The Wild Duchess/The Willful Duchess (The Duchess Club Book 1)

by Renee Bernard

  “When you met Mother, did you like her right away?”

  Ashe smiled. “Upon our first meeting, I wanted to strangle her. Love came later and when it did, I was…transformed.” He didn’t need to say anything else.

  “I don’t believe that is true for most men, Father. I think if they are villains then they remain villains. I think it is foolish to think that love alone can change someone if they are set against it.”

  “You are probably right, Button. Best to choose a man who requires as little additional training as possible.” He cleared his throat. “So, tell me about your duke then.”

  “My duke?” Scarlett stiffened. “I…have no duke.”

  “Scarlett. I may be older but I am not yet senile. The dances, the crowd of callers outside my doors, the press, not to mention the man going out of his way to introduce himself at Pellham’s. I know what a man in pursuit looks like and the Duke of Chesterton is in the hunt.”

  Thank God. I thought he meant Talon for a moment and—then what could I say?

  “What do you think of him?”

  “I like him. I want to play cards with him. He’s nearly my age, Scarlett.”

  “Then he is not so old, Father. Besides, he has been a gentleman and a true friend. He is nothing like—some of his peers.” Scarlett looked him directly in the eye, unwilling to yield. “Do you object to him?”

  “As a friend to you, no. But I…”

  “I find that I value friends in the wilds of a London Season far more than I value keen admirers. Don’t you think that wise?”

  He sighed in defeat. “God, you have your mother’s craft for debate, don’t you? I know I was the one who insisted on a glorious Season and it may seem as if I was shoving you out of the nest but that wasn’t the intention. Don’t settle, Scarlett. Don’t settle for anything less than a man who worships you from head to toe and who you adore entirely. Do you hear me? A title isn’t any compensation and it will carry no weight if you marry for less than true love.”

  She hesitated, unwilling to admit that she didn’t have a stake in the game with Chesterton but was quickly losing her heart on a very different battlefield with Stafford. “Are you so sure? Most of society would preach otherwise…”

  “I was a rake, remember? Desperately unhappy women with titles used to be a specialty of mine. I was a cliché but so were they, Button. You deserve better.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to advise against mad passion, Father?”

  “Let me be clear, Scarlett. I was madly in love with your Mother before we married. If you are delicately trying to determine where I stand on the love growing over time after marriage philosophy, I think it’s bollocks.”

  “Mr. Blackwell!” Mrs. Clark interrupted from the top of the main staircase at the second floor landing. “I am pained to interrupt such—wise and tender advice! But Mrs. Blackwell wasn’t feeling well and I wondered if—”

  Ashe was up like a horse at the sound of a gunshot and racing up the stairs to take them two at a time. Mrs. Clark shook her head and gave Scarlett an apologetic smile. “It’s likely nothing, Miss Scarlett.”

  “Should I go to her?”

  Mrs. Clark shook her head firmly. “She’s forbidden it. And as I said, it’s likely nothing, Miss Scarlett. You mustn’t worry too much, if you can manage it.”

  “Please let me know if they send for Uncle Rowan.”

  “You needn’t ask.” Mrs. Clark retreated and left Scarlett to her thoughts as she resumed her climb at a much slower pace.

  Mother’s health was notoriously unsteady and her father had never grown accustomed to it. None of them truly had though for the twins, they had never known a time when there wasn’t an undercurrent of anxiety in the Blackwell household. But it wasn’t something anyone ever truly discussed and the girls in particular had been instructed not to ask too many questions. Instead, they had learned to accept terror as part of the landscape, an ocean at their backs that no one in the house ever turned to face.

  As if looking at it meant we would drown.

  She picked up the pace of her steps, determined to find Starr and alert her to their mother’s illness, to advise her to buy something pretty to please their father and to tell her that their eternally polite auburn-haired friend, Ivy Hastings, was an Amazon in disguise.

  “I’m pleased to see you but a little surprised.” Elgin gestured toward the comfortable chair across from him in his library. “I heard Gastonbury is coming back to England with his lovely daughter soon. I thought you might have gone into hiding by now.”

  “Is he really or are you saying that to see if I’ll bolt from the room?”

  “He really is. Not that watching your color change just then wasn’t also satisfying.”

  The men laughed and Elgin signaled his footman to bring the brandy and leave them alone. They had always been comfortable in each other’s company and this afternoon was no different.

  Except that for Talon it was different.

  He had kissed Scarlett far more times than he could claim to have been a momentary lapse of reason. No. Kissing Scarlett Blackwell was not a simple trespass he wanted to abstain from or really wished to forego—ever. But despite Scarlett’s wish to be the one to tell Chesterton, Talon was certain that as a gentleman it fell to him to make things clear with his friend and mentor.

  “What brings you here, Talon? You look like a schoolboy trying to compose his best excuse for losing his Latin book.”

  “I did always despise learning Latin.”

  “It’s because you did not have the benefit of a tutor with a sense of humor.” Elgin leaned back in his chair, his brandy glass in hand. “God bless Mr. Pillicher! I was the luckiest boy in England when he began to teach me how to curse, recite filthy limericks and compose insults that would curl the hair of a sailor—all in perfect Latin.”

  “To Mr. Pillicher!” Talon raised his own glass to toast the man. “Wherever he may be.”

  Elgin lifted his glass solemnly. “He is buried in a plot on my estate near the Folly by the lake. I brought him to my home for his golden years to repay him for his kindness to me. He died when I was only thirty. The man always looked like he was two hundred years old so I shouldn’t have been shocked for things to end so quickly for the man. Good journey, Pillicher.”

  Talon took a sip of is brandy and studied his friend. “You’re a good man.”

  Elgin shook his head. “Nonsense. I am always a work in progress, the rough draft of a better man. My father always said that if you are not improving yourself, you are done. And since I am not done, I don’t think I can claim to be good just yet.”

  “I like that,” Talon said as he leaned back, mirroring Elgin. “It gives a man permission to try.”

  “And to fail,” Elgin added quickly with a laugh. “But come on. Let’s have it. I’ve plied you with brandy, told you about dear Pillicher and given you the greatest piece of advice ever uttered. What brought you so sorrowfully to my door today?”

  “Scarlett Blackwell.”

  Elgin straightened in his chair, his mirth fading fast. “What happened? Is she unwell?”

  Damn it! The man is so obviously attached to her and now I’m here to play the cad!

  “She is very well and as…feisty as ever. I wanted to tell you that I am quite…taken with her.”

  “What? How is that possible?” Elgin asked gleefully. “You were ready to expose her for being a huntress of the worst sort, weren’t you?”

  “I’m an idiot but I’m a work in progress, Chesterton. I’m striving to improve.”

  “And this is bad news? Your change of heart toward Miss Blackwell?”

  “You are—clearly and openly interested in her as well. I should have steered clear of her completely and not put myself in this position but it was an unexpected turn. I respect you too much not to be honest about how things are shifting. I am…softening to her and it is causing me a great deal of worry. Your friendship is more important than I can say and I don’t want
to sacrifice it for a woman.”

  “But Scarlett Blackwell isn’t just any woman.”

  “No, apparently not.” Talon set his drink aside. “I am sorry.”

  “I’m not.” Elgin waved a hand the air as if conducting an invisible choir. “I think it makes the Season ahead even more exciting in a way.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I am not intimidated by a younger rival, Stafford. I have no formal claim to Miss Blackwell. She is free to choose her own path. Surely there is enough happiness in the world for everyone to have some?”

  Talon leaned forward in his chair, unsure if he’d misunderstood what Chesterton had said. “I think you’ve mistaken love triangles for Christmas baskets. Rivalry over a woman is not…an everyone ends up happy scenario. I don’t think Miss Blackwell would appreciate any hint of sharing in this matter.”

  “I do appreciate your sense of humor, Stafford, but I do see your point.”

  “You are stepping away then?”

  Elgin shook his head. “Not until I am assured that she wishes it and not until I am assured that all is well.”

  “She should come to you with just such an expression very soon. No hard feelings, Chesterton.”

  “You are overly confident, young man. Mind your step. Are you afraid of a rival, Stafford?”

  Talon smiled. “Not at all.”

  “Good. Then do me a favor and steer clear of Sussex House tomorrow night. I’m expecting the Blackwells to attend and I wish to give Scarlett a chance to tell me where things stand. What do you say? Can you trust her to me for one night?”

  “I trust you both.” Talon held out his hand. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you, friend.”

  “May the best man win her.”

  Talon couldn’t stop grinning. The best man will!

  Chapter 13

  “What happened in there?” Elgin demanded as soon as they had gained the privacy of his carriage. “And don’t you dare spin some nonsense about how you were flirting and fell onto her fan!”

  “That was her version of events, not mine. If at all possible, can we talk about this in the morning? I am so tired I can’t feel my hands and tonight was…I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “She struck you.”

  “Yes,” he said, biting off his reply, the confession bitter in his mouth. “Though my pride suffered the most damage. God, may I never lay eyes on that woman again!”

  “You will absolutely lay eyes on that woman again. You will fall at her feet and be as charming as you can, or you will never recover from that blow.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It is a scandal hanging over your head at this moment. Every tongue in that room was wagging and if you think that storm will pass if you publicly dismiss and insult her, then you have lost your mind.”

  “It was…an unfortunate moment but hardly a scandal.”

  “Why did she strike you?”

  “A misunderstanding.”

  “What did you do to provoke her?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Truly? A gentle and sweet girl by all accounts and in my own experience notoriously shy in company, that girl struck out with her fan in righteous fury in response to…nothing? Is that what you wish to say to me? Is that what you honestly think London will swallow whole without question?”

  “It was a misunderstanding.”

  “So you’ve already said. But let me instruct you on my understanding. You must have done something. Did you say something insulting or crass to her?”

  Ryder looked out the carriage window, refusing to answer. Admitting to his uncle that he’d mistaken the girl for her sister and that he’d indeed been less than civil was not something he relished doing. The impulse of the act embarrassed him now and any hope he had of amending things for his uncle’s best interests and intervening with his unlikely relationship with Miss Scarlett Blackwell was in its death throes. He felt like an idiot—or worse, a boy in short pants getting a well-deserved lecture.

  “Did you touch her?”

  “What?” His head whipped back as he stared at his uncle in shock. “No!”

  The duke’s expression was of a man entirely unconvinced. “Your reputation is not without blemish and you have become known for your rakish ways, I fear. Protest all you like but few would doubt rumors that you forgot yourself with Miss Starr Blackwell and overstepped to earn that blow.”

  “I have never overstepped with a lady in good society and my reputation is not as salacious as that.” Well, not with any that weren’t welcoming of the prospect and delighted at the idea of a bit of naughty fun.

  Elgin shook his head slowly. “You will repair the damage you have done. You will win that girl’s trust and friendship and see that Starr Blackwell has only good things to say when your name is mentioned in conversation or I will know why.”

  “Her trust and friendship? Are you mad?”

  Elgin leaned forward slightly on the carriage seat, the intensity of his quiet fury making the confines menacing for his heir presumptive. “If this goes wrong and rumors get out of control… If there is someone who mistakenly thought they saw you lay one finger on that girl and offered ruin, then you may in fact be forced to offer far more than friendship. If her father hears of this evening’s events, I assure you he will not assume that it was nothing that drove his dear child to defend herself. If he calls on me in the next few days, it may be with a male friend at his side to act as a second and he will be asking for you. Am I making myself clear? You are sitting on the razor thin edge of disaster and you will not whistle off and play the fool.”

  “I will…do my best to make amends.”

  Elgin sat back against the cushions. “Don’t think I’m not angry that you would offend either of the Blackwell Beauties in this way. It is a personal affront to me, Ryder, and I am not in my dotage to miss what your intentions may have been.”

  Ryder took a deep breath. “I apologize.”

  “Good. Tonight you’ll sleep and tomorrow you will apologize more directly to her and with far more enthusiasm or I will eject you into the streets with such force that no one will question it if you have to walk back to Cornwall in penance for this trespass.”

  “Uncle Elgin. This is all a mis—”

  “There is no misunderstanding! You flew here from Cornwall to make that scene. I would say that is the very definition of intention, wouldn’t you agree? You simply picked the wrong Blackwell Beauty but I will say this now—if it had been Scarlett that you had managed to insult tonight, it would be me calling you out! I only wish now that I had anticipated just how ugly the lies from the rumormongers would become or how prolific the gossips could be for I would never have asked Miss Blackwell to dance that night at Aldridge’s! I’ve led her like a lamb to the slaughter. The derision of London’s worst elements should not shock me but the sight of you—standing there with a well-deserved bloody nose? I’m at a loss, Ryder.”

  “God, so am I… The papers, everything we heard was so… I leapt in like a fool. I will make it right. I swear it.”

  Elgin nodded. “Wait until you really meet those young ladies. If you think you feel like a fool now, just wait. You tried to brand two angels as whores, boy! If they can forgive you for it, I’m glad, but I may need some time.”

  His uncle turned to look away, refusing to look back and it was all Ryder could do not to put his face in his hands.

  I could strangle Lady Durham—but damned if I didn’t dig most of this hole all by myself. Dear God, how exactly does a man apologize for being the world’s biggest ass?

  “What happened in there?” Scarlett asked softly.

  “Did something happen?” Mrs. Martin asked innocently. “I knew I shouldn’t have tried to get us punch!”

  “No, nothing happened,” Starr replied calmly. “And I will not talk about it.”

  Scarlett allowed it and the carriage ride passed in total silence. They arrived home, bid Mrs. Martin good night, checked in with
Mrs. Clark to be reassured that Dr. West had not been summoned in their absence and then climbed the stairs together to reach the sanctuary of their bedroom. Molly helped them out of their gowns and into their bedclothes and once she left, Scarlett closed the door behind her and leaned with a sigh against the carved wood panels.

  “Okay. Now. Let’s have it.”

  “No. He is the duke’s nephew and it is clear that…there has been a misunderstanding. I refuse to sour things between you and—”

  “No. Nothing else matters. My Tara needs me and if I can guess, he said something horrible because he thought he was talking to me. You—took a stand for me, didn’t you?”

  Starr nodded unable to speak.

  Scarlett went on. “He heard the worst of the rumors and meant to charge in and dress me down in public.”

  Starr’s eyes filled with tears.

  “I wonder.”

  “What?” Starr whispered.

  “Did you see Lady Durham in the doorway of that room? She looked like a woman watching a bullbaiting who had placed a very large sum of money on the bull.”

  “Did she?”

  Scarlett shifted away from the door and moved to sit next to Starr on the bed. “She did. And I am willing to place a large sum of money down that she had a great deal to do with this mess.” She sighed and embraced her sister. “Not that it excuses him, dearest.”

  “I-I can’t believe I struck a man like that!”

  “Uncle Michael would be so proud of you!” Scarlett released her with a smile, trying to coax a smile. “Serves Lord Hayle right to underestimate a woman who has read Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’.”

  “Little good it did me tonight,” Starr sighed. “According to Sun Tzu the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting…I need to revisit that book.”

  “Thank you, Tara.”

  “For what?”

  “For defending me as you did. I know you loathe conflicts and yet you held your ground and more. I am so—thank you, dearest. I love you.”

  “I love you, too. How could I have done anything differently? I will always fight for you, Lettie. Always.”