by Lara Temple
‘That is twice I’ve been called to heel today, Hetty. Have pity,’ he replied with a rueful smile.
She chuckled.
‘That was funny! And she did manage to bring a Duke to heel even if it was only you and not the pug. If I ever feel the need to take you down a peg, I shall share that story with your friends. Everyone takes you far too seriously.’
‘If you do, I might be forced to remember some of your more embarrassing escapades from our childhood,’ Max warned. ‘That was bad enough, but to liken that fur ball to Napoleon on St Helena is carrying eccentricity too far. That peculiar girl obviously has no town sense to be talking to strangers like that. She’ll get into trouble.’
Hetty waited until they had crossed Mount Street before replying.
‘I do feel sorry for her. She seemed so eager to talk. Perhaps I should be brave and introduce myself while I am in town. You know I always wanted an excuse to cross the portals of the Huntley mausoleum.’
Max smiled down at her.
‘You’ve a soft heart, Hetty. But remember what happened to Mother when she went to visit Mad Minnie after Lord Huntley died? Are you sure you want to risk a similar rebuff?’
‘Pooh, that was years and years ago. And Mama never had the slightest notion of tact and certainly no sympathy so I’m hardly surprised she was sent packing. You’re just scared of Mad Minnie.’
They stopped in front of the elegant town house on the corner of Brook Street and Max sighed with resignation.
‘Frankly, I would prefer to spend the afternoon with Mad Minnie rather than at Lady Carmichael’s. I wish I had never promised Father I would marry within ten years. Thirty-one seemed like a hell of a long time away back then and a fair price to pay to get his approval to join Wellington in Spain.’
Hetty considered. ‘I think he might have let you enlist even if you hadn’t. I know what Harcourt meant to Papa, but he was a stickler for duty and he saw nothing wrong in your wanting to serve your country. He just wanted to make certain you married eventually. I think he was afraid you might not...after what happened with Serena...’
Max stiffened involuntarily and her voice trailed off.
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned her,’ she said contritely.
He shrugged, trying to relax the tension that always took hold when anything brought back memories of Serena. He would have happily traded quite a bit of his worldly goods for a magical remedy that could slice off that year of his life. His father, as stiff as always, had made one of his rare attempts at being paternal and supportive when he had offered him the trite ‘time heals all wounds’ aphorism. But though time had dulled the pain and guilt and all the other emotions he had tried to escape by drowning in the horrors of war, he didn’t feel healed. Just muted. Older and wiser. Another cliché.
He could vaguely remember the excitement that Serena’s beauty and vivacity had sparked in him, but just as he remembered his favourite childhood books—intense but distant, not quite real. More powerful were the feelings that gradually took their place—confusion, resentment, helplessness. Hatred. She had definitely widened his emotional repertoire. And each time something evoked her memory he still flinched involuntarily and the throb of guilt came back, proof that there was still a core of poison inside him that refused to dissipate. He grimaced at the thought. A poor choice of words...
‘It was a long time ago. It almost seems as if it happened to someone else. As for Father, whatever his motives, I was too shocked that he agreed to let me go to Spain to even consider negotiating his terms.’
‘You know, you don’t have to marry if you don’t want to. I mean...surely he wouldn’t expect you to hold to a promise if it is something you—’ She broke off as she met his gaze. ‘Oh, dear, of course he would. Poor Papa. But he’s dead and so—’ She broke off again. ‘I forget who I am talking to. Of course you will hold to it.’
Max forced a smile. He wished he had it in him to break his promise as she suggested, but he knew himself well enough to know that he wouldn’t. It hadn’t been an idle, arbitrary promise. He might never have felt very close to his father, but the previous Duke of Harcourt had done a very good job inculcating him with a sense of what they owed to their position and the people who depended on them. The Duchy was not theirs individually, but theirs in trust. Fulfilling his duties wasn’t just a matter of honour; it was a matter of practical concern for hundreds of people who depended on their properties. His father had allowed him to put that on the line by joining the army because he had been clever enough to understand that Max had needed to get away from the setting of his tragedy, but he had made it clear that every indulgence came at a price and he had chosen this particular price with a sense of evening out the scales.
And Max couldn’t really find fault with his father’s concern. He might have chafed at his parents’ constraints as a child and even fantasised that he had been stolen as a baby from the Shepstons, a warm family of fishermen from Port Jacob on Harcourt land who had often taken him fishing with them, but he was a Harcourt after all. He would not let something as important as the succession be completely subverted by his and Serena’s mistakes. There was nothing wrong in principle with a marriage of convenience. He and his parents had just miscalculated, royally, about Serena’s suitability.
Max hadn’t even wanted to get engaged so young, whatever his father’s concerns about the succession, but his father had cleverly not pushed the point, merely invited Lord Morecombe and his daughter to join them in London. The first time he had seen her she had been dressed in a bright yellow dress, bursting with excitement at finally being released from school, her dark eyes hot and focused with an intensity that was completely foreign to him. He had agreed to the engagement the very next day and had sealed their fate. Serena had gulped at life and kept demanding more and at first it had been exhilarating, utterly different from anything he had ever allowed himself. He should have known they were just too different. Part of him had, but by the time he had stopped to think it was too late. This time he would be more careful. What was the point of making mistakes, especially monumental ones, if you didn’t learn from them?
‘It’s not so bad, Hetty,’ he said at last. ‘I have to marry eventually; I might as well get it over with.’
‘It isn’t something one can simply get over with!’ she said with unusual asperity. ‘You will be stuck with your choice for the rest of your life, you know!’
‘Only too well. So I will do my best to choose someone comfortable and conformable. Even if it weren’t for the promise, I think I would have a very hard time leaving the succession to Uncle Mortimer and Cousin Barnaby and they certainly wouldn’t thank me for it.’
‘They would make dreadful Dukes, wouldn’t they? How did Mortimer put it? That the Duchy was hanging over them like a swarm of locusts about to descend upon his beloved gardens.’
Max sighed and headed up the stairs to strike the knocker.
‘Right now it does feel like one of the plagues of Egypt. Or one of those fairy tales with a cursed treasure where the genie informs you you’ve had your fun and must now pay the piper. But you’re right; I can’t have the whole of the Harcourt estate depending on them. No steward would be able to withstand the destructive capabilities of those two well-meaning idiots. They’d have all the tenants put off so they could grow a dozen different breeds of lilies and roses instead of grain and feed. Couldn’t Mother have supplied Father with another male heir so he wouldn’t have forced me into that promise? I don’t really need five sisters, you know.’
Hetty laughed.
‘I won’t ask which of us you can do without, Max dearest. Now do try at least to be charming. I know you can, if you would only put some effort into it—’
She broke off as the door opened and Max clenched his jaw and followed his sister and the butler to meet one of his potential future wives.
> Chapter Three
Sophie picked up the small package which was waiting for her on the escritoire when she came down from reading Aunt Minnie the latest chapter of Mrs Pardoe’s novel.
Scrawled across the wrapping paper was the message ‘To be delivered to Lady Huntley’s niece’. And below: ‘For the safety of the residents of Grosvenor Square.’ Sophie frowned and unwrapped the package and burst into laughter. A brown-leather leash and collar lay curled in the wrapping paper. She picked up her sketching bag and went in search of Marmaduke.
She found him in his favourite position on his cushion, rump to the room and nose an inch from the wall, panting faintly.
‘Behold, fair Marmaduke. I have been delivered the means of your undoing!’ she declared dramatically, but with absolutely no effect. She sighed and went to slip on the new collar. It took Marmaduke a moment to realise the offense against him, but by the time he surged to his pudgy feet and shook his head vigorously it was too late. Before he managed to descend into yowls she flapped one hand suggestively in front of his face and the shaking stopped, his gaze intent.
‘That’s right. Remember what fun you had chasing the birds? Well, they’re outside, waiting for another round.’ She began carefully moving towards the door and, to her surprise and amusement, he followed. They made a stately exit under the shocked stares of the butler and the doctor who had just entered the house.
‘Good gracious,’ said the doctor. ‘He can walk!’
‘And run, with the proper avian incentive. And now, if you will excuse us, I really don’t want to stall our momentum.’ She nodded, proceeding down the steps, and Marmaduke followed, thumping down each step ponderously but with resolution.
* * *
The collar and leash worked perfectly, and after a vigorous campaign against the winged invaders, Marmaduke allowed her to lead him to a bench in the shade of a chestnut tree and settled contentedly at her feet as she pulled out her sketch pad.
‘And now I will commemorate this auspicious moment, Duke,’ she informed him grandly, but he merely snuffled the grass in front of him and grinned.
She sketched rapidly, capturing the lumpy body and the beatific expression on his frog-like face. He looked amazingly content and she laughed a little at how content she herself felt at her minor victory.
‘There. I shall title it “Duke Reposing” and bestow it on Aunt Minnie so she can enjoy your fair smile even when you are sulking downstairs. Do you think she will like it?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ said a deep and vaguely familiar voice behind her and she turned in surprise. The tall man who had stopped Marmaduke the day before was standing a little behind the bench. His grey eyes were on her sketch, but there was no expression on his beautifully sculpted face. More than ever he made her think of a statue of a guardian of the gods, expertly crafted but without emotion. But though he seemed utterly cold, she was uncomfortably aware of a tingling heat that was pricking at her cheeks and she could think of nothing to say. The silence stretched and, as she struggled to think of anything that would not compound the embarrassing impression of yesterday, he surprised her by sitting down on the bench and taking the sketch pad from her hands. She looked away, but her gaze only settled on his hands and she noticed he was not wearing gloves and that his hands might have been formed by the same meticulous sculptor who had shaped the rest of him and with the aim of conveying strength and skill. But the perfection of his left hand was marred by a jagged and puckered white scar along the side, curving under towards the heel of his palm. She curled her own fingers into her palm against the need to touch it.
‘That is quite good,’ he said finally, handing it back to her.
The casually delivered comment finally woke her to the peculiarity of the situation and her confusion faded in annoyance at the very mild nature of his compliment on an issue of some importance to her.
‘It is very good, for a rough, impromptu sketch,’ she corrected him and his eyes narrowed and she could not tell if he was amused or annoyed by her correction.
‘So it is. I apologise for not showing the proper degree of appreciation. It is certainly well outside the usual fare of young ladies’ sketches, which are usually just a sight more bearable than their endeavours on the pianoforte. Do you play?’
‘Even if I did, I wouldn’t dare admit to it now,’ she replied primly. ‘Do you? Or are we proceeding on the assumption that only young ladies are expected to be execrable in artistic endeavours?’
‘I have no artistic skills whatsoever. The difference is I don’t try.’
‘Is that an observation about yourself or a suggestion to me?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘I wouldn’t presume. I did say the sketch was quite good, didn’t I? You are overly sensitive.’
His voice was deep but without inflexion, but something in the narrowed slate-grey eyes that were watching her made her wonder if he was laughing at her. It was like looking into the night, trying to make out shapes in the varied shades of black. It was easy to imagine monsters in the dark and she wondered if she was imagining that echo of amused warmth in his eyes. Probably. But it still teased at her, like a late summer breeze, disorienting her. She would never be able to capture that particular grey, a shade lighter than the sea off the bay in winter. But she would love to try to sketch his face, with its strongly chiselled features, all definite lines and planes, and the tightly held mouth that she wished would relax into the smile she had seen the day before.
‘May I sketch you? You have a very sketchable face,’ she blurted out before she could stop herself.
She had not thought his face could get any stonier, but she had been wrong. There was a flash of surprise in his eyes, like a glimmer of faraway lightning, then his brows drew together, accentuating the resemblance to a very annoyed deity.
‘No, you may not!’ he said curtly and she turned away with a shrug, leafing through her sketchbook to mask her mortification.
‘Fine,’ she said as indifferently as possible, fully expecting him to get up and leave, but he didn’t move. She came to the sketch she had made yesterday of his wife and stopped. The lovely, smiling face was a sobering reminder that she should not be looking at a married man or frankly at any man in quite that manner. Though to be fair, he was an amazing specimen. She had thought him handsome but rather cold yesterday, but now she realised it was much more than that. He was utterly, utterly male. And utterly out of her sphere. Augusta would have made mincemeat of her had she been present and probably rightly so. Sophie breathed in resolutely, determined to redeem herself with a gesture of goodwill.
‘I made a sketch of your wife, though. She has a lovely face. In fact, she looks like you a little. I find that married couples often look a little alike. Perhaps it is because we try to find people who remind us of ourselves so we can love ourselves better. Here it is. It is quite like her, don’t you think?’
She forced herself to look up at him with all the calm unconcern she could muster, trying to mirror his lack of expression. He stared at her and then down at the sketch, a three-quarters’ face of a woman and part of the shoulder of her gown. Sophie had sketched her smiling, which had been hard, but that was all she could remember. She waited, peculiarly tense, for his reaction.
He took the pad from her again and she didn’t resist. She watched his profile, trying to memorise its strong lines so she could sketch him later, but she found it hard to focus on the whole, distracted instead by the details she usually considered later when doing a portrait—the way the skin stretched taut from his cheekbone, the small groove at the side of his mouth, the shadow below the strong line of his jaw. Her hands tingled with the need to reach out and touch his face as she might a sculpture. She clasped them tightly and forced herself to look down at Marmaduke, now snoring calmly at their feet.
‘May I have my drawing pad back, please? I should go ba
ck.’
He looked up at her and there was something in his gaze as the dark eyes moved over her face that increased her already significant discomfort by a notch. And then his mouth relaxed slightly into a smile that brought to the surface the warmth she had glimpsed the day before.
‘Would you consider giving this to Hetty? I think she would love to have it. And she is my sister, not my wife, by the way, hence the resemblance.’
Sophie felt her face heat with a sudden burning blush and she pressed her hands to them unconsciously.
‘Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. I always say more than I ought. And of course you may give it to her. In gratitude for the collar and leash, which I was so impolite as to forget to thank you for. Here.’
She pulled the sheet from her pad and held it out to him, wishing the blush would fade.
He reached out to take it just as Marmaduke awoke with a snort and she started and dropped the sheet. Marmaduke, his eye catching the fluttering page, readied himself to leap, but before he could move she managed to capture it just as the man grabbed for it as well. His hand closed half on the page, half on her hand and she drew back abruptly, slightly shocked by the heat of his touch. The contact had been only for a second, but her arm felt like it had been dipped in hot water and her skin tingled uncomfortably, retaining the imprint of his fingers. She clasped her hands together again, as if she could blot it out. He merely regarded the sketch and stood up.
‘Thank you for this. Good luck with... Duke.’
She nodded and busied herself with her pad and with Marmaduke. The man hesitated for a moment and then strode off without another word and she could finally breathe. She picked up Marmaduke and headed back to Huntley House rather blindly, forcing a man driving a tilbury to pull up sharply and bark out at her as she almost stepped directly on to the road in front of him. She glanced up at the angry driver, mumbled an apology and rushed across the road and into her temporary home. Once inside she deposited Marmaduke on his cushion and hurried up to her little nursery-like room on the third floor. In its small quiet space there was nothing to come between her and her disturbing thoughts, and the memory of that moment in the park kept recurring, of his hand, strong and firm and warm, grasping hers and the way her nerves had flared, a striking of a tinderbox. It was absurd and unwanted. This abrupt, unpredictable man came from a very different world from hers, no matter how respectable her birth. Everything about him spoke of wealth and influence and a degree of comfort in this foreign world that she would never understand. She should not be foolish enough to let herself be drawn to him simply because she was lonely and he and his sister were the only people who had treated her with any degree of sympathy, though on his part quite a cold and sardonic sympathy.