Least Likely to Marry a Duke

by Louise Allen

  * * *

  Her aunt had lent her a magnificent amber necklace, bracelets and earbobs, her maid had gone out and purchased silk stockings with delicate gold clocking on the ankles and a pair of the finest kid gloves and her own newest gown—an elegantly simple affair in dark brown silk with an amber gauze overskirt—looked even better than she had hoped as a result.

  Stepping out of the carriage into the crowd of arrivals at Lady Notting’s house had been an ordeal, one that continued after she had been kindly received and had braved the reception rooms. Aunt Caroline had introduced her to so many people that she soon lost track of names and faces. Her approach was the same for all of them. ‘The poor child has come to me to escape from foolish provincial gossip. Have you heard about her adventures? Of course you have. Really, those half-brothers and -sisters of Aylsham’s, quite out of control by all accounts. But thank heavens dear Verity was with the Duke, otherwise the poor Bishop’s nerves would have been shredded. And Bishop Alderton was there also, with his staff, so that was a great help...’

  Aunt Caroline prattled on until they were all dizzy, Verity thought. Dizzy and left with the impression that so much frankness meant that there could be nothing to hide. And that it would be inexcusably provincial to gossip about it.

  Verity sensed that to behave as though she had something to be ashamed of would only confirm their suspicions, so she smiled and chatted and, when she found herself in the middle of a group that she suspected might be rather fast, had responded to their sly questions with a lively account of the excitements of rural life.

  But what had Will been doing? Sudden urgent business? She could not believe it. Dukes sent minions on urgent business; they did not come hurrying up to London themselves. For a dreadful moment she feared he had come to break bad news about Papa, but a second’s thought told her that he would have spoken to Aunt Caroline first, not walked up to her in the middle of a musicale.

  * * *

  For the life of her she could not imagine what he was doing there, as she said to her aunt as they drove back after the party. ‘I do wish he had stayed away. Surely it will only make things worse?’

  ‘It might not. To see the pair of you exhibiting nothing but neighbourly good manners with no hint of awkwardness can only confirm that nothing shocking occurred.’

  ‘Will has come up to London to keep an eye on me,’ Verity said. ‘I do not believe that he needs to attend to anything personally at all—he simply summons people when he wants them.’

  ‘Then it is rather charming of him, don’t you think?’ Aunt Caroline’s voice held a hint of teasing. ‘Will is clearly concerned about you.’

  ‘Nonsense. He is just used to being in charge of everything and cannot let well enough alone. I hope he goes home soon.’

  Very soon.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘The Duke of Aylsham, my lady.’ The Fairlies’ butler did not, apparently, think it necessary to enquire first if the ladies were At Home to a duke.

  Aunt Caroline stood up and went to shake Will’s hand. ‘What a pleasant surprise, Your Grace. I glimpsed you last night, but did not have the opportunity for a conversation. And so pleasant for Verity to have a neighbour from the country here.’

  ‘I do hope so.’ Will turned those beautiful blue eyes on her, but she could not interpret their expression. It was not disapproval, for once, she decided.

  Will sat down at a gesture from Aunt Caroline, taking an armchair at an angle to Verity. ‘I found I could more easily transact some necessary business in person and I wanted to reassure you that your father’s health is good. May I escort you ladies anywhere today?’

  ‘Thank you, no. There is absolutely no need to delay your own meetings.’ Try as she might, she could not keep the scepticism out of her voice. What was he doing in London? She had told her aunt it was to keep an eye on her, but was he really that concerned about her? Then she realised that perhaps he wanted to face down the gossip on his own account. It did seem sensible, now she thought about it, for them both to be seen to be on amiable, but distant, terms. ‘Aunt and I will be taking her carriage with her dresser and a footman to assist us,’ she added with a smile that, to her surprise, he returned. ‘You would find our shopping a complete bore, I imagine.’

  ‘Then I hope you can both join me for dinner tomorrow evening? I am at the Grosvenor Square house.’ That was more in his usual style—it sounded like an order, for all the pleasant tone.

  ‘So kind of you, but I have no idea if we have any commitments,’ Verity said, turning to Caroline.

  ‘No, we have none.’ There was more warmth in her voice than the acceptance of a dinner invitation merited, Verity thought. Perhaps her aunt had noticed a constraint between the two of them and was compensating. ‘It would be delightful to dine with you, Aylsham.’

  ‘Fairlie is free to accompany you, I hope? Excellent. It is quite some time since I have had the pleasure of speaking with him.’ Will carried on talking with her aunt about mutual friends, about Lord Fairlie’s charitable interests and how Roderick Fairlie was finding life at Oxford.

  Verity assumed a sweet, meaningless smile and sat silently listening, watching Will’s profile. After five minutes he looked across at her. ‘I have very little news from home to convey. As I said, your father is well and sends his love. Mr Hoskins begs to be remembered to you. The children are undergoing their month’s penance with good grace, for the moment. Whether that will last in my absence is not something I would like to wager on. My gamekeepers have been experiencing trouble with poachers which is annoying.’ He smiled without humour. ‘I dislike anyone encroaching on what is mine.’

  In other words, he is going to take exception to me even conversing with other men, because he feels obliged to watch over me, she thought resentfully.

  Last night she had thought she read a challenge in his attitude to Lord Sedgley and had been surprised—and relieved—when he had left the group without making it more apparent. But she was not his to watch over, simply a neighbour he had become entangled with.

  I can look after myself, she thought, meeting his eyes, hoping he could read the message.

  ‘I am keeping you ladies from your shopping,’ Will said, getting to his feet without any sign of having understood her unspoken message. ‘I look forward to tomorrow evening.’ He shook hands with Aunt Caroline, then took Verity’s right hand in his and bent to drop a chaste—very chaste, she thought resentfully—kiss on her cheek.

  The butler came at the ring of the bell to show him out. ‘That was thoughtful of him to call with messages from home,’ Caroline remarked. ‘The Duke—oh, bother, he has dropped a fob from his watch chain, he must have knocked it when he stood up. See?’

  Verity bent to pick up the golden disc. ‘I will see if I can catch him.’ Wethering had left the hall when she reached it. She opened the front door to find Will three strides along the pavement in the direction of Berkeley Square. ‘Your Grace!’

  He turned, came back. ‘Miss Wingate?’

  ‘Your fob.’ She held it out on the palm of her hand and, as he came up the steps to her, she stepped back so he could enter the hallway.

  ‘Thank you. The hook must be weak.’ He pushed back the sides of his coat to pull out the chain.

  ‘Let me see, clasps are always so tricky when you fasten them yourself upside down.’ She did not think until her fingers were around the gold links, their backs pressed against the smooth silk of his waistcoat, feeling the solidity and warmth of his stomach muscles beneath, and then it was too late to pull back, not without betraying her agitation.

  The clasp that must have secured the fob swung free, its hook distorted. She caught the tiny thing between thumb and forefinger, head bent, conscious of the familiar scent of him, of her pulse kicking up. ‘It is broken. You had better put the fob in your pocket.’

  ‘Put it with the watch.’ As she slid it
into the tight space in the little waistcoat pocket Will leaned back against the door, his shoulders pushing it shut. ‘Verity. Why did you come to London?’

  ‘Why?’ She looked up, confused by the question. ‘To face it out, of course. Everyone at home knows me, they are loyal, it will all die down. But it will not here, not unless they can see it is all nonsense, that I am not some seductress out to snare a duke, or some poor little victim of your wicked wiles or whatever other nonsense it amuses them to believe.’

  ‘Aren’t you a seductress, Verity?’ he asked, his eyes dark and intent. ‘I don’t understand this otherwise.’

  ‘This?’

  ‘What am I doing here? Your aunt knows what she is about. I have no idea whether I am making things better or worse. My head rules my emotions, it always has, it is how I have been raised. You were right, we would be a disaster together and yet I still want this.’

  ‘This?’ she repeated. Somehow she was in his arms, close, tight against his heart. She looked up and he kissed her.

  Kissed her hungrily, angrily, as though he was fighting himself. His hands were tight on her waist, lifting her against his chest, bringing her up to rub intimately against his aroused body, and Verity knew she wanted it, this, as much as he did.

  Will shifted and one arm lashed her against him while the other hand found her breast, his thumb rubbing against the nipple under its modest covering of linen and fine cloth. The darkness behind her closed lids became the fireworks at Vauxhall, explosions of light and heat against velvety blackness. It was all part of the inferno when there was a crash. Will’s head jerked up and she found she had her leg raised, her knee at his hip, her skirts sliding upwards. His hand was on her garter and hers was crushed between them at his falls—

  ‘Oh.’ Verity recoiled backwards and sat down on one of the hard hall chairs with a thud.

  ‘What—what was that bang?’ She dragged her skirts into some kind of order, tugged at her bodice.

  Will looked round, picked up his hat, his gloves and cane where they lay scattered at his feet. ‘Your butler slamming a door, I think.’ He was breathing hard. ‘That was beyond apology, that was insanity.’

  ‘It was desire,’ Verity managed to say. Whoever had slammed the door had not opened it again to see what was happening. Yet. She didn’t know whether to fix her eyes on it or look at Will. She looked at Will. ‘Melissa says that is a natural animal instinct.’

  ‘I sincerely hope Melissa knows nothing about it.’ Will was still leaning back against the door, eyes closed.

  ‘I think it is theory,’ Verity murmured and he smiled and straightened up, tugged at his waistcoat, grimaced.

  Verity glanced down at his falls and rapidly away. ‘You had better go.’

  ‘I had better make my apologies to your aunt,’ he said, rather grimly.

  ‘Goodness, no! Just go. It doesn’t matter, doesn’t mean anything...important. And we will not be alone again.’ She stood up and went upstairs, not running, not looking back. After a few moments the front door closed with a soft bang.

  * * *

  Verity tied her bonnet ribbons with a sharp tug. Linton, her aunt’s dresser, made a soft clucking noise with her tongue and darted forward to rescue the bow.

  With Linton following them into the town coach and sitting on the seat opposite, Verity could hardly begin explaining that her aunt’s butler had found her and the Duke of Aylsham locked together and virtually...virtually rutting against the front door.

  Had Wethering said anything? Or was he truly the perfect butler and would keep silent? Or perhaps it was one of the other staff. That was an unsettling thought. Was she going to receive a far-from-subtle request for payment to keep it quiet?

  Aunt Caroline was not going to be happy if she did find out about that explosion of desire. She might start pressuring Verity to accept Will. Could she persuade her that the only thing they had in common was the experience of an uncomfortable night on a storm-lashed island, the pleasure of five kisses, mutual and inconvenient desire and an occasional, very occasional, shared flicker of humour?

  But the pleasure of those kisses, of his caresses, the warmth of those moments when their eyes met and his mouth twitched in acknowledgement of a joke that only they knew... So many awkward parts of her body were tingling, her mind was all over the place...

  ‘Corsets,’ Aunt Caroline said, making her jump. ‘They must be our next priority. Your gowns will not hang well if you do not have stays made to flatter the latest fashions.’

  ‘I had forgotten about corsets. They will take some time to make which will delay my dress fittings, I suppose.’

  Linton produced a faint smirk, as though young ladies from the country could not be expected to understand about such vital things. ‘We are going to Mrs Clark in St James’s Street, Miss Wingate. She has them partly made so they can be adjusted to fit very quickly.’

  ‘Although why on earth she has to set up shop in a street full of gentlemen’s clubs and outfitters, I do not know,’ Aunt Caroline grumbled as they drew up outside Number Fifty-Six. ‘Put down your veil, dear. One would not wish to be stared at by idlers and pavement-saunterers as we go in.’

  Verity would quite like to have stared herself. St James’s Street was not somewhere a young lady would normally go, although Pall Mall, Piccadilly and, of course, King Street where Almack’s was were all entirely acceptable if one had a footman in attendance. But St James’s Street was the focus of the clubs, their windows a perfect vantage point for bucks and rakes to ogle any female foolish enough to pass by. She wondered which clubs Will belonged to.

  There was no space for the carriage to pull up immediately outside the shop so they had to walk up the road a little. Verity dawdled after her aunt with Linton making small flapping motions with her hands as though to shoo a flock of chickens safely past a fox’s den.

  ‘Is that Brooks’s club down there?’ And what a very elegant pair of gentlemen who had just come down the steps and turned up the hill towards them. Glossy tall hats, tight, biscuit-coloured pantaloons, Hessian boots with silver tassels.

  The shorter of the two dropped a glove. A pity he had no chin, poor chap, Verity thought as she reached the threshold of the shop and gave one last glance to her left. His companion, dark and tall, swung his cane idly as he waited for him to catch up. Then he turned and Verity shot into the shop so fast that she collided with Aunt Caroline.

  ‘I am sorry, Aunt.’

  Linton shut the door behind them. ‘Are you all right, Miss Wingate?’

  ‘Yes, quite—thank you. I tripped on the mat. I do hope I didn’t hurt you, Aunt?’ She glanced around, but the window, which held nothing other than a length of draped satin and flowers in a vase, was backed by heavy gauze curtains. She could see only vague shapes passing by and anyone outside could not see in at all.

  ‘Not in the slightest, dear. Ah, Mrs Clark. I have brought my niece, Miss Wingate, to you to be fitted. She will be acquiring an entire new wardrobe.’

  Verity smiled and submitted to being borne off and undressed and measured and laced and all the while could think of nothing but the tall, dark man who had walked out of the club.

  Thomas Harrington. The Reverend Thomas Harrington. Now Vicar of St Wulfram’s, but once, when she had been very innocent, very romantic, her lover.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry, Miss Wingate. Did I prick you?’

  ‘No, not at all. It was my fault. I moved.’

  Thomas. So handsome, so earnest, so very attentive, both to her and to Papa. Apparently modest, but clearly intelligent, he was the second, favoured, son of a country baronet, well bred but not well connected in ecclesiastical circles or in society. He had to work hard to secure advancement, he explained, not that he was ambitious for himself, of course. What he wanted was to do good, to find a parish where, by self-sacrifice and spiritual leadership, he could effect change for the bet
ter.

  Verity had never been quite certain how he had done it, but little by little Thomas became a regular visitor to the Bishop’s household, helping Papa with references for his studies, copying out sermons in his fine, clear hand, squiring her about to modest, unexceptional social events. Mutely gazing into her eyes with an intensity and a humble worship that was intoxicating.

  She fell for him so hard she had felt stunned. She had certainly lost all her critical faculties, she told herself bitterly afterwards. But that moonlit evening, with the nightingales pouring their heart-aching magic into the soft air, she had let him make love to her in the summer house. There had been kisses before—shy, tentative ones, like those he had pressed on her in Aunt Caroline’s drawing room—but this had been something else altogether.

  Verity had not enjoyed it very much. It had hurt and had been hurried and sticky and, frankly, embarrassing. Looking back now, she realised that Will’s kisses had excited her more than the totality of Thomas’s lovemaking. But Thomas had been so apologetic, so frank about how he had been carried away by passion. It would be so much better when they were married, he promised. He would go and ask for her hand immediately.

  But Papa had said only a few days before that he did not want her to marry until she had a London Season and an opportunity to look around her a little. So she had begged Thomas to wait for a week or so while she brought Papa round to the idea that she might have already fallen in love. It would not do to hurry things and turn him against Thomas, but, given time, what could his objection be to such a promising curate?

  Thank heavens she had waited. The good angel who looked after innocent young ladies might have slept through her seduction, but she had certainly been alert two evenings later when Verity had strayed down to the river’s edge at Lady Heskith’s party. Thomas had not been there when she arrived and the rooms were overheated and the music too loud, so she had strolled out on to the lawns down the path to the seat beside the weeping willow where she could dream about married life.