Noise brought him back into the present. There were others around him, and he was standing like a gobsmacked fool.
“Well, if that wasn’t the most amusing thing I’ve seen in m’life.”
William’s head whipped around.
The innkeeper stood behind him, his arms folded, a malicious, knowing smile on his face.
“A pretty new maid going to work at Thornewick Castle. Honest work, she says.” The man laughed. “Not honest for long, methinks, eh, Mr. Grant?” The innkeeper looked William up and down.
William straightened to his full height, gave the man his fiercest scowl—made potent by his dead-white eye, he knew—and threw a sovereign at him. “Keep quiet.”
The hatchet-faced innkeeper caught the coin deftly, glanced at it, and a smile deepened the creases of his face. “Happy to, Your Grace. A pleasure.” He bowed.
William growled and strode away from the hateful man, his cursed knee twinging. He called for his horse. He would ride home through the night.
He had to think and to rethink. He was going about this all wrong.
Chapter 4
William kept his horse at a steady trot. The moon was at quarter-full, and thankfully the sky had cleared of all but scudding clouds. He could see well enough and knew the road.
He cursed himself yet again. The innkeeper had recognized him. He hoped no one else had.
The man’s insinuations highlighted a major problem. If Beauty entered William’s employ, and he then pursued her . . . she would never be more than a common working girl who caught the master’s eye. Nothing more than a mistress to be used and discarded in the eyes of all around them.
He would be no better than the lecherous blackguards of his contemporaries, the type of man he had vowed never to be. His maidservants were safe in his employ. It had been a decision he had made long ago, instilled by the proper conduct of his father, and reinforced by witnessing several disasters among his schoolfellows at Cambridge. The women’s lives were the ones destroyed, not his fellows’.
If Beauty entered under his employ as a servant, he would be honor-bound to never approach her.
What had he been thinking when he had demanded a daughter from the man?
He had been angry. And disappointed.
He had come from hearing from his man of business about Mr. Reynolds’ business partners’ perfidy and greed to witnessing Mr. Reynolds’ theft of the rose.
The father of the kind Beauty was no better than his business partners. Snide, sniveling, unscrupulous swindlers, all.
He had been thinking that the daughter of such a man must not be as gracious as she appeared, but rather like her father, an opportunist.
He had wanted to punish them both.
This is what he got from the combination of his temper and his cursed infatuation with the girl. It made him act irrationally.
After his temper had cooled, and shame for his overreaction arose, he had not softened his demands, nor sent a letter forgiving all.
For if Beauty was actually as kind as she had appeared in her interactions with Will, the lame working man, then it would be better for her to be away from her father’s control.
And under William’s protection.
Her father was not an honorable man. He could neither keep food on his table nor his business afloat. His own partners swindled him.
Beauty would be better off out from under this father of hers.
She needed rescuing.
But did he want to marry the girl?
The idea had been tumbling through his mind since he met her, rising to the surface, and hitting his heart with a sledgehammer’s force. He would reject the thought and bury it deep, but the idea would rise again, striking him each time—with how inappropriate a bride for a duke was the daughter of a penniless merchant, with how much his relations and social equals would look down on her, with how—
With how happy she could make him.
She would be a pleasant wife to any man, her compassion and gentleness a soothing balm to the man’s heart at the end of a trying day.
If she loved that man.
If she loved William.
But women did not love William. They loved the idea of being the Duchess of Rosden. They loved status, being called “Your Grace”; they wanted to lead society, be bowed and scraped to; they loved money, position, and sumptuous gowns.
But he, William—scarred, ill-tempered, lame, half-blind—they did not love.
His horrid experiences with women had not prevented him from forming a mind-ensnaring tendre for young Beauty Reynolds of North Lenton.
Soon after he’d met her, he began idly thinking of how he might improve the circumstances of her family. It had taken only a few inquiries about her father’s lost ships and cargo to find them. A few greased palms later, and they were released and headed back to England.
When William discovered the man’s business partners were duplicitous, and that her father was in dire straits, then William became more personally involved.
He did not normally invite downtrodden merchants into his home, nor feed and clothe them. William detested having guests disturbing his London refuge.
Then the man stole from him.
When William walked into his conservatory and saw his mother’s precious Blue Blood rose in the man’s hand, snipped from the bush, knife still in the other, with not so much as a by-your-leave . . . rage had crashed over him in an instant. That the beggared man would have the audacity to even touch that rare and cherished rosebush!
“How dare you!” William had seized hold of him.
The cowering fool had claimed it was for his daughter. “She asked for a rose. I didn’t want to come home completely empty-handed.”
“Which one?” William had demanded.
“Which?”
“Which daughter?”
“Beauty. My little Beauty. Isabelle.”
That had made William pause. A possessiveness had overtaken him, stronger than the rage.
His little Beauty? No, William’s Beauty. The man didn’t deserve her.
So William had demanded her in trade.
His recollection of the event brought forth the reoccurring emotions of shame at his behavior and renewed anger at the man’s perfidy and ingratitude.
Back and forth. Justification to mortification and back again.
He remembered her father’s face, blanched white.
“It’s the devil’s bargain. She is a lady of virtue, I’ll have you understand!”
“Stand down, sir. Have no fear. I do not want for a mistress.”
“Then what will you do with her?”
“I have need of a scullery maid.”
“Your Grace!”
“A perfectly respectable position for the daughter of the penniless lower classes.”
The older man spluttered.
William knew that would offend him. The family had been upwardly striving, and they had run in higher circles in their years as rich merchants. But not in the highest circles. Not in William’s circles, should he care to spend time in that rarified strata of society.
“That would be a waste of her education and manners,” the man argued.
“What is she doing at your cottage now? I know you cannot afford to keep servants. Do you want to avoid debtors' prison or not?”
“In exchange for Beauty?”
“For Beauty,” he paused, “or any of the others, I should not be so particular.” William had stalked away to keep his expression from the man.
After his second meeting with Beauty, when his hand still smarted from the mauling that foolish cat had given it, despite her salve and careful bandaging, he had asked one of the villagers who the girl might be. “A beautiful girl. Stands like a lady. Educated speech, but wearing homespun.”
“Oh, one of the Reynolds girls, to be sure,” the old woman had said. “Pretty girls, but poor as church mice. Fallen on ‘
ard times, they have. Raised with money, now living as paupers. They act all high-born, but they ain’t no such thing. ‘Cept the youngest. Beauty, she’s called. She’s not ‘igh in the instep like the other two girls.”
One thing William was sure of. He couldn’t put Beauty—Miss Reynolds, he must start calling her Miss Reynolds—in the position of scullery maid in his home.
Not if he ever wanted . . . more. Not if he wanted to be honorable in his intentions.
His intentions . . . Beauty as his wife. He pushed the thought away.
He did need to marry to carry on his family line. What woman had he met since Lady Louisa—blasted Lady Louisa—who he had even an inkling of desire to marry?
No, he couldn’t.
And after how he treated her father, how would she ever love him now? Once she discovered who he was, she would hate him.
He rode up to the castle, exhausted, and poised to set his household on its ear.
Chapter 5
The sun was covered by heavy clouds as the carriage drove past a gatehouse and down a long park drive lined with trees whipping in a heavy wind.
“At last, Thornewick Castle,” Mrs. Haskins said.
Conversation had been scarce the two days of the journey with the austere woman. Beauty dragged out her voice to ask: “How large are the grounds?”
“It will be two miles ‘til the castle will come into view, and another mile to reach it. ” The woman now became talkative. The estate boasted a herd of deer, she said, a lake with an island, two follies, and a tremendous number of rooms and windows.
Beauty spotted the deer running in the wind, seeking cover from the storm that would break at any moment. They disappeared into a wood and were lost from her view.
As the carriage approached the castle, an ancient edifice of towers and heavy stonework, liveried footmen ran down the entrance stairs and stopped the carriage.
Beauty blinked in confusion. Shouldn’t the carriage go around the back to the servants’ entrance?
She caught a slight frown on Mrs. Haskins’ face that she quickly smoothed away.
A footman opened the carriage door and assisted Mrs. Haskins and Beauty out of the carriage.
The fierce wind pulled and tugged at Beauty as she ascended the massive staircase up to the heavily carved doors.
When the doors shut behind them, the rush of wind ceased abruptly, making the impressive entrance hall startlingly silent.
But the contrast soon faded. Beauty could pick out the distant wind’s howling again, along with the echoes of feet moving in the entrance hall.
The butler met them with a nod, a maid following. “Welcome back, Mrs. Haskins.” He handed her a folded sheet. “A note from the duke.”
She gave the man a sharp look and read the note. Her jaw stiffened. “Very well, then.” She refolded it with a sharp motion. “Miss Reynolds,” she turned to Beauty. “This is Lucy.” She indicated the maid. The maid curtsied. “She is to take charge of you and has her instructions. A good day to you.”
And to Beauty’s amazement, Mrs. Haskins curtsied to her, gave her an inscrutable look, and strode away, quickly disappearing down a side hall.
Beauty stood, stunned. The maid said, “If you will follow me, miss.”
Beauty forced her mouth closed and her feet to move. The butler bowed to her as she passed. To her, in her rough clothing. No servant had bowed or curtsied to her since her family’s downfall when they had been forced to let their staff go.
She followed the maid up two flights of stairs and into an opulent hall lined with doors. The maid opened one.
“The Rose Room for you, miss.”
Beauty hesitated, then she entered. It was done in tones of pink and mauve, the bed hangings densely embroidered with crewel work boasted climbing roses, and the oak-paneled walls were carved with rose motifs. Exquisite paintings of rose bouquets hung in heavy gilt frames. Velvet drapes of mauve covered deep, arched mullioned windows.
Beauty whipped around as the door shut behind her. The maid was still in the room.
“Lucy, was it?”
“Yes, miss.”
“There has been a mistake. This cannot be my room.”
“The duke gave me instructions himself, miss. He said the Rose Room for Miss Reynolds.”
“This is . . . this is . . .” Beauty’s tongue tripped. “I was told . . .” She swallowed the words down before they could come out—I was to be a scullery maid!
If the staff did not know that, and if Beauty’s position had changed by arrangement of the duke, it would be best for her to not clumsily inform them of the alteration.
The maid kept her expression neutral, but Beauty had seen her eyeing Beauty’s poor clothes.
“I was not expecting to be a guest,” Beauty admitted.
“The duke’s instructions were clear, miss.”
Beauty’s eyes went over the room once more. A bouquet of roses was on the dressing table. Lush and in full bloom, the colors of the blossoms were soft: creams, pinks, and peaches, the foliage dark green.
She approached it, her throat tight. The scent strengthened near the roses, rich and beautiful. She cupped a blossom in her hand. Her stomach twisted in confusion and nervousness.
Were the roses a taunt? A warning?
What sort of games was the duke playing?
A note rested against the cut-glass vase. “Miss Reynolds” was scrawled over the letter’s front in a heavy, masculine hand.
She broke the wafer and opened the letter with shaking fingers.
Miss Reynolds,
Welcome to Thornewick Castle. I hope you find your room comfortable, and Lucy’s service satisfactory. I humbly request the honor of your presence at dinner this evening. The dinner bell will ring at 6 o’clock.
Rosden
From the duke himself? And dinner? With him? She had to force her hand to unclench from the letter. He was mocking her.
“I am to join the duke for dinner?”
“Yes, miss, the duke has provided a dress for you to wear.” The maid bustled to an adjoining door.
Beauty’s heart seized and began pumping.
Lucy emerged with a beautiful dress of cream silk with an overskirt of peach gauze. It was beautiful. And a trap. Warning bells rang in Beauty’s mind.
Her father had cautioned her to be wary of the duke, and especially of any improper advances. Accepting clothing from him would be most unseemly.
“No.”
The maid’s eyes widened.
Beauty took a breath in and softened her tone. “No, I thank you. I have a dress and will wear it.” Beauty strode to her worn portmanteau on the chair, rummaged in it, and emerged with her sister’s pink silk dress, carefully wrapped. “If you will press this and prepare it for the evening, Lucy.”
“Of course, miss.” The maid shuttered her expression and went about her work. Beauty sat and clasped her shaking hands in her lap.
“Tell me of the household, please, Lucy? Is it the duke only in residence?”
“No, the duchess, the duke’s mother, lives here, as well as her cousin and companion, Lady Judith Horton.”
“His mother!” Beauty sat back, relief flowing through her. Things were not so black as they seemed. With his mother in residence, the mercurial duke couldn’t want to change Beauty’s position to one that would be improper.
Chapter 6
Beauty allowed herself to be washed, dressed, and her hair done up in an attractive modern style she had only seen in the fashion magazines her sisters had borrowed from the vicar’s wife.
Beauty had been much too practical to spend hours sighing over what was never more to be, so when she found herself being pinned into silk and her hair curled with hot tongs, just as her sisters longed to do on a daily basis, a stab of guilt assaulted her. She pushed it away. This situation was just too strange.
The duke meant to mock her? To make a laughing stock of her in front of
his family? She stared at the roses on her dressing table.
She resolved to take any abuse with stoicism and keep her head up high. When mocking words came, she would answer nothing. Anything was better than her father languishing in debtors' prison.
She found her hands shaking despite her resolution.
Lucy pinned fresh roses, a soft blush pink that went well with the dress, into her hair. Beauty’s throat tightened at the sight of them.
The maid presented her with two long white kidskin gloves. By their crispness, they had never before been worn. Beauty’s mouth tightened.
“For you, miss.” Lucy kept her eyes averted.
Pride cut both ways, it seemed. Beauty hesitated, then accepted them. With relief, and shame at that relief, she drew them over her work-ravaged hands.
With her toilette complete, the maid directed her out the door. A footman met her, guiding her to the drawing room to await dinner.
The butler announced her as she entered. “Miss Reynolds.”
Beauty took in the room. It boasted coffered ceilings, rich carpets, heavy-framed paintings, Rococo furniture, multitudes of candles in gilt candelabras, and two elegant and imposing ladies of older years, dressed in the height of fashion.
They sat, one in a large chair like a throne, the other at her side in a less imposing seat. A massive black footman in a white periwig stood behind the enthroned lady to one side, and a stocky red-cheeked woman dressed as a nurse stood on the other.
“Who is that?” the enthroned lady asked in an imperious voice.
“It is our new guest, Your Grace,” the less-grand lady answered. She was turbaned, sharp-nosed and sharp-eyed. “A Miss Reynolds. I know not the family, however.”
Beauty ignored the knots in her stomach and kept her head in proper alignment as she approached them. She had been trained to be a lady in her prior life. Her sisters had expected to marry into the nobility. Beauty could be a lady, and she would be. She approached the women, curtsied. “Good evening.”
Beauty's Rose (Once Upon A Regency Book 4) Page 3