by Grace Burrowes, Shana Galen, Miranda Neville, Carolyn Jewel
“So you’ll tolerate my attentions for the duration of this house party?” Hardcastle asked. This strategy had come to him as he’d beheld the forces of marital inevitability gathering on the terrace below. He did not want just any duchess, and he certainly did not want a duchess who schemed to get her hands on a tiara regardless of the duke involved.
He wanted a woman who…
“Your attentions, sir?”
“I’ll act as your swain,” Hardcastle said, though he had no experience being a swain. “You’ll be my damsel. We don’t have to be smitten. A few glances, the occasional sighting of us walking too closely together, a waltz or two. Nothing compromising. If you see a fellow you’d like to pursue, simply tell me, and I’ll do the same if one of the ladies should catch my eye.”
Miss MacHugh’s expression was severe indeed, as if Hardcastle were her charge and he’d just broken his slate over his knee.
“I do not like falsehoods,” she said. “They grow and tangle, and become hurtful.”
“My entire life is a falsehood,” Hardcastle rejoined, coming near enough to study the highlights the afternoon sun put in Miss MacHugh’s hair. He knew the texture of her hair, had stolen a nuzzle of it in the traveling coach. Knew the silk of it against his lips, knew the lilac and lavender scent. He knew she had seventeen freckles on her left cheek, fourteen on her right.
Hardcastle also knew his time was up. No more idle musing, no more tacitly comparing every other woman to her, no more telling himself infatuation was normal even for a duke. If he failed to woo Ellen MacHugh in the next two weeks, she’d march out of his life forever.
“My life is a study in falsehood,” he said, taking up the reins of the conversation. “I’m to wear my title as if it’s a great privilege, as if running twelve estates and doing what I can to keep the Regent from bankrupting the country is an endless honor. I’m to be honorable and gentlemanly without ceasing, perfectly attired at all times, never say the wrong thing, never do the wrong thing. No human man can live up to that standard.”
Miss MacHugh smoothed a hand down his lapel. “But you do, sir. You are a good man and a good duke. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I like you.”
What in the perishing damned hell was a man to say to that?
“Then I’m not asking you to perpetrate any falsehoods, am I, Miss MacHugh? Simply act as if you like me. My name, by the way, is Gerard.”
She leaned close enough to sniff the rose affixed to his lapel, then stepped back. “Gerard Juvenal René Beaumarchand Hammersley, Eighth Duke of Hardcastle,” she recited. “I’m simply Ellen Ainsley MacHugh.”
She was simply driving him to distraction, fingering that locket.
“My brother called me Rennie,” Hardcastle said. “My father called me the despair of the house of Hammersley, though he occasionally smiled as he said it.”
Miss—Ellen—peered at the gathering below, her expression disgruntled. “I will be complicit in your scheme, sir, but I foresee it ending in great scandal. Those young ladies will learn that I was governess to your heir. They will not deal kindly with me when they do.”
“They will not learn of it, and in two weeks you and I will be free to quit this house and move on to happier pursuits.”
Though what could be more enjoyable than pursuing her? For Hardcastle would.
He’d vowed this as she’d stepped away from him, and his every instinct had thundered at him to kiss her. She was an earl’s relation, she wasn’t interested in the dandiprats frolicking around the men’s punchbowl, and she loved Christopher.
A tidy solution to several problems, including the predictable insurrection in Hardcastle’s breeches every time she drew near.
“Very well, sir, we have a bargain.” Ellen held out her hand, an elegant, freckle-free appendage.
Hardcastle took it and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “We have a bargain,” he replied, keeping her hand in his.
“You’re being a swain already,” she said, half-amused, half-exasperated. “Am I to sit next to you every evening over cards? Give you all my waltzes?”
“You are to adore the very ground upon which I strut,” he said, patting her hand. “I’ll enjoy that part rather a lot. Do you even know how to bat your eyelashes?”
“You’re to worship the ground I mince about on too, sir,” she said, retrieving her hand. “And no, I did not acquire the ability to bat my eyelashes when I was learning French and Italian.”
“Call me Hardcastle, please, or perhaps you might judiciously slip and use my name, then blush becomingly at your lapse.” He’d like to make her blush. She was a redhead, and they did not blush subtly.
“And you shall slip and call me Ellen,” she retorted. “What have I got myself into?”
“You have got yourself out of a lot of spotty boys and leering husbands drooling down your bodice, because you have me to keep them from such impropriety. You may go to sleep at night knowing you have preserved the sanity of at least one deserving duke. One question, my dear.”
She glowered at him. “Yes, dearest Hardcastle?”
“What’s in the locket? It’s pretty and suits you in both its simplicity and elegance.”
He’d confused her. Ellen’s expression said she could not tell if Hardcastle’s compliment was sincere, or swain-ly balderdash. She took the locket off over her head and opened it.
“This is a miniature of my sister. She has one of me. We’re twins, though I am the elder by a few minutes.”
Hardcastle dutifully took the locket, not because he needed to see a small, inexpert likeness of a younger version of Ellen, but because she’d offered to show him of her own accord. The painter, however, had been skilled with miniatures, catching the beauty of a young girl whose poise hadn’t yet eclipsed her innocence.
“She’s very like you, very fetching,” he said, wanting to hold the locket in his palm, but giving it back anyway. “You’ll see her again soon.”
Drat and damn the luck.
“We’re not identical,” Ellen said, “but the resemblance is quite strong. I’ve missed her terribly.”
Hardcastle knew what it was to miss a sibling. Why hadn’t he realized that even governesses had family, and would miss that family? If he could have had one more day with Robin, with his parents, with even his grandfather…
“We’re expected in the back gardens for Italian ices, my dear,” he said, winging his arm.
Ellen dropped the locket over her head and wrapped her hand around his sleeve.
“For another two weeks, we can support this farce. Lay on, Hardcastle, and do try to look adoring.”
*
“Bless you, Hardcastle! You’ve found my Miss MacHugh,” the Duchess of Sedgemere gushed. Ellen stifled the urge to duck behind the duke, for every pair of eyes on the terrace had turned to her.
“Your Grace.” Ellen curtseyed deeply, while beside her, Hardcastle bowed. “Thank you so much for excusing me from the morning’s activities. Won’t you introduce me to the other guests?”
“But of course,” the duchess said, and then Ellen was led away from the safety of Hardcastle’s escort and introduced to at least thirty thousand other people, some couples, some family groups, far too many single young men, and at least one gorgeous blond duke. She encountered pleasant, welcoming smiles, leers, and from the young women intent on winning Hardcastle’s notice, un-pleasant un-welcoming smiles too.
“Are you one of the Derbyshire MacHughs?” one young lady asked.
“Ellen’s uncle is the Earl of Dalton,” the duchess supplied. “His countess and I are fast friends, and Ellen has ever been a favorite of her aunt’s. She is already a favorite of mine too.”
And thus did trouble begin, as Miss Tamsin Frobisher’s baby-blue eyes narrowed, and she twirled a fat, golden sausage curl around her finger.
“I seem to recall—” Miss Frobisher began.
“You will have to excuse me,” the duchess said. “I am so sorry, but I must oversee the
serving of the ices. Miss Frobisher, perhaps you’ll assist me, and Ellen, I’ll leave you in the care of my dear husband.”
His Grace of Sedgemere had been silently accompanying them through the introductions. He was not a handsome man, his Nordic features were too severe for that, but when his gaze lit on his duchess, his expression softened.
“Come, Miss MacHugh, we’ve only the last of the bachelors yet to go,” Sedgemere said, seizing Ellen’s hand and positioning it on it arm. “They’ll be on their best behavior or I’ll kill them.”
Ellen wrapped her hand around his sleeve as they traversed the steps to the lower terrace, but she already felt the flames of gossip licking at her back.
“How considerate of you, Your Grace. I’m sure Hardcastle would assist you to dispose of the remains.”
“Hardcastle had better be on his best behavior too, or you need only apply to me, madam. This scheme of Her Grace’s is demented, and you’re either a saint or a fool for accommodating it.”
“In either case, you’re most welcome, Your Grace. Are all dukes so fierce, or do you and my—Hardcastle have a rivalry of some sort?”
“I consider Hardcastle among my very few friends, Miss MacHugh. Now, attend me, for my recitation will be sufficiently tedious that I don’t care to repeat it. The fop on the left is Jermand Hunslinger, sot and wastrel at large, but decorative. The dandy to the right is Harold Schacter, Viscount Ormandsley, whose besetting vice is horse racing. The imbecile in the middle is Greenover. He’s heir to the Earl of Moreton, has already accosted two chambermaids, and will likely not survive the next the week.”
Neither would Ellen. “You’ll kill him, sir?”
“My duchess will turn Miss Frobisher and Miss Pendleton loose on him. Poor sod won’t know his top from his tail by Sunday afternoon.”
“What a ruthless duchess you have, sir.”
“They’re the best kind.”
*
Sedgemere stood across the room, impersonating a Viking guardian angel at Ellen MacHugh’s side, looking quite severe, and probably laughing his arse off. Sedgemere had perfected silent mirth before leaving Eton. Hardcastle had no doubt it had served Sedgemere well through an interminable dinner too.
Miss Frobisher’s pale, quivering bosom had occupied Hardcastle’s attention on the left, or tried to, while Miss Pendleton’s more modest attributes had been jiggled at him from the right through at least ninety-seven exquisitely presented courses.
Hardcastle had declined the blancmange and would likely never enjoy that particular dish again.
“You might smile, Hardcastle,” the Duchess of Sedgemere said. “My housekeeper has been asked by four different lady’s maids for a map of the guest wing, ostensibly to prevent the young misses from getting lost.”
“If you gave any of them—”
She patted his hand, but the gesture conveyed none of the comfort, none of the soothing, that the same touch from Ellen would have.
“You’re in the family wing Hardcastle, and so is your Miss MacHugh. Does she know you’re smitten?”
“Anne, for shame. Dukes are not smitten.” Though Sedgemere was. Clearly, at some point, a man who’d never been known to dance with the same woman twice had given all his waltzes to the banker’s daughter. “What do you know of Miss MacHugh’s family?”
“I’ve done a bit of research, thanks to Mrs. Bolkers’s unfailing memory regarding the Quality. Ellen MacHugh never made her bow. She went to the right sort of finishing school, her auntie the countess was all ready to sponsor her Come Out, but then something happened, and into service Ellen went, far to the south, nobody knows exactly where.”
“Cornwall.” Literally the ends of the earth. “Her references were from Cornwall when she joined my household. Good God, now we’re to endure the caterwauling and cooing.”
For nothing would do, but Miss Frobisher must have Lord Ormandsley turn pages for her at the pianoforte. She played competently, she displayed her bosom for the viscount more competently still. Hardcastle’s head was beginning to pound, and he was thinking fondly of rainy miles in his traveling coach, when Miss Frobisher concluded her piece and aimed a vivacious smile at Ellen.
“Won’t you play for us, Miss MacHugh? I’m sure one of the gentlemen would be happy to turn pages for you.”
Ellen’s gaze met Hardcastle’s for an instant, an I told you so rather than a plea flung across the parlor. A chorus of “I’d be pleased to assist,” and “I’d love to oblige” rose up from amidst the puppies, and Hardcastle’s headache migrated to the region of his heart.
This was his fault. What if Ellen couldn’t play? What if she played badly? What if—
“I can play from memory,” she said, rising gracefully and crossing to the piano. “I’m a bit rusty, but it’s a beautiful instrument, and I do love music. I’ll play one of my mother’s favorites.”
She took her place on the bench, the lamplight dancing fire through her auburn hair.
Hardcastle braced himself for some sprightly, repetitive Mozart rondo, or a crashing Beethoven first movement.
As she started to play, a collective sigh eased from the room. She’d chosen a ballad from Mr. Burns’s work, “My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose.” The key was major, but the words of the poem were of farewell to a dearest love. She mercifully declined to sing, though Hardcastle knew each verse by heart.
Ellen’s playing featured not showy virtuosity, but instead, a sweet, leaping melody over lilting accompaniment and sentimental harmonies. Every dissonance was quickly resolved, while every phrase spoke of loss and regret.
When the piece concluded, the room remained silent for a moment, bathed in the peace of a tender melody. The duchess led the applause and prompted another young lady to play as Hardcastle edged around the room and took Ellen by the arm.
“You play very well,” he muttered, as Miss Pendleton went thumping into a tormented rendition of “Charlie, He’s My Darling.” “My head will soon be killing me. Might we admire the croaking of the nearest frog or the moon’s reflection on a mud puddle, or some blasted thing where it’s quiet?”
“I’d like that, Your Grace,” Ellen replied, fluffing the folds of his cravat.
“Do that again, please, while the Frobisher creature is goggling at us, and the Sheffield heiress is for once not tossing her curls. It’s a wonder the woman hasn’t dislocated her neck.”
Ellen obliged, rearranging lace at the same time she settled Hardcastle’s nerves. “Some fresh air would be welcome, sir.”
They left through the open French doors, the terrace offering relative cool and quiet compared to the crowded parlor. Hardcastle found a bench on the lower terrace, seated the lady, came down beside her, and stifled the urge to check his watch in the ample moonlight.
If he sought his bed this early, talk would ensue.
“I am ready to strangle my grandmother for insisting I attend this gathering,” Hardcastle said, “and I’m ready to leave at first light, but Sedgemere is a friend, and I’d not disrespect his hospitality. Say something.”
“The piano will need tuning by morning,” Ellen remarked. “Miss Pendleton enjoys a very confident touch at the keyboard.”
The damned chit could have drummed for a Highland regiment, but at least out here, her chopping at the hapless “Charlie” was at a tinkling distance.
“You enjoy a confident touch when your hands are on my person, Miss MacHugh. I like that.”
The lady ceased fussing her skirts. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”
A conversational commonplace had never worn as much starch. “I said, you enjoy—”
“I heard you, Hardcastle. If you think for one moment that a casual gesture between people who’ve known each other for years—”
Hardcastle cradled her jaw against his palm, and Ellen fell silent. He leaned nearer, close enough to catch her scent, close enough to whisper.
“Don’t scream.” Then he kissed her.
*
Ellen’s hea
rt was breaking about once every fifteen minutes. She saw Hardcastle teasing the duchess, a woman he clearly considered a friend, and was struck with the realization that in the past three years, she’d never once seen Hardcastle teasing anybody.
But then, nobody had teased him either.
He’d compliment a trio of companions on their embroidery and march away, oblivious to the envy directed at the companions by the young ladies they were supposed to attend.
Hardcastle was lonely, and Ellen was leaving him. He was such a good man, in his way, and after this house party, she’d never see him again.
She’d played for him, of course. Offered him Mr. Burns, a comfort in her younger years, a piece she’d be playing from memory decades hence. I will love thee still, my dear, till all the seas gang dry…
Hardcastle would love like that, relentlessly, deeply, nigh reverently. He’d love like a duke—
“I am ready to strangle my grandmother for insisting I attend this gathering,” he said as he and Ellen gained the blessed peace of the terrace. “And I’m ready to leave at first light, but Sedgemere is a friend, and I’d not disrespect his hospitality. Say something.”
Don’t go, sir. Please, don’t go. Not yet.
They were mere yards from the rest of the gathering. Ellen searched for a prosaic response and came up with an inanity.
“The piano will need tuning by morning,” she said. “Miss Pendleton enjoys a very confident touch at the keyboard.”
Her playing had sounded desperate to Ellen, as if by bombarding Hardcastle with notes, Miss Pendleton might decimate His Grace’s indifference.
“You enjoy a confident touch when your hands are on my person, Miss MacHugh. I like that.”
Ellen could not possibly have heard him correctly. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”
“I said, you enjoy—”
When in doubt, when in an utterly confused quandary, a governess always had a good scold ready.
“I heard you, Hardcastle. If you think for one moment that a casual gesture between people who’ve known each other for years—”