by Jen YatesNZ
‘I assure you, my Lady, His Grace had no intention of such an occurrence. He’d planned on returning well before now. Something unavoidable must have detained him.’
‘Well, you can be assured I shall see His Grace is informed of our displeasure,’ Augusta muttered.
‘Do not fret yourself, Mama,’ Sheri soothed. ‘Dom will handle it, I’m sure. And thank you, Broughton. Watching someone else take over her role cannot be easy for the Duchess and I’m grateful I have the support of the staff. For, as the Duchess has already noted, I’ve no experience in running a castle.’
Augusta emitted one of her elegant snorts.
‘That’s utter nonsense, Sheri. You’ve had total responsibility for the running of Springwoods ever since your father died. You’re not some untried miss just out of the schoolroom. I don’t know what Dominic is thinking to let that woman—’
‘Enough, Mama,’ Sheri interrupted, turning to take Augusta’s hand in hers again. ‘Dominic is not unaware. I’m sure we can safely leave the matter in his hands. Now, why don’t we find Mercy and get you settled for a rest before dinner. And perhaps a tisane, Mrs. McNulty?’
‘Certainly, my Lady. And I think you’ll find Lady Parmenter’s maid in the dressing room. Let me show you the rest of the appointments. This suite is very well set up,’ she said, leading the way through a bedroom with an elegant silk-curtained canopied bed to a door which she threw open with a little flourish. ‘And here you have your own private bath with piped-in water. The old Duke was forward-thinking and the whole of the new house, as we still call it, has modern plumbing. Your maid will no doubt be through here in the dressing room, she said, opening another door to reveal Mercy industriously hanging her mistress’s gowns.
‘There you are, Mama. Mercy will get you comfortable and Mrs. McNulty will send up a tisane to help you have a nice refreshing nap.’
‘Stop fussing, Sherida! I’m not in my dotage yet! Thank you Mrs. McNulty. These apartments are delightful and very comfortable.—Just a pot of tea will be lovely, thank you. I hardly managed two sips from my cup downstairs.’
As her brow began to pleat with annoyance again Sheri hurried to intervene.
‘We’ll leave you in Mercy’s hands then, Mama, and I’ll see you at dinner.’
Augusta shot her a knowing look, telling Sheri she’d be quiet—for now. But knowing her Mama, she’d probably still make her feelings known to Dominic.
‘The ducal apartments are in the east wing, my Lady,’ Mrs. McNulty said, as she led the way out into the hall again.
…
A sense of urgency flowed down Dom’s spine as Tom Clarke, his tenant-farmer at Wolverdene Farm shook his grizzled head and avowed he’d sent no message requesting a visit from the Duke. Wolverdene was the most distant of the farms comprising the ducal estate about Wolverton Castle, and riding there ensured he wouldn’t be back at the castle before early evening.
Tom was a crusty old curmudgeon who never requested a visit unless absolutely necessary. Dom hadn’t even hesitated, knowing if old Tom called the matter was of the utmost importance. He wanted no emergencies cropping up on the estate over the next few days.
That he’d been sent on a wild goose chase seemed certain and thinking about who could be responsible was putting a cramp in his gut and threatened to blind him with fury.
‘Who sent the message, Goff?’ he demanded of his steward, who sat a tall roan at his side.
Claiming Beresford antecedents on his maternal side and having known the Duke all his life, Godfrey Vincent was well used to his employer’s pistol-shot reactions when angered.
His brow was pleated with annoyance, but his answer calm as always.
‘That new young footman brought the note to the stables just before we left. Said a young lad brought it to the kitchen door.’
‘Do you have it on you?’
Bringing a crumpled note from his pocket, he handed it to Dom. The thing was written in a deliberately simple-seeming hand, but the giveaway was the expensive paper on which it was written. Definitely not what Tom Clarke would’ve used.
Struggling to restrain his fury, Dom said, ‘Let’s ride.—Good day, Tom. I guess we’ll see you at the Castle for the wedding?’
‘Sure thing, Your Grace. Wouldn’t miss it!’
As the horses settled into a strong loping rhythm back across the fields of Wolverdene, Goff called across the space between them.
‘What are you thinking, Wolf?’
‘Someone wanted me out of the way because today my fiancée arrives at Wolverton Castle. Who could possibly want me absent if not—’
He hesitated, reluctant even to utter her name.
‘Her Grace,’ Goff muttered, his long handsome features taking on the aspect of a snarling wolf, highlighting the Beresford blood. There was little love lost between Godfrey Vincent and his cousin, the soon-to-be Dowager Duchess of Wolverton.
Jaw locking with fury, Dom leant forward in the saddle, urging Suliman to greater speed.
‘I’m going to have to deal to that woman once and for all.’
‘Finally,’ Goff breathed.
There was a wealth of relief in that one word from his steward. He, more than anyone, came close to understanding the demands the Duchess made of Dom and the duchy. He’d been urging the hard line for some time now.
Clearly, Dom brooded as he rode, he was going to have to invoke his power or she’d come between him and Sheri before they’d even started their marriage.
…
Broughton was waiting for him as he strode into the hall.
‘Take my apologies to Lady Sherida and her mother, Broughton, and beg their patience. I’ll be along as quickly as may be to escort them down to dinner.’
The stern clamp of Broughton’s mouth told Dom he wasn’t going to like the man’s response.
‘Lady Parmenter and Lady Sherida have already come down, Your Grace. They await you in the blue drawing room. The—er—Duchess is—er—with them!’
The deep disapproval in Broughton’s voice was mild in comparison to the fury broiling in Dom’s chest. There was no containing it.
‘Damnation!’ he fumed, hesitating between bounding up the stairs to clean up and change in haste, or simply going in to dinner with his future wife and her mother in the filth and sweat of his riding clothes. ‘What time did they arrive, Broughton?’
‘Just after three this afternoon, Your Grace—and the Duchess made a—fortuitous appearance in time to do the welcome honors.’
The dour emphasis on ‘fortuitous’ was not lost on Dom. Broughton, and Mrs. McNulty for that matter, had been part of the Castle staff since he himself had been in short coats. There was little they didn’t know and even less they wouldn’t dare communicate to their master. Dom knew the butler was disapproving of his own absence when he knew these most important guests were due to arrive.
‘God damn that woman, Broughton,’ he hissed. ‘I’ve been sent on a totally erroneous gallop to Wolverdene and whoever sent the message knew I couldn’t possibly be back before now.’
The butler’s countenance darkened yet further.
‘May I make a suggestion, Your Grace?’
Dom quirked an eyebrow at the older man.
‘Don’t go all starchy on me, Broughton! You’ve been making suggestions as you call them, since I first learned to walk and thought your coat tails infinitely fascinating. I’m so furious I’m certainly not thinking much beyond going in and throwing that woman out by the scruff of—her devious, pampered ass!’
A snort of amusement escaped the butler, then he sobered.
‘Mrs. McNulty has ensconced herself in the drawing room and is all set to do battle with Her Grace. She was summarily dismissed from presiding over the tea trolley at tea time, but insists she won’t be moved this time. Apparently,’ the butler murmured in a lowered and confidential tone and with as near a wink as a butler could ever allow, ‘Your Grace left instructions that Mrs. McNulty—and no one else—was
to see to the comfort of your guests until you arrived. She also will have made your apologies already as you’ve been unavoidably detained by estate business. The Duchess cannot gainsay any of that.—I could also go along and—er—thank Her Grace for holding the fort, as it were, and suggest since you’re now returned and will soon be down, her presence is no longer required.’
With one foot on the stairs, Dom turned back to the butler, already poised to march along to the drawing room as proposed.
He grinned as one conspirator to another. Broughton would dearly like to personally administer the permanent eviction of the Duchess, he suspected.
‘Can’t let you do all my dirty work, Broughton. Just inform the ladies I’ll be down as speedily as maybe.’
Admonishing his valet there was no time for attention to the finer points of his toilet, Dom was back at the drawing room in a bare ten minutes, his sweat summarily sponged, body clothed in pristine white linen and black satin evening suit, and neck cloth perfectly, if unimaginatively tied in a simple Gordian knot.
Dismissing the waiting footman with a nod as he approached the door, he stood for a moment with his hand on the polished brass wolf’s head doorknob, the same as adorned every door in the castle.
The familiar shape within the palm of his hand was a connection to his earliest memories, the essence of who he was. For just a second he allowed the smoothed contours of the mythic beast of Wolverton to center him, to calm the rising tide of his Beresford temper. Through the door he could hear the high sharp tones of Veronica’s voice, though strain as he might he could not distinguish what she was saying.
It was not difficult to imagine Aunt Augusta like an arched and furious Persian cat with all her fur standing on end and her eyes blazing the white-hot blue of the smithy’s forge. While Sherida would be as frozen and regal as a goddess carved from ice.
Quietly he opened the door.
‘—everyone really thought she would’ve succumbed to the lure of a tiara long before Windermere came to his senses.—Oh, good evening Dominic, my dear. Where on earth have you been? We’ve been waiting this age for dinner. I’m sure we’re all faint with hunger!’
One sweeping glance took in the frozen tableau; Aunt Gussy and his Sheri sitting exactly as he’d pictured them. It was obvious good breeding and rigid training was about to lose the ascendancy over his Aunt’s temper and Sheri sat so brittle and frozen she looked as if about to snap. He should not have gone upstairs to change. His gaze came to rest on his sister-in-law, exquisitely turned out as always, her creamy shoulders and abundant assets showcased in a low-cut gown of pale cat’s-eye green to match her eyes.
It was her eyes that had snagged him all those years ago when she’d first come to Wolverton betrothed to his brother, St. Rock, Marquis of Strachleigh, heir to their father, the Duke. Women had held no interest for St. Rock, not even his nubile and beautiful fiancée. Undaunted, and with a natural-born avarice Dom at eighteen had been too naïve—or randy—to recognize, she’d planned to have it all. Marriage to a man who preferred the company of his valet in his bed, the acclaim and power that went with being a Duchess, and her husband’s young Adonis of a brother in her bed to sire the next Duke of Wolverton.
‘Well, you at least need not have starved. I’m sure your meal awaits you at the Dower House and now I’m here you need no longer delay it. Good evening, Your Grace.’
Knife edges of color highlighted her cheekbones and her eyes narrowed with a furious glitter. But her response was honeyed sweet.
‘La, Dominic! You would not be so boorish as to turn me out without sustenance surely, when I’ve spent the entire afternoon standing in your stead—as I’ve always been ready to do. Who would’ve welcomed your betrothed and Lady Parmenter otherwise? Especially as being here yourself was not a top priority with you.’
Years of aggravation boiled into a tight ball of fury in his gut. He was about to explode with it. Something in his aspect must have finally pierced her armor of self-conceit and she rose abruptly to her feet.
Taking advantage of that convulsive move on her part, he possessed himself of her arm and with a firm grip, led her towards the door.
‘Broughton will see you home,’ he said, directing a meaningful gaze towards the butler who was hovering in the hall.
‘I can see myself home,’ she snapped, suddenly finding her voice, which had been blessedly silent for all of a minute.
‘Then I suggest you make haste before the light fades. Again, good evening, Your Grace.’
‘You’re making a mistake, Dominic,’ she hissed as she wrenched her arm from his grip, threw her head back and stalked down the hall to the side door leading to the path to the Dower House.
If only she’d stalk so easily out of his life.
‘Lock up, Broughton and serve dinner—in that order,’ he growled, and returned to the drawing room.
Sheri sat as she’d been before, regal and icy, her eyes now dark with the harsh sheen of old pewter, but Aunt Gussy was on her feet, like an avenging mother hen with her feathers ruffled. She would not have been pleased by the farmyard allusion, but it suited the moment. She’d always been fiercely protective of her one chick. Not that the ‘chick’ had ever shown any appreciation of that fact.
‘Dominic, I must protest,’ she began, only to be vetoed by Sheri.
‘No, Mama, you must not,’ she said abruptly. ‘I imagine the Duke is in need of his dinner. As are we.’
Dominic thought he could almost have smiled at the familiar routine of Augusta bristling with indignation and Sheri restraining her if he hadn’t been so busy controlling his own startling desires to protect the gloriously perfect ice sculpture his betrothed hid behind. Discovering the true fragility of that icy façade had broken open some deeply hidden recess within himself, the existence of which he’d never even suspected.
He’d kill the bloody Duchess before he’d allow her venom to melt one icy shard of the perfect frozen image Sheri projected to the world. The passionate being he’d discovered that night in the Regent’s garden was his. His alone. Damn.
The cold rage that had consumed him receded a little. Sheri would do well as his Duchess. He bowed over Augusta’s hand.
‘My apologies, Aunt Gussy—for—everything.’
Then holding out his hand to Sheri, he said, ‘You’re right, my dear. Let’s go in to dinner and hopefully I can persuade you to forgive my tardiness. It definitely wasn’t how I intended you be welcomed to Wolverton.’
…
There was a painful lump lodged in her chest, somewhere above the region of her heart. Breathing was difficult; eating would be nigh impossible. Dom had seated her to his left and Mama to his right and ordered Broughton to change the settings accordingly.
Proximity didn’t help. He’d apologized a second time once they were seated and indicated the delay hadn’t been of his making, had even caused him some serious annoyance. But though she knew every word the Duchess uttered was spoken with malicious intent, she couldn’t totally refute the grain of truth on which those words were based. That Dom was marrying her because she’d make him an admirable Duchess; because it was time he married and produced an heir; because Jassie was married and he could no longer hope.
He wasn’t likely to make any life changes for her. Nor was he offering his heart. The Duchess’s vicious suggestions had found their mark. For the truth was, if he could desire her without love, he could desire others in the same way. It was quite possible, even probable, he’d abandon her bed once she’d provided the required heir.
Notwithstanding the years of practice at projecting a coolly regal disposition, she knew she couldn’t even pretend to be unmoved should she find him with another.
In two more days he’d be her husband and she’d have all she’d ever wanted—almost. Then she understood the composition of the anguished mass in her chest.
Fear.
Fear she couldn’t go through with this marriage; fear of the scandal it would cause if she di
dn’t; fear of Augusta’s pain and fury. Above all, she feared Dom’s reaction to the imperfection of his ‘perfect duchess’.
But all these were nothing against the pain she’d suffer by sentencing herself to a lifetime without Dom at her side.
The culmination of the dream was so close, the fear of losing it beyond agony.
‘You’re not eating, Sheri,’ Augusta said.
In truth, none of them were.
‘I can’t,’ Sheri muttered, past even making pretense.
‘Well, nor can I,’ Augusta said, abruptly pushing herself away from the table. Broughton immediately stepped forward to assist her. ‘I’ll take tea in my room if you’d order it, Broughton.’
‘Certainly, my Lady.’
Instinctively Sheri rose also.
Recalled from some dark, inner retreat by their movement, Dom came quickly to his feet.
‘I’m sorry, Aunt Gussy—,’ he began again, but she waved an elegant hand at him.
‘Oh, sit down, Dominic. You too, Sheri! A cup of tea will put me to rights. Broughton will see me upstairs. You two have scarcely spoken a whole sentence to one another—and you’re to be married in two days hence!’
Without another glance at either of them she swept out of the room ahead of the butler, leaving them staring awkwardly after her.
‘Have you finished, Sher?’
Dom’s rich, masculine voice acted like a rasp across her nerves. She longed to sink against his chest and allow those deeply caressing tones to soothe, arouse, take away every last one of her fears. But hard in the wake of that thought came the greatest fear of all, that in surrendering her body to him she’d also be making him a gift of her soul. If he were to turn aside from her then she’d no longer have the will to live.
‘I should—go up.’
‘No, Sher, you should not,’ he shot straight back at her.
Stepping to her side, he took her hand, tucked it through his arm and led her out of the room, through a portrait-lined gallery into a great hall-like library with upper balconies. Not slackening his pace, she realized he was headed to another door at the far end, beyond which there’d likely be seclusion such as she’d not trust either of them to resist. She dare not.