No Other Duke Will Do (Windham Brides)

by Grace Burrowes

  “Radnor is my friend,” Griffin said, sitting down right next to Elizabeth on the smooth flat stone.

  He was as guileless as a boy, and even less self-consciousness. The combination of handsome adult male appearance and innocent male mind was disconcerting, and yet, Elizabeth would have said Griffin was a good man.

  A gentleman, as he’d said, and a gentle man.

  “Will you sketch me?” he asked. “I’m handsome. That is not my fault. Biddy says my hair needs a trim.”

  “You are quite handsome. If you can sit still for a few moments, I will happily sketch you.”

  He remained utterly unmoving for about five minutes, until Elizabeth passed him a scone. “I took more than I needed from the breakfast offerings. Tell me more about Biddy.”

  “She’s very pretty. Her real name is Bridget and she’s Abner’s niece.” His manners were careful, though the scone soon disappeared. “Nan Pritchard is pretty too, but I like Biddy better. Who do you like?”

  Interesting question. Elizabeth liked what she knew of Julian, Duke of Haverford, and what a relief that was. Beyond her family, she liked very few men, particularly very few single young men. Haverford wasn’t exactly young, though.

  He’d probably never been young, while Griffin would always be youthful.

  “My sister has traveled here with me,” Elizabeth said, “and so has my aunt. I like them both. I like Lady Glenys. Would you care for another scone?”

  “Yes, please. Julian says if we eat outside, we don’t have to say grace out loud, but we should still be grateful. I’m very grateful because today I made a new friend.”

  The second scone absorbed him for a few minutes, as Elizabeth tried to sketch both Griffin and the rural surrounds that made such a fitting setting for him. He was not quick in the sense of being socially sophisticated, but his lecture on plants and animals suggested he took keen notice of everything in his environment.

  “You spoke English,” Griffin said, gazing at the ocean sparkling in the distance. “I speak only Welsh.”

  “You greeted me in English,” Elizabeth replied, shading in his left eyebrow. Haverford’s eyebrows were thicker, but then, Haverford was probably ten years Griffin’s senior.

  “When we go to services, I listen, and sometimes, I learn a word, and try it out on Biddy, but she says I don’t need the English. Julian speaks English all the time, unless he’s calling on me. Julian is smart.”

  Such carefully guarded pain lay beneath Griffin’s words.

  “Does Julian know every bird and bush on this hillside?”

  Griffin shook his head vigorously. “Julian is busy. He’s the duke. He goes to London.”

  A stout defense, though laced with genuine bewilderment. Who would waste time in stinking London when he could instead be here, admiring the sea and conversing with the birds?

  “Shall I teach you some English, Mr. St. David?”

  “Everybody calls me Griffin. I want to learn English. I want Julian to be proud of me, but I’m not smart.”

  I’m not pretty, I’m not well dowered, I’m not clever, I’m not witty.…Why were one’s failings so often the sum of one’s self-awareness?

  “We will educate each other,” Elizabeth said. “For every word or phrase I teach you, you will instruct me regarding a plant, a bird, a feature of the geography, or the local lore. Have we a bargain, Griffin?”

  “I never forget anything,” he said, nodding so enthusiastically, he bobbed up and down on his rock seat. “I can teach you everything Abner has taught me, and Abner knows a lot. He’s old. He helped find me when I wasn’t lost. Teach me something.”

  Elizabeth took up her sketch pad and turned over a clean sheet. “What would you like to know how to say?”

  Griffin resumed studying the sea, presenting Elizabeth with a profile that would have eclipsed Byron’s beauty on his most striking day.

  “I want to learn how to say ‘I love you.’”

  “A good place to start and a simple sentence.”

  Though saying those words took courage, if they were meant honestly. If they weren’t meant honestly, then they should not be said at all.

  * * *

  “I am ready to take vows,” Julian said, guiding Rhodri down the path through the park. The fresh air was invigorating, and old Rhodri was eager to stretch his legs.

  Radnor rode a mare, an unusual choice. He claimed mares had better self-preservation instincts than geldings, and weren’t as easily distracted as stallions.

  “Who’s the lucky woman?” Radnor asked.

  “Not those kind of vows. Is there some unwritten law that house parties turn everyone associated with them daft? I’m ready to swear a vow never to host a gathering like this one again.” Witness, Julian had risen at the crack of doom for his daily ride and had had to bring Radnor along for safety in numbers.

  Julian hadn’t slept well for years, but last night’s dreams had been uncharacteristically erotic. He was accustomed to dreaming of unpaid bills, crumbling turrets, and reproachful ancestors. Another frequent torment involved books turning into winged banknotes and fluttering into the blue Welsh sky. On his better nights, he dreamed of schedules and budgets, declining balances, and rising market prices.

  The ancestors couldn’t begin to compare to Elizabeth Windham for troubling his sleep.

  “Lady Glenys would be hurt to hear you grumbling,” Radnor said. “She’s needed a project.”

  “Glenys needs a husband.” And Julian needed a long swim in the river’s coldest currents. “You will not allow Lady Inglesby onto my team for the scavenger hunt, Radnor.”

  “I was about to make the same demand of you. If I take on Lady Inglesby, you should have Delphine.”

  “Delphine should be having her husband, and I’m to remind him of that.”

  As head of the family, that was a task Julian should have undertaken several years ago. He’d been too busy fretting over finances, Griffin, Glenys, a subsiding wall in the gate house, a river determined to create water meadows out of pastures, and passage of a bill to prohibit the labor of young children in the mines.

  Among other things.

  “I’d say your house party is off to a good start,” Radnor observed as they turned down between two hedges. “Intrigues are hatching, the elders are off in corners getting tipsy, and nobody was struck by any stray arrows yesterday.”

  Julian had been struck in the heart—and perhaps a bit lower. “Must you be so optimistic? I have no patience with optimism when careful planning and hard work are much more likely to produce a positive outcome.”

  Radnor drew up his mare. They were out of sight of the castle, and mist rose from the distant hills in the morning sun. Julian brought Rhodri to a halt too, though he shared his horse’s longing to gallop hellbent across the fields.

  Never a good idea when the grass was still slick with dew.

  “Today, Haverford, you have no patience at all. What’s amiss?”

  Everything. “I tarried with Miss Windham for a short while last evening in Glenys’s parlor.”

  “Miss Windham seems like a sensible creature, and she comes from very good family.”

  Julian nudged Rhodri forward. “She is not a sensible creature, and in her presence, I am tempted to toss sense straight over the parapets myself. She has hidden depths, Radnor, and a determined streak that somebody has been badly underestimating for years.”

  “Any somebody in particular?”

  “Men.”

  “That narrows it down. Bad girl, Buddug.” Radnor’s mare had snatched at the reins, apparently intent on grazing despite the bit in her mouth.

  “Miss Windham has red hair,” Julian went on. “I should have known she wasn’t as demure and tame as she looked.”

  “Tame? I know a certain duke whose hair might be described as darkish red.”

  “She’s about as tame as a lioness, Radnor. Miss Windham is enthralled with lending libraries.” And kisses. Protracted, passionate kisses. How would she
respond to more adventurous overtures?

  “Lending libraries are a heady topic. Would I be expecting too much to hope you’ll make a coherent point anytime soon?”

  “The point is, Elizabeth Windham is kind, passionate, independent, well read…and I cannot court her.”

  “The passionate part,” Radnor said. “I don’t suppose…? You are a gentleman, Haverford. I wouldn’t want to have to call you out.”

  “Don’t be tedious. She’d call me out herself if I gave offense, but I didn’t.” Pride, frustration, glee, and sorrow shadowed that admission. Elizabeth Windham had liked Julian’s kisses, and he’d liked hers.

  A lot. She was enthusiastic, articulate, alluring, and utterly unavailable.

  “So she won’t call you out. That’s a relief. The prospect of arming irate women is disquieting in the extreme. If you didn’t give offense, then why did this encounter trouble you?”

  Trouble him and delight him. When was the last time Julian had been delighted with anything other than a good harvest?

  “I finally find a woman who doesn’t bore me, and whom I don’t bore. A woman who’s not dangling after my dukedom, a woman to whom I’m attracted, and I can do nothing to further my acquaintance with her.”

  Except stand aside while she contemplated spending her pin money on the likes of Robinson Crusoe and Robert Burns. She would have got on famously with Papa and Grandpapa, which should not be possible when she also got on famously with Julian.

  “What do you mean, you can do nothing to further your acquaintance with her, Haverford? Vows of chastity taken when you’re non compos mentis don’t count.”

  The day was so achingly pretty, the sky brimming with sunshine that distilled all the beauty of the landscape, the same way a glass of champagne embodied the essence of the grape more intensely than did the fruit itself. Nowhere on earth stirred Julian’s heart as did these verdant vistas of his own property, and yet, today, the brilliant light hurt.

  “Glenys’s plot to marry me off is doomed, Radnor. You know the state of my finances. I have made progress in recent years, but not nearly enough. I refuse to tear up the earth searching for copper or coal, blight the sky with foul smoke, exploit children—you’ve heard my speech enough times.”

  Radnor patted his mare, who was wringing her tail at some imaginary fly. “Half the Lords has it memorized. It’s a fine speech.”

  “Which they applaud as cheerfully as they ignore. Someday, I might be in a position to offer for a viscount’s daughter, if her papa is well off enough to be content with minimal settlements. I can’t marry into another ducal family. Such a woman has no need of my title, and she would expect generous contributions to her settlements. A widowed duchess should live in a style appropriate to her station.”

  Not in a tower plagued with damp, mice, and subsiding walls.

  “So this is about pride?”

  “It’s about money. Infernal, benighted money, and the lack thereof resulting from my forefathers’ obsession with books, manuscripts, and all things literary.”

  “One little coal mine—”

  “Children die in those mines, Radnor. Slums spring up where pretty villages used to be. The foremen and the owners grow wealthy, while half of Wales turns into a wasteland. People need to eat, and Welsh livestock is the best in all of Britain. I’ll content myself with slow progress farming, and leave exploiting children and pillaging the land to those with the stomach for it.”

  Radnor’s mare took a mouthful of leaves from the hedge along the bridle path. Her chewing punctuated an otherwise awkward silence.

  Julian had overstated his position—there were responsible mine owners among his acquaintance. Sober fellows whose ambition was tempered by concern for those in their employ. Alas for Wales, such men were rarer than true copies of the Magna Carta.

  “So don’t marry Miss Windham,” Radnor said. “You’ve spent five minutes with her in private, and been smitten by her red hair—or something. I know your grasp of courting subtleties is nonexistent, but even you couldn’t get into too much trouble in five minutes. Take the next few weeks to enjoy the lady’s company, see where things lead, and when the house party ends, morale will have improved all around.”

  “She’s a gently bred unmarried woman, and you suggest I offer her a dalliance?” Though Elizabeth wasn’t entirely innocent, and she wasn’t on the hunt for a husband.

  “Aren’t dalliances what house parties are for?”

  “Not in Lady Glenys’s opinion.” Glenys appeared to be in the minority. “Do you think the grass is dry enough for a gallop?”

  “No.”

  “Then we’ll gallop on the damned lane. Why is your mare doing that with her tail?” The beast was in a taking over something.

  “The poor dear is probably coming in season. House parties are no respecter of species.”

  “And you are no comfort to a man in house party hell, Radnor.” Julian pressed his heels to Rhodri’s sides and the gelding took off at a pounding gallop. Radnor’s mare gave chase, and for the length of a mile, Julian lost himself in the sheer pleasure of equestrian exertion.

  As the path joined the course of the river, though, he spotted a familiar figure trundling down the hill, a haversack in her hand, and the morning sunlight turning her red hair into a beacon he saw no earthly reason to resist.

  Chapter Nine

  Elizabeth had agreed to meet Griffin again tomorrow morning, weather permitting. He was a gifted mime, and delighted in the acquisition of each new word or phrase. He also had a larger English vocabulary than Elizabeth had initially suspected, having heard the language for much of his life. He’d simply been hesitant to test what he knew before others.

  The St. Davids doubtless had as much pride as the Windhams.

  Elizabeth looked forward to tomorrow’s outing. Griffin was joyous company, albeit not in the common way, and—

  A subtle concussion reverberated beneath her feet. Her first reaction, even before her mind assigned a source to the sensations, was panic.

  Damn Lord Allermain for a scoundrel. There was no need to be fearful of a pair of fellows having an impromptu steeplechase along the river’s edge. As the horsemen drew closer, Elizabeth’s momentary upset turned to pleasurable anticipation.

  Haverford and Radnor drew rein ten yards in front of her, their horses’ sides heaving, the duke’s hair windblown.

  “Your Grace,” Elizabeth said, dipping a curtsy. “Lord Radnor. Good morning.”

  Radnor’s mare danced sideways, as if she wanted to resume the race. She’d been a good length behind the duke’s gelding.

  “Miss Windham, good day,” Haverford replied. “Shall we walk with you?”

  What would it be like, to welcome him with a kiss after his morning ride? To ride out with him, galloping neck and neck across the countryside?

  “I would enjoy the company.”

  “You must forgive me,” Radnor said, touching his riding crop to the brim of his hat, “but I’m promised at the breakfast table to a certain lady. Haverford, I can take your horse if you’d like me to walk him to the stables.”

  Lord Radnor was matchmaking, and for the first time in memory, Elizabeth approved of the activity.

  “My thanks,” the duke said, swinging down and passing his reins to the marquess. “Good job, Rhodri.” He gave his horse a resounding pat. “There’s a carrot for you if you behave on the way home.”

  “I’ll explain to Lady Glenys that she’s not to worry over either of you,” Radnor said, turning the horses in the direction of the castle. “Nor will I worry about you.”

  On that cryptic remark, he trotted off, his mare pinning her ears and swishing her tail, to which the stolid Rhodri paid no mind.

  “Radnor is my dearest friend in the entire world,” the duke said, taking Elizabeth’s haversack, “but sometimes, I don’t understand him.”

  “That’s the essence of friendship, isn’t it? To accept somebody even when you don’t entirely grasp their reason
s?” Also the essence of being a sister or a cousin, sometimes.

  “One hesitates to extrapolate from Radnor to an entire class of relationships, but I will take your word on the subject.”

  Elizabeth was beamishly happy to see Haverford, a sentiment His Grace apparently did not reciprocate, if his clipped diction was any indication.

  “Should you be gathering your nerve to apologize for kissing me,” she said, taking her haversack back, “let me spare you the bother. I am not about to apologize for kissing you.”

  She did her best to flounce away toward the formal gardens, though flouncing in half boots came off rather like stomping. The duke ruined her dignified exit by falling in step beside her and easily keeping pace with her.

  “You did kiss me,” he said. “Made a proper job of it.”

  “I make a proper job of most undertakings. Before I could read, I was trying to keep up with five male cousins. Charlotte had the sense to turn up her nose at the lot of us, but that only left me more determined to keep up with the boys.”

  A doomed undertaking, of course.

  “Lady Glenys followed your sister Charlotte’s example and left Radnor and me to our boyish nonsense, though as a very young child, she was our shadow. I have wondered if my sister wasn’t lonely, for all she disdained our company.”

  Elizabeth’s steps slowed. “Have you asked her?”

  “It’s too late,” Haverford said, pausing beneath the oak Griffin had dropped from earlier. His Grace peered up into the branches. “Glenys would not give me a truthful answer, lest she add to my burdens. This is a good climbing tree.”

  To blazes with the oak, though it was a lovely, enormous specimen. “Are you sorry you kissed me or not?”

  He wrested the blasted haversack from her, laid it on the ground beneath a hawthorn bush, and cupped his hands before him, as if he were offering to boost Elizabeth into the saddle.

  “Let’s discuss last night’s encounter somewhere more private, Miss Windham.” His eyes held a dare, or maybe a wish.