by Betina Krahn
Flashes of sensual heat notwithstanding, she had to make him understand she did not intend to abandon her quest.
“I’m not much for history books. But if I were, you can bet they’d be American ones, not English.” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “If Uncle Red says his pa made him memorize those names, then he did. I can’t imagine how else he’d come by them otherwise—him being just a hard-drinking old prospector from the Nevada hills.”
He looked her up and down; the corner of his mouth pursed as he studied her testy declaration, then went back to sorting through the pages.
“What have we here? A Palmer, a Howard, and a Fitzroy.” There he stopped with his finger on the last name. His face darkened. “You claim to have a Fitzroy in your lineage?”
“Apparently.” She tried to read the change in his demeanor, but found too few clues in his sudden intensity. “What does that mean?”
He mulled it over. “A Palmer and a Fitzroy.”
“Sounds faintly Irish. I know you English have a grudge against them, but—”
“It is not Irish. ‘Fitzroy’ is purely English. ‘Fitz’ means ‘born from,’ ‘roy’ refers to the royal—‘the king.’”
“Born from”—she was more focused on his attitude than his words—“a king?” Her heart sank when she realized he was serious. Her knees weakened. Damn and blast Uncle Red for claiming royal connections! What had he gotten them into?
She snatched the page from his hands and found the name that had caused such a change in him. “Charlotte Fitzroy?” She looked up. “Who was she? Anybody . . . special?” She had almost said “anybody real?”
He stared at her for a long moment, suspicion slowly melting into a frank examination of her face. His gaze kept coming back to her right cheek. She could feel there was something on it, but refused to touch it and give him the satisfaction of knowing his scrutiny made her self-conscious. He rose and she found herself facing a wall of a chest and the abundant heat of a big, male body.
Damn.
Tall and dark. With wicked possibilities in his eyes. Her breast tingled where he had touched it. Double damn. Her skin remembered him.
“Why do you want to be a duchess?” he asked, his voice husky.
“Why wouldn’t I?” She took a step backward. “Duchesses wear rich clothes and fine jewels . . . attend fine parties and balls . . . go to grand soirees and ceremonies. They have armies of servants to see to their every need and admirers to flatter every mood. They live in palaces and ride in great carriages—”
“All of which you have right now, if even a small part of your reputed wealth is real,” he charged. “What do you need a duke for?”
There was no reason not to tell him, she reasoned. Doing so might legitimize her quest a bit and reaffirm her own sense of purpose.
“The standing, of course. As you pointed out, I already have the best of everything else. Why not the best husband possible?”
A laugh burst from him, surprising her.
Damned enthralling sound.
“Sorry. I’m just having trouble picturing my brother as ‘best husband’ material. Good God, woman, you’ve listened to Arthur and even danced with him. Surely you have higher aspirations than that.”
His bluntness shocked her, until she realized he was trying to draw her into agreeing with him. Her face flamed with indignation, and she tossed the papers back onto the table and drew herself up straight.
“All right, if you insist on knowing . . . I have three younger sisters. Three. They’re lovely, accomplished, sweet-natured girls who are totally shut out of the snooty ranks of society in New York because their fortune is too new. An ‘old’ title will balance out our ‘new’ money and gain society’s acceptance for them.”
“So, you’re sacrificing yourself on the altar of familial obligation.”
“Hardly a sacrifice, I think, marrying a top nobleman.”
“Hardly an informed opinion, I think, that would lead you to marry into a family and a society you know nothing about.” He huffed amusement and looked her over. “What do you know of a duchess’s life?”
She strode to the window, threw back the heavy velvet draperies to admit more light, and turned to face him.
“On an ordinary day, a duchess sleeps until ten o’clock, emerges at noon, receives callers until four, takes tea until six, then dresses for dinner at nine . . . after which she indulges in ‘entertainments.’ She’s abed by two and up again at ten for a lengthy toilette and another round.” Daisy crossed her arms, grateful for the beams of bright sun warming her mostly bare shoulders. “She attends the opera and the races with equal verve, hosts fox hunts and shooting parties, sponsors charities and is a patroness of the arts. She is a guiding light for the duke’s household and the world at large. She holds duty dear and her family’s welfare even dearer.”
All of which had been memorized from the countess’s numerous lectures, for just such an occasion. The way Ashton seemed to be re-evaluating the situation as he edged toward her made the effort seem worthwhile.
“You have conducted a thorough study indeed.” He gave a courtly nod. “But I fear you have left off the foremost duty of a duchess.”
“Which is?” she said archly, emboldened by her success.
“To give the duke an heir.” He leaned forward, letting his gaze drift downward to her well-displayed bosom. “To furnish the duke’s bed and bring forth a healthy son from what transpires there.”
He would bring that into the discussion. She rolled her eyes, hoping the gesture would distract from her overheated cheeks.
“That takes no special talent or attention to duty.”
“A view probably not shared by numerous queens of the realm who were divorced, beheaded, or replaced for failing at that very thing.”
“Millions of women give birth to male children each year. The proof is plowing fields, swabbing ship’s decks, and mucking out horse stalls all across the country.” A reckless impulse made her add: “Who knows—I may find that particular duty quite pleasant with your brother.”
That took some of the smugness out of his expression.
“You overestimate Arthur,” he said, straightening. “He is hardly the amorous sort.”
“Every man is ‘the amorous sort,’ given the proper occasion.”
“Once again, Miss Bumgarten, you invite the question of how you became such an expert on men.” He strolled still closer, spreading his coat to prop fists on his waist.
She was prepared for the question this time.
“I grew up on a ranch in Nevada, where men outnumber women five to one. I lived among and worked alongside all kinds of men. I’d have to be a ‘dim Dora’ indeed not to have learned something about them.”
He assessed that comment and her steady, unapologetic regard.
“I think you’ll find ‘cowboys’ and dukes of the realm are cut from very different cloth.”
“Oh? Dukes are too grand to be moved by the sight of a well-turned ankle? Too high-minded to appreciate the scent of a lady’s hair or the warmth in a pair of flirting eyes? Can you honestly say they are never affected by the brush of a fan against their sleeve or the feel of a woman’s waist as she is assisted into a carriage?” She laughed quietly at the way his eyes darkened and his chin jerked back.
“Arthur is a devout naturalist. A virtual hermit,” he said, with growing irritation. “Comfortable only with his bugs and his peering glass.”
When she didn’t respond immediately, he looked down at her. She smiled, feeling solid ground under her feet for the first time that morning.
“I believe I can say with some authority that your brother is as susceptible to such things as the next man.”
He stiffened visibly, his face a slate she found hard to read. He didn’t like the notion of his older brother being human enough to desire and take pleasure? Or was it the idea of Duke Arthur taking pleasure with her that he found objectionable? She smiled at that thought.
&nb
sp; “Your Lordship!” came the countess’s strained voice from the doorway, causing them to break apart and back away from each other. Daisy’s sponsor bustled into the room with a harried air, her face flushed, smoothing her dark skirts nervously. “A most pleasant surprise.”
“The duke’s brother was just attempting to tutor me on the duties of a duchess.” Daisy’s voice carried a bit too much determination. “I told him that I would have no difficulty with what is required.”
The countess halted halfway across the chamber, reading in their proximity and posture that something personal had transpired between them. Blotches of color appeared in her pale cheeks.
“Well, of course not,” she said emphatically, taking in Daisy’s half-laced bodice. “A young lady of superior breeding and fine old lineage—Miss Bumgarten will be a jewel in the Meridian crown.”
“Yes, well. What she is and what she will be remains to be seen.” Lord Ashton tugged down his waistcoat and stepped to the table to lift a page from the pile of papers. “The Beauforts? Half of England makes claims to their seed and with good reason; they were a potent and tempestuous lot and—conveniently—most of their family records have been destroyed. There is no way to prove or deny claims to them.”
“None at all?” Daisy’s heart sank and she glanced at the countess, who was scowling pointedly at her half-laced gown and making a furtive swiping gesture toward her cheek. The potential collapse of Daisy’s hopes eclipsed the countess’s inscrutable hints. Then it struck her that she was taking his word for it. The library-lurking, eavesdropping, freehanded varmint—why in the world would she ever believe him?
“Well, if there is no way to prove we come from Beauforts”—she dug deep into her pride and squared her shoulders—“we’ll have to find someone else, someone further down the list . . . like . . . like that Fitzroy girl, that Charlotte.” She ignored the way the countess moved closer and motioned more openly. “If she was a king’s daughter, she has to be listed in records somewhere.”
“King’s daughter?” The countess halted mid-hint, her jaw dropping.
“I believe the countess is trying to tell you that you have ink on your cheek,” Lord Ashton said, tossing the page back to the table and producing a handkerchief. He positioned himself in front of her, holding the linen ready, and ordered, “Stick out your tongue.”
“I beg your pardon.” Daisy was confused by both his proximity and his demand. What the devil was he—
“Have it your way,” he said, then moistened his tongue, gave the cloth a long, slow stroke with it, and turned the dampened linen on her.
“Hey!” He held her by the arm and wiped her cheek as if she were a newborn calf that needed licking. “How dare you?” she growled, finally succeeding in shoving one arm aside. “Get your paws off me!” A moment later he released her and backed away, leaving her wrestling with the impulse to kick him someplace that would leave his future kids dizzy.
“Charlotte Fitzroy?” he said, his voice sounding a bit huskier than it had a moment ago. He tucked his handkerchief back into his breast pocket. “The living expert on the Fitzroys is at Oxford. Queen’s College. Professor Broadman Huxley. And if you can get information out of that old prune, you’re a better man than most.”
Her spit-cleaned cheek burned like it had been washed in lye.
“I am better than most men,” she snapped, flinging a finger toward the hallway, demanding he exit. “I am a woman.”
The wretch threw back his head and laughed—laughed—as he struck off for the front door. He arrived at the archway to the hall at the very moment the butler arrived with a rattling cart laden with coffee and morning buns.
“Ah. Just in time.” He paused to pour himself a cup and cream and sugar it properly. Then he stood for a moment with the cup in one hand and the other propped insolently on his waist. Only when he had drained the cup did he hand it off to the bewildered manservant with a “Damned fine coffee” and stride out.
Daisy’s teeth were clamped so hard that her jaws hurt.
“That,” the countess said, glaring after him, “is no gentleman.”
“Gentleman, hell—he’s a low-down, sneaky, egg-suckin’ hound.” Ignoring the countess’s cringe at her language, she collected the skirts of her weighty ball gown into her arms—revealing the stockings and garters she had rolled down to her ankles for comfort—and headed for the stairs. Just inside the archway to the hall, she paused at the coffee cart, poured herself a cup, and threw back a big gulp.
“But maybe a useful hound.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners and a slow, crafty smile appeared. “Jonas,” she addressed the butler, “bring down our trunks out of storage.” She turned a full, knowing grin on the countess. “We’re going to Oxford. Wherever the hell that is.”
* * *
Just down the street, minutes later, Ashton sat in a two-seater cab watching the doors of Daisy Bumgarten’s house and trying desperately to purge the memory of the texture of her skin from his senses. He kept seeing that ink on her cheek—not just a smudge, but an entire word absorbed from the inked velum her face had rested on. One word. Damned if he hadn’t felt a jolt of prescience the moment she raised her head.
Wife.
Before long, a young boy came running out of the alley beside the house to perch, breathless, on the step of his cab.
“Th’ under houseman . . . ’e’s jawin’ about havin’ to drag out them big trunks agin, an’ the cook, she’s complainin’ about all th’ food she’s laid in goin’ bad if there’s nobody there to eat it.”
“Good work,” Ashton declared, flipping the boy a gold coin that made the urchin’s eyes pop as he detached from the cab door and scurried off.
Rapping on the roof with his knuckles, he called out to the cabbie, “Severin House in Grosvenor Square. And make it quick.”
She had taken the bait.
Chapter Six
Ashton blew through the front doors of the stately but somewhat past its prime Severin House, shouting orders for his valet to assemble his kit and sending a serving boy to the local livery to have his horse ready for the train in half an hour. As he headed for the main stairs, a voice from the drawing room halted him in his tracks.
“Ashton, old chum.”
Oh, God. Not now. He turned his head.
Reynard Boulton, heir of the Viscount Tannehill, thorough reprobate and spectacular gossip, was leaning against the door frame with his arms tucked across his chest and his legs crossed at the ankles. A sly look of assessment lighted his face as he took in Ashton’s exquisitely groomed appearance and evident unease.
“In need of money again?” Ashton raised his chin and continued to the staircase and up. “Out of luck, I’m afraid. I’m skinned myself.”
“You wound me,” Reynard said with exaggerated petulance, pushing off with his shoulder and sauntering to the center of the hall. “Suggesting that I only seek you out to put the touch on you.” He sniffed, making a show of forgiving the slight. “As it happens, I come bearing news.”
Ashton stopped dead in the middle of the stairs. His very skin contracted. To ignore such an entrée would be to court disaster. “The Fox,” as Reynard was known in fashionable circles, had a nose for scandal unequaled in the Western Hemisphere. If there was disgrace or depravity to be uncovered, the Fox found it first. If recklessness and ruination titillated society’s imagination, it was the Fox who supplied the details. If trouble and discord beset noble houses, the Fox was the first one to lay it about. And sometimes—chilling thought—even to stir it into existence.
The fact that he had brought news to Severin House could only mean that one of its hapless residents had fallen under Reynard’s jaundiced gaze and was about to become the subject of a campaign of curiosity. Since Ashton’s own waywardness had long since been diced and digested by society’s appetite for scandal, it could only be his poor brother who was about to fall under the Fox’s quizzing glass. And there could only be one aspect of his brother’s dull life that
would be of interest to London’s premier gossip.
“News of what?” Ashton turned fully on the step, staring down at the future viscount. “Or should I say ‘whom’?”
“Surely you won’t make me divulge this juicy bit here in the hallway,” Reynard said, with a wicked glint in his eye. “I’ve had a long night of it, Ash. Haven’t been to bed yet, and I’m positively famished.”
“Damn it, Reynard—I’ve a train to catch.”
“Oh? And where are we going that requires such urgency? Hmm?”
Trapped. We. He wouldn’t put it past Reynard to follow him all the way to Oxford, if he didn’t hand over something. Swearing softly, Ashton stomped back down the steps, instructed the butler hovering nearby to lay on breakfast in the dining room, and led the treacherous Fox down the hall and into that little used chamber.
Coffee, scones with cream, and peach preserves were served immediately, thanks to the cook’s penchant for rising early and being prepared to provide whoever had furnished the upstairs beds the previous night with a suitably romantic breakfast. She always kept morning-appropriate delicacies at the ready, along with effective remedies for grievous overindulgence and intimate infestations. She was worth her weight in gold, their cook.
“Ummm.” Reynard savored the aroma of the coffee and scones. “Your cook is a marvel, Ash. Where did you say you found her, again?”
“I didn’t.” Ash sipped, feeling his empty stomach tighten in complaint around the coffee. “In fact, I make it a point never to say.”
“Selfish of you,” Reynard said, dishing himself heaps of peach preserves. “But then, I do appreciate the desire to protect a valuable asset.” He carefully bisected a scone and slathered it with clotted cream.
“About this juicy bit you have . . .” Ashton probed with less finesse than he would have liked. He needed to get past this and on to the station.
“You’re not eating?” Reynard studied him and chewed thoughtfully.