The Wooing of Miss Masters

by Susan Carroll

  "True. How do Maria and the girls get on in their new home?"

  "Quite wonderfully. Maria enjoys being nearer to town."

  Simon was glad to hear that. After his brother's death, he had entreated his sister-in-law and nieces to consider the castle still their home, but Maria had gently refused. Simon knew she had been wise to do so. It had been painful for her seeing another take her husband's place, as painful as it had been for Simon to assume that role. After living for some years in the Dower House, Maria had recently moved to Kensington.

  "Both the girls have grown so," Augusta enthused. "Do you realize that Elizabeth will be ready to make her come-out next Season? I wish Maria would let me present her. It will be ages before my own Emily is old enough for her first Season."

  "It confounds me how you could be looking forward to such a thing, Gus. You positively enjoy making the rounds of all those infernal balls, hostessing crushing parties, helping insipid young misses and gawky youths find partners. I believe you were born to be one of those dreadful matchmaking mamas."

  "I suppose I was," Lady Augusta said cheerfully, in no way troubled by the charge. "That is why I leaped at your invitation when you wrote to ask my help." But her face clouded over as she added, "However I shan't enjoy it in the least if I think the prospect of finding a bride makes you so utterly miserable. If you are not feeling quite ready, the ball could still be canceled, Simon."

  Her words presented to him an awful temptation. Indeed he did wish the ball could be set aside, that he could simply close up the castle again and resume his travels on the Continent. But he had been running away for too many years.

  "What! And disappoint all those ladies who seem to regard me as the catch of the Season?" Raeburn raised his brows, his voice laced with self-mockery. "After all, I am the sixth Duke of Raeburn. And we all know, a duke must have his duchess."

  He stretched his arms, flexing his back muscles. "But enough talk of balls and weddings for one morning. Why don't you fling on your shawl and take a walk with me out to the paddock? I acquired a new bull at the market yesterday. A capital fellow. He promises to do much for raising the stock of my cattle. If the heifers prove only half as eager as the young ladies hereabouts—"

  But Augusta clapped her hands over her ears, greatly scandalized. She refused his invitation, saying that far too many details for the ball yet required her attention. "So you may cease your lewd comments and go view your horrid bull by yourself."

  Simon nearly smiled. For all her acquired sophistication, Gus was still an adorable little prude. He was halfway out the study door when he turned and belatedly asked if there was anything he could do to help with the preparations.

  She must have detected the reluctance with which he made the offer, for she grinned. "No, nothing, except to stay out of the way. Although you might practice being more gracious with the ladies. Your manners have gotten a trifle rusty."

  "I never had any. It was always Robert who possessed the most address with your fair sex. I fear that I frighten most of the poor dears to death."

  "And take great pleasure in doing so," Augusta said severely. "You can be perfectly charming when you wish. You might begin by being more gallant to the next lady who loses her way in your woods."

  "Not on your life! I can tolerate being hunted, but I'll be damned if I will be pursued when I've gone to earth on my own coverts." As he strode through the door, he added darkly, "God help the wench who ambushes me on my own lands again."

  CHAPTER TWO

  The return of the duke to Castle Raeburn had formed the chief topic of drawing room conversation for the past sennight. It was inevitable that the subject would be discussed at Meadow Lane Lodge even though the lodge's current tenant, Miss Audra Leigh Masters, had no interest in dukes, eligible or otherwise.

  That particular afternoon Audra felt as if her front parlor was stuffed full of chattering females. Her younger half sister Cecily sat upon the settee before the hearth, discussing the merits of lace and ruching with her dear friend Phoebe Coleby.

  Phoebe's mama had stationed herself near the tea caddy on the parlor table. Lady Sophia Coleby's heavy perfume warred with the young ladies' rosewater, tickling Audra's nose and making her want to sneeze. She inched open the long window leading out into the frost-blighted garden and took a bracing gulp of the cold fresh air before returning to her task of pouring out the tea.

  Sophia Coleby talked on while reaching for the plate of tea cakes. Her plump, beringed fingers closed about her third, as she scarce missed a stroke in her endless flow of words. "And when the Vicar told me that the Duke of Raeburn had returned, bringing with him his sister and twenty trunks, I was never more astonished in my life. You could have knocked me down with a feather."

  "Indeed," Audra murmured, smiling faintly. Feathers? Nothing less than a battering ram would serve to dislodge Lady Coleby, especially when she was ensconced in someone's parlor for what she termed a "long, comfortable prose."

  Audra had long since lost the thread of Lady Coleby's somewhat erratic conversation. Usually she could summon more toleration for her visitor's volubility, but her ladyship would choose today of all days to pay a call. Audra had recently acquired the latest work by the author of the Waverly novels. Even now the second volume of Ivanhoe lay nearby upon the caned surface of a Hepplewhite chair, obscured from view by a soft cushion.

  She had been lost for hours in a far different world of banished knights, tournaments, and besieged castles. It was very difficult to drag herself back to the clatter of tea cups and Lady Coleby.

  When the rap had come at her front door, Audra would have simply denied she was at home, but her seventeen-year-old sister Cecily had leaped to admit Lady Coleby and her eldest daughter. Now Cecily had dragged Phoebe off to look at dress patterns, leaving Audra entirely to the mercy of Lady Coleby's loquaciousness. Tucking away a stray tendril of her chestnut-colored hair, Audra resisted the temptation to pull her spinster's cap further down over her ears. Lady Coleby talked on. She never seemed to need to pause for breath, only an occasional sip of tea.

  Wistfully, Audra's gaze traveled to where her book lay concealed. She could not resist shifting it onto her lap and opening it to where she had marked her page. Surely it could do no harm to read just a few more paragraphs. All she need do was continue to smile and nod. It would never occur to her ladyship that Audra was not hanging upon her every word.

  Audra had discovered that it was possible with many of her callers to read and appear the perfect hostess at the same time. She supposed she ought to be ashamed of herself and was likely to be embarrassed if she was ever caught out. But at the age of eight and twenty, she had come to regard with a cynical eye some of the views of the world.

  In others such behavior as hiding books in the folds of her skirts beneath the table might be considered intolerably rude. In a wealthy spinster such as herself, it would merely be termed charmingly eccentric.

  Lady Coleby droned on, her voice as soothingly monotonous as the crisp breeze rustling the chintz curtains. Turning another page, Audra eagerly pursued the perils of the beautiful Jewess Rebecca as she tried to repulse the advances of the lustful Bois-Guilbert.

  That was one problem Audra had never had. As tall as many gentlemen of her acquaintance, Audra had a trick of looking them straight in the eye in such a manner as to quell even the boldest heart. Nor did she possess such a degree of beauty as to make a man so far forget himself. Her nose was a little too straight, her face a little too angular. With her prominent cheekbones and heart-shaped chin, she possessed none of that dimpled softness the gentlemen seemed to find so attractive.

  She had been told frequently that her best feature was her eyes, with their thick-fringed lashes and deep gray coloring. During her one Season in London, a young admirer had actually gone so far as to write an ode to her eyes, comparing them to the mists of London. When Audra had tartly asked whether he referred to the fog or the coal smoke, it had mercifully nipped all further poetic
al offerings in the bud.

  With so limited experience in inspiring unbridled passion, Audra refrained from passing judgment on the way Rebecca dealt with the ardent villain. Threatening to leap from the castle walls seemed a little extreme, but Audra could not help admiring Rebecca's calm determination and courage.

  It was incredible that the hero, Ivanhoe, should prefer that blond ninnyhammer Lady Rowena to Rebecca's fire and intelligence. The lovely dark-haired Rebecca seemed so much more suited to the bold knight despite the fact that she was Jewish and he, a Christian.

  "One hardly dares to hope for such a thing, but it would make an excellent match, don't you think so, Miss Masters?"

  Engrossed in the book, it surprised Audra when Lady Coleby's voice penetrated her haze, the woman in apparent agreement with her.

  "Yes, it would," Audra murmured. "Although I suppose there could be some objection on the score of religion."

  Lady Coleby gave a startled gasp, setting her tea cup down with a loud clatter. "My dear Miss Masters, I know the Duke of Raeburn has traveled forever in heathen lands, but I daresay he is as devout a member of the Church of England as the next man."

  Audra, wrenching her eyes from the book, raised her head like someone surfacing through a sea of confusion, aware of one thing only, that she had just made some remarkable blunder.

  Lady Coleby leaned forward conspiratorially, the plumes on her poke bonnet fluttering. "Unless, my dear, you have heard something to the contrary about His Grace? You may tell me. I wouldn't repeat it to a soul."

  "Why no," Audra stammered. "I haven't heard—that is I don't even know the man."

  "Of course, you do," Lady Coleby said reproachfully. "He is your landlord."

  "But I have never met him.” When Audra had taken the lease upon Meadow Lane Lodge two years earlier, all the details had been handled by the duke's estate agent, His Grace himself was traveling abroad. The only interest the duke had ever aroused in her was a pang of envy of anyone who had the freedom to travel so extensively to such exciting places, Greece, Rome, Egypt. . . . There was much to be said for having been born a man, Audra often thought wistfully.

  Since she had no idea how she came to be discussing the duke with Lady Coleby, Audra decided that she had best pay a little more heed to her ladyship's conversation. Suppressing a sigh, she nudged her book closed and reached dutifully across the table to refill her guest's cup.

  "You must be thinking me the most foolish old woman," Lady Coleby gushed, "to be running on about the duke in this fashion."

  "Not at all, ma'am," Audra said politely.

  "It is simply the most exciting news I've had in an age. Everyone in the entire countryside is agog."

  Everyone but herself, Audra thought. But that was not unusual. Forever buried among her books, she could name to the day what had occurred in Tudor England, but she never seemed to know what had happened in the neighboring village of Haworth Green just last week.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Lady Coleby just what was so exciting when it occurred to Audra that very likely that was what her ladyship had been relating for the past quarter hour. Despite a niggling of curiosity, Audra swallowed the awkward question.

  It did not matter in any case, for in her usual quicksilver fashion, her ladyship's attention had already shifted direction. Nodding toward the opposite end of the room where Cecily and Phoebe were giggling over some new frock design, Lady Coleby trilled, "Don't our girls present a charming picture?"

  Audra swiveled around to observe the two young women settled upon the sofa, Phoebe's dark curls an excellent foil for Cecily's honey-blond tresses. With their heads bent together over the pattern book, and Cecily's foolish little pug curled up between them, twitching its stubby tail, they did indeed make a pretty picture.

  "How becoming that frock is to your sister," Lady Coleby said. "Quite in the latest mode."

  "Very fashionable," Audra agreed, but she suppressed a frown. The sprigged muslin, a confection of lace, and the embroidered trim were wholly unsuited for the chilling breath of November as much so as the dainty green kid slippers Cecily had slipped upon her feet.

  Staring at her sister, Audra was hard put to recognize the madcap little hoyden their mother had bundled off to boarding school two years ago. Although Audra had never taken much stock in her own appearance, she could have been fiercely proud of Cecily's beauty if her sister had not acquired a parcel of airs to go along with it. As it was, Audra found herself missing the little scapegrace with smudged frocks and flyaway curls that Audra had looked after in her mother's frequent absence.

  When Cecily glanced up from the patterns long enough to feed her pug part of a biscuit, Lady Coleby said frankly, "I would give half my income for Phoebe to have your sister's complexion and those golden curls. Cecily is so lovely. She looks nothing like you."

  "No, fortunately she doesn't."

  "Oh dear. That is, I didn't mean—"

  "It is quite all right, ma'am," Audra said, laughing a little at Lady Coleby's flustered expression. "I understand exactly what you meant. I take more after Mama while Cecily favors her papa, my late stepfather, Mr. Stephen Holt of Dover."

  "Indeed? That would have been your dear mother's second husband?"

  "Her third," Audra corrected flatly.

  "Oh, that's right. I keep forgetting about Lady Arabella's second marriage to that squire from Worcester. But the poor man only lasted two months so I daresay he shouldn't even count."

  Audra refrained from informing Lady Coleby rather tartly that it certainly had counted, at least as far as Audra was concerned. It had meant another upheaval in her childhood, another new house, another stranger to call papa. Sometimes she felt as if she had lived under more roofs than an itinerant peddler, and none of them had ever felt like her home.

  Coming from any woman other than Lady Coleby, Audra would have presumed such remarks about her mother's marital escapades to be prompted by a sly malice. But she knew her ladyship was merely curious, and who could blame her for that? There were not many like Lady Arabella who had managed to outlive four husbands and then embark upon a fifth marriage, all before the age of fifty. Audra sometimes feared that if Mama lived to a ripe old age, she might manage to outdo even that notorious king, Henry the Eighth, with his six wives.

  She did not enjoy discussing her mother and was relieved when Lady Coleby changed the subject. Her ladyship continued to coo over the two young women. "Such prettily behaved girls, your sister and my Phoebe. Your mama did well to send Cecily to that academy. Girls learn so much at a good school."

  "Do they?" Cecily had been with Audra a month now at Meadow Lane Lodge, and Audra had yet to see any sign that her sister's mind was stuffed with a vast store of knowledge.

  "Oh, certainly," Lady Coleby said. "Phoebe became so clever upon the harp—to say nothing of her prowess with a brush. Only fancy! She learned japanning. There is scarce a stick of furniture in our house that is not adorned with one of her creations, a posy or some woodland creature. Though I must admit her papa was a trifle vexed over the little bears she put on his escritoire."

  "I suppose he might be," Audra said. Sir John Coleby, being the local magistrate, was a gruff no-nonsense sort of fellow. She could well imagine how he must have bellowed to discover his daughter's artwork upon his favorite desk.

  But Audra thought she might have borne it better if Cecily had gone about wielding a brush, ruining all the furniture. Even that would have been a far more sensible accomplishment than learning to blush, simper, and flutter one's fan.

  Despite these stern thoughts, Audra could feel her expression soften as Cecily danced gracefully up from the sofa. She did not even scold when Cecily closed the French doors. Cecily was forever shutting the house up tight lest her pug escape. In vain did Audra point out to her that that was where a dog belonged, outside. Cecily was convinced some dreadful fate would befall her pet.

  After one final tug to make sure the door was secure, Cecily tripped over to
Audra, Phoebe trailing in her wake, the color in both girls' cheeks heightened by excitement. For once Cecily abandoned all affectation, her blue eyes sparkling with childlike enthusiasm.

  "Oh, Audra," she said thrusting the pattern book forward. "Do look at this gown. Wouldn't it be just perfect for Phoebe?"

  Audra took a peek at the sketch and crinkled her nose. "Too much lace and surely too fine for the local assembly."

  "I wasn't thinking of it for the assembly, Miss Masters," Phoebe chimed in. "But for the ball."

  "Oh? What ball is that?" To Audra, it seemed the most innocent of questions. But she became uncomfortably aware that all three of the other women were staring at her.

  "Why, you know. The ball," Phoebe said. "The one to be given at Castle Raeburn. Mama and I received our invitation just this morning."

  "Just as I have been telling you, my dear," Lady Coleby added.

  Cecily, who had caught sight of the book tucked upon Audra's lap, shot her a look of reproach. "You must pardon Audra, your ladyship. She is sometimes a little hard of hearing."

  "My advancing years, you know," Audra said dryly.

  The good-natured Lady Coleby did not appear in the least put out to have to repeat all that she had said and at a slightly louder volume. "And we were so thrilled to receive our invitation. It was an honor we hardly expected."

  "My congratulations, ma'am," Audra said, striving to show all the enthusiasm and wonder that appeared to be expected. "So the Scowling Duke is to give a ball. Only fancy that."

  "Audra!" Cecily gasped, looking mortified. "You should not call His Grace that."

  "Why not? Everyone else does. He doesn’t seem like the sort to host any entertainment. And what a shabby affair it is sure to be, a parcel of dancing and no supper until past midnight."

  "That's what balls are, Audra," Cecily said, rolling her eyes.

  "Well, if that is His Grace's notion of amusement, I am sure he is welcome to it."

  "Ah, but there is more to this particular ball than mere amusement." Lady Coleby raised both of her finely plucked brows, looking arch. "Mrs. Wright believes the duke is finally looking out for a wife."