The Unworthy Duke

by Charlotte Anne

  Miss Smith blanched. ‘Oh, your ladyship, I assure you I’m a diligent worker. Not quick to temper. I can sew and draw and sing a little. I love to garden and can arrange flowers tolerably well. I can relate all the Greek myths and dance a full country set,’ she said hastily, clearly reciting a prepared speech. ‘I promise I’ll do everything in my power to be the perfect companion. You’ll not regret—’

  ‘How do you take your tea?’

  ‘My tea?’ Miss Smith blinked, glancing at Cal again as if he were going to help. She was on her own. He moved back a step, seeking refuge in the shadows even as Owen lit more candles.

  ‘Yes,’ demanded his grandmother. ‘How do you take your tea?’

  ‘B-black. With sugar.’

  ‘What do you think of afternoon naps?’

  ‘Not enough time in the day.’

  ‘Town or country hours?’

  ‘Country. I’m a light sleeper.’

  ‘And the gossip columns?’

  ‘Never read them.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Lady F paused as though ticking off a mental list. ‘And before, when my grandson wasn’t wearing his shirt: what was that all about?’

  ‘It wasn’t what it looked like, your ladyship,’ Miss Smith repeated. He could practically hear her thoughts as she silently cursed him into oblivion. Using only the most respectable language, of course. Spinsters didn’t actually curse.

  ‘I see.’ Lady F paused again with another suspicious look, then a smile broke across her face. She clapped her hands. ‘It looked a lot like you were putting my grandson back in his place, as I’m sure he rightly deserved.’ She tossed her gloves at him, quickly followed by her travelling cloak and bonnet.

  ‘I most certainly deserved nothing of the sort,’ he scowled, dropping her outerwear onto the footstool without ceremony.

  This abrupt change had Miss Smith blinking in confusion, and Cal’s eyes were drawn to the enchanting rose blush creeping out from under her modest neckline.

  Enchanting? When did he ever use words like enchanting?

  ‘Your shock is a perfectly natural response to meeting Lizzy for the first time,’ Owen assured her, with a bright smile. He tossed his greatcoat at Cal too, but Cal tucked his hands in his pockets, letting Owen’s coat drop to the ground at his feet. With a frown at Cal, Owen bowed over Miss Smith’s hand, raising it to his lips in an over-exaggerated show of appreciation. ‘It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.’

  Owen Tattershall: never one to do anything by halves.

  Miss Smith curtsied in response, looking even more baffled as she managed to extract her hand from Owen’s fervent clutches. Owen was…a handful. This evening he was looking dapper with a three-green waistcoat. He was also clutching the most ridiculous-looking walking cane Cal had ever seen. It had a large porcelain handle on the top, like a spherical doorknob. He used the end of the cane to hook his jacket up off the floor and ran a hand over it to brush away the dog hair that had already began to transfer from the rug.

  Cal turned his attention back to his grandmother, looking down at her with the most formidable scowl he could muster at such short notice. ‘Now that you’ve both finished scaring the woman half witless, would you care to explain exactly what you’re doing in my library at this god-forsaken hour?’

  ‘Is that any way to greet your most beloved grandmother?’ Lady F raised a hand to her forehead in a show of dramatics that would be more welcome on a stage than a ducal library. ‘I’m nearly eighty years old and I’ve been travelling all day. Surely I at least deserve a welcoming kiss.’ She presented him with a papery cheek.

  ‘You’re only sixty-eight.’

  She gave his chest a light slap with the back of her hand, and he quickly pressed a kiss to her cheek. An overabundance of sensibility in an elderly relative was never a good sign. Like he’d said: a veritable dragon.

  ‘It was your choice to travel to London,’ he reminded her. ‘And you didn’t even bother to write ahead. I didn’t know you were coming to Town until…’ He gestured towards Miss Smith. Enough said.

  Miss Smith’s gaze flickered between him and Lady F as though she were watching a game of shuttlecock. Her eyes were wide and her mouth slightly open. She was staring. Again.

  He tapped a finger to the underside of her chin. Her mouth snapped shut.

  ‘I shouldn’t have to write begging permission to visit my only living grandson,’ Lady F was saying. She bent down to scratch Tzar under the chin. The old dog lifted his head as high as it would go, granting her full access. ‘You should be absolutely delighted to see me and welcome me into your home with open arms.’

  ‘Of course I’m happy to see you,’ he ground out between clenched teeth. ‘But you can’t stay here, which you would have known if you’d bothered writing ahead.’ She’d written to him constantly these last four years, but she couldn’t put nib to paper for a quick warning? Years had passed since her last visit, so what had changed to send her scampering to London now?

  Ignoring him entirely, the dowager glided across the room towards her new companion. ‘Miss Smith, it really is a pleasure to meet you at last. I’ve been excited all day. I’ve never had a companion before.’ Only then did she seem to register the state of Miss Smith’s damp gown, which was still clinging indecently to her curves. ‘Didn’t you have an umbrella, gel?’

  Unfortunately, Owen had long since noticed Miss Smith’s curves. His gaze was firmly fixed on her flushed décolletage, his eyes as wide as cart wheels.

  Cal grunted a warning. The randy dandy.

  Owen completely ignored him, so Cal grabbed the knee blanket from the armchair, folded it in half to form a triangle and wrapped it around Miss Smith’s shoulders like a shawl.

  He knew that look in Owen’s eye. It was the same look Cal would have given her had it been four years ago. He scowled again and felt the left side of his mouth pull uncomfortably tight. He could always feel his scars; they were never far from his thoughts.

  Miss Smith clutched the blanket tighter and for the first time all night Cal realised she was shivering. If he hadn’t been trying so desperately to make her leave, he might have realised sooner she was on the verge of catching her death of cold, for all that she’d warned him.

  Conflicting feelings warred inside him but most of all he felt guilty. Guilty she was so cold. Guilty she was still under his roof.

  His grandmother was still talking. ‘…running rather late, but it wasn’t my fault. Owen did insist we stop at each and every posting-house for tea as though I’m some sort of invalid. Oh, aren’t you a pretty young thing.’ She took both of Miss Smith’s hands in her own. ‘I’m sure we’re going to have a lot of fun together.’

  Miss Smith still looked rather startled, but then she smiled a smile that could have felled a whole regiment of battle-hardened soldiers. ‘I do hope so, my lady.’

  He quickly averted his gaze.

  ‘Excellent,’ cried Lady F. ‘Now, how about some supper? I’ve barely eaten anything all day.’ She picked up a candle, pushed her way back past Owen and hurried down the passage towards the kitchen stairs.

  Miss Smith followed. Of course she followed.

  Am I ever going to get that lass out of my house?

  ‘Cal.’ Lady F called so loudly she could have still been standing in the library. ‘Be a dear and bring Miss Smith’s and my trunks inside before it gets any wetter.’

  Apparently not any time soon.

  ‘You could have warned me she was coming,’ he hissed at Owen.

  ‘Where would the fun be in that?’ Owen smirked. ‘Besides, I know you wouldn’t have let us in if I’d warned you.’

  ‘I didn’t let you in,’ Cal reminded him.

  ‘No need, old man. I have a key.’ He patted his waistcoat pocket, flashing Cal a full mouth of straight teeth.

  ‘What key? I never gave you a key.’ He lunged towards his cousin, but Owen ducked easily out of the way, using his cane as leverage. They weren’t actually cousins; there was
no blood connection, but Owen’s parents had died when he’d still been in leading strings and Lady F had taken him in. Now Owen and Lady F were almost inseparable. Except, of course, when Owen was gallivanting around Town, chasing beautiful married women left, right and centre. His reputation was almost as bad as Cal’s, though for entirely different reasons. ‘What’s the dammed stick for?’ Even as he spoke, Cal knew he was going to regret asking.

  ‘Upon my honour! It’s dernier cri.’ Owen gave Tzar a pat and the little turncoat wagged his tail. It thumped against the rug almost as loudly as the thunder rumbled outside.

  Cal looked towards the window. It was still storming. Apparently, the one and only upshot of having Miss Smith barge into his house was that she’d proved herself to be a worthy distraction from the rain. Not that he’d ever tell her that.

  ‘…matches the waistcoat,’ Owen concluded with a flourish.

  And there it was: regret for asking about the cane. ‘It bloody well doesn’t.’ How could a cane possibly match a waistcoat? Owen might as well have been speaking Mandarin for all Cal understood.

  His cousin gasped in exaggerated shock. ‘Didn’t you hear me? It’s the height of fashion. And, if you ever bothered to leave this dank house anymore, you’d know that too.’

  ‘It’s not dank.’ More regret. Owen was much too cheerful. How could anyone be cheerful when their head was pounding so hard it might actually split in two? ‘Don’t insult my house. I don’t see you for years, and then you just show up—’

  ‘I called in a few months ago, but you wouldn’t open the damn door.’

  Cal shut his mouth and shrugged. Had that only been a few months? The days tended to blend all together like the faded colours of over-washed clothes.

  ‘That’s why I dug out my old key.’

  ‘Which I’ll have back now, thank you very much.’ Cal held out his hand.

  Owen made a show of checking his pockets and coming up short. ‘Sorry, old man, must have misplaced it.’

  ‘Moonshine!’ He could see the shape of the key through the silk of Owen’s waistcoat. But his knee started aching just thinking about tackling him for it, so he limped from the room to follow the women, resolutely ignoring all their trunks.

  He’d deal with Owen later. Preferably when he had a glass of whisky in hand. Preferably when his eyes had stopped watering.

  The women’s voices were coming from the back of the house where the kitchen was. It was easily the largest room in the house; situated at the end of the long hallway, it was as long as the house was wide. It was also his favourite room and the only one he spent any time caring for.

  Though, apparently with the storm, he’d completely forgotten to bank the fire and it had burned itself out, because Miss Smith was kneeling on the flagstone hearth, coaxing life back into his large cast-iron range. He pressed hands to his hips and glared at her back, hoping she could feel his angry eyes prickling her skin, as well she deserved.

  She’d wrapped two corners of the blanket right around her waist and tied them off behind her back to form something similar to a hands-free sontag. Practicality in a woman was never something to be admired. It usually resulted in a tireless need to ‘improve’ other people’s lives and a plethora of decidedly displeasing lace caps.

  His narrowed gaze moved to the back of her head. She’d finally removed her dishevelled bonnet to reveal, not a tumble of luscious brown hair any man would want to run his hands through, as Cal had hoped, but a mob cap, just as he’d suspected. White and lacy with an excess of frills.

  A chit and a spinster Miss Ellen Smith may be, but there was a revolting lace cap on her head where a revolting lace cap should not be. A pretty face and a fine figure such as she possessed should not be sullied by an ugly cap.

  There was a commotion coming from the other end of his kitchen. He turned his attention to his grandmother lest she create too much mayhem in his pantry while his thoughts were preoccupied with a pair of fine eyes and a shapely arse. He looked in behind Lady F but had to quickly limp out of the way as she emerged carrying a large cake tin and a couple of biscuit tins.

  ‘Even as a child, you always did hide the best at the back,’ she told him, placing the tins on the battered kitchen table.

  ‘You can’t eat that for dinner,’ he chastised, for all the good that it did. If ignoring other people’s advice were an art, Elizabeth Debelle would be a master craftswoman. Her head was a much more appropriate place for a frivolous lace cap—a head which was suspiciously bare. If he hadn’t caught Miss Smith climbing through his front window, he’d have thought she the sensible old biddy and his grandmother, who was this very minute ogling cake, the green girl.

  ‘Plates,’ she instructed Miss Smith, whose handiwork had a cheerful fire illuminating the room. A moment later, the two women had loaded four plates with fruit cake and sweetmeats—and stale tea biscuits which he’d forgotten about weeks ago.

  ‘I’ll never understand why you refuse to keep servants,’ Lady F chided, taking his place at the head of the table, completely disregarding the fact that this was the kitchen and not the dining room.

  ‘They just get in my way.’ He leaned down, resting the heels of his hands on the table beside her plate until they were almost eye level. ‘You can’t stay here. You know I don’t receive visitors.’

  ‘Cal, dear, stop being so tiresome and eat your cake.’ Standing for a moment, Lady F reached across the table to take a scoop of marmalade from a cooling stockpot and lavished it onto her slice of cake. The sweet and tangy smell of orange permeated the room and made his nose tingle. It smelled clean and fresh like the beginning of spring. Clean and fresh like Ellen Smith.

  ‘I don’t want cake.’ He sounded like a child even to his own ears.

  ‘Of course you do. You baked it.’

  Baking: just another thing he liked doing that dukes weren’t supposed to.

  ‘He did?’ Miss Smith looked up. She sat to the right of Lady F and was digging into her cake with almost as much enthusiasm.

  He did a double take. Spinsters were certainly not supposed to enjoy cake quite that much. Crumbs had caught at the corners of her delectable lips. And he had a sudden urge to lick them clean.

  ‘That must be why it tastes suspiciously like whisky,’ she concluded.

  ‘I like it.’ Owen had taken the seat beside Ellen even though there were five other perfectly functional chairs at the table he could have chosen. He flashed her a roguish grin, pushing his spectacles further up his nose all the better to see.

  ‘Tattershall,’ Cal warned again. He was sitting much too close for anyone’s comfort. But Owen completely ignored him. Following Lady F’s lead, he leaned forward to take a scoop of marmalade, brushing his arm lightly, and completely purposefully, against Ellen’s shoulder.

  ‘So, Grandmother, why are you here?’ Cal asked the dowager for what felt like the tenth time. She couldn’t avoid answering forever.

  ‘Dinner is not the time for philosophical conundrums, dearest.’

  ‘I mean: why are you here, in London, in my kitchen, eating my food, dearest?’

  ‘I like London.’

  He grunted his disbelief. Lady F liked London about as much as he did.

  Beneath the table, Tzar was moving from person to person, giving each his largest, most pathetic hungry puppy dog eyes. Quite an achievement considering he was so old most of his fur had turned grey and wiry.

  ‘Still up to your old tricks.’ Lady F reached under the table to pat his head.

  Cal didn’t bother keeping the anger and frustration from this voice. ‘Don’t try to change the subject, Elizabeth Debelle. I want it out with you: why are you here?’

  ‘Phiff. You sound just like my mother. She was the only one who ever called me Elizabeth.’ She fidgeted beneath his stare, then let out an exasperated sigh. ‘If you must know, I’m not here to interrupt your sulking. You needn’t worry on that front. I’ve come to enjoy the Season.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Isn’t that w
hat people of the ton do?’

  ‘Not you.’ He knew his grandmother. Since her husband’s death, she’d been running Faye Park in place of the new marquess, a distant cousin, who’d moved to Canton as a child and apparently wasn’t in a hurry to return to England despite his large inheritance. Cal couldn’t help but envy the man. ‘You’re up to something.’

  ‘I’m up to nothing of the sort.’ She rapped his knuckles with the back of her fork, and he pulled away. ‘What a ridiculously provincial idea.’

  He threw another questioning look at his cousin, but Owen simply smiled back at him. He was feeding cake crumbs to Tzar. The dog had clearly decided Owen was the chink in the armour and had parked himself firmly at Owen’s feet.

  ‘You haven’t been to London since…’ Cal faulted.

  ‘Since Pierce’s funeral,’ she finished for him matter-of-factly. ‘That was four years ago. When are you going to stop mourning your brother?’

  ‘Brother?’ Miss Smith looked up.

  ‘I’m not—’ Memories flashed before his eyes. Pierce. The ship. The fire. The screaming. Napoleon might have packed up but there was still a war raging—a war inside Cal’s own head. ‘He shouldn’t have died,’ was all he could say.

  ‘No. But he did.’ Lady F’s expression softened, her hand touching the gold and pearl mourning brooch she wore. ‘Come now, you needn’t worry about me interrupting your private time. I have Miss Smith to look after me, and Owen. You’ll hardly notice the three of us at all.’

  He looked from one to the other. His grandmother blinked innocently up at him. Miss Smith was deliberately avoiding his gaze. Owen was staring at Miss Smith as if he hadn’t seen a pretty companion with lips the colour of strawberries before.

  ‘Tattershall!’ Cal marched around the table, took hold of his cousin’s chair and dragged him away from Miss Smith. Owen grabbed at the table with a yelp, but Cal didn’t relent until Owen was at the other end. Then he turned back to Lady F. ‘You can finish your dinner’—if you could call cake dinner—’but then you have to leave. You absolutely cannot stay here.’