“It is not as if I have done this before.”
Mama kissed her head. “That is why you must make the most of it now. For five years we lived in deprivation, but our fortunes are on the rise. You need to look your best.”
Having a social life improve did not mean one’s fortune got any better, as Marianne saw it. It was foolish for Mama to hope that, if they turned themselves out fashionably, some man with a fortune of his own would lose his head and offer for the hand of a woman of little income.
From the looks of Mama’s own stack of plates, she had great expectations of her own that such an offer might still come.
Mama pulled forward plates of a carriage ensemble and a ball gown. “You must have both. And the trim on the pelisse must be sable.”
“Uncle Horace will have apoplexy if I present a bill for a garment trimmed in sable.”
“Nonsense. He was delighted that you proposed this visit to town. He told me specifically to make sure you did not deny yourself too much, as is your habit.”
“I am sure he did not think we would be buying ourselves luxuries like sable. Now, please go and help Nora. I am inexperienced in these things, but she is utterly lost.”
Across the table, Nora stared at the same plate that had rested in front of her for ten minutes.
Mama walked around the table and sat beside Nora. In a soft, cajoling voice, she encouraged Nora to consider a different plate.
Marianne returned to her own decisions. The carriage ensemble her mother had pointed out really was very nice. Perhaps, if she did not choose the sable trim . . .
* * *
It was rare for a duke to call on anyone, let alone a woman, and not be received. But that was what happened when Lance, deciding his bruise was barely visible anymore, rode over to Radley’s house. He wanted his call to make it clear to one young woman that while their last match had ended in a draw, he was not done with her.
Upon being told Miss Radley was not at home, he stared down the footman. How dare this young pup, and that woman, use that old excuse on him? He wasn’t some local farmer seeking to bore the ladies for a half hour. He was a duke, damn it. Everyone was home for a duke.
The young man rushed to offer that Miss Radley truly was not at home. The whole family had gone to London.
She had bolted. Run away. Hidden, for all intents and purposes. He should have picked up the pursuit at once and called the morning after the assembly, even if it meant facing her with her brand on his face.
Two days later, he entered his London home without ceremony or prior warning. That sent the household into a panic of frantic activity.
He noticed, barely, but ignored it all, especially the wounded tone of the butler’s astonishment about this unannounced arrival.
Throwing his hat and redingote to a footman, he strode to the library, poured some whiskey, and sat at a table. Fifteen minutes later he handed three letters to the butler, to be delivered immediately. Then he called for a carriage, and rolled off to take some exercise fencing.
An hour into his practice with the foil, responses to his letters began arriving at Angelo’s, per his instructions to the recipients. The first, from the family solicitor, promised to obtain the required information forthwith, and certainly by day’s end. The second came by way of two visitors. Gareth and Ives arrived just as he was putting his waistcoat on.
Ives lifted the foil resting on a nearby table. “Practicing with Henry?”
“That is what one does here.”
“That you summoned us here does not bode well. Nor does your demeanor. You appear out of sorts, Lance.”
“Hell, yes, I am out of sorts. I rode hard all the way, stopping only when my horse required it.”
“Then you missed my letter, sent yesterday. In it I urged you not to come.”
“I would have ignored it if I had read it. This is a situation a man cannot leave unfinished. I’ll be damned before I turn the other cheek either.”
He thought that a witty, ironic comment. Neither of his brothers seemed amused. Instead they kept shifting their weight from one leg to the other, trying to appear normal when instead they reeked of concern.
“Zeus, we have not declared war on France again,” he said. “It is a minor problem that will be remedied quickly. I merely need a little help to arrange it.”
Ives’s face assumed its most lawyerly, annoying expression. “Ask Gareth. I will not do it. I have been your second in this particular situation too many times already.”
How like Ives to think one night of fibbing about a brother’s actual whereabouts amounted to supporting him in a duel by serving as his second and arranging the meeting. “I trust you are not declining out of some fastidious sense of fair play.”
“In part, yes. The cost is too great. I have pondered this at length, Lance, and I will not help you.”
“Have you so quickly forgotten that you used my home to seduce Miss Belvoir mere months ago? Did I not play your second all that time, when the lady did not stand a chance? Did I lecture you on fairness?”
Ives flushed, but remained resolute. Gareth’s expression did not bode well for help from that quarter either.
“You both wound me deeply. I require a simple thing. A dinner party will hardly put you out, since your servants will take care of everything. And while you may not find my pursuit of Miss Radley as gentlemanly as you paragons of propriety would like, the alternative is—”
“Dinner party?” Gareth interrupted.
“She has come to town, and I need one of you to invite her and her mother to—”
“Oh, hell. He does not know, Gareth,” Ives said. “He did not see it. He has not heard—”
Lance held up a hand, stopping him. “See what?
Gareth turned to Ives. “Did you bring it?”
Ives reached in his pocket. “You must not have been reading the Times the last few days, Lance.”
“I glanced at the political news.”
“Well, this was in it two days ago.” Ives handed over a section cut from the paper. “Promise you will remain calm, and not charge off and do something rash.”
To the editor of the Times of London, from Gloucestershire:
The county gentry and squires enjoyed a delightful assembly hosted by the most gracious Lady Barnell. She made use of her own house rather than the Cheltenham assembly rooms, opening her impressive ballroom to her neighbors. Among the surprise guests were Mr. C. B. Codrington and his wife, who took lodgings in Cheltenham for the week as well. Of particular note, the Duke of Aylesbury made an appearance, his first at any local assembly in many years according to the guests. Lady Barnell welcomed him most warmly, and he seemed much at ease despite the long delay in having a resolution regarding the events surrounding the last duke’s death. The local coroner confided to several guests that he anticipated soon changing his determination from unknown causes to something else, however, so perhaps His Grace felt free to dance in a manner denied him almost ten months now.
In other county news, Mr. Harold Fikes of Gloucester has sold the land he owns in town to an industrialist who intends a factory for the making of—
Lance dropped his gaze to the correspondent’s name, then threw down the paper. “Who in hell is this Tewkberry?”
Ives shrugged. “He was neither introduced to me at Lady Barnell’s nor pointed out to me. One would expect a man who is sending news from the county to the Times to be better known.”
“He probably was not even at the assembly. He most likely gathers his news through gossip,” Gareth said. “He may not know how this has stirred the pot again.”
Lance gazed at him. “Stirred the pot?”
“Let us go get some ale,” Gareth suggested. “We will explain it then.”
Lance walked toward the door, pretending he did not see Gareth grimace in Ives’s direction.
“How has the pot been stirred?” he asked, interrupting Gareth’s description of the horse’s lineage.
“Ah. Yes. That,” Gareth said. “Town has been very quiet. Not much to talk about in winter.” He gestured to the paper. “Now there is.”
“It has all been given a new life,” Ives said. “Wherever we go, there is speculation anew. Our friends try to rise above it, but of course . . .”
“They are very willing to share with us what terrible things others have said,” Gareth finished dryly.
“In other words, it is like last April again. Within the week the post will have carried every scurrilous suspicion far and wide,” Lance said.
He wished he did not care. For all his bravado the last nine months, he had felt scandal’s lash more than he thought he could. Possibly because it was not a middling sort of gossip, but discussions over whether he had murdered a man.
Not just any man, but his own brother. That was an especially unforgivable sin. Far worse than rutting like a stag in his youth, or disregarding propriety now. He had not loved Percy. He had not even liked him, and none of them mourned his death. But killing his own brother—knowing the whole world thought he might have that in him darkened his world more than he expected.
That cloud blocked more than the sun. It shadowed every emotion. It dulled his life force. He wanted—no, he needed—to escape the insidious slow death of the spirit he suffered. It was why he had asked the steward about the servants, and quizzed the housekeeper on who did what with the meals, from the start of preparation to the delivery to his apartment. Neither one had acted surprised by the questions. Perhaps they wondered why no one had asked about all of that before.
Now it would all start again. At the moment he did not even care if he ever learned who had done it instead, or who might be feeding Radley lies. The fresh wind given to the scandal’s sails sapped his ability to even wonder anymore.
“I will just brave it out, as I have been doing. Although it is clear this will never pass, Ives. You were too optimistic about your fellow man in thinking it would.”
“Since you are correct, it pains me to tell you that it is indeed just as bad as in the spring. Two men have crossed the line from speculation to slander. Publicly. Since you came up to town, you will hear about it very soon.”
Lance absorbed that while he called for more ale. No wonder the two of them had rushed to Angelo’s, together. They assumed he had come up to town because he had learned of these smears on his name. Ives had thought he wanted one of them to serve as a real second, after he issued challenges.
He should do it, of course. He could not let this stand. And yet—that dark weariness had settled on his soul again. He knew its weight too well. He had carried it inside for a long time now. Only recently had it lifted, and allowed him some joy. Since the day he spied a pretty flower in the graveyard, now that he thought about it.
“Do not tell me their names. I assume they were both drunk. Unless one of them is so stupid as to speak thus in my presence, we will pretend I do not know about the insults to my honor.”
Ives looked surprised. Gareth did not. As a bastard, Gareth knew all about walking away from insults. If he had not learned how to do it, he would have been dueling once a month for the last fifteen years.
A man approached their table then. He bowed, and presented Lance with a letter, then turned on his heel and left.
Lance broke the seal and read the two sentences. The solicitor had been very prompt in finding where in London Horace Radley and his family were temporarily domiciled.
He pictured Marianne, lost to pleasure in that garden. He felt again her fist hitting his face. The urge to laugh cleaved through his weariness like a ray of sun through winter’s gray light.
He stuffed the letter in his pocket. “Now, which of you is going to host that dinner party?”
CHAPTER 13
“It is all too rich,” Marianne whispered to her mother. They sorted through fabrics for their wardrobe at a shop patronized by the best of society. The bolts created a sensory experience of color, texture, and luxurious touch.
Other women did the same as they did. One lady, who appeared to have a modiste as her companion, removed any fabric that appealed to her and had it placed in a very large stack on the counter.
“Stop it,” Mama said. “Not one more word. It is unnatural for you to keep complaining about the cost, when you will not pay the bills.”
“I am imagining the scene when those bills arrive for my uncle.”
“Oh, tosh. His wife knew how to spend better than most. I daresay Sir Horace expects much of the same from us. If he does not—” Mama shrugged, to express her indifference. Then she eyed that stack on the counter. “How rude. That woman is reserving the best for herself. She will not use it all, but she wants to make sure no one else can consider any of them until she decides first.”
Marianne continued examining the fabric, trying to avoid doing the same as that rude woman. Most of what she saw would go in her own private stack if she could muster the courage to have one.
She had only given the clerks two bolts to put aside so far. She tried to narrow her choices so she would not be here all afternoon.
“Marianne.” Her mother said her name in a whisper marked with urgency. “Look who just walked in this shop. Look.”
Marianne did not look. Her mother was always pointing out notables so they both could gawk. That her mother recognized so many of them spoke to the time before Papa died, when he and she would enjoy the Season in London.
She continued her perusal of the shop’s wares, but gradually became aware of a hush descending on the patrons. Her clerk left her and disappeared. Soon not a sound could be heard. Except boots walking across the wooden floor, then stopping.
Her mother’s hand closed on her arm like an eagle’s talon. “You must turn around,” she hissed.
Marianne turned to her mother, who looked into the shop with a broad smile. Exasperated, she turned to see what had put her mother in that mask.
Aylesbury stood not ten feet away, watching her.
Bows, curtsies, greetings, welcomes. Marianne performed the rituals, all the while her gaze locked on the duke’s cheek. The remnants of a bruise showed in a little pattern of yellows and purples.
He noticed her noticing that. His smile, it seemed to her, took on a dangerous character.
The other patrons pretended to go about their business, but eyes remained on him.
“What have you there?” he asked, joining her at the counter. He fingered the green wool she had chosen, and the pink raw silk. Her mother hovered at her shoulder.
“Pretty. However, I think you need—” He looked up at the shelves, narrowing his eyes. He pointed. “That, there. The violet color.”
Two clerks appeared out of nowhere. One of them reached to pull down the fabric. “It is transparent, made of the finest woven silk,” the other said. “It will need an underlayer, of course. Either the same color—” He snapped his finger and pointed to his colleague to fetch another bolt. “Or, if the lady is adventurous, a different one. See how it plays with the light when over this blue. Each movement will transform the colors.” Another snap, and another bolt came down.
“I think it would look best with no underlayer,” the duke said. “Just layers of this. Maybe bound with a gold cord.”
“You mean à la sauvage?” her mother asked. “Oh, my, that is not done anymore, Your Grace. It has been years since women dressed thus, and even then it was scandalous to many.”
“True. Memories of my youth got the better of me. An underlayer it must be. The same color, though. Don’t you a
gree, Mrs. Radley?”
“Absolutely, Your Grace.”
Marianne went back to her own choices. No one had asked her which underlayer she wanted. Her mother stepped away to conduct her own shopping, but Marianne guessed all of Mama’s attention would be on any conversation with Aylesbury.
The duke sidled close to Marianne’s side.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered, not turning her head. “Men do not come to shops like this. Dukes certainly do not.”
“We should. It is a feast for the eyes. As for why I am here—I went to your London address, and was told you had come here.”
Bold of the servants to have shared that. The duke had probably intimidated them. She could not imagine any of the temporary servants, or even Katy and old Jane, refusing him the information if he required it.
“You are going to be very bored. My mother and I have several more ensembles for which we need to choose fabric.”
“I will help. Are those the fashion plates there?” He reached for the sheets she had brought that rested on the counter. The clerk obliged him by handing them over.
Everyone in the shop watched, but pretended not to. Marianne tried to appear blasé, but having Aylesbury review her new wardrobe mortified her. He studied each plate carefully. She could not imagine why.
“These are not a bad start,” he said. “Although this dinner dress looks too old for you. All those ruffles at the neck are not becoming. Tell the modiste to eliminate them, if you have not already.”
Thus did he meddle for the next half hour. The clerk agreed with every bit of advice His Grace offered. More decisive than she, he made quick work of her wardrobe, forcing her to pick this or that, both of which he approved, when she could not choose one on her own.
“It appears we are done.” He set the plates down firmly, and with a vague gesture sent the clerk away. “Now you are free to join me this afternoon. I am going to the park. It has a spare but undeniable beauty in winter.”
The Wicked Duke Page 13