Duke of Disgrace (Dukes of Destiny Book 3)

by Whitney Blake

  It occurred to her that Lord Hareden wasn’t able to, either.

  “In theory, but if one had enough sympathetic ears,” said Paul, “anything could happen.”

  “My lord, is part of your brother’s reticence rooted in his reluctance to ruin her?” Appreciation for and exasperation with Lord Hareden’s character warred within her.

  Inclining his head in acknowledgement, Paul said, “I believe so. Her family would not be forgiving, from what I understand. I’ve only met them in passing. And you know, the ton would be no better.”

  “So he will suffer instead,” said Charlotte wistfully. She thought, keeping quiet for several minutes. “What about an annulment?” But that would disgrace Lady Hareden, too. And any of it would certainly change the course of Luke’s life. Charlotte lamented a world in which women were subjected to these fates, but she could not see a future in which Lord Hareden survived his own wife’s ways.

  That was also her concern: how long a person could cope with a life like the one he had built. It was not nearly as bad as many had it in the Empire, let alone just one of its cities like London. He was not in a poorhouse because he had no funds and no home. He was not a destitute orphan. He was not a woman being beaten by her husband.

  But when she thought of the duke, she thought of the vast dichotomies in his world. On one end of the spectrum, he wanted to help others. If he was doing that to make himself feel better, that was a motivation, but the end result of being helpful and restoring little justices was still the same.

  She believed he could move forward into accomplishing even bigger things than resolving petty disputes. On the opposite end of things, he was caging himself in a strange, savage way with morals and honor. If his return to the solace of opium was any indication, the cage was winning more than the hope and helpfulness.

  Yes, she might have pitied Lady Hareden by virtue of her sex and the limitations imposed upon both of them as women, but had far more interest in amending Lord Hareden’s nearly fatalistic sense of what was possible. Did he not think he deserved better?

  The rebellious voice inside Charlotte’s head added, Lady Hareden probably deserves better, too. But as a consideration, it just didn’t matter to Charlotte nearly as much.

  They were so ill-suited. While there was no violence—she was sure that Paul would have alluded to it and the duke would not stoop so low, anyway—they were quite poisonous to one another. She wondered what there had been to gain from the marriage to begin with.

  “On what grounds?”

  “Something that would hold up to scrutiny. I’d have to look at the marriage contract to say,” said Charlotte simply. “Or, someone better with the laws than me would. I doubt I shall see it at all. It is just a thought. Free them both, that way.”

  Fraud, perhaps? Some kind of fraud, anyway. Perhaps there was an unmet stipulation in the contract that might invalidate the marriage. She strongly doubted insanity or impotence would succeed as a line of reasoning, and both would be fully damning, one to Lady Hareden and the other to Lord Hareden. She flushed. She did not think he was… well. Unable in any way.

  “I’d be terrified of you, had you been born a man. As it is, I’m starting to be. Do you know that? I can see the wheels turning in your mind.”

  First, she was a little insulted. Then, she grinned.

  Chapter Eleven

  Oh, that had been too much laudanum. He’d slept too long and had a throbbing headache to prove it.

  Jeremy cracked one eye open against the onslaught of early autumn sunlight that burst through his bedroom window. He took several moments to recall that he was in the London townhouse and not the manor. He was not agitated, exactly, because as soon as he managed to open both eyes, he realized that his surroundings were familiar. The small room with striped blue wallpaper and its antique fourposter, the tallboy against the wall, the ceiling just very slightly tilted due to the way the building was settling.

  Talking so freely to Wenwood was most likely not the best idea he’d ever had because it exposed how vulnerable he felt. But he knew the man would keep his confidence. Besides, if he could not confide about the subject in Wenwood, who the hell could he talk to?

  Mother is more his friend than I am, but maybe if I just let myself be a better friend…

  Jeremy rolled over and stared at nothing in particular. What time was it? The street outside seemed quiet, so it was probably earlier than he thought.

  He had not taken any more of the drug during their conversation. He had, though, once he reached his own townhouse. Privacy was quite the keen enabler.

  “Trouble?” said Wenwood. He’d been immediately interested.

  Jeremy took a deep breath and looked around to ascertain they were, indeed, alone. He knew they were. But all the same, he got up and shut the door to the opulent little space. He recalled thinking something along the lines of, I don’t know what else anyone could say about me that they haven’t already, but there’s always room for more sniping. Wenwood watched him shut the heavy door and waited.

  “I find that I am rather vexatiously interested in Miss Masbeck.”

  “Ah.” Wenwood sounded like he was grappling with not laughing and Jeremy scowled at him. “I’m sorry, Hareden, it’s just—you said it as though you were announcing a funeral.”

  “It’s about as dire as one.” He sat back down in his chair and tried not to huff in self-pity.

  “Well, have you considered that,” and here, Wenwood paused delicately, “you could approach the woman?”

  “Approach her for what? Relations?” One of the little, choice bits of gossip that he had overheard about himself involved several young men taking lots over when he would at last take a mistress. Indubitably, he was meant to have overheard it. He’d just kept walking across the Morringtons’ insufferably crowded and overly gilded ballroom, resolutely keeping a calm face. It was his usual method of rebuttal, and he took twisted joy in denying people the reactions they wanted from him.

  “If you wanted to.”

  “I feel a fool saying any of this out loud, but the problem is, I have been thinking ahead to a future which does not exist. One in which Miss Masbeck and I…” He quickly stopped speaking as his thoughts got ahead of him.

  It was actually almost physically painful to recount what his mind, the horrendous enabler, had been making him think. That there was some different universe in which Miss Masbeck could be, and was, his wife. At the end of the day, he could sit down with her and they could discuss things like how silly Mr. Smith and Mr. Corbett were, then have a good laugh. Perhaps there would be a son or a daughter who had his dark hair and her gray eyes, or her blonde hair and his blue eyes.

  Then reality came crashing down around him and reminded him that none of those things were or could be. It was not her station in life that made him balk, especially considering that there was Wenwood who’d gone before him.

  It was just that he’d hardly dared to contemplate the processes by which they possibly could be, because undertaking them would almost certainly mean being marked out. Isabel would be fully disgraced, as would Luke. That would happen whether or not higher authorities granted Jeremy freedom from the union itself.

  If they did, Luke would be a bastard. If they didn’t, he would be stigmatized anyway. Could he do that to his son?

  Ah, snaked an insidious thought through his head, but he isn’t your son, anyway, is he? And why should you have to consider the finer feelings of a woman who clearly despises you?

  Then Luke’s round, serious face flashed in his imagination. It did not matter to Jeremy that he’d been sired by another man. It never had.

  Did that mean that Jeremy had never hoped for children who were related to him by blood? No. It was purely that he’d grown to love Luke in the same manner he was certain he could love children he’d fathered.

  And as far as Isabel was concerned, it was easy not to like her. Easy not to love her. But Jeremy wrestled with the idea of ruining her or at least r
uining her more deeply than she already was. He knew that as a duchess, she was somewhat shielded from ostracism, and the ton seemed fascinated with her louche antics.

  “Are man and wife?” supplied Wenwood with an unexpected gentleness.

  “It’s impossible.”

  “Well, it’s improbable. That does not mean ‘impossible’, necessarily.”

  “The same thing, in practice.”

  And now that he knew about Lord Rowling, Jeremy wouldn’t blame Miss Masbeck for avoiding advances from anyone from the aristocracy. Whether or not they were ill-intentioned. But he hadn’t made up their rapport or the longing in her glowing, almost pearlescent eyes that she probably thought she kept from him. There was some solace in that.

  “There’s always Scotland. Think of Paget.”

  Wryly, Jeremy said, “I would have to kidnap Lady Hareden for us both to establish residency, first. She hates me and she hates Scotland. Anything accomplished over the border would only be done by putting her under extreme duress.” Anyway, how would that truly proceed? Would he somehow persuade Miss Masbeck to follow him and wait somewhere, there, while the time passed? How incredibly absurd.

  He let out a big gust of air. No, none of it, not Scotland, not Parliament, warranted considering. It would all be contingent on a lot he couldn’t count on, yet. Miss Masbeck’s love, for one thing.

  Wenwood snorted and was on the verge of chuckling again. “Heaven forbid.” He smiled at Jeremy with understanding and some marked pity. “I think marrying Lady Wenwood has taught me that very little is impossible. And don’t you remember the furor that caused?”

  Jeremy hadn’t known them, yet, but he did have some scant knowledge of the ripples their marriage had caused. His mother only properly met the Wenwoods while Lady Wenwood was pregnant with the twins, so they were little more than a name in the newspapers to him back when they’d gotten married. Thinking through the events, Jeremy tried to be less pessimistic. Wenwood was a minor but respected politician. He might never be Prime Minister, but then, in Jeremy’s estimation it was only rather cracked men who actively wanted such a fate. He didn’t want it.

  “Only distantly. I did not know either of you, then.”

  “That’s true. But there was a time when I could not enter this club without attracting strange stares and hearing whispers eddy around me.”

  “But you were never a divorcé.”

  “I was not,” said Wenwood. He leaned forward in his chair, his right hand on his right knee. “But Hareden… look at it this way. The fact that you are mentioning it means you have considered it, even if only nominally. And to be honest with you, I do not know if it is possible for you to make more of a splash than Lady Hareden has already.”

  There was only one way to find out if he could make that considerable of a splash in the roiling waters of the ton, he supposed. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

  Wenwood was kind, but he was no idiot. “Yes. I think it must have taken great restraint on your part not to discover just how much of a spectacle she has made of herself. If it were me, I would want to know everything. Though, back when I was a topic of discussion on a lot of people’s lips, I did demand to know what they were saying.” He sat back again in his chair. “Your wife is clever—I think she knows just how far to push the limits.”

  “Do you know, I feel rather sorry for her.”

  “You must feel something for her to have withstood her for this long.”

  “My father brokered the marriage. Her father had great investments in iron, and masses of land, too… the Edmonton family is actually quite wealthy. But they would not take her in again if I…” Jeremy did not want to state it, and he wanted even less to explain how his father had also had a wandering eye. It had influenced the union far less than his acumen, true, but it did not hurt that Lady Hareden was a captivating beauty.

  “Hareden.”

  “Mm?”

  “That isn’t your problem. Trust me, Lady Hareden is a…” Wenwood bit his lip.

  Designing woman? Stubborn woman? Cutting woman? Loose woman? supplied Jeremy, quite silently.

  “Survivor,” finished Wenwood. “She is a survivor.”

  *

  To Charlotte’s relatively limited knowledge, Lord Hareden had never stayed somewhere overnight without it being planned or sending word that he’d been kept late. She asked Paul that morning over breakfast, “Are you sure he is in London?”

  “He’d go nowhere else,” he assured her.

  “You’re quite certain?”

  “Of what are we quite certain?” The dowager duchess entered the room, looking utterly wonderful in a gown that was somewhere between coral and salmon-colored. Charlotte had to envy her sense of fashion even more than the means with which she had to purchase it. “Good morning, Paul. Good morning, Miss Masbeck.”

  Lady Hareden went without any delay or more preamble for the coffee. She liked it even more than Charlotte did, herself, and Charlotte had often thought she enjoyed it a little more than was decent. Generally, her parents kept tea in the house but, here, there was enough coffee for everyone to have their fill. And then some.

  Knowing how irritable she herself became without some kind of stimulant, be that tea or coffee, Charlotte admitted that the abundance of coffee was probably a very good thing. There was much more over which to be irritated, here.

  “Good morning, your grace,” she replied.

  “Lord Hareden is still in London,” Paul explained.

  “Of course he is,” said Lady Hareden. “He’s like the post on its set route. Why?”

  “He did not make it clear that he would be staying the night,” said Paul.

  “Well, he’s no rogue as you are,” said Lady Hareden cheerfully. She put a bun on her plate and left things at that. When she sat down, it was with a look at Charlotte. “I wondered, Miss Masbeck, if you were considering a visit with your parents at any point in the near future?”

  “Well—”

  “Good morning!”

  Charlotte was cut across by the duchess, who entered the breakfast room in every inch as magnificent a dress as her mother-in-law’s, a daring garment of pale yellow that somehow caught the light and threw it with a soft sheen. Warily, Charlotte eyed her and did not rise from her chair. She and the duchess had not yet been in the breakfast room together.

  The dowager duchess did not expect that she stand, or that she eat away from the family. Granted, that was partially because there was no devoted family group—all the Haredens save for Luke were adults—but Charlotte did not feel particularly compelled to show the duchess much consideration.

  “Good morning, Lady Hareden,” said Paul. His tone was neutral, but his face belied his dislike. “We were not expecting you.” Implied and in the offing was at all or for days.

  “Well, I hope that you are at least pleasantly surprised, my lord. I, for one, am surprised but happy to see you.”

  The dowager duchess did not bother to conceal the fact that she looked exactly like she’d discovered a baked spider in her roll. “Lovely to see you, Isabel. Did you remember your son, after all?”

  Lady Hareden outright ignored her mother-in-law. Instead, she directed her next words at Charlotte. “Why, Miss Masbeck, I did not realize that you and Lord Paul Hareden were acquainted,” she said slyly. “And on such good terms as to be enjoying breakfast together. You are quite lucky. I have it on good authority that he doesn’t often stay for breakfast the morning after.”

  It was only because the dowager duchess looked like she would either stand up and level Lady Hareden with a well-placed punch, or succumb to a fit of fury, that Charlotte answered her. She looked her squarely in her beautiful, cool face and said, “It is a shame that you have never discovered it for yourself, your grace. I find Lord Paul Hareden is excellent company over coffee.”

  This was obviously not the response that Lady Hareden expected. Her blue eyes—so different from and much lighter than Lord Hareden’s—flickered over to Paul,
at whom Charlotte did not dare look for fear of breaking into peals of triumphant laughter. She could all but feel the delight radiating from him.

  “Now, now,” he said. “There is no need to squabble over me. Lady Hareden, I assure you that Miss Masbeck’s and my acquaintance is purely cordial and occurred by accident when I rudely burst into my brother’s study. He introduced us.”

  Oh no, there was something else Lady Hareden could jump upon, thought Charlotte. You’ve done it now, Paul.

  “Oh? Burst into? Why would the door be shut with a woman being in his grace’s presence?” Lady Hareden’s eyes widened as she feigned confusion.

  “Possibly because the room was so full of refuse and chaos until Miss Masbeck tamed it that it had to be shut for her to get to everything,” said the dowager duchess crisply. “He had a stack of dossiers half as big as me behind the door, you know. I know how much interest you take in his grace’s work—you must have noticed.”

  “Be that as it may, I do not see why he would have the door closed.”

  Good God in heaven, this was exhausting. Lady Hareden was playing the innocent just so that she could heckle them under the guise of naiveté. How do they do this day after day? marveled Charlotte. She thanked her guardian angel that she had not dealt much with Lady Hareden while at Rosethorpe.

  “There was nothing at all untoward afoot,” said Paul, the warning clear in his tone.

  “That you saw,” said Lady Hareden sweetly.

  “Isabel, have you come to make Miss Masbeck feel unwelcome, or are you actually going to break your fast as a civilized person might?” The dowager duchess drank a little of her coffee, eyeing Lady Hareden from behind the rim of her cup.

  “Oh, it isn’t my intent to make you feel unwelcome, Miss Masbeck.” Lady Hareden took her rightful place at the table, which, on balance, was not what Charlotte had looked forward to. “Sarah!”

  Is she actually calling for one of the servants when there is a sideboard full of food right over there? But Charlotte should not have been surprised. She was.