The Worst Duke in the World

by Lisa Berne

  The Duke made no reply. Skillfully he brought the horses around a great wide curve, and they came to a neat, well-kept old stone and brick building on their left—the Surmont Hall lodge-house.

  Its caretaker, Mr. Allard, smiling, waved them through, and they continued on the broad winding path, past further groves of trees, and toward the Hall which soon came into view, a massive, looming house with multiple wings built on in a variety of architectural styles, plainly displaying a long span of centuries.

  Livia had shown Jane a handsome old bedchamber in which Henry the Seventh was supposed to have stayed in 1487, though apparently this was in question according to Great-grandmother Henrietta, whose view was that the resident Penhallows would never have allowed such an impertinent upstart to stay with them.

  Earlier today Mr. Pressley had said that Henry the Seventh, who had founded the House of Tudor, was widely viewed as a hero for wresting the crown away from King Richard the Third, also widely viewed as a villain who had had his own young nephews—rightful heirs to the throne—secretly murdered in the Tower of London where they had been imprisoned.

  Wakefield had commented that his father always wondered if the story about the nephews was only Tudor pripigandia, and Mr. Pressley had said, I believe, Master Wakefield, you mean propaganda, and Wakefield (of course) had replied, Yes, that’s what I said.

  Jane smiled a little, thinking of this, and how through Wakefield she was enlarging her vocabulary very nicely, and what a charming young person he was, and suddenly the Duke said:

  “You have dimples.”

  Jane turned her head to look at him, and he added:

  “Two of them.”

  “Yes. Your Grace.”

  “One in each cheek.”

  “Yes.”

  The Duke’s deep blue eyes were fixed on her face, and for a few crazy seconds Jane, vividly aware of how close they were sitting together, thought that he was going to kiss her.

  Her heart gave a violent lurch within her chest and several things flashed through her head.

  One was that she wouldn’t mind if he did.

  Yesterday he had seemed so ordinary-looking to her, but that was probably because she had been expecting him to come parading into the Hall’s drawing-room swathed in velvet and ermine, and maybe with a scepter and glittering coronet, too.

  Today she had realized that even though he was a duke, he was still a person like anybody else, and that she liked his great untidy mane of tawny hair, and how he walked with a sort of easy lope on those long legs of his, and that he had a very attractive mouth, with a narrow upper lip offset by a fuller lower lip which was a combination she found extremely enticing.

  Another thing Jane thought was that the Duke’s sister Lady Margaret would probably not want Jane to kiss him.

  Also, remembering what Great-grandmother Henrietta had said yesterday about the Duke, and how disparaging she had been, she probably wouldn’t want Jane kissing him either.

  Nor would Great-grandmother Kent, who had forever been exhorting Jane to keep away from the boys—the men—who only wanted one thing. She had been extremely vague about what that one thing was, but as Jane had gotten older she had figured out what Great-grandmother meant.

  Into Jane’s mind now streaked an image of Lady Felicia and her mother the Countess—though really, there was no need to picture them traveling in a giant pumpkin-carriage attended by lizard-footmen and a rat-coachman—who might even now be on their way toward Hastings. It was just a guess, but they, too, probably wouldn’t want the Duke to be kissing Jane.

  It was therefore impossible to escape the conclusion that there were quite a few people, alive and dead, who were likely opposed to the idea.

  A person who was good would reject this wild kissing idea out of hand.

  But she was, evidently, a person who might not be that good.

  Because her heart was thumping hard within her, and her gaze was going back and forth between the Duke’s fascinating blue eyes and his equally fascinating mouth.

  Finally, she was wondering if they could kiss while the curricle was still moving so swiftly. He seemed to be such a capable driver that he probably could manage it, but it would still be an unfortunate means by which to get into a terrible accident and, say, die that way.

  Maybe the Duke was thinking the same thing—or maybe he wasn’t thinking at all about kissing her—because he turned his head away from her and shortly brought his team to an easy, graceful halt on the graveled sweep in front of the Hall.

  Well, damn.

  The massive door of dark knotted wood opened and a footman came down the steps and to Jane’s side of the curricle, ready to help her down.

  She said, “Thank you again. Your Grace.”

  “You’re welcome, Miss Kent.” His expression was still rather grave, but as Jane gathered up her skirts he added abruptly:

  “Just a moment.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do come play billiards with Wakefield if you like. Anytime.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “I may rip the cloth. Your Grace.”

  “You should see the gash I put in it last week.”

  “Did you make the shot?”

  “Yes, but my glory was dimmed, obviously.”

  Jane smiled. “Well, I’d love to try it sometime. Thank you very much. Your Grace.”

  “You look just like a daisy when you smile.”

  His voice was a little husky, and the blue of his eyes had deepened in a very attractive way. Jane felt her heart give another excited jolt in her chest. She answered, with as much composure as she could muster:

  “A daisy?”

  “Yes.”

  “How lovely. I like daisies.”

  “So do I. But you probably guessed that already.”

  Jane nodded. She was feeling a little breathless now, and said with less composure, “It was just a guess.”

  “It was a good guess.”

  “Thank you. Your Grace.”

  “Dimples,” he said, even more huskily.

  “I—yes.”

  “And daisies.”

  “Daisies? Your Grace.”

  “Yes. And boots.”

  “I—I beg your pardon. Did you say ‘boots’?”

  “Yes, boots.”

  “Boots?”

  “Your boots. Very practical. And fetching.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Yes. Very. I’d like to—well, never mind,” the Duke said hurriedly.

  “You’d like to what? Your Grace.”

  “I—uh—well, perhaps you ought to go in, Miss Kent. The wind’s gotten up, and I don’t want you to get chilled.”

  “That’s very kind of you.” Jane would have liked to press him further as to exactly what it was he wanted to do in regards to her boots, because she had no idea what he was talking about, but it was such an intriguing remark and his eyes had gone such a delicious dark blue and he sounded so delightfully intense, as if he were hungry, possibly even ravenous.

  But now probably wasn’t the best moment, with the footman standing nearby, and also she spotted Great-grandmother Henrietta standing in the tall doorway on the porch, and even from here Jane could see that Great-grandmother’s silvery eyebrows had shot up high in her face, which made Jane suddenly feel all guilty and exposed somehow, so she went on just as hurriedly:

  “Well—goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, Miss Kent.”

  Jane clasped the outstretched hand of the footman, thanking him, and got down from the curricle, then went quickly to the steps and up onto the porch where Great-grandmother was waiting.

  From behind her she heard the wheels of the Duke’s curricle crunching on gravel, but she didn’t turn around to look as he drove away, and instead she followed Great-grandmother inside, still feeling rather breathless and discombobulated and also warm all over and despite feeling rather guilty, nonetheless wondering when she would see the Duke again and what might happe
n the next time they were alone together.

  As soon as he got home Anthony went looking for Margaret.

  He found her in one of the guest bedchambers with her head deep inside an armoire.

  “What the devil, Meg.”

  Margaret emerged from the armoire, put her hands on her hips, and frowned at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  “If it’s any of your concern, Anthony, I’m inspecting the room to ensure it will be ready for Lady Felicia.”

  This reply did nothing to improve his mood. “I mean, what the devil do you mean by harping at Miss Kent like that at luncheon?”

  “Do stop saying ‘devil’—it makes you sound positively satanic.”

  “I feel satanic. You bombarded her with prying questions. How do you know so much about her, anyway? You never met her before today.”

  “It’s common knowledge,” answered Margaret coolly, but her shoulders went up as she spoke. A defensive gesture. He pounced.

  “By Jove, you were gossiping with the servants, weren’t you? And you a viscountess. And a duke’s daughter. How low the mighty have sunk.”

  A bull’s-eye on that one, Anthony saw, as Margaret turned as red as a tomato. But her chin went high, high into the air, and she snapped:

  “If you have nothing better to do than harangue me, Anthony, I suggest you betake yourself elsewhere. Go scratch that nasty pig of yours.”

  “Evidently Miss Kent already did, and made fine work of it, too. What the devil did you mean at luncheon by ‘irregular connection’?”

  “Stop saying ‘devil,’” Margaret hissed at him, sounding rather satanic herself.

  “Fine. What the hell did you mean by ‘irregular connection’?”

  “If you must know, your precious Miss Kent is illegitimate.”

  Anthony thought back to yesterday’s tea at the Hall. “She said Titus Penhallow was her grandfather.”

  “He was, but he never married Miss Kent’s grandmother. Which means she’s not a real Penhallow at all. Anybody could tell just by looking at those cheap, ghastly boots she had on.”

  “That’s more than a little hypocritical, coming from someone who just a month ago told me not to judge a book by its cover. Remember? When I objected to the fact that Miss D’Arblay—the charming young lady who, as you’ll recall, preceded Miss Preston-Carnaby—went traipsing about the place in a leopard-skin cape, shoes made from African ostriches, and a hat festooned with half a dozen dead birds on top.”

  Margaret scowled. “How was I to know that her chief pastime was trying to shoot squirrels?”

  “You mean her sole occupation in life, don’t you? You’re lucky she didn’t put a bullet-hole in that cat of yours, just for fun.”

  “I had been informed, by reliable sources, that Miss D’Arblay was a highly eligible candidate.”

  “For what? President of the Society to Exterminate Squirrels?”

  “We were,” said Margaret coldly, “discussing Miss Kent.”

  “Yes, we were. Allow me to point out that no matter her background, Miss Kent’s clearly been welcomed with open arms at the Hall, so what business is it of yours?”

  Margaret sniffed. “I daresay you think it all a very romantic tale. The ragged little waif plucked out of the gutter and set loose among Polite Society. For all we know, she might have been selling herself on the streets of Nantwich. And did you see how tentative she was about using the correct utensils at luncheon? And how much she ate? I wouldn’t be surprised if she tucked a few rolls into her pockets.”

  Anthony looked wonderingly at his sister. She stood very stiff and rigid in her black gown, arms akimbo and her reddened face a rictus of cold disdain. They were only ten or so feet apart, but it could have just as well been miles. “Have you forgotten, Meg, that William of Normandy, the illustrious Conqueror whom the Farrs supposedly accompanied to England, was a bastard?”

  “Not supposedly. There are documents.”

  “Which we all hope are genuine. However, it is an established fact that our country’s own Charles the Second had a great many side-slips, and that there are countless members of the nobility who are related to them. Confucius was illegitimate, and so was Leonardo da Vinci. And let’s not forget the paternal grandfather of Anne of Cleves, Duke Johann the Second, who had sixty-three bastards, thereby earning himself the immemorial sobriquet ‘the Childmaker.’ One wonders, given how busy he was procreating, how he had the time to rule over his duchy.”

  “Who are you to be mocking procreation, you sorry excuse for a duke?”

  Margaret’s upper lip was curled away from her teeth as she issued this remark, and involuntarily Anthony said:

  “Good God, Meg, you look just like Father when you do that.”

  “When I do what?”

  “When you sneer like that. One of Father’s favorite facial expressions, as I recall.”

  “At least he had the proper sense of duty! He knew his own worth! He managed to produce two sons!”

  “Oh yes, Father was always keenly awake to the obligations of his rank,” responded Anthony dryly. “He married you off to Skiffy without even letting you have that Season you wanted so badly, and got poor old Terence engaged to Selina not long after that. And then when Terence died, Father roped me into the betrothal the minute I turned twenty-one, deaf to each and every one of my protestations of horror, in which I made it clear that the only thing Selina and I had in common was a mutual loathing of the other. Very fixed in purpose, was Father. How he used to berate Mother for her inability to provide additional heirs. And how she used to berate him for his—ah—incompetencies in the marital bed. Yes, quite the happy family, we Farrs.”

  “And what, pray, is your point? Beyond indulging in maudlin reminiscence, of course.”

  And there it was, Margaret’s upper lip receding again. Anthony couldn’t help but recall Nurse warning him—when, as a little boy, he had been frowning up at her for some reason or another—that if he wasn’t careful, his face would freeze like that forever. He felt for a brief moment the tempting, but of course unducal impulse to say exactly that to Margaret, but managed to suppress it, and she went on:

  “Of course you have no point. You never do. You live in your own little dream-world of pigs and pumpkins, and—”

  “Don’t forget books, as long as you’re cataloguing all my incompetencies. Also, my obsession with drainage trenches.”

  “It would take more time than I presently have to enumerate everything that’s wrong with you, Anthony, but do allow me to thank you for your riveting discourse on illegitimacy through the ages. I’m sure Miss Kent would find it equally illuminating.”

  He looked thoughtfully at her. “You know, old girl, sometimes you’re simply mean.”

  “And you’re just the sort of coarse, raffish person who likes to consort with pigmen and bastards. You’re a horrible, horrible duke, and I have no doubt that if Father could see you now, he’d be ashamed to call you his son.”

  Anthony felt his mouth twist in a wry half-smile. “He said that himself often enough while he was alive, Meg, so you can rest easy on that point. Well—I believe I’ll follow up on your earlier suggestion and betake myself elsewhere. Unless there’s anything else you need to say?”

  “Yes. Do something about that hair of yours before Lady Felicia arrives. You look like an inmate of Bedlam.”

  Anthony turned and left the room, and began making his way toward his library and the welcome interval of peace Dinkle would impart, however brief. He passed Margaret’s big tabby cat in one of the corridors, stretched out on a console table between a pair of priceless Ming Dynasty dragons which were carved in intricate detail out of translucent jade.

  Wakefield’s right, thought Anthony. That’s one sad-looking cat.

  The family were seated at dinner, and for some time Cousin Gabriel, Livia, and Great-grandmother Henrietta had been talking about ongoing renovations within the Hall, crop rotation,
the critical value of drainage trenches (especially during winter flooding), progress in the building of new tenant-farmer cottages, proposed landscaping in the spring, an unusual explosion in the local deer population, and a needed expansion to the village school.

  As she ate, careful to mimic Livia’s table manners, Jane thought to herself how clever and proficient her new family was. And how busy, and engaged, and occupied. Dinner had begun with Great-grandmother inquiring after her lessons today, and she was able to say, truthfully, that she had enjoyed it, and learned some interesting things about the Tudors and the founding of the British Navy, and then Great-grandmother had mentioned that the wife of Gabriel’s cousin Hugo, Katherine Penhallow, had had two books published on the subject of British maritime history, an accomplishment Jane thought very impressive. She had asked about Hugo, too, and it turned out he was a master shipbuilder, with a glowing reputation not just here in England but beyond.

  The Penhallows were so good at so many things.

  Jane accepted another slice of broiled chicken, and as she ate it, wondered what she was good at.

  She thought back to her years in Nantwich.

  Well, she was good at surviving.

  That counted for something, didn’t it?

  Yes. Oh yes, it did.

  Later, alone in her room, dressed for bed in a voluminous white nightgown—another loan from kind Livia—Jane stood in front of the long pier-glass and raised up the hem to look at her legs.

  Was it her imagination, or were they already fattening up? Her knees seemed less knobby, for one thing.

  This was a gratifying development.

  She looked with new pleasure at her ankles.

  Yes, definitely less skinny.

  Into her mind came, all at once, the intriguing exchange she had had with the Duke earlier today.

  Boots.

  Boots?

  Your boots. Very practical. And fetching.

  Do you think so?

  Yes. Very. I’d like to—well, never mind.

  Jane hoped she would find out what he meant.

  She let the hem of the nightgown drop, then looked with wonderment around her elegant bedchamber for what was probably the thousandth time, contrasting it with the tiny cramped attic room she had for all her life before this shared with the Kent family’s old crates and trunks. She pinched her arm, not too hard, but just to still make sure all this was real, and after that, having received a small but reassuring amount of pain, went over to the high four-poster bed, clambered in, pulled up the covers, let herself wallow luxuriously amidst the clean smooth sheets for a few moments, then picked up from the side-table one of the books the vicar had lent her. The History of England from the Earliest Times to the Death of George II.