The Duke's Undoing (Three Rogues and Their Ladies)

by Vandagriff, G. G.

  Slowly the new reality settled on her and with it a desire to go back to London immediately. Remembering the grief she had felt at being torn from his side, she now longed to throw herself on Ruisdell’s chest and sob out her relief.

  Then she remembered the gossip, and the memory clamped down on her eagerness. She was still the trigger for this maelstrom of events. Much as she wanted to run to the duke’s side, she knew that would only drive the scandal to new heights. She was a social pariah. For the time being, at least, she must remain here. She would finish her story, Misunderstood. She was happy that it would not now end in a tragedy.

  Wrapping her arms around herself, she squeezed. Ruisdell no longer needed to exist solely on her foolscap sheets. His life need not be related merely by her quill.

  Jumping to her feet, she stepped out of her slippers and, holding up her skirts, waded into the pool and began kicking the water in joyful splashes, over and over until she was shouting with laughter. It was thus that her aunt found her.

  “Elise! Have you lost your mind?”

  Turning, she stepped out of the pool and running across the mossy ground, she embraced her aunt. “He is alive! Aunt Clarice, the duke is not dead!”

  Her aunt was nonplussed. She held Elise away from her, looking into her face. “Why, I believe you are in love with him!”

  “Yes, of course I am!”

  “Darling girl, there is still the matter of his reputation. Does that not give you pause?”

  “Not if he does not mind my sullied reputation. Four fiancés!” She paused and sobered. “And the cause of one man’s death.”

  “You are not the cause of the earl’s death, dear. He was, most unfortunately, mad. And caused you a great deal of trouble, fear, and heartache.”

  “Society will not see it that way,” she murmured, laying her head on her aunt’s substantial bosom.

  “Well, the viscount has every intention of rescuing your reputation. He is so vastly popular with the ton, I think that will help a great deal.”

  “To the devil with the viscount!” Elise said.

  “Elise!”

  “Don’t leave us alone, Aunt, I beg of you. Last time you did that, he unbuttoned my dress!”

  “So you told your mother. I was shocked, I’ll allow.”

  “Yes. I strongly suspect that he’s a rake. I don’t know how he’s come by his angelic reputation. And as for the duke, I believe that my Joshua reformed him.” Elise put her feet back into her slippers. “Please don’t leave me alone with Gregory. I’m dreadfully afraid that he has come to renew his addresses.”

  Her aunt considered this for a moment. “This is what you should do, my love. If he wishes to be private with you, tell him that because of his previous behavior, you will only consent to such a conversation in broad daylight, out of doors, within sight of the house. That should keep him in line.”

  “But can you not withhold your consent to a match?”

  “When your mother practically forced him into it? She trumps me, my love.”

  Elise’s vision of a reunion with her duke was the only thing that kept her from falling into gloom. “Drat these long summer evenings!” she said.

  “If you don’t care to face these things tonight, I will just drop a little hint into his ear. I’ll tell him that you are vastly upset at the injustice of Robert’s hanging.”

  “And that is not a lie! I am. Vastly, as you say. For a while, not even the news of the duke could penetrate my poor brain.”

  “We shall play loo this evening.”

  “What a bore!”

  Her aunt’s strategy worked, and though Elise was on the receiving end of many covert glances and accidental touches, Gregory did not seek to talk to her alone. Once the tea tray was brought in, however, he broached the topic of the duke.

  “Did you know Ruisdell and I were up at Oxford together?”

  “No,” Elise said, surprised. “I did not think you were well acquainted with him.”

  “I am, unfortunately.”

  “Unfortunately? Why, you said he was a generous donor to the soup kitchen.”

  “Trying to get back in my good graces, I expect. I was surprised, I’ll admit. He approached me, not I him.”

  “I did not know you thought ill of him.”

  “He is a rogue, dear Elise. Everyone knows that.”

  “He doesn’t seem so to me.”

  “Perhaps I should acquaint you with ancient history.”

  Aunt Clarice interrupted. “I did not take you for a talebearer, my lord.”

  “In the ordinary manner of things, I’m not. But since Ruisdell insinuated himself into your household, I feel I must put you on your guard.”

  “What do you mean?” Elise asked.

  “The man cheats at cards.”

  Elise laughed. “Gregory, you are detestable. I don’t believe you for a moment. He is an honorable man. Why, he was a general in the Peninsular campaign! You should not listen to such scurrilous accusations. I thought better of you.”

  “It is not just gossip, Elise. It was I who rumbled him.”

  “You must be careful with your accusations, my lord,” Aunt Clarice said. “Cheating at cards is held by the ton to be even worse than murder. I cannot believe it of the duke.”

  “I see I must tell you how it was,” Gregory said, declining tea and pouring himself a brandy. “There was a group of us—Somerset, Rochdale, Ruisdell, and I—used to play fairly deep in our rooms up at Oxford. Ruisdell won a lot of money. The fair-haired boy. I thought it was just that he had the devil of a memory for cards.” He sipped his brandy. “Then one night, I don’t remember what prompted it, but I asked to examine the pack.” He looked down into his glass with a thoughtful air. “Found the aces and court cards scratched just barely with a pin or something like it. Called him on it.”

  “Why could it not have been Rochdale or Somerset?” Elise demanded, still certain of the duke’s innocence.

  “Ruisdell’s rooms. Ruisdell’s cards.”

  Elise thought of the man she knew, delineating what she knew of him once more. Her first intimation of his character had come with the letter of condolence, a sincere and compassionate gesture. Her second had come with his participation in the soup kitchen funding. Then there had been the drawing of Old Father Tree and his offer of assistance. Following that, his desire to protect her from Robert. She had reflected on these things many times and was completely unable to see in them any indication of the enormous character weakness that Chessingden claimed.

  “I still don’t believe it. And the marquis is sincerely attached to him, so I know he doesn’t believe it either. Why should Rochdale have not substituted his own pack? You were all undoubtedly foxed. I can think of nothing easier.”

  “Why are you so anxious to defend the duke?”

  “He has been unstintingly kind to me and demanded nothing in return. Now, I will listen to no more of this.” She set her tea cup down. “I have had two shocks today already and desire nothing so much as my bed. Goodnight, Aunt. Goodnight, Gregory.”

  Once in bed, she did not even give the viscount’s claim a second thought. She slept on her side with a pillow wrapped in her arms. It was the best night’s sleep she had since coming to Yorkshire.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  IN WHICH THE DUKE TRAVELS TO BATH

  Ruisdell was troubled by Elise’s behavior. Why, if she loved him, did she remain in Bath? Every day he thought to see her return, but every time he called, Bates informed him regretfully that Miss Edwards was still from home.

  His recovery had been slow because of the blood he had lost. The duke was well aware that he owed his life to Elise. He was also aware that the two of them were swimming in scandal broth. Many a self-righteous matron had exclaimed (now that he was out of danger of dying) that nothing so terrible would have occurred if the duke and Miss Edwards had not been out alone in the garden.

  When Somerset came to pay his customary morning visit two months after Elise�
��s disappearance, he brought news. “Chessingden’s left town. Supposed to go to dinner Rochdale’s wife threw last night. Devilish out of temper she was. Numbers wrong.”

  “How do you know he’s out of town?”

  “Went by his lodgings.”

  “Did anyone know where the fellow went?”

  “No. Dashed secretive.”

  “Hmm.” The duke pondered this. “Trying to get the drop on me, I shouldn’t wonder. Must have found Elise.”

  “Drop on you?” Somerset asked, apparently bewildered.

  “Don’t be a slow top, George. You must know I mean to marry her!”

  The marquis stood staring at him as he finished shaving and buried his face in a towel.

  “Not like you, dash it! Never knew you to save a chit from scandal! Marriage!”

  “I’ll thank you not to refer to her as a chit, Somerset! She’s perfection. And I’m not marrying her to save her from scandal. Believe it or not, I love the woman. And believe it or not, she loves me. So there you have it.”

  “Chessingden’s besotted. Going to offer for her again.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Rumor mill.”

  “Well, I’d tell you not to listen to rumors, but that one has the ring of truth. Thick-skinned fellow. She said she wouldn’t have him in front of me and her mother and aunt.”

  While the duke allowed Richards to dress him, George appeared to ponder this. Ruisdell grinned. His friend had never been known for the speed of his mental processes in anything except cards.

  “Won’t be bested by you,” his friend said finally. “That old business at Oxford.”

  Ruisdell’s light mood deserted him and he clamped his jaw shut. “He wouldn’t dare.”

  “You know better.”

  “The devil!” He called his valet back as he was leaving the room. “Richards, pack my portmanteau. For a week’s duration.”

  “Going somewhere?”

  “You overwhelm me with your brilliance, Somerset. Elise spoke of going to Bath. I had hoped she would come to me. Can’t imagine why she hasn’t. But if Chessingden’s gone after her to do mischief, then I must follow before she accepts him to save her reputation. I know she despises him, and I wouldn’t wish Chessingden on my worst enemy!”

  “Coming with you,” the marquis announced. “May need character witness.”

  Ruisdell patted his friend on the shoulder. “In that case you’d better go home and pack. I hope to leave in time to get there while there’s still daylight. You’re a brick, George.”

  The two men in the duke’s curricle pulled into the spa just as the sun was setting. Putting up at the White Hart, they checked to see if Chessingden were there, as well. They were disappointed. “He must be at the York.”

  “How will you find her?”

  “Nothing simpler. Unless she has forgone society altogether, she’ll be in the Pump Room tomorrow. We must put our names in the subscription book for the Assemblies. There should be something in either the upper or lower rooms tomorrow night. Now, I intend to take a stroll. It was a dashed long drive from London.”

  The duke slept that night only with difficulty. It was not that he was overly worried about Elise accepting Chessingden, in spite of his probable version of the Oxford Episode. He was so eager to see Elise’s bright eyes again, to finally share with her their first kiss, that he fell to waking dreams about her. He saw her sitting in Green Park, heavily veiled. Knowing that she was reading his letter about Beynon’s death struck him as significant. He remembered the voice he had heard and was willing to swear that it had been Beynon’s voice.

  What a confounded coil he had made of everything! He should never have risked her reputation by attempting a kiss among the shrubbery. But he truly had not, until that evening, realized that he was for the first time in his life respectably in love. That he wanted to marry her. When had it ceased to be a game with him? Ruisdell was inclined to think that he had been enslaved from the moment he saw her on the park bench. There had been that connection between them, like a golden chain, that had strung itself from her solitary figure to where he sat on his own bench. Along that chain he had felt her loneliness, her heartache. It had awakened a yawning fissure inside of him: his own loneliness. Loneliness he had discounted since Beynon’s death.

  Providence truly worked in mysterious ways. Elise and Beynon had loved each other, shaped each other. When he was the recipient of Beynon’s confidences and tales of Elise, had he not wished for such a love? Had Beynon not stretched his soul with the awareness that such a relationship could exist? The duke knew he wasn’t as worthy of Elise as Beynon had been. But that did not stop him from feeling that his adjutant had somehow bequeathed her to him, to protect, to support, and to love. He would endeavor to be worthy of her in all ways.

  She had made it quite clear what she thought of his way of life. Or what had been his way of life before going off to war. He could reassure her, in perfect truth, that the war had changed him. Beynon had changed him. Would loving Elise, marrying Elise, rid him of his waking nightmares of dead men? What a bonus that would be!

  After such a night, he was very anxious to find his beloved the next day. He dressed in his new bottle green coat that Richards had had made to replace the one he had worn beneath his domino the night he was stabbed. George was breakfasting in their private parlor downstairs when he joined him.

  “Haven’t seen you in such spirits since you got back from the war,” Somerset told him.

  “Blame it on love!”

  In the grip of his passion, the duke, accompanied by the marquis, went to the Pump Room at eleven o’clock, the most fashionable hour. The lovely Georgian room with its classical biscuit and white façade, vaulted ceiling, floor to ceiling windows, and string quartet was a lovely place, filled with summer pastels of women’s muslin gowns. Trying not to look too eager, Ruisdell circulated through the room, abandoning the slower marquis. It seemed that there were few young women. A preponderance of turbaned dowagers gossiped. Some, looking at him with raised eyebrows, then leaned in to tell their circle that that rogue, the Duke of Ruisdell, was looking about for someone. He did not ignore the dowagers, for he was looking for Lady Clarice, as well. Neither his beloved nor her aunt appeared to be present.

  Somerset rejoined him when he was in the last circle of his search. He was not alone. Of all people, he had Lady Marianne on his arm. Ruisdell swore beneath his breath.

  “Your Grace,” she said as she swept him an exaggerated curtsey. “What brings you to Bath? Here to take the waters for your wounds? I sent you several billets and even some roses when you were in such dire straits. I never heard a word.”

  He looked at the woman. Her red hair had been cut off so that it now curled over her head in windswept profusion, accenting her high cheekbones and large lavender eyes. Her dress was the latest mode, high-waisted with a very low neckline. Not for Marianne a chemisette, though it was morning. The woman who had once so tempted him appeared overblown and frowsy. Instead, he ached for a pair of midnight blue eyes, a head of black curly hair, and a trim but tempting figure that moved with the grace of an angel.

  He made Marianne a brief bow. The eyes of the dowagers were upon them. Leaving George, she put her arm through his, casually leaning into him in the way she had so that her breasts rubbed against his sleeve. “Let us stroll a bit, and you can give me an account of the attack. Is it true what they are saying? That it was Miss Edward’s former fiancé Lord Waterford who attacked you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, refusing to budge from where he stood. “I was otherwise occupied, and the blow came from behind. I never saw my assailant.”

  George added. “Waterford was hanged on Tyburn Hill.”

  “Is it true that he is . . . was . . . insane? That he tried to kidnap Miss Edwards?”

  “Yes,” the duke said. “Have you seen her here in Bath, by chance?”

  “Oh, you are looking for her? I thought she broke your engag
ement. How very careless she seems to be with her fiancés.”

  He gritted his teeth. Somerset sent him a warning look. His friend knew he was about to be rude. Ruisdell did not disappoint. “And your fiancé? Are you perhaps here with him? It seems to me that he is of an age to suffer rheumatism. I understand the waters are very beneficial for that ailment.”

  She merely laughed. “The dear duc has no rheumatism, I can assure you. He is quite a vigorous man. In every way.”

  “Then why, may I ask, are you hanging on my arm?”

  “To cause talk, of course.” She stood on tiptoe, and before he knew what she was about, she had kissed him on the lips. In broad daylight. In front of all the Bath gossips. For the first time, he hoped that Elise was not in Bath.

  Lady Marianne looked at him with melting eyes. “You will always be my only real love.” Then, extracting a lacy handkerchief from her reticule, she dabbed at her eyes in a very affecting manner. Ignoring George, she moved so that her forehead leaned against the duke’s shoulder. “I love you so. I will not let you go to that scandalous woman. She is a black widow spider. Her first two fiancés dead!”

  Wrenching himself free, the duke said, “You have no say in the matter.” Bowing curtly, he left her standing with her mouth open.

  His next course of action was to find Mr. Knight and write his name in the subscription book, with the object of examining it for Elise’s name. In this, he was unsuccessful. Going back several pages he was disappointed to see that neither hers nor her aunt’s name was among those who had subscribed to the assemblies, lectures, and musical performances during the past two months.

  If she was in Bath, Elise was keeping to herself. But surely, she wouldn’t stay indoors all the time! He recalled how much she loved riding in Hyde Park. Returning to the inn, the duke saddled Jupiter and began to search the streets all the way up to the Royal Crescent. In spite of his inability to find his lady, he found the ride pleasant. The weather was wonderful for early August, and a gentle breeze blew. The spa was idyllic with all its Georgian dwellings and evenly paved streets of cobblestone.