To Love a Duchess EPB

by Karen Ranney

  How many times in the past two years had she wished her mother had survived the cancer that had taken her life? How many times had she spoken to her in the quiet of the night, as if praying more to her mother than to God Himself?

  “Why was Drummond in your bedroom?”

  She didn’t remember that part. When she remained silent, Ella continued.

  “You returned from the dinner early, Your Grace.”

  Was the woman going to challenge everything she did? Yes, if Ella proved faithful to her past.

  Suzanne was so tired, almost too tired to care that she was wet and had probably soaked the mattress. Her head hung down, her hair plastered against her cheeks. She didn’t bother removing it.

  She stood, finally, a little wobbly and using the mattress behind her as a bulwark. Each separate garment was stripped from her, Ella’s ministrations not requiring any thought. All she needed to do was stand as straight as she was able, given that the room was spinning again, and obey her maid’s commands. Lift that foot, then that one. Raise your arm. Lower it, Your Grace.

  Ella led her into the bathing chamber, handed her a cloth to wash her face as she washed and dried the rest of Suzanne’s body. In earlier days, before Ella, she would have dismissed her maid and bathed in the polished marble tub across the room.

  If she hadn’t been so tired. If she had cared a bit more. If it hadn’t been beyond her.

  She raised her arms again when Ella dressed her in a voluminous silk nightgown. Once attired for the night, with all her other needs taken care of, she was led to the vanity, where Ella removed the rest of her hairpins and began to dry her hair with a thick towel.

  “I’ve looked through your garments, Your Grace, and I can’t find it.”

  She stared at Ella’s reflection in the mirror, uncertain what the other woman was talking about.

  “Your hairpin. Your mother’s hairpin.”

  Did she truly need to care about her mother’s hairpin? Would her mother mind if it was lost? Did angels care about such things?

  She was so very tired, but she tried to remember what had happened tonight. Her father had been displeased. She’d taken too many glasses of wine from the footmen circulating in the public rooms. She’d dared to look unimpressed at some official’s title. Or perhaps she’d done something else for which she’d been summarily banished.

  Earlier, however, she’d pretended attentiveness as she was introduced to her father’s newest protégé. She’d answered the questions put to her with a half smile on her face. She’d endured the endless conversations swirling around her.

  Now she just wanted to be left alone.

  No one seemed to understand that. Not Ella. Certainly not her father. Not even her Scottish majordomo.

  She opened her eyes and stared at her image in the mirror. There was a red mark on her cheek. When had that happened? She suddenly remembered. She’d fallen and he’d picked her up as if she’d weighed no more than a feather.

  Abruptly, Ella thrust a glass in front of her.

  Without looking she knew what the glass contained. A green liquid that smelled of grass and promised oblivion.

  “I don’t need it,” she said. The wine had dulled her wits, numbing her to everything.

  “I’m instructed to give it to you, Your Grace.”

  Her father’s orders. Keep Suzanne in a half-dazed state both day and night. She’s more amenable that way. She smiles more. She will agree to almost anything.

  She took the glass, but didn’t drink it.

  Ella didn’t move. She would remain where she was until Suzanne downed the contents. Part of her didn’t want to drink it. Another part, more the coward, craved the stupor that would come over her when she did.

  To forget, that was the aim. To pretend that nothing had ever happened. To live in a perpetual dream. If only she could. If only she didn’t have to wake every day.

  “You can leave, Ella. I’ll drink it later.”

  How strange that it hurt to talk. She pressed her fingers to her cheek.

  “If you don’t mind, Your Grace, I’ll stay until you finish the draught.”

  Leave me. Words she didn’t say. What difference did it make, in the end? She would take the potion and sleep. Tomorrow would be the same as today. Dress, Suzanne. Be pretty, if vacuous. Smile when commanded. Turn this way, then that. Nod or shake your head, depending on the situation or the dictate. She was only a body, not unlike those marionettes she’d once seen at Covent Garden. No one cared what she felt or thought. Why shouldn’t she live in the gray beyond?

  She downed the contents of the glass and handed it back to Ella, who smiled. Was that triumph she saw in the other woman’s eyes? She didn’t care about that, either.

  Chapter Four

  Adam took one of the Marsley carriages to Schomberg House in central London, but he made a quick side trip first.

  Mrs. Ross, a widow and his landlady, had begun taking in boarders of a certain type to stave off loneliness, a fact she shared with him when he’d first arrived in London.

  “I’m partial to military men, myself,” she’d said. “They can handle themselves, and they’re handy to have around. They know what’s what.”

  He’d only nodded at the time, but she’d called on him over the years. He’d fixed a broken table leg, escorted a boarder who hadn’t paid her for three weeks back over the threshold, examined an oil lamp and declared it inoperable, moved countless pieces of furniture, and had been as helpful as he could be when he was there.

  Whenever he announced that he’d be away for a few weeks, she only nodded and asked him if he knew when he’d return. On some occasions, he’d been able to give her an answer. Most of the time he could only give her a general idea, but he always paid his rent ahead of time so she’d keep his rooms and dust and tidy up as needed.

  She’d taken one look at the scrawny black kitten he’d found trapped outside the duchess’s sitting room and welcomed him into her home.

  The poor thing had been shivering and terrified when he’d finally found it. Somehow it had crawled under an outcropping, a bit of decorative brickwork where there was some shelter from the storm. He’d wrapped it in a towel, warmed it, and managed to feed it some of his breakfast before bringing it to Mrs. Ross.

  “Oh my, yes, what a little darling. Of course he can be our mouser.”

  She’d welcomed him back to England with the same generosity of spirit. He’d been ill on the ship, suffering the effects of a lingering fever, and Mrs. Ross had nursed him back to health. He didn’t have any doubt that she’d treat the kitten with the same kindness.

  Some people in the world were generous and caring. Mrs. Ross was one of those.

  What type of person was the duchess?

  He hadn’t been able to stop thinking of her, and that both annoyed and concerned him. If she attempted to end her life again, would someone be there to prevent it?

  The carriage rolled to a stop in front of Schomberg House. The place was rumored to have once been a gambling den and a brothel. Now the redbrick-and-stone four-story building housed the organization for which he worked. They were housed here almost as an afterthought, but close enough to the War Office in Cumberland House, like misbehaving children under an adult’s stern guidance.

  The quarters were nothing like the site of the new Foreign Office building on King Charles Street that, along with the India Office, was going to be an example of Palladian architecture gone amok. Evidently, anyone visiting the buildings was supposed to come away impressed at the empire’s use of columns, decorative molding, and polished marble.

  The building he entered was devoid of columns or marble floors. Instead, there were hallways with doors, none of them marked save for a number. He took the first turn to the left and walked down a hallway tinted yellow by the sunlight spilling in through a far window.

  He might have been walking through a deserted building for all the sounds that reached him. The silence was profound, broken only by the muffle
d noise of a door closing on the second floor and the footfalls on the nearby stairs.

  The place smelled of dust and something else: strong black tea. Behind these doors were no doubt small braziers with kettles bubbling away. He was, after all, in the middle of a government building.

  Seven years ago, when he’d left the army, Sir Richard Wells had made him a proposition. “Come and work for me. It’s a new branch of the War Office. Something that might interest you.”

  Despite his questions, he’d only been given a cursory explanation of exactly what kind of branch it was, to whom they reported, and why. After a few dozen assignments, he had a better idea.

  What he was doing wasn’t officially sanctioned, but it benefitted the empire. He’d become a member of a group Sir Richard called the Silent Service, men who might never be recognized for their actions, but who were—one assignment at a time—making the empire safer.

  Adam stopped before a room bearing a thirty on the plaque and placed his hand on the wooden knob. When he opened the door, his first sight was of Oliver Cater sitting at his desk in the outer office. He’d been a corporal in their regiment, a young man with a subdued personality and a terror of loud noises. Roger had been his protector of sorts, making sure that Oliver wasn’t taunted for his lack of courage. The younger man had reciprocated by being intensely loyal.

  Adam hadn’t been surprised that Oliver had followed Roger to the War Office.

  He glanced up as Adam entered, his bushy eyebrows drawing together. When he got older, Oliver’s eyebrows would probably turn gray, get longer, and act like a forest in front of his small brown eyes. Adam couldn’t help but wonder what age would do to the moles that dotted Oliver’s face.

  He pulled out the handkerchief from his pocket, unwrapped it, and placed the candy on Oliver’s desk.

  “Grace’s licorice?” Oliver asked.

  Adam nodded. Grace, the cook at Marsley House, had a sweet tooth and kept several treats around for herself and the other servants as well. Adam always took a few from the jar when he was reporting to Roger and gave them to Oliver.

  He glanced toward the closed door. “Is he in?”

  After selecting one of the candies and popping it into his mouth, Oliver nodded. “He’s waiting for you.”

  Adam entered the office, closed the door behind him, and turned.

  Roger was his age, a little shorter and heavier, but possessed of an affable smile that he often used. He was smiling now, an expression that was lost on Adam. He always looked at a man’s eyes and he never missed the calculating glint in Roger’s, as if he were measuring the worth of someone even as he was convincing them to throw in with one of his schemes.

  The outside corners of Roger’s eyes turned down, giving him the appearance of a bloodhound. A very trustworthy, kind, and loyal bloodhound.

  Appearances could often be deceiving, however.

  If anyone could find an easy way to do something, it was Roger. In India he’d gotten a reputation for being able to procure those items a soldier wanted and was willing to pay for. The East India Company had been an unwieldy bureaucracy. The talk had always been that if you needed something found, Roger Mount was your man. Roger had gotten a reputation for finding things that couldn’t be found, for obtaining the unobtainable, and for making things happen.

  Until he’d been sent to Lucknow, a neighboring garrison, Roger had been making a tidy sum for himself.

  When they’d met again a few years ago, Adam hadn’t been surprised that Roger had achieved some of his goals. He was no longer just a former soldier, but had risen to the rank of Assistant Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, a position that allowed him to act as a liaison to the Foreign Office. He didn’t doubt that Roger’s promotion was due in part to the other man’s ability to recognize a fortuitous circumstance when it appeared. The advantageous marriage he’d made had also helped. Roger was, simply put, ambitious.

  “I’m not right for this assignment,” Adam said, taking the chair in front of Roger’s desk. “I haven’t found the damn journal and I’m probably on my way out.”

  Roger Mount sat back in his desk chair, steepled his fingers, and regarded Adam as if he were much older and wiser. The pose was a wasted gesture. He and Roger had fought together in India. He knew the other man’s peccadilloes and failings. Nor was he impressed by this large office or the desk that looked as if it had cost a family’s yearly wages.

  “What makes you think you’re wrong for the position?”

  He debated telling Roger about his actions of the night before, then decided against it. For some odd reason, he didn’t want to divulge the duchess’s suicidal intentions to anyone. He couldn’t rid himself of the image of her face lit by lightning and the agony he’d seen in her eyes.

  “I just know I am,” Adam said.

  A muscle in Roger’s cheek clenched and released several times before the other man spoke again.

  “You’re the best I’ve got for the position,” Roger finally said. The words were uttered calmly and spaced apart to give them more weight.

  “Why, because I’m a Scot?”

  Dispensable, in other words. Easily explained away. Oh, yes, Drummond. Good man, but he was a Scot, you know.

  They stared at each other. They’d had this discussion many times in the past and here it was again.

  “No, not because you’re a Scot, damn it. You’re good at fitting in. People like you.”

  “I’m a lousy majordomo.”

  “On the contrary. I’ve heard very good reports about you.”

  Adam didn’t say anything for a moment. When he did speak, his voice was tight. “Do you have someone else at Marsley House? Someone spying on me?”

  Roger leaned forward, all earnestness and honesty. Adam wasn’t fooled by that pose, either.

  “You didn’t want to be a servant, Adam. Do you blame me? I had to protect the mission. It’s important.”

  “Who is it?”

  Roger shook his head.

  He wasn’t unduly surprised that Roger had sent someone in to check on him. Roger was capable of smiling to his face and saying something snide about him the minute Adam was out of his office.

  He’d never had any delusions that he and Roger were friends, not like Roger pretended. They hadn’t been friends in India and they weren’t friends now, especially since fate decreed that he had to report to the other man, albeit temporarily. He’d much rather have had his original boss, Sir Richard Wells, but Sir Richard had agreed with Roger that Adam would be best on this assignment. It had been Roger’s idea from the beginning to send someone into Marsley House.

  “I’m not sure I can find the damn thing.”

  “You’ll find it. If you don’t give up,” Roger said. There was a look in his eyes that dared Adam to argue.

  “The man wrote in a journal every day of his life. I’ve found journals that began from his boyhood.”

  “But nothing from India?”

  “I’ve found some from India, too, but they haven’t revealed anything.”

  He’d never failed before and he didn’t like the idea of failing now. But there were times—and he was very much afraid that this was one of those—when circumstances were arrayed against him.

  “I need you there,” Roger said.

  He’d heard that same sort of speech two months ago when he’d first been sent to Marsley House.

  Adam rolled his shoulders and angled himself in the uncomfortable chair.

  “You have to go back and find the damn journal. We can’t afford a scandal like that being made public. The Foreign Office is making amends in India, Adam. We’re trying to atone for the mistakes we made there. Can you imagine what would happen if it got out that the Duke of Marsley betrayed his own men? The world would see that whole business of Manipora in a different light.”

  “God help us,” Adam said dryly.

  He doubted that anyone would ever discover the duke’s confession. Most of the journals he’d read looked as if th
ey hadn’t been moved since first being placed on the third floor of the library. However, it wasn’t his place to argue with a superior and for this assignment, that’s what Roger was.

  “Who the hell confesses to treason in a journal?” Adam asked.

  “Perhaps someone who wants to justify the action,” Roger said. “Or feels a sense of guilt?”

  He wasn’t familiar with questioning his superiors, but in this instance he couldn’t bite back his curiosity.

  “How do you know he wrote about Manipora? Or about what he did?”

  “The information was passed to us from a person very close to the duke,” Roger said.

  “Who?”

  He was coming close to insubordination, but he didn’t pull back the question. Instead, he waited, anticipating that Roger would tell him it wasn’t any of his business.

  “A member of his staff, someone who was very concerned about what he’d learned.”

  In other words, he wasn’t going to get an identity of the informant.

  “I know you disliked the duke,” Roger said.

  “The man was an idiot,” Adam said, stretching out one foot and tapping it on the bottom of the desk in front of him.

  The duke was not, contrary to his own estimation, a military genius. He’d been arrogant but also impulsive, a deadly combination. He hadn’t thought it necessary to solicit the advice or opinions of others, several of whom knew significantly more than he. Consequently, he’d often gone off without the whole story, leading his men into skirmishes that had proved deadly.

  Adam had lost his share of friends, not to the glory of the British Empire as much as the stupidity of one of its peers.

  “You’ve never let your personal opinions blind you on an assignment, Adam. Don’t do it on this one.”

  Roger let that comment linger in the air for a moment or two before sitting back, smiling, and offering tea.

  Adam didn’t want tea; he wanted answers, but he knew Roger wasn’t going to be forthcoming. He might get one piece of the puzzle. Another operative would get a second piece. The only person who could put the entire puzzle together was the man heading the assignment. As an operative, Adam wasn’t supposed to know every reason and rationale. He was only supposed to be a good civil servant and obey his directives.