Her Best Friend, the Duke

by Laura Martin

  His suggestion came too late, with the door to Caroline’s house already opening and the footman stepping out to open the door of the carriage. Frantically Caroline began fixing her hair, jabbing the pins in with such ferociousness that he winced in sympathy at the pain. It was the second time this week she was arriving home with her hair messed up because of him. If they weren’t careful, someone was going to notice.

  When the carriage door swung open she didn’t seem as poised and perfect as she had at the beginning of the night, but she at least didn’t look as though she had been half-ravaged in the back of the carriage.

  Before she stepped down Caroline glanced at him, confusion and a hint of sadness in her eyes. He knew he should say something, should explain or reassure her—anything would be better than this silence—but he found himself lost for words. He didn’t know what the kiss meant, he didn’t know how he felt about Caroline, didn’t even know if this had been a moment of madness or a manifestation of some deeper feelings.

  She didn’t look back as she disappeared inside the house, leaving James feeling deflated and unsettled.

  Chapter Twelve

  She hadn’t slept a single wink, so it wasn’t hard rousing herself before dawn to dress and creep from the house. By the time the clock showed half past five James had not called for her and she had to assume he wasn’t going to. Perhaps he had forgotten after the excitement of the night before or perhaps he was trying to stop her from attending the duel by making it harder for her to get there.

  She felt guilty about creeping out unaccompanied, but she knew she had to be there. The night before she had written a short note to her mother, explaining she had woken early and gone out for a ride and now she folded this note in half and left it on the little table in the hallway before slipping out through the kitchen to the side passage and to the front of the house that way. Outside, Richard, the young boy her parents employed to run errands and help in the kitchens, was waiting with her horse. She’d asked him yesterday to fetch her horse from the stables where he was kept while they resided in London and have him saddled and waiting for her so she could make a speedy exit. Now all she needed to do was find her way to Hampstead Heath in the dark.

  She’d ridden out that way before and knew it would take about an hour with the streets more or less empty and no obstructions. Hampstead Heath was huge in area, but she had discussed the matter with Henrietta, who despite her young years seemed to have much more practical experience than Caroline, and she’d directed her to a spot on the southern edge of the Heath that was popular for duels.

  She’d only been riding for five minutes when there was a shout behind her. Caroline felt her heart begin to thump in her chest as she turned and looked, wondering if she should just spur her horse into a gallop to outrun any danger.

  Emerging out of the darkness on horseback was a figure clad in an elegant riding habit and hat, her posture perfect and a wide grin on her face.

  ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,’ Henrietta said.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Caroline couldn’t believe her cousin was out here in the street before dawn.

  ‘Accompanying you.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Of course I can. Mother doesn’t rise until at least ten and I’ve bribed my maid to inform her I went for an early stroll with you when she does emerge. Now we’re just two young women out for a civilised ride, nothing scandalous about it, rather than you skulking through the darkness on your own.’

  ‘I wasn’t skulking.’ Caroline said, unable to take her eyes off Henrietta. ‘Who are you?’ she murmured. She loved her cousin—despite the six-year difference in their age they had grown close over the last few months—but Caroline was beginning to realise that there were hidden depths to Henrietta. She wasn’t like most eighteen-year-olds, at least not the superficial personas they let the others see at social occasions.

  ‘A loving cousin,’ Henrietta said with a mischievous smile and nudged her horse forward in the darkness. ‘We’d better get moving or the duel will be over before we reach Hampstead.’

  ‘As the older cousin I feel as though I should be doing more to discourage you from attending...’

  ‘Rest assured, nothing you could say will stop me. Now tell me all about what happened to make the Duke leap to the defence of your honour again.’

  ‘He didn’t leap,’ Caroline muttered, feeling the familiar churning in her stomach that welled up every time she thought of James fighting on her behalf. If he got injured... She shook her head. He was cautious, astute and physically fit, he had the odds on his side.

  ‘Tell me about it anyway.’

  ‘I was out for a ride with Lord Hauxton,’ Caroline began, seeing the gleam in her cousin’s eyes and knowing she wouldn’t get through the story without at least a dozen interruptions.

  ‘Lord Hauxton, he’s the one who wants to marry you?’

  ‘He hasn’t asked.’

  ‘And he’s friends with the Duke?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How wonderfully interwoven.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, Lord Hauxton is probably going to propose to you.’ Henrietta held up a gloved hand to stop Caroline’s interruption. ‘And he’s friends with the Duke, who is the man you wish would propose to you.’

  ‘No... I...’ Caroline said, but was silenced by a knowing look from Henrietta.

  She chewed her lip, wondering if everyone knew her deep, dark secret. A few days ago her mother had told her she knew of Caroline’s feelings for James and now it seemed Henrietta knew as well.

  ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. He is rather dashing, all tall and dark and handsome. And rich. Although he’s a little on the old side.’

  ‘He’s only forty-one.’

  ‘So you admit it?’

  ‘He’s a friend,’ Caroline said stubbornly. ‘A very good friend.’

  ‘A friend you wish would warm your bed every night.’

  ‘Henrietta,’ Caroline said, scandalised. Her cousin shouldn’t know of such things. Caroline was sure she’d been much more innocent at eighteen.

  ‘There’s no need to pretend otherwise, there’s hardly anyone here to overhear us.’

  The streets were deserted and they were moving at a good pace through London. Caroline looked about her, aware she was in an area she had only passed through on a couple of occasions, but instead of feeling nervous about the ride she could only feel petrified at the ordeal that was to come.

  ‘Does everyone know?’ Caroline queried softly.

  ‘That you’re in love with the Duke?’ Henrietta shrugged. ‘I think everyone assumes you must be, or thinks you’re having some sort of scandalous affair, but no one knows you’ve been head over heels in love with him for years.’

  ‘Good.’ The idea of people speculating about her feelings made her uncomfortable, but it was better than everyone knowing for certain she was in love with a man who would never love her back.

  ‘Does he know?’

  Caroline shook her head. She thought back to the kiss they’d shared the night before, her entire body flushing with warmth at the memory. It had been a moment of madness, one spliced with sheer pleasure. She’d seen the way James had been looking at her the past few days, seen the way his eyes flicked to her lips, the way he’d found innocuous little ways to touch her. She didn’t dare hope it meant anything, not anything more than a passing desire anyway.

  Liar, she admitted to herself. She did hope. She hoped and dreamed and wished. Five years she’d known James, five years of imagining what it would be like if he took her in his arms and kissed her. Then last night it had happened.

  ‘I think he may suspect,’ Caroline said slowly. ‘He didn’t, until recently, but I think he might have a notion I have deeper feelings for him than I have let on.’

  ‘But he do
esn’t feel the same way about you?’ Henrietta’s question was gentle, but it made Caroline shift uncomfortably none the less.

  She thought of the desire in his eyes, the look of possessiveness as he’d kissed her She could still feel the softness of his lips on her own as if the kiss had been mere seconds ago, not hours.

  Caroline bit her lip before forcing herself to look straight ahead. She wouldn’t delude herself into thinking the kiss had been anything more than an outpouring of desire. ‘He likes me, cares for me as a friend, but he does not love me.’

  ‘You’ve loved him for a long time, haven’t you?’ Caroline was surprised by the empathy in her cousin’s voice and wondered when the little scrap of a girl she had run around the gardens with had grown up into a thoughtful and empathetic young woman.

  Taking a deep breath, she nodded. It was the first time she’d admitted that she’d been besotted with James since they’d first met, outside of her letters to Georgina. They were cathartic, but suddenly she wished to tell someone who could respond immediately, who could understand how she felt each and every day. ‘I’ve loved him since the day I met him.’

  ‘Perhaps you should tell him. He can’t act unless he knows the depth of your feelings.’

  ‘Knowing James, he’d ask me to marry him.’

  ‘Isn’t that a good thing?’

  ‘No,’ Caroline said emphatically, emphasising her view. ‘I don’t want him to marry me out of some sort of misplaced sense of obligation.’

  ‘Even if it meant you got to spend every day with the man you loved?’

  ‘I want him to be happy and I think he could be happy with me, but what if we married and then he fell in love with someone else? He’d be tied to a woman he didn’t love, unable to follow his heart.’

  ‘He’s at least forty, it hasn’t happened so far,’ Henrietta said.

  Caroline squared her shoulders. ‘I’ve accepted I need to move on from the Duke. We will be friends and nothing more, just like we always have been.’

  ‘I heard a rumour you’ve been seen with Lord Hauxton on quite a few occasions.’

  ‘He seems a very nice man.’

  ‘Nice,’ Henrietta snorted. ‘That’s what young girls dream about when they’re looking for a husband.’

  ‘I think nice is underrated. I’m going to have to live with whomever I marry for the rest of my life.’

  ‘I know.’ Henrietta sighed heavily.

  ‘What about you? You’re eighteen, there must be someone who has caught your eye?’

  ‘No.’ Her reply was a little too quick, a little too firm, so immediately Caroline was intrigued. She wondered if it were related to Henrietta’s sessions in the artist’s studio she went to weekly or if it were another secret altogether.

  They rode in silence for a few minutes, Caroline trying to ignore the cold that was permeating through her riding habit. There were swirls of fog in the distance as the buildings thinned and they could see flashes of the countryside beyond.

  ‘Whoever decided to make duels so inconveniently far out of London?’ Henrietta murmured as they finally spotted the edge of the Heath.

  ‘I suppose it keeps them out of the public eye.’

  ‘Far less likely to be caught,’ Henrietta conceded, ‘but awkward to get to so early in the morning.’

  ‘How do you know so much about duelling?’ Caroline asked as Henrietta guided them round the edge of the Heath before selecting a path into the interior. Without her cousin she would already be hopelessly lost and probably would be still riding round at midday having long missed the duel.

  She shrugged, ‘I’ve been to one or two.’

  ‘One or two? How on earth have you been involved in one or two duels?’

  ‘Sometimes I socialise with a slightly volatile group of people.’

  ‘So is it one or two?’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Four?’

  Henrietta nodded.

  ‘These are artists, aren’t they?’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I saw you go into that house the other day, the one where you hire the room for an hour and paint.’

  Henrietta looked at her suspiciously. ‘You followed me?’

  ‘No. Well, yes. But I was worried about you.’ She hadn’t wanted to tell her cousin she knew her secret like this, she’d hoped Henrietta would confide in her and there would be no need to reveal she’d followed her.

  Henrietta cocked her head to one side for a moment as if weighing up whether to be angry, then she smiled. ‘Do you know, I’ve been going there to paint for almost a year and you’re the only person ever to find out.’

  ‘Why do you go there to paint? Surely you could paint at home—your mother would encourage it.’

  ‘Watercolours, paintings of flowers or scenery or perhaps a tame little portrait.’ Henrietta wrinkled her nose up with disgust.

  ‘What do you paint?’ Caroline heard the hint of unease in her own voice.

  ‘Life. Real life.’ There was a shine to her eyes that Caroline had never seen before and it made her yearn for something of her own. Henrietta was passionate about her painting, she continued even if doing so meant risking her reputation. It must be rewarding to have something like that.

  Caroline was just about to ask more about it when Henrietta pointed through the darkness to a huddle of figures half-camouflaged by the trees. Cautiously they turned their horses towards the group, wanting to be sure it was James before they alerted the men to their presence. Any stranger out here could be up to no good and Caroline didn’t fancy getting in their way.

  As they rode closer Caroline felt some of the tension seep from her shoulders as she recognised James and Lord Hauxton standing shoulder to shoulder. Both men were frowning deeply at her as she approached, although it was James who moved first.

  ‘What the devil do you think you’re doing here?’

  ‘I told you I would come.’

  ‘I didn’t think you would be so foolish when it came to it.’

  ‘Nor I you,’ she said coolly.

  ‘I told you last night I have no choice.’

  ‘Of course you do. It just happens not to be a choice you wish to take.’ Caroline looked around, noting the first streaks of dawn appearing on the horizon. It was quiet on the Heath, eerily so, with the only noise coming from the uneasy shifting of her horse. ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘I wouldn’t celebrate just yet. West is notorious for being late.’

  Caroline peered out at the rolling hills of the Heath, trying to make out anyone approaching through the pale light. She knew she should go over and greet Lord Hauxton properly, but the nerves in her stomach were making her tense and she felt as though she were frozen in place.

  ‘Miss Yaxley.’ Lord Hauxton approached, saving her from having to move. ‘You’re here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I would never presume to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do...’ he said with a soft smile. ‘But should you really be here?’

  Grimacing, she shook her head. ‘I hoped I might help you all to come to a peaceful conclusion.’ In truth, she wasn’t so vain to think she could influence these three men when they seemed so set on this path, but she’d needed to be here, to see everything unfold with her own eyes all the same.

  ‘He’s here,’ Henrietta said from her position behind Caroline.

  Everyone turned, watching West approach with another man riding alongside him.

  ‘He’s brought a second,’ Milton said flatly.

  ‘But no doctor.’

  West halted fifty feet away, the other gentleman continuing on without him.

  ‘Good morning, Your Grace, Lord Hauxton.’ He nodded to each of them in turn, pausing with a frown as he took in Caroline and Henrietta.

  ‘Mr Harcourt.’

&n
bsp; Mr Harcourt cleared his throat a couple of times, looking uneasily at the two men.

  ‘I was hoping there might be a way to settle this amicably.’ He spoke softly, his accent a barely audible lilt of the west country smothered by aristocratic tones.

  ‘West wants that?’

  Caroline felt her hopes begin to rise and felt her hand grip hold of the reins even tighter as she waited for Mr Harcourt’s answer.

  Mr Harcourt grimaced. ‘Lord West has not stopped drinking since demanding this duel.’

  There was a moment of silence as they all regarded the man standing in the distance, then Caroline heard herself gasp as she saw the pistol he was brandishing in his hand.

  ‘Enough.’ James strode up the hill towards West, his shoulders squared and gait stiff, as if ready for battle.

  It took Caroline a few seconds to realise he was actually going to walk up to a man wielding a pistol and confront him. She watched in amazement before coming to her senses and slipping out of the saddle. She had to stop him, she had to save him.

  As she made to run after James she felt a firm hand on her arm.

  ‘Let him go,’ Milton said. ‘He’s got a sensible head and quick reflexes, I doubt an inebriated West will even get the chance to wave his pistol in Heydon’s direction. Besides, you’ll just distract them.’

  Caroline knew he was right, but almost carried on up the hill anyway. It went against her nature to stay still and do nothing, so she found herself shifting from foot to foot.

  As James stopped a few feet away from West, Caroline took a deep breath in and held it. Without even realising she was doing it she began making silent bargains for James’s safety.

  If he comes through this unscathed, I’ll do more for charity. If James lives, I’ll be a better daughter. If he survives, I’ll tell him how I feel.

  Henrietta had slipped from her horse, too, and was now standing beside Caroline and silently she gripped her cousin’s hand in support. Despite Lord Hauxton’s words a nervous energy radiated from him and his gaze hadn’t left his two friends across the Heath.