The Secret Duke

by Jo Beverley

  “Psyche Jessingham.”

  Bella knew that name, because Lady Jessingham’s adulterous liaison with Ithorne had been talked about at Lady Fowler’s, but not included in the Fowler letter. Lady Fowler had been forced into marriage when young with a disgusting older man and she had compassion for other women who suffered the same fate, even if they sinned.

  Lady Jessingham was a widow now, but Lady Fowler kept to her policy, even though she would like to expose Ithorne for not marrying the woman whose reputation he’d tarnished.

  “Psyche and Grandiston?”

  The voices dropped, and Bella strained to hear. Would Lady Fowler still refuse to use scandal concerning that lady?

  “She never did learn discretion,” one said. “So what exactly was seen?”

  More murmurs, then, “Very disheveled,” the informative one said with meaning. “Gown ripped down the front . . .”

  Bella suddenly realized the three matrons were looking at her, eyes cold.

  She gave a weak smile and hurried away, catching just one more word. “Rothgar . . .”

  Lud! Had the great marquess also been involved? Her time with Lady Fowler had introduced her to some scandalous knowledge, and she now knew that men sometimes shared one unfortunate woman. That would definitely be a story for the letter. But, oh, Lord Rothgar’s poor wife, large with child, and already having been forced to accept his adult bastard daughter into her home.

  She must learn more. Where was this scandalous Grandiston encounter taking place?

  Chapter 7

  Thorn moved through the throng as quickly as he could without showing urgency, for most people here recognized him and he didn’t want to start any alarm. He also masked his anger, but he was furious with himself. He was going to be too late to avert disaster because he’d neglected his duty. Instead of monitoring the event and keeping an eye on the king, he’d slipped off to play with an enchanting Amazon nymph on the terrace.

  He’d had to let Kelano slip away unidentified, dammit, but this wasn’t a wasps’ nest he could ignore. Christian had been caught in one of the private rooms of the house with some woman, and caught by Psyche Jessingham, of all people. She thought she could buy Christian as a husband, so she’d scream this to the heavens.

  He supposed he should give Christian some credit for using a distant room for his liaison, but he’d have his guts anyway. What had he been thinking? He was already embroiled with three troublesome women. In addition to the rapacious Psyche, he’d made a foolish marriage at sixteen to a Yorkshire girl who went by the inauspicious name of Dorcas Froggatt. He’d thought her dead, but recently learned she was alive. In searching for her in hope of an annulment, he’d fallen in love with a Mistress Hunter, but she’d fled him on finding that he was a married man.

  To add insult to all this, the warning message he’d received on leaving the terrace had come courtesy of Rothgar.

  Thorn was ready to grab a Chinese vase off the nearby table and hurl it at a wall.

  “Sir.”

  Thorn whirled to find a Roman soldier looking ready to make an arrest. “You are asked for,” the man said sternly.

  Thorn cursed, but silently. He couldn’t ignore a summons from the king. He turned back toward the revels.

  George had chosen to wear a plain toga, attempting to be one of the people. He failed, of course. Everyone knew better than to bow or curtsy or give any other sign of recognition, but that was difficult for people trained to court ways from the cradle.

  Thorn only just managed not to bow as he said, “I gather there has been a small contretemps, sir. I apologize.”

  “Very naughty,” said the king, yet he seemed in good humor. “But a married couple, what?”

  Married? Thorn hid surprise and inclined his head in acknowledgment of worldly wisdom. “The powers of marital affection, sir.”

  “Which I understand, as I am so blessed, what? May I hope you as happy soon, Ithorne? A noble line, and you the sole remainder, what?”

  The king’s habit of tacking “what” onto the end of nearly everything he said made Thorn want to throttle him, but at the moment he merely wanted to escape this conversation and discover the extent of the problem.

  “I seek to be as happy as you, sir,” he said, “and thus I’m making a careful choice.”

  “Let your friends pick, what? As I did.”

  And had complained of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz’s looks and manner, Thorn remembered. At the time, George had been taken with pretty Sarah Lennox. But the king and queen did seem a truly fond couple now, which gave support to his own intent to make a rational marriage.

  “I will take your advice, sir. But for now, if you will excuse me . . .”

  Waved away, Thorn returned to his original direction, considering the implication of the warning message having come from Rothgar. Had he set up this scandal and then made sure that the king knew, hoping the king would blame the host?

  Thorn considered his contest with Rothgar purely political, but would the Dark Marquess be willing to use any means to diminish a challenge to his power?

  He saw his serious-minded secretary, Overstone, approaching, uncomfortable in a toga, and paused for more news.

  “According to tattle, sir, Lord Rothgar has diluted the scandal by claiming the couple is married. It is believed by some, but stridently denied by Lady Jessingham, who is voicing a very low opinion of the lady. Shall I support the marriage story, sir?”

  Thorn thought quickly. “Not yet, but don’t deny it, either. Be soothing.”

  Thorn hurried along a quiet corridor, braced for any level of disaster.

  What he discovered was simply astonishing. Christian had indeed been caught in a passionate encounter, but the woman was his wife, the Dorcas Froggatt he was seeking to escape through annulment. Peculiar to be caught in a compromising situation then, except that she was also that Mistress Kat Hunter whom Christian had fallen in love with.

  Love! There was nothing worse for ruining a man’s life, especially when Dorcas, Kat, or whoever she might be was accusing Christian of compromising her to force her to hold to the marriage.

  Whatever the truth of the tangled web at the end of a long night, Thorn found himself committed to going to Malloren House on the morrow to meet with Rothgar and plead his foster brother’s case.

  For Rothgar, damn him, was in the very middle of the whole incident. Christian’s wife, it turned out, was a Yorkshire friend of his marchioness, and a guest at Malloren House. Rothgar had brought her to the revels, knowing the whole truth. He claimed a benign intent, but Thorn had to doubt that. The incident could have resulted in Thorn suffering embarrassing scandal and royal displeasure.

  However, if Rothgar had deliberately used Christian as a weapon, political rivalry could shift to outright, personal war.

  Only when he finally found his bed, with the sky showing predawn light, did Thorn’s mind return to Kelano.

  Perhaps she’d been a Harpy after all, and had caused this all by casting a curse on him.

  Bella had returned to her small rented house in a sedan chair as clocks struck three. Her two young maidservants greeted her as if she’d just escaped a pit of snakes. They could be right.

  “Oh, miss!” Annie Yelland gasped, still waif thin despite months of good food. “We were so afraid for you.”

  “All that wickedness!” declared her sister, Kitty, who’d filled out to become a buxom beauty on the same diet.

  When Bella had rescued them, they’d seemed more similar—thin, pale, and frightened. Kitty, the older sister, was an inch taller than Annie, but still not tall, and her hair was red squirrel to Annie’s brown mouse. Annie had better skin and larger brown eyes.

  “Was it ’orribly shocking?” Kitty prompted.

  “In general, no,” Bella said, stretching the truth a bit. She didn’t want to encourage Kitty’s taste for scandal.

  She’d rather not have involved the girls in the matter at all, but she’d needed to dress her
e and return here. Kitty was learning to be a lady’s maid, while Annie was learning to be a cook, but what one knew, the other did, and whenever possible they were together. If Kitty needed to mend something of Bella’s, she took her sewing basket to the kitchen instead of staying in Bella’s bedchamber, as she really should.

  Here they were, together again, when it was only Kitty’s job to wait up and help Bella undress. Bella could and would give Kitty permission to sleep in, as she would rise late herself, but Peg Gussage would need Annie in the kitchen at first light. No point in making an issue of it now. Perhaps Annie would learn by experience.

  Bella went up to her bedroom with Kitty while Annie hurried to the kitchen for hot washing water. Kitty insisted on helping Bella undress, though a shift and loose gown hardly needed assistance. Annie arrived with the jug of water and filled the china bowl behind the dressing screen. Bella washed in water at exactly the best temperature, but at that point she insisted that they both go to bed.

  The sisters were treasures, and she was very fortunate.

  She’d arrived in London with just Peg, and rented this house. Peg would be cook and housekeeper, but she’d needed a kitchen maid and at least one housemaid as well as someone to do the rougher work, a man or a boy. Both Peg and Bella preferred the latter to be a sturdy boy rather than a man, if he was to live in. Aware of her own good fortune, she’d decided to attempt charitable selections.

  The workhouse had been heart-wrenching, and she’d discovered that most of the inhabitants were elderly or infants, for healthy children were sent out to work as young as six. She’d spotted one robust-looking lad, however, on a mattress in the middle of the day.

  “You don’t want ’im, ma’am,” the supervisor said, pulling the grimy blanket off the boy, who looked to be about ten. “We found ’im good work at a stables, but ’e got ’imself injured and won’t ’eal. The rot’ll creep up and kill him sooner or later.”

  Bella had feared that was true, but the boy’s sad eyes had touched her, and apart from his swollen, suppurating leg, he looked strong. Fearing she was a softhearted fool, she’d asked his name—Ed Grange—and then hired a cart to carry him to her house. The cart had been necessary because she couldn’t imagine how to get him and his leg into a coach, but he was also filthy and probably infested.

  Peg Gussage had been appalled, and yes, had called Bella a softhearted fool, but she’d set to work with baths, good food, and country nostrums.

  The sick lad had made finding maids even more urgent, so Bella had spread word through Lady Fowler’s supporters and spoken to the vicar of Saint Anne’s Church. It had been the latter who’d told her of the sad case of the Yelland sisters.

  “They lived with their widowed father, Miss Flint. A coal heaver, but a worthy man. He perhaps protected them too much, for his own comfort and theirs. If they had learned a trade, or gone into service, they would be in better condition now. Last winter, he fell and broke his back. The girls tended to him with loving care, but he died six weeks ago and the modest funeral took the last of his money. Annie and Kitty kept their situation from everyone, even me, for they were terrified of the workhouse. And with reason, with reason.”

  “Indeed,” Bella said. “How old are they?”

  “They say that Kitty is sixteen and Annie fifteen, but often such people aren’t sure. Too old for most charities, you see, and as I said, untrained. But they’ve kept house for their father, and I know of no illness or weakness. With a little kindness and ample food, they will soon be hearty workers, and they are good girls.”

  Knowing a more sensible woman would have ignored the case, Bella visited the girls in their tiny house. It was neat and clean, but had clearly been stripped of anything they could sell, and the girls were thin and pale. She’d be bringing more work home, not helping hands, but she could no more abandon the Yelland sisters than she’d been able to leave Ed Grange to die in the workhouse.

  Taking the name Bellona Flint had not made her harder, and her imprisonment at Carscourt seemed to have left her with a softness toward the unfortunate unknown to the Bella of four years ago.

  Despite their frailty, the sisters had set to work eagerly, perhaps thinking that if they slacked they’d be thrown out. Within days Ed too was doing all the work he could from his mattress in the kitchen, and in a week he was hobbling around on a crutch. Now they were all robust hard workers and Bella gave thanks every day.

  She was already planning to do more for all of them.

  Annie would make a good cook, and Kitty an adequate lady’s maid, but Bella was reaching higher. They were both clever girls and she’d already taught them and Ed to read, write, and do arithmetic. If Bella were to set them up in a business in a few years’ time, they could be independent women, just as she was.

  A cake shop, perhaps, which also sold and served tea. Or a haberdashery. Anything that would free them of the need to take a husband. Her time with Lady Fowler had convinced her that the dangers of marriage far outweighed any advantages for many women, but also that to be single without family or income was a dire fate.

  At least Ed’s life was easy to arrange. He needed only an apprenticeship.

  Bella emerged in her nightgown and looked longingly at her bed. She sat at her desk instead to dutifully record the events of the night. Alas, the scandal had proved disappointing, and in any case was no secret. The whole masquerade had been gossiping about Lord Grandiston and his wife, for it seemed the marriage itself had been a secret.

  She’d observed little else other than drunkenness and looseness.

  She’d heard that the king had been present, but only after he’d left. She would keep that to herself in any case, for Lady Fowler saw him as the epitome of virtue, her hope for a reformed nation. The poor lady’s mind seemed already strained. To discover she was wrong there might cause a fit.

  Bella worried the tip of her quill, frowning over Lady Fowler. It was time to leave that circle, but where would she go? The idea of being alone in the world terrified her. She also hesitated to abandon the weaker members of the flock to Lady Fowler’s erratic moods and the Drummond sisters’ radical tendencies.

  She rubbed her head, trying to focus on the page, but neither her eyes nor her mind cooperated. In fact her mind tried to wander to a wicked goatherd, a lamplit terrace, and astonishing kisses. . . .

  She stood up, shaking herself. She, above all women, should be impervious to the seductive charms of a rascal.

  She circled the warming pan around the bed, removed it, and climbed in while the warmth lingered. Perfect. She snuggled down, turning her mind away from folly. It slid toward another sort of foolishness—distant memories, revived tonight.

  Her last masquerade ball. A much smaller affair at Vextable Manor not far from Carscourt. Everyone had known everyone, but they’d all pretended not to and acted their parts. She’d slipped away with . . .

  Oh, who had it been? Tom Fitzmanners or Clifford Speke? Probably Tom, as she remembered the favored gentleman had been only a few years older than herself and rather nervous at finding himself alone with a young lady and invited to kiss her. He’d certainly been clumsy about it.

  She chuckled at that memory. What a wicked minx she’d been.

  Above all back then, she’d loved to dance.

  They’d danced so much—at parties and assemblies, but sometimes impromptu at one house or another, furniture pushed back, carpet rolled up, and someone playing a harpsichord or virginals.

  Four long years without dancing, without flirting, without the lightest kiss, and she’d not realized how much she’d missed it. Until tonight.

  Had she panicked because the goatherd was wicked, or because of her own feverish response? A response that had sprung with teeth and claws out of starvation.

  She didn’t want to give away her freedom in marriage, but she couldn’t deny that she wanted a man. A young, handsome, skillfully wicked man.

  She rolled over and buried her head in her pillow as if she could bu
ry all such foolishness, but her mind wasn’t smothered and whirled back over the whole annihilating experience.

  His eyes, capturing hers just as that silky shawl snared her, drawing her tight against his long, hard, hot body with so little clothing between them.

  His mouth hot and in control of hers. Nothing at all like Tom Fitzmanners.

  But a little like Captain Rose.

  She rolled onto her back to stare up into darkness. She’d forgotten that kiss. That too had been stolen, but there was no other connection, so why feel as if there were?

  Perhaps because of dark stubble. The goatherd had been unshaven because he was pretending to be a peasant; Captain Rose because he was one. Not a peasant, but not of the rank to attend the Olympian Revels.

  They had one other thing in common: if she’d been foolish enough to fall in with either man’s plans, he’d have ruined her.

  No danger of that. She punched her pillow into a better shape. There was no place for rakish folly in Bellona Flint’s life, and it was best that it remain so.

  Chapter 8

  After such a late night, Bella rose later than usual and sat dozily at breakfast. She went over her time at the revels again, desperately seeking some juicy tidbit to take to Lady Fowler’s. The Drummond sisters would make hay of her failure.

  But fail she did, so she decided that she might as well get the unpleasant errand over with. She quickly dressed in one of Bellona’s dull, practical garments, quashing down foolish regret for a flimsy gown and an even more foolish regret over the way men had responded to her in that guise.

  She needed no help to dress, for she still wore the homemade jumps instead of a corset, but she allowed Kitty to practice her trade. As usual, Kitty pulled a face over the unboned jumps, so as usual, Bella tried to convince her of the advantage of simple dress.

  “There,” she said, “neatly dressed in minutes. What a deal of time most women waste on clothing. And on hair.”

  Kitty said, “Yes, miss,” but with disapproval. Both Kitty and Annie thought anything less than fully boned stays indecent.