The Worst Duke in the World

by Lisa Berne

  Because Lady Margaret wasn’t smiling and cheerful.

  Rather, she looked as if something was bothering her.

  Quite a lot.

  Jane wanted to snicker at the very idea of being married to the Viscount, and having to listen to bad poetry for the rest of one’s life, but then she remembered trying to envision Lady Felicia married to the Duke, and she didn’t feel like snickering anymore.

  Impulsively she looked for him.

  There he was, at the far end of the drawing-room, sitting with Mr. Pressley and Cousin Gabriel, one long leg crossed over the other. His tawny hair was slightly disordered in the way she liked so much, and his neckcloth was tied with a little more precision than it usually was, but not that much, which for some strange reason made her glad, and his evening-shoes, while not actually scuffed, had only a marginal sort of shine to them, which she found more than sufficient, and altogether he was so entirely attractive that she felt like (to quote the Viscount) sighing and repining.

  But why wasn’t he looking at her?

  He hadn’t, really, all evening, and with all her heart Jane wondered why, and had to fight off yet another impulse to sink into a funk—a rather bad one.

  Chapter 10

  To Anthony’s disgruntlement (a word that made him think of the Duchess in a bad mood), the weather continued cold, clear, and crisp—perfect hunting weather, in fact, and so here everyone was the next morning, gathering just past the house on the wide graveled sweep.

  He himself did not hunt, had never hunted, would not hunt, never would hunt, and whatever other verb forms would make clear his firm intention in this regard, no matter how undukely it made him appear in the eyes of the world, and had been so doing since the age of fifteen when he—to the perpetually renewed and scornful outrage of his family—refused to participate.

  There had been a moment of extreme awkwardness last night when Lady Felicia, in a carrying voice which encompassed most of the drawing-room, expressed her bubbly enthusiasm for Margaret’s hunting plan, and he had stiffly told her that no doubt his sister had unintentionally misspoken, as there was no formal hunting per se at Hastings, only strict rules permitting the local folk to take what they needed in the way of game, leaving his own gamesmen to provide for the manor house, although the Merifields were, however, welcome to go fishing if they liked, as the Hastings rivers and streams were abundantly stocked, and despite this hospitable alternative Margaret had turned a really remarkable shade of scarlet, leaving him, for a minute or two, in genuine fear that she would go off in an apoplexy in front of all the guests, or, at the very least, stalk over to the wide double doors of the drawing-room and repeatedly slam them open and closed.

  Somehow, though, she had managed to control herself, pasted on her face what looked to him in all honesty like a clownish smile, and so the moment passed off, after which Sir Gregory graciously offered to accommodate the Hastings party at his own estate, and luckily the tea-tray came in not long after that, although Anthony did happen to notice that Henrietta Penhallow was looking at him with that disconcertingly sardonic expression on her face, and so, to avoid it, he had strolled over to the mantelpiece with the intention of casually resting one arm alongside it, and possibly crossing one ankle over the other, to look even more dukishly debonair, but instead he accidentally knocked over his father’s cherished stuffed owl, which tumbled to the floor, dislodging one of the horribly lifelike glass eyes, separating the owl from its mahogany base, and causing the beak to snap off.

  Which, aside from his mortifying embarrassment, was actually rather satisfying, as he had hated that stuffed owl all his life.

  Jane had come to help him pick up the pieces (the glass eye having rolled across the floor quite near to where she had been sitting), and it took everything he had not to devolve into being a complete ass again and call her by her first name and tell her how much he liked her gown and that he had missed her and also he had some more chocolates for her and maybe they could go upstairs and hide away in his library for a little while and eat chocolates and kiss each other.

  And he would have liked to ask her why she had sat with Viscount Whitton for so long, enjoying what had looked like a very cozy tête-à-tête, but of course it was none of his business and it was a free country and she could sit with whoever she liked for however long she wanted, even if it was an incredibly handsome, suave, polished fellow with perfect hair and giant bulging muscles and shiny shoes.

  No, instead, he had been a different sort of ass and had merely thanked her for her help, still sounding very stiff and formal. And she had looked at him wonderingly, and gone away, and he had felt so terrible that he had no appetite at all for tea, even though there were the most stupendous éclairs and also tiny cucumber sandwiches which he usually loved, and Lady Felicia had tried to press on him a cup of tea which she had made for him just the way he liked, with a lot of cream and sugar, having, she said, noticed his preference, which was awfully decent of her but still he wished she and her family would go away, and in fact he wished everyone would go away, and leave him alone, so that he could resume his quiet peaceful life once more, reading his beloved Dinkle with his feet up on his desk, being a father as best he knew how, taking care of the Hastings people as best he could, giving away his money to causes that seemed to need it, and hanging around the Duchess, dreaming of glory at this year’s fête.

  “Why don’t you like to hunt, Father?” Wakefield said, jolting Anthony out of his brooding reverie.

  They were standing on the marble steps at the front of the house, watching as the Hastings grooms led horses from the stables for Margaret (stunning in a bright red habit) and the Merifields to ride over to Sir Gregory’s estate.

  “It’s not my idea of fun, my boy.”

  “Why not? You like riding.”

  “Yes, but I don’t like careening after a fox. Hardly seems a fair match. If they could find a fox as large as a horse, I might consider it. Although it would be terrifying.”

  Wakefield nodded thoughtfully. “Will I have to hunt when I’m the Duke?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “I don’t think I will, and then Aunt Margaret can say I’m the worst duke in the world.”

  “Something to aspire to.” Anthony reached into his greatcoat pocket and pulled from it a couple of small squarish confections. “Caramel?”

  Wakefield took one, plucked off the dog hairs, and popped it into his mouth. Around it he said, “I say, Father, did you notice at breakfast that I put my fork, my spoon, and my knife into my porridge?”

  “Yes, and I did wonder. Yesterday you only put your spoon and fork in.”

  “I’m kindicting an experiment, you see.”

  “Do you mean conducting?”

  “Yes, that’s what I said. Don’t you want to know what my experiment is?”

  “I really do.”

  “Well, I’m trying to see how many things I can put into my porridge before Aunt Margaret notices.”

  Anthony nodded. It was surprising that Margaret, who had an uncanny knack for spotting dust on a shelf that was higher than her own head, had failed to observe Wakefield’s illicit deployment of utensils. He supposed he ought to tell Wakefield to stop doing it, but the truth was that Margaret’s behavior was so baffling that he didn’t feel like it. Also, it was rather fascinating to watch things sinking into porridge. It made him think of quicksand, and how as a boy he had longed to actually stumble across a pond of it and toss things in. To Wakefield he said, “What will you do tomorrow?”

  “I was thinking the salt cellar next. Ow.”

  “What’s the matter, old chap?”

  Wakefield, who had winced, now fished into his mouth and withdrew the sodden caramel. “It’s my tooth. When I bit down just now.”

  “It hurt?”

  “Yes, but it went away.” Wakefield put the caramel back into his mouth. “I say, Father, are you going to marry her?”

  “Who?” Anthony said, a little more sharply t
han he intended, because for a single, wild, insane, exhilarating moment he had thought of Jane before swiftly recalling that he never, ever wanted to marry anyone at all, never again in his whole entire life, even if he lived to be a hundred, or two hundred, or a thousand, and really, in point of fact, when it came right down to it, he didn’t want to care about somebody in a way that made one think for the briefest second that one actually might want to marry that person, because that made one feel uncomfortable and wretched and full of memories from one’s earlier experience being married which had been, in a word, hell on earth.

  Wait—that was three words.

  Which had been hellish.

  Suddenly he realized that Wakefield was looking up at him curiously, perhaps having heard the rather odd note in his voice, and then Wakefield tilted his head toward the Merifield party.

  “Her. Lady Thingummy.”

  “Lady Felicia?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about her?”

  “Are you going to marry her?”

  “No.”

  Wakefield nodded, and Anthony couldn’t resist asking, “Did she say you’re a horrid little boy?”

  “No, she said that I’m terribly charming.”

  Anthony also couldn’t resist asking, “Did she say I’m a neglectful father?”

  “No, she said that you’re terribly charming.”

  “Does she want to pack you off to Eton?”

  “No, she said she’s sure I’m getting a charming education from Mr. Pressley.”

  “So, no half-crown then?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad, my boy.”

  “Well, that’s life, isn’t it, Father? Sometimes you’re the carriage-wheel, and sometimes you’re the toad.”

  “I say, Wake, that’s awfully clever. And all too true.”

  “Higson said it.”

  “I had no idea he was so philosophical.”

  “Oh, he’s very pholisiphical, Father. Yesterday he said that life is like a dish of apricots.”

  “How so?”

  “Because apricots are his favorite fruit.”

  Anthony thought this over. “Is there more?”

  “There might have been, but I had a little trouble with the reins just then and so we forgot all about it.”

  “Did you run the cart off the road?”

  “No.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yes, but it was a near thing, Father, and Higson went absolutely white, so I stopped the cart for a little while until he stopped looking like a circus clown.”

  “That was thoughtful of you, old chap.”

  “It was the least I could do. Aren’t clowns awful, Father?”

  “Very.”

  “If I decide to be a menace to society when I grow up, I might become one.”

  “Well, that would be perfect.”

  “Much better than being a pirate or a highwayman, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I think so too. Look, Lady Thingummy’s waving goodbye at you.”

  Anthony glanced over to where Lady Felicia, on a spirited bay, was gaily flourishing her riding crop. He raised a hand in brief farewell and watched with secret, but unabashed gladness as she, along with Margaret, the Countess, and Viscount Whitton, rode away.

  For a few hours, at least, he could pretend that his life was his own again.

  “Here’s Higson, Father,” said Wakefield, and hopped down a couple of steps toward the pony-cart.

  “Wait,” Anthony said, and Wakefield paused, turning around to look up at him inquiringly.

  “Yes, Father?”

  “Is your tooth all right?”

  “Yes, it’s fine.”

  “Good. I’ll see you after lessons.”

  “All right, Father. Do you know what’s for luncheon today?”

  “No.”

  “Can I invite Jane over?”

  Anthony felt his stupid heart leap within him, and sternly told it to sit down and shut up. “If you like,” he said, as if it was a matter of complete indifference, which it wasn’t, as part of him hoped she would come, and another part of him hoped she wouldn’t, and he wished both parts would also sit down and shut up, because it was all just too awful and difficult.

  Wakefield hopped away and Anthony watched him climb into the pony-cart and have the reins handed to him by the stoic, long-suffering Higson.

  The pony briskly trotted off toward the vicarage, and for a minute or two Anthony stood there on the steps thinking about a dish of apricots and its possible philosophical value, then gave it up and went inside and upstairs to his library where he permitted himself a soothing half-hour with Dinkle (reading up on gum disease in pigs, a grisly but important topic), then labored messily over the accounts for an hour or so, and received his bailiff to talk at length about timber, spring crops, the puzzling apple blight, sheep-shearing, and, inevitably, drainage trenches.

  Next he wrote some cheques, and looked through his books for one on fruit plagues, but the only one he had wasn’t very informative, and after that he went downstairs to talk with Bunch for a little while, and also told him to give Higson a substantial raise.

  Then he went back outside, collected all the dogs, and together they strolled over to the pig-cote where he found a spectacularly disfigured Johns (by way of a nose which looked like a squashed turnip), who told him with ill-concealed pride that last night in a Riverton tavern he and Cremwell had gotten into a fistfight which had left him, Johns, with a bloody nose but Cremwell with a bloody nose and a black eye.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Johns.”

  “Aye, but guv’nor, he told everybody the Duchess’s got the gleets. So I said, ‘It’s you that’s got the gleets, my lad, and the shanker, and the crinkums to boot. And I’ll bet your mam does too.’ And he got all glimflashy.”

  “Well, of course he did. Johns, this has got to stop. How can you take care of the Duchess if Cremwell gets the best of you next time?”

  “He wouldn’t,” answered Johns, offended.

  “He might. He’s no bugaboo, you know. And then I’ll have to get somebody else to take over. Like Tebbinson, for example,” he added with deliberate provocation.

  “Tebbinson!” Johns was now both offended and horrified. “That grinagog! Guv’nor, you wouldn’t.”

  “If you’re laid up in bed with broken bones I’d have no choice.”

  To this Johns made no reply, but Anthony could see him thinking it over, and, reasonably satisfied, he leaned both elbows on the balustrade and watched the Duchess at her trough, happily making her way through a large pile of leftover gruel, cooked pumpkin, and lentils, this last giving him considerable pleasure to observe as he disliked lentils, and the more of them the Duchess consumed, the fewer there would be in the world, even if only temporarily.

  Then his eye was caught by a little shimmer high up in the doorway to the pig-cote’s interior, and he saw a rather nice spiderweb glistening in the sunlight, so expertly and intricately constructed that for a moment or two he thought he actually saw a word woven in there.

  Was there a J?

  And possibly an A?

  He squinted at it.

  And . . . could that be an N, followed by a squiggly, scraggly E?

  Of course not.

  Dismissing this fanciful thought from his mind, Anthony walked back to the house in time to see the pony-cart return, with all parties intact, this being, he saw at once, a party without Jane, and he hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry, but may have been both, and then he and Wakefield went inside to have a leisurely luncheon together, during which Wakefield told him all about the annoying math problems Mr. Pressley had set him to do, and about the interesting discussion they had had about the French Revolution, and also that Jane had said that while she couldn’t come over to luncheon, she appreciated the invitation very much, and she had mentioned that she would be coming over later on today for tea, along with the other Penhallows.

 
Anthony, therefore, used the rest of the afternoon to productively tamp down any lingering and troublesome yearnings he might have had for Jane, and so when tea-time rolled around and their guests had arrived, he was pleased to find himself perfectly, thoroughly, and entirely immune to her admittedly formidable and devastating charms.

  Jane had not been at all sure she really wanted to go to tea today at Hastings, given that last night’s experience there had been, to put it mildly, a mixed bag, but Great-grandmother had been adamant.

  And give Lady Margaret the satisfaction of our absence? she had scoffingly declared, in her sharp blue eyes a martial gleam. I think not.

  In the end, Livia had begged off, because little Lucy had seemed unusually querulous earlier, and Cousin Gabriel wanted to stay home to help Livia, he said, and spend time with all the children, so ultimately it was just herself and Great-grandmother who sallied forth.

  And now here they were in the Hastings drawing-room with the Duke and Lady Margaret (elegant in green silk), the three Merifields, Miss Trevelyan and Miss Humphrey, Mr. Pressley, and Sir Gregory and his wife Lady Stoke, a pleasant, shy, monosyllabic lady who seemed a little overawed by the company in which she found herself.

  Lady Felicia, the Countess, Lady Margaret, and Sir Gregory were animatedly sharing boring anecdotes about their day spent hunting, which had apparently been both divine and charming, Great-grandmother was satirical, the Viscount was staring at her again, the Duke was not only not staring, he wasn’t even looking at her at all, and so Jane, feeling very grumpy, and maybe even rather heartsore, decided she might as well enjoy her tea and scones and sandwiches if nothing else, and occupied herself with that pretty well for some time.

  Eventually Lady Felicia and the Countess began talking about last year’s London Season, all the people with whom they had spent time, the various activities they had enjoyed, and how charming and divine it all had been.

  “You simply must go this spring,” the Countess said, glancing between the Duke and Lady Margaret with a kind of coy urgency. “It won’t really be a Season without you.”

  “That would be delightful,” answered Lady Margaret, looking, to Jane’s surprise, just a little wistful. “The Farr townhouse has been empty for too long.”