. “Seeing the world,” he answered. “I don’t care for sitting still.”

  This yielded nods of understanding among his audience.

  “Might I walk along with you?” Jack dared. “I’m headed north, as you seem to be.” The truth was, Jack was lonely. He was a sociable man. He’d had many friends back home. Why had he left all that at the behest of a stuffy Englishman? He should have known that any legacy from his feckless father would be tainted.

  “North to what?” the old Traveler woman asked.

  It would be as unwise to mention estates as to reference an earldom, though Jack had decided to take a look at this Ferrington Hall he was supposed to inhabit. “North until I decide to turn in some other direction,” he replied jauntily.

  One man laughed.

  “The road is free to all,” said the woman.

  “It is that. But companionship is a gift beyond price.”

  She laughed. “You have a quick tongue. If you wish to walk with us a while, we will not turn you away.”

  “Maa’ths,” said Jack, thanking her with another of his small store of Shelta words. He was surprisingly glad of the permission.

  The caravans started up again. Jack walked along beside them. But with this matter settled, his thoughts began drifting back to the scene that had driven him from town. Much as he’d like to forget it, he could not.

  Until the high-nosed Englishman had shown up in Boston with his astonishing summons, Jack had only half believed his father’s stories of a noble lineage. His Irish mother claimed that Papa bragged about being an earl’s son before they wed, but once they were, he wouldn’t take the least advantage of it. He refused to lift a finger to introduce Jack, his only child, to his rich relatives before he drank himself to death. And so she’d decided it was all a lie. Jack wished she’d lived to see the arrival of that “man of business” who’d lured him back here. He’d come partly because of her. How she would have reveled in the idea of her son as an earl.

  His mother would not have stood for one single insult from his scold of a great grandmother, however. She’d have scratched the harpy’s eyes out.

  Jack had been taken before this Lady Wilton as if he was a package to be dropped in her lap. And she’d received him like a delivery of bad meat. Facing her distaste, he’d actually felt as if he smelled. The small, gnarled woman with snow-white hair and a nose seemingly designed for looking down on people had proceeded to deplore his appearance, his lowborn mother, his upbringing, his accent, and the sins of his scapegrace father, whom she’d never expected to hear of again after she packed him off into exile. But there was no help for it, she’d declared at the end of this tirade. Jack was now the earl. She would have to force him onto Society. It might just be possible if he followed her lead in every respect and kept his mouth shut.

  Of course Jack had rebelled. No red-blooded man would stomach such words, particularly about his mother. The mixture of motives that had brought him across the sea evaporated in an instant. He had no interest in joining any society that included people like Lady Wilton.

  Bruised and resentful, Jack had nearly boarded a ship and returned to Boston right after that meeting. But he hadn’t quite. He’d set off north instead. Only when he’d been walking for a full day did his anger cool enough to acknowledge that he was hurt as well as outraged. The truth was, he’d been drawn here by an idea of family, a homely thing he’d never had. He’d read stories about domestic tranquility and seen glimpses of it among his friends, but his childhood had been fragmented and contentious. His parents couldn’t seem to agree on anything except their tempestuous reconciliations after a shouted dispute. Jack had been audience or afterthought, often left to fend for himself.

  When the summons to England came, he’d actually imagined a welcome by a circle of kin, a place where he belonged. He’d found disdain instead, rejection without any chance to show his worth. It was painful to be the unwanted earl, the bane of his father’s kin. The inner bruise had been expanding rather than fading as time and distance separated him from London.

  “Are you a dreamer?” said a voice near his knee.

  “What?” Jack looked down to find a girl of perhaps six or seven trudging along beside him. Tiny, dark haired, and bright-eyed, she peered up at him.

  “You didn’t hear what I said three times. That’s a dreamer.”

  “I beg your pardon. I was thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “My great grandmother.”

  “Do you miss her?” asked the little girl.

  “No, she thinks I’m a disgrace.”

  “What did you do?”

  That was the point. He’d done nothing but be born into Lady Wilton’s precious bloodline. Half into it. His mother’s lineage was not to be mentioned. Jack hadn’t asked to come here or be an earl. “Not a thing.”

  The little girl took this in solemnly. She seemed to decide to believe him. “You’re too old to be scolded.”

  “A man might think so.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “I’m nearly eight. My name’s Samia.”

  Jack stopped walking, doffed his hat, and gave her the sort of elegant bow he’d learned from his wayward father. He had absorbed a good deal from the man, whatever his great grandmother might think. “Jack…” He hesitated. His last name might be better concealed. Lady Wilton was no doubt furious at his disobedience and perfectly capable of organizing pursuit. “At your service, Miss Samia,” he added. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  She giggled, then looked around to see if any of
her friends had noticed his bow. They had. Samia preened as they walked on, and she assumed a proprietary air as other children joined them and Jack told them tales of another continent.

  When the group stopped for the night in a clearing well off the road, Jack helped gather wood for the fires and carry water. Borrowing some lengths of cord, he set snares that might yield a rabbit or two by morning. He was given terse thanks and a tattered blanket to augment his meager belongings.

  Later there was shared stew and music around the central fire. When he rolled up in the blanket and pillowed his head on his arm, Jack felt the first stirrings of contentment. He went to sleep in the pleasure of companionship, wondering only how he might best contribute to the group and earn his meals. His snares gave a partial answer to that question in the morning, yielding several rabbits for the pot. He vowed to discover more.

  Jack fell easily into the Travelers’ erratic schedule. Some days the caravans moved; others they stayed in a place to sell objects the Travelers crafted or offer repairs to the people of a village or farmstead. The old lady sometimes read fortunes for those who came to inquire. Jack didn’t mind the slow pace. There was no particular hurry to see his ancestral acres, and he enjoyed the rhythm of the road. He did have wandering feet. He began to make—not friends for this was a closed group, but cordial acquaintances. Some exhaustive conversations had established that his mother was not directly related to any of these Travelers, so he couldn’t claim kin right. But similarity of spirit created bonds. He enjoyed them, along with the certainty that his continuing absence must be infuriating his noble great grandmother. That was a solid satisfaction. He would see what others he could find as time passed.

  ***

  “Not that you would know anything about that,” declared the fat, choleric-looking man taking up the entire front-facing seat in the traveling carriage.