A Duke for Christmas

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  She took the poem from his hand. “‘Epithalamium,’” she read. “Yes, he wrote this shortly after we were married. I suppose I really was ‘like the petal of a flower not yet open.’”

  “Yes, you were.”

  Her smile was intentionally teasing. “A gallant gentleman would say that I still am.”

  “No. You’re open now.”

  “To say the least.” She chuckled softly. “Open but not yet fallen, I hope.”

  Chapter Ten

  Dominic grew so involved in the poems that midnight struck without his hearing it. Then he came upon one addressed to “Catherine, My Fair” and pushed the whole box away with such a sharp gesture that it fell over.

  He now felt that he knew Broderick Banner very well. So much genius allied with so little self-confidence was outside his experience. When he made his living with his pen, he’d met many a brilliant fellow who swaggered and the number of fools who were ashamed of themselves were far outnumbered by those proud of their ignorance. Perhaps some of the more egregious boasters had been hiding a deep sense of self-doubt under their self-aggrandizement.

  Yet whenever he started to feel sorry for Broderick, he would think of the new hardness in Sophie’s eyes, and his pity would blow aside like dust. He wished now that he’d risked more that night when he’d asked her to run away with him. If only he’d been able to persuade her, how much unhappiness would she have missed. All his vaunted gifts with words had proved useless when it came to gaining the one woman he’d wanted.

  Unable to sit still another moment, Dominic jumped up and began pacing back and forth. The friendship he’d begun to create with Sophie had real satisfactions. Working together, even on her late husband’s poems, would bring them closer still. But he had to be careful not to want more, not even in his deepest heart. To want more would be the surest way never to have more. “My God,” he said aloud, “how I hate paradox.”

  He was brought out of his reverie by a clatter from the hall. The thudding of a pair of booted feet running down the staircase, sliding, nearly falling, sent Dominic to the door. Kenton was facing him yet ran into him anyway, as if he were blind. Dominic caught him by the elbows and fended him off. “What is it? Maris?”

  “Yes, just now.” He wore only a shirt, breeches, and his boots. “She woke me.”

  “Did you tell her mother?”

  “No. I have to go for the doctor.” He struggled to get free from Dominic’s gentle grasp.

  “You wake Mrs. Lindel. She’ll know what to do for Maris. I’ll go fetch the doctor.”

  “You will?” Kenton patted him on the shoulders with both hands. “Yes. You go. Hurry,” he said, steering Dominic toward the front door. “There should be a horse saddled. I gave orders that one should always be ready, just in case.”

  “Good thinking,” Dominic said, digging in his heels lest he be propelled bodily through the closed door. “Let me get my coat, there’s a good fellow.” He disengaged from Kenton, not without difficulty, and stepped back into the library to yank the bellpull.

  Tremlow appeared as silently as a spirit materialization. Though wearing a scarlet dressing gown instead of his usual neat attire, his sangfroid suffered not a jot from being summoned in the middle of the night.

  “My coat and hat, Tremlow,” Dominic said. “I’m riding for the doctor’s house. Can you tell me where it is?”

  “I can tell you,” Kenton said. “It’s perfectly simple.”

  He opened his mouth, hesitated, and turned to the butler. “Where the devil does he live?”

  Being cut from the same cloth as Fissing, Tremlow showed his emotions only by the slightest widening of his eyes. “Take the main road to the village, Your Grace, taking the first turning just shy of the church. Dr. Richards resides behind the third door of the block of attached dwellings on your left. You’ll have to knock vigorously; his domestics are notoriously heavy sleepers.”

  “Thank you, Tremlow. You’d best pour out some brandy for his lordship.”

  “No,” Kenton said. “I can’t go to Maris with alcohol on my breath. Coffee, Tremlow. Pots of it.”

  “Very good, my lord. Godspeed, Your Grace.”

  Even with the thick woolen muffler that Tremlow added to his attire, Dominic felt that there were minuscule knives striking his face as he rode. Blinking hard, he put his head down and encouraged his stallion onward. Phrenicos showed a marked disinclination to head straight into the wind-driven ice droplets. But Dominic was afraid that if once the horse left the road, thickly coated though it was, they’d flounder in the ditch.

  “Come on, my lad, come on,” he murmured. “I don’t blame you, ‘deed I don’t, but there’s a charming lady who needs us.”

  Dominic felt the horse gather himself beneath him, as if he understood. With a greater energy, they passed through the trees and up the slight rise in the road. The wind seemed straight from Greenland as they came into the open, but Phrenicos had the pace now and continued on.

  Dismounting after following Tremlow’s directions, which were as excellent as might be expected, Dominic passed the reins under his arm and took the horse right up the steps. Recollecting Tremlow’s advice, Dominic pounded on the door like a battering ram.

  A window opened above his head with a screech of wet wood. “What is it? Who’s there? Good Gad, is that a horse? I’m not dosing a horse, not again.”

  Dominic stepped back, seeking the source of the

  voice. “Dr. Richards?”

  “If I’m not, young man, you’ve woken me up for nothing. What’s amiss?”

  “Lady Danesby. She’s ... well...”

  “Now? She’s a week ahead. Ah, well, it’s a rare baby that comes on schedule. You’re not Sir Kenton?” the doctor asked, peering down.

  “No. I’m a friend. I didn’t want Kenton to ride so far.”

  “Nervous, is he?”

  “One could say that.”

  “Go back. Tell them I’ll be there as soon as I harness the horse.”

  “May I do that for you?”

  “No, I thank you. My man eats his head off all day. I don’t mind waking him up even if I have to use a cold sponge.”

  Phrenicos traveled more willingly with the wind behind him and a comfortable stable ahead. The head groom received him with the sort of pride one usually found in a father. He motioned Dominic out of the saddle at almost the same instant he rode into the yard.

  Sophie stood at the rear door, a lamp held low “Dominic?”

  “The doctor will be here as soon as he can.” He took off his coat and low-crowned hat as he stepped in, knocking quite a lot of ice on the floor. Sophie all but leaped out of the way with a very out-of-character squeak.

  He glanced down and paused in the act of unknotting the scarf from around his throat. Her feet were bare—pale, arched, with the loveliest, straightest toes he’d ever seen. The instant she realized he was looking, she sank down a little so her dressing gown covered her feet. “I can’t find my slippers,” she said defiantly. “I think I left them in Rome.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m certainly not going to trouble my mother for a pair, not right now.”

  “Don’t your feet get cold?”

  “Not until someone drops snow all over the floor.” She tried to sound stern, but her pink cheeks gave away her true feelings.

  “Why didn’t you just put on a pair of shoes?” he asked.

  Her brows drew together and she sought for words. “I didn’t think of it. I must be more excited than I realized. I’d better go tell Kenton that the doctor is on the way.”

  “How is he holding up?”

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t left her side.”

  He walked with her to the stair, wishing he dared pick her up and keep her feet from the cold floor. The only reason he didn’t do it is that he wanted her to talk to him again in his lifetime.

  Sophie started up the steps, then stopped, half turning to look down at him. Her double-breasted wrapper twiste
d at the waist, accentuating her slenderness. “There’s coffee in the morning room if you want to warm up. Will you stay awake or go to bed?”

  “I think I’ll stay up. It’s not every day a fellow becomes a godfather.”

  “You?” Her smile warmed his heart more than any coffee ever brewed. “Then we have something in common. I’m also a godparent, as well as an aunt.”

  “There you have me. I can’t very well be an uncle, too, not without...” Dominic realized a moment too late where this piece of humor was leading. His guilty expression summoned a blush into her cheeks.

  “I’ll just...” she said, pointing awkwardly behind herself. “I’ll just...” She hurried up the stairs.

  When she came down again, she had put on a round gown and a pair of shoes.

  Dominic, calling himself every kind of fool, set himself the task of making her quite easy and comfortable again. The circumstances of their being awake so late, however, kept her from relaxing. Every sound brought her upright, her fingers digging into the arms of her chair, her eyes and ears fully alert. When Tremlow let the doctor in, she came to the doorway and stood as if at attention, though he hadn’t even seen his patient yet. At last Dominic, worn out by her nerves, brought up a diversion.

  “As long as we’re awake, do you mind if we talk some more about Broderick’s poems?” He’d reached the point where he could say her husband’s name without spitting quite so obviously.

  “I don’t know if this is a good time ...”

  “Perhaps not. Only I had a question about something

  that seemed a trifle odd.”

  “Odd? Oh, yes, I suppose they can be rather unconventional. He wanted, you see, to invent a new kind of prosody, a new form of metrical structure.”

  “I wasn’t referring to anything so erudite. I meant the titles.”

  “The titles?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  As he crossed the hall, he heard the sound of a woman’s bitter sobbing from upstairs. A cold fear gripped him, exactly as though a dead hand had seized his heart. He put his hand on the newel post, preparing to leap up the stairs when a discreet cough stopped him. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace,” said Tremlow.

  “What’s that ungodly noise?”

  “Lady Danesby’s maid, Your Grace, rather overwrought.”

  It was against his principles to give orders to other people’s servants, but this was in the nature of an emergency. “Well, silence her quickly before her ladyship hears. The last thing she needs is some banshee howling outside her door.”

  “Yes, Your Grace. I was about to see to the matter.”

  “Do so. And quietly.”

  When he entered the library, he gave the French doors a suspicious glance. Since the night of the burglary, he’d never felt really comfortable in this room. Not that he was windy, he hoped, but something here gave him the impression that he was being watched. He went to the doors and gave the handle a shake. It seemed that the household had begun to Sock these doors and the broken pane of glass had been replaced in record time. He drew the curtains with a jerk.

  Taking the box of poems from the drawer of a cabinet, Dominic returned to Sophie. “Now look at this,” he said, putting the casket down in front of her and opening it quickly. “Among these stones, the sea flows, turning dull rock to jewel tones. Foam blows, taking...” He squinted at the page. “What’s this word?”

  “Wing, I think.”

  “First of all, if you want these to be published, someone is going to have to make a clear copy.”

  “Yes, I agree. Broderick’s handwriting did leave something to be desired.”

  “That, and you never let the original copies out of your hands. It’s a lesson every writer learns, usually under the worst of circumstances.”

  “Do you speak from experience?” she asked, able to smile with ease now that her mind was diverted.

  “Bitter experience. A printer completely ruined an essay I wrote on Thomas Paine and I had given them the original and could not prove I hadn’t written the thing back to front.”

  “Poor you. I imagine it was a good essay. He was the revolutionary agitator, wasn’t he?”

  “Among other things. A man who would scorn to shake the hand of a duke, but I don’t think he would have minded an author. He was a fascinating man. Never had a day’s luck in his life.”

  “You were saying something about titles. Not ducal titles, but the titles of the poems?”

  Dominic brought his mind back to the problem at hand. One at least was solved: she no longer listened quite so intently for sounds from above. “Yes. Now this poem—wouldn’t you think it is about the sea? Not only does it mention the sea, all the ideas are about it. Even the cadence has something oceanic about it.”

  “Of course it’s about the sea. He wrote it in a little town on the Adriatic coast. Not Naples or Amalfi. Somewhere near there, though.”

  “Then why does he title it ‘Where White Lilies Grow’? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe he thought of the sea crests as white lilies. I wouldn’t be surprised. His poetry is often confusing upon a first reading.”

  “You knew him better than I, of course. But if ‘white lilies’ are a metaphor for the sea crests, why doesn’t he mention that image anywhere in the poem?”

  “Doesn’t he?” Sophie took up the piece of paper and read it, her forehead wrinkling with the effort. Dominic had to turn away to keep from smoothing it with his fingers, or his lips.

  “No,” she said, “you are right. That is odd. Are there any others like this? Where the title and the subject don’t seem to match?”

  “I haven’t looked at them all, but...” He flipped through the sheets of paper, catching one with a juggling motion when it floated off the edge of the table. “It’s this one,” he said, looking at it sideways, then putting it down and reaching for another. “No, this one. ‘Heart of Darkness, Heart of Stone,’ whatever that may mean.”

  “Is it about Catherine Margrave? I’m sorry; that was uncalled for.”

  “On the contrary. I would say that was mild, even parliamentary, language. Most of the women I’ve known would have made her life a nightmare, beginning with my aunt. Even Mother might have called her ‘unladylike.’“

  “Is that her worst insult?”

  “No, indeed. The greatest crime in her calendar is un-kindness. Followed by greed.”

  “My mother is like that too. She used to give this little frown and shake of her head whenever Maris and I would quarrel over the last bun or some toy.” She showed him.

  “Charming.”

  “Oh, not when I was a child. I used to dread that look. Our nurse would scold or slap. All Mother had to do was to turn to either of us and look.”

  She turned her head to read the poem he’d mentioned. The subject of the poem itself seemed to describe an ideal city like Coleridge’s Xanadu. Like that poem, this one was not finished or, at any rate, the poem broke off abruptly. “Is there a continuation of this one? It seems to end mid-stanza.”

  “Is it numbered?”

  She tilted the page to let the maximum amount of light fall upon it. “I think there’s a number here, but it’s very faint. We might be able to see it better by daylight.”

  A ticking noise made them look around. Tip came in, his cognac eyes seeming to ask if they had any objection to his presence. Dominic went down on one knee and Tip came up to him with a tentative wag of his plume-like tail. He seemed grateful for the attention,

  leaning against Dominic’s leg when he stood up. “They must have overlooked him when all the excitement started upstairs.”

  “Poor boy, he doesn’t have any idea what’s happening. Do you think he’ll enjoy having a baby in the house?”

  “Maybe not at first,” Dominic said. “But once the baby’s outgrown the tail-pulling stage, they’ll probably be the best of friends.”

  “I hope so. My father always had a dog at his heels, often more than one. I grew up feeli
ng that a house isn’t a home without a dog by the fire.”

  “Did you have one in Rome?”

  “No. Rome is populated by stray cats. Besides, my landlord didn’t allow pets in the house and Broderick...”

  “Broderick didn’t like dogs.”

  “Not very much.”

  Dominic wanted to ask if she’d known that before she’d married. Surely that dislike would have been reason enough to call off the wedding. It would have been enough for him, had he ever chosen another bride. “I am between dogs at the moment,” he said, hoping this was not too obvious a comparison in his favor. “My last one—Orly—died in the spring. I’m waiting ‘til his half sister has pups before choosing another.”

  “Do you think you could spare one for me?” Sophie asked. “I don’t think Mother would mind—that is, if I end up living at Finchley Old Place with her.”

  “Is there any doubt?”

  “Some,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation. “I find that I am not as likely to slip into my old role of younger daughter and sister as I thought I would be. I think I have changed too much to go back.”

  “You’ve grown. I can understand that. When I go north to visit, both my mother and my great-aunt treat me as if I were a mere youth once more. Rather than finding it invigorating, I soon begin to chafe at it. Especially as my aunt never had a very high opinion of my good sense.”

  “I suppose it can’t be helped,” Sophie said. “We have gone into the wider world while they have stayed quietly at home, busy with their own lives. That’s as it should be. But I can’t go back as if nothing had ever happened. I don’t want to forget either my happiness or my folly. I want to learn from them and keep on growing, not settle for a subordinate role again.”

  “No,” Dominic said. “I can’t see you as a quiet widow settled in a small English village. You should be...” He tried to throttle the words.

  Sophie looked at him with her lovely, intelligent eyes. “Unfortunately, my choices are limited. I haven’t enough funds to live as I did in Rome, nor would I if I could.”