The Duke's Seduction of Lady M

by Raven McAllan

  Brody turned to Ronald who stood, mouth agape and with a stunned expression on his face.

  ‘As you see…’ Brody said with a grin, ‘… even I do as I’m told when Mrs Loveage dictates. I assume you know our route?’ He himself did, but surmised it would make Ronald feel more at ease if he let him dictate that small thing.

  Ronald nodded enthusiastically. ‘My ma lives a few cottages along from Mrs Wiggins and the school’s nowt but a step nearer. Mind you, I reckon you best go to Miss Cinderford first like, or she’ll be a mort put out and you’ll get the edge of her tongue.’ “Now you’re finally going to see her,” hung in the air between them.

  ‘Then Cinders first it shall be,’ Brody said amicably as Mrs Loveage puffed back into the kitchen, followed by a slightly less-breathless Boleyn, who carried a hacking jacket and an old but highly polished and serviceable pair of riding boots. He held them aloft. Idly, Brody wondered where they’d been stashed, for he couldn’t remember seeing those particular items since his return. No doubt they’d been removed from his orbit in case he chose to wear them.

  Brody inclined his head ‘Perfect. If you shape up, Ronald, we’ll see about proper clothes for you, but for now, I think these should do. I’ll see you in the stables in twenty minutes. Just time for Mrs Loveage to pretend she doesn’t see me sneak a cake for each of us.’ He plucked what that lady called a queen cake from the pile cooling on a rack, passed it to an astonished Ronald, took another one for himself, and began to munch on it.

  Ronald grinned, then sobered when he remembered whom he was grinning at, and took the boots and coat from Boleyn. ‘M’lord I’s’ll not lets you down. And ten minutes is enough.’ He left the room at a run and was soon seen rapidly disappearing across the kitchen garden in the direction of the stables and the rooms above, where several male members of staff lived.

  Brody snagged another bun and grinned. ‘Do you think he’ll work as a groom? He’s a bit tall for a tiger.’

  He was pleased to see both Mrs Loveage and Boleyn consider his question carefully.

  ‘Well…’ Mrs Loveage said at last. ‘He’s horse mad that I do know, always has been. He’s helped around the few horses left here since your papa died and Compton… his head groom…’ she added as Brody raised his eyebrows in a silent question. There was no need to own up to his complete ignorance of what went on when he was away.

  ‘He left when your mama decided only to keep your horses, and those which were hers and the children’s, and get rid of the rest. She said, and I must say it made sense, that those who didn’t belong to them or you wouldn’t be used, so it was best to let them go somewhere they’d at least be exercised. I think, mind this is tittle-tattle so no telling others, Compton wasn’t best pleased.’ Mrs Loveage sniffed. ‘His job here was a bit of a walk in the park so to speak and he was loath to see that lost. Anyroads, this past year or so, young Ronnie there has taken a more active part and aided Belton, the new man, while he got settled. Stop that.’ She smacked Brody’s hand as he tried to help himself to a third bun. ‘There’ll be none left for tea if you don’t give over. Now shoo. Out of my kitchen.’ Brody turned to the back door; he knew when he was beaten. After all, he would get some at teatime. He hadn’t taken three paces before Mrs Loveage called after him.

  ‘The basket’

  He turned back. ‘I need my head examined.’

  ‘No, you need your brain to have more to do.’

  As ever, his housekeeper had the last word. Brody sketched her a salute and made his way outside. Whatever shortfalls there had been on the estate, and it beggared belief to assume there would be none, the kitchen garden wasn’t one of them. Vegetables and herbs were there in abundance, not long off being ready to be picked, and then dried, salted, or pickled. He snapped a pea pod from the stem and shucked out the peas inside to toss them into his mouth and savour their unique flavour and aroma. Fresh vegetables such as this, and the broad bean he replaced it with in his mouth, were something he sorely missed when abroad. It wasn’t that they weren’t cultivated, more he had been unable to avail himself of them.

  Now he sniffed the herb and vegetable scents that filled the air and thanked the lord he was home once more, and determined the ducal estate would again flourish under the Duke’s direction – not just on the Duke’s behalf. It was, he repeated to himself, his private avowal.

  He arrived at the stables as Ronald was checking the harness on the horses. The young lad looked to all intents and purposes the tidy and proper groom of a prosperous country estate. The jacket was slightly too big, and Brody rather thought the boots pinched the youth, but the grin on his face showed he did not care. If he was as good with the horses as intimated, then Brody knew whom his new groom would be. For now though, he said nothing, just nodded his thanks and waited until Ronald stood back.

  ‘All’s well, m’lord.’

  ‘Let’s go then, you get up with me, take the reins and we’ll get these parcels delivered.’

  It was pleasant tootling along the lanes with someone well versed in local affairs next to you. Once Ronald accepted that Brody meant what he said, did genuinely want to know all that was going on around them, and was interested in every last detail of affairs pertaining to the castle and its surroundings, he spoke freely. With a competence Brody understood and respected, Ronald took the vehicle, the matched chestnuts and the passengers safely along the narrow lanes, chatting all the while. He interspersed his narrative with asides about the state of hedges belonging to neighbours, the chance of a good pheasant-shooting season, and one Miss Susan Foulkes whom, Brody understood, Ronald had his eye on. Although not out of his teens the young man had his head screwed on properly and Brody made a mental note to find out what he could with regards to the young lady.

  They approached the lane that snaked from the top of the steep escarpment where the castle perched – a perfect position to check out invaders in its less than peaceful past – to the valley bottom. A scant half a mile later it reached the village, which took its name from both the castle and the river that meandered around its boundaries.

  They paused at the crossroads and Ronald held out the reins in Brody’s direction. ‘You best take ‘em now, m’lord, I mean Your Grace.’

  Brody thought for a second and shook his head. ‘You take ‘em down. You seem to remember their mouths are soft and you’ll know the incline is sharp. Use the brakes with caution but remember they’re there.’ He grinned. ‘So am I, if you need me, though I doubt you will.’

  Ronald flushed with pleasure and took a long indrawn breath. ‘Well if you’re sure. I’ve taken the wagon to church every week for them that need to get back sharpish-like, and driven the gig down often enough but never sommat as bang up as this.’

  ‘There’s a first time for everything and as my groom-cum-country coachman – you’ll have to get used to driving anything I ask. On you go, I have all faith in your abilities or I’d not have offered.’

  Brody sat back, arms folded and satisfied, and watched the myriad of expressions chase over the youth’s face. If all went well Ronald could in time work his way even higher but for now, Brody decided he’d overwhelmed the lad enough and sat back with an air of unconcern, even though he was primed to take over if needed to.

  There was no need. Once, the nearside horse pecked at a rabbit, which had a death wish and ran between the horses’ legs, but Ronald soothed and steadied him without the animals missing a stride. Brody was pleased that Mrs Loveage’s encouragement was working out.

  Nothing else happened to upset animals or humans and within a few minutes, they reached the bottom of the hill and the first few houses of the village. On one side of the lane, the sturdy Norman church with its unusual elegant spire sat in a slightly elevated position, its lychgate tucked safely away from the lane’s edge. Next to it was the school, where several children waved from the grounds as the curricle went by.

  ‘Ho, Ronnie there’s a prime pair.’ One young girl waved and shouted and then d
anced around in a circle. ‘Yes, yes, yes, cake day.’ An elegant lady, possibly in her early twenties, hushed the child even as she looked covertly at the vehicle and its occupants.

  It’s her. Brody got an impression of a fine bosom under plain and serviceable dark blue cotton, and dark brown hair in a riot of curls. He wished he were close enough to see what colour her eyes were. He was as certain as could be it was the lady he’d seen all those weeks before on his return to the area. The lady he’d deliberately not asked questions about. After all, a brief glance of a shapely rear and breasts you wanted to bury your head between didn’t give enough information to use to discover an identity. At first he’d thought he’d find out soon enough, and then he’d had too many other things on his mind to give thought to the question. His skin tingled as he thought he might now be one step nearer to discovering who she was, what she was, and if there was any point in approaching her.

  Ronald waved back, as the prancing child whistled loudly, to be, it seemed, reprimanded by the lady with the fine bosom. Brody decided he’d need to learn the unknown lady’s name sooner rather than later. He couldn’t continue to think of her in such a way. What if, when he eventually met her, he let that sobriquet slip? It didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘Time for them to run off some of their energy,’ Ronald said. ‘That noisy one, in the red apron, is my youngest sister. She’s intent on learning and become a teacher herself. Miss Mary, that’s her there, encourages her and our ma is happy for it. Cissy is bright, not like the rest of us.’

  ‘Miss Mary?’ He committed the title to memory. Not the schoolmarm then? Now at least he had a name for her. ‘Miss Mary who?’

  Ronald shrugged. ‘You know, Your Grace. I cannot mind. All I know is she helps out, comes over from the Grange once a week.’

  Probably an under-housekeeper, Brody surmised. She had too much elegance to be a lower servant, and not enough to be gentry. The gown was a mark of that.

  Damn.

  He cast his mind over his surroundings. As far as he knew the Grange, a tidy house a mile or so from the village, had been unoccupied for years with just a skeleton staff to keep it from falling into disrepair. He’d have to do his best to forget about the woman. Even though she didn’t work for him, he couldn’t be seen to consort locally. More was the pity, that bosom begged for attention. So did the rest of her.

  ‘I wouldn’t say you were unintelligent,’ Brody answered Ronald’s last statement regarding himself, as the school and church were left behind them and the lane widened to become the village street, thence to split into two and circle a pretty green with a duck pond and a set of old stocks nearby. ‘You know these animals and their quirks inside out. You have a practical bent, not one inclined to book learning perhaps.’

  Ronald chuckled. ‘I’m wise in some ways m’lord but not in all. I don’t have the same sort of nosy mind as our Cissy. I like horses and country life. To know at the end of a day that a good job’s over and I’ve left nowt undone. I love working with the horses and if you’re happy for me to serve you here, well, I’m a happy man. Then mebbes in a year or so I can convince Susan’s pa that I’m the right husband for her and my life is sorted out.’ His accent was a mixture of how he’d spoken as a youngster, and presumably how he’d been told to speak in the employ of a duke. Rather than pull him up for his slips, Brody let it be. It was rather endearing, and the longer Ronald mixed with the upper servants the more polished his voice would become.

  Brody wished his own life could be so simple. He laughed. ‘You’ve got your head in the right place. Carry on as you are, and in a year or so I’ll put in a good word with your sweetheart’s father, and there’ll be a cottage for you. It’s on my list to build some more. I’ll make sure you get one. Woah! Hold em!’ His words had made Ronald drop his hands and, unchecked, the horses surged forward.

  Ronald recovered in a second. ‘Oh my, oh grief, oh…’

  ‘Oh, well, no harm done,’ Brody said firmly. ‘Ah here we are. Tie them up, and you go to see your mother if you wish. I assume she’ll be at home?’

  ‘Yes, m’lord she does out sewing for the castle, whilst the youngsters are at school. Are you sure?’

  ‘I never say anything I don’t mean.’ Not unless needed to by the crown. ‘I’ll pay my visits here and walk up to the school and meet you there after my visit. To be there for two?’

  He waited until Ronald made uncertain noises and finally acquiesced. Then Brody jumped down, grabbed the basket, and made his way to the first house, shamefully eager to get these visits over and reach the school.

  It was no good, the dark haired woman had caught his attention and he had to meet her, decide she wasn’t for him, and move on.

  If he couldn’t do that he was deep in the mire.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Ohh, Miss Mary did you see that? Bang up pair. Eh, and fancy that, me brother with the reins. Who’d’y reckon that was with him? Some toff a visitin’? Coo er, me ma won’t ‘alf be pleased. Me brother and a prime ‘un. But she’ll be wonderin’ who ‘e is, eh?’

  ‘Try not to drop your letters, Cissy. You’ll need them as a teacher.’ Lady Mary McCoy smiled at young Cissy Meadows who jigged from one foot to another, making her blonde curls dance and her apron and skirts fly out around her sturdy legs.

  ‘Yes Miss.’ Cissy grinned. ‘I’ll put them in me pocket. But who is he?’

  Mary shook her head at the smart retort. ‘I don’t know.’ She would like to know the answer to that question as well. Even the short sharp look he’d given her had felt as if he’d stripped her naked and liked what he saw. That glance was not the sort of perusal a gentleman, or an aristocrat, would give someone unknown, of his own class. It was one reserved for a woman he intended to amuse himself with. If he decided to make his admiration known to her, she’d have a hard time not to slap him down and give him a piece of her mind. But slap she’d have to. There was no way she’d let on who she really was – and no way, as Miss Mary Lynch, would she be anything but someone to dally with for an aristocrat. And the so-called toff was definitely that, there was no mistaking it. Having been married to an elderly peer for several years Mary knew a title when she saw one and she had no inclination to know one close up and personal again, whatever the reason. Hence her use of her godmother’s surname.

  A figure in the door of the school caught her eye and she beckoned to the dozen or so schoolchildren still running around in the late summer sunshine. ‘Miss Grey is about to ring the bell. Time to go in.’

  ‘And cakes,’ the irrepressible Cissy sang as she rushed to the door, slowed down and straightened herself to walk decorously inside.

  Mary chuckled.

  Peggy Grey shook her head in mock disapproval. ‘That young lady will end up being the power behind the throne or being transported… and then she’d only end up running the colonies!’

  Mary had to agree. ‘She’s lively and enthusiastic. She’ll make a good teacher.’

  ‘So would you.’

  Mary laughed and shook her head. ‘Not me, I’m happy with my few hours. It… it grounds me, I think. And on that note, I better carry on before they get their cakes. I need to be away before then, I have several things to do when I leave.’ She didn’t, unless you counted weeding her lettuces yet again and deciding on which novel to read next.

  Good grief, has my life come to this? Where’s the excitement, the gaiety? The most excitement she had was her weekly visit to the ladies who taught her to tat. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken to a man other than the baker, the vicar or her servants, let alone a man of her own class. It was her own choice, she accepted that. Nevertheless, she was uneasily aware that her year of grace given to her by her brother before he insisted she rejoined her rightful place in the ton was half over and she still hadn’t decided how to go about that. It was a simple choice, she thought. Return to the ton as the widow of Lord Horace McCoy and all the inherent problems that brought – rakes who saw her as easy
prey, impoverished peers with an eye on her fortune – or return to the ton under the aegis of her brother and his wife. Who would still expect her to use her title and marry, but hopefully scare the worst of the suitors away.

  Nether options appealed.

  Mary wasn’t sure she wanted to marry again. She’d loved her husband and married him in the face of family objections almost as soon as she was out, and never lived to regret it. Their marriage had been unusual, she accepted that. Most marriages in the ton were not love matches but made for what each could person bring to the union. Generally a dowry and heirs.

  It had not been like that for her. But Horry – Horace – had died after only five years of marriage, and here she was, only just two and twenty years of age, and a wealthy widow. It was not, she decided, an enviable situation.

  ‘Miss Mary?’ It was Cissy who tugged on her sleeve. ‘Are you ready? Cos it’ll be cake time soon and we wants to show you how much we’ve got better at our letters.’

  Mary mentally shook herself. She loved the way the children had called her, ‘Miss’, and this had filtered into the community. Miss Mary, widow, she was known as, and as that she was happy to stay, even if it was a muddled title. ‘Of course, let’s get on.’

  Once she was seated on a ladder back chair with two dozen children in front of her – she’d listened to the others before their break – Mary forgot all about her life, the mystery man and the un-weeded lettuces. These hours were precious. She became engrossed, and when Miss Grey entered the room and cleared her throat it took several seconds for the person next to her to register. Mary looked up at the clock on the wall at the back of the room and groaned. She’d been so involved with the children she hadn’t kept track of the time and it was over thirty minutes past the hour she usually left.