The Accidental Duchess

by Madeline Hunter

  “I should be able to have or do things that are just mine. That begin and end with me. Nothing is like that unless I obtain money on my own. If I use yours, or my brother’s, it isn’t the same. It is not fully mine. Is that so hard to understand?”

  “Nigh impossible to understand. Your objections are only the dying embers of your girlish rebellions. I informed the gaming halls not to accept you, for your own good. If you do not like it, I am sorry. I am responsible for you now, and I have decided that you need a long break from gambling. It does nothing but get you into trouble. Hell, it was what got you stuck in this marriage you did not want.”

  “My wagers with you did not stick me here!”

  “Your visit to Buxton did. Why else would you go there, except to gamble far from the eyes of those who might tell Southwaite?”

  Why else indeed? How had his high-handed behavior ended up with her at a loss for words?

  She found some anyway. “I do not accept this. I will not have it. As for a marriage I did not want, I was beginning to think I did not mind that so much anymore, but you have convinced me otherwise yet again.”

  She walked out on him, and ran to her bedchamber. What a pigheaded man. He had no idea how he interfered with matters of importance to her. Nor did he care. His Grace had made a decision, and he expected her to accept it. She should let Trilby do his worst, and let His Grace face the scandal and disgrace that Trilby would cook up.

  That notion sobered her. Her indignation cooled in a snap. Any scandal would be horrible for her, but much worse for him. Humiliation could be as bad as a noose for a man.

  She pulled out her purse and counted what money she had. Her brother’s two fifty would take care of Trilby for a few months at least. She would send it to him tomorrow. As for the other demands on her purse, the one she had intended to cover with tonight’s winnings, she could either put them off until the first of her pin money arrived, ask the duke for it, or raise it another way.

  She went to her dressing room. Sarah sat, bent to a lamp’s light, mending the nightdress Lydia had worn the night she helped Penthurst wash. In the throes of their passion it had ripped at one seam.

  “Sarah, we need to take one of our walks tomorrow morning.”

  “To the park?”

  “We can go there first if you like, but I need to visit a shop on the Strand after that.”

  “All the way from the park to the Strand?” Sarah groaned. “Not far along the Strand, I hope.”

  “It is not so far that you will faint. The memory of your citizen soldier’s smiles should keep your steps light all the way.”

  Sarah returned to plying her needle. “What will we be doing, that you don’t want to use the duke’s carriages or servants?”

  Fanning the embers of my girlish rebellions. “Never you mind what. Just be sure to have me awake and dressed before nine o’clock.”

  • • •

  The next morning Penthurst dressed early. He expected a full day, and not one to anticipate with joy. While his valet buffed his boots, he reread a letter he had received late the day before. It mostly consisted of a list of names and had been sent to him from the War Office.

  He thought about Lydia, sleeping on the other side of the wall. If his queries into Lakewood’s activities bore the rotten fruit he feared, she would not thank him. Cassandra’s comments on Lakewood’s character might have prompted the start of disillusionment, but Lydia was fighting its completion.

  The chance existed that nothing more would be found. His instincts did not believe that, but he hoped that would be the case for her sake. While he would not mind ending her memories of her girlish infatuation, he also did not want to see how that would hurt her.

  He slid the letter into his coat pocket. When he began this investigation, he had hoped to silence questions that whispered in his head and kept that duel from receding into the past. Now he debated whether his own need to know outweighed her need to believe.

  Polished and preened, he walked toward the door to her chamber, to see if she had woken yet. Considering his mission today, he would like to smooth the troubled waters stirred by last night’s argument.

  “The duchess is not there,” his valet said while he replaced his brushes in their drawer. “I saw her and her woman walking out when I was opening the window a few minutes ago.”

  It was barely nine o’clock. Where could they be going at this hour?

  Lydia’s penchant for unusual behavior prodded at him as he went down and waited for his horse to be brought around. After last night, she might be deliberately doing something extraordinary, just to prove she could.

  He sat in the saddle for a long count, debating. Although still of two minds, and weighing the demands of that list in his pocket, he turned his horse toward Hyde Park.

  • • •

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Beattie said. “Your continued patronage will be a great relief to Mrs. Kerry. She feared your change in circumstances might lead to changes in this as well.”

  “I hope that does not happen.” But Lydia could not promise it would not. “I am sorry it is not more.”

  “As it is, it will feed everyone for months, and allow us to admit a few more guests.”

  Mrs. Beattie and Mrs. Kerry always called the inmates of this house guests. While they were not family, and were free to come and go, Lydia still thought the appellation charming.

  Reformers of the best kind, the two woman served as mothers, teachers, confessors, and guardians to the thirty girls who slept in the beds lining the chambers and attics.

  “Two of the girls were taken into service by a family in Essex,” Mrs. Beattie reported. “Another has apprenticed with a dressmaker.” She fingered the banknotes that lay on the table between their chairs. “Your last act of kindness allowed her fee to be paid.”

  Lydia asked after a few other girls who had left in the last year. Mrs. Beattie described their success, and in two cases, their failures. “They went back,” she said sadly. “It always breaks Mrs. Kerry’s heart when that happens, but I tell her to remember the triumphs, not the defeats.”

  “Back” was to the brothels of the City. Lydia had learned of this house from Aunt Hortense. Buried in one of her soliloquies a year ago had been her outrage that a place such as this was permitted in the decent, solid neighborhood near Hanover Square, where one of her friends lived. It appalled her that Mrs. Kerry, the widow of a merchant, had turned her home into a school for whores.

  Until that day Lydia had not been aware that some of London’s prostitutes were children.

  She began to take her leave. “I do not know when I will be back, Mrs. Beattie. It could be that someone else will bring anything I have for you in the future.”

  “That might be wise, although Mrs. Kerry will be heartbroken she was not here to see you one last time. Still, with your marriage and new position, it would probably not be appropriate being seen at our door.”

  Lydia collected Sarah and left the house, thinking how no one had noticed her at the door in the past. It should not matter in the future, but of course it did.

  As soon as she stepped outside, the evidence of that greeted her. The last person who should see her here stood beside his horse.

  • • •

  “What a surprise,” Lydia said, walking toward him. “It is unfortunate you did not follow me in a carriage.”

  Penthurst gave Sarah a direct look that had her peeling away at once. When he and Lydia were alone, he spoke. “What is this place?”

  “A school.”

  He peered at the façade. “For girls? I keep seeing their faces at the windows.”

  “You would attract attention. I doubt they have ever seen such a fine horse before either.”

  “Let us walk, then, so my presence does not interfere with their lessons.”

  They paced slowly down the lane. The area was residential, and not far from Hanover Square. No doubt some widow had formed a small school in her home, as happened with some fr
equency.

  “Why are you visiting a girls’ school, Lydia?”

  She chewed over her answer so long he began doubting there would be one.

  “It is not your typical school,” she said.

  “I am not surprised. If you visited it, I just assumed it was unusual.”

  “The girls in there are young. The youngest is eleven and the oldest fifteen. The women who own this house and run this school found all of them in brothels. They buy the girls’ freedom and bring them here and educate them for another life.” She said it in one long, agitated sentence.

  “That is very good of them.”

  “Aren’t you shocked in the least? They are little girls. I refused to believe it. Then I learned it was true, to my horror. And no one calls out the gentlemen who misuse them. Those men go back to their clubs and estates and lands with no punishment.” Her anger rose with each word.

  It was the kind of depravity men hoped their mothers, wives, and sisters never learned about. “You do not know they are all gentlemen, Lydia.”

  “Don’t I? I was told by the owner of one of those places that the young ones are very, very expensive.”

  He took her hand in his. He lifted it to a kiss, then held it. “If I had my way, they would be hanged. Right now, however, I am wondering how you came to speak to the proprietor of a brothel. No, no—do not tell me. I expect you made the most extraordinary morning call that any gentleman’s daughter has ever made.”

  “I had to know if it was true, didn’t I?”

  “I suppose you did.” He turned them to retrace their steps. “I have a confession to make. I saw you and Sarah in the park. I thought you had only gone there so she could watch the militia. Imagine my surprise when you did not return home afterward, but walked to a pawn shop on the Strand. I hope whatever you gave the man was not of great or sentimental value.”

  “No.” She gave him a very sharp glance. “You followed me.”

  “I did. Do not ask me how I dared such a thing. A husband is bound to be curious when his wife walks all over town when there are carriages and horses available.”

  “It does not anger me that you dared such things. It angers me that I am in a situation where someone has the right to dare such things.”

  That was a subject best side-stepped, although he guessed they would discuss it plenty in the years to come.

  He gestured to the school. “Did you give them the money from the pawnbroker? Was this the thing you wanted your own money for?”

  “One of the things. Please do not tell me that a duchess should not dirty herself with such charity. They are only children, and not responsible for their sordid pasts.”

  “I will not tell you that.”

  They arrived back at his horse. Sarah stayed two houses down, so she would not overhear. “I should have asked you what you did with your gambling profits. I never even wondered, Lydia. I just assumed you spent it as woman do.”

  “At first, I put some aside for a tour of the continent after the war ended. Since it looks like the war will never end, I found other ways to use it.”

  “Generous ways. I misjudged you. Forgive me. But—why did you never tell anyone? It is a good thing you do, and nothing to hide.”

  “I was not hiding it as such, only keeping it to myself. For myself. It was the one thing I did without any help, and I liked the feeling it gave me.”

  “Rather like mounting and riding a horse on your own the first time.”

  “Yes, much like that. You do understand!”

  Not entirely. And of course most women never mounted horses on their own.

  “You speak in the past tense, Lydia. You do not have to stop. You can do much more for them now if you like.”

  “If you are offering to fund a larger contribution, I must accept. However, a part of my joy in this is over. I knew it was when I came here today. Even if you allowed me to return to the tables, this can never be how it was.”

  “I never thought I would feel guilty making a woman a duchess, but you come close to evoking that reaction, Lydia.”

  She tilted back her head and looked at him thoughtfully. “How guilty do you feel?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you feel a thousand pounds guilty? Two thousand? They would be secure if they had a trust and a regular income.”

  “I expect we can do that. It does not change that you have lost a spirit of independence that mattered to you.”

  “I have to grow up and accept a woman’s lot eventually. Since mine is a luxurious one, it would be sinful to complain. Before I don all of a woman’s shackles, however, there is something I need to know. For myself alone. It does not concern you at all. I will have to make a journey, however, because I do not think the answers that I seek are here.”

  How had they gotten from her charity to her leaving him? “Where are they?”

  “Hampshire, I think.”

  He experienced untold relief. He had half expected her to say America or Russia. Then a bit of concern colored his reaction. The questions may not concern him at all, but that did not mean the answers would not.

  This was about Lakewood. He just knew it. Felt it. He cursed that he had waited to request the list in his pocket. He should have never allowed his sentimental concern for Lakewood’s reputation to compromise his explanation of that duel, or his ferreting out the whole truth.

  “I think not, Lydia. Maybe next summer.”

  “Please reconsider. I want to go there, to my aunt’s cottage. I need to think about something, and that will be the best place to do so honestly.” She managed to appear helpless and begging and sultry and promising all at the same time. If he did not care about her, it would have no effect, but he did, so he started wavering.

  Still, he did not like it. Lydia alone in a cottage half a country away did not suit him at all. His own thought caught him up short. Suit him. He should think what would suit her.

  He calculated the journey there and back and the days she might be gone. A fortnight at least. It seemed a long time.

  “I may as well give my permission. If I do not, you will find a way to do it anyway. You must take Sarah, however, and the coachman must stay nearby.”

  Her pleased expression captivated him. He bent to kiss her, thinking that having a husband’s right to tell a woman what to do was not worth much in reality.

  A muffled, squeaky cheer leaked out of the house. He looked to the building. Ghostly faces showed behind the wavy panes of the windows. A few opened and little hands appeared, clapping.

  Lydia looked behind, toward the cheer, and laughed. “We were indiscreet. Now, should Sarah and I ride home and you walk, or do you think we can hire a carriage near here?”

  Chapter 18

  Lydia stared at the cottage while the coachman carried in the trunks. Sarah had already entered, to assess their lodgings.

  She wondered if she had erred in coming. Even now, without so much as seeing one chamber or walking one lane, nostalgia drenched her. Worse, it fell from a cloud that she knew too well and whose power she thought she had finally escaped.

  The coachman approached her. “I’ve carried in some wood and water. I’ll take a chamber at that inn we passed in the village a few miles back, Madam. I’ll come every morning to see if you’ll be wanting the carriage brought to you that day.”

  “I will not need it tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be coming anyway, Madam. The duke instructed me to do so.”

  He returned to the carriage. Sarah appeared at the door.

  “I always thought this was a charming cottage, milady. I like how the kitchen is built on in the back, so I’ll not have to be carrying food from an outbuilding.”

  Lydia stepped inside, and waited for the cloud to fall.

  It didn’t. Relieved and emboldened, she wandered through the chambers that she had shared with Aunt Amelia those months. She had come on a mission of sympathy, to be a companion to a new widow still deep in grief, but she had also known
that her aunt would be too self-absorbed to pay much attention to her. And she had hoped as hard as any girl ever did that the young man who had stolen her heart might appear at the door.

  He had hinted he might. Lakewood had a bit of property somewhere near here. A stamp of land, he had called it, referring to its very small size. He had inherited a title, but not much of an estate. She had always thought he handled that with impressive grace. He never expressed envy of her brother, or resentment of his own lack of fortune.

  Sarah skipped to the back of the house. Soon the sounds of pots and pans rang through the cottage. Lydia followed to find her rearranging the place to her liking.

  “I will put it all back before we leave,” Sarah explained. “It doesn’t make sense to me to have the pots over there.”

  Lydia gazed out the window to the garden. She saw herself out there, strolling with Lakewood, laughing.

  An arm came around her. Sarah rested her head against her own and looked out too. “I hope you did not come here to be sad again, Deea.”

  “That was not my intention.”

  “You hardly spoke of it, but I knew you had hopes. Who wouldn’t? All those walks together. He visited often enough to raise your expectations.”

  He had visited too often if he did not plan to fulfill those expectations. Perhaps he had. If not for the duel, maybe she would have eloped with a different man, two springs ago. It wasn’t as if Southwaite would have reacted well to an offer for her hand from Lakewood. Aside from his poor fortune, Emma said he had been claiming undying love for Cassandra back then.

  She pulled herself out of the memories. “I will help you put away the food we bought, then you can make a pie.”

  An hour later, while Lydia cut apples and Sarah mixed pastry, Sarah spoke into the silent peace of their camaraderie. “His name is Jonathan Peace. My citizen soldier. Peace with an ea.”

  “That is a nice name.”