The Duke's Holiday

by Maggie Fenton

  He put the books down as he’d found them – or rather he lined them up parallel to the desk – and started out of the room. He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight that greeted him. For there, standing in the doorway, was the ghost of Marie Antoinette. Or what appeared to be that unfortunate lady at first glance, attired in an elaborately-gilded, old-fashioned, slightly shabby paneled ball gown that might have been worn at the court of Versailles, with a tall powdered white wig nearly half of the lady’s height, studded with bows, fake fruit and fowl, perched upon her head. But the woman was quite real, and quite ancient, the thick layers of lead paint and rouge cracking along the deep wrinkles lining her face.

  When she saw him, she let out a shriek, causing her wig to list slightly to the right, picked up the sides of her elaborate gown, and fled the room.

  Montford stared after her, dumbfounded.

  Then he started after her.

  “Madam!” he called, passing back into the corridor.

  But the old woman had disappeared as thoroughly as the child had done.

  He wandered aimlessly about the keep, searching for some signs of humanity but finding none. At last, he came to a conservatory of sorts, as disordered as the front parlor had been, and crowded with potted plants and children’s toys. He picked his way over the mess until he stood at a pair of French doors leading out into an overgrown courtyard, with a fountain set in the middle featuring a statue of Poseidon.

  The fountain didn’t work. Shocking.

  But it seemed to be inhabited. By two children. One he recognized as the child from before. The other looked older, but just as dirty and genderless. They seemed to be engaged in some sort of playacting and were hitting each other with sticks while running around the fountain.

  He stepped outside and called to them. They turned, dropped their sticks at the sight of him, and fled into the rosebushes. Montford strode to catch up with them, and cursed when he rounded the bushes and found no one. He cast his head to the heavens in exasperation, which turned out to be a bad idea, for he found himself staring up at the North tower.

  He staggered back, suddenly seasick, and lowered his glance.

  Just then, he heard a noise in the distance. It sounded like a human voice. His spirits rose considerably, until he heard the noise that followed, which didn’t sound human at all. It was more a squeal, or a snort. A noise only an extremely dirty creature could make.

  Having no choice, he followed the direction of the sounds around the side of the castle, until he came to what appeared to be the stable yard, with a largish vegetable garden stretching off to one side. The sounds seemed to be rising from the garden, and at last he saw a human head bob up, then disappear back over a wall, muttering a curse.

  Montford looked despairingly across the expanse of mud separating him from the garden, then down at his boots, and began to walk. Extremely carefully. Through the mud.

  He arrived at the wall and peered over it. His eyes widened at the sight. It was a lad in a floppy hat, dressed in breeches and a jerkin caked with mud, and tugging on a rope attached to the most enormous pig Montford had ever seen.

  Granted, he didn’t think he had ever seen a pig, aside from the one gracing the banquet table at Christmas, but he was quite certain it was the largest pig in the world. It was at least four times larger than the lad who was vainly tugging on the rope around its neck, and likely to grow even larger, given the mouthful of cabbage it was enjoying from the garden’s bounty.

  The lad cursed and tugged and made no headway at all with the animal, other than an occasional snort.

  Montford decided to put an end to the farce and put the lad to better use. “You there, boy,” he called out. “Stop this nonsense at once and go fetch me someone in charge.”

  The lad, startled by his voice, slipped in the mud and fell on his backside, the floppy hat tumbling into the cabbage. He turned to face Montford and pushed his hair out of his eyes, scowling belligerently.

  That was when Montford realized that the lad wasn’t a lad at all. The lad was a … a female! The slanting light of the late afternoon cut across the garden in that moment, catching in the woman’s hair, making it blaze the furious red and orange tones of a bonfire. He had never seen hair that color, so off-puttingly red, falling in wavy, haphazard abundance from uncertain moorings at the back.

  Her brows were off-putting as well, thick and lustrous and almost black, compared to her blazing hair. So were her lips, too full and wide for her to ever be considered truly pretty, even had she not been covered in freckles. And mud.

  He gazed at her, even dizzier than he had felt when staring up at the tower.

  There was something about this female, something he could not quite put his finger on, that was completely … well, wrong. Askew. Never mind she was dressed like a stable hand, or had hair the color of fire, or that her skin was riddled with freckles (blech!), or even that she was covered in mud. He felt the same impulse he had felt when confronted by that collection of enameled snuffboxes: the need to line something up before he screamed.

  His hands clenched into fists at his side.

  What was it?

  The female’s eyes went wide at the sight of him, and she hopped to her feet, mud flying. He somehow managed to notice – though he knew not why – that she was a head shorter than him, and that beneath the mud-encrusted lad’s clothes she was quite – quite – well, curved.

  So curved that he wondered how he had ever mistaken her backside for a lad’s.

  A pang, hot and shattering, passed through his body, as if someone had just hit a Chinese gong inside his breeches. Which made no sense. He didn’t like short redheads. He didn’t like short redheads with curves. He most decidedly did not like short redheads with curves in trousers.

  He liked blonds. Immaculate, begowned, bejeweled blondes with willowy bodies.

  Good God, why was it suddenly so hot? It was nearly October, for Christ’s sakes. For the first time in his life, he wanted to tug at his cravat.

  “You … er, girl,” he said, “I’m looking for a Mr. Stevenage.”

  The redhead’s gaze narrowed, and something like shrewd assessment replaced her initial shock. Her brow cocked on one side, and she crossed her arms over her chest, which consequently pushed her breasts upwards and outwards, sending another inconvenient jolt shooting through his nether regions.

  Montford was so completely caught off balance he had to grip the wall to stay upright. No one had ever dared to treat him with such utter disregard for his station. Granted, she did not know who he was, but it was obvious from his attire that he was mountains above her in class and station. Good God, she was in a garden with a giant pig! How much more disgustingly plebeian could one get? “Very well, I wish to speak to A. Honeywell.”

  Her brow rose even higher. “Do you, indeed? And which A. Honeywell would that be, for there are five who answer to that name.”

  He was going to be sick. Again. Five? “I shall speak to whoever is in charge, insolent chit,” he retorted.

  The girl’s face turned as red as her hair, and she gave him a venomous look before turning away from him to take up her rope once more, ignoring him completely.

  “You there, girl! I will not be ignored,” he bellowed.

  She snorted indelicately and tugged on her rope. Her anger seemed to have given her extra strength, for at last she made some headway with the pig, who trotted a few paces in her direction.

  “I wish to speak to Stevenage. I know you’ve done something with him,” he insisted.

  She passed by him at the wall, pulling the pig towards the gate a few paces away. She rolled her eyes as she passed, and the scent of sweat, hay, and lavender followed in her wake, startling him.

  He trailed her, furious, but still slightly dizzy from looking at her. “I am the Duke of Montford. I happen to own this lopsided pile of stones, and everything in it. I demand to see A. Honeywell.”

  The girl rounded on him, clearly furious. “You own this
lopsided pile? Says what? A two hundred year old piece of parchment?” The girl snorted, unlocked the gate, and began to pull a reluctant pig through it. “The Honeywells built this lopsided pile with their bare hands in the year of our lord 996. And the Montfords have attempted to steal it from us since the Invasion. Lying, bloody thieving Norman upstarts!” she scoffed contemptuously, marching past him. “Just because my ancestor couldn’t keep it in his breeches and had to have your ancestor for a wife – tainting our pristine Saxon bloodlines, by the by – I will be triple damned if we lose our home to the likes of you.”

  Montford was further disoriented by the redhead’s outburst. She was dressed like a stable hand, had the perfect diction of a blue blood, and cursed like a sailor.

  She was, of course, a Honeywell.

  “Are you A. Honeywell, then?”

  “I am an A. Honeywell,” she said cryptically, stopping in front of him and glancing up at his face challengingly.

  In that moment, several things happened. He realized why she made him dizzy, he found Stevenage, and the pig decided to start moving. Really moving.

  She made him dizzy because, as he stared down at her face from this short distance, he could better see her eyes, which were large, rimmed with soot-colored lashes, and…

  Two different colors. One was brown and the other was blue, sky blue.

  He had to clench his hands at his sides in order not to reach out and try to erase such a glaring imperfection. Logic told him he could not do so merely by shaking her shoulders, but he was tempted to try.

  Before he could do so, the door to the barn across the yard swung open, and a couple spilled out of it, laughing and stumbling in the muck. He couldn’t manage to turn away from the redhead’s uncanny countenance, but out of the corner of his eye, he noted a rather buxom woman, breasts spilling out the top of her dress, straw colored hair pinned loosely back from a middle-aged but pleasant-looking face, laughing and tugging on the arm of a man.

  The man, dressed like a peasant, was chuckling, attempting to steal a kiss from the woman, and weaving slightly on his feet, hiccoughing with every other step. But something about the man’s wiry frame, steel gray hair and spectacles, which were sitting slightly askew his beakish nose, distracted Montford from the redhead’s unearthly eyes.

  It was …

  No, it couldn’t be.

  Could it?

  “Stevenage?” he called out, his voice mirroring his inner turmoil.

  The man froze, looked up from the woman’s bosom, and turned as white as a sheet.

  “Your – hic – Grace – hic?” Stevenage attempted a courtly bow, but staggered back and fell on his rump.

  Montford turned back to the redhead. “What have you done to my man-of-affairs?” he roared.

  But before she could answer, the pig grew impatient and began running across the yard, yanking the rope from the redhead’s hands.

  And as the pig passed by Montford, it decided to bash its hock against his legs, causing him to stumble backwards and land with a thwack in a puddle of mud that reached his navel.

  Montford was too shocked to do anything other than sit there, staring around the stable yard and wondering if he had fallen into his worst nightmare.

  Or the seventh circle of hell.

  Chapter Four

  IN WHICH THE DUKE TAKES UP RESIDENCE IN A LOPSIDED CASTLE

  ALL HELL had broken loose in the yard. Petunia took off at a gallop, knocking the Duke of Montford into the biggest mudslick in the county, Art and Ant burst out of the shrubbery, chanting in Greek and hitting each other with their makeshift swords, Alice and Aunt Anabel appeared at the door to the kitchens, and two men Astrid didn’t recognize – one large and muscled and dressed in travelstained livery, the other thin and consumptive and dressed like a peacock – burst from the stables, chased by Charlie and Mick, the stable hands, who were wielding, respectively, a pitchfork and a hammer.

  Everyone came to a halt at the sight of the Duke of Montford sitting in the mud, looking, for all intents and purposes, ready to do murder.

  Ready to murder her.

  She took an involuntary step backwards at the icy glint in his silver eyes. “COOMBES!” Montford roared.

  The consumptive peacock jumped, squeaked and started forward, tiptoeing across the muddy expanse. The Duke staggered to his feet. The peacock reached his side, produced a bit of lace from a pocket, and started to dab ineffectually at the Duke’s mud-soaked breeches.

  The Duke gave a pained groan. “Will you please refrain from dabbing at my arse, Coombes,” he bit out, swatting away the man.

  And because she couldn’t have stopped herself had a gun been pointed at her head, Astrid let out the laugh she had been attempting to quell ever since the Duke, in all of his sartorial splendor, had landed on that aforementioned arse in the mud.

  The Duke caught his breath and glared at her in indignation. Then he looked over her shoulder towards Stevenage and shouted his name.

  She followed his glance and discovered that Stevenage was now attempting to hide behind Flora. At the sound of his name, poor Stevenage’s courage fled him completely, and he turned and ran out of the stableyard as if chased by the devil, hiccoughing along the way.

  The Duke looked aghast at his man-of-affair’s desertion. He turned his steely eyes back to her and attempted to speak, but Petunia squealed and began charging in their direction once again. The Duke looked at the pig, and something resembling terror flashed across his face. Petunia rushed past them and back into the garden.

  Astrid groaned. Her cabbages! Her prize cabbages! “Charlie! Mick! See to Petunia,” she ordered. The two stablehands rushed towards the garden. “Flora, why don’t you show our guest to a room so that he might …” She glanced down at the Duke’s lower portion, dripping with mud, “ … repair himself.”

  Flora nodded.

  Astrid turned to the Duke. “If that suits His Grace, of course.”

  “It does,” he snapped, then began to walk towards the castle, his boots squelching in the mud. He gave Art and Ant, who were doubled over in giggles, a quelling look as he passed by them, which sobered the girls completely. They scurried to Astrid’s side and attempted to hide behind her legs.

  When the Duke and the peacock had disappeared inside, Astrid let out a groan and turned to Alice, who had come out into the yard, a look of sheer panic contorting her pretty features. “Oh, Astrid! What are we to do?”

  Astrid wished that she knew. She had not planned on this particular development.

  She caught the glance of the burly man in livery who was staring at her speculatively. Montford’s driver. After a moment, he just shrugged and disappeared into the stables, as if none of what had occurred was of the slightest concern to him.

  Astrid sighed.

  She had known from nearly the first moment she had seen him standing over the garden wall that the Duke of Montford had come to call, like some villain out of a fairy tale. He was towering, lean, but nevertheless powerfully built beneath his splendid, princely clothing, and seemed to occupy the space around him as if he owned it. As if, in fact, he owned the very air he breathed – or at the very least as if the air he breathed should feel humbled that he was allowing it to pass into his exalted lungs. His dark hair was close-cropped and tamed into perfect submission, his features so blindingly perfect and completely glacial they could have been hewn out of marble, and his eyes – silver overlaid with ice – bored into her with an intelligence and probity that had quite literally taken the breath from her body.

  She had never seen anything like him before. His coat alone, black silk tailored in stark lines that emphasized the strength of the body beneath, had clearly cost more than her and her sisters’ wardrobes combined. His starched cravat, with a single, giant ruby nestled in its crisp folds, was whiter than snow. His perfectly manicured hand settled atop the wall, smooth and unsullied by anything so plebian as manual labor, was adorned by an enormous gold signet ring on his long index finger, t
opped by a crest studded by another gargantuan ruby. The only sign that he was flesh-and-blood were the dark circles under his eyes and a slight pallor to his complexion, suggesting a long, difficult journey.

  He was ridiculously imposing. Arrogant. As beautiful as an ice sculpture. And so completely trussed, groomed and buttoned up that Astrid had the overwhelming desire to run up to him and rip the cravat from his neck.

  She’d hated him immediately. Even before he had called her an insolent chit.

  And she knew that he was going to prove a nearly insurmountable obstacle.

  She turned to Alice. “Hide the book,” she said.

  Alice, who had never been the sharpest tool in the box when it came to anything other than her wardrobe, looked perplexed. “What book?”

  “The estate book,” she bit out.

  Alice’s eyes widened in understanding. “Oh, that book. Where shall I hide it?”

  Astrid sighed. “In the last place the Duke of Montford would find it, obviously.”

  Alice nodded and hurried inside, past a confused-looking Aunt Anabel, whose wig was sitting slightly askew on her head.

  “Astrid,” Ant said uncertainly, pulling at her trousers. “What are we to do?”

  She looked down at her younger sisters. “Why, carry on as you were, of course.” Then an idea began to form in her head. She smiled at the pair of ruffians. “In fact, I give you permission to act as naughtily as you possibly can while our houseguest remains.”

  They looked startled for a moment, then understanding blossomed across their impish faces, and they grinned cunningly. They ran off into the gardens, whispering to each other, no doubt fomenting something very naughty indeed.

  Astrid nodded to herself. “Right then,” she said, straightening her shirt. “Into the fray.”

  If the Duke survived the night, he would be a very lucky man indeed.

  Or more formidable than the combined forces of the Honeywells. And no one was more formidable than that, even if he happened to be more powerful than the Prince Regent himself.

  “Aunt Anabel,” she said, taking her by the arm and guiding her inside, “how would you like to have tea with a Duke?”