“But won’t we be noticed at the inn, guv’nor?” Gibson lifted his shoulders. “You know wot it’s like. Everywhere you go, people fawn all over you.”
Alicia harrumphed, turning her supercilious reaction into a cough when Nick directed a sardonic glance her way.
“I dare say word of our presence there will spread but it’s unlikely to reach Woodley’s ears before our business is complete. But are you sure it would be wise for you to ride, Miss Woodley? You’re still weak from your injuries. Perhaps you should remain at the school, and Gibson and I will carry out the clandestine investigations alone.”
“Certainly not! You’d never find the way unaided. It’s quite overgrown.”
“In that case we’d welcome your company. But you’ll oblige me by spending today resting and recovering your strength. You look completely done up. Obviously the party last night, all that unaccustomed activity, tested your strength.”
“Undoubtedly.” She turned a scornful glance in his direction.
Annoyingly Nick parried it with another of his raffish smiles.
“And if you’re unable to join us at the inn because you’re indisposed, perhaps you’d have the goodness to send Will in your place. Presumably he’ll be able to guide us to the appropriate path.”
“Indeed, but I don’t anticipate that being necessary,” she said in a cold tone. “I can assure you that I’m in possession of sufficient wits to direct you to the right spot without swooning.”
“I never imagined it would be otherwise,” he said gently. “I’m merely concerned about you overexerting yourself.”
He spoke with due solemnity but Alicia was left with the distinct impression that he was mocking her. She felt her temper rising as a consequence. Here was she, feeling awkward but doing her best to remain dignified in the aftermath of their activities. She didn’t even hold it against him that he’d only bedded her to win a wager. But instead of following her example, he appeared to find the entire situation diverting. In spite of Mr. Gibson’s rapt attention to their exchanges she was no longer prepared to hold her tongue. She was formulating the appropriate words in her head when a footman materialised and bowed before Nick.
“The master’s compliments, Your Grace. He says to advise you that his man of business has arrived and waits upon your pleasure.”
“Inform your master that I’ll attend him when I have broken my fast.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” The footman bowed and backed away.
“I wonder what got him out of his bed at such an ungodly hour,” Nick said. “We’ve been kicking our heels these three days, waiting for him to honour us with his presence, and now he arrives before cockcrow. What can it mean?”
“Only one way to find out,” Gibson said.
“Indeed. Miss Woodley, shall we return to the house and break our fast together?”
“Thank you, no. I still have apples to distribute and then I must attend my patients in the barn.” She spoke without looking in his direction.
“As you wish.” Nick’s brow was invaded by a frown, from which Alicia drew some satisfaction. Presumably few of his conquests treated him with such stiff formality after the event.
“Gibson, escort Miss Woodley on her rounds. Ensure she’s not left unattended until we get to the bottom of this thing.”
“You cannot suppose my life to be in danger whilst I’m on the estate,” Alicia said hotly. “Anyway, I have no wish for my routine to be interrupted.”
“And I’ve already told you that it would be most unwise to relax your guard. There’s no telling who might be in the assassin’s pay.” Nick bowed formally and turned to leave her, seemingly satisfied that his orders would be adhered to. “Gibson won’t get in your way. I trust him to remain vigilant, and no one will get past him.”
“Very well, Your Grace.” She responded to his bow with a curtsey of equal formality, her temper abating slightly. It was good of him to be so concerned for her safety. All that remained now was for her to impress upon him the need to act upon that concern a little less tyrannically.
“Be sure to obey my dictate,” he said to her in a whispered aside, his tone velvety smooth. “You’ll have me to answer to if you don’t do as you’re told. And I ought to warn you that you won’t enjoy my punishments.”
Alicia was itching to give him a piece of her mind. Catching sight of Mr. Gibson’s gleeful expression, she made do with a hostile glare. “Don’t let me keep you from your breakfast, Your Grace,” she said sweetly.
He walked away, chuckling in a fashion that made Alicia want to strike him.
Chapter Twelve
“He can’t help it, you know.”
Mr. Gibson stood beside Alicia as they watched Nick stride away. Grooms scattered to clear a path for him.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Gibson.” She was conscious of his heavily lidded eyes regarding her with a shrewd expression. “I was woolgathering there just for a moment. Who can’t help what?”
“The duke. He can’t help being so high in the instep. He’s used to being obeyed without question, you see. Half the time he don’t even know he’s treading on people’s feelings when he doles out orders.”
“Oh, yes, I see.” Alicia was afraid Mr. Gibson might have misinterpreted her thoughts and believe her to be lacking in gratitude. She hastened to correct that misconception. “But he doesn’t treat you like that. He appears to defer to your opinion.”
“Ah, well, I’ve known the lad since he was in short coats.”
“You’ve been in service at Dorchester Park for that long?” She strolled beside him as they headed toward the first row of loose boxes. A series of whinnies and the appearance of elegant Hanoverian heads greeted her approach. Mr. Gibson carried her basket whilst she distributed the apples it contained.
“Me and me father before me.”
“What’s it like, Mr. Gibson? From what I’ve heard, it sounds very grand.”
“Oh, aye, it is that. The house is very imposing and the grounds are quite spectacular. It takes an army of gardeners and gamekeepers to maintain them. And the duke’s a good master, I’ll say that for him. He’s fair to his tenants, listens to their problems and is free with his advice. He helps them if he can but don’t suffer fools gladly. He’s awake on all suits and I’ve yet to learn of anyone pulling the wool over his eyes.”
“Yes, I’ve already remarked that about him,” Alicia said, thinking that her uncle’s attempts to entice him into a business partnership must be doomed to failure. “But there’s something lacking in your description of Dorchester Park, I fancy.”
Gibson’s bushy eyebrows shot skywards. “I get asked questions about the Park, and the guv’nor, wherever I go,” he said, chuckling. “I just gave you me usual answer. No one’s ever questioned it before.”
“Tell me what it is you’re holding back, Mr. Gibson, if you feel you can do so without breaking any confidences.”
“Well, the truth is, that blooming great house is as cold as the grave. And that ain’t for lack of firewood, I can tell you.”
“I didn’t imagine that it would be.”
“The duke’s parents, they were…well, cold.” Mr. Gibson scowled at some private memory. “Their marriage was arranged and I never saw them exchange an ounce of affection the whole time I knew ’em. They were full of themselves right enough and enjoyed their social position. But they were totally indifferent to one another. They had their own pursuits and their paths seldom crossed, you see.”
Alicia rather thought that she did. “But aren’t many marriages between the upper classes conducted in a similar fashion?”
“Aye, true enough.” Mr. Gibson blew air through his nose, making it clear what he thought of such arrangements. “Anyway, they passed that air of self-importance on to their only child, on the rare occasions when they had anything to do with him, that is. They encouraged him to think himself above most company.”
“Hmm, I see.” Alicia paused to stroke yet another soft muzzle. �
��But the present duke isn’t always toplofty. Is that your doing, Mr. Gibson?”
“Bless you, miss, I suppose it is. I put him up on his first pony when he was barely knee-high. He wouldn’t listen to my instructions though and thought he knew better even at that age. Needless to say, he had a crashing fall.”
“Oh, dear!” Alicia covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.
“Aye, well, that’s what I thought too. It would do him good to realise there were some things in life wot had to be worked for.”
“Was he hurt?”
“Only his pride so he tried to blame the pony for his mishap.”
“Oh, no, how could he have done that?”
“Very easily, I imagine, when you’re used to always having yer own way in everything. But he learned a hard lesson that day because I wasn’t about to put up with his antics in my stable yard.”
“What did you do?” Alicia asked, enthralled.
“Well, I took him into the tack room and closed the doors so that no one in the yard would see us. I was that angry with the young tyke that I rang a right peal over him. Then I put him across me knee, pulled down his breeches and thrashed him.”
Alicia couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “Just a moment, let me see if I’ve got this straight, if you please. You were at the time, what…an undergroom?”
“I was that.”
“You were a mere undergroom on a vast estate, and yet you presumed to thrash the heir to the dukedom.” Alicia gaped at him. “It defies belief. Whatever must you have been thinking? Didn’t you value your position? Surely you expected to be dismissed as soon as your actions were made known?”
“I was thinking about the welfare of the pony, not me own skin. No one attempts to take a stick to an equine under my charge without good reason. And not even then unless I give them leave.”
“Quite right too! But you’re still employed at Dorchester Park, so what happened?”
“To his credit the guv’nor never told ’em. Instead he appeared in the stable yard the next day, not exactly cowed, but at least he had the grace to apologise. Then he asked me if I’d teach him to ride properly. I knew then that he wasn’t a lost cause but merely a slip of a boy, like any other, wot required a little discipline and a guiding hand. So I decided to take him under my wing.” Mr. Gibson spoke casually, as though it was the most natural thing in the world for a future duke to take orders from an undergroom.
Alicia, having recovered from her initial shock, laughed at his offhand manner. She didn’t for one moment doubt its validity. She’d seen for herself the esteem in which Nick held Mr. Gibson. Even so, she doubted if he’d be too pleased to learn that this incident was being related to anyone who asked.
“Never told anyone about it before,” Mr. Gibson remarked, appearing to read Alicia’s mind.
“Well, thank you for telling me. It explains a lot.” She smiled at the man who was sticking doggedly to her side and took a moment to examine his features whilst his attention was focused upon a particularly fine mare. He was handsome in a weathered sort of way and not without charm. The deep grooves on his face lent it character, and his unruly mane of silver-grey hair gave him a distinguished air. She could quite see why Janet was in such a snit because he’d flirted with Cook instead of her. “What happened after that?”
“Well, the lad was a natural on horseback. I taught him to ride, and to drive. I made him groom his horse and clean his own tack, though,” he added, chuckling. “He’d never cleaned anything in his life before but, to his credit, he got down to it without quibbling. Sat in the tack room alongside all the scruffy lads employed to do the dirty work and didn’t once complain.”
“You’ve obviously done a lot to form his character over the years, Mr. Gibson. No wonder he holds you in such high regard.”
“Oh, I’m probably the closest thing to a true friend he has. That might sound daft, or assuming, coming from a groom, but it’s true for all that. He has no end of acquaintances. One or two are good friends to him, but they all want something from him. Except me, and he knows it.”
“Is that why you never address him by his title?”
“Noticed that, have you?”
Alicia nodded.
“Well, I can’t be doing with all this Your Grace nonsense. Besides, I think the lad is secretly grateful that I don’t kowtow to him all the time, even though he pretends sometimes to be affronted by my familiarity.”
“Having someone as loyal and steady as you beside him must be a great comfort.”
Mr. Gibson shuffled his feet, looking embarrassed by the praise. “Maybe, but you still don’t know the half of it. I taught him to fight with his fists when he was a boy. That ain’t a skill he would have picked up at Eton, let me tell you. But it’s one that’s stood him in good stead more than once since then.”
“I dare say it has.”
“Well, young men nowadays, you know how they can be.” Mr. Gibson smiled at her, presumably considering that she did. “I taught him to shoot too.”
“Shouldn’t his father have attended to those matters?”
“Aye, but he had, er…other interests, shall we say, that took up a lot of his time. He was seldom there for the boy.”
“I think that’s really sad,” Alicia said softly, her mind on the comfort she’d garnered from her closeness with her own father.
“I agree with you there but that’s the way the gentry do things. He brought some of the toffs he went to school with back to Dorchester Park. All titled and full of self-importance they were, just like the duke was taught to be.”
“It’s another world entirely to me, Mr. Gibson. And one I don’t aspire to be a part of.”
They walked on in silence for a few minutes and then Mr. Gibson spoke again.
“He was at Waterloo, you know.”
“Really.” Alicia arched a brow. “I didn’t know that.”
“Aye, that’s where he developed so much respect for Hanoverians. Some of the atrocities we saw, the cruel end some of those noble beasts met with, has stayed with us both ever since.”
“You went with him, Mr. Gibson?”
“’Course I did. Someone had to act as his batman. Besides, I couldn’t trust him to behave himself on his own.”
Alicia laughed. “Did he distinguish himself?”
“Oh, aye.” Mr. Gibson removed his cap and scratched his head. “Trouble is he tends to be a bit reckless. Acts without thinking things through. I had to save his skin twice as a result of his rash behaviour.”
“And so now you’re responsible for him,” she said, smiling.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, just something he said to me after he helped me save that poor rabbit’s life.”
“Did he now?” Mr. Gibson looked at her with a very peculiar expression on his face but said nothing more.
Alicia wrinkled her brow. “If he is so toplofty, I wonder what made him accept my uncle’s invitation. We were astonished when he did so. None of us, except perhaps my cousin Maria, thought he’d deign to reply to such an audacious approach from someone he didn’t even know, much less take it up.”
“Ah, well, he was bored and, er…well, let’s just say he was anxious to avoid being gulled into an engagement. He needed to put some distance between himself and the young lady in question.”
“I see.”
“He has to marry soon, you see. He’s almost one-and-thirty and needs to fill his nursery before he gets much older. He knows that and so do all the matchmaking mamas. He’s besieged wherever he goes, and I have to say I feel sorry for the lad. He only has to speak to a young lady and within minutes everyone’s talking about his intentions. But this latest one, she was suitable in all respects and I could tell he was on the brink of offering for her just so he’d be left alone by all the others. I told you before, he can be a bit rash. But if he gave way to his impulses this time, wot would that mean for him?”
“It would mean, I suppose,” Alicia sa
id slowly, “that he’d finish up in the same position as his parents. He’d be trapped in a loveless marriage simply because the lady comes from a suitable background and is able to provide him with an heir.”
“Exactly. And I wasn’t gonna let him make that mistake if I could help it. So when yer uncle’s invitation came it seemed like a godsend. I encouraged him to consider it, wot with us both admiring Hanoverians so much, even if I did think it was a bit fishy.”
“And instead of being relieved from the attentions of predatory females for a few days, he’s had to spend most of his time fending off my cousin.”
Gibson chuckled. “Aye, and she’s more than a match for any of her better-born sisters, let me tell you.”
“Yes, she can be quite determined, I suppose,” Alicia admitted with a smile. “But anyway, I feel persuaded that His Grace is well able to take care of himself. Besides, you’ll be gone from here soon.”
“That we will. But the good news is that he’s found the right woman at last.”
“Really.”
Alicia was obliged to quell an irrational surge of jealousy. Quite what she had to be so jealous about, she couldn’t have said. All she knew was that the duke ought to have had better manners than to bed her if his affections were engaged elsewhere. Not that that sort of thing would be likely to affect an overbearing aristocrat of his ilk, especially one with a wager he was at such pains to win.
Presumably His Grace had discovered his lady love during the course of his visit to Lord Dawson’s estate the other day. His lordship’s wife had a younger, unmarried sister of great beauty. And so eminently suitable. Perhaps his interest in Lord Dawson’s sister-in-law also explained his true purpose in accepting her uncle’s invitation, which had obviously arrived at an opportune time.
“It’s funny,” Mr. Gibson said, “how you can look for something for years without any luck. Then blow me down if it don’t turn up in the last place you’d expect to find it.”
“I wish His Grace joy,” she said listlessly. They’d reached her animal hospital and Mr. Gibson opened the door for her. “Thank you, Mr. Gibson, but I’ll be quite safe here.”
Of Dukes and Deceptions Page 16