“Why didn’t you tell him? Or tell me?”
“Rogan was so happy. Oh, he tried not to let on, but I could see it. I have never seen a man whose heart was so full. I couldn’t tell him. And the article really didn’t matter at that point anyway. You and he were going to be married.”
Mary’s eyebrows inched toward her nose. “Wait a moment. You did mention the column to me.” She raised a finger in the air as she dug deep into her memory to recall the words. “You apologized for the column.” She looked at Quinn. “But I thought you meant that the release of the column was regrettable. Not that you wrote it!”
Quinn coughed an uneasy half laugh. “I suppose on some level I knew you misunderstood. I only hoped that you would realize that I had supplied the information for the column when you read it and saw that my name alone was left out.”
Mary shook her head. “I was too shaken by the consequences of the column to notice,” she said under her breath.
She turned and walked nearly blindly into the entry hall, where she snatched her straw bonnet from a hook on the wall.
Quinn followed close behind. “I am sorry, Miss Royle. You cannot know how much.”
Mary opened the front door and started down the steps.
Quinn’s cane clicked behind her.
“I have to speak with Rogan. I have to apologize for doubting him-” she began.
“Let me take you to Portman Square,” Quinn said. “’Tis the least I can do.”
Before Mary could accept, she heard MacTavish calling her name from the open door.
“Miss Royle!” He raised a folded square of vellum in his hand. “This came for you while you were in the parlor with Lord Wetherly.”
“I shall read it when I return,” she replied curtly.
“It is from the duke, Miss Royle. His footman bade me tell you it was very important.”
Mary spun around, raced up the stairs, and took the missive. She broke the red wax wafer and unfolded the letter. Her eyes skimmed over the short note.
She looked to Quinn. “He has gone to Cavendish Square. Can you take me there to meet him?”
“It would be my honor, Miss Royle.”
Mary and Quinn were led into Lady Upperton’s library, where the portly old woman and Lord Lotharian sat waiting.
Mary glanced about the room. Rogan was not there. She lifted the short letter in her hand to show Lady Upperton and Lotharian. “I-I was under the impression that Blackstone would be here.”
“Oh, and he shall.” Lotharian rose and walked over to reach out his hand to her.
Mary took a step backward.
“My dear, you might be quite miffed at me now, but I vow, in one hour’s time, you will be kissing my cheek.”
“I doubt that very much, my lord. The past few days have been the most miserable of my life.”
“But how were your nights, my dear?” he asked, casting a loathsome, rakish wink at her.
Mary looked past the ancient rake and spoke instead to Lady Upperton. “I beg your pardon, Lady Upperton, but if Rogan is not here, then where is he? It is important that I speak with him immediately.”
“I am here.”
Mary spun around to see Rogan entering the room with a gray-haired older woman on his arm.
The woman held herself most regally, and Mary was sure she recognized her from somewhere. Just where, though, she couldn’t recall.
Lord Lotharian and Lady Upperton approached the woman and began to speak with her. But Mary’s eyes were fixed on Rogan, and she paid the woman no heed.
Rogan released the lady’s arm and politely left her side to come to Mary. “Mary, I must speak with you.”
Lady Upperton turned and snared both of them by the arm. “There will be time, all the time in the world, for the two of you to speak. But right now, it is time that we hear from Lady Jersey.”
“Lady Jersey?” Mary sputtered. She stared hard at the woman. Yes, it was she. The woman from the portrait in the Harrington gallery.
Only now she was older. Her hair gray, not chestnut. Her skin pale, rather than vibrant. “Lady Jersey! B-but, how?”
Graciously, Lady Jersey allowed Lord Lotharian to escort her to the settee, and she sat down.
She raised her eyes to Mary and gazed at her as if assessing her. “I knew the late Duke of Blackstone quite well. His son, here, asked me to come to speak with you about a Kashmir shawl of mine that you might have found.”
Mary’s eyes went wide. “Yes, we did find a shawl amongst my father’s belongings after he died.”
Lady Jersey raised her thin brows. “I do not believe I know you, gel.”
A jolt rushed through Mary as it occurred to her that if the Old Rakes’ story was true, this woman would have preferred her and her sisters…dead.
Lady Upperton quickly made the requisite introductions.
When appropriate, Mary curtsied hesitantly, for her bones felt as though they had been replaced with ice.
“Miss Royle?” Lady Jersey narrowed her eyes. “Your name is somehow familiar to me, though your face is not. Have we met before? At the theater, or a rout, perhaps?”
“No, my lady. Perhaps you met my father and know his name? For a time, he was the personal physician to the Prince of Wales.”
Mary watched for a flicker, anything that might belie the story of her and her sisters’ births.
But there was nothing.
“I do not recall him specifically, no.” Lady Jersey’s tone remained even. How odd that she could speak through her teeth without moving her mouth but the smallest amount. “The Prince maintains the services of a number of physicians. Both in years past, and now.”
Lotharian brought forth the shawl, likely realizing, as Mary did, that Lady Jersey’s patience with them was waning. “This is the Kashmir shawl the duke mentioned,” he said. “It has been noted that you were wearing one of the very same design in the portrait now hanging in the Harrington gallery. Is the shawl yours?”
Lady Jersey leaned forward and peered at the shawl. “It appears to be one of the several Kashmir shawls I owned.”
Lady Upperton’s eyes were flashing. “Lady Jersey, the shawl is badly stained…with what appears to be dried blood. Can you tell us how that came to be and how Mr. Royle might have come into possession of your shawl?”
An uncomfortable smile spread over Lady Jersey’s mouth. “There is only one instance I recall when my clothing might have become stained.”
She flicked the shawl with the edge of her reticule, turning it over on the tea table before her. Then she looked up at Lady Upperton and laughed.
“I should not say, but since this particular shawl seems to hold great interest for your party, I will tell you. It happened many years ago. The Prince of Wales was feverish and could not be consoled after Mrs. Fitzherbert left him for a term. The physicians had no choice. He had to be bled.”
Mary swallowed deeply and listened.
“I was a close friend of his at the time, so I sat with him to ease his nerves whilst a physician opened his arm. He jerked, though, and blood began to spurt rather than trickle. The physician, needing to act quickly, snatched my shawl from my shoulders and tied it around the Prince’s arm to slow the bloodletting.”
“And the shawl?” Rogan prodded. “What became of it?”
Lady Jersey stood up. “I never saw the shawl again. Nor did I care to. I had others.” She looked up at Rogan. “Now, if there is nothing else, Blackstone, I should like to be returned to my lodgings, please.”
Rogan bowed, then turned to his brother. An exchange of glances was all it took for Quinn to take Lady Jersey’s arm and escort her outside to his waiting carriage.
“Well, I am sorry her report was not more encouraging, Miss Royle,” Lotharian sighed loudly.
“It changes nothing for me. It is not my past that interests me…but rather, my future.” She allowed her gaze to touch Rogan’s face. “Though my sisters might be rather disappointed.” Mary looked at Lady Uppert
on and smiled. “But our stay in London is not finished, and, I daresay, with Elizabeth and Anne poking about, there will be other clues.”
“Mrs. Fitzherbert still lives,” Rogan broke in. “I could approach her for you and your sisters.”
“Thank you, but no.” Mary turned, and her gaze locked with Rogan’s. “My sisters and I agreed that we would never approach such an esteemed woman with our story-without irrefutable evidence. We have nothing.” After speaking, she allowed her gaze to linger.
Lady Upperton saw the intimate exchange of glances. “Lotharian, might I speak with you in the passage for a moment?”
“What, whatever for-”
“I have been having a problem with rodents. Come this way.” With amazing speed, the old woman took Lotharian’s arm and led him out of the library and into the passage.
Mary’s eyes flooded as she peered up at Rogan. “I am so sorry, my love. I should have trusted you.” Her voice shook with deep regret, and she could not stop the torrent of tears that began coursing down her cheeks. “I am so sorry-”
Rogan set his fingers over her lips to quiet her. “Shhh. Say nothing more. Please, just listen.”
Mary nodded mutely.
Rogan cradled her face in his hands and peered down into her watery eyes as he dabbed away the tears on her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “I love you, Mary. With all my heart and all that I am, I love you.”
He bent and pressed his lips to hers, and she melted into his arms.
When he lifted his mouth from her lips, he smiled down at her. “I cannot make you a princess, but if you will have me this night, a duchess you will be.”
Rogan reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a gold wedding ring. He held it before her eyes. “If you love me, as I love you, say you will, Mary. Say you will be my wife.”
“I will.” Mary’s eyes misted as she gazed up at Rogan, but then took on a glimmer. “I still get to wear a tiara, right?”
Portman Square, that evening
The moon shone like a lantern upon the grassy clearing of the garden where the three women stood, their skin smooth and white as marble in the blue glow of the light.
Their snowy gowns draped gracefully from their shoulders, and they were tied with crossed ribbons of ivory silk. The looked like goddesses from another time and place.
One, in particular.
Rogan smiled with pride as he gazed down at Mary, standing at his side. Her sisters dutifully stood to her left, his own brother to his right.
The air was filled with the soft, sweet perfume of newly planted crimson-budded roses, and their scattered petals made a lush velvet carpet for the wedding party.
Tears of joy streaked down Lady Upperton’s face, cutting wet tracks in her heavily powdered face. Lord Lotharian was beside her, smiling most confidently. However, his gaze seemed to alight on the small leather pouches of wagered coins both Gallantine and Lilywhite held in their hands at the ready in the event that the couple actually married as he’d predicted.
The rector prompted Mary’s reply.
“I will,” she replied. She turned her gaze to Rogan’s then, and her smile broadened.
Rogan squeezed her hand. He’d never felt so blissfully happy. Never before had his heart felt so full.
Never had he been so completely in love.
“I love you,” Rogan whispered to her as he slipped the ring of gold over her knuckle and pressed it down to the base of her finger. “And I will, forever.”
“I love you too, and shall, forever,” she echoed.
A warm glow spread through Rogan just then.
He knew the ring would never come off her finger again, because this time nothing could come between them.
They would truly be together…forever.
Epilogue
Mary leaned against the tufted leather cushion inside the carriage and tilted the pages of her father’s book of maladies and remedies to the light breaking through the window.
“You can’t mean to read that book during the entire journey to Blackstone Hall.” Rogan snatched the volume from her hands.
“I cannot stop wondering why my father included this book, of all of the other medical texts in his library, in the document box. Elizabeth is certain there is a clue or some other important information in this book that might assist us in learning the identity of our true parents. My father scrawled so many little notes, underlined segments. There has to be something here. I am just missing it.”
“I thought that book was about how to seduce a duke.”
“Mmm, you remembered that, did you?” Mary grinned back at him. “Well, I studied that particular chapter. Have it memorized, in fact.”
“Have you, now?” One corner of Rogan’s mouth slipped upward, and he flashed that rakish smile of his. “And what does that chapter suggest?”
“Oh, it’s quite simple, really.” Mary reached up, drew the shade down over the window, and turned her most seductive smile upon him. “Just find a carriage.”
A footman, liveried in deepest blue satin, stood just outside the circular glow of the candle upon the writing desk.
He was nearly invisible to Lady Jersey as she dipped her pen into a crystal pot of ink and moved it across the page, but she knew he was there. He was waiting to deliver the all-important missive she was hurriedly writing.
She sprinkled sand on the words, then tapped the page on the desk before folding and sealing it with a dollop of red wax. She pressed her ring into the drying wafer, then turned and handed the missive to the footman.
“Take it to her. Hurry. She must know.”
He bowed and disappeared beyond the reach of light.
Lady Jersey leaned her elbows on the desk. The granules of sand bit into her thin skin as she rested her head in her trembling hands and closed her eyes.
God help me.
The babies lived.
They lived.
Acknowledgments
There are several people to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude for helping me bring this story to life:
My wonderful editor at Avon Books, Lucia Macro, who probably has no idea how her hilarious daily e-mails spurred me on when the finish line seemed miles away.
Jenny Bent, my incredible agent, who went above and beyond the call of duty to help me deliver this book on time.
My amazing research assistant, Franzeca Drouin, who was always one step ahead of me.
Regency expert, Nancy Mayer, and also the learned ladies of the Beau Monde, especially authors Diane Perkins, Dee Hendrickson, Gaelen Foley and Tonda Fuller, who were always willing and able to answer any and all last-minute questions I had about complex period details.
My friend and fellow author, Sophia Nash, who encouraged me throughout the course of writing this book-including making arrangements for a very important revitalizing day at a spa as my deadline loomed.
My sisters, Lisa Sellers and Jenny Byers, and also my own two princesses (when they are old enough to read my books!), who might see glimpses of themselves between these pages.
And to my husband, for proving to me that everyday heroes really do exist.
Thank you all.
About the Author
KATHRYN CASKIE has long been a devotee of history and things of old, so it came as no surprise to her family when she took a career detour off the online superhighway and began writing historical romances full time.
With a background in marketing, advertising, and journalism, she has written professionally for television, radio, the internet, magazines, and newspapers in and around metropolitan Washington, DC.
How to Seduce a Duke is her fifth novel.
Kathryn lives in a 200-year-old Quaker home nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains with her greatest sources of inspiration, her husband and two young daughters.
Readers may contact Kathryn through her website at www.kathryncaskie.com.
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