The Worst Duke in the World

by Lisa Berne

  “That sounds like a wonderful plan. What will you do after that?”

  “I’ll throw all the dead sailors overboard, so that they’ll be eaten by the sharks and whales and octopuses, instead of me. Then I’ll sail the ship back to England and the King will try to give me some medals but I’ll say no.”

  “Why will you say no?”

  “Because I’m not just brave and clever, I’m also very unprutendish.”

  If the Duke were here, Jane thought, he’d say, Do you mean unpretentious? And of course Wakefield would answer, Yes, that’s what I said.

  But the Duke wasn’t here.

  He was probably still in his library, waiting for her to go home. And maybe even eating the chocolates that were supposed to be for her.

  “I say, Jane, you’re looking like Aunt Margaret’s cat again.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Well, I do have something I want to tell you, Wakefield.”

  “Is it that you can’t stay for luncheon?”

  “Yes and no. You see, I’ll be going away to London in a few weeks, and I wanted you to know that.”

  Wakefield peered at her in the cozy dimness. “Why are you going to London, Jane?”

  “Because my great-grandmother wants to take me, and also because I’m curious to see it.”

  “I’d like to go, too. I told Father I want to see the Tower of London and the Egyptian Hall and also Astley’s Amphitheatre, as long as there aren’t any clowns. But he won’t take me, because he hates London.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Oh, Jane, you’re not going to be away for a long time, are you? We still haven’t gone into the basement to look for rats, and I wanted to show you the tree Father fell out of. Also, lessons are more fun with you there.”

  “I’ve enjoyed our lessons together very much,” said Jane, guiltily dodging Wakefield’s question. “And I’m going to miss you while I’m gone. Do you think I could write to you? Would you like that?”

  Wakefield, who had been looking wistful, and also rather like Lady Margaret’s dolorous cat, brightened. “I say, I would. Nobody ever writes to me. I always ask Bunch when I see him sorting through the post, but there’s never anything for me.”

  “Well, now there will be.”

  “Do you promise, Jane?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “All right. I’ll miss you most awfully, but getting letters will help. Can you use a lot of wax for the seal? It will make the letters look more important.”

  “It will, won’t it? Yes, to be sure I can.”

  “That will be jolly. Would you like another biscuit?”

  “Yes, please.”

  So she and Wakefield ate several pieces of moldy hardtack which was crawling with weevils and they drank some disgustingly stale water as they pretended to be celebrated English spies trapped in the dank ghastly cells of the Bastille, and Jane agreed to be the decoy (by acting as if she was choking on an old chicken bone), so that when the nasty guard opened the door to their cell to see if Jane was alive or dead (and with true French nastiness hoping that she was dead), Wakefield with amazing swiftness and strength bashed him into unconsciousness before he had time to make a sound and alert the other equally nasty guards, and then he and Jane slipped out of the hideous bowels of the fortress (taking a few moments, of course, to release all the good prisoners from captivity, Wakefield having had the good sense to extract the keys from the unconscious guard’s belt), and then they emerged onto the streets of Paris with such splendid cunning and savoir faire that no one had the least idea they were enemy spies on the loose again.

  After that Jane said, apologetically, that it was time for her to go home, and so she crawled out from underneath the table, kissed Wakefield on the top of his head again, thanked him once more for letting her play a small but crucial role in his dashing exploits, and went to the Great Hall where she received her warm pelisse, bonnet, and gloves from a footman.

  She stood for a moment looking around her.

  Here was exactly where she had stood that memorable day when she had arrived at Hastings with Wakefield after lessons and the Duke had come into the house and said, I say, you’re here, with so much pleased wonderment in his voice that she had felt incredibly happy, and they had blithered away to each other in such a delightfully idiotic manner before going on to a delicious luncheon which included heaps of macaroni and also, for dessert, apple puffs with whipped cream which were so good that even now she could feel herself salivating a little just thinking about them.

  It was a beautiful memory.

  Then came another memory, more recent, and considerably less pleasant.

  Is it because you’re still in love with your wife?

  Yes, I am. I do apologize if my behavior has led you to believe that an attachment was being formed, or to expect an offer from me. It was very wrong of me, and I shan’t repeat it in future.

  “Miss Kent?” a voice said gently, and Jane blinked, bringing herself once again into the present moment. Don’t look back, she told herself with as much firmness as she could muster, look to the future. Then she realized that it was Bunch who had spoken. Bunch, who was looking at her with his inscrutable but somehow friendly hazel eyes.

  “Yes, Bunch?”

  “Your groom has brought your horse round to the front.”

  “Oh, he has? Thank you. Oh, Bunch—” she began to say, then realized just in the nick of time she was on the verge of blurting out, Why is the Duke being so awful? Instead she repeated silently to herself, Don’t look back, look ahead, don’t be like Great-grandmother Kent who let the past define her, and bitterness poison her. And she said out loud, “I’m going to London with my great-grandmother Henrietta.”

  “Indeed, Miss Kent? Will this be your first visit to the metropolis?”

  Jane had a sneaking suspicion that Bunch already knew all about it but was too discreet to say so. She didn’t mind. “Yes, it will be my first time. I’m looking forward to it, but—well, there are some people I’m going to miss.”

  “I quite understand, Miss Kent,” answered Bunch politely, and again Jane was sure he knew exactly what she meant and really did understand.

  Which somehow was very comforting.

  She managed to smile at him and then put on her things and went outside, was helped up onto her horse by the Penhallow groom, and began riding back to the Hall. As they passed the handsome old brick lodge-house, Jane noticed that the extremely flat dead toad was still there.

  It seemed so appropriate somehow.

  All the way home she thought about what had just transpired at Hastings.

  The Duke and his dead eyes and cool voice and haughty manner.

  Nonetheless, she had said what was on her mind and in her heart.

  I care a great deal for you, you know.

  In fact, I think—I know—I’ve fallen in love with you. That’s why I thought you might like to know when I’m coming back.

  I thought you had come to care for me too. But I see now that I was wrong. That it doesn’t matter to you when—or if—I return.

  And he had rejected her in the bluntest of terms.

  Leaving her full of love and longing and loss and also quite a bit of sadness and anger.

  All these things would eventually fade away, like a bad dream.

  Also, Jane thought, there was one good thing about beating one’s head against a wall: it felt better when one stopped.

  Still, she wished that she and Great-grandmother could leave not in two weeks, but tomorrow.

  She was ready to be gone.

  And to begin her future.

  Her dukeless future.

  Neither he nor Wakefield had much appetite for luncheon.

  Even though he was, of course, absolutely fine, there was no denying that all those conserves were sitting in his stomach taking up a lot of room and feeling rather
like a lead truncheon had somehow got lodged in there.

  As for Wakefield, he had artlessly revealed that he and Jane had recently eaten a whole plate of biscuits while they were pretending to be daring spies who cleverly outwitted their beastly French gaolers. Then he went on, “Father, did Jane tell you she’s going to London? Is that why she wanted to talk to you by herself? She told me underneath the billiards table, and I said I wanted to go to London, too.”

  Anthony shot a glance at Margaret who was sedately chewing, and to his surprise she didn’t comment or even look up from her plate.

  “Yes, she did tell me,” he said to Wakefield. “Are you quite finished? I thought perhaps we could walk over to the lake and skip some stones.”

  “Oh yes, that would be jolly,” answered Wakefield, instantly diverted. “I say, Father, will you show me that trick again? The one that has the stone bouncing like anything?”

  “It’s all in the wrist,” said Anthony, relieved at having successfully changed the subject. He stood up, and Wakefield did, too.

  So they went to the lake and skipped stones for a while, then stopped by the pig-cote to say hullo to the Duchess (and to Johns, who had zealously assigned himself guard duty just in case Jane decided to sneak over and put calomel in the slops or do something else just as devious, at which point Wakefield told him he was talking rot and being redonculous), and after that they decided to walk over to Miss Humphrey and Miss Trevelyan’s house where they were just in time to hear Miss Trevelyan read out loud from the latest chapter in her manuscript about Catherine Howard, which was rather sad and grisly, but afterwards they all cheered up when Miss Humphrey brought in a platter of freshly baked scones and some really good pears from her greenhouse, though to Anthony’s surprise and sorrow he could only eat one of each, that odd and unpleasant truncheon being still lodged in his stomach, and he watched with no little bitterness as Wakefield, Miss Trevelyan, and Miss Humphrey indulged, even feasted, on the delicious scones and pears and also some piping hot India tea (which he thought would help resolve the truncheon but didn’t, and made him worry, just a little, that it had taken up permanent and unwelcome residence within him).

  By the time he and Wakefield got home, it was nearly dark, and there commenced the usual bustle of bathing and dinner and then bedtime. Having last night finished The Tempest, Wakefield asked for more Shakespeare.

  “By all means.” Stretched out in bed next to Wakefield, Anthony reached onto the bedside table and took Tales from Shakespeare from the top of the stack, opened it, and looked at the table of contents. His heart sank a little, but then he remembered that he was absolutely and perfectly fine. He was thus able to calmly say, “We’ve read everything except Romeo and Juliet.”

  “What’s that one about? I forgot.”

  “It’s about two people who fall in love despite opposition from both their families, get married anyway, and then they die.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do they die?”

  “Romeo drinks poison, and Juliet stabs herself.”

  “I say, how jolly,” Wakefield said approvingly, then added, “Why do they do it?”

  “Because he thinks she’s dead, when she’s really not, and then she does it because she thinks he’s dead. Only she’s right—he is.”

  Wakefield took this in. “So they wouldn’t have died if Romeo hadn’t made a mistake?”

  “Quite possibly.”

  “Does he try poking her with a stick or something like that, just to be sure?”

  “No, he talks about how sad it is that she’s dead. And then he drinks the poison.”

  “That was stupid of him. He should have made sure.”

  “In fairness, Juliet had taken a drug that made her seem like she was dead.”

  “But she wasn’t, not really.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I still think he should have tried poking her with a stick.”

  “It might have helped.”

  “Is Romeo supposed to be the hero of the story?”

  “Yes.”

  “He sounds stupid.”

  “That’s as may be, but there is a fair amount of sword-fighting, if that tempts you at all. Shall we give it a go?”

  “No,” said Wakefield firmly. “What’s the point of reading a story if the hero is stupid?”

  “I daresay you’re right. What else, then?”

  “Greek mythology, please.”

  So Anthony switched books and read a very exciting story about the obviously heroic Perseus who was given shoes that allowed him to fly and a hat that made him invisible, after which he beheaded the nasty snake-headed Medusa, got into a terrific fight with a sea-monster called Cetus, and accidentally killed his grandfather with a discus (thereby demonstrating that everyone is capable of making at least one honest mistake), all of which Wakefield enjoyed very much and also made him feel a bit more lenient toward the hapless Romeo.

  “I say, I’d like some shoes that would let me fly,” he said. “I’d go to London to see Jane, and also I could ride Old Snorter like anything. Instead of falling off I’d fall up.” Then he gave a tremendous yawn. “Father, why were you so stuffy toward Jane when I brought her to your library?”

  “Was I?”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “I didn’t realize I was being stuffy.”

  “You were being very stuffy.”

  “Was I really?”

  “I just told you that you were,” said Wakefield drowsily. He yawned again, then pulled the covers up snugly around his shoulders. “Goodnight, Father.”

  Anthony kissed him. “Goodnight, my boy. Sleep well.” He got up, blew out the candles, and left Wakefield’s room, softly closing the door behind him. He stood in the quiet hallway for a few moments, contemplating his newly peaceful life and how incredibly fine everything was, and then he went to his library, where he took the big pasteboard box that was sitting on his desk and dumped it in his trash bin. Then he took the bin and set it outside in the hallway, where its contents would be collected and taken away.

  He wasn’t sure when, or if, he’d ever feel like eating chocolate conserves again.

  Chapter 18

  Sitting at the mahogany writing-desk in her gorgeously decorated bedchamber in the Penhallow townhouse, Jane picked up a quill and dipped it into the inkwell. It was very late, and she was tired, but every day was so busy and filled with activity that she had little time for leisure. And she did want to write some letters.

  1 June 1817

  Dear Wakefield,

  I hope this finds you well. How are your French lessons with Mr. Pressley coming along? Soon, I daresay, you will be able to impersonate a French spy like anything. As for me, I am keeping up with mathematics but not much else, I’m afraid. I find I like algebra a great deal, and I’m getting much better at long division. The other night, at a party, I met somebody who, as it turned out, is a mathematician and I enjoyed talking with him quite a lot. He told me (in terms that I could understand) about a recent study which develops the idea of infinite sums and trigonometric functions, and also about a lecture on mathematics and astronomy that’s taking place next week and I hope very much to go.

  I was sorry to hear in your latest letter that you had to disassemble your hidey-hole in the billiards room. It’s too bad that a family of mice found all those biscuit crumbs so delicious and decided to take up residence there. And yes, I agree that it was very kind of Bunch to have them transported outside rather than letting your aunt Margaret’s cat loose upon them. Also, I’m sorry your father wouldn’t let you keep the mice in a nice cage, as that would indeed have been jolly. Still, I suppose they’re happier being free to roam about.

  Speaking of your aunt Margaret’s cat, I was shocked to hear that it bit the ankle of one of your recent houseguests, and that the poor young lady needed Dr. Fotherham’s services. I do hope she hasn’t developed an infection or anything like that.

  You asked i
f I had been to the Egyptian Hall yet. Yes, my great-grandmother and I went with a large party last Wednesday despite her concerns that it would prove to be a vulgar exhibition packed with all manner of equally vulgar people. It certainly was crowded, but there were a great many people from the most fashionable circles, so perhaps that assuaged some of her concerns.

  I thought of you the whole time we were there. There were a lot of stuffed birds, a saddle which once belonged to the emperor of Mexico, some interesting models of Aztec temples, Napoleon’s famous war-carriage, and something I think you would have liked very much—a giant serpent which was all coiled up with its head raised and its jaws open wide, into which was placed a life-size model of a well-dressed woman. So it looked as if she was being devoured by the serpent.

  To own the truth it all looked very artificial to me, but while we were standing there staring at it, several women screamed and a man passed out, overcome, as he explained as soon as he regained consciousness, by the unspeakable horror of it all. (Great-grandmother said afterwards she was sure he was doing it just to get attention and show how refined his sensibilities were, when all he merely did was to make a cake out of himself.)

  They were selling cards with illustrations of the serpent and the war-carriage, these being their most popular exhibits, so of course I got them for you. They are enclosed, and I’m sorry for the extra postage but I hope no one will object.

  With great affection,

  Your friend,

  Jane

  After letting the ink dry and putting the two cards on top of the first page, Jane folded up her letter and, mindful of her promise, sealed it with a really enormous blob of wax. Then she took another piece of paper and started writing again.

  1 June 1817

  Dear Livia,

  Thank you very much for your letter, and with all the news from home. How exciting to hear that Daniel has said his first word! And how funny that it was “chicken,” and that you and Cousin Gabriel laughed yourselves into stitches over it. I’m sure he’ll be saying “Mama” and “Papa” very soon.

  Also, I’m glad that Titania didn’t mind falling off her horse into the mud. And that she got right back up onto her horse—good for her. She is such a determined little person, isn’t she? I must confess I nearly fell off my horse the other day, because I caught a glimpse of Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold in a carriage and was craning my neck so hard that I was nearly horizontal in my saddle. Luckily the Earl of Westenbury, with whom I was riding, noticed just in time and gallantly helped prop me up.