Schooling the Duke (The Heart of a Scandal, #1)

by Christi Caldwell

  “There is no governess.”

  Mayhap Graham was cracked in the head in addition to being mad. “You said the girl was sixteen.”

  “Just seventeen,” the other man amended.

  A lady in need of a blasted London Season. Fighting once more for calm, Graham reined in his annoyance. “A companion, then?”

  “There is no one.”

  No one.

  “No one but the girl, that is.” With an infuriating nonchalance, the solicitor opened the small tin of powder, and proceeded to sprinkle it on the documents. “Lieutenant Hickenbottom never bothered with one for the girl.”

  A young lady on the cusp of womanhood who’d never had the benefit of instruction on gentilesse? Graham covetously eyed the sideboard filled with spirits. Years ago, when he’d donned the persona of carefree rogue, he’d have already had a bottle in hand. He grew frustrated: with Hickenbottom for leaving him in these straits and himself, for being a bloody monster unwilling and unable to do right by his now-gone friend. “What am I going to do with a girl without a companion?” he snapped.

  “Hire one, Your Grace? Send her on to finishing school? She is your responsibility now.”

  No wonder the insolent blighter had withheld that particular, important piece of information. A bastard, without the benefit of an estimable chaperone.

  As the solicitor put together his belongings, Graham entertained the childish thought of shredding those pages and grinding them under the heel of his boot.

  At one and thirty years, however, he’d adopted a polished demeanor; he’d not break any more than he already had for this man.

  “There is but one more thing, Your Grace,” Dappleton said, as he came to his feet.

  What now? “I thought you’d said there was...”

  The solicitor fished a note out of his jacket and handed over the folded scrap.

  Graham accepted it, freezing at the familiar inked writing. A few moments later, Dappleton, folios in his arms, took a bow and left.

  As soon as Graham found himself alone, he unfolded the note. His chest tightened.

  Hampstead,

  If you’re reading this, I’m dead. No doubt, through some outrageously wicked act for which I’m solely to blame.

  “Indeed,” Graham muttered, and continued reading.

  You are no doubt also cursing me for leaving you in this sorry state. After all, the last thing a gent needs is a young chit underfoot. This girl, however, is different. I’m fairly certain, she’s the only person I’ve ever liked. And I’m not saying that because she’s my daughter. Society will be unkind to her because of her parentage. Keep her under your wing. Teach her the ways of our miserable Society, so that she can find a good bloke, and not someone like her da. I’ve certainly not done anything in the way of preparing her.

  Respectfully yours, even in death,

  Hickenbottom.

  The immediate intention to scuttle the girl off to some finishing school until Graham wed quashed by two paragraphs left by a man he’d called friend. He’d of course known he would marry. Now, the urgency of that boiled to the surface. With a curse, he tossed the page on his desk, and it sailed to a noiseless heap. In the end, he proved lacking in self-control. Hungering for a drink, he stalked to his sideboard and poured himself a glass.

  A knock sounded.

  “Enter,” he called out.

  The door opened. “Mr....”

  “I met with Hickenbottom’s solicitor,” Graham’s blunt interruption cut across Wesley’s announcement. Graham set down the decanter and, glass in hand, strode back to the desk.

  “Have you?” Jack murmured when Wesley left, closing the door behind him.

  Mayhap if the other man had been present, he’d have had some inclination as to what Graham could do with a sixteen—or was it seventeen?—year-old bastard ward. Without a governess. Or companion. He took a long swallow.

  All affability faded from Jack’s demeanor. “What did he want?” Since Graham’s return from war and his ascension to the role of duke, his friend had stepped in as his man-of-affairs. He’d overseen his business ventures with a military-like precision that had seen an immense rise in his already plentiful coffers. That was not, however, the sole reason he was Graham’s only confidante. That loyalty went back to a friendship more than two decades old, strengthened in part by his loyalty through Graham’s descent into madness.

  Cradling his glass between his hands, Graham relayed the details surrounding Dappleton’s visit. When he’d finished, Jack took a seat. “A child,” he parroted.

  Graham gave a terse nod and tossed back his drink. He grimaced as the liquid seared his throat and set the glass down. At the other man’s silence, he looked up.

  “The nightmares.” Jack’s quiet reminder, wholly unnecessary.

  The nightmares, as they’d taken to calling them. An image that conjured ghosts and monsters that lurked in the back of a child’s deepest fears. And not the reality that was life: of hell and dying and gruesome battles that, thankfully, no child’s mind could conjure. “I’m well aware of them.” He stretched his legs out before him in an artificial nonchalance, and then laid his clasped fingers on his flat belly. “I require a companion and a wife.” Not necessarily in that order.

  Jack’s frown deepened. “Lady Serena won’t welcome having a bastard underfoot.”

  No, most members of the peerage would want nothing to do with a girl of questionable birthright.

  Do you believe I’d ever judge you for your birthright, Rowena Endicott? Our hearts were joined the day you entered this village, and nothing will change that...

  “Hampstead?”

  A fool. He’d been a bloody fool. “Lady Serena will welcome anything for the privilege of becoming my duchess,” he said, pointedly ignoring the question in his friend’s tone. Marriage to a woman coined the Ice Princess would not only mark his responsibilities to those dependent upon him nearly complete, it would also mark a finality to the chapter in his life that had ever included Rowena Endicott.

  Jack snorted but did not refute that claim, either. “As your man-of-affairs and friend, I’d recommend you wed the chit off as soon as possible.”

  Yes. It was for the best—for him and his ward. Graham, so he could maintain his mundane life. She, so she wasn’t exposed to his madness. There could be no doubt that Jack’s suggestion held a vast appeal. Graham’s gaze trailed involuntarily over to the note, Hickenbottom’s appeal in death. He sighed. “I’ll not rush the girl into marriage to appease Lady Serena—”

  “It is the Duke of Wilkshire you should worry after.”

  “Or anyone,” Graham finished over the other man’s interruption. “Wilkshire included.” The Duke of Wilkshire, in possession of one of the oldest duchies, had been abundantly clear that he craved a match between his only daughter and Graham. That he’d not settle for anyone less than a duke... nor would Lady Serena. In fact, Graham suspected that should the duke know the truth about Graham, he would gladly sell her off for the title of Hampstead duchess, anyway.

  Jack’s mouth tensed and Graham braced for an additional battle. “As you wish.”

  Since he had stated his intentions to wed, and identified Lady Serena as his likely match, his friend had been stalwartly committed to seeing an arrangement formalized. And he would. It was time for him to see to those responsibilities. Soon. After his obligations toward Hickenbottom’s daughter were fulfilled.

  Jack gathered his belongings, and shoved to his feet. “I will put out enquiries and secure a respectable companion for the lady.” That offer dangled temptingly before him. As his friend made his goodbye and started for the door, Graham stared at his retreating frame. How easy it would be to let Jack do this.

  Allow him to take this on. He oversees all my business, and that is ultimately what this girl is.

  The distant report of a pistol and an agonized cry pealed in the room with a vividness that sent his body recoiling. “Send me the names of the most respected institutio
ns,” he called out sharply. “I’ll conduct my own interviews with any potential companion.”

  Jack wheeled around, surprise stamped in his sharp features. “You’ll conduct the interviews?”

  “Yes, me.” The other man was entitled to his shock. Since the episode eight years earlier had nearly revealed him for the madman he was to the whole of Society, Graham had retreated, and Jack had helped him uphold the façade that was his existence. Going about finding and securing members of his staff had not been a task Graham had seen to. “It is my responsibility. Hickenbottom saved my life in that carriage. This is the very least I can do.”

  Outside of mundane ton events, he had gone out of his way to avoid breaks in his well-ordered routine. Placidity had brought some relief from his demons, and there was a value greater than any coin in that peace. It was one thing for Graham to entrust his business affairs to Jack. Until now. The role of guardian had been expressly handed over to him, and he had an obligation to the man who’d saved his life to carry out his last wishes at least.

  The other man made a sound of protest. “It is enough that you’ll have a ward of dubious origins underfoot. Wilkshire will be a good deal less inclined to formalize any agreement while you’re off for the Season conducting affairs you’ve deemed more important than his daughter.”

  Yes, he would. Wilkshire was cut out of the same pompous cloth as Graham’s late father. As such the duke would hardly take kindly to him abandoning London at the height of the Season. Particularly as his absence would signal a lack of true intent for a match with the Lady Serena. Nonetheless...

  “I’ll have you coordinate an intimate dinner party with the Montgomery’s so they might have the privilege of being the first to meet my ward.” That would send a message as loud as a second dance on the connection between their families. “Inform him that matters involving my ward, however, are otherwise calling me away.”

  “You are certain I cannot find the companion for you?” Jack’s persistence could only come from a man who’d born witness to the demons that haunted Graham.

  “I am.”

  His friend hesitated. “As you wish.” Jack opened his mouth and then closed it. With a slight bow, he left.

  As he wished. It was the second time that day those words had been uttered, and there was so much he wished for. Sanity. Peace. Freedom from pain.

  In the absence of those elusive gifts, he’d settle for something within his control: finding the most qualified and esteemed companion possible to shape a hoyden into a lady.

  Only then would Graham’s debt at last be paid.

  Chapter 2

  Spelthorne, England

  1820

  Most young girls lost themselves in tales of beautiful princesses and the dashing princes who saved them. As a child, however, Mrs. Rowena Bryant had possessed an inordinate fascination with dragons. It had been a coincidental interest born of a book given to her as a birthday gift from one of her mother’s many protectors.

  The book told the tale of fierce, scaled dragons with great enormous wings. Mythical creatures capable of fire and flight. Rowena had studied and scrutinized every page until they’d frayed in the corners and time turned the blank ink gray.

  Now, nearly in her thirtieth year, she’d never dreamed she would find herself identified as one. Only, a creature not at all magical and wholly lacking in those fascinating traits that marked them as great.

  “Miserable dragon...”

  The muted whisper was met with a smattering of giggles. Seated behind a rose-inlaid desk better suited a fine lady’s parlor, Rowena snapped her head up. Odd, how time changed even the meaning one ascribed to words. Dragon was the hideous title she’d been afforded by her students. A name jeeringly tossed about to all the women fortunate enough to find employment at Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School. Rowena frowned her students into compliance.

  The girls swiftly schooled their features and returned their focus to the embroidering frames on their laps. She skimmed her gaze over the young ladies assembled before her. All daughters of powerful noblemen, the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old ladies occupied the edges of their delicate chairs. Under her tutelage, the girls had honed their skills as flawless ladies, prepared for their entrance into Society. The irony of it was not lost on her. She, Rowena Bryant, the daughter of a reformed courtesan-turned-wife of a vicar, doling out lessons on propriety and preparing young ladies for a respectable future.

  With her students focused on their tasks, she studied them. Wistful memories crept in to when she’d been their age, laughing with friends, dreaming of love, and hopeful for the future. Her students, by their birthrights, would never know what it was to make a life of their own, on their own. They would never be ladies toyed with by powerful noblemen and tricked out of their hearts and virtue. A sad smile pulled at her lips. For a brief moment in time, she had even called women born to the peerage her friends. And, yet, she had been wise enough to withhold the truth of her origins. For the truth would always remain: people such as Rowena could never truly belong.

  Except... you once allowed yourself that illusion...

  A sharply chiseled face of long ago flashed into her mind’s eye. A half-grinning visage that briefly brought her eyes closed. Heart hammering, she glanced around to see if her peculiar reaction had been noted. Her students, seated like little ducks in a row, continued stitching away. Some of the tension left her, and she shoved aside thoughts of him. A man whose knavery had seen her future forfeited and found her here at Mrs. Belden’s.

  Steepling her fingers together, she shifted her gaze to the lead windowpanes. Sunlight streamed through the glass panels and cast a luminous glow upon the floor. There were few options for unmarried women. There were even fewer for the daughters of reformed courtesans. Even knowing how fortunate she was, Rowena wanted more. A wave of longing besieged her to be free of the dreary schoolroom she’d called home for nearly ten years.

  If she were, in fact, one of those great-winged, mythical creatures long ago, she’d have taken flight far, far away from this miserable place. Anything to be free of it.

  A scratching outside the door snapped her from her reverie. Mrs. Elizabeth Terry, a bespectacled, gray-skirt wearing instructor hired two years after Rowena stood in the doorway. “Mrs. Belden has requested your presence.”

  The announcement was met with gasps. Gasps, which under most circumstances would have been met with a silencing look from Rowena and Mrs. Terry. Except... Rowena’s stomach sank. “A summons?” she asked haltingly, setting off another round of whispers.

  An instructor at Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School never wished to be summoned to the headmistress’s office. Particularly when one was in the midst of delivering a lesson. Time had inevitably proven all those summoned mid-lesson by Mrs. Belden inevitably were sacked or removed from their posts.

  That truth held her frozen, unmoving, wide-eyed, while her charges stared back with a befuddlement to match her own.

  Mrs. Terry nodded slowly. “Immediately.”

  You ungrateful, foolish chit. This is fate’s punishment for your moment of ungratefulness.

  “Oh, God,” she blurted, and her words, wholly lacking in decorum, sent up further gasps amongst the five students. Of course, she was one of the instructors who had worked here the longest. She was the most favored of Mrs. Belden’s employees and, oftentimes, was feared by the students. Rowena certainly never did anything so outrageous as to blurt or gasp or stand and gape. And certainly, not blaspheme. Both of which she’d now done for the better part of several moments.

  The young lady in the matching gray skirts better fitting an abbess than an impoverished miss-turned-instructor cleared her throat. “She said not to dawdle,” Mrs. Terry urged, and then dropped her eyes.

  But not before Rowena saw the flash of regret in their depths. I am being sacked.

  Oh, God. Of all the blasted times for fate to be listening to her yearnings, it had chosen the bloody worst.

  Through the q
uiet, a loud flurry of whispers went up, and the other instructor made another clearing noise. Rowena sprung into motion. She turned to face her students, and the girls promptly fell silent and turned their gazes downward. The lack of spirit from the sixteen-year-old ladies set guilt turning in her belly. I did this. I have instructed countless ladies on avoiding eyes and silencing their voices. Then, what had her fiery spirit earned her other than a banishment from Pembroke, a broken heart, and the title of dragon at Mrs. Belden’s, as all instructors were invariably titled?

  “I will return shortly, and we will renew the lesson on acceptable behavior for soirees and other small fetes.” The irony not lost on her—she, former hellion and mischief-maker—instructing anyone on deportment and decorum. “You may resume your embroidering until I return.” If I return. The obvious truth hung in the air. Rowena knew it. And the ladies scrambling to open their small leather books no doubt knew it too. And reveled in it. Everyone knew a dragon was feared, reviled, and scorned.

  Panic spiraling inside, Rowena strode from the classroom and stepped out into the corridor. Mrs. Elizabeth Terry stood in wait. With crimped red curls and wide green eyes, she’d long earned nasty side-comments from their students. There was not, however, a more loyal woman in the school. As such, she’d been the closest Rowena had to a friend since her girlhood days in Wallingford.

  “She might not be sacking you,” Elizabeth said, as soon as Rowena stepped into the hall. “You’re flawless and impeccable. Her finest instructor.”

  Rowena was also a whore’s daughter. Surely, despite her greatest hopes and efforts, it was a secret that could not stay buried forever. A secret she’d entrusted to no one. I’m going to be ill. Had an angry former student discovered the truth and sought retribution on one of the dragons? “She does not summon anyone unless it’s for a sacking, Elizabeth.” That reminder came out surprisingly even.

  Elizabeth chewed at her lower lip. She did not, however, refute her correct claims.

  They’d made it no further than halfway down the hall when the loud whispers from inside her classroom met her ears. At one time, the unkind words of rightfully hateful students had struck painfully inside. She’d gone from beloved daughter with friends and family to despised instructor. Now, the fury and pain of those cold glances and snickering words about spinster dragons had dulled somewhere along the way...