The Worst Duke in the World

by Lisa Berne

  “And to think,” said Mrs. Penhallow, with longing in her voice, “I might have seen you years ago, Miss Kent, and your father, perhaps, in London.”

  “No, ma’am, you wouldn’t have,” replied Jane. “My great-grandfather died of an apoplexy not long after the failed elopement, and without him to provide all the writing, the print-shop went under, so my great-grandmother took Charity back to the little town she herself had been raised in—Nantwich.”

  “That’s near Liverpool, I believe?” Mrs. Penhallow asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “It must have taken you quite a while to get here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Had you a companion of any sort? A maid?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “How very enterprising of you, Miss Kent.”

  Enterprising. Jane choked back another laugh. A diplomatic way to describe an unpleasant, uncomfortable, nerve-wracking journey. Still, it sounded like a compliment, so she said, “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “But Jane,” Livia said, “with the print-shop gone, how did you and your family get on? Were you happy growing up in Nantwich? What happened to your parents? Were you frightened, traveling all by yourself? Also—”

  “While these are all questions whose answers I am equally interested to hear,” interposed Gabriel Penhallow, in his dark eyes a subtle gleam of affectionate humor as he turned them upon his wife, “may I suggest that further inquiries be postponed until we’ve all had some tea?”

  Jane looked with admiration and gratitude at him.

  What an excellent idea.

  In fact, it was the best idea anyone, in the whole history of the world, had ever had.

  Her cousin Gabriel was obviously a genius.

  Jane hitched herself around on the sofa so that she was facing the tea-tray again, as it now seemed safe to do so, and folded her hands in her lap, just as might a person do who could wait forever for tea. But she did permit herself to look, rather gloatingly, at the big silver teapot, the empty cups and little plates just waiting to be filled, at the elegant linen napkins, and, of course, at the cake, the muffins, the devilled eggs, the sandwiches.

  What would she have first?

  Into her mind popped an image of herself with grotesque bulging cheeks, just like a chipmunk, having inserted into her mouth four eggs, two on each side.

  “Oh yes, of course, Gabriel, you’re absolutely correct,” said Livia, smiling at him and then at Jane. “I’ll pour out right away. Jane, won’t you please help yourself to anything you like?”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Jane answered, and, making herself move very slowly, she took a plate, and onto the plate she put a muffin and a sandwich.

  She had taken three bites of her sandwich before she realized, glancing at Livia beside her, that she should have taken a napkin.

  Flushing hotly, she reached out to get one from the silver tray.

  As they had their tea, nobody said a word about Jane’s deliberate but methodical consumption of food and drink which was probably greater in total volume than that which Mrs. Penhallow, Gabriel, and Livia had collectively among the three of them. In between bites, she told them that Great-grandmother Kent had taken in sewing to make money, and had tried without much success to train Jane up to do the same, and also that her father Josiah had at eighteen married the daughter of a blacksmith, but they had both been taken by the cholera epidemic back in ’02 when Jane was five, and finally she described how poor Great-grandmother’s bitter spirit from first to last had rather alienated the Kent family from their neighbors, and so Jane had really left nothing—and no one—behind when she had embarked on her momentous trip to Surmont Hall.

  As she talked and ate and drank, Jane couldn’t help but notice that old Mrs. Penhallow was gazing at her the whole time, as if more hungry for the sheer sight of her than for the food—barely touched—on her plate. And when tea was over, and Livia suggested that Jane might like to go upstairs to the bedchamber which had been prepared for her and rest for a while, and Jane, realizing that she was exhausted to the bone, had willingly agreed, and gotten up, valise in hand, and thanked them all from the bottom of her heart, Henrietta had stood up too, and went to Jane, and hugged her for a long, long time. And then she softly said:

  “Welcome home, my dear.”

  Anthony leaned his elbow on the stone balustrade of the Duchess’ pen, cupping his chin in one hand, and with the other hand he used a stick to scratch the broad, hairy pink back below him. The Duchess grunted with pleasure, but there was no answering smile on Anthony’s face.

  For his mood was melancholy.

  It had taken three full days for the Preston-Carnabys to finally realize that no offer of marriage was forthcoming, had been forthcoming, or would ever be forthcoming, no matter how tangled up he got in subjunctive verb forms.

  Or did he mean the present perfect progressive?

  Good Lord, who knew and who cared?

  The point was, those were three days of his life he would never get back.

  The teas, the strolls, the rides, the dinners that seemed to go on forever. The labored conversations. Margaret’s hard relentless eyes boring into him. The Preston-Carnabys leaning on his every word as if jewels fell from his mouth every time he opened it, which only made him feel less and less like saying anything at all. And to add insult to injury, after luncheon today Margaret had ruthlessly inveigled him into showing Miss Preston-Carnaby around the conservatory, a ploy so blatant that he wanted with all his heart to immediately decamp somewhere else—anywhere else—in a very rude and undukish way.

  Luckily, Miss Preston-Carnaby (who had been positively foaming at the mouth with spurious compliments about Wakefield) had an adverse reaction to the Siberian irises which were Margaret’s pride and joy, not to say obsession, and so Anthony was able inside of ten minutes to lead her, with streaming eyes and dripping nostrils, out of the dangerous privacy of the conservatory and return her forthwith to her parents who lay in wait just outside the door, practically with tails twitching, like stalking lions eyeing their innocent prey (him), after which he bowed himself away and escaped for a much-needed interval of respite in his library, where he found balm for his wounds within the ever-fascinating pages of Dinkle’s Advanced Concepts in Piggery.

  Margaret had found him there an hour or so later, with his feet up on his desk and his chair tipped back, deep in a gripping section on exudative dermatitis. In an unpleasantly icy way she had informed him that the Preston-Carnabys had left in high dudgeon for their home in Yorkshire, and he had made the mistake of saying “About time,” and she had angrily shoved his feet off the desk and nearly sent him sprawling, and then with what struck him as a triumphant sort of malice (or a malicious sort of triumph) she issued her coup de grâce, saying she had already written to her acquaintance the Countess of Silsbury, extending a cordial invitation to her and her charming, delightful, beautiful, accomplished, and highly eligible daughter, Lady Felicia Merifield, to come stay at Hastings for as long as they liked.

  Good God, Meg, we’re not a blasted inn, he had protested, but to no avail.

  Margaret had sent her letter by express.

  Anthony now reached out with the stick to expertly scratch just behind the Duchess’ ears, a highly sensitive area of her anatomy, and she responded with further happy grunts.

  Oh, to be a pig, he thought gloomily.

  Eat, wallow, sleep, and be scratched where it felt good.

  Why couldn’t his life be that simple?

  But no—he had apple blights to worry about, and Margaret’s incessant machinations to evade as best he could, and Mrs. Roger’s sinister comment to dwell upon.

  You’re next, Yer Grace.

  Just what the devil did she mean by that?

  In a perfect world, via this mysterious utterance she would have been giving him a prescient sort of wink to let him know that the premier Hastings pumpkin (at present a mere twinkle in his head gardener McTavish’s eye), which w
ould be offered up at this year’s competition at the annual harvest fête, would finally best Miss Humphrey’s pumpkin, after several painful years of second-place ribbons rather than the treasured gilt cup.

  But alas, this was not a perfect world.

  Far from it.

  To this he could attest.

  Also, Mrs. Roger had never, to his limited knowledge, manifested the slightest interest in pumpkins, so it seemed unlikely that she had been referring to his aspirations in that regard.

  “Foot-and-mouth,” a voice said, sounding aggrieved.

  Anthony turned his head to see that his pigman Johns had come stumping up to the pig-cote, and now stood looking over the balustrade, his big round red face creased in bitter lines.

  “I beg your pardon?” Anthony said, resisting the urge to look nervously down at his own feet which, so far as he knew, were in tiptop condition.

  “That there Cremwell’s been saying the Duchess has foot-and-mouth, guv’nor.”

  “A filthy lie.”

  “You’re not wrong there. I mean, look at those hooves, guv’nor. Ever seen anything more beautiful in your life?”

  “Well,” said Anthony, hesitating, torn between honesty and loyalty, but Johns was on a roll.

  “It hurts, don’t it, to know that damned blabby lickspittle’s spreading such things about. And here’s me, despite all his flams and clankers, the very soul of politeness! But it’s trying, guv’nor, very trying. Why, old Moore came shamble-legging up to me yesterday, blathering on about vinegar remedies till it was all I could do to not land him a facer.”

  “Vinegar remedies? What rot. I’d have been incensed too.”

  “Right waspish I was, guv’nor, that I’ll not deny.” Johns shook his head morosely. “But it’s just this sort of ill-meaning tittle-tattle that might sway them there judges come festival time.”

  “By God, so it might,” said Anthony, much struck. “We can’t have that.”

  “Weren’t you gonta tell Mr. Penhallow to make Cremwell stubble it, guv’nor?”

  “Well, I was, Johns, if not quite in those terms, but I’ve been tethered to the ancestral pile by the miserable chains of hospitality.” Even as Anthony said this, he felt a sudden burst of exuberance overtake him. The Preston-Carnabys were now little more than an exhausting memory, and he was (for now) a free man again. This, he thought jubilantly, straightening up, was no doubt how mighty Samson felt upon regaining his strength in the temple, casting off his shackles and toppling all those pillars.

  Although, of course, he did die right after that.

  A sobering detail.

  Anthony cast a glance past the Duchess’ pig-cote and to the lake beyond, where, on the opposite shore, stood the full-scale replica of a Greek temple built by his great-grandfather Osbert who, for some obscure reason, had seemed to think it an appropriate use of ducal resources.

  It was easy to imagine Samson, arms outstretched, poised between two of those massive columns.

  As he gazed thoughtfully across the lake, it also occurred to Anthony that it had been quite a while since his last haircut.

  Hadn’t Margaret been nagging him about that, in fact? He seemed to recall some pointed remarks on the subject recently at breakfast, but as he preferred at all times to read the papers while he had his eggs, toast, and so on, his memory was rather vague.

  Dismissing the question from his mind, he handed the Duchess’ stick to Johns, gave a loud whistle, and said cheerfully:

  “I’m off, then.”

  Four dogs came dashing out of the nearby woods with flattering alacrity. Bounding on long powerful legs, his wolfhound Breen came first, followed by—rather neatly in order of size—two dogs of uncertain parentage, Joe (possible retriever) and Sam (maybe a shepherd), and finally the lame little pug Snuffles, a runt and Wakefield’s favorite among the four, whom Anthony had rescued from certain extinction at the hands of the small-minded village draper. Strictly speaking, Snuffles didn’t dash—given the infinitesimal length of his legs, his run was more like a lolloping skitter, but it was, as he and Wakefield often agreed, the most adorable thing they had ever seen.

  “Come on, you lot,” he said to them, and together they made their way to the stables where he left them to hobnob with the horses and shamelessly importune the grooms for treats. And then he was on his horse and on his way to Surmont Hall.

  Oh dear, Jane thought anxiously, she was going to be late.

  She had overslept (again)—what she’d intended to be only a brief afternoon nap turned into a deep sleep of some three or four hours—and she’d gotten lost (again) in the dizzying maze of corridors, galleries, hallways, and staircases within this vast, ancient house.

  Too, if truth be told, she had wandered (again, but by accident this time) into the Picture Gallery, and it was impossible not to stop and stare at the portraits of Grandfather Titus, marveling (again) at their uncanny resemblance to herself. Also, it was helpful to see the paintings of her cousin Gabriel when he was a little boy, and Great-grandmother Henrietta, too, as a girl, for it was a reassuring reminder that they too had once been actual children and, perhaps, not quite as self-assured as they were now as fully fledged adults. Jane also marveled once more at how nice everyone had been to her these past few days, how kind and accepting of her, as if she weren’t a little lost sparrow but actually a swan like them. Nantwich seemed further and further away, and with each passing hour she was beginning, slowly but surely, to feel more and more at home here.

  Breathlessly Jane turned a corner, found herself at last in the hallway which led to the Little Drawing-room, and—still amazed at finding herself in a house so large that the various rooms actually had names—hurried to the open door, then stopped abruptly on the threshold when she saw that the family, at the moment represented by Great-grandmother Henrietta and Livia, had two guests for tea.

  This would be her first real encounter with people from the neighborhood.

  Reflexively Jane ran her hands along the smooth pale-green muslin of her gown—one of Livia’s, actually, which she had generously given to Jane. Great-grandmother had directed one of the maidservants to quickly alter it to accommodate Jane’s very different dimensions, and had also consigned forevermore to the rubbish heap the old, dirty gown in which Jane had traveled from Nantwich, saying that it wasn’t even fit to be cut down into floor-rags.

  Jane had not been sorry to see it go.

  She glanced down at the hem of her new gown, saw with satisfaction that her ankles were neatly concealed, and also noticed with satisfaction that three days of food and sleep and baths and also kindness did wonders for one’s confidence, then stepped into the room feeling more like herself than she had in a long, long time.

  “Here she is,” said Great-grandmother Henrietta, smiling at Jane, and introduced her to Miss Humphrey, a plump bespectacled middle-aged lady with lustrous brown hair and kind soft eyes, and to Miss Trevelyan, also middle-aged, slim, elegant, vigorous-looking, dressed in a plum-colored gown of modish cut and with a dashing coiffure of graying curls swept high on her head.

  “You’re quite the nine days’ wonder, Miss Kent,” said Miss Trevelyan, who had stood up to affably shake hands with Jane. “To think that you’ve only recently learned your true identity! How delightful. You may inspire me to try my hand at a novel—it would make a splendid plot, you know. A lovely young woman, born to a life of humble obscurity, discovers at twenty she’s actually a member of one of England’s oldest and most distinguished families.”

  Miss Trevelyan paused, on her face a look of dreamy enthusiasm, then went on thoughtfully:

  “Although it would hardly be innovative, would it? Been done to death, really. Also, it would probably be better if the young woman turned out to be a princess or a duchess or something along those lines—especially if there’s some sort of dark, enigmatic hero, too, with a fine curling lip of disdain. I daresay the book would sell better that way.”

  “Oh—I—would it indeed, ma’am?”
said Jane, rather blankly.

  “Miss Trevelyan is a writer,” explained Livia, and Jane, having eyed her new acquaintance with respect and not a little awe, went to sit on the sofa closest to where the tea-tray would, she hoped, shortly be placed. She said to Miss Trevelyan:

  “What sort of books do you write, ma’am?”

  “History mostly, Miss Kent. Just now I’m on a Tudor jag—all six wives of the monstrous Henry, each with their own book. I’m nearly finished with Anne of Cleves.” Miss Trevelyan sat back down next to Miss Humphrey, who said with fond admiration:

  “Sarah’s Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon books were tremendous sellers.”

  “Yes, they paid for the new roof,” said Miss Trevelyan, with justifiable pride, “and Jane Seymour fixed the drains. If Anne of Cleves does as well as she ought, you’ll have that extension to the greenhouse you’ve been wanting, my dear Arabella.”

  “Oh, that’ll be lovely.” Miss Humphrey smiled at Miss Trevelyan. “I’d love to have a whirl at growing some more winter salads. One does crave something fresh and green when it’s so cold out.”

  This was going better than Jane could have hoped. Miss Trevelyan and Miss Humphrey were so nice, and didn’t seem to care one jot about her decidedly odd background. Her trepidations fell away, and she felt her shoulders, held tight with tension, begin to relax. Bravely she said:

  “It’s embarrassing to admit, but I always thought her name was Anne of Cloves. And I imagined her walking around the palace smelling so nice.”

  “Funny you should say that, Miss Kent,” replied Miss Trevelyan, “as Henry Tudor went about telling everyone that poor Anne smelled bad, which is quite the rich remark coming from a man with a suppurating ulcer on his leg that stank to high heaven.”

  “He should have tried a turpentine compress,” Jane said without thinking, then blushed when Miss Trevelyan looked at her with bright curious eyes and said:

  “Medical, are you, Miss Kent?”

  “Oh no, ma’am. I was quoting from an old—ah—remedy of my great-grandfather’s. He wrote pamphlets filled with such things for a living—we had a whole trunkful of them in our house, and as there wasn’t much else to read, I pored over them again and again. So I’m afraid my brain is quite filled with these remedies.”