What a Difference a Duke Makes

by Lenora Bell

  “Nonsense.”

  “I know a regal queen when I see one.”

  “Have you forgotten that I must care for the children tonight?”

  “But they’re already in the scene.” India placed her hands on Mari’s shoulders. “Just stand there, the children will wave their palm fronds, I’ll explain your history, and the curtain will drop.”

  “I don’t know. I may become nervous and freeze up with all of those eyes on me.” With Edgar’s eyes on her.

  The butterflies came back with a vengeance. They seemed to think they were elephants.

  “That’s perfect! It’s a frozen tableau. You won’t even have to move. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “Where have you been?” India asked, her eyes flashing as she met Edgar at the door. “They’re getting restless.”

  “At The Vulcan. Working on the steam engine.” Avoiding certain redheaded temptations.

  Robertson divested Edgar of his coat and hat, while India tapped her foot impatiently. “Hurry up, if you please,” she said.

  “What the devil are you wearing?” He peered at India’s garb which was outlandish, even for her. A gown made of thick, gray-green cotton with a pelisse made of thin brown leather over the top, cinched under her bosom with a leather belt.

  “It’s what I wear when I’m at an archaeological dig.”

  “Are those hessian boots?” he asked, noting the leather tassels visible beneath the hem of her skirt.

  “I had your boot maker design some in my size. What the devil are you wearing? I told you to look ducal.”

  “Don’t press your luck. This is as ducal as I get. I’m never dressing in fashionable finery again. Not after what happened when I took Lady Blanche riding. Everyone thinks I’m on the marriage mart now. It was a total disaster.”

  India smiled. “You are on the marriage mart. Don’t you recall our wager? I intend to collect.”

  “Wasn’t that a joke?”

  “Don’t you know me by now? I take my gambling seriously.”

  Edgar regarded his traitorous sister. “You didn’t put West up to the whole scheme with Blanche and Laxton, did you?”

  “That’s too complicated, even for me. Now please hurry.” She shoved a piece of paper into his hands. “Your introduction.”

  Leaving him no time to read the paper, she pulled him into the salon.

  The room had been transformed in his absence. Blue curtains sprinkled with gold stars draped the ceiling and fell on either side of a small, enclosed wooden stage constructed on one end of the room.

  The guests were looking very uncomfortable, reclining on velvet cushions and Persian carpets in front of the makeshift stage.

  “You removed all of the furniture?” Edgar whispered. “You’re forcing dukes to sit on cushions? Ravenwood looks ominous.”

  “He always looks ominous. That’s his natural expression.”

  Mari and the children were nowhere to be seen.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lady Blanche sitting with an older woman. Why was she here? And no Laxton in sight. Warning bells rang in his mind.

  “What exactly is happening here?” he asked.

  “Don’t think. Just read.”

  India clapped her hands and Robertson announced Edgar.

  “His Grace, the seventh Duke of Banksford, Marquess of Marbrooke, Earl of Glenmorgan, and Viscount Gordon.”

  India was out to impress if she’d trotted out all of his titles. Maybe he should have gathered a few more details about this undertaking of hers.

  All eyes turned to him. He walked to the front of the room before the velvet curtain.

  Where were Miss Perkins and the children? He’d given the twins permission to attend.

  He cleared his throat, holding up the piece of paper.

  Damnably cramped handwriting Indy possessed.

  “Esteemed guests. Eminent antiquarians. Ladies. Ravenwood,” Edgar nodded at the duke, the next ranking member of the audience. “We are gathered this evening to witness the unveiling of quite possibly the most momentous discovery in the history of archaeology.” He coughed slightly.

  Not very modest, his sister.

  “As you know, I sponsored Lady India’s expedition to the Karnak temple complex in Egypt. While she was there she made a startling discovery. An intact solid gold cartouche inscribed with the name of the Pharaoh Hatshepsut.”

  He had no idea how to pronounce that and had probably just mangled it horribly.

  “The same Pharaoh that her esteemed colleagues have named Amenenthe. But they are all wrong, and she will prove it this evening. Using the cartouche and several wall murals, Lady India was able to deduce that Amenenthe was actually Hatshepsut, and that Hatshepsut was . . . well, see for yourselves.”

  What on earth was that supposed to signify?

  There was a parenthetical instruction to make a flourishing motion toward the stage.

  Edgar ignored it. This was already silly enough.

  India stepped forward out of the shadows.

  “See for yourselves,” she repeated in a booming voice, throwing her hand out with palm facing the velvet curtains.

  That was the cue for the footmen to appear and draw back the curtains of the stage that India must have had constructed in his parlor while he’d been gone the last few days.

  What was behind the curtain? Edgar stepped to the side and turned.

  A golden moon hung on a velvet sky.

  In the distance, a stone pyramid painted on canvas.

  Adele and Michel stood at the edge of the small stage, draped in white and waving dried palm fronds at a woman with bowed head.

  The woman raised her head.

  Edgar’s jaw dropped.

  India was trying to kill him.

  Chapter 17

  Edgar stared at the stage.

  Mari stood, her face turned in profile, slender neck regal as a queen. A two-tiered crown of gold topped hair that flowed down her back nearly to her slender waist.

  She wore a white gown in the Grecian style that bared one of her shoulders, exposing a sprinkling of golden freckles, just as he’d imagined they would be sprinkled.

  A wide collar fashioned from strands of gold beads layered one upon the other was clasped round her neck, covering her from the base of her throat to the top of her bosom.

  “By gad, that’s a pretty gel,” Edgar heard the Earl of Haddock say. “Who is she?”

  “Artist’s model, no doubt,” said Baron Rubens, with a lascivious smacking of his lips. “Though I’ve not seen her before, and I attend all the best salons.”

  “I’ll wager you do, you old goat,” said Haddock.

  Edgar nearly climbed over the cushions and tackled them both.

  That’s no artist’s model, he wanted to shout. That’s Mari. And she’s mine. So eyes off.

  Yes, he was thinking of her as Mari. How could he not? When she had stars shining around her and gold at her throat?

  She was causing quite a stir. The few ladies in the room, Lady Blanche included, were eyeing her jealously, while the men were undressing her with their eyes.

  Edgar simultaneously wanted to cover her up, and undress her himself.

  He should be the only one allowed to ogle her.

  No, that wasn’t right.

  India kept talking but her voice receded to the edges of Edgar’s consciousness.

  All he could concentrate on was Mari . . . a goddess come to life.

  He’d hired her against his better judgment and this was precisely why.

  She wasn’t merely a governess.

  She was a modern incarnation of an ancient goddess-queen.

  He was meant to worship at her feet. In fact, he had the urge to kneel at her feet right now. At this very moment. In front of the learned gathering of antiquities experts and archaeologists.

  Adele waved her dried palm frond, fanning long, ruby red waves of hair away from Mari’s pale, oval face, earning a half smile from Mari that nearly stop
ped his heart from beating.

  In that ancient society he would have been a bricklayer, no doubt. A serf that wasn’t fit to touch her hem.

  He saw their roles reversed. It didn’t matter what dire circumstances her family had fallen upon, or why she was forced to be a governess.

  She was a queen. Made to be worshipped.

  He’d known it already, seen it in the way she held herself, the way she spoke to him.

  The way she put him in his place.

  The sharp intelligence she wielded with such grace, a subtle and charming hammer that shaped everyone around her into something better.

  And in the wild fancy of that moment, with the last of the evening sun glancing through the windows and setting her hair ablaze, gold beads glinted and dripped from her throat, ending at the place where he wanted to start.

  The pathway from her heart to the tips of her breasts.

  Kneel at her hem. Offer his fealty.

  Claim her. Make her his own.

  Forever.

  The duke was staring at her with such intensity that the butterflies in Mari’s belly had decided to dance themselves to death in a frenzied whirling.

  Every gaze in the room was on her. Her hair unbound, coiling down her back, heavy and unfamiliar. She was the center of attention, singled out, but not because she’d done anything wrong, or was being punished.

  The trembling in her belly gradually quieted. The reluctance and embarrassment subsided.

  Edgar’s eyes glowed with admiration and . . . something else. Something that called to her heart, and quickened her pulse, but not with fear.

  With power and exhilaration.

  He was Edgar. Not a duke, or a monster. Just Edgar.

  And she was a queen. Worthy of the worship she saw in his eyes.

  “In the year fifteen-hundred before Christ, Hatshepsut, mighty God King of the Pharaohs, ascended to the throne for a two-decade-long reign of prosperity and military campaigns,” said India, from her post beside the stage box. “There is only one slight problem with that version of history, my friends.”

  She paused, allowing the silence to build with anticipation. Then she flung her hand at Mari and, in a loud, booming voice, proclaimed, “Hatshepsut was a female.”

  Excitement rippled through the room.

  The man whom India had pointed out as the Duke of Ravenwood recrossed his long legs and folded his arms across his formidable chest.

  He looked skeptical, to say the least.

  India drew a dagger from the sheath attached to her leather belt and a lady, probably Lady Blanche, whom Mari had recognized earlier, gave a squeak of surprise.

  “I pledge my fealty to Hatshepsut. The Mighty God-Queen and first female Pharaoh!” shouted India.

  Adele and Michel waved their palm fronds so vigorously that Mari’s gauzy white gown lifted at the hem and floated upward.

  “Humph,” snorted Ravenwood loudly.

  India gave him a murderous glance. “In this tableau I present Hatshepsut at her coronation, wearing a replica of the traditional headpiece, and a fine example of an Usekh collar necklace. Which I’m sure the ladies in the audience will appreciate for its intricate gold filigree work.”

  The ladies craned their necks. Perhaps India would start a new fashion.

  “When Hatshepsut was barred from ascending to the throne because of her gender, she refused to submit. She claimed that she had been married to the king of the gods and had as much right to sit on a throne as any other Pharaoh.”

  Mari threw back her shoulders. No man was going to tell her she couldn’t be a goddess, if she wanted to be one.

  She’d been so set on discovering the truth about her past, needing to know her origins, her history, who she was and how she fit into the world. But what if she already knew?

  What if she was the woman standing on this stage. Confident, bold, hair unbound . . . slightly scandalous.

  The other day, when they’d visited Edgar’s foundry, she’d been bold and brave, because she trusted him. He was a good man, with a beautiful dream for a better world. He loved his children, and he never would have dismissed her because she was helping them.

  And helping him see how to talk to them, how to be a meaningful part of their lives, not just a provider.

  She trusted him.

  But maybe it was time to begin trusting herself.

  Edgar was still staring, his eyes filled with reverence.

  Why should she care if her shoulder was bared? She was naked before him. Her soul bared for him to see.

  Not slightly scandalous. Fully. She wanted him. She wanted to know what pleasure was, everything she’d been denied her entire life.

  Starved and punished.

  Hiding her true emotions, covering over her desires, foregoing her needs and catering to the needs of others. What of her needs? Her desires?

  She could have it all. Have him. The thought made her breathless and giddy with longing. It was time to start living her own life, on her own terms. She’d been hiding herself for too long in proverbs, in other people’s experiences.

  India continued with her story, the audience dividing their attention between what she was saying and the tableau. “In the years after her death her monuments were defaced, her name erased, and she was lost to history. Nevertheless, her story persisted, in the oral traditions, and on the cartouche and wall drawings I discovered.”

  What an interesting life India led. Mari wanted to hear more about her journeys. Mari had never even considered the idea of traveling outside of England.

  “I presented the cartouche to the Egyptian government,” India continued, “though I have several excellent charcoal rubbings for your perusal here tonight. And the collar, which the lovely Miss Perkins is wearing—” she swept her hand toward Mari “—will be on display tonight and then at the British Museum. As for my theory on Hatshepsut’s gender . . . I’ll be publishing my findings. We will be publishing my findings.”

  India nudged Edgar. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Ah . . . absolutely right. Female Pharaoh . . . long, happy rule. Lady India will prove it to the world.”

  His eyes never left Mari’s face.

  Shocked silence.

  Scattered applause.

  “Claptrap!” Ravenwood exploded, lumbering to his feet. “Utter hogwash! A female could never be Pharaoh.”

  Mari watched the argument unfold from her position on the stage. India’s sworn enemy was challenging her theory in front of all of the guests. He must be one of those dangerously handsome rakes who thought they could get away with anything.

  “Not now, Ravenwood,” India said, glaring at the duke.

  “But it’s utter rubbish. It wasn’t possible for a female to ascend to the throne,” said Ravenwood, stalking toward the stage. He waved at Mari’s necklace and headdress. “This is all nonsense. Fever dreams. You’ll never be able to prove any of it.”

  “Ah . . . refreshments are being served in the Gold Salon, next door,” India said desperately. She’d obviously decided to ignore Ravenwood and attempt to distract the guests with food. “Won’t you join us?”

  Footmen drew the stage curtains, leaving Mari and the twins in darkness.

  Adele and Michel set down their palm fronds and rushed to her. “Did you see that?” asked Adele.

  “Ravenwood said it was hogwash!”

  “I think they’re going to fight a duel,” said Adele.

  “Men can’t fight duels with ladies,” said Michel.

  “They can if it’s Lady India,” said Adele. “She’ll skewer him with her dagger.”

  “Why don’t you two go and see what’s happening?” Mari said. “I have to adjust my gown and then I’ll join you.”

  The twins left. Mari searched in the dim light for her pashmina. She couldn’t leave the stage box until she’d covered her shoulders and repinned her hair.

  India had told her that a maid would come to help her but no one arrived. Probably Ravenwood had cr
eated so much chaos everyone had forgotten about her.

  She’d have to make do by herself. She twisted, trying to unclasp the necklace.

  It appeared to be caught on something.

  Drat. It was caught in her hair. Too many tiny gold dangling pieces. They’d become hopelessly tangled.

  And her hair wasn’t the only thing tangled in the necklace now. The sharp shards of gold had caught the fabric of her dress as she raised her arms.

  Mari raised her shoulder experimentally. The fabric of the loose-fitting gown slipped to one side, nearly baring her entire breast. Attempting to restore order to the gown, the necklace caught on her sleeve.

  It was a bloody deathtrap of a necklace, and she didn’t care if she was learning to swear like a sailor. She was a lady Pharaoh. She could do whatever she bloody well pleased.

  But where were all her loyal and doting subjects when she needed them?

  Hopefully someone would come to rescue her soon. She certainly couldn’t rejoin the party with her hair wild and tangled, and her bosom falling out.

  Edgar stood at the edge of the Gold Salon, trying to pretend that he wasn’t holding his breath, waiting for Mari to enter the room.

  Footmen carried trays of canapés by the talented Miss Martin. The cook had been worth the exorbitant fee Edgar had paid to steal her away from the Duchess of Attenborough.

  It was a warm evening. The wine was flowing. Arguments could be heard breaking out among the learned guests. India had certainly sparked controversy.

  Michel and Adele came racing toward him. “Father! Where have you been? We have so much to tell you.”

  “That was a nice bit of palm waving.”

  “Thank you,” said Adele.

  “Wasn’t Miss Perkins regal?” asked Michel.

  “Very regal, indeed.”

  “Too regal to keep to yourself, Banksford,” said the Earl of Haddock, sliding into Edgar’s view. “Where did you find her? Some artist’s studio?”

  Edgar glared at him. “She’s not an artist’s model, Haddock.”

  “She’s our governess,” Michel said proudly.

  “Your governess, sir?” exclaimed Haddock. “Well aren’t you the lucky little fellow.” He said the words to Michel, but his eyes were on Edgar.