She turned away, called up a smile. “You say you’ve a child?”
Lady Pratt’s face lit up like a luminary. “Little Byron. Viscount Pratt, but I can’t bring myself to call him such, with his father’s doings still shadowing the name. He is up on his hands and knees now, rocking. He’ll be crawling soon, and the world will never be the same. We’ll have to lock up everything of value.” She laughed, pressing a hand to her stomach. “Already he reminds me so much of his father. The Pratt I knew when we were children. So curious, so observant, so determined.”
Rowena needn’t feign her smile now. Whatever Lady Pratt may have done or not done, the love of her child was absolutely genuine. “He sounds delightful.”
“I was actually just about to go and say good-night. Would you . . . would you like to meet him?”
She shouldn’t. Brice would have a fit. Ella would squeal in horror. Charlotte’s eyes would go wide and hard, her lips pressed together.
But why should she dislike someone, distrust someone, solely because they did? From what she could see, Lady Pratt was merely a widow who knew well she had made some mistakes, but who was tired of being judged by them. Tired of being only what a man’s decisions had made her.
From what she could see, Rowena had more in common with Catherine, Lady Pratt, than she did with Ella or Brook. She smiled. “I would love to meet your son.”
Her decision sat easy on her when relief softened Lady Pratt’s gaze. This was obviously a woman who knew well the fear of rejection. Something neither Ella nor Brook had ever experienced.
Something Rowena knew far too well.
“We’ll hurry—I’ll have you back before they miss you, I promise.” Grinning, the lady took Rowena by the hand and pulled her along the quiet corridor.
True to her word, Lady Pratt led her onward at the fastest clip their shoes and corsets allowed, prohibiting the need to talk but for a few words of direction here and there. Still, it took them several minutes to navigate to a wing that had a familial, comfortable air about it. No ostentatious fixtures or ornate picture frames. Just generous windows, sweeping landscapes painted with more whimsy than skill, and the happy sound of baby giggles.
Rowena couldn’t help but smile at the way her hostess ran the last few feet and pushed open the door. At the way the wee one within squealed with delight at her entrance, straining against his nurse’s arms in his eagerness to reach his mother.
“There’s my little darling.” Lady Pratt took him and held him close, seemingly oblivious to the way he latched on to one of her carefully arranged curls. She smiled at the nurse. “How has he been for you this evening?”
The servant smiled, but there was no covering how harried she looked. “Missing you, milady. And making no secret of it.”
“Ah. My precious.” Lady Pratt peppered kisses over his baby-plump cheek, down onto his neck. Her efforts were rewarded with a deep belly laugh as he tossed back his dark head in utter joy. Then Lady Pratt turned to Rowena and bounced the wee one to face her too. “Can you say hello to Mama’s friend, Byron?”
The boy turned his face into his mother’s neck but wiggled his fingers at her. Rowena smiled and waved back. “Hello, wee one. What a handsome lad ye are.”
“He gets that from his father too. Don’t you, By? He was the most beautiful man.” She sidled over to the mantel and picked up a framed photograph.
Rowena accepted it from her and felt her eyes go wide as she looked at what appeared to be their wedding portrait. She’d expected to find that the lady’s opinion had been colored by love. Not so. He was beautiful, from the black hair to the perfect face and on down through his trim figure. A striking complement indeed to the fair lady tucked into his side, looking so happy.
She couldn’t help but note, though, that Lord Pratt didn’t look quite so happy as his bride. Putting on a smile, Rowena handed the picture back and focused on the babe. “I daresay the bairn will be every bit as beautiful. He’s his coloring, sure enough.”
“I pray daily he escapes his disposition. Much as I loved the man, I’m not blind to his faults. He—oh!” Lady Pratt fumbled a bit when Byron lunged for Rowena.
So taken aback was she that she echoed the lady’s “Oh!” even as she caught him.
It wasn’t she he wanted, though. He grabbed at her necklace, made a happy squeal, and promptly put it in his mouth.
Lady Pratt reached for him again with wide eyes and a panicked screech. “No! Heavens, By, not the Nottingham rubies!”
Rowena couldn’t help but laugh—though she also accepted the handkerchief the nurse rushed to offer her. “I daresay they’ve been drooled on before, if they’ve been worn by as many duchesses as I’ve been led to believe.”
“Still, if any harm should be done by my child . . .” Lady Pratt shook her head and reached for a toy for him to gnaw instead. “That set is legendary. I daresay everyone in the peerage has heard of its long history—and has long seen Charlotte wearing it every chance she got. Honestly, I’m a bit surprised to see she’s given it up. I was under the impression the set was her favorite of the Nottingham jewels.”
Rowena finished polishing and drying and smiled. “Aye, she said as much—because it was the one given to her on her wedding day, as it was given to her husband’s mother on hers, and so on. And so she gave it to me on mine.”
“What a perfectly lovely tradition.” After pressing a kiss to her son’s head and heaving a sigh, the lady passed the lad back to the nurse. “Good night, little darling. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Mumumum!”
“I know. I’ll miss you too.” She blew a kiss to him and said to the nurse, “I’ll check on him after the ball has ended.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fast asleep, milady. Don’t worry over us—enjoy your evening.”
They slipped back into the hall, and for a moment the mood was somber. Until Lady Pratt glanced at Rowena’s necklace again and giggled. “Oh, heavens! I can just imagine centuries of duchesses gasping in horror when he put it in his mouth!”
Rowena chuckled too and touched a hand to the warm gold. “No harm done.”
“Well, it’s a good thing. I can’t imagine any other piece complementing that exquisite gown quite so well.”
She didn’t know whether to thank the lady for the compliment on her dress or just bask in the warm feeling of approval. Acceptance. She let her fingers fall from the necklace. “Truth be told, I don’t even have any other pieces yet. My father was never one for such gifts—he always said they’d be mine when I inherited the title.” Or never, if he had a son who would someday marry and require them for his wife.
Lady Pratt lifted her brows. “There are no shortage of Nottingham pieces though—my mother always observed that Charlotte had jewels enough for two duchesses.”
“Aye, and she said many of them will be mine when we get home. But she brought nothing but jet with her to Scotland, for her mourning attire. And these.”
“Of course.” Looking appropriately abashed, the lady linked their arms. “I suppose it’s gauche of me to even mention such things. My brother is all the time taking issue with what I say.”
“Perhaps that’s because you so often say what you oughtn’t, Kitty.”
Rowena might have felt like a ninny at jumping so at the unexpected voice, except that Lady Pratt jumped even higher and splayed a hand over her heart too. “Crispin! Are you trying to scare the life from me?”
The man who stepped from the shadows had to be Lady Pratt’s brother. He had the same fair coloring, the same general features. Though his expression was muted where the lady’s was bright, and he had none of the presence Rowena had grown accustomed to in her companions of late. He seemed more the type to blend in than stand out, even here with just the three of them.
He fell in on his sister’s other side. “I guessed this was where you had disappeared to. You had better not dawdle on the way back. Lady Ella was looking for her sister.”
Ella. Not Bri
ce? Had he gotten so caught up in the crowd that he forgot she had left? Rowena kept her pace steady and even and tried to ignore that sinking inside.
Lady Pratt sighed. “I was only introducing Byron to the duchess.”
Rowena lifted her chin an inch. “Would you call me Rowena?”
The lady’s eyes lit up. “I’d be honored. And of course, you must call me Kitty. Or Catherine. Whichever you prefer. I answer to both.”
The hint of warmth inside grew. A friend. Perhaps not where her new husband hoped she would make one, but a friend nonetheless. Rowena smiled. Perhaps she could somehow smooth things over between Catherine and Brice. Perhaps, if he saw that she was capable of building bridges where he had not, she would earn his respect. And from there, they could build something real. Something to rival whatever he may or may not have felt for Brook, or for the swarm of other “too many” ladies always around him.
Catherine’s brother sighed. “This is all very chummy, but Kitty, please. We don’t need the duke angry with us.”
“Always so reasonable.” Catherine rolled her eyes and inclined her head to Rowena as they turned a corner. “This is my brother, in case you hadn’t deduced as much. Lord Rushworth. Everyone calls him Rush, though it’s one of the most ironic nicknames in England. The man can never be put upon to hurry.”
Lord Rushworth didn’t so much as smile. “Haste leads to mistakes. As does thoughtlessness, Kitty.”
“You see what I’ve had to suffer all my life?” She made a show of huffing. “And he was so long responsible for me that he can’t quite adjust to the fact that I’m an independent woman now. Though, granted, had Byron not been a boy, I would have been back at home again, throwing myself upon his mercy, with only my widow’s allotment and no house to call my own.”
“Let us praise the Lord he is a boy, then. No one wanted you to have to return home.” It must be a jest, a tease. The words demanded it, but his tone left Rowena wondering if it was . . . or if it was a barb.
No, it was surely a tease, for Catherine chuckled and leaned into his arm for a moment. “Don’t let his insufferable manner put you off, Rowena. He’s rather doting, as brothers go. I would have been lost without his support after Pratt died. We got each other through it. Pratt was his dearest friend, you know.”
Rowena’s brows knit. Everyone seemed to universally agree that Pratt wasn’t a good man. Even Catherine. So what did it say of this one, to have been so close to him without the excuse of love, which everyone knew never claimed wisdom or discernment?
Lord Rushworth glanced at Rowena, his expression somehow going even emptier. Had he read her thoughts? A shiver clawed its way up her spine.
Catherine nodded. “It is rather cool in this part of the hall. Magnificent as Delmore is, it’s a drafty old place. Half of it’s crumbling down around itself, but only so many improvements can be made in a year.”
Rushworth snorted. “You’ve your cousin to thank for those limitations.”
The shiver was gone, but unease crouched in its place. Rowena had only heard mention of one cousin, though surely they had more. “Brook?”
“Pay no mind to Rush and his sour grapes. We both know we had no more claim to the jewels than she did, and if our uncle chose to give them to her . . . well. It hardly matters that she doesn’t need the money. Or that she’d give the things away.” Catherine’s smile made a bid for bravery, but emotion flared her nostrils. “My husband went about it all the wrong way—but it was born of desperation. Delmore’s income simply can’t match her upkeep. And the debts!”
“Kitty.” Rushworth let out an exasperated breath and looked to the ceiling. “Must you lay it all bare before her? Apologies, Duchess, but really. She won’t help you, Kitty. You know she won’t. She can’t. Not if she means to remain in the good graces of her husband and his people.”
Rowena came to a halt, drawing them to a stop along with her. “Are ye talking of the diamonds?”
Catherine turned to her with lifted brows. “You know of them.”
She felt almost guilty for needing to shake her head. “My husband merely mentioned that Lord Pratt wanted diamonds Brook had. That’s all I know.”
Catherine’s shoulders sagged. “They aren’t just diamonds, Rowena. They’re red diamonds—the rarest gem there is. They were mined in India, and the locals called them the Fire Eyes. The story goes that the gods cut them and gave them to Dakshin Ray, the tiger god. But humans stole them, and they now carry the tiger’s curse—that greed, death, and destruction will follow them wherever they go.”
Rowena’s stomach twisted. The ever-practical English would dismiss such a legend, no doubt. But Rowena had spent all her life among the ghosts of Loch Morar. Had heard all the stories accepted so easily in her home region. Had seen with her own two eyes the ghost boat that always came when a MacPherson died. Had heard the howls of the fabled black dog.
Who was she to say what was real and what was story, when the Lord and His realm was so much bigger than what she could imagine? It had always seemed safest to her to assume her own mind too feeble to grasp it all than to call something poppycock just because she couldn’t understand it.
If legend of a curse had followed something for centuries—well then, a wise man or woman steered clear of it. She had to remind herself to breathe. “And Brook has these . . . these Fire Eyes?”
Catherine shook her head and urged Rowena onward. “Not anymore, of course. I don’t think she ever really wanted them—she just didn’t want us to have them. Again, my own fault for being so nasty when Pratt proposed to her, but . . .”
Rowena pressed a hand to her temple. It was all too much—a story that sounded more like a serial novel in the newspaper than an actual account. Diamonds and proposals and curses and feuds. “But she doesn’t have them anymore? Then where are they?”
A snort of a laugh parted Catherine’s lips. “I daresay you’d have to ask your husband that question, Rowena.”
She came to a halt again and turned to stare at her hostess. “What do ye mean?” The words seemed to shatter as they spilled from her lips, like ice on stone.
“He didn’t tell you?” Catherine’s eyes shifted, filling with . . . sympathy? “Sorry. I assumed he would have, before he brought you here. Brook gave them to him. Last year.”
“Pardon?”
Catherine’s hands closed around Rowena’s, her eyes apologetic and warm. “I’m sorry—Rush is right, I always speak before I ought. I only meant for this invitation to be a peace offering, an assurance that I’m happy to let things rest, to be done with the whole business. And here I’ve gone and upset you.”
“Why would she do that? Give them to him?” It made no sense, not with anything she knew of . . . of anyone. Unless . . . unless the curse had made itself known to her, and she was desperate. She wouldn’t want to foist it upon her friend, then, but Brice was always so eager to help someone in need.
She was proof of that, wasn’t she? And if he would take a wife to save her from harm, would he not also willingly take on a curse? Lord, let it not be so. “I imagine it is only rumor that he has them?”
“I saw her do it. Take them from the necklace where they’d been hidden and hand them to him. As for why . . .” Catherine hesitated, shrugging. “On that, I can only conjecture. My only real theory was that it was some sort of consolation prize. Stafford won Brook’s heart, but she was too fond of Nottingham to send him away empty-handed.”
“Nonsense, I say.” Still half angled toward the path back to the ballroom, Rushworth smoothed his tie. “My personal theory is that he’s as much her lackey as ever and merely doing her bidding concerning them.” His gaze flicked to Rowena and softened. “A theory that made more sense before he arrived with so lovely a wife, of course.”
She was going to be sick. Thoroughly, eternally sick. What had Lilias forced her into with this marriage? Her husband wasn’t just a stranger, he was . . . he was what? In love with another man’s wife? Caught up in a web of viol
ence and destruction? Out to ruin a family that was doing nothing more than trying to regain its footing after a disastrous match? Regardless, he had brought a curse into his home. He had willingly accepted items tied to evil. Perhaps that was what she had been feeling skitter up her spine since they arrived at Delmore. The clashing of forces beyond her sight.
He had the jewels. The Fire Eyes. He had them . . . and he hadn’t seen fit to mention that little detail when he supposedly told her what they were doing here an hour ago.
“Ignore my brother.” Catherine slid an arm around Rowena’s waist and led her onward. “Whatever Nottingham’s reasoning had been at the time, I daresay everything has changed now. You’re his wife, not Brook. He must love you fiercely to have wed you so quickly, so put all thought of our previous theories from your mind.”
“Yes, of course.” But he wasn’t in love with Rowena. He barely knew her. Certainly didn’t trust her.
The question was, did he want to trust her? Did he want to love her? Because . . . because she knew all too well that being married to one woman didn’t guarantee a man’s heart was hers. How many secrets had Father kept from Mother?
One, at least. Annie, with her innocent eyes and unwitting resemblance to the man supposedly only her stepfather, was proof of that.
“I’m such a dunce. Forgive me, I beg you. I wanted to be a friend, not ruin everything with such talk before we’ve any time to get to know each other.” Catherine’s brows were drawn, lines of distress evident around her mouth.
“Dinna fash yourself, Kitty. Please.” Rowena tried a smile again. “I promise—I’m not upset with you.”
Her shoulders relaxing, Catherine returned her smile. “Thank you. But let’s not talk anymore of such things. Tell me how my cousin is faring—I do still care for her, despite our recent enmity.”
Rushworth snorted. “That, I suppose, is why you’ve been seething that she probably regained her figure more quickly than you did, how she—”
The Reluctant Duchess Page 17