“There is nothing we can do about it, and when you oppose her, all you succeed in doing is alienating her further. Leave her be, Edith, for God’s sake. Just accept the twenty thousand and be content with that.”
Edith be content? Prudence thought with a snort of disbelief as she went down the stairs. That was about as likely as flying pigs.
She was still fuming as she stood in front of the inn, waiting for the carriage to be brought around. Just what entitled Edith to any of the Abernathy fortune? she asked herself. Not her tender loving care toward her niece, that was certain. And what of Robert? After his neglect of her all these years, why should he and Millicent receive anything?
A brougham pulled into the inn yard, and Prudence started forward, then realized the carriage was not her own and stopped. She folded her arms and leaned back against the wall behind her, still fuming as she watched a footman jump down from the dummy board of the brougham and roll out the steps.
A couple alighted from the vehicle, first a handsome man of around forty years of age, then a pretty, auburn-haired woman who seemed vaguely familiar. Diverted from her own thoughts for a moment, she studied the woman, but couldn’t place her.
“Madeira, if you please, Mortimer,” the woman said to the footman, and her voice added to Prudence’s impression that they had met before, for she knew she had heard that voice somewhere. “I’m simply parched.”
The footman raced past Prudence through the doorway of the inn, and the couple followed at a more leisurely pace, but as they approached, the woman made an exclamation of surprise.
“Why, I do believe it’s Miss Abernathy, isn’t it?” She stopped and stretched out her gloved hand. “You don’t remember me, I expect,” she went on, and it was her cheerful, friendly voice that finally sparked recognition. “I’m—”
“Lady Standish,” Prudence finished for her, clasping the offered hand for a handshake and smiling in return. “How do you do?”
“So you do remember me? I thought sure you wouldn’t, for you had that look on your face—you know the one I mean, where you are trying frantically to place someone who knows you but your mind is blank.” She gestured to the man beside her. “This is my husband, Earl Standish. Darling, this is Miss Abernathy.”
“How do you do?” The man tipped his hat, then looked at his wife. “You two will want to have a chat, no doubt.”
“And you want a pint?” Lady Standish said, laughing. “Go on, then. I shall drink my Madeira out here and have a visit with Miss Abernathy.”
Her husband departed and she returned her attention to Prudence. “It wouldn’t be surprising if you failed to recall me. You were in rather a fluster the day we were introduced.”
“It was a crush at Madame Marceau’s.”
“I should say! And all because of you, my dear. Marceau fawning all over you.”
“Yes. I had suddenly become important, it seems.”
The wryness in her voice was not lost on the other woman, who gave her a shrewd, understanding look. “That’s human nature, I’m afraid. But you’ll have to become accustomed to it, for it will only worsen once you become a duchess. You are to become a duchess, are you not? I heard you are to marry St. Cyres.”
Prudence confirmed that news with a nod, and Lady Standish clapped her gloved hands together like a delighted child. “I knew it! I knew from the first that the two of you would make a match of it!”
“Did you?” Prudence felt a spark of curiosity, for she could only recall seeing Lady Standish the one time at Madame Moreau’s, but before she could inquire further, another voice interrupted.
“Your Madeira, my lady.”
Lady Standish turned to the footman, who paused beside them with a crystal goblet of liqueur on a silver tray. “At last!” She lifted the glass from the tray and took a sip, then breathed a gratified sigh. “Ah, this is just what I need. Thank you, Mortimer.”
He bowed and departed as the countess returned her attention to Prudence. “One’s so used to traveling by train, going anywhere by carriage seems a tedious business, doesn’t it? One needs a bit of refreshment along the way, even when only going across a county or two.”
“Are you merely passing through the village, then?”
“Yes. We’re on our way to Tavistock for a house party and we should arrive in time for dinner. But enough about my plans. I want to talk about you, my dear. You and St. Cyres. I was thrilled to read about your engagement in Talk of the Town.” Leaning closer, she added with a smile, “It’s always so much more amusing to read gossip about other people than about oneself.”
She gave Prudence no chance to comment, but rushed on, “I take full credit for the match, of course. Why, when the duke was looking at you through those opera glasses, I could tell he was already smitten, poor fellow. But he thought you were still a seamstress.” She paused with a tiny frown, her glass halfway to her lips. “Though how he ever knew your profession to begin with, I haven’t a clue. Anyway, I knew about you already, of course, for Lady Marley had told me the whole exciting story at the dressmaker’s. I set the duke straight about the matter at once.”
In this rapid gush, two words in particular struck Prudence with special emphasis. “Opera glasses?” she echoed as uneasiness danced along her spine.
The countess took another sip of her Madeira and nodded. “Yes, at Covent Garden. St. Cyres was looking through his opera glasses and spied you in the box across the way. When I asked him what he was staring at—”
“Wait,” Prudence pleaded, holding up her hand and stopping the other woman in mid-sentence. There had to be some mistake. She had only been to the opera once, and she remembered the evening perfectly well. Some horrid German performance, and she’d seen Rhys at intermission. He hadn’t known about her new situation then, and she had deliberately avoided telling him. He’d sent champagne up to her, and they’d raised their glasses together. Had Lady Standish been sitting with him that night? She couldn’t recall, for she’d had eyes only for Rhys. The image of him leaning back in his chair watching her across the theater, that faint smile on his lips, was burned in her memory. Even now, the image made her heart twist in her breast.
She took a deep breath. “You told the duke about me,” she said, trying to understand. “You told him about my father and my inheritance? At the opera?”
“Of course I told him!” Lady Standish looked thoroughly pleased with herself. “I could tell you’d caught his eye, but a duke can’t marry a seamstress! Especially St. Cyres, for he’s stone broke.” She winked at Prudence in a confidential, woman-to-woman sort of way. “A dowry makes all the difference in the world to a girl, doesn’t it, my dear? It can turn a seamstress into a duchess. I know a bit about that myself, for I had no dowry when I first met Standish…”
The countess’s voice faded away as Prudence pressed four fingers to her forehead and strove to think, but she felt numb and a bit dazed. He’d found out about her money at the opera. Not in Little Russell Street. But that didn’t make sense.
“My dear Miss Abernathy, are you unwell?”
The concern in the countess’s voice penetrated her consciousness. She lifted her head and lowered her hand. “A sudden headache,” she said with a deprecating little smile. “A trifle, really. Do go on. This is…fascinating. Quite, quite fascinating.”
“He adored me, but I was penniless, Miss Abernathy, so we couldn’t marry. But then my grandfather died…”
As the countess chattered happily on about her own romance with Earl Standish years before, Prudence smiled and nodded and didn’t hear a word as she tried to stamp out the horrible, impossible idea that was snaking its way into her consciousness.
There had to be some sort of mistake. He couldn’t have been told about the money at the opera. He hadn’t known about it when they’d seen each other the next day at the National Gallery, or the next when they’d gone on their picnic, or at the ball. Pain squeezed her, a fist around her heart. He hadn’t known. He hadn’t known.
<
br /> Unless he’d been lying to her all along.
With that thought, everything in the world shifted, changed shape and color and form. No starry eyes, no rosy glow, no romantic love. Just hard, glittering reality.
As if watching the pages of a picture book flip past her vision, she saw herself and him and everything that had happened, but saw it all in a whole new way.
He could have followed her to the National Gallery. Or learned somehow where she would be. Their encounter could have been arranged, yet meant to look like a happy accident.
Their picnic could have been a charade, with him only pretending to be enamored of her.
The ball and Lady Alberta and that afternoon in Little Russell Street…a farce meant to play on her emotions. Lying to her about his motives, yet giving it all a veneer of truth with his frankness about his financial woes. Simple avarice, yet meant to make him seem noble. Playing her like a pawn in a chess game.
Tarrying here only tortures me further, Miss Bosworth. Let me go.
Lies. All lies.
No. Everything in her cried out in denial. This was the man who had been chivalrous and heroic from the very beginning. She could not believe him capable of such deliberate manipulation, such deceit. She would not believe it.
There had to be some other explanation for what Lady Standish had just told her, for why he would pretend not to know about her money for so long. Desperate, she tried to think of other reasons for his actions, as doubt and fear warred with love and hope. But what other explanation could there be?
The church clock chimed the hour with gloomy relish. To Prudence it seemed like a death knell, the death of illusions.
“Heavens, is it noon already?” Lady Standish downed the remainder of her Madeira in a gulp. “I must find Standish. He’s still in the tavern, I’m sure, having his pint and visiting with the locals. He loves that sort of thing, which is good, I suppose, for it gives us votes. But Lady Tavistock does hate it so if guests are late arriving. It delays dinner and causes no end of trouble for the staff. Forgive me, Miss Abernathy?”
Prudence forced herself out of her reverie. She tipped up the corners of her mouth in a perfunctory smile. “Of course. It was a pleasure seeing you again.”
“And you. Give my regards to St. Cyres, will you? Come along, Mortimer.” She started through the entrance of the inn, then paused, leaning back in the doorway. She gave Prudence a long, thoughtful glance, then nodded as if satisfied. “Yes, you and St. Cyres are perfect for each other.”
“Yes, perfect,” Prudence agreed brightly, striving to conceal the sickening fear within her. “We’re a match made in heaven.”
Rhys visited the farms that morning. He discussed crops and drainage with his land agent. He met with the few tenant farmers that he had, examined livestock, and decided on repairs. That afternoon he determined the necessities of the household, touring the bakehouse, the brew-house, the laundry, the stables, and the kitchens, making notes about all that needed to be done, how much staff would be required, and how to make St. Cyres Castle into a viable, working estate. More important, he thought about how to make it a home.
Home. With every decision that he made, that word thrummed through his mind in time with the beats of his heart. As he moved through the house and grounds, he thought of Prudence, who would be his wife. He stood in the nursery for over an hour, imagining the children they would have and how different their childhood would be from the hell that had been his.
And at the end of the day, when he was on his way back to the village, he paused on the crag at the top of the hill and turned his horse for one more look at St. Cyres Castle. Its limestone walls glowed like gold in the late afternoon sun, and he knew that within that pile of stones was everything he’d ever wanted, everything he’d stopped believing in, and everything that mattered.
The village of St. Cyres was quiet at sunset, and his horse was the only one on the High Street, for it was dinnertime. As he rode toward the inn along the empty cobblestone street, Rhys studied the vicarage and the village green and the smithy with the same sense of awareness with which he’d been surveying his own lands.
This village had first become prosperous in Tudor times, for the forests around St. Cyres Castle were a favorite hunting spot of Henry VIII. That prosperity had continued and grown, and St. Cyres thrived well into the reign of George IV. But during the past sixty years or so it had fallen into decay, due to economic conditions and the hopeless mismanagement of the past half-dozen dukes of St. Cyres. Now it was a quiet, run-down little backwater, but as he passed the dilapidated cottages and shabby shops, he saw what it could be.
All of these people are looking to me, waiting and hoping I can save them from these times of agricultural calamity.
His words to Prudence that day in Little Russell Street came back to him, and he smiled ruefully. Such a load of shit, he’d thought at the time. But now, as he looked around him, he appreciated the truth in it. He could make this village and all the other villages that were under his ducal leadership prosperous again. Not the old ways, not with feudal control, not with land rents, but a new way, a modern way. Factories, mills, industry.
There was also everything Prudence’s father had built in America. That legacy had to be cared for as well, properly managed and passed on to the next generation.
A heady thing, so much responsibility, and a bit frightening. Good thing Prudence was so sensible and steadfast. She’d be an excellent duchess. She’d keep him on a straight course. She loved him.
At the Black Swan, he handed his horse over to a groom and went into the inn. A serving maid was waiting by the side door that led to the stables. “If you please, Your Grace,” she said with a curtsy, “Miss Abernathy’s waiting for you in the parlor.”
He handed over his hat, his gloves, and his cloak. “She’s not at dinner?”
“No, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Feathergill have already dined, but Miss Abernathy said she wasn’t hungry and she’d wait for you.”
“Did she?” He smiled at the knowledge that she’d waited for him. If they managed it right, talking in the parlor until her aunt and uncle and the other guests at the inn finished eating, they could perhaps dine in private.
Savoring that idea, he walked through the tavern, where a handful of locals were gathered around the tap, sipping their pints of bitter and ale. He crossed the corridor, leaving the tavern, and entering the inn’s small parlor.
Prudence was there, staring into the empty fireplace, her back to him when he came into the room.
“Darling,” he greeted, starting toward her. “Wonderful of you to wait your dinner for me.”
She didn’t turn around, and as he came up behind her, he saw that she was straightening the spill vases on the mantel. Her hands were shaking.
“Are you cold?” he asked in surprise, sliding his arms around her waist. “It feels like a warm, fine spring night to me, but if you’re cold, I’ll warm you.”
He reached for her hands and pulled them down, entwining her fingers with his. “Sorry I’m so late coming back, but I had the most productive day. I think we’ll plant flax next year and build a factory to make the linen from it. Can you imagine how this village will prosper with a linen mill?”
“I had a productive day, too.”
“Did you?” He kissed her temple. “Shopping for the house, I suppose?”
“No. I wasn’t shopping.” She pulled her hands from his, grasped his forearms and pushed them down, gently extracting herself from his embrace.
He frowned, all his senses sharpening in warning as she walked away from him to another part of the room. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “What’s happened?”
“I encountered an acquaintance of yours today,” she said over her shoulder. There was an odd inflection in her voice, one that he couldn’t quite define. He felt a sudden sense of foreboding as she turned, lifted her chin and looked at him. “Lady Standish.”
He sucked in his breath, not at her words, but at
her face. There was none of the love he usually saw there. It had vanished, along with her adoration and her tenderness and that absolute conviction that he was her very own hero. Gone, all gone, all the soft, sweet things he’d never had until he met her, things that in two short months he had come to crave like an addict seeking opium. They were gone, and in their place he saw nothing in her countenance but icy composure. He tried to imagine what Cora might have said to make her look at him this way, but he couldn’t, for his wits suddenly felt thick like tar.
“They were on their way to a country house party,” she told him. “Lady Standish and I had a nice little visit while their driver changed horses. She takes full credit for our engagement, since she told you about my inheritance at the opera. The opera, where you pretended not to know anything about it.”
The opera. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
She took a step toward him, and as she looked into his eyes, emotion came into her face, an awareness and a certainty that cut him to the heart. “Oh my God, I knew it,” she whispered, staring at him. “Until now, until this moment, I kept trying not to believe it. I kept trying to convince myself that Lady Standish made a mistake or lied or…something. I’ve tried to find some other explanation, but there is none. When I told you about the money, you already knew. You’ve known all along, almost from the very beginning.”
He opened his mouth to deny it, but the lie stuck in his throat.
“Meeting me at the National Gallery that day wasn’t happenstance. You arranged it. But how?”
He drew a deep breath and admitted the truth. “Fane. He found out where you would be.”
She stared at him. “Mr. Fane wasn’t working for that Italian count at all, was he? He was working for you. Under your orders, he was deceiving Miss Woddell just as you were deceiving me.” Her eyes narrowed. “My God, did you ever, at any point, stop to think of anyone but yourself? Miss Woddell is in love with Mr. Fane, but his feelings are as much a lie as yours. It’s all a tissue of lies.”
The Wicked Ways of a Duke Page 22