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

by Christi Caldwell

  Her sisters. What about you? But isn’t that how Rowena Endicott had always been? Putting everyone else first? Which is why her simply forgetting him had been anathema to all he knew of her and about her. A strangled half-sob rumbled in his chest. For if her words were spoken in truth, then all these years he’d spent hating her, the time he’d spent wondering why she’d chosen another, all of it would have been nothing more than lies handed down by his father and perpetuated by her mother.

  Graham backed up a step, and his legs knocked against the sofa.

  Through his unsteadiness, Rowena stood there calm, cool, wholly unaffected. Only, the sadness seeping from her brown eyes belied that mask she donned. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to sort through the facts and fiction that were his life.

  It had all been a lie. Nausea broiled in his belly, and he fought to keep from casting up his accounts at her feet. He’d spent years resenting her when, in fact, he’d been the faithless one of their pair. He’d wronged her. Doubted her. He’d owed it to her to search for her, find her, and sort through these details... long, long ago. Not here, not now, and not because he’d hired her as a servant in his employ.

  He swiped a hand over his face. And as the sad irony slammed into him, a broken, empty chuckle rumbled deep in his chest. His father had sent Rowena away to keep her from him... but the moment he had left for war and returned a madman, she’d been forever out of his reach.

  “He fed you every lie needed to keep us apart, Graham.” Her accusatory eyes met his. “And how easily you believed him.” With a sad shake of her head, Rowena left her book and that hated note... and was gone.

  Chapter 16

  Any other day, Graham would have been focused on the gossip columns now resting on the edge of his desk. His public display and Ainsley’s attempt to help him save face were splashed upon the front pages for the world to see.

  Now, he was closeted away in his office, those sheets sat forgotten. A bottle of brandy and untouched glass rested at the corner of his desk. Ledgers and folios covered every other spare surface. Head bent, he attended the neat ledger before him, pouring through countless months of accounting, searching those lines for secrets contained within, just as he’d been doing since Rowena’s revelations a few hours earlier. Figures kept by the late duke’s man-of-affairs, who upon the miserable bastard’s death had been immediately replaced with the only man he’d ever trusted. He skimmed row after row, and then stopped. One inked sum commanded his notice, freezing him.

  Graham trailed his index finger over one line. It was not an exorbitant sum. It was not a figure that would have given anyone pause should they stop and review the ledgers of one of the wealthiest families in England. A fifty-pound mark, recorded on the 29th of September, 1810.

  That was the money paid Rowena. To leave. To go away, like a shameful, dirty secret his father had sought to bury. Like Judas, collecting that bag of silver, her parents had accepted a pittance, sacrificing her for their family. She’d been his everything. She’d been the dream that sustained him. The only woman he had, and would ever, love. And they’d sent her away—on a lie. Snarling like a wounded beast, he grabbed one of the already studied ledgers and hurled it against the wall. It sailed to the floor, with a noisy thwack.

  ...What should I have done, Graham? Defied the duke who threatened my family...?

  His hand trembled. How matter-of-fact she’d been. She’d simply put her younger sisters’ happiness before that of her own, and went on to make a new life for herself. Only, it hadn’t been a bag of silver. It had been fifteen pounds, paid monthly, until the duke had kicked up his heels and gone on to meet the devil as he deserved.

  Graham dragged over another. He proceeded to flip through the pages, purposefully scanning dates as he went. Then he found it. An entry for fifteen pounds. No markings. No initials. No names. And yet, he knew. With a growl, he turned the page so quickly, he nearly tore it, as he searched a month later for another and then another.

  With every confirmation of that seemingly innocuous entry, frustration built inside at what that amount had concealed from him all these years. He tossed aside the book. His fingers twitching with the restless energy thrumming inside him, Graham grabbed another ledger, and turned to the far end of the book, settling on the date his father had died. That would have been the last date of payment.

  Grabbing his snifter, he downed the contents in one long swallow and grimaced at the trail it burned in its wake. He set it down hard.

  He looked like hell, and he didn’t need a mirror before him to tell as much. A night without sleep, after he’d discovered his whole damned life was a lie would have that effect on a man.

  His gut churned.

  ...He fed you every lie needed to keep us apart...

  For the hell of it all was that Rowena was correct, and no matter what excuses or explanations or apologies he might make, the truth remained: he’d been unfaithful to her—in every way a man could be unfaithful to a woman. Grief went through him, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

  A knock sounded at the door, and his heart kicked up a hopeful beat. Graham surged forward in his chair. “Enter.”

  His butler entered, quashing those futile sentiments. Did you truly believe Rowena has a reason to seek you out? “This arrived a short while ago, Your Grace.” The servant came forward and placed an officious scrap of vellum on his desk.

  He took in the familiar seal of the Duke of Wilkshire. “Thank you, Wesley.” He ignored the page, neither caring nor curious about the contents of that note. Three weeks earlier, it would have been all that mattered. It would have been formalizing a contract and seeing to his ducal responsibilities. Everything changed. “Wesley,” he called out.

  The servant immediately turned back.

  “Mrs. Bryant and Miss Hickenbottom?”

  His butler inclined his head. “They are in the ballroom for the young lady’s dance lessons, Your Grace.”

  Some of the tension eased. “Of course. Thank you,” Graham murmured. Did you expect she would have left in the dead of night? Which she was most certainly entitled to have done. She’d owed him nothing. He’d deserved even less. Yet, she’d come anyway—originally at his insistence—and then agreed to stay for Ainsley. He was humbled by her honor. He’d never been worthy of Rowena Endicott. He clenched his eyes tightly shut. And she’d lost all because of her association with him.

  How did a man and a woman go on from here? How did they act toward one another?

  Shoving to his feet, Graham abandoned his office and went in search of a woman he had no right to seek out. He paused at the base of the marble foyer. The faint strains of a violin filtered from the ballroom. He paused, and then of their own volition, his legs moved, carrying him close to that haunting melody.

  “Non. Non. Non, il est un-deux-trois...”

  “I cannot understand you,” Ainsley’s sharp tone carried to Graham’s ears, and he stopped in the doorway. His ward stood in the arms of a tall, wiry gentleman with thickly curled golden strands. The young lady glowered up at the stranger.

  What in blazes? The pair and Rowena singularly engrossed in the lesson, Graham used their distraction to slip inside the ballroom, and take up position behind the towering Doric column.

  “Is this a bloody French lesson? Or a dance lesson?” Ainsley demanded. “Because it really shouldn’t be both, Fargand.”

  “It is both,” Rowena confirmed from the edge of the dance floor. The lady stood with her back to Graham, but from her gentling tones, her attempt to stymy a conflict between instructor and student rang clear.

  Ainsley deepened her scowl for the handsome gentleman. “If you count in English, then mayhap I’ll master the steps. If you can count in English, that is. Can you?”

  The beleaguered dance instructor muttered something under his breath, which earned him a stomp from Ainsley. A gasp slid through the man’s teeth.

  Rowena clapped her hands once. “Ainsley...”

  “I know. I know. We
do not stomp on the toes of our partners. Deliberately,” the lady added as an afterthought.

  Rowena motioned for the bespectacled man seated with a violin poised at his shoulder to resume playing. As the strident chords soared through the ballroom, Graham used her distractedness to study her. Her back in profile to him, she displayed the proud regal bearing of a woman better suited to the title queen than companion. So very different than she’d been when he’d taught her how to waltz through the quiet countryside in the early morn hours, when the sun had first peeked over the horizon. She’d moved with such zeal and exuberance he’d been lost in that freeing joy. His own life prior to her entry all those years ago had been stilted and cheerless. He’d been born to parents who saw little use of him beyond his rank as spare. Two people who’d been so fixed on hosting formal affairs and honoring their placement as Society’s leading peers that there had been an absolute and total lack of joy—until Rowena.

  Graham searched, aching to see a hint of that childlike happiness, but then, how did one retain any hint of it when life proved the ugliness in people’s souls and saw one ruined for it? He leaned the side of his head against the pillar, mourning everything his father and her family had killed.

  Then, she began to tip her head in a slight beat to the rhythm. And he froze. That jaunty back and forth tilt held him riveted, and he was momentarily transported.

  You must teach me how to waltz, Graham Linford. I must know how...

  They’d danced in wild circles until they’d tumbled to the earth, and then he’d made love to her there with the sun beating down on their bodies and the birds chirping their summertime song. As a girl, Rowena had been pretty. As a woman, she’d developed a sophisticated beauty. His breath hitched with a hungering to again know the feel of her in his arms.

  “Non, non, non. Il est un à trois comptage. Ne pas—ahh,” the dance instructor cried out, bringing Graham back. Flushed, the gentleman promptly released Ainsley. “She stomped me. Again. I cannot work under zees conditions, Madame Bryant,” the man bemoaned, throwing his hands in the air. Abandoning his charge on the dance floor, he hurried over to the chair alongside the violinist.

  Rowena sprung into movement. “She is a new student,” she protested, while he continued to stack his pages into a neat pile.

  “She is a hellion.”

  Graham scowled. He’d instructed Rowena to advise his ward on matters of propriety and decorum, and yet hearing the dance instructor’s condescending opinion of Ainsley’s spirit set his teeth on edge. He took a step forward to intervene on behalf of his charge, but then stopped. “She is spirited,” Rowena countered. “And I believe that is to be commended.” She had been so very much like the girl she now ardently defended. It was a spirit that she would have passed to her own sons and daughters. A pang struck his chest.

  “The girl does not want to learn.” The instructor gathered his belongings. He motioned to the violinist, but Rowena shot a staying hand out, freezing the bespectacled man. Swallowing loudly, the violinist promptly sat.

  Smart man.

  Monsieur Fargand made to step around Rowena, but more determined than any battle-hardened commander Graham had served under, she stepped into the flustered instructor’s path, blocking his retreat. “She does wish to learn. Miss Hickenbottom simply requires a...” She paused, and he could all but see the wheels turning in her mind. “Different approach to instruction.”

  The dance master hesitated. Yes, then Rowena had always possessed the ability to talk the legs off a table. Reluctantly, the flushed gentleman moved his gaze over to his wayward student. “Is zees true?”

  “I do,” Ainsley said solemnly.

  “See,” Rowena said in gentle tones better suited for calming a fractious mare.

  “Just not from a French frog,” the stubborn lady added.

  Rowena slapped a hand over her face.

  Shock rounded the instructor’s eyes, and sputtering, he took advantage of her momentary distraction and bustled off. The man stalked past Graham and marched proudly from the ballroom.

  Quiet descended over the ballroom, broken only when Ainsley spoke. “I am sorry, Mrs. Bryant.” The threadbare quality of her apology, so at odds with the lively lady who’d upended his household and saved him from solo humiliation last evening, brought a frown.

  Rowena settled a reassuring hand on her charge’s shoulder. “It is fine,” she said gently.

  “Hampstead will no doubt be furious.”

  He stilled. That is what she believed. That he’d take her to task for the judgmental dance instructor? Then, why should she not? Hadn’t he given both Rowena and Ainsley to believe that very thing?

  Disquieted, he strained to hear Rowena’s answering reply. Whatever muted assurances she gave or did not give, were lost to the distance separating them. At that incorrect supposition on the child’s part, his frown deepened. It was the image he’d sought to perfect for the world: aloof, frosty, unfeeling duke. Anything to keep the world at bay, and to keep his secrets his own. Standing here, on the fringe of a meeting between Rowena and his ward, he found he did not want to be that cold, desolate figure he’d been. Donning that false persona had not rid him of the demons haunting him. It had not cured his madness. Last night had been proof of that. No, his aloofness had only left an even larger void inside.

  “I assure you, I am many things, none of which is furious.” His voice boomed around the soaring room, and with like gasps, companion and charge looked to him. Strolling forward, Graham stopped before them. He searched Rowena for a hint of expression after her revelation last evening. Her thoughts. Anything. But she was stoic, divulging nothing in her carefully composed features. When the two ladies said nothing, he folded his arms. “Well?”

  “We are without a dance instructor,” Rowena explained in her headmistress tones. “Monsieur Fargand has tendered his resignation.” She spoke as one delivering an announcement to an employer. That is what I am. He scowled, and the lady’s explanation abruptly trailed off.

  “It is my fault.” Ainsley waggled her fingers. “Though, I did deliberately stomp his feet.” The lady stared up, a challenge in her eyes.

  Graham folded his arms at his chest and looked between them. “Good.”

  Companion and charge cocked their heads in like angles.

  “I’ll not have a condescending dance master instructing my charge.” Or Rowena. If the blighter hadn’t stormed off, Graham would have happily sacked him. Smothering his amusement at their muted shock, he held an elbow out for his ward. “May I?”

  Ainsley looked at him as though he’d sprung a second head. “May you what?”

  Over the girl’s head, Rowena’s mouth parted in slight shock, and then her wary eyes turned soft. The deep tension receded in his chest, leaving in its place a remarkable lightness. With the exception of Jack, whose friendship at best had dissolved into a more businesslike, perfunctory relationship since Waterloo, he had been largely alone. There was something so freeing in this shared connection with Rowena and the girl Hickenbottom had charged to his care.

  “Dance,” she said gently, taking the girl’s hand. “His Grace is going to show you the steps.” She paused. “In English, Your Grace.”

  Graham. I want to hear my name fall easily from your lips.

  He wanted to strip away all rank and divisions between them, so it was just them, once more, as they’d been.

  Casting him a long, dubious look, Ainsley at last placed her palm on his shoulder.

  “The posture is the most important of your positioning,” Rowena guided from the edge of the floor. “You do not want to slump as you dance. Lift your elbows,” she murmured.

  The young lady drew her shoulders back and moved into the directed position.

  Rowena motioned to the violinist, and the man scrambled to raise his instrument and proceeded to play. “Now, right foot back,” she called softly, as Graham led Ainsley through the steps. “Together. Side—”

  “Why does the lady have to
go back?” the lady groused, her brow scrunched in deep concentration. “I’d much rather Hampstead be the one having to dance backward.”

  Graham chuckled, and that mirth ended on a grunt as Ainsley stepped on his foot. “My apologies,” he murmured. Since she’d been placed in his guardianship, he’d worried about her entry into Society, how she’d be received. How to tame her so she was accepted by at least some of the peerage. After last evening, he’d accepted the truth: there would be no taming this one, and he found he’d rather that she hold onto that part of her spirit.

  “Now back on the left and side on the right and...”

  Ainsley stumbled, and with a frustrated shout, she stepped out of Graham’s arms. “I need to see it.”

  At their questioning looks, she slashed a hand at them, and then motioned to the dance floor. “I need to see it before I can attempt it. Well?” She clapped her hands. “On with it, then. Show me the steps, Mrs. Bryant.”

  Graham held out his arm. “Shall we, Mrs. Bryant?”

  After everything she’d revealed to Graham last evening, she’d not known what to expect. Mayhap to be tossed out for withholding the truth of her origins. Mayhap a reserved distance.

  She’d certainly not expected him to request a dance. An altogether different apprehension gripped her.

  Shall we?

  “Shall we what?” she blurted.

  “You do know how to dance,” Graham prodded, his silken baritone washing over her.

  Rowena clasped her fingers at her throat. As a girl, there had never been a functional need for her to learn the waltz, quadrille, or any other country reel. Yet, she’d wished to know how, and it had been him who’d taken her in his arms and guided her through each step and movement. Patient. Teasing.

  When she was an instructor at Mrs. Belden’s she’d overseen the lessons conducted by some of the most prominent dance masters.

  But, now, Graham stared expectantly back, urging her to dance those once beloved steps. She let her arms fall to her sides. Coward that she was, regardless of whether or not it would help Ainsley, she didn’t want to step into his arms and accept with that onslaught of memories those motions would unleash. Not after last night, when they’d both learned that everything had been an orchestrated lie. For there could never be a path forward and participating in these interludes of pretend would only delude her into false trust once more.