The Duke's Governess in Disguise

by Claudia Stone

  "Am I interrupting a secret form of worship?" Rob asked, as he watched with bemusement as the valet lovingly stroked the cloth on the table.

  "Oh, your Grace."

  Harley jumped, his face flushing, and he took a hasty step forward, to block Robert's view.

  "What's that you have there?" Rob asked suspiciously; it wasn't like Harley to hide things from him.

  "It's—it's—" Harley stuttered, before standing aside to allow Rob to see, "It's Miss Smith's handkerchief, the one you bid me to launder."

  "Oh," Rob tried to not look too covetous, as he glanced at the innocuous piece of linen. "Are those her initials embroidered in the corner?"

  "I thought so," Harley replied with a frown, "But they spell E.L.M.A.A.C.F—I wonder is that her sweetheart?"

  "It's too long to be anyone's initials," Rob answered quickly, not liking the primal feeling of possessiveness that came over him at the thought that Miss Smith might have a sweetheart, whose initials she had lovingly embroidered into her handkerchief. Besides, the only people with that many names were kings or popes.

  "One hopes, that wherever she is, she is happy," Harley said quietly, "For she is a lady of the highest calibre and she deserves to be treated like a princess."

  "You're right," Rob replied, to which Harley blinked.

  "I am?" he asked wondrously; being right was not something poor Harley was oft accused of.

  "Well, maybe not a princess," Rob clarified, "But definitely a duchess. Pack my things Harley, we're off to London."

  "But, your Grace," Harley protested, "It's nearly midnight, it's far too late at night to set out for London."

  "I think you'll find Harley," Rob replied smoothly, "That as a duke, I can do what I like."

  Including marrying the woman he loved, he thought to himself with a smile.

  The dreadful, overnight journey to London proved that whilst a duke might do what he liked, he didn't always make the right choices. The carriage ride from Kent had been interminable, their progress hampered by the dark night and muddy roads. It was with great weariness and a very sore posterior that Rob reached town early the next morning, and he decided that any proposal he might have wanted to make, would have to wait until after he'd had a hot bath and a nap.

  Over the course of the long journey, Rob had done an awful lot of soul searching, and had decided that before he tried to make amends with the latest female he had hurt, that he ought to apologise to the woman who had come before her. And so, once he was rested, bathed, and dressed in his finest, Rob set forth for Lady Carlyle's residence.

  He was not accustomed to calling at her front door, nor was the stern-faced butler who answered his knock.

  "I will check if Lady Carlyle is at home, your Grace," the butler said, with as straight a face as he could manage, as Rob handed him his card.

  The butler knew full well whether Lady Carlyle was at home or not—what his coded words really meant, was that he would check and see if she was at home to Rob.

  Rob had just turned, to return to his carriage to await his summons or banishment, when the door opened again and the butler bade him come inside.

  "Lady Carlyle is in her drawing room, your Grace," the butler said, as he led Rob through the hallway and into a large, airy room.

  "Your Grace."

  Sarah stood as Rob entered, her beautiful face wearing a look of open curiosity at his arrival.

  "Lady Carlyle," Rob said with a bow, adopting the same formal tones as she.

  Sarah waved toward the overstuffed chaise longue opposite her and Robert took a seat upon the pink, velvet cushions. The room was decidedly feminine, decorated in soft pastels, with an array of trinkets, which seemed to serve no other purpose than to be pretty, scattered here and there.

  "I was not expecting to hear from you again, Hemsworth," Sarah said, once tea had been poured and the discreet maid had left the room.

  "I am sure that I am at the bottom of your list of desired callers," Rob offered, with a winning smile.

  "Actually, you're not on it at all," Sarah replied demurely, without missing a beat.

  Touché; Robert hid a smile at her acerbic reply. It was no more than he deserved—in fact, it was far less of an attack than he had expected. If he were Lady Carlyle, he was certain that he would be flinging any number of the pretty ornaments which decorated the room at his head.

  "I deserve that," he said, lest Lady Carlyle felt any remorse at her jibe—though by the looks of it, she did not. "I deserve far more than that, in fact. I have come to apologise to you, Sarah, for the awful way that I treated you."

  "Really?"

  Rob did not know if he should take Sarah's flabbergasted expression as a compliment to his moral turnaround, or an indictment of just what a cad people believed him to be. Ever the optimist, he decided to pick the former, for he was truly now a changed man.

  "Yes, really," Rob leaned forward in his seat, "I wronged you terribly and while I cannot hope for your forgiveness, I can only hope that you will understand how remorseful I am."

  "Gracious," Lady Carlyle threw back her head and gave a laugh, "I was not expecting this when I woke up this morning. Thank you, Hemsworth, for your heartfelt apology, though I must confess that I am as culpable as you in our little affair."

  Rob must have looked rather dubious, for Lady Carlyle gave a small sigh, before she explained herself.

  "After I had come out of mourning, my friends insinuated that I might enjoy a short liaison, and your name cropped up in quite a few conversations," she said, flushing a little at her words. The old Rob would have preened at the thought that his skills in the bedroom came highly recommended, whilst the new Rob...well, he still felt a small jolt of pride at his prowess, but it was much less than what it would have been.

  "At first I enjoyed our encounters," Sarah continued, "But it soon became apparent that I needed more than just a body to warm my bed, and that you were not the man to give me that."

  "I am sorry," Rob said again, for he had known at the time that Sarah had wanted that, but he had been too selfish to give it.

  "Oh, no need to be so chivalrous," Lady Carlyle gave a shrug, "I am not some innocent maid, I knew what I was getting myself into—but when it ended, I knew exactly what I did not want."

  "And what was that?" Rob asked, though he knew the answer.

  "A life without love," she said simply, "For it's no life at all."

  Lud; Rob wondered if everyone in the world had always been more enlightened than he about matters of the heart. He thought back on his previous relationships and hastily decided that, yes, yes they had.

  "I hope you find happiness, Sarah," Rob finally said, with conviction in his voice.

  "Oh, but I already have," Lady Carlyle beamed with joy, "Just a day after we parted, I bumped into a childhood acquaintance, Matthew Pennington, a physician from my home town of Plymouth. We are to be married in a sennight's time."

  "That's wonderful news," Rob cried, wondering if things between he and Sarah were now cordial enough that he could jest that one could say her pending marriage was partially thanks to Rob's actions. He glanced at Lady Carlyle and decided against it—he had been fortunate enough to not have had anything hurled at his head thus far, he mustn't chance his luck.

  "Well," Rob cleared his throat as a silence fell between them, "Now that you can see that my actions were not motivated by malice, but rather stupidity, I shall take my leave."

  "It was lovely to see you again, Hemsworth," Lady Carlyle said with a smile, though, Rob noted, she did not extend an invitation for him to call again.

  Once outside, feeling more unburdened than he had thought he would, Rob decided to partake of a brandy in his club, to bolster his spirits before he set out to discover Miss Smith's current whereabouts. He instructed his driver to take him to White's and in less than half an hour, he was safely ensconced in a chair beside the club's famous Bow Window.

  "Just a snifter of brandy," Robert instructed the footman, w
ho materialised out of thin air to take his order, "And a short one at that, I don't have all day."

  With a bow, the footman disappeared, and whilst he awaited him to return with his drink, Robert picked up a newspaper that had been left on the table.

  The front pages were the usual muddle of advertisements and articles about the goings on in Parliament. Robert read through a small paragraph on the formation of an investigative committee, to examine the cause of the climbing boys—the poor wretches sent up London's chimneys to clean them—before he flicked forward to the society pages.

  He had expected a few columns of drivel, but a large headline caught his eye. Duke to Marry Orphan, he read, his heart skipping a beat as he recognised the name in print below.

  The Duke of Kilbride confirmed last night, that he will wed the long-lost, orphaned, twin-sister of Lady Emily Fairfax. When asked if he thought that a lady with no societal background, or aristocratic connections, would make a good duchess, Kilbride simply replied that Miss Ava Smith would make the perfect duchess. The couple are expected to wed, on foot of a special license, this very day.

  "Gemini," Rob breathed aloud, as the returning footman placed his drink before him.

  "Is everything alright, your Grace?" the liveried man asked nervously, his expression concerned as he took in Rob's shocked appearance.

  "I've just read in the papers that Kilbride is to marry an orphan," Rob said, looking at the man for confirmation. He could not quite believe that Ava, his Ava, had stepped off the mail-coach in London and fallen straight into the arms of another duke.

  "Why, yes," the footman beamed, "Everyone was quite taken aback by it all, it seemed to happen so suddenly."

  "Why this is preposterous," Rob cried, aggrieved at the man's obvious pleasure at the union, "I must stop it at once!"

  A silence fell, in which the footman awkwardly peered down at the paper in Rob's lap. The footman cleared his throat, before he spoke, in gentle, soothing tones; "I'm afraid that's not possible, your Grace."

  "Why on earth not?" Rob retorted, belligerently. He would not be told what he could and could not do by anyone, let alone a servant.

  "Because that is yesterday's paper, your Grace," the footman broke the news in the same calming voice that one would use for a child, "The Duke of Kilbride and Miss Smith—I mean, her Grace—married yesterday. You cannot stop what has already passed."

  Lud. Rob's mouth dropped open with disbelief and his hand automatically reached for the brandy on the table before him. He drank it back in one gulp and waved for the confused footman to bring him another.

  "Make it a long one," he called with a croak, at the man's receding back.

  He had waited too long, he thought with dismay, to realise what a precious jewel Miss Ava Smith truly was. Kilbride must have taken one look at her and decided he wanted her as his bride, whilst Rob...Rob had offered to "set her up" in a house in the country. Lud, what a fool he had been.

  The footman returned with a decanter of brandy, having intuited that by "long", Rob had really meant "unending". Rob poured himself a generous measure, which he knew he would be finished in a matter of moments. As the amber liquor worked its way into his veins, his mind drifted over all the women in his life, who had told him that he had no heart.

  If only they could see me now, he thought ruefully, for he knew that the enormous pain he felt in his chest was as a result of his allegedly absent heart breaking into one-thousand pieces.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  15

  In the week since Emily had returned to London, so many things had happened that one would think she would not even have had the time to miss Hemsworth and the children, but she did. She was filled with a perpetual ache of longing to see the occupants of Hemsworth House, though she told herself it was only the children and the servants whom she missed. She did not miss the Duke of Hemsworth at all, she stubbornly intoned to herself, not one little bit. That she picked up the nearest edible object, as a means to distract herself any time his image popped into her head, meant nothing, of course. She was simply intent of sampling all the piquant perks of her station, which she had not been able to indulge in whilst she had been pretending to be a governess, that was all.

  Ava, her darling sister, was another means of distraction from her pain, for Ava too had come out heart-sore after their silly idea to swap places had come to an end.

  During the time that Emily had been away, her sister had fallen in love with the Duke of Kilbride, and he with her. After Ava had confessed their duplicity, and the duke had seen the two twins together, he had left without a word, betrayed and angry. It seemed that neither of their dukes were humble enough to believe that they could take a commoner as a bride, Emily reflected sadly, though for her sister it was a harder blow. Emily knew that had she confessed the truth of her lineage to Hemsworth, that he would have offered for her at once. It gave her no comfort though, for she had wanted him to want her and not her title—being seen as a broodmare for the aristocracy was exactly why she had fled her engagement with Kilbride in the first place!

  In the first few, chaotic minutes of her return, it seemed as though no good had come from the twin's decision to swap places. Indeed, as Emily and Ava had set forth to find Lord Fairfax, to ask him how it was they had become separated, a great sadness had fallen over Emily.

  Who was she? She had quietened the thought every time that it had surfaced in Hemsworth House, but as she had prepared to confront her father, the urge to know had consumed her.

  As it turned out, the tale, though a sad one, had brought some comfort to Emily. Her mother had longed for a daughter for years and had nearly died in the act of finally birthing a girl. When the poor babe had expired, Lord Fairfax had sent to one of the Foundling Hospitals to replace the little baby, before Lady Fairfax discovered what had happened.

  "So I am not your real daughter?" Emily had asked with a frown, her stomach whirring with nerves.

  "Of course you are," her father had replied, indignantly, "You are my real daughter, I love you more than you will ever understand. It matters not that we share no blood—you came into our lives and made this family complete, Emily."

  Hot tears of gratitude had pricked Emily's eyes, but when she had glanced at Ava, standing a little separate, looking so alone, she had known that there was someone else who needed comfort for the hurt that they too had suffered.

  "And what of Ava?" she asked, "Did you know that I was a twin?"

  "Of course not," Lord Fairfax had been horrified by the suggestion, "Had I known, I would have instructed the midwife to take you both. It pains me to think that you have lived so long apart—but I am glad that you have found each other, and that this family has acquired a new member."

  "Really?"

  The look of hope on Ava's face, mirrored the own hope that Emily felt at her father's words. Would he accept her twin sister so easily?

  "Of course, my dear," Lord Fairfax had beamed at Ava, his eyes misty. "You are as much a part of this family, as anyone else."

  Lord Fairfax had reached out and embraced both girls in a warm hug. For the first time, since Hemsworth had broken her heart, Emily had felt somewhat better, safe in the warm embrace of her newly expanded family.

  Her family had extended again, just moments later, with the arrival of the famous Shakespearean actor, Douglas McCasey and his wife Annalise. It soon transpired that Ava had spent their few weeks apart trying to discover just who their parents had been. She had thought that Douglas McCasey was their father, but as it turned out, he was their uncle. His sister had fallen prey to the charms of a member of the ton, many moons ago, and had died giving birth to the twins. McCasey had only learned of her death a few weeks after, but when he had gone to the Lambeth Asylum seeking twins, he had found none there, for Emily was already safely ensconced in Grosvenor Square.

  It had been a rather wonderful end to what had been, for Ava, a heartbreaking start to the day. The five long-lost relatives had spent the after
noon chatting, before McCasey had left for his performance in Drury Lane. At the end of it all, Ava had appeared to her sister to be quite overwhelmed at having discovered that she had not one family, but two, and Emily had insisted they retire to bed.

  Over the next few days, Emily had tried to cheer her sister up, by suggesting many outings, which she reflected were mostly food related excursions, but it was impossible to tempt Ava with anything. She did not come for ices in Gunter's, nor did she wish to visit Tate's Confectioners on Lile Street for sugar-plums, or Bisset's for some of the French pastry-maker's delicious macaroons. Her sister was wasting away from heartbreak, whilst Emily was expanding daily from it.

  "I tried to tell him who I was, so many times," Ava had confided one evening, as Emily tucked into some almond cake she had stolen from the kitchen. "But perhaps I did not try hard enough, because I was afraid that he would not love the real me. And look, I was right..."

  "I ought to call him out," Emily had replied angrily, through a mouthful of cake.

  "Oh, you can't," Ava had said with a laugh, "Firstly because you are a lady and you cannot duel and, secondly because my actions have caused Kilbride enough hurt—we do not need to add a bullet to his woes."

  Her sister might have been prepared to forgive Kilbride his snobbish attitude, but Emily had seethed all night about it. The next morning, after Mary had wrestled her into her stays and dress, Emily went downstairs for breakfast, determined that she would call on Kilbride and blow him out of it for hurting her sister—though not before she had eaten, of course.

  Ava had joined her and her father for breakfast, but she was unable to manage more than a few mouthfuls of eggs, before she gave up.

  "You'll have to eat something," Emily said with concern, as she took in her twin's pale and tired appearance. "You're wasting away before our very eyes."

  "Hear, hear," Lord Fairfax called loudly in agreement, from behind his paper, "Have a sausage, dear. As a matter of fact, have the whole pig."