Mandy

by Claudy Conn

  The duke observed at once that the squire’s home was excellently maintained but of modest proportions. Its Tudor walls were acceptably mellowed and displayed an array of trimmed ivy.

  His driver reined the big matched bays alongside the front courtyard steps and the duke didn’t bother waiting for the driver as he opened the door and jumped nimbly out of the coach.

  Smiling to himself, he perched his top hat rakishly on his head of black hair, adjusted his vest and took the steps to the front door which was immediately opened by an elderly retainer.

  The duke walked inside a small central hall, handed the weathered fellow his card and said pleasantly, “You may advise the squire that I am here on a matter of utmost urgency and hope he will forgive the suddenness of my visit.”

  The butler looked stricken and said, “I regret, Your Grace—most assuredly I do—that the squire is away from home.”

  “And Mr. Speenham…is he also away from home?”

  The butler’s expression immediately relaxed, obviously pleased to answer in the positive and said, “Mr. Speenham is in the morning room taking breakfast.”

  “Then if you will be so kind as to take him my card, I shall be pleased to wait here,” the duke said, dropping his gloves and top hat on the wall table beside him.

  The elderly retainer made a slight bow and hurried off. When he returned, it was with a bow of his head, as he said Mr. Speenham would be pleased to have you join him at the table for breakfast.

  The duke was led down a dark corridor to a surprisingly small but bright room and raised a brow to find a young portly man in a gold dressing gown, cutting his ham and stuffing his face.

  Alfred Speenham put down his fork, got to his feet and extended a hand, “Your Grace, how can I express my infinite pleasure to have you visit me in my home. It’s such an honor.” He waved the hand the duke had immediately released toward the table, “Do please, sit and join me. ‘Tis a simple fare as I detest the sight of red meat in the morning, but I can have some brought up for you if you like.”

  “Unnecessary, sir, I have already breakfasted,” said the duke determined to be friendly although he had already formed an aversion for the man. He knew it wasn’t fair, but it was what it was. He seemed to have a knack of knowing who he would like and who he would not, based solely on one’s initial comportment.

  The duke took a chair and sat facing his host, while the butler poured him coffee. He thanked the elderly retainer and waited only for the man to leave and close the door behind him before saying, “No doubt, Mr. Speenham, you may have guessed why I am here.”

  Alfred managed a grave expression. “Ah yes, these weeks have been simply dreadful, both for my father and me. You can have no notion what it is like to have one’s name connected with a suspected murderer’s. Why, I have been avoiding all activity outside our grounds, in hopes that the talk will subside.”

  “I sympathize with you,” the duke said softly taking the young man’s measure. A sudden urge to give Speenham a stiff set down had to be ignored. He was here for information.

  “Indeed, today my father is off to Walboro for he received word from a friend that my cousin, Edward was seen in that vicinity,” Alfred said on a hushed tone.

  “Allow me to ask if your and your father believe Lord Sherborne guilty of the crime of which he has been accused?” the duke asked quietly as he studied Alfred for a reaction.

  Alfred’s eyes narrowed and the duke realized the young man was not as much a fool as he presented to the world. Speenham was in fact, actually studying him. Well, well, thought the duke, this would prove interesting.

  Alfred seemed to choose his words carefully, “Ah, do we, his family, think him guilty? It has been difficult not to. He was seeing Celia clandestinely and then the page from her diary, with Aunt Agatha swearing that Celia meant to force his hand to marry her. Perhaps in a desperate moment…who knows?”

  “And what of his sister?” the duke pursued.

  “Amanda, poor lovely, my darling Amanda. Why she had nothing to do with it. No, no. However, she is his loyal twin and also inclined to impulsiveness. One must not blame her for helping him to escape…in her mind, I am certain she was rescuing him from a false accusation.” He shook his head, “My father put it well, only this morning before he left for Walboro. He said, mark me Alfred, Amanda is a spirited female, but we’ll not allow her to be ruined by these actions.”

  “Am I to understand that your father intends to locate his nephew and bring him to stand trial?” at this point the duke found it impossible to disguise his displeasure.

  “Indeed, what else can he do, but you needn’t worry about Amanda. If she is to be my wife one day, we will not allow this terrible crime to implicate her in any way.”

  The duke nearly choked. The thought of the spirited Mandy as wife to the pompous ass before him galled. “Your wife?” the duke raised a brow and had a strong urge to land him a settler. “Impossible. I had no word from you asking for her hand, and she is my ward.”

  “Well, as to that, I haven’t yet started to court her, but it is my intention. When we put this matter behind us, if she is still under your guardianship, I will of course, apply to you for her hand,” Alfred said without heat. He frowned and continued, “And I never discussed it with Amanda as of course…”

  “Never mind,” the duke waved it all off. “Back to the meat of the matter. We must remember that there is bound to be mud slung about and as you and your father are related to the Sherborne twins and I am connected as their guardian, diffusing the situation is urgent.”

  “Precisely, but there seems to be nothing for it,” Alfred sighed obviously unconcerned.

  The duke tried another approach, “Were you well acquainted with poor Miss Celia?”

  “She was exquisite and sophisticated in a most alluring fashion, unlike Amanda who is while stunning, quite a hoyden,” Alfred said and sighed.

  Again, the duke had the strongest urge to plant a fist in the man’s face. He managed to control himself and said only, “Odd.”

  “What is?”

  “That Miss Celia should have set her cap for Lord Sherborne when she had you in the vicinity obviously taken with her,” the duke stared hard into Alfred’s eyes.

  Alfred’s vanity appeared fluffed by this and he rose to the occasion, but the duke rather thought he was putting on a show. “Exactly so. However, she was aware that my father would not allow the match. He did not care for Celia or the fact that she was as poor as a church mouse.” He shook his head, “He thought her beneath our name, said he would cut me out of his will if I chose any woman he did not approve of.” Alfred’s shoulders sagged and reached for his cup of coffee.

  “And she knew this?”

  Alfred nodded, “Aye, she knew.”

  “I see,” the duke said slowly.

  “That is why I believe she settled down and decided to have my cousin, Edward. She knew that was her only chance at this point…”

  “Really? Tell me, was there any other who had a tendre for Miss Celia?” the duke asked gently, conspiratorially.

  Alfred took the bait, “I had heard rumors about the Viscount Skippendon…said he had remained in the country for so long because he had an eye in her direction.”

  This stunned his lordship as nothing up until that moment had. “Are you certain?” he asked.

  Alfred shrugged his shoulders, “I can’t be certain, I never saw them together. Could be all a hum.”

  “I see,” said the duke more rattled than he thought this meeting would have left him.

  * * *

  Mandy awoke with a start and gazed about her dark surroundings. She propped herself up on the straw bed and peered through the bleakness of her chamber and sensed rather than saw that she was alone.

  She lit the awful smelling tallow candle in the pewter holder sitting on the cold stone floor and spotted a scribbled note.

  She grabbed it up and read,

  Mandy,

  Don’t fret
. Went off on a little errand with Chauncey. The duke hasn’t brought back your horse yet, so we decided not to wake you. I’ll explain everything later.

  Don’t walk about today…just don’t. Chauncey said you are to just stay put.

  Ned

  Mandy as she often reminded her twin, had entered the world a good four minutes before him. She was his elder, his confidante, his faithful friend. And this was how he had treated her? Odious boy, she was going to box his ears when he got back.

  She poured cold water into her basin and shivered as she washed up and got dressed in the shirt and breeches she had been wearing while they were in hiding. She took a few extra moments to brush her long blonde hair and then braided it, and made her way outdoors.

  It was a beautiful summer day and she breathed the sweet scents of the heather in deeply and thought of the duke.

  He was the most annoying, controlling, arrogant man she had ever known, and yet, the image of him in her mind set her heart to fluttering absurdly.

  His presence and he had such presence, sent sparks of excitement rushing through her body. She couldn’t look into his blue glittering eyes without suddenly falling apart. Where was the independent young woman when he was near? Gone, that’s where. He turned her into a ball of emotions that wrapped her mind with confusion. Just what was wrong with her?

  Yes, she was a green girl, she knew this and he was an experienced rogue. What did she know about love-making?

  She hadn’t had more than a few outrageous kisses in the last few years, but she knew and understood a great deal.

  She and her friends had often giggled about the handsome blacksmith in town and her dearest friend Lucy had told her that she had allowed him to take her in the alley behind his shop and kiss and touch her till she swooned. Lucy said she meant to go back in the evening to do more of the same.

  Mandy had warned her, pointing out that in the new novel, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin, which they had been reading over and over again, since its release in January that a properly raised young woman would never engage in such outrageous behavior.

  Lucy had wagged a finger and laughed saying that Lydia, Elizabeth’s young sister, in the novel, had run off with Wickham, without the benefit of marriage and while she didn’t intend to do that, she did intend to have a little fun, after all. Why not, she had asked Mandy, men do the very same thing without the benefit of marriage—so why should they be deprived the same thrills?

  Mandy thought about this and sighed.

  Indeed, she had been kissed, in fact, recently by Sir Owen and it had been a pleasant, although not an earth shattering experience like the one Lucy had described the kisses with the blacksmith had been.

  She sighed and pushed these meanderings aside. What had that to do with anything?

  At the moment, her brother and Chauncey had literally left her in the dark, treating her as though…as though she didn’t signify. It was vexing in the extreme.

  Well, it wasn’t all their fault, because the truth of the matter was that she was without a horse because of the odious duke!

  She made her way outside, where she hurried to the woods and took a deer path toward the rivulet.

  Life at the moment was a bit trying. Perhaps she had not thought things through when she broke her brother out of prison?

  She was hungry, she was blue-deviled and wasn’t sure what the future would hold. She found the berry bush she had been seeking and stood eating berries for a time.

  From the position of the sun, it was getting close to noon. Would they be back yet? A pleasant breeze swept over her and she opened her leather waistcoat as she climbed over the rocks and took a shortcut to the abbey ruins.

  Finally, she found a shady spot, well hidden from immediate view, dropped down and leaned back against the weathered limestone of the ruins.

  She must have dosed for a sudden sound made her jump forward as her eyes snapped open.

  He stood there blotting out the sun.

  As before, she thought of a mountain when she looked up at him. He was so broad in the buckskin riding jacket he wore. His breeches hugged his lower body and his thighs were muscular and for a moment she allowed her eyes to travel down and then back up. She swallowed as her gaze went back to his face. His hair was uncovered and black, so black as it blew around his well shaped head.

  She sucked in air because she was sure if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to breathe for there was nothing left in her lungs.

  She had to sit up, she had to speak. She had to pull herself together.

  Didn’t she?

  He stepped toward her and she noticed he held the reins of two horses, one of them her own. She immediately jumped to her feet and squeaked out, “Oh…we can put them in the barn.” Why did he have such an affect on her? Last night, he made her want to pull out her hair with frustration. He was arrogant and dominant and didn’t let on what he was thinking and…

  “Good morning…or rather, afternoon to you as well, Miss Sherborne,” he said with an inclination of his head.

  “Yes, yes…I am sorry, I don’t know where my manners have fled. I suppose living in the wild and all,” she managed to give him a fleeting smile as she took her horse from him and led him forward without looking back to see if the duke followed.

  They spanned the short distance to the dilapidated stone building where they had been housing their horses. The duke looked inside and asked, “Where are Ned and Chauncey?”

  “Not sure, they were gone when I woke up. They left me sleeping…as…” she glared at him. “I didn’t have a horse.”

  He grinned and then sighed, “How long did you think you could remain in hiding here?”

  “Long enough,” she said not meeting his eyes. She had, in fact, believed they would find the diary and Elly Bonner in a short span of time and the nightmare would be over. Evidently, this thought—erroneous.

  The duke gave her speculative look, and loosened his horse’s girth while she undid her horse’s bridle and removed it to hang it on a nail in the wall before undoing the girth of her saddle.

  All the while, she found it difficult to think. He walked around as though he had the answers to everything and that no one knew anything save himself. He was insufferable.

  He turned just as she began lifting her saddle off her horse and hurried to take it from her. She resisted, telling him, “Oh, I am quite used to doing this for myself.”

  “I am sure and yet, not when I am here to do it for you,” he answered firmly.

  She maintained her hold on the saddle. A streak of stubbornness suddenly took control of her senses and she answered coldly, “And still, I can do it, thank you.”

  “And as a gentleman, I am afraid, that even though you are dressed like a lad and have probably forgotten that you are a lady, still I am a gentleman.” So saying, he pulled on her saddle.

  Incensed with him and what he had said to her, she pulled back hard, tripped over the uneven flooring behind her and with a short cry flung her hands up as she fell backward and landed on her rump.

  What was worse than the embarrassment and pain to her backside was the fact that he looked as though he was about to burst out laughing. There was, in fact, a chuckle to the sound of his next words. “Miss Sherborne…are you all right?”

  Feeling as though someone had lit a flame to her cheeks, she started to scramble to her feet and found his arm around her waist steadying and helping her to stand.

  She pushed at him and said pugnaciously, “I am fine.” Was she fine? He was so close, his lips so close. Would he kiss her?

  “Are you?”

  Oh, but she could see the laughter in his eyes and wanted to slap him. She did raise her finger and tell him, “I will tell you this, Your Grace, yours are the manners that are lacking, not mine. Yes, I am dressed like a boy to avoid detection. Yes, my toiletries here are meager, but it is because we had no choice but to flee. We had no help at the time and no one to turn to. You come here all curt and majestic an
d above us all, thinking yours is the only way, but where were you this past year? My brother and Chauncey may be convinced that you will see us through this ugly business, but I, Your Grace, am not convinced.”

  “Are you not? No, you are impulsive, childish, and foolish beyond imagination. However, I will allow that you are distressed because of your present circumstances and forgive your rudeness.”

  She stomped her foot at him, “Rudeness? Ooooh.”

  “We seem to have gotten off to a rough beginning. Know this my dear, I mean to help Ned and none of the rest matters as long as I do just that.”

  She eyed him for a long moment and relented, “Well, I…I…I suppose I must forgive you the rest then, if you mean to help Ned.”

  “Forgive me, Miss Sherborne? Forgive…?” he seemed momentarily speechless.

  She cut him off, “I shall allow you to call me Mandy. As you are my guardian, it is only fitting you should call me by my name.” She was all too conscious of the way she must look in her brother’s clothing and was suddenly flustered by it. Why she should care, she couldn’t tell, but suddenly she did.

  “But my dear, your name is Amanda and it is a lovely name. Shall I not call you Amanda?” He had stepped closer to her.

  What was he doing? Why was he coming so close? Why was she shaking? Perhaps, not quite shaking, but she felt her body tremble as shivers darted through her body. His eyes, faith, but his eyes were so blue. And all at once, she knew—she wanted him to kiss her, hoped absurdly that he would kiss her. Was she mad? He was annoying and arrogant and all she wanted was for him to take her into his arms and kiss her.

  He evidently did not have any intention of doing so and she stood breathless as he continued to talk in the low husky seductive voice of his. “Shall I call you Amanda, then?” he asked again.

  “No, I prefer Mandy,” she managed to say and then waved her hand as she continued to explain, hoping to banish her wayward thoughts. “You see, Amanda was what my father called me when he was angry and he was angry with me a great deal of the time. My mother always called me Mandy, as did my grandpapa, and of course, Mandy is what Ned calls me…” she chuckled and added, “Among other things, but you see, Mandy is who I am.”