Daring a Duke

by Claudia Dain

  “Perhaps you could list the dukes you’ve met,” Eleanor said, sliding into their number like a ferret, position-ing herself between Cranleigh and Amelia, which caused Cranleigh to look down at her and grin abruptly. Cranleigh had gone quite soft since marrying, that much was obvious.

  He hadn’t been at all softhearted when he’d visited them in New York. “You’ve met two now, haven’t you, Jane? That’s quite a lot, you know.”

  “Is it?” Jane responded. “What will you think then when I report that I have now met three? I do think that England has many more dukes than is reported. Perhaps in an effort to increase their value, the total number has been underestimated?”

  Eleanor grinned, her dark blue eyes shining. She was a pretty girl, quite slender, not at all grown into herself, but blessed with dark red hair and dark blue eyes and a riot of freckles. She seemed quite like a sprite, all joy and curiosity and frank good humor. She might have been the nicest person Jane had yet to meet in London, excluding Aunt Molly, naturally, but including the rest of the family, Louisa most specifically. Louisa and Eleanor might be sisters, but the only thing they had in common as far as Jane could see was their general coloring. Their natures could not have been more disparate, which was such a fortunate thing for Eleanor.

  “But who? Your uncle, Hyde, of course, and now the Duke of Calbourne, but don’t tell me,” Eleanor said in a rush, reaching out to clasp Jane by the arm, “not the Duke of Edenham. Oh, Jane,” she said, clearly coming to the correct conclusion without any help from Jane, “you are fortunate. He hardly goes out, quite a recluse on most days, I’m told.”

  “You’re told?” Cranleigh said in mock severity. “Who told you that? What part of your education does that cover, I wonder?”

  “Social congress, Lord Cranleigh,” Eleanor replied promptly, not at all diminished by his censorship. “I can’t think why anyone should need protection from knowing what everyone else knows. I shouldn’t like to be thought ignorant, would you?”

  “I shouldn’t mind being found ignorant about anything concerning Edenham. His business is surely his own, Lady Eleanor,” Cranleigh said. Amelia was Eleanor’s cousin and therefore Eleanor became Cranleigh’s responsibility by marriage; he looked on in some amusement. It was rather strange to see Cranleigh being so protective. He hadn’t displayed that trait at all while in New York, but of course, what was there to protect against in New York? They didn’t have dukes popping up around every corner.

  “I certainly don’t care about his business in the slightest; it is his personal life which captures the imagination, doesn’t it?” Eleanor said, staring boldly into Cranleigh’s eyes.

  “She’s grown up quite a bit this Season, hasn’t she?”

  Cranleigh said to Amelia.

  “It’s all the marriages,” Amelia answered. “Quite hard to keep the lid on after that flurry of activity.”

  “I’m most observant,” Eleanor said. “And curious.”

  Joel chuckled and shook his head ruefully. He had done that quite a lot with Jane when she was of the same age as Eleanor was now. Men clearly had an innate distaste for curious, observant women. If a man had something to conceal, it made perfect sense. But if he did not, why be upset about it? Certainly men valued a keen and discerning eye in other men. Jane had always found the disparity mildly irritating. Seeing it displayed now, aimed at Eleanor, she found it fully equally so. Of all the viewpoints that British and American men could have shared, this was the one they agreed upon?

  “I find I must admit to sharing the same traits, Lady Eleanor,” Lady Paignton said, looking politely at Eleanor before turning her gaze toward Calbourne, whereupon she did not look nearly as polite. Calbourne didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. “Curiosity and then observation. And then satisfaction, I should think.”

  “And if not satisfaction?” Calbourne asked.

  “Then more curiosity, a bit of careful observation, perhaps experimentation,” Lady Paignton said in a low voice.

  She might have been said to purr. Certainly Jane was inclined to say it, though she did hope Eleanor would not.

  Eleanor was still a girl. Did the English think nothing of exposing their children to a blatant seduction? “As satisfaction is the goal, I do think all attempts should be made to achieve it. I can’t think I’m alone in that. Would you agree, Lady Eleanor?”

  The absolute gall to drag an innocent girl into such a thinly veiled and highly debauched discussion!

  “Lady Paignton,” Eleanor said, her dark red brows quirked at an angle, giving her quite a piquant expression,

  “you are precisely as described. I am so pleased to have finally met you, matching rumor to fact. Having said that, I must agree with you. Curiosity, observation, satisfaction.

  Yes, fully. You have satisfied me completely. I do thank you.”

  “So you do have something in common,” Jane said quickly. She had no confidence that Lady Paignton would not react poorly to being prodded by a young woman just sixteen. “How nice for you, Lady Paignton. I really don’t know you, of course, but I must think that you are a unique woman. It must be so comforting to find another woman with whom you can share the most tender bond of affilia-tion, even if she is far younger than you.”

  Lady Paignton smiled, looking almost as if she meant it, and said, “I have three sisters, Miss Elliot, two of them younger. I am not as unique as you may think.”

  “Not unique?” Calbourne said. “But of course you are.”

  “As we are slightly less than mere acquaintances,” Lady Paignton answered, looking at him provocatively, “I think you might need to observe me carefully before making such an important decision.”

  Calbourne grinned and, a pronounced gleam in his eyes, said, “I make all my most important decisions as quickly as possible. I avoid tedium by doing so. I highly recommend the practice, Lady Paignton.”

  “I find myself wondering,” Jane said, “how was it that the Duke of Calbourne found his way upon your list, Amelia, particularly as the Earl of Cranleigh did not? What qualifications were required?”

  Amelia did not look at all disposed to answer her, having gone quite pink in the cheeks. Eleanor, however, was more than happy to supply the answer.

  “It was a list of dukes and heirs apparent, Jane,” Eleanor said, looking at Calbourne with a mostly innocent expression. “So, naturally, poor Cranleigh didn’t have a chance. Or that’s what everyone thought.”

  “Not everyone,” Amelia said with what was nearly a wicked gleam in her blue eyes. Amelia? Wicked? It wasn’t possible, was it?

  “A list of dukes,” Jane said. “Unmarried, I assume?”

  Silence met her question and tried to bury it. She would not allow it. Jed and Joel were watching her with looks of both amusement and wariness. As well they should. She was in a temper, a mild one, a controllable one, but a temper nonetheless.

  After two hours in the company of the elite of English society, she knew without question that they were, nearly to a man, utterly worthless and without a single redeem-ing impulse. And they thought to look down upon her? A preposterous bit of arrogance that she would battle in any way she could, without getting thrown out of the country, that is. She truly did not want to cause her mother or her aunt any actual discomfort, but a mild contretemps at, what must be admitted was a family gathering, how much trouble would that cause?

  “And you were . . . rejected somehow, your grace?” Jane continued. “For what cause? I find I am most curious. Of course, I have made my own observations, but, barring experimentation, I should like satisfaction as much as the next man.”

  Into that shocked silence, Jane was forced to ask again,

  “Amelia? What was your objection to the Duke of Calbourne?”

  Amelia, to Jane’s surprise, looked at Calbourne, shrugged mildly, smiled, and said, “I found him to be entirely too tall, Jane. Easily observable. It took only a moment to remove him from consideration, though I am cert
ain that any other woman, indeed most women, would likely find him perfectly ideal.”

  “How terribly gracious of you, Lady Amelia,” Calbourne responded, bowing slightly in her direction. Cranleigh did not look especially amused by the conversation, but he held his tongue.

  Jane was not about to be diverted. She had dispatched Calbourne, in the mildest manner imaginable, and now she was going to see what she could do regarding Edenham.

  The Duke of Edenham had surely been on Amelia’s list.

  He was a duke and he was available, wasn’t he? It was the perfect opportunity to discover what Amelia had found wrong with him, and to have it out right in front of Lady Paignton added a certain mild justice to it all. It had not escaped Jane’s notice that Lady Paignton did not seem at all upset by anything Edenham had said or done to her, but that hardly seemed the point. Jane had formed her own list of offenses and merely wanted confirmation of her astuteness.

  A list! She had formed one, though quite by accident and without any effort at all. Some things just presented themselves, complete, and one took it as one found it. It being Edenham and his general offensiveness.

  “Was the Duke of Edenham on your list, Amelia?” Jane asked with as much sweetness of tone as she could manage.

  Apparently it was not much, since both Jed and Joel swung their heads sharply to look at her, their eyes showing mild alarm. How two ships’ captains could be so skittish in a drawing room skirmish, she had no idea. ’Twas a wonder they didn’t heave to at the first sign of an unidentified ship.

  “I should think he must have been. Whatever did you find wrong with him?”

  “You find him a pleasing man, Miss Elliot?” Calbourne said with the barest trace of a smirk.

  “Not at all,” Jane replied, smiling pleasantly. “I only thought to compare Amelia’s list of deficiencies with my own. An American perspective versus an English one, much as you suggested earlier, your grace. A comparison study. Educational, don’t you think?”

  “Jane, I—” Amelia began, looking quite discomfited.

  Jane was sorry for that, truly, but she hadn’t compiled the list of dukes to begin with, had she? She was merely discussing it. Surely there was hardly any fault in that.

  “I was discounted, Miss Elliot,” said the Duke of Edenham from directly behind her, “for the usual reason, plus a few more.”

  Jane sighed under her breath, closed her eyes briefly in resolve, and turned to face Edenham. He stood, tall and imposing, looking quite as handsome as he had before, and stared down into her eyes. He did not look angry. Not precisely. He looked . . . intense. Focused. A bit solemn.

  Understandable, certainly.

  “And the usual reason is, your grace?” she asked, matching his solemnity, or trying to.

  Really, these sorts of situations always happened to her.

  She always seemed to be the one caught out for doing far less than everyone else did in complete anonymity. She obviously was in dire need of practice at skirting the edge of propriety. Ezekiel Biddle had even implied as much when he’d brushed his hand along the edge of her breast. Of course, she’d known even then his hadn’t been an impartial observation; still, she had considered it and decided there might be something to that.

  “You haven’t heard, Miss Elliot?” Edenham asked softly in reply, stepping slightly closer to her. Jane was, in the next moment, very glad to have her two strapping brothers to hand.

  “Obviously not,” she answered, staring directly into his eyes, though she did have to crane her neck a bit to do so.

  He was very tall, perhaps even taller than Jed.

  “The rigors of sharing my bed, Miss Elliot,” Edenham said in a low tone, his voice edged with either humor or malice, she could not be at all certain at that moment.

  “There are some women who do not think they can possibly survive it.”

  Brown? Had she thought his eyes were brown? They were not. They were hazel green, and just now, quite fully green.

  Important? It must be, mustn’t it? It seemed dreadfully important. So important, in fact, that she was certain she would never forget it, or him, or how he was looking at her just now.

  She wasn’t going to put his bewitching eyes on the list, however.

  Eight

  “But nothing so formal as a list, I hope,” Sophia Dalby said to Molly, the Duchess of Hyde.

  “Nearly so,” Molly answered.

  They stood in the wide doorway between the blue reception room and the stair hall, each quite large and beautifully appointed, as befitted a duke’s residence in Town. As Molly enjoyed entertaining and as Hyde did not, the house was equally large enough for both their preferences; Molly gave large parties whenever she could find sufficient cause, and Hyde had more than enough space in which to sequester himself. It was upon such practical solutions that the best marriages endured.

  “A woman of determination, which is precisely as I remember her,” Sophia said softly, watching the inter-play between Jane Elliot, her brothers, and Edenham. Of course, the others played their part, Calbourne and Eleanor, Amelia, and even Bernadette Paignton, but it was Jane who stood at the heart of it all, even without the beacon fire of her beauty. “You showed her sons the letter, I assume.”

  Molly snorted, and not delicately. “I had to. They would never have believed it otherwise. Sally wants Jane to have her chance, without brotherly interference, and she wants her to have it here. I should so love to have Jane near me.

  The only daughter between the two of us, Sophia. All those boys. Mine and hers, and this one girl. I wanted to give her a proper Season; Sally wanted her to have a proper chance at a courtship, something which has been nearly impossible for her in New York. Jedidiah and Joel have wrought terror in any man over sixteen and under sixty.”

  “Sally would be content to have her only daughter find a husband in England?”

  Molly chuckled and surveyed the room, her steely blue eyes noting who had come to honor Iveston’s marriage and who had not. “Of course not. She only wants Jane to have her chance. A London Season, simply that. The attention of lively men. The chance to experience a flirtation with someone she will never see again.” Molly looked up at Sophia and smiled. “Sally has forgotten, if she ever knew, how devastating English men can be.”

  “She did marry an American, after all,” Sophia said. “I suppose each woman must be allowed her preference, as well as her prejudice, regarding men. But what precisely did Sally instruct in this not-quite-list?”

  “The boys, mine included, are to leave her alone,” Molly said. “You should have seen Cranleigh’s face. I thought he would pop a button on his waistcoat.”

  “I can well imagine,” Sophia said, moving her ivory-bladed fan near her throat.

  It did not escape her notice that Lord Ruan was watching her from the far corner of the blue reception room. His gaze was both solemn and intimate, a most engaging combina-tion. It was such a shame that he had dallied and delayed, missing his opportunity with her. She was not the sort of woman who waited about for a man. Hardly that. Yet the look on his face spoke nothing of lethargy or disinterest.

  On the contrary. What had he been about then, when he should have been calling on her? Something of which she would heartily disapprove, she was certain of that.

  “What may she be allowed, if I may ask?” Sophia said.

  Molly grinned, and it lit up her heart-shaped face like a dozen candles. “Anything that will result in a proper English husband, Sophia. That’s my interpretation of the letter.”

  Sophia smiled and said, “Yes, a generous interpretation, I would hazard. You have someone in mind?”

  Molly looked at Sophia, her blue eyes glittering in suppressed humor. “It would hardly matter if I did, Sophia, for you would pair her with whomever you thought best.

  Now, whom do you think best for my cherished niece? If I’m going to betray my sister in this smallest of things, I do think it should be for a w
orthwhile man. It will make it all much easier to smooth over, I’m quite certain.”

  “But, darling, I’ve only just met her,” Sophia said.

  “And when has that ever stopped you? I have only respect for you, Sophia. You’ve got three of my sons married in a single Season. How much easier to manage an inexperienced girl from the colonies?”

  “The former colonies, darling,” Sophia said softly, looking at Jane and Edenham, and at the two American men who were struggling to give their mother what she’d asked of them. They stood rigidly, lips compressed, chins tucked down into their cravats, a bit like turtles just before they snapped. An apt comparison, surely. “They are a nation now, and New York is no backwater. I do think Jane must know her own mind.”

  “And when, I repeat, has that ever stopped you? Come now, Sophia, you know perfectly well that if you set your mind to it, couples fall together like dice. Won’t you push Jane in the right direction, as you’ve done for my three sons and, indeed, your own daughter? You can’t claim you haven’t got a bit of experience at it. And they’re all so blissful about it, aren’t they? Surely Jane will be as well.

  ’Tis only a question of pairing her off with the right man.”

  Sophia smiled and said pleasantly, “If you insist, Molly, though I can’t think what you’ll tell Sally.”

  “I think telling her she’s to be a grandmother should settle it all nicely,” Molly said, running a fingertip over her lapis cameo necklace, looking well pleased with herself.

  “Yes, that should certainly settle things,” Sophia said, looking across the room at Edenham staring down at Jane.

  Jed and Joel must have settled well and truly into En -

  glish ways for they said nothing to the Duke of Edenham’s entirely ribald remark. Jane couldn’t begin to think why.

  Edenham had said bed and rigors and of course the impli-cations were obvious. Still, no one said a word, or leapt to her aid, or even indulged in so simple a thing as shoving Edenham a foot or two out of the way.