by Jane Ashford
Abruptly exhausted, Nathaniel pulled in the reins. It still took all his strength to ease the horses down, slowing them gently. He’d won. By God, he’d won!
When his speed had slackened sufficiently, stablemen ran to the leaders’ heads. They trotted along beside them, full of soothing phrases. The horses slowed to a walk. Nathaniel jumped down from the moving carriage. His legs trembled slightly from the strain. He went to the horses, walking alongside the stablemen as they continued to cool them down, to praise their great hearts. “Once they’re cool, a good rubdown,” he said to the ostlers. “And a good feed. The horses are the real heroes of these events.”
“Not many says so,” replied the stableman, with a salute. “No fear, m’lord, they’ll be treated like kings. His lordship always does so.” And then Rochford was there, slapping Nathaniel on the back, laughing at the triumph of his cattle. He chivvied Nathaniel back to face a sea of congratulations, the Regent first among them. Someone thrust a bottle of champagne into his hand, and he drank from it, terribly thirsty, though he would have preferred a pint of ale.
One by one, the other racers joined in. Nathaniel inquired about the two who had collided and learned they were all right, only shaken up. One horse had come up lame, and another was badly bruised. The animals took the brunt of these sports, he thought, as people jostled closer to stare at him. It wasn’t worth that.
A total stranger pounded his back and told him he was a complete hand. Others began to rehearse the details of the race, looking to him to resolve their disputes. He would not be doing this again, Nathaniel thought, the exhilaration of the win fading. He would enjoy some lively spins in his phaeton—with Violet—but no more of this melee. Memories of the day they’d driven together surfaced. How much more pleasurable that had been! He looked for her, but couldn’t spot her in the large crowd.
* * *
Should she push her way through the press of people to Nathaniel? Violet wondered. It would be a hot, jostling effort, and some of the men were becoming quite rowdy. Better to stay in her friend’s barouche, sip champagne, and watch her husband being lionized. She was terribly proud of him, and happy to accept congratulations on his behalf. She was also still trembling a little at the way his phaeton had come careening into the finish, and over the fact that only four of the six racers had returned. But Nathaniel was fine, she told herself, her heart full of love.
There’d been no sign of the Earl of Moreley among the crowd, for which she was grateful. She’d never expected to see her mother or the dowager. She hoped they had, in fact, left Brighton. It would make everything easier.
Before the dramatic ending of the race, she had encountered Marianne, walking beside her husband, who was being pushed along in a Bath chair. It was clear from the brief conversation that followed that the Granchesters were reconciled. Violet was glad to see it, but the way Marianne avoided her eye told her that they would not be such close friends in the future. Violet’s involvement in the Daniel episode, unwilling as it had been, would color all their encounters from now on. Which was not fair, she thought. But once you knew gossip, you couldn’t unknow it, she realized. Nor could the other people in the case forget that you knew. Here was another unforeseen consequence of greater freedom in society.
Violet sighed and took another bite of a really excellent ham sandwich from Lydia’s hamper. It was sad about Marianne, though her opinion of her old friend had changed a bit as well. Perhaps a little more distance was for the best. Indeed, everything would be practically perfect if it weren’t for the confession looming ahead of her.
Twenty-two
It was evening before Violet and Nathaniel were back in their snug parlor, with sea breezes wafting the curtains and a light supper set before them. “This is better,” said Nathaniel, sitting back with a wineglass in his hand. Late-summer sun made the liquid glint like rubies. “If I’d had any notion that race would attract such mobs, I wouldn’t have done it.”
“You liked winning,” Violet replied, teasing him.
He laughed. “I admit it. And passing Gibbons with an inch to spare was an undeniable thrill. But I’m also glad it’s over. It’s not a thing I shall do again. And I’m more than glad we didn’t go out. Everyone is still talking of the race. A quiet dinner is exactly what I wished for.” He raised his glass to her. “With a private celebration after?”
“Hot pursuit around the bedchamber?” Violet said.
Nathaniel choked on his wine.
As they laughed together, Violet thought how lovely it would be to put off telling him her secret. He was so happy tonight. She didn’t wish to spoil it, or her own mood. But if she gave in to that impulse it would pop up again and again, she realized. Each time there would be a reason not to confide—preserving a mellow occasion, lightening a somber one. And the distance she’d feared would gradually increase between them.
“I have to speak to you,” she said in an altered tone. There was no choice but to do it. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
Nathaniel put down his wine. “No. You don’t.”
Startled, Violet said, “What?” Had he heard somehow? Had the dowager broken her word? Or the earl? She examined his face for clues.
“I can tell from the tone of your voice that you would rather not speak. So I’m assuring you that you needn’t. Whatever it is won’t matter.”
“You can’t know—”
“I know you,” Nathaniel interrupted. “I trust you. I love you.”
Violet sat frozen in her chair for a long moment, not quite able to believe what she’d heard. Then her breath caught on a cascade of joy, rising through her chest, tightening her throat. She sprang up and went to throw her arms around him. “Oh, Nathaniel, I love you too. So much!”
He pulled her into his lap, the silk of her skirts slithering over his knees. “That’s enough. That’s everything,” he said, and kissed her with such blazing tenderness that she could hardly bear it.
She put all of her love for Nathaniel in her responses to his lips and hands, in the caresses of her own, and vowed again, with all the strength of her being, that she would sustain this marriage, which had turned out to be so much more than she’d ever dreamed.
One kiss led to another. His hands wandered in delicious ways. Her senses swam, and she came within an inch of forgetting everything else. But then there was a sound downstairs, as of a door slamming, and it all came rushing back. She wanted to give herself to him without reservation, without any hidden snares. “I have to tell you,” she said, breathless. She pulled away and then, reluctantly, returned to her own chair. “We can’t hide…important things from each other. If we do, all will go wrong.”
Nathaniel adjusted his neckcloth, which had become twisted. “Must it be now?” he asked, a bit breathless. At her quick gesture, he held up his hands in surrender. “Very well.”
But when it came down to it, Violet found it hard to begin. The fearful parts of her roused up again and threatened disaster. “When I spoke to my mother,” she began. And stalled.
At last, Nathaniel nodded. “She shared some confidences with you, which are difficult to contemplate.”
He’d been angry at the time, Violet remembered, hurt that she wouldn’t tell him what was said. This spurred her on. “She turned my life upside down.” She drew in a breath. There was nothing for it but to plunge in. “Before she was married to my father—”
The parlor door crashed open, hitting the wall and bouncing partway back. Renshaw stood framed in the opening, funereal in her perennial black, her eyes burning with malice and triumph. “My lord,” she declaimed, like an actress in a bad melodrama, “I have a piece of news for you!”
“What are you doing here?” said Violet, standing. Nathaniel rose as well.
“I’ve been sent,” was the sneering reply. “To tell his lordship the truth about the imposter he married.”
She had gotten the dowager’s promise not to speak, Violet thought, and the earl’s, but they had made
no oaths about envoys. It was like the old woman to break the spirit of the agreement while following the letter. Still, she couldn’t quite believe the dowager had shared the family’s secret with a spiteful creature like Renshaw. It was so stupid, and dangerous.
Renshaw pointed at Violet, her arm extended to full length. “She’s no more the daughter of an earl than I am,” she intoned. “Her father was a foreign rogue who dallied with the countess and was murdered for his crimes. She’s bad blood and not worthy of the position she’s been called to occupy. All by my lady’s charity.”
Violet sank back in her chair. There was no argument to make. Renshaw might have put the story in the worst possible light, but it wasn’t false. Well, except for the part about charity. The dowager had never been charitable in her life.
Nathaniel was looking at Renshaw, not at her. Was he shocked by the deception? Was he angry? Could he not bear the sight of her now? From the side, his face looked grim. The silence stretched until Violet thought she would scream.
Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed. He did not stand, but when he spoke, his tone was utterly commanding. “You will never repeat this slander.”
“You can’t stop the truth,” Violet’s former maid replied smugly. “If you take me to the law, I’ll tell the judges all about—”
“You will not be arrested,” Nathaniel cut in. “You’ll simply find yourself branded as a lunatic.”
Renshaw sneered at him. “My lady would never allow—”
“If you are referring to the dowager countess,” Nathaniel interrupted, “as I assume you are, I believe you will find her quite reluctant to oppose me.”
Under his unwavering gaze, Renshaw quailed a little. “No. She sent me here.”
“Which was a dangerous mistake, as she will soon discover.” Now he stood. As he walked toward Renshaw, she backed up a few steps.
“Her ladyship—”
“Do you imagine she can prevail against me? And all the resources Langford can bring to bear?” He walked over to the open door, checked the hall, and then called down the stairs, “Send Cates to me, please.”
Renshaw looked uneasy now, uncertain. “Perhaps you have not understood me, my lord. You have not married a Devere but a—”
“Quiet!”
His voice was like a whiplash. Violet had never heard her husband speak so. She trembled in her chair, wondering if it would be turned on her next.
Cates entered the parlor. He gave a small bow and waited.
“Miss Renshaw has been overtaken by a disorder of the senses,” Nathaniel told him. “I fear her dismissal from our service has…overset her faculties and caused her to suffer delusions. You will escort her to the lodgings of the dowager countess…”
“My lady will make you pay for this,” cried Renshaw.
“…along with a note I shall write,” Nathaniel continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “You are to give the note directly to the dowager. No one else.”
“Yes, sir,” said Cates.
“Will you see me treated so, Mister Cates?” Renshaw cried.
The look that the valet cast at his former colleague would have discouraged anyone, Violet thought. Renshaw had made a mistake here, fomenting quarrels.
Nathaniel sat at the writing desk and drew a sheet of notepaper toward him. He dipped a pen into the inkpot, thought a moment, then began to write. The parlor was silent except for the scratching of his pen.
He finished, waited a moment for the ink to dry, then sealed the missive. As he handed it to Cates, he looked at Renshaw. “I hope you understand that I am deadly serious. Keep on with this lunacy at your peril.”
Renshaw quailed under his gaze. She said nothing more as Cates urged her from the room, closing the door firmly behind him.
Nathaniel drew in a deep breath, and Violet found herself echoing it. She watched his face as he returned to his chair. “It’s true,” she blurted out. “That’s what I was about to tell you.” Her hands were shaking. “Mama…she eloped with a French émigré before her marriage. He claimed to be the son of a marquis, but… They were nearly to Scotland when an enemy of his caught up to them and killed him right before her eyes.”
“My God.”
Was he appalled at the story or at her personal history? “The Deveres took her back because of her money,” she added. “They wanted her fortune enough to bury the scandal.”
“I assumed she had told you some secret, but I never imagined a story such as this.”
Had he actually understood all of it? “When she married, Mama was already… I am the daughter of that Frenchman. Not a Devere, just as Renshaw told you.” There, she’d said it. Her shame was revealed. Now she would discover whether the duchess’s assurances, Nathaniel’s professed love, would bear up under the truth.
“I would never have thought it of your mother,” Nathaniel said.
Violet couldn’t take it in at first. He didn’t sound angry. Indeed, in any other circumstances, she would have thought he was amused.
“She actually fled to the border?”
“She was in love,” whispered Violet, remembering her mother’s face when she spoke of the Frenchman. She hadn’t even told her his last name, she realized.
“Well, that is quite a heritage,” Nathaniel said.
“What?” Violet gazed at him, still too shaken to comprehend. “What do you mean?”
“To come from a line of people who love so much that they risk everything,” he replied.
She swallowed. When she met his eyes, she took another long breath.
“We might try to research your father’s history,” Nathaniel said. He sounded simply interested. “We should be able to find the son of a marquis if he—”
“He was a rogue,” Violet told him. “He was the sort of man who would lure an heiress into an elopement. Does that sound like a nobleman?”
“Well, the émigrés had a hard time after the revolution, even the highest born. Their case was rather desperate. And he might have loved her. Also.”
Violet couldn’t quite believe it. “Nathaniel, you don’t seem to care that I am…not what you were told. I’m not the daughter of an English earl.”
“I do understand that.”
“But my lineage is not… You are always saying I will make a perfect duchess.”
“And so you will. It’s you I admire and love, Violet, not your bloodline.”
She was too moved to speak for several moments. “I thought you would be… Your family is so ancient.”
“If it had come out before I got to know you better, perhaps I might have been…concerned. I can’t tell. But Violet”—he came over to pull her from her chair and into his arms—“if your father was a rogue, well, perhaps I needed a little roguishness in my life. You have certainly made it happier in every way.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “You must always be my charming rogue.”
She clung to him. “The dowager still may do something…”
“She can’t put the story about after all these years,” Nathaniel said. “Setting aside the scandal, it would make her and your—the earl look like cheats and fools. I said as much in my note.”
“You did?” she marveled.
Nathaniel nodded. “Aren’t you a little glad to find that you’re no relation to the old dragon? I am!” He smiled down at her.
“There is that,” Violet acknowledged.
“Now, I think we have better things to do than worry about the deplorable Deveres.” He drew her closer.
Violet wasted no time in indicating her complete agreement.
Read on for a sneak peek at the next in The Duke’s Sons series
WHAT THE DUKE
DOESN’T KNOW
Lord James Gresham gazed at the spires of Oxford University, visible above the trees at the edge of his brother’s garden; at the early summer flowers in curving beds; at the fifteen people standing about chatting and drinking lemonade. It was a pretty scene, the sort of thing one dreamed of when tossed by a five-day tempest sev
en hundred miles from shore, or when repairing the ravages of a broadside that near as nothing took down the mainmast. Some poet had a bit about a lovely summer’s day. Probably Shakespeare. Nine times out of ten it was Shakespeare. If Randolph was here, and not stuck in his parish in the far north, he’d know the lines, for certain. Randolph had been mad for poetry before he became a vicar, always spouting some sonnet or other. Well, he probably still did. No reason a parson couldn’t, and he had a whole congregation for a captive audience now.
James had forgotten all the poetry they’d tried to make him memorize at school. He’d never taken to any subject except those that would help him onto a ship. For as long as he could remember, he’d been mad for the sea, haring off at sixteen to a midshipman’s berth on a man-of-war. How green he’d been, and how thrilled. All he’d ever wanted to do was captain a navy ship.
And now he’d lost his vessel, only two years after he’d been given a command at last. The Charis had been small, yes, and years of war had left her battered and limping into port, but he still couldn’t believe the Admiralty had decommissioned her. All their blathering about reduced requirements, with Napoleon beaten for good and all, and more efficient designs coming along in the shipyards was just so much noise, as far as he was concerned. Like condolences at a family funeral, the words hadn’t penetrated his sorrow. But they’d towed the Charis off to some backwater and abandoned her. And after ten years of service, they’d shaken his hand, given him a medal, and told him to enjoy a bit of a well-deserved rest.
So here he was, stuck on shore, waiting for a new posting, like who knew how many other navy men. The most likely berth would be second or third officer on a bigger ship, and more years to wait for another command.
The prospect depressed his spirits. It had made him consider, seriously, whether it wasn’t time to leave the navy and settle down. Had he, perhaps, had his fill of the sea? Which had brought him here, to this covey of chattering guests in their civilian clothes.
James eyed his hosts, his youngest brother Alan and Ariel, Alan’s lively and lovely new wife. According to family gossip, Ariel was a wizard at promoting perfect matches. She’d greased the wheels of Nathaniel’s marriage and helped Sebastian win a dazzling heiress. He hadn’t been able to resist asking her to see what she could come up with for him. With his prize money from the war, he certainly had the means to support a wife.