The Duke Is a Devil

by Karen Lingefelt

  “I am not accountable for anything my father did, but I am responsible for what I do now,” Bradbury said. “You cannot deny that in addition to letting you live in this house rent-free, I provide both you and Harry with an ample allowance, enough to permit you and your ladyfolk to move about in society.”

  That they did. Willard and Harry were always off to London, where they usually stayed with Willard and Thea’s other daughter, Marianne, younger than Cecily but older than Rebecca. Marianne was married to Lord Pilkington, who kept a house with his mother and sister on Green Street in Mayfair. Willard’s “ladyfolk”, meanwhile, were invited to house parties and just spent this last summer taking the waters in Bath. Bradbury’s largesse made these things possible. Yet Willard constantly complained behind his nephew’s back that it wasn’t enough.

  “Therefore,” Bradbury went on, “if I hear Harry is profiting from this book—unless, of course, he can prove that he’s the author—there will be dire consequences for all involved.”

  Ducal consequences, Cecily thought.

  “I assure you I know nothing,” Willard declared.

  “You need not assure me of that,” Bradbury retorted. “Good day.”

  Cecily held her breath as the duke departed, and Uncle Willard returned to the dining room.

  She retired to her bedchamber where her dressing table, by now, was beyond hope, for the spilled ink had long since dried. She gazed in horror at her reflection in the small mirror tilted askew above the wreckage. She looked a muddy, inky fright.

  And that devil of a duke had seen her this way. And made light of it. Again.

  If he wanted proof that Harry was the author, then it stood to reason he’d want proof that she was the author. She was frankly surprised that he hadn’t drawn the conclusion and made the accusation over luncheon. But even if she’d volunteered the information, would he have believed her? The frustrating irony was that her own relatives didn’t believe anything she said precisely because she wrote stories.

  She washed and changed, and then sat on the edge of her bed, staring into space, wondering what she was to do next. Surely the events of today were a series of signs that she should abandon writing. It seemed to get her into just as much trouble as the Duke of Bradbury.

  She recognized the sudden light tapping at the door. The servants always scratched and Aunt Thea gave two sharp raps, while Uncle Willard hammered and bellowed. Cousin Harry simply threw the door open and crashed in without warning. That was usually how he caught her in the criminal act of writing.

  “Come in, Rebecca,” she called out.

  The door swung open to reveal her younger cousin, a shorter and plumper version of Cecily. Rebecca’s hair was a lighter shade of brown than Cecily’s mousy mess, and more exquisitely coiffed. She held out a pair of gloves stained with ink. “Mama says these must be yours.”

  Cecily did sometimes wear gloves while writing. “Where did you find them? I don’t wear them outside this room, unless Harry stole them as a prank.” She’d put nothing past him.

  “I heard you had a mishap while out walking, and that now you can’t walk,” Rebecca said. “Does this mean you won’t be able to accompany us to London for the Little Season?”

  “It seems I only twisted my ankle falling into a ha-ha, so I should still be able to go to London—if your father permits it. There’s still the matter of the ink on my face. That may take a few weeks to fade.”

  “Surely you can powder it,” suggested Rebecca. “That’s what Great Aunt Jacinda did for years to conceal a port wine stain on her forehead. They didn’t make mouches big enough to cover it, so she always powdered it quite heavily.”

  “With lead, and she went mad,” Cecily reminded her. “She was as mad as Caligula.”

  “I daresay she must have gone mad because of the port wine stain,” surmised Rebecca. “And who’s Caligula? A London hatter?”

  “He was an emperor of Rome, almost eighteen hundred years ago,” Cecily replied. “He made his horse a senator.”

  Rebecca knit her brow. “A what?”

  Cecily raised both hands, palms facing her cousin. “Never mind.” You couldn’t have any conversation with Rebecca that went beyond the weather, the latest fashions, and local gossip. “Just tell me, did Harry really go to London already?”

  “He told Papa he had business there that was too urgent to wait until our own departure, and then he left. You know how Harry is always saying that he’s well over one and twenty, going on thirty now, and needn’t account to anyone for his time.”

  Except when he needed an advance on his quarterly allowance, Cecily silently added.

  “Of course, I shall turn one and twenty while we’re in London,” Rebecca went on. “And the only freedom I shall have at that point is to marry whomever I please without Papa’s consent.”

  “Surely you wouldn’t do that?” Cecily inquired. “I mean, you could, but wouldn’t you still wish to have your father’s blessing?”

  “Certainly, but if I’m in love with the man I want to marry, and Papa doesn’t approve of him, then I suppose I shall have to do without his blessing. Would you marry without his blessing, Cecily? After all, you’re seven and twenty now.”

  With no dowry. And no prospect of offers, except from Vicar Eastman, and that was only according to her uncle and aunt.

  She sighed. “I don’t believe that’s a dilemma I shall ever have to face.”

  Rebecca nodded. “Poor Cecily. You really are at your last prayers now, aren’t you?”

  Cecily slowly rose from the edge of the bed, careful not to put too much weight on her twisted ankle. “Oh, I am past that now, Becky. I’ve stopped praying altogether.”

  Not that she’d ever prayed for a husband in the first place. Her parents’ marriage had been one of convenience, all to avert scandal. Cecily wished to marry for love. Yet whenever she thought of marrying for love, she could only picture one man in her mind: Demetrius Aubrey Norbert Elton Armstrong, the Duke of Bradbury.

  Why?

  She’d asked herself that question a thousand and one times over the years. Oh, she knew how the whole thing started. What she couldn’t figure out was why the whole thing continued. Uncle Willard was right: Every time she went near the Duke of Bradbury, or he came near her, trouble ensued, invariably at her expense.

  At the tender age of eleven, how could she not have fallen in love with the tall, golden-haired god who rescued her from a tree when no one else would? When everyone else had abandoned her? She’d never forgotten the way her heart had danced as he took her back home, whereupon the fleeting dream was shattered.

  Even today, as she sprawled on the slope of the ha-ha, watching him stand over her with his leonine mane of golden hair, the broad shoulders beneath his dark blue coat, and the buff breeches that fitted his muscled thighs so snugly, she’d felt a yearning in her core so strong that it all but obliterated any pain she felt from her fall. Indeed, she thought that desire had left her even more breathless than the fall itself.

  Cecily had gone to Bradbury Park thinking she would do anything to prevent that book from being published. So why had she been so affronted when he asked, “How desperate are you to help your friend and save her from ruin as a result of her own folly? How far would you go on her behalf? What would you do to stop its publication?”

  “What would I do?” she’d asked. “I’m doing it now, and it doesn’t seem to be enough. What more can I do?”

  “Then how do you feel about being ruined as a result of something else?”

  What else could he have been suggesting, except the same thing Harry always demanded in exchange for not showing her written works to Uncle Willard? Cecily had no recollection of actually saying that she’d do anything to keep her book unpublished.

  Yet she couldn’t help feeling she might have said as much to the duke.

  So what could she do now, except consider the prospect of Vicar Eastman and never writing anything again?

  She glanced up.
“Mr. Eastman called, did he? I don’t suppose he asked about me.”

  “He never mentioned you,” Rebecca replied. “Mama and Papa were out of the dining room for some time when the duke called. Since neither you nor Harry was there for luncheon, it fell to me to converse with Mr. Eastman.”

  That must have been quite the scintillating conversation, Cecily thought.

  Rebecca leaned toward her and lowered her voice to a whisper. “He and I are in love.”

  Cecily was literally taken aback, as she reared away from her cousin. “That seems rather sudden. And this happened during luncheon?”

  Rebecca shook her head. “No, we’ve been secretly pining for one another for months now—but today’s luncheon was the first time Mr. Eastman and I were actually alone together.” She clasped her hands together. “Oh, Cecily, I would’ve let him kiss me right there at the table if Mama hadn’t returned to the dining room in time to prevent it happening. All we needed was one more moment and she would’ve caught us—and then we could’ve married!”

  “Well, drat,” Cecily said flatly, as much on her cousin’s behalf as her own. Aunt Thea would have screamed, and that would have yanked Uncle Willard back to the dining room, leaving Cecily alone with the duke.

  “Mr. Eastman said he’s expected to offer for you. Papa even sent him to Bradbury Park to receive the duke’s blessing—but he’d rather offer for me. You don’t really want to marry him, do you?”

  Cecily heaved a deep sigh, though she didn’t know whether it was in relief or despair. “No, I do not really want to marry him. But I don’t think your parents want you to marry him, either. I do believe that’s why we’re returning to London for the Little Season—in hopes you’ll find a better prospect before you turn one and twenty.”

  “Harry thinks I should marry his friend Lord Kingsley, but Kingsley has no money. Last time in London he took me driving in Hyde Park but in someone else’s phaeton. All he talked about was how every time he found a bride, a duke would come along and seduce her away. He even suggested that Bradbury would do the same with me, even though we’re first cousins, but first cousins do marry, you know.”

  “Yes, I know.” Many years ago, Uncle Willard had hinted at marrying Cecily to Harry, but praise the Almighty he hadn’t dropped any hints since. He was likely foxed at the time and didn’t recall.

  Rebecca babbled on, “I was so insulted that I would have nothing to do with Kingsley after that, but Mama seems determined to marry one of her daughters to an earl, and since Marianne only married a mere baron, it will have to be me, unless—” She grabbed Cecily’s hands. “Oh, Cecily, won’t you help me once we reach London? Mama will expect you to act as my chaperone again. Only until my natal day, and then I shall be free to wed Mr. Eastman.”

  Cecily squeezed her cousin’s hands. “Fear not, Becky. No one can frighten away prospective suitors better than I can.”

  DANE RODE BACK TO BRADBURY Park, wondering what might have happened to Miss Cecily Logan had he not come back for his hat. He didn’t care for the accusations Willard had hurled her way, and Dane had to admire the way she’d deflected them. Still, she could use a champion. With any luck, Vicar Eastman would propose to her before leaving the premises, and take her off Willard’s hands. Then Eastman could come to her rescue till death did they part. Surely she’d be safer than she was now.

  That should have relieved Dane, yet for some reason it didn’t. Instead, he felt annoyed at the thought of her married to Eastman. At least one of them was in for a lifetime of misery.

  He dismounted near the spot where he’d found Miss Logan to search for his hat. She was right. He found it in the muddy ditch of the ha-ha, the late summer breeze having blown it there, because of course it wouldn’t be damaged had the breeze tossed it in any other direction.

  He was a duke. That meant he had other hats. But he didn’t want to leave it there, loathing the sight of discarded refuse anywhere. He skidded down the steep, grassy slope to retrieve it, and carried it all the way back home.

  He entered the front hall to find Osbert waiting with a silver salver, upon which reposed a letter. “This arrived for Your Grace a short while ago, from Miss Logan. Perhaps she did mean to warn you ahead of time that she was coming, but she arrived before this message did.”

  Dane nodded in agreement, for he couldn’t imagine she’d written and sent it in the brief amount of time since he last saw her. “Do you know who, specifically, delivered it?”

  “One of Lord Willard’s servants, Your Grace. His stablehand, I believe, judging from his manner of dress. He came on foot.”

  Dane removed the letter from the salver and went to his library where he sat at the desk and opened the letter.

  “Ah ha,” he murmured. “So you’ve decided to confess the truth, albeit in writing.”

  He’d never before seen a sample of Miss Logan’s penmanship, and he was surprised at how illegible it was, though perhaps she’d scrawled it in haste after he left the dower house. But if her book was written in this same hand, then God only knew how it would read after being set by a printer.

  Dear Duke of Bradbury,

  Being a spinster with no prospects and plenty of time on my hands, I have an active imagination which I have channeled into the writing of stories, to include a book about the wicked Duke of Madfury titled The Duke Is a D—. I shall leave it to your own infamously sordid imagination to guess what that last word is.

  “You told me the title over luncheon,” Dane said aloud. “You can say it but you can’t write it? If this book is what you claim it is, then it should be teeming with so many annoying blanks as to be a pointless piece of—”

  “Your Grace?”

  Dane started and glanced up to see the butler in the open doorway, looking nonplussed.

  “Oh, never mind me, Osbert,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I’m talking to Miss Logan. Or rather, I’m talking to her letter. Carry on.”

  He continued reading.

  Should this book be published, it is certain to cause a sensation all over Britain. It will replenish my family’s empty coffers. For everyone will know the Duke of Madfury is obviously the Duke of Bradbury.

  What had Miss Logan told him over luncheon? “Anyone with even a partially functioning brain box will assume that Madfury must be Bradbury. That would conceivably include Harry.”

  Dane was beginning to think that maybe Miss Logan was a more colorful speaker than writer.

  Everyone will learn of your scandalous betrothals, to include that to Lady Milner, who jilted you for my maternal uncle, the Marquess of Frampton. Of your attempt to gain revenge by marrying her daughter, Miss Ernestine Benedict, who thwarted your vile scheme by jilting you at the altar for your own brother.

  “Oh, everyone knows about this already,” Dane scoffed. “And I know your thoroughly unreliable sources, Miss Logan. The Earl of Kingsley? Forsooth.” For the Earl of Kingsley, who’d once schemed to marry Dane’s sister-in-law, never did bother to figure out her first name was really Evangeline.

  Of how you ruined Miss Cassandra Payne, who was supposed to marry you. Your father and hers arranged that marriage when she was still in the cradle. And then, when you came of age, you refused to marry her because you thought she’d already been ruined by someone else.

  Dane shook his head. “She was in love with the Earl of Whidbey. Now whether he’d already ruined her, I have no idea, nor do I care.” In the end, Cassandra had married not the Earl of Whidbey but Vicar Frey, the younger son of the younger son of some baronet. The marriage had been brief and disastrous. Cassandra was now a widow but a wealthy one, thanks to the benevolence of a late, great aunt on the Continent. No wonder Harry was dangling after her.

  But Cassandra wasn’t the only betrothal Dane’s father had arranged for him. There were several other marriage contracts presented to Dane once he came of age, as if his father expected him to choose from among them. By that time, however, one of the brides was deceased. Another had eloped with the
younger son of a peer before fleeing to Canada.

  And then there was the one the Earl of Ashdown had showed to him two years ago. Not too long after drawing it up almost twenty years ago, Dane’s father declared it null and void. The would-be bride’s mother had understandably objected to the conditions.

  Dane wondered if the would-be bride ever had an inkling of it. There was no reference to it in this letter.

  He nearly slapped his palm against his face. It finally occurred to him that Miss Logan did not write this letter. Harry was undoubtedly the author. Dane flicked his gaze to the bottom of the page, where the scoundrel had made some attempt to sign Miss Logan’s name. The signature consisted of many loops and appeared to be missing the i unless that was another loop, but Dane didn’t see a dot above it. Either way, it explained the barely legible handwriting and even the misidentification of his brother’s wife. Harry was the exact kind of wastrel who would keep company with fellow wastrel Lord Kingsley. Wastrels, like birds of a feather, always tended to flock together.

  He saw no need to read the rest of it, since he already knew what he needed to know from Miss Logan, but for his own amusement, he read on, anyway.

  The book also includes details of how you seduced and then had me sacked from my position as governess. I have been reduced to my current state of affairs ever since.

  Well, no one in the ton knew about this. Not even Dane himself. Of course it never happened—that is, the part where he’d seduced her—but she did leave her position after he warned her away from the attentions of her employer’s son. He’d only been trying to help Miss Logan, as usual. The next day, she was gone. He’d always assumed she took his advice and sought a safer situation. He had nothing to do with her being dismissed from her position.

  But did this passage actually appear in her book? Perhaps it was a fictionalized account of what happened, though surely she didn’t write about Dane, in the guise of Madfury, seducing her?