The Duke Diaries

by Sophia Nash

  The man didn’t bat an eye. “I have not been apprised of Lady Verity Fitzroy’s future plans.”

  Rory sighed deeply. “What is your name, sir?”

  The man blinked. “Wharton. William Wharton, Your Grace.”

  “Mr. Wharton.” Rory bowed slightly. “We can do this the hard way or the easy way. I would rather the latter if only because I am guessing you have been long in service to His Grace and his family—Lady Verity Fitzroy, in particular. I particularly do not want to cause an incident that might displeasure my intended.” He exhaled sharply. “But if you do not immediately tell me where Lady Fitzroy is, I shall shake it out of you.” Where in bloody hell was his cool reserve and diplomatic wit?

  The butler’s gaze traveled from the top of his hat to the tip of Rory’s white-tasseled Hessian boots. “If Your Grace had asked me where her ladyship was upon arrival, knowing she is engaged to Your Grace, I would have been happy to impart her location.”

  “My eye.”

  “Lady Fitzroy departed London this morning with Lady Mary Haverty. I understood their destination was Cornwall.”

  The tic now moved to his right eye. “And why is Lady Fitzroy on her way to Cornwall? I assume it is to see her brother?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, Your Grace.” The elderly man puffed out his chest in fine form.

  A staring down commenced in which neither party won.

  Only a blond vision of beauty, who appeared from some otherearthly place, snapped the two men out of their praying-mantas-like state.

  “Did I hear you ask for Lady Verity Fitzroy, sir?”

  Rory nearly growled when he looked away from the butler. “Indeed, ma’am.”

  A smile broke out on the woman’s face, which illuminated her purity of spirit from within. And yet there was something about her that was mischievous. He couldn’t put his finger on her character.

  “Ah,” she finally replied, “you must be the Duke of Abshire.”

  He bowed. “And you must be an angel from paradise.”

  She chuckled. “Is that how a libertine plies his trade these days? Very unoriginal, in my humble opinion, if you will pardon my forwardness, Your Grace.”

  Who was this presumptuous beauty? He rather liked her nerve and wondered how Candover dealt with such impertinence. “I will pardon anything you like. Especially if you will tell me why Lady Fitzroy is on her way to Cornwall, ma’am.”

  “Honored to make your acquaintance, Your Grace.” She did not curtsy as she aught. “I’m Miss Primrose, Verity’s companion, formerly her governess and abigail.” It was the sudden pause in her next sentence, and the slight glance to the side, which put Rory on alert.

  “I cannot say, Your Grace, but as Mr. Wharton kindly informed, Lady Verity Fitzroy was traveling with Lady Mary Haverty,” the angelic beauty stated with just the slightest Scottish accent in her dulcet voice. “And the Archbishop of Canterbury accompanied the ladies, so both are very properly chaperoned.”

  He sighed in exasperation. “Delighted to hear it. Will either of you be kind enough to tell me when they will return?”

  “Oh, of course, Your Grace. But Lady Fitzroy is not to return here, she made known to me. I do believe she made a promise to Mr. Armitage—do you know the vicar in Derbyshire, Your Grace?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?” He was careful to keep the sarcasm in his mind alone.

  “Yes, well, she promised she would return to Derbyshire as soon as she sees the delights of Cornwall. She must return to teach the children in the wonderful school she and her brother started last year. But then you must know all about her promise. I believe I remember her telling me you were there when she told Mr. Armitage. She didn’t lie about that to you, did she, Your Grace? Verity never lies. All her true friends know that about her.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  The butler, in his boredom, and sudden decision that Rory was not going to steal anything in the cavernous front hall, strode off to attend to a silent query from an elegantly liveried footman.

  Rory lowered his voice. “Has she always been this confounding?”

  “Confounding?”

  “Yes,” he continued. “So astonishingly courageous, and everything kind, and good, altruistic even, and then she becomes distracted, and distant, and mysteriously behaves as if one has moved to the bottom of her long list of friends, just when one is merely trying to help her.”

  She interrupted him. “Verity doesn’t need anyone’s help, Your Grace.”

  “I realize that. She is the strongest damn— Pardon me, Miss Primrose, but she is . . . Oh, I’m not going to continue. I have a reputation not to maintain, and I might as well, go forth and do what all exceedingly tedious good men are expected to do: allow their actions to speak to their character instead of words.”

  “I don’t know, Your Grace, I know Verity would insist that words are just as important as actions.”

  “Of course she would. She would expect nothing less than perfection in a gentleman.”

  Miss Primrose arched an angelic blond brow. “Would you expect anything less in a lady, sir?”

  He studied the beauty before him. Something bothered the corner of his mind that was always working, filing away facts whether he was aware of it or not. “You’re she,” he finally murmured.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’re she,” he said louder. “You’re the one held as a perfect model of a lady.”

  A beatific smile slowly spread across her face. “How lovely.” She raised one brow again with the barest hint of mockery in her glance. “You have now made my life complete.” Her tone spoke of cool irony.

  “Those were Verity’s words, madam.”

  “Ah, that’s different. She has already made my life complete.”

  He liked this female. And Verity was most probably right. On first acquaintance, Miss Primrose did not exhibit a single imperfection. But that was the thing of it.

  Perfection held no appeal to him.

  And that’s when he knew.

  That’s precisely when he knew what he liked about Verity: she possessed all the important traits of a lady—true words, true actions, but confounding imperfection nonetheless. Her hats were a prime example. And Verity had intelligence and wit to spare. She would never, ever bore him, and he instinctively knew she would never let him down.

  A lethal combination.

  That meant only one thing. He was going back to Derbyshire.

  To do what he most detested—but she would most like.

  To wait for her.

  Verity missed Mary’s company on the long return ride to Derbyshire. Her friend had decided to remain at the Duke of Kress’s mad house party, which might have been ordered by the Prince Regent to marry off at least one of the royal entourage, but did not appear to be proceeding very smoothly in that direction. Indeed, it appeared to be careening wildly out of control, just like all events where the royal entourage could be found.

  James had been furious at her for arriving unannounced, and even more so for defying his order to remain at Boxwood. Only Mary’s distracting beauty had allowed Verity to achieve her purpose. The next morning she had departed without even the archbishop to sermonize during the endless journey to the Peak District.

  She had tried everything to distract herself from the hell of her own mind. She might have made two steps forward in her effort to resolve Amelia’s disastrous affair of which she again was responsible, but one glance at the suddenly popular pamphlets, written by the author of the currently defunct “Fashionable World” column, which were now available at every posting inn on the Royal Mail route, caused her to fall 101 steps back in her own catastrophic world.

  There were no words to describe the depth of her despair. She had single-handedly:

  1. Let down her brother, indeed her entire family, on two counts. Most likely when she was found out as the authoress of the diaries, she would forever tarnish the Fitzroy name for generations to come. Not to mention the whispers
(which would soon become shouts) concerning her ruination after the revelation concerning the diaries.

  2. Imperiled her most beloved Amelia the night at Carleton House.

  3. Fallen in love once again with a man who did not love her.

  4. Shown no moral fiber or the pride she prided herself with possessing when she had given into temptation to experience passion before banishing herself to the oblivion of the Lake District.

  5. Asked a Bow Street Runner to locate the former author of “The Fashionable World” and then steal the diaries for her. Of course she had revealed that the diaries were hers, so it was not technically stealing, but the man took great offense at her request before he suddenly squinted at her and asked if she was Lady Verity Fitzroy. When she denied it, he laughed and told her he was already doing something for her so she had best be on her way. She refused to argue with a man who was clearly affected in his upper stories. Then near injury soon followed insult when a ruffian picked her pocket as she walked back to Mayfair.

  6. Worst of all, she had pushed the entire country to the brink of anarchy, with all daggers raised toward the monarchy.

  7. And finally, she had caused the gentleman who did not love her to be publicly accused of not only authoring her own treasonous ramblings, but even worse, of also blackmailing the Crown for a duchy. The most ironic part was that the columnist was correct. For some reason, aside from the day she had witnessed Rory’s encounter with Catharine Talmadge, she had never recorded any of his dissipated actions when she’d had the opportunity to spy on her brother’s friends.

  In the middle of the third sleepless night, swaying with the rhythm of the well-sprung barouche, Verity suddenly sat up straight.

  My God.

  She had never written about Rory for one simple reason. He might have been present during many of the events described in detail in her diaries, and he might have made comments during the occasions, but . . .

  He had never been the instigator of any foul play.

  And . . .

  He had never made a fool of himself.

  Indeed, if anything, he had deftly managed to steer the oft-imes deep-in-their-cups members of the royal entourage from financial ruin or physical harm by way of his self-deprecating wit.

  And yet all this time . . . everyone, herself included, had considered him the worst of the lot.

  It was that perpetual way of his—that dark, forbidding, mysterious look he sported, along with a slight smile that made him appear dangerous and . . . guilty.

  Verity’s hands began to shake violently. The tremors raced up her arms, and soon her entire body was trembling.

  She had not only misunderstood him, along with the rest of the world, but she, who was so careful not to judge anyone, had misjudged him.

  In her own selfish desire to protect herself from again loving a man who would never love her, she had not loved him unconditionally for himself. And she had even forced him to let down his guard, probably for the one and only time, regarding the love of his life—Catharine Talmadge.

  While she might have eased some of the irrational guilt that he’d carried for twice as long as she, she had only added to it by forcing him to lay with her. And he had done so because, despite his dark wit, he was a giver.

  Not a taker. She could not name a single person he had ever harmed.

  She suddenly knew that Rory had loved Catharine long before James had ever allowed the wild beauty to claim his heart. And Rory would never have revealed to anyone Catharine’s and his attachment unless he could have offered for her.

  And . . . oh God . . . it all fell into place.

  At that time, everyone in Derbyshire knew that Rory’s father, the former Earl of Rutledge and his wife, lived to wager, and had gambled away nearly everything that was not nailed down or entailed.

  Verity even remembered overhearing the old earl selling Rory’s horse to James, who had immediately agreed on the condition that it never be revealed to Rory and that the horse was to remain at Rutledge with future feed costs to be absorbed by James.

  And so that was why Rory had pushed Catharine toward his best friend’s gilded cage. He didn’t want the lady he loved to live in straitened, shabby circumstances.

  Rory Lennox, fourth Earl of Rutledge, first Duke of Abshire, was a sacrificial lamb in wolf’s clothing. He was not a—

  The carriage rounded a corner, someone sounded a horn, and the barouche jerked to a stop. The tired driver’s muffled voice called out his apologies, and an ostler opened the carriage’s door.

  Verity stumbled into darkness, exiting the vehicle.

  And in that instant she righted herself.

  Righted herself within the world of wrongs of her own making.

  She might very well destroy herself in making everything right, but she was going to do what needed to be done, taking the least number of innocent bystanders down the rabbit hole with her.

  And it would begin tonight.

  “Mr. Jenkins?”

  The faithful carriage driver of Boxwood had driven most of the way south and north, allowing his younger driver-in-training little time with the reins, because, Verity knew, he was always overly concerned with her safety.

  He reached her side and tipped his hat. “My apologies again, Lady Fitzroy. There is no excuse for my error in—”

  “Mr. Jenkins,” she interrupted, reaching for his cramped hand. His eyes widened.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Tend to your needs while the horses are changed. We are a mere ten miles from Boxwood, are we not?”

  “Yes, Lady Fitzroy.”

  “Go on, then. I will see you here in a quarter of an hour.”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  Ten minutes later Verity mounted the barouche’s driving seat, with the aid of a very startled ostler, who was too in awe to stammer a word.

  A moment later Mr. Jenkins returned with his bleary-eyed underling.

  “I order you to not say a word, Mr. Jenkins. If you have an ounce of respect for me, then you and Tim will get in that stuffy velvet box behind me and go to sleep. You know very well I know how to drive.” She stared him down. “You taught me.”

  Her old teacher of everything equine knew a madwoman when he saw one, and he complied without a sound. His apprentice followed meekly behind.

  As the first true rays of daylight crept into the edges of the eastern sky, Verity expertly turned the final corner onto Boxwood’s manicured drive. The vast lawn and fields beyond, separated by a patchwork of hedgerows, shimmered with morning dew.

  Each time she returned here, it was more beautiful than she remembered. Her heart filled with purpose, she prayed it would not be her last return.

  Chapter 14

  Verity mounted the outer stairs to the north front hall, touching the head of one of the stone nymphs along the way. Sunlight filtered through the woodland of the park.

  A footman opened the mammoth carved oak door. She nodded, and after a word of greeting headed toward the stair. She would finally sleep in peace.

  “Begging your pardon, my lady,” the footman began. “But you have a visitor.”

  She halted and half turned. “At this hour?” The young man was anxious, she could see.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Who?”

  “He’s been here from dawn until midnight the last five days, my lady,” he said in a rush. “His Grace, the Duke of Abshire.”

  She nodded. “I see. And where is he, then?”

  “In the library. I just escorted him there.” He looked at her expectantly.

  “Very good.”

  No wonder the stable hands and footman had greeted her with trepidation. Nothing could provoke anxiety among servants like unexplained odd behavior by the upper class.

  As she walked along the east corridor, past the Oak Room with its forbidding, dark-paneled interior, her pace never altered.

  He raised his head from a book he held in his lap. A small fire in the grate chased the
chill in the long chamber.

  She curtsied.

  Rory rose from his seat, his movements elegant and precise. He placed the tome beside the Egyptian urn on the round table covered in moss-colored silk. “You’ve arrived,” he said simply.

  “Yes. Just.”

  The urge to run to him was strong, but she held back.

  He crossed the space between them with slow, even strides.

  He bowed and took up her gloved hand in his own. He turned her fingers and examined her soiled palm. “What happened?”

  She finally exhaled, only to realize she had been holding her breath. She shrugged. “I love to drive from time to time.” She waited for a dry retort.

  He looked at her with those green eyes of his that were so dearly familiar now. “So do I,” he said softly. “And how are you?”

  She desperately did not want to ruin the apparent truce. “Well enough.”

  “You are tired. I’m going to take my leave of you now so you can rest.”

  He still held her hand in his own, and the warmth of them seeped into her numb fingers. “But why are you here?” She wouldn’t sleep unless she knew.

  “To have the earliest possible news of your safe arrival.”

  It hurt her heart to raise any hopes for a possible happy future. But she could not stop it. No one had ever done anything remotely so kind. “I thank you, Rory, for your concern. I’m deeply sorry if I caused you any worry.”

  “Say no more”—he squeezed her hand gently—“I would only suggest that you write to Miss Primrose after you rest. She holds her cards close to her breast, but I believe she wishes to hear from you.” He paused. “I liked her. Very much. Your dear butler, the formidable Mr. Wharton, on the other hand, can go to the devil.”

  Verity had feared she might never laugh again. But on the heels of his words, she let loose a flood of laughter. “You will not like it, but I cannot help but tell you that you sometimes remind me of him. And I like him. Very much.”

  He refused to smile, but a muscle on the corner of his handsome mouth twitched. “Well, then. I shall take my leave of you.”