Duke Du Jour

by Petie McCarty

  Jared stretched out his long legs and glumly accepted the cup of tea Heddy poured.

  “There’s brandy if you prefer, Master Jared,” she said.

  “Surely, you don’t think I would start drinking this early in the day?”

  Four pairs of eyes stared at him in disbelief.

  Bullen leaned over and murmured, “Shirley would be the upstairs maid. This here is Heddy.” He gave a nod toward the housekeeper. “As for the drinking, of course we do.”

  Jared only rolled his eyes. “No, thank you, Heddy,” he emphasized, and Bullen grinned.

  “So what do you remember?” Dexter demanded.

  Jared narrowed his eyes at the stranger. “Not you.”

  “And why are you dressed like that?” The obnoxious earl eyed him from head to toe and then glanced at the mantel clock—half past two. “Isn’t it a little late for you to be in your night clothes?”

  “These are not my night clothes,” Jared snapped. “And why are you here?”

  “You are being ruder than normal,” Bullen muttered only loud enough for Jared to hear.

  He ignored Bullen.

  “I was passing through Dolan on the way to my country estate here in Hampshire when I ran into one of your stable boys—Wink, I think his name was—spreading the rumor you had returned from the dead, or rather the continent. Since your townhouse has remained unoccupied except for your skeleton staff, I drove here straight away to see for m’self.”

  “How do you know about my townhouse staff?”

  “Still rude,” Bullen muttered, and Jared considered showing him the door.

  “My townhouse is next door to yours,” Dexter said, “or don’t you remember that either?”

  “He remembers places better than people.”

  “Thank you, Bullen,” Jared said drily, “since I am incapable of answering for myself.”

  The oaf gave a polite nod.

  “Where are you staying?” Jared asked Dexter abruptly.

  The earl looked nonplussed for the second time and no doubt had expected an invitation from Jared to stay at Haverly. “I suppose at the Hare and Hound Inn in the village,” he said warily, “since I can’t make it to Grasslawn now before dark.”

  “Well, now that you have seen me, you can go. I am fine.”

  The earl’s glare softened. “Yes, and I am amazed, I must say.”

  “Why? Because I survived a suspicious oxcart attack?”

  Ariana gasped, and Dexter’s eyes flashed. “No, because you survived the assassination attempt I was told you had sustained in France.”

  Now it was Jared’s turn to gape.

  His ancestor had been assassinated? That tidbit had not appeared in the few records Jared had managed to locate.

  “I thought I died in the Battle of Waterloo.”

  Four googly-eyed stares met his.

  Oops!

  He was jousting with a trip to Bedlam again. “That is what everyone assumed anyway,” he said quickly, trying to cover for his misstep. “Where did you hear of an assassination attempt?”

  Dexter stared for a moment longer before answering. “London.”

  “Well, of course you heard that in London. One hears everything in London.” Some things had not changed in two hundred years. “But from whom?”

  Dexter expression shuttered. “I am not at liberty to say.”

  Jared narrowed his eyes. “You mean you won’t.”

  “Cannot.”

  “Bull!”

  “—en. That would be Bull-en,” the namesake muttered loud enough for Jared’s ears only. “And I’m right here, so you don’t have to yell.”

  Jared stifled yet another eye roll. At this rate, he would have a migraine by dinner, or rather a megrim since this was Regency times. Good Lord, what would they do for a headache here? Stick leeches on me? He shuddered.

  “I truly cannot say,” Dexter was saying.

  “Whatever.” Jared waved him off. “Weren’t you leaving?”

  Dexter’s lips grew taut, and he gave a curt nod.

  “Wait!” Ariana said suddenly.

  She had been amazingly quiet for any female of Jared’s acquaintance, though he remembered something about women in this century being repressed from giving opinions and making other than polite remarks on the weather. If he was stuck here for any length of time, he would make sure Ariana talked all she wanted. But only to him. Except for now, which would slow this stranger’s departure.

  “What is it?” That sounded curt even to him, so he added, “Please tell us, my lady.”

  “The main reason for my visit today, besides returning Harry, was to invite you to a ball at Wakefield Manor on Saturday evening, Your Grace.”

  He would be long gone by then. “I am just returned home, and I don’t think I could—”

  “But my father is giving the ball in your honor. Well, in honor of your return,” she explained, as though that made all the difference in the world.

  “Very kind of the old earl, but—” He searched wildly for a valid reason to decline, as he needed to nip this idea in the bud.

  She turned to Dexter. “If you are still here in the county on Saturday, my lord, you are invited as well.”

  Dexter gave her a radiant smile. “That is very kind of you, Lady Ariana.”

  “But I have not agreed to go,” Jared cut in.

  She waved a delicate hand at him. “Of course, you will. The ball is in your honor.”

  Well, of all the nerve. The little minx beamed at Dexter, and Jared wanted to bodily remove the man from his morning room. He did not want Dexter at the ball—evidently Jared’s ball—or anywhere near Ariana for that matter. Something seemed off about the earl.

  Ariana rose. “I really must be going. Papa will be wondering where I am.”

  Before Jared could blink, Dexter was on his feet and offered her his arm.

  “I will escort you to your carriage,” he said, then graced her with another charming smile that Jared wanted to wipe off the earl’s face with his fist.

  Instead, he jumped to his feet and announced, “My house, my responsibility. I will do it.”

  “Very subtle,” Bullen muttered at his back.

  Ariana dipped her head genteelly. “Thank you, Your Grace, but Lord Dexter is already headed that way, so I will just walk out with him.”

  “But—”

  Her eyes twinkled. Was she playing with him?

  Dexter sashayed her out the door but not without sending Jared a smug look over his shoulder. Jared decided right then he would stick around until Saturday whether the fountain was fixed or not. He refused to let the Earl of Dexter win.

  ****

  When Ariana and Dexter had departed, Jared hustled back to the garden to survey the damage to the fountain. The destruction looked far worse than he had first thought. The oxcart had been relocated back to the woodshed and anchored, and the wide gap in the sidewall of the fountain lay exposed like an open wound. Bricks had tumbled about in heaps, and every drop of water had drained away. Jared heaved a deep sigh and stepped through the gap, shifting until he stood next to the cherub statue in the center.

  He waited.

  Nothing happened.

  Of course, nothing happened. Such was his luck. Oddly enough, he felt a stab of regret at the possibility of waking up back in the twenty-first century if he could somehow manage the feat.

  The beautiful and tempting Ariana lived here. Now. He had been taken with the girl at first sight. And why had his wily ancestor not offered for her? Bullen had said she was past her debutante years and encroached on spinster status, odd as that would seem in the future. At twenty-three, she was considered on the shelf, almost ancient by Regency marriage-mart standards. Truth be told, the thought of Ariana being on the shelf made him happy, for he did not want anyone else to have her. Not once he had tasted her. He had never felt so aroused by a single kiss before and wished he could take her back to the future with him. She was a woman with whom he could happily prod
uce heirs. Or with his luck and the curse, one heir, no spare.

  Hellfire and damnation.

  He had to get himself home first. Five minutes of standing in this blasted fountain had accomplished absolutely nothing. Glaring at the piles of dislodged bricks hadn’t helped either. He needed to figure out how his time travel had occurred. He had arrived soaking wet and with a bump on his head from striking the fountain. He would try the water first before he knocked himself out striking his head on what remained of the fountain wall, but he would need to repair the fountain before he could fill it.

  “Lose something?”

  He turned to face an amused Bullen.

  “Grown a fondness for this fountain, have you?”

  Jared managed a chuckle. “Actually, I have.” At least he could laugh at his predicament. “Tell me, Bullen. Do we have a brickmason on the estate?”

  “Not here, but Clyde Cromarty in Compton does well enough.”

  Jared climbed out of the fountain. “Could you send for him first thing in the morning to repair this fountain?”

  Bullen gave him a narrow gaze. “You are asking, Your Grace?”

  Jared eyed him without responding.

  “I don’t ever recall you asking your servants to perform a task.”

  Oops. No hope for the faux pas now.

  “Well, I am asking. Who knows? Maybe I have changed.”

  “Right.”

  “The brickmason?”

  “Yes, Your Grace. I will have him here tomorrow—” He paused. “—if you will answer a question for me.”

  Jared arched an imperious brow.

  “Why fix this ancient fountain, and what is with the odd clothes?”

  “That’s two questions.”

  Bullen grinned. “You could humor me.”

  “Or not.” He smiled back. His stable master was irreverent, disrespectful, impatient, and suspicious, and Jared found he liked him anyway. “I know it sounds crazy, but I rather imagine this fountain is the key to getting my memory back.”

  Bullen looked at him as though he had grown an extra nose.

  Careful, Jared. Treading thin ice.

  “I lost my memory here, so it stands to reason my memory should return here,” he offered.

  Bullen nodded along.

  “And as for the clothes, I—uh—I acquired them in France and obviously made a poor choice.” He started up the clay path to the house. “Right now, I’m hungry, tired, and desperately in need of fresh clothes.”

  No matter whose they are.

  “That’s what I came to tell you,” Bullen said, trotting up alongside. “Your valet, Wiggs, is just back from London.”

  Chapter Five

  Jared awakened the following morning with an inexplicable urgency to see Lady Ariana again. Or maybe not so inexplicable. Maybe the urgency arose from some type of internal alarm due to his limited time with these new acquaintances in his not-quite-so-ancestral home. Acquaintances and servants that, much to his surprise, he thoroughly enjoyed. At least for now, he decided to live in the moment and go with his gut.

  His inadvertent successes of the previous twelve hours filled him with a fair amount of pride. His valet, Wiggs, had not fingered him as an impostor. The little man had merely gasped, teared up, and set to work polishing Jared’s immensely tall boots. Jared had ordered repairs to his time travel fountain, eaten dinner, and actually enjoyed the food, learned to make do with candles in the evening, taken his first bath since the age of two he was certain, and managed to dress this morning with little or no assistance from Wiggs. Though that turned out to be another faux pas. He immediately rectified his mistake—when the little crybaby teared up again—by allowing Wiggs to tie his cravat and select his jeweled cravat pin.

  Best of all, he had driven his curricle to Wakefield Manor—alone, except for Harry who refused to leave his side—after only one lesson from Bullen early that morning. Everything considered, not bad.

  Full of anticipation, he arrived late morning at Ariana’s home. Ordering Harry to remain in the curricle, he rapped the knocker on the front door and stepped through when it was opened by a somber butler, who barely glanced at the calling card Jared handed him. The butler studied him instead of the card. The man had protruding camel lips that made his stare all the more disconcerting.

  Surely, Jared could not have bungled this already. Gentlemen in this era always handed over a card when formally calling upon an unmarried lady. He had felt pretty good about himself when he remembered that tidbit from his research and gone in search of his ancestor’s calling cards in the massive library desk he knew so well.

  Had Camel Lips seen him arrive in the curricle? That could not be the problem. He felt certain his technique was above reproach. Bullen’s lesson had helped, but the curricle handled a lot like the racing sulkies he owned—or would own in the future whenever he got around to being born. He now suspected his immense love of horses and everything associated with them to be another genetic predisposition, courtesy of his ancestors.

  So why the dreaded butler stare?

  “I will let Lady Ariana know you are here, Your Grace.” Camel Lips grudgingly showed Jared to a formal parlor off the front hall, probably the morning room since it faced east.

  He had read of Wakefield Manor in one of his record searches in the future and was surprised to learn the estate had been nearly as large as Haverly. The manor house dated back to the Norman conquerors and sadly would burn to the ground in 1921 to be replaced by a public park when the lands reverted to the government for nonpayment of taxes.

  Jared wandered to the fireplace mantel to check out the delicate curios. A crash sounded upstairs followed by a feminine shriek. He bolted for the door as another squeal erupted.

  “My lady, get them! Please!”

  He raced to the stair base and looked up to find a whimpering maid with her back squashed against the upstairs balcony rail. Ariana suddenly appeared, looking calm enough to serve tea.

  “It is quite all right, Maddy,” she said briskly. “They won’t hurt you. They like you.”

  “But they scare me,” the maid blustered out, “and Baron Dalton says dogs do not ever belong in the house.”

  Ariana stilled. “How would you know what Baron Dalton says about dogs?”

  The maid shrank a bit farther along the balcony rail.

  “I seen him in town, I did.”

  “To talk about dogs?”

  “Well, no.” The maid smiled smugly but caught herself at Ariana’s frown. “Just passed the time of day, we did.”

  “I see.”

  The maid fidgeted under Ariana’s solemn stare.

  “Now, I have held the dogs before while you petted them, Maddy. You know they do not bite, but if you are that scared, I could always transfer you to the scullery. The dogs are not allowed in the kitchen. It is the one room that is off limits to them.”

  Jared swore he heard the upstairs maid gulp.

  “The scullery, my lady?” Maddy said, her whimpering suddenly ceased. “I could never do that again, not after making it to upstairs maid.”

  “I am sorry, but that is your only choice. It is the only available position where we need help at the manor.”

  This time Jared knew he heard the maid gulp.

  “Weeell…” The maid drew the word out over several seconds as though considering. “I s’pose I could get used to the dogs upstairs, my lady.”

  “I thought so,” Ariana said and gently patted the maid’s arm. “You will do just fine.” She turned at the top of the stairs and glanced back. “Dogs, let’s go.”

  Furry bodies bounded past the balusters and circled Ariana as she descended the stairs looking every inch the elegant Regency lady, even with dogs—was that five dogs?—crowding about her heels.

  One tiny rat-like dog trailed the four larger dogs as the group trotted down the stairs, speeding up when they spotted Jared at the bottom. He laughed when the group attacked—tongues lolling happily as they jumped up again
st his legs, the tiny one weaving in and out of the legs of the larger varieties. He took a seat on the second stair, and dogs covered him.

  The largest dog, a professional-fence-jumper breed, almost pushed him over, and the tiny dog, something that resembled a Jack Russell Chihuahua, leaped into his lap, pressed tiny paws to his chest, and tongue-cleaned his chin. Two spaniels and a beagle of sorts rounded out the bunch, and he loved them all, wondering yet again how he had made it to the age of thirty without having owned a dog. Small wonder Seven had sent Harry here to live when he traipsed across the channel to join Wellington.

  Ariana continued down to the bottom and called to Camel Lips. “Malcolm, could you please put the dogs in the study for now?”

  Old Malcolm did not appear too excited by the task. He picked up the tiny one, then grabbed the collar on the closest quivering and wagging spaniel. The last three happily trailed behind when he called, “Treats.”

  Jared would have to remember that trick with Harry.

  Ariana did not look altogether happy to see him, though he had held out hope after lying awake half the night perseverating on yesterday’s kiss. That kiss had left him brainless for the first time in his life. No woman had ever left him feeling like that after a single kiss. The only thing certain during those long, sleepless hours was his need to see her again, to see if it was only some weird quirk of fate connected to the fountain. He required one more kiss to be sure.

  If it wasn’t some odd quirk of fate never to be repeated? He would worry about that later.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  He stood and executed a deep formal bow.

  Her eyes widened a bit. “So formal, are we?”

  He could lose himself in those incredible emerald eyes. They looked just as green as he envisioned through the hours he fought to find sleep the prior night. The rope-suspension contraption beneath his feather-tick mattress could be partly to blame, but those sensual green eyes would have kept him awake regardless.

  “You look very nice this morning,” she said, giving his attire a brief once-over.

  He felt another stab of pride at his ingenuity and self-sufficiency over the last twelve hours, though he promised himself he would soon have one of the new-fangled shower baths his valet Wiggs told him were all the rage in London. He had found in the armoire several pairs of buckskin breeches that turned out to be incredibly comfortable for riding. The beaver hat and polished Hessians were odd enough accessories for his attire, but the cravat was damned uncomfortable, and he stifled the constant urge to pull the starched cloth away from his neck.