She couldn’t. Elizabeth wasn’t so foolish to believe that she knew a thing about flirting or enticing… anyone.
“Hush. Don’t be unkind,” Lady Nora snapped in a shocking defense. After all, there was some manner of code, either spoken or unspoken, that no one defended the dragons.
“You’d defend her? A dragon?” Lady Claire quipped. “But then, with your parents gone now and your brother off chasing skirts, you’ll likely be the next drag—”
Exploding to her feet, Lady Nora came out of her seat and launched herself at the other woman.
Oh, blast.
Elizabeth surged forward and swiftly placed herself between the pair. “That is enough,” she said in perfectly modulated tones.
She’d learned early on that yelling had little effect on recalcitrant students. The same for drawn-out lectures. If one truly wished to penetrate a tense situation, one was best to meet it with calm.
Lady Nora instantly fell back, but hovered alongside the other woman.
An ashen, trembling Lady Claire burrowed in her seat.
Elizabeth looked to the recently volatile young woman, feeling a kindred connection to this woman who’d recently lost her parents. “If you’ll please sit?” she murmured. Angry, scared, and lost, Elizabeth knew precisely what Lady Nora was feeling. Only, where the young woman had a rogue of a brother, Elizabeth had… no one. Of course, a rogue of a brother who didn’t see his own sister might be the same as having no brother at all.
With stiff, reluctant movements, Lady Nora returned to her seat.
“Now, as I was saying…” She puzzled her brow. Blast and damn. What had she been saying?
“The gentlemen who we should set our caps on?” Miss Peppa March piped in helpfully. Heavily rounded, with large cheeks and limp brown hair, the six-and-ten-year-old girl, a recent student, looked up from the little journal and pencil she clutched in her fingers.
“No advice Mrs. Terry or anyone gives is going to help you secure a husband,” Lady Claire muttered.
Lady Nora shot a foot out, catching the young woman in the ankle.
A cry burst from the other lady’s lips. “How dare you?”
“Oh, I’d do it again, dare or not,” Nora answered with a mocking smile.
An argument immediately broke out with each girl firing insults and hateful words at each other.
Bloody hell. Elizabeth slapped her palms over her face. She’d forever been rot at this. It was the miracle of this century that the intolerable Mrs. Belden hadn’t figured out the sham Elizabeth had perpetuated—she was a dreadful instructor.
“Enough,” she said through her palms. When the bickering pair continued on through that command, Elizabeth raised her voice. “I said, enough.”
Her voice echoed around the parlor, bringing the room to a screeching silence. She’d also learned that raising one’s voice did have some effectiveness if rarely used. This was one of those instances.
A sea of startled eyes stared back.
Elizabeth stretched that moment on. Steepling her fingers before her, she passed a hard stare around, touching it upon each girl.
Ultimately, she settled her focus on the one young lady clinging to that pad and pencil. One who still had hopes that Elizabeth might have some wisdom about how a young woman might catch a husband. She didn’t. Nothing, that was, that she knew from any real experience, but rather, what she’d gathered from the dull texts Mrs. Belden insisted the instructors use in their tutelage.
“Now,” she finally said, smoothing her palms along her skirts. “The art of finding a husband is the finest of the arts.” A little giggle met that silly pronouncement, also insisted upon by the headmistress. And were she seated on that powder-blue sofa and the roles reversed, Elizabeth would have had a like reaction. But she wasn’t. She was a woman dependent upon her role here.
As such, she leveled a look on the girl, who immediately went silent.
“But before one employs any effort on finding one’s husband, a lady must identify the manner of man she wishes to spend the remainder of her days with.”
Until death do part you…
And with that deviation from Mrs. Belden’s usual script for the husband-hunting course, every student went silent and sat on the edge of her chair—which was saying a good deal indeed, given Lady Claire and Lady Nora hadn’t managed that feat in all the years she’d served as their instructor.
Reveling in that newfound attention from her students, Elizabeth wound her way around the room, drawing out the silence, increasing the anticipation.
“Who does a lady wish to marry? A gentleman who is titled?”
“Of course,” Lady Claire put in.
“One who is wealthy?” Elizabeth continued over her.
“A wealthy husband is essential,” another girl interjected.
“Yes, money is essential and a title desired.” Elizabeth paused alongside the arm of Lady Claire’s sofa. “But what about the man himself? Should one marry a fool for a fortune? A faithless philanderer for a title?”
Each pair of eyes in the room rounded in like manner.
“Or should one choose a devoted gentleman? One who is clever enough to discuss text and matters of import and challenge you to use your mind in return?”
“Is she saying we should become… bluestockings?” That scandalized whisper came from somewhere in the corner of the room, penetrating Elizabeth’s senses.
Bloody hell. I’ll find myself sacked.
Clearing her throat, Elizabeth rushed to the front of the room and gathered the journal in which she’d written the lectures six years earlier. She flipped through the pages, seeking, seeking, and then finding.
“What you require in a husband,” she forced herself to read.
For, God help her for being selfish, even as she would rather school the young ladies present on using their own minds, to do so would see her cast out. She’d faced the peril of having nothing and no one years earlier. It was a life she’d no wish to go back to.
And so, she read, “A titled gentleman is the ideal one. The greater the title, the greater your security and status in Society.” Oh, God, what a lot of rubbish. A ducal husband didn’t mean rot. “A husband with noble lineage is noble because…” She grimaced, struggling to make her tongue move to get those words out. “Because of his pedigree.”
“Like a dog,” Lady Nora grumbled.
Yes, most of them were. Noble dogs, but a dog was a dog.
Elizabeth cleared her throat. “It behooves a lady to find one with close connections to one’s own family.” More rubbish. “But that does not mean…” Footsteps sounded in the hall, a pair of them, one heavy and one light. “You should fail and consider other valuable attributes such as”—Elizabeth paused in her rote reading to flip the page—“a gentleman’s willingness to support your aspirations to become a leading societal hostess.” She choked a bit. Hell, I am going to hell for propagating this information. “Furthermore…” Elizabeth glanced up from her reading and froze. Her gaze collided with that of the hated headmistress who controlled the fates and futures of too many women and girls, Elizabeth included. Swallowing hard, she spared a brief glance at the less relevant, less threatening figure at the harpy’s side—
The book fell from Elizabeth’s fingers, landing with an indignant thump upon its spine.
She tried to swallow, tried to breathe, but remained incapable of either or both. For she’d been wrong. For the first time, the harpy headmistress was not the most dangerous figure present.
A pair of more than slightly mocking, twinkling blue eyes met hers. They’d always been twinkling. When he was a boy of twelve bent on making his parents’ lives a misery through his mischief making and as the man who’d chucked pebbles at her window to urge her out to study the stars.
Nine years later, several stone heavier, the gentleman before her was broader, more muscular, more powerful… more everything than he’d been when last she’d seen him.
He sent a black e
yebrow slashing up.
Elizabeth recoiled.
The velocity of that movement brought her head whipping back with such force her glasses tumbled from her nose. The wire-rimmed frames landed on the detestable book at her feet and then clattered noisily on the hardwood floor.
“Ladies, please rise for our distinguished company,” Mrs. Belden called, thumping her cane in that decisive manner that marked her words not to be debated. All the young women sprang to their feet.
As if anyone would challenge the dragon.
Except now… now… Elizabeth’s heart knocked wildly as she contemplated making for the window in the opposite corner of the parlor. She squinted, the faces before her blurred and the room a kaleidoscope of shadowy images as she searched for her spectacles. Nay, she’d merely imagined him. Of course, she’d not given any thought to him since the last scandal sheet had been passed around by the other dragons in desperate need of something to read other than dull books on propriety.
Dropping to her knees, she fished about, because surely she’d not seen correctly. Surely she’d imagined him. Surely…
Oh, bloody hell… surely she could find her dratted glasses.
The floorboards groaned, slightly depressed by the tread of approaching footfalls.
Not Mrs. Belden’s mincing, practiced ones. But rather, sure, steady, determined, and very masculine ones.
On her hands and knees, Elizabeth froze in midsearch. Through the murkiness of her horrid vision, a pair of black boots drew into a blurry focus.
Her stomach lurched.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she made herself go as still as possible. Willing him gone. Willing the entire room away. Willing the floor to open up and swallow her, sparing her from this long overdue exchange that she’d managed to convince herself would never come.
“I believe these are what you are looking for?” There could be no mistaking that voice, a slightly husky, melodious murmur. Familiar, and yet foreign for the amount of time that had passed since she’d last heard it. The gentleman placed her spectacles in their proper place.
Crispin Ferguson, the Duke of Huntington, smiled back. “Hello, Duchess.” A hard glint iced once-warm eyes. “We meet again.”
Chapter 2
The last place Crispin Ferguson, recently the 9th Duke Huntington, would have ever searched for Elizabeth Brightly over the years was a dreary, straitlaced finishing school.
Which was no doubt why the young woman—his wife of nine years—had remained so damned elusive.
Of course, her disappearance and her absolute ability to remain hidden hadn’t surprised Crispin in the least. After all, this was the same girl he’d once played hide-and-seek with in the far-distant corners of Oxfordshire. If Elizabeth hadn’t wanted to be found, she had had him searching from the moment the roosters crowed until the moon shoved back the sun for its time in the sky.
“Their Graces, the Duke and Duchess of Huntington,” Mrs. Belden announced in the same obsequious, fawning tones that had dogged him the whole of his time as ducal heir and now his ducal life.
Like dutiful little ducks, the seven young ladies present dropped into respectful curtsies.
A bespectacled Elizabeth looked about, perplexity brimming from behind her lenses. Did she seek escape? Or confirmation of the person now addressed by the crowd?
Having grown up alongside her and read her like the pages of a journal written in his own hand, Crispin would have ventured it was the former. But with time having carved them into strangers, she was unreadable in ways she never had been.
“And all this time, you fortunate young ladies have been schooled by a duchess.” The headmistress’ voice shook with pride and honor.
That seemed to snap Elizabeth from the shock that gripped her. She shot a hand up. Rushing past Crispin in a whir of skirts, she presented herself before Mrs. Belden. “No. That isn’t necessary.” She spoke to the room at large, pointedly leaving Crispin out of her announcement. “You needn’t… address me so.”
Her absolute indifference should have smarted. And yet, after a lifetime of fawning women vying for his attentions and affections, Crispin was… intrigued by this more composed version of the girl he’d called friend. With a grin, he perched his hip on the arm of the nearest unoccupied sofa and observed the proverbial show.
“But… but… are you saying you are not a duchess?” The headmistress’ face fell.
Seven rabidly curious stares whipped over to the lady in question.
Folding his arms at his chest, Crispin joined in, staring expectantly at Elizabeth.
“I… I…” She’d never stumbled over her words. She’d always been remarkably in control, when he’d been brash and reckless in every way.
For the first time since he’d entered the room and interrupted her lesson, Elizabeth looked at him. Crimson color splotched her cheeks, rushing to the roots of her like hair.
“It is… complicated,” she finally settled on.
No truer words had ever been uttered.
Nonetheless, the headmistress who’d greeted him with a fanfare usually reserved for a king beamed, as Elizabeth’s words seemed to be all the confirmation she’d required. Raising her cane, she clapped the head of it against her palm. “Ladies.”
“No!” Elizabeth squeaked, darting between the girls now filing from the room. “You needn’t leave. His Grace was just leaving.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Crispin called over, layering that jovial assurance with ice.
Elizabeth shot him a withering glare the likes of which his terrifying mother, the dowager duchess herself, couldn’t manage.
Yet, when a duke spoke, the world listened, just as the rapidly departing ladies before them did.
And a moment later, Crispin found himself alone with Elizabeth.
“Hello, Duchess.”
She spun about. “Stop calling me that, Your Grace,” she hissed, jerking her head back toward the open doorway.
Yes, no doubt, the headmistress listened from the other side.
Elizabeth ducked her head outside.
“My apologies,” the headmistress squawked, her footsteps growing distant as she retreated.
Elizabeth yanked the door closed and then spun back to face him. “You need to leave. Now.” She continued speaking in a rush, not allowing him to get a word in. “You should have never come. Why did you come?”
And that brought them to the reason he was here.
Crispin straightened from his negligent repose. “Do you know you’re the only woman in the whole of England who’d turn away the life of a duchess to live a life of drudgery?”
Several furrows creased the space between her eyebrows. “I don’t live a life of drudgery,” she declared, a defensive edge creeping into her tone, belied by the liar her eyes and miserable gray skirts made her out to be.
“Indeed?” he drawled, drifting over. “Nine years may have passed since we last saw one another, but we were friends far longer than that.” He stopped so only a handbreadth separated them. “This is your reveal, love.” He dusted the tip of his index finger between her eyebrows.
Gasping, Elizabeth tripped over herself in a bid to escape his touch.
Which was also a ducal first for one who’d had every woman from maids to maidens and matrons hurling themselves into his path.
“What do you want?” she demanded, all fire and fury.
Elizabeth Terry—nay, Elizabeth Brightly hadn’t changed a jot. She was still the small, slender imp with outrageously curled hair and cream-white cheeks. No, that wasn’t altogether true. Her eyes had changed. They were more wary than the fresh innocence of her then seven and ten years.
Was it a product of life’s natural progression? Or the effects of their failed marriage?
For the first time since he’d stepped inside this establishment and found that the woman he’d spent years looking for was here the whole time, regret needled around his chest. For what might have been. For their lost friendship. For a marriage that c
ould have been.
Unnerved by that maudlin musing, Crispin clasped his hands behind him. “My father is dead.”
“My apologies,” she said softly. “I loved His Grace very much.”
Yes, everyone had adored his father. As cold and ruthless as the dowager duchess was and always had been, her late husband had been jovial and warm.
“He always liked you a great deal, too, Elizabeth,” he said quietly.
Something passed in her eyes, but she dipped her gaze, and he was left to wonder at that brief flash of emotion.
Her family had lived on a parcel of land in the Fergusons’ Oxfordshire properties. Despite the station divide between her father, a struggling merchant, and Crispin’s, the duke, the men had been friends, and their children—Elizabeth and Crispin—had become even greater ones. Until the day her parents had taken ill, within a couple of weeks of each other, and in that short time, she’d found herself orphaned. When Crispin had proposed marriage to a friend to provide her security, his father had proven a duke would always be a duke where matters such as marriages were concerned.
“I haven’t come to speak about the past,” Crispin finally said. The scholar in him, who’d spent years as a fellow delivering lectures in Oxford, knew that logic and reason said no good could come from any such talks. They wouldn’t erase anything that had passed between them.
“The thing about the past, Crispin…” she said in governess tones, stealing the use of his Christian name when no one had done so… since her. To the world—his mother included—he’d only ever been a title. “One cannot divorce oneself of one’s past when it is responsible for one’s present and future.” She started for the door.
Why…why… she was dismissing him? Just like that?
He rocked back on his heels.
“You are my wife,” he called, halting her in her tracks and bringing her back around. God, how he hated to put any favors to her, the traitorous friend who’d accepted his offer of marriage and then abandoned him. He curled his lips up into a slightly mocking, indifferent grin. “And, you see, I am in need of one.” A pretty blush splashed her cheeks with pink color. “A wife, that is,” he purred.
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