The Worst Duke in the World

by Lisa Berne

  “Three would have been all right. It was the fourth one that did it. Afterwards my stomach stuck out amazingly. It was funny at first, but then it hurt quite a lot. Jane, what did Aunt Margaret mean at luncheon when she said you’re an unrigular connection? It sounds like something she’d say about Snuffles’ legs. Is there something wrong with your legs? You don’t limp a bit.”

  “Wake,” said Anthony.

  “What?”

  “You’re getting rather personal.”

  “Yes, but Father, Jane and I are friends.”

  “True. But there are still some things you ought not to ask.”

  Wakefield looked up at Jane. “Did I say something wrong? I’m awfully sorry.”

  “It’s all right. And no, there’s nothing wrong with my legs.”

  “I say, I am glad. Oh, look, there’s Miss Trevelyan. I want to ask her something.”

  Wakefield trotted off, and Anthony looked again at Jane, wanting to say something—anything—that would make her smile again. Did she like jokes? he wondered. He was horrible at telling them, because he could never remember the clincher at the end, and also he loathed puns of all kinds and could barely tolerate riddles. Although Wakefield had just recently, with eyes alight with merriment, told him a decent one about a man who wore his stockings the wrong side outwards. Why? Because there was a hole on the other side.

  Would Jane find it amusing?

  But then Anthony saw that she was gazing up at him with an expression he couldn’t readily decipher. A kind of intense inquiry, as if she were bracing herself for something, but with a certain steady resolution, too. As one did when bad news was possibly coming but one knew one was strong enough to handle it.

  “What is it?” he asked, taking a long step closer to her.

  “Did Lady Margaret tell you?”

  “About your—ah—irregular connection?”

  “Yes. Did she?”

  “Yes.”

  “About Titus Penhallow and my grandmother not being married?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t care, really, who knows it, but—does it change how you think of me? Your Grace.”

  This question, quietly spoken, made Anthony want to do two things, both equally impossible.

  One, he would have liked to throttle his own sister for rudely—meanly—raising the issue at luncheon the other day.

  Two, he wished he could wrap Jane up closely in his arms and do whatever it took to erase the look of rather painful inquiry in her beautiful gray eyes.

  He wondered if a good long kiss would help.

  It would certainly help him.

  But, of course, it was Jane he wanted to help. So he stayed where he was and answered, with perfect truth:

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” He saw, with pleasure, how Jane’s dark brows, which had been drawn together in a questioning sort of way, relaxed, and her lovely mouth, which had looked tense, softened into something very nearly approaching a smile.

  “Well, I’m glad. Your Grace.”

  “I’m glad you’re glad.”

  “So am I.”

  “Yes,” said Anthony, devolving into happy inarticulateness, “I’m very glad.”

  “I too. Your Grace.”

  Then they both fell silent, and Anthony wondered again about the stockings riddle, decided against it, and finally said, “I’m very glad.”

  And there it was.

  Her smile.

  Complete with dimples.

  Heat surged through him, and Anthony was aware that he was sweating heavily, as if he had been helping out in the fields with the hay threshing, a vigorous activity which he enjoyed very much. (Of which Margaret—naturally—disapproved as being undukish.)

  Jane said, “How is the Duchess?”

  “Oh, she’s very well, thank you. Johns says she’s gained some weight in the past week.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Very good. She’s won the Fattest Pig award at the fête three years in a row.”

  “How splendid,” said Jane warmly. “Congratulations. Your Grace.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “Speaking of gaining weight, I’m a little fatter myself.”

  This seemed like exactly the sort of remark which allowed one to stare at one’s companion as much as one liked. Although he wished she weren’t all bundled up in a pelisse. Or wearing anything at all, really. Another delightful wave of sweat broke over him, but he answered cautiously. “You sound pleased.”

  “Oh, I am. I’ve still got a long way to go, though.”

  “How so?”

  “I didn’t have much to eat for the past couple of years, you see, so I’ve gotten far too thin.”

  “I say, that’s dreadful. Why didn’t you?”

  “Money problems.”

  “Back in Nantwich?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Anthony looked at Jane with both concern and respect. She spoke so calmly and forthrightly about what had to have been an incredibly difficult situation. He’d had plenty of problems—he currently had plenty of problems—but never had he lacked enough to eat. “You had no one to help you, Miss Kent?”

  “It was just my great-grandmother Kent and me, and she was very ill.”

  “There was no one else?”

  “No.”

  With great sincerity he answered, “I’m glad you came here, then.”

  “Me too. Your Grace.”

  “I’m very glad,” he said, devolving again. Sudden inspiration struck him and he fished into the pocket of his greatcoat. He pulled out his hand and held it out, palm up, to Jane. On it were several small black disks embossed with an image of a castle. “Care for a Pomfret cake?”

  “Is that licorice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, I’d love one.”

  “Have as many as you like. Wait just a moment—do you object to dog hair?”

  “Well—not to eat it, of course.”

  “Of course not.” He blew on his palm and the dog hairs dispersed, like fluffy seedlets from a dandelion, and he had to suppress a sudden childish desire to make a wish. “There, that’s better.”

  Jane took one of the little cakes and nibbled at it. “It’s delicious. Thank you very much. Won’t you share them with me?”

  He took one also. Jane had another one, and then another one after that, and he had not the least desire in the world to eat any more, which was funny, as he was very fond of Pomfret cakes. He watched with total contentment as she ate the last three.

  “Thank you. Your Grace.”

  “You’re welcome. My contribution to the cause.”

  “The cause?”

  “The amelioration of thinness.”

  Jane laughed. “That’s a lovely way to put it.”

  “Yes, rather elegant, don’t you think? By the way, don’t let anybody talk you into taking castor oil.”

  “Castor oil?”

  “Yes, to help you fatten up. It’s foul.”

  “That’s good to know. I’d rather just eat things, anyway.”

  “I too.”

  She looked curiously at him. “Did someone give you castor oil?”

  “Yes, my nurse did when I was a boy.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “All in the past, thankfully.”

  “Was that when . . .”

  “When what?”

  “Now I’m getting rather personal, I’m afraid. Your Grace.”

  “Get as personal as you like,” Anthony said, then vehemently hoped, with a fresh wave of sweat, that he hadn’t sounded as if he were issuing some sort of carnal invitation.

  As much as he would have liked to.

  Although not, naturally, in some ghastly insinuating sort of manner that practically required one to leer or twirl one’s mustache. Suddenly he was extremely glad he didn’t have a mustache. Side-whiskers, yes, but never a beard or mustache, as they essentially seemed (based on his own observations
) to be hairy devices in which to trap particles of food, and then one had to force oneself to neither stare nor snicker unducally. Which, unfortunately, he had done just last month during dinner with the D’Arblay family, whose patriarch had sported a monumental quantity of facial hair that not only gave him a stunning resemblance to Methuselah, but also had all too rapidly been embellished with breadcrumbs, buttered rice, bits of trout, and savory pudding.

  It was the pudding that had sent Anthony over the edge, because it had not remained firmly lodged in Mr. D’Arblay’s beard, but had, rather, slowly descended, as might a climber carefully slide down a treacherous length of rockface. And so he, Anthony, had audibly, noisily, and lengthily snickered.

  After dinner Margaret had threatened to rip off one of his arms and beat him with the bloody stump.

  And then feed the stump to the Duchess.

  To which he had said, with calm confidence, that he trusted the Duchess to know better than to eat her own master’s arm.

  So angry had Margaret been at this remark that she had stormed out of his library and slammed the door with such force that the doorknob had fallen out.

  “Well,” Jane now said, snapping him back to attention, “I was wondering if you had to take castor oil when you were in bed for three years.”

  “No, luckily Dr. Fotherham had charge of me then, not Nurse, and he ran roughshod over her. Which cheered me a good deal.”

  “Was she terrible to you?”

  “No, but she fussed over me till I nearly went mad with it.”

  Jane nodded. “My great-grandmother Kent was the same way. She meant well, but I always felt so—so hounded.”

  “Yes, exactly.” How splendid, thought Anthony, with a sudden mysterious ache near the region of his heart, to be understood. And for a moment—just for a moment—he felt so sad that he wished Jane would put her arms around him.

  “How old were you when it happened?”

  “When what happened?”

  “When you fell out of the tree.”

  “I was eleven.”

  “Oh, that’s so very young. What did you do all those years in bed? Wakefield said you found it restful, but . . .”

  On Jane’s face was a look of such kind sympathy that the curious ache in his heart got rather worse.

  “I mean, having hurt your back so terribly, you must have been in a lot of pain.”

  “It wasn’t so bad.” A lie, and he was fairly sure Jane knew it, but she didn’t say anything, only looked up at him so kindly, and after a few seconds he went on:

  “It was restful, really, because I didn’t have to go back to Eton, which I was glad of as I was unhappy there, and while I was lying around in my room nobody paid much attention to me, which was another pleasant change, and I could read all day if I liked. Bunch—you met him the other day, he’s our butler, but he was a hall-boy back then—he brought me books from the library, anything I wanted, which was awfully nice of him, as he risked getting caught ferrying them about for me.”

  “Why wasn’t he supposed to be doing that?”

  “Outside the scope of his regular duties.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, the butler back then ran a tight ship. How I despised him.”

  “Why?”

  “He was a terrible bully. The things Bunch told me—well, I won’t regale you with anecdotes, but suffice to say they’d curl your hair—not that your hair needs it,” Anthony added hastily, looking with admiration at the wavy locks perceptible beneath the crown of her charming hat. “At any rate, the first thing I did when I became duke was to send Parslow off into pensioned oblivion, and gave Bunch his job.”

  “How very nice of you. Your Grace.”

  “Oh, Bunch is splendid at it. Happiest day of my life, frankly. Aside from Wakefield’s birth. My God, but Margaret was furious.” He saw that Jane was looking at him as if puzzled. “Not because of Wakefield’s birth,” he explained. “For promoting Bunch.”

  “But why?”

  “Because Bunch was a second footman back then, and it violated protocol to promote him all those levels up.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, and according to Margaret it’s been—ducally speaking—downhill ever since.”

  “Oh,” Jane said again, and all at once Anthony felt an odd prickling at the back of his neck, as one might dimly sense impending doom, and so he looked around to see that from one direction Margaret was approaching, and from the opposite direction old Mrs. Penhallow was coming their way.

  Neither had on her face an expression of warm cordiality.

  Quite the opposite, really, and Anthony thought of two great icebergs inexorably colliding. Woe betide any flotsam and jetsam in their way, too. Not that it was a metaphor for Jane—it was, of course, himself to which he was referring. No, Jane would be more like some kind of beautiful aquatic creature. But what? A dolphin, because of her gray eyes? Dolphins were marvelous animals, weren’t they? So sleek and intelligent, and wonderful swimmers. Probably never had to worry about dodging oncoming projectiles.

  Or did they?

  Because of sharks, for example?

  “My dear Jane, it’s time to go home,” said Mrs. Penhallow, just as Margaret said:

  “Where is Wakefield? I’ve been looking for him everywhere.”

  These two imposing icebergs—no, he meant ladies—greeted each with frigid politeness, but Anthony would have sworn that a strange look flashed between them, almost one of surprise, as if they had simultaneously discovered something. Then Jane was borne away by Mrs. Penhallow, and Anthony went off in search of Wakefield, finding him within mere seconds chatting with Miss Trevelyan over by the front steps. Which made him wonder why Margaret had, apparently, so much difficulty locating him.

  It was almost as if she was being deceitful.

  He pondered this unpleasant notion for a few moments, then moved on in his mind to the infinitely more interesting subject of Jane.

  A subject which, he suddenly realized, he could dwell upon for a surprisingly long time.

  “Great-grandmother,” said Jane, as the family was being conveyed home in their comfortable and spacious barouche, “did you know the Duke’s wife?”

  “Lady Selina? No, my dear, she died very soon after Gabriel, Livia, and I came from Bath to the Hall. Both Gabriel and I had been away for quite a long time, and for many months we were preoccupied with setting things to right.” Great-grandmother looked at Jane with a keenness that made her feel rather uncomfortable, and went on, “Why do you ask?”

  Jane had been thinking about what the Duke had said regarding the happiest moment in his life. About Wakefield’s birth. Which was a wonderful thing to say. But she had been surprised to hear him say that Bunch’s promotion took second place. And not—well—his wedding day.

  Not that she wanted to put words into his mouth, naturally, but it was just that she had been expecting him to mention it.

  Then Jane found she didn’t really want to ask any more questions, at least not with Great-grandmother looking at her like that, as if there was something strange, or unseemly, or wrong about her curiosity, and so she was rather glad when baby Daniel woke up and began making loud babbling noises which were delightful and also seemed to somehow entirely fill the interior of the barouche, making further conversation a bit difficult.

  Jane looked out the window and thought some more about the Duke.

  When just a little while ago Wakefield had brought up the subject of her unrigular—irregular—connection to the Penhallows, she had been surprised to notice that while she ultimately didn’t really care if Lady Margaret knew about it and thought her just another low, vulgar Nantwich sort of person, she did care if the Duke knew it and he thought less of her.

  Somehow it mattered to her.

  She had been hoping he wasn’t like his sister Margaret. That he was different in his character and outlook on the world.

  Which, it seemed, he was.

  The fact was, really, that somehow,
he had begun to matter to her. Not as a duke, but as a person. As a man. (A rather delicious man, too.)

  Also, he had looked so very sad when he was talking about having to be in bed for all those painful years that she had wanted, more than anything, to try and comfort him. Maybe even put her arms around him.

  She wondered what that would feel like.

  He was lean, but he looked strong, too, so it would probably feel wonderful to hug him.

  His hard firm strength against her own body.

  He would have lovely muscles in his arms and shoulders, and prominent collar-bones, marvelous for trailing her fingers over, and possibly licking, very slowly and deliberately. A hard-planed chest. Maybe some tawny hair there, too. Or dark hair, like his eyelashes and eyebrows?

  Perhaps there would be a swirl of it, lower, as she moved her hands down his body, along his ribs, to his flat stomach, and below . . .

  The barouche gave a little jolt as it passed over a rut in the road, and suddenly Jane realized that she had moved beyond the idea of giving the Duke a comforting hug.

  She was fantasizing about him naked.

  Caressing him.

  Her fingers on his warm flesh.

  Well, and why not?

  He was a very attractive man.

  A very, very attractive man.

  Jane didn’t pull her gaze away from the window, but felt her cheeks heating up in a warm spreading flush.

  Here in this new world of hers, she supposed, one ought not to engage in such activities—maybe even such thoughts—outside the bonds of matrimony.

  She resisted the urge to glance across the seat at Great-grandmother Henrietta. To see if she still happened to be looking at her so keenly. Was there something wrong in thinking so much about the Duke?

  Jane wondered, yet again, about her goodness.

  Or her lack of it.

  Maybe she wasn’t very good at being good.

  But why did it feel so . . . good?

  Chapter 7

  After church Anthony and Wakefield went to commune with the Duchess for a while, admiring her superb pink corpulence, and after that Wakefield wanted to hang around the stables, grooming his pony and brushing all the dogs and in general getting underfoot, so Anthony went for a long solitary stroll in the lime-walk, beneath bare interlinked branches that would, in summer, fill out densely with beautiful green heart-shaped leaves. It was curious, he mused, how his thoughts were full of Jane: her face, her eyes, her smile . . .