“Come, Mrs. Bryant,” he rebuked. “Do you believe I’ll take you to task for something as mundane as moving the furniture?” But, then, how little they knew of who and what the other had become.
Rowena spoke into the quiet. “We were working on a lesson.”
“Yes,” Ainsley said with an emphatic nod.
His interest stirred. “What manner of lesson, Mrs. Bryant?”
“Uh...” the lady glanced down at the tips of her slippers, and then beyond his shoulder to the door, like one calculating her odds of darting past him to freedom.
“I was teaching Mrs. Bryant how to skip.” Ainsley’s pride-filled declaration brought his head swinging back and forth between student and teacher.
He should be horrified. Only... with that innocent admission, images were conjured of a carefree Rowena, just fifteen, skipping with wild abandon through the bluebell fields of Wallingford, before he’d overtaken her and rolled her under him, both of them dissolving into laughter. A pressure weighted at his chest. “Mrs. Bryant already knows how to skip.” Did she recall those happier times? Or had anger for him blotted out all those once-wonderful memories?
“Yes, she said as...” Ainsley’s words faded, and she angled her head. “You know that, do you?”
Graham blinked slowly, and he tamped down a violent curse. If Lieutenant Hickenbottom had possessed a jot of this girl’s sense, the fool would be alive even now.
His ward was like a starving pup with a bone. “You said Mrs. Bryant knows how to skip, but how—?”
“Walking,” Rowena blurted, effectively silencing the girl.
Graham and Ainsley looked to her.
“I was instructing Miss Hickenbottom—”
“Ainsley,” the young lady corrected.
“On how to walk.” Rowena coughed into her hand. “Come, Ainsley,” she insisted. “It is late. We can resume our lessons on deportment tomorrow.” The girl’s groan of disappointment matched the sentiment that held him locked to his spot in the parlor. “His Grace has far more important events to see to this night than discussions of my rather horrid skipping abilities,” she neatly slipped in, rescuing him from further probing on his far too-astute ward’s part.
He locked gazes with Rowena. “Mrs. Bryant,” he murmured.
“Your Grace.” She sank into a flawless curtsy, and gave Ainsley a slight nod.
The girl sighed, and then dropped a version of something that might or might not have been one of those deferential dips.
And reluctantly Graham took his leave of the pair. His footsteps echoed down the empty corridor, and then...
Another round of laughter went up, trailing after him. He paused and looked longingly over his shoulder. The austere, unsmiling visages of the previous Dukes of Hampstead glowered on, disapproving even in death. With a sigh, he continued across the foyer.
A short while later, he found himself striding through the familiar room of White’s. The chandeliers cast a deceptively bright glow upon the famous floors. Patrons of the distinguished club dropped bows and called out convivial greetings. He tensed his jaw. Then, the peerage was always welcoming of a duke. A young lady—Rowena, Ainsley—were not the fortunate recipients of a like kindness. Graham reached his table where Jack now consulted his timepiece. He yanked out a chair.
His friend looked up with some surprise. “Goodness, you look more dour than usual,” he said with his usually drollness when Graham sat.
A servant rushed over with a bottle of brandy and two glasses. Waving him off, Graham saw to pouring two snifters. He pushed one toward his friend and claimed the other for himself. Delaying mention of Rowena, he asked after the formal business he’d assigned to the other man. “How goes the planning for Ainsley’s ball?”
In an un-Jack-like manner, his friend tightened his mouth. From the moment Graham was named guardian, the other man had done little to hide his disapproval with the entire situation. “The invitations have been issued.” That admission came as though dragged from him. “You’re asking much if you expect Wilkshire to embrace your bastard-ward with open arms.”
Friends since they’d been the second- and third-born sons to nobles, they’d forged a bond as children. Their jocular relationship had always been faintly competitive but built on a deep, abiding loyalty. However, there were moments Graham couldn’t sort out where Jack’s coldness toward Ainsley had come from.
“Pfft, come, Jack.” Swirling the contents of his drink, he leaned back. “Wilkshire would walk across hot embers for the title of duchess for his daughter.” He eyed him over the rim of his glass.
Jack made a sound of disgust. “The young lady is deplorable. You’ll have no hope of her making a match in her current state.”
There was no doubt his ward would someday set the ton abuzz... for all the wrong reasons. Until, she was learned in the ways of polite Society, and even then, Ainsley Hickenbottom would charge an uphill battle in earning a place in their ruthless midst. Still, Jack’s callous opinion of the girl grated. “You weren’t always a stodgy bore,” Graham pointed out. “We were more like the lively Miss Hickenbottom than the tiresome boys our brothers were.”
With a snort, Jack took a long swallow, finishing off his drink. “We also had manners. That girl...” His clever gaze narrowed. He’d always been perceptive. “What is it?”
Ignoring his question, Graham poured him another snifter. The other man would need it when he revealed the reason for their public meeting. Once closer than the Three Musketeers, after Jack had discovered Rowena’s deception, he’d burned with a palpable hatred whenever her name was mentioned. “I found a companion for the young lady,” he said at last, rolling his glass back and forth in his hands. “She is the ideal woman for the post.”
“Did you?” Jack gave a pleased nod. “Very good. Now you can focus on finalizing an arrangement with Lady Serena. Which—”
“It is Rowena.”
That single name dropped a charged, heavy silence between them. His friend sat back slowly in his chair, the leather groaning in protest. The same shock that had filled Graham when he’d stepped into Mrs. Belden’s office now reflected back in Jack’s furious eyes. “What?” he breathed.
“It is Rowena,” he repeated.
“Rowena?” Jack echoed.
Graham nodded.
And then Jack froze. He tossed his head back, laughing.
“There is no jest,” Graham said in solemn tones, instantly silencing his friend.
“I don’t understand.”
“I hired Rowena.”
“No,” Jack gritted out. “I don’t know what she said or how she’s attempting to wheedle her way back in your affections, but I’ll not let that viper hurt you again.”
He stiffened at that vitriol directed against her. Yes, she’d betrayed him, but she’d still also begged out of the post and taken it on anyway to aide Ainsley. Still, it had been Jack who’d stood beside him when Rowena had left him shattered, and he was deserving of his loyalty for that. “She didn’t want the post, Jack.” He proceeded to explain all, and withholding details about the passionate kiss they’d shared and the intimate nighttime exchange in the midst of a thunderstorm, he shared everything from their unexpected reunion.
When he’d finished, Jack sat in silence while the din of chattering guests carried on around them. “It is a trick. Nothing more,” he finally said, through tense lips. “She’s merely pretended she doesn’t wish to be here, and she’s going to seek a place back in your bed and in your heart and—”
Graham held a silencing hand up. “There’s no pretending. I know her.”
A violent hiss escaped the other man. “You know her? You know her, you say? You knew her so well you believed she’d wait for you? That you trusted she’d not marry another and would be by your side when you were battling death?” Graham went motionless through Jack’s diatribe. He couldn’t very well expect after every vile word he had uttered about her treachery that Jack would welcome her trustingly back into
their fold. When he’d finished, his friend lifted his glass in mock salute. “You were always weak where she was concerned.”
He glared at the other man. “This is not about weakness,” he said, shifting his gaze about the club. Grateful he’d not had this meeting in his townhouse where Rowena and Ainsley might have born witness to Jack’s biting hatred.
“Hampstead,” he began in gratingly placating tones used by past tutors. “I understand you set out to find the ideal lady for Miss Hickenbottom because of your friendship with that gentleman.”
Graham set his jaw. That gentleman, as Jack flippantly called the late lieutenant who had saved his worthless-until-now life. His sole, living friend, however, made that bond out to be nothing more than two rogues who’d shared drinks and a promise for Ainsley’s future. “This goes beyond that,” he said with finality. The matter of Rowena’s presence here would not be debated.
His friend latched onto that. “Then, if this is about locating a suitable companion for the girl, I will find one. But, if this is something more—”
“Ainsley will need Rowena. They share similar pasts and struggles.”
“If the lady does not wish to be here, then allow her to return,” he continued, ignoring Graham’s pointed reminder. “See if she is so compliant when you present her with the option she so craves.”
Graham picked up his glass. “She will be Miss Hickenbottom’s chaperone,” he said, infusing his words with a deliberate air of finality.
“Do not do this,” Jack pleaded. “Send her away. If—”
“It has to be her.”
“Hampstead, think, man.” Did Jack sense his wavering? “For her history alone, she should be sent back.” Jack leaned closer, erasing all the space between them. When he spoke, he did so on a hushed whisper that barely reached Graham’s ears. “Should Society learn of her parentage it will cause a scandal. A scandal which Miss Hickenbottom certainly does not need, given her own dubious beginnings.”
He eyed his man-of-affairs. When had the other man become so boorish that he’d disparage two young women because of their birthright? “Her origins never mattered. Nor does it matter to me now. Rowena will serve as Ainsley’s companion,” he said with ducal tones his father would have been hard-pressed to fault. “Have I made myself clear?”
A muscle jumped in Jack’s jaw. “Abundantly. If you’ll excuse me?” he said tightly, setting down his glass. He made to rise, and then stopped. Some of the fire had left his eyes, replaced instead with concern. “You might interpret my reservations about Rowena as snobbish, and yet, I saw the hell she left in her wake. She broke you.” Graham said nothing. After all, what was there to say to that truth? “Have you forgotten Lady Serena?”
“I know my responsibilities, Jack,” he said tightly. His sole purpose was to find a dignified, boring, steady, consummate hostess wife who could hold Society at bay so he could retire to the country and retreat from everything that threatened to steal his control.
“Given your... circumstances, there can be nothing with Rowena.”
God, the man was relentless. He clung on with such tenacity, talking Graham out of something he already knew could never be. For reasons that included both her faithlessness and his own need for a safe, passionless existence. And now she was back in his life, forcing him to remember the past and feel... anything, when he’d succeeded in feeling nothing for so long. His patience snapped. “I do not require a lecture or a lesson. I do not want anything with her.” Why did it feel as though he sought to convince himself?
Jack reeled, his expression stricken. “Forgive me. I spoke solely of our friendship. I will leave you, then.” With jerky movements, his longtime friend stood and stalked off.
Long after Jack left, Graham sat nursing his brandy.
The other man had responded to Rowena’s presence with a volatility he’d expected. After all, Jack had witnessed the heartache and suffering Graham had known at her betrayal.
For his earlier annoyance, his friend had been correct. Having Rowena close was perilous. No good could come in being with her. Doing so brought forth memories of what had been, and what might have been.
Silently cursing, Graham stood, and abandoned his clubs for the evening. With the late-night hour, his house was certain to again be quiet and free of the chaos Ainsley had unleashed on his existence. At least until the morrow.
Chapter 13
Ainsley was not ready for London’s Polite Society, and standing in Graham’s marble foyer in wait for the younger lady, Rowena didn’t believe as much because she doubted Ainsley’s capabilities... but because the ton could never, would never know what to do with a woman of her spirit.
Having worked with her, dined with her, and sat together simply conversing, she had come to the conclusion: his ward would never be the decorous-driven, demure miss he sought.
That desiring on his part, for Ainsley just served as further testament to the stranger who’d returned from war. Rowena would have never sufficed. Her heart gave a little pull at that. When he’d become heir to a dukedom, his obligations and responsibilities had shifted. The girl she’d once been who’d laughed freely and run wildly through the hills of Wallingford with mud stains on her hem and her hair whipping about her cheeks could have never found herself as his duchess. He’d known that.
It hadn’t been until he’d methodically run through his expectations for Ainsley that she herself had at last realized it. Realized after more than a decade of her life had passed just why that fate and future had been impossible. When Graham Linford inevitably took a bride, she would be the model of every attribute he sought. A woman who was refined and straitlaced and... respectable. And the truth would always remain that Rowena would live and eventually die as the perfect dragon, but she would never be respectable.
The muscles of her throat worked as every age-old shame rose to the surface. She would always be a bastard, and worse... a whore’s daughter. But she’d not have had any man who’d not loved her with all her flaws and faults, anyway. She’d deserved more then, and she did just as much now.
“How very serious you are, Mrs. Bryant.”
At that low murmur, she gasped and spun about. A fluttering started low in her belly, as she caught sight of Graham. Standing at the doorway, he epitomized both a ducal strength and masculine beauty. The midnight fabric of his jacket and breeches accentuated muscles better suited to the cobblers and stable masters who’d worked in the Berkshire countryside than a nobleman of vast wealth and influence. “Your Grace,” she forced herself to say as he came over. Rowena smoothed her palms over her brown woolen cloak. Her own garments stood out in stark contrast to that station divide that had always been there.
A servant rushed to greet him with a black floor-length cloak. Waving off any help, Graham shrugged into that heavy satin fabric. As he latched the clasp at his throat, the sapphire lining peeked out. The interior part of that elegant garment finer than anything she’d ever donned.
Rowena remained motionless, hands folded before her.
As the footman melted into the shadows, Graham lingered his gaze briefly on her hands. “Where is the skipping and exuberant laughing woman of our last meeting, Mrs. Bryant?” he commented, drifting closer.
She forced her feet to remain planted to their spot. She drew in a deep breath, and the masculine hint of Bay Rum that clung to him flooded her senses. Do not let him rattle you. Do not let him... “Given your statement of preference for orderliness and propriety, I expect this should meet with your approval.” She glanced around at the Doric columns and frowned. “Nor is a foyer generally the ideal surroundings for skipping. Hardly enough space with all the inconveniently placed pillars.”
Graham froze, and then tossed his head back on a laugh, that expression hoarse and rusty as though foreign. The sound of it, muddled her senses, and she stared on as his stone-cold features softened. This was the Graham of her past, and as his eyes glimmered with amusement, she saw traces of who he’d once been. And ma
yhap, in some ways, still was.
“Ah,” he whispered, placing his lips close to her ear. Her flesh tingled from the caress of his breath upon her. “But you were meant to be laughing and blushing and skipping, Rowena. Queen of the Gardens.”
Her heart hitched.
“Did you think I should have forgotten the girl who ruled the gardens, pens, and locke?”
“Yes,” her voice emerged tremulous. Why should he remember those details about their time together? “Actually, I—”
“And he laughs, too,” Ainsley called out, voice booming. “Hampstead you are full of surprises.”
Rowena jumped back.
Together, they looked up to the young lady at the top of the stairwell. In pale blue satin skirts and butterfly haircombs, Ainsley Hickenbottom was transformed into an elegantly attired English lady. Not a single person this evening would dare look at the lady and see anything less than—
She hitched her hip on the stair rail.
Rowena and Graham surged forward. “No.”
Ainsley pointed her eyes at the ceiling. “Here I thought with your earlier laughter you were both capable of a bit of a jest.” With a spring in her step, she sprinted down the remaining stairs. She jumped from the second one, her satin slippers noiseless when they struck the marble.
Graham frowned and looked pointedly to Rowena.
Another footman appeared with a muslin cloak that he helped Ainsley into.
She narrowed her eyes. He expected primness from his ward, did he? Deliberately misinterpreting the reason for that intense glint, she turned to her charge. “Curtsy to His Grace, Miss Hickenbottom.”
“Oh, blast. Yes. Of course.” Ainsley sank into a somewhat less sloppy gesture. “Shall we?” she suggested, and the butler came forward, drawing the door open.
Ainsley skipped ahead to the waiting black carriage. Graham fell into step beside Rowena, matching her smaller, measured movements. “Society is going to rake her through the bloody irons,” he gritted out.
Schooling the Duke (The Heart of a Scandal, #1) Page 17