Four Dukes and a Devil

by Cathy Maxwell

  And after, the duke had reappeared and Mr. Crandall had bustled her and the boys back into the carriages.

  And then it had started to rain.

  For the last three hours she had been calculating to the minute how many more miles to Derbyshire as the drizzle turned into sheets of rain. If she could just get within a few miles of Wallace Abbey, she would relax. She and the boys could walk the rest of the way if need be. It had taken all of her patience to curb Peter’s curiosity and enthusiasm for the new sites beyond the carriage window, and to encourage him to read in complete silence.

  Finally, she spied it, the distinctive weathervane of the Cock & Crown Inn at Middleton, which was supposedly very close to Wallace Abbey. It had been described in detail to her by her benefactor, the Countess of Sheffield and by the lady’s fiancé—a man for whom Victoria had carried an unrequited longing in secret for a good portion of her life. She shifted in her seat, determined to put such impossible thoughts from her mind. She had tried to squash those dreams the day she had befriended the lovely countess. And she had irrevocably buried those same dreams in a grave six feet closer to China the day the countess and Michael Ranier de Peyster had formally announced their engagement. There was not a person alive who could not love the extraordinarily compassionate Countess of Sheffield. They had never discussed Victoria’s sensibilities toward Michael, but somehow she was certain the countess knew. And yet, that had not stopped the beautiful lady from assisting the foundling home.

  Victoria felt the duke’s gaze upon her once more, and she could not resist the challenge he unconsciously presented. She turned her face away from the sodden scenery. Even rain appeared more dreary in the country as opposed to the liveliness of town.

  “And precisely where is this cottage?” he asked quietly.

  “I believe it’s less than a mile from here, according to the directions given to me.” It was time to end this cat-versus-dog game. She had amused him to some degree for dozens of miles yesterday, and for her part, she had had the pleasure of experiencing about five seconds of pure, unadulterated lust last eve.

  At least she had managed to retain her innocence—little good it would ever do her—even if she had lost a portion of her sanity. Truth be told, she would have enjoyed just a few more seconds…or perhaps a full minute or three of his kisses. “As I told Mr. Crandall during the last change of horses, it’s the small dower house a mile or less from the abbey’s ruins, Your Grace.”

  His expression was impenetrable. “Your attention to protocol certainly makes a late appearance.”

  “I beg your pardon if I’ve offended in any way. We are, all of us, most grateful to you for taking us up.”

  “And?”

  “And, what?”

  He withdrew his handkerchief and sneezed.

  She continued, forced gratitude edging her words. “Thank you, too, for arranging our meals, and…and for our lodging.”

  “And?”

  She snapped with the tension and ill ease. She had not slept above one half hour after their interlude. “I will not thank you for the use of the bed last night. I was not given the choice of refusing it! And I said I would repay you for all the trouble we’ve caused you.”

  Peter’s eyes were round in his face.

  “Now you’ve done it,” the duke said, then looked at the boy. “Let this be a lesson to you, Peter. As some of the Canterbury Tales suggest, no good deed goes unpunished.”

  The carriage rumbled to a stop, followed by the other two ducal conveyances.

  “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” she said with a stab at sincere contriteness. “I truly am very grateful. I—I don’t know what I would have done without your coming to our aid.”

  His eyes narrowed, and she had the oddest sensation that he didn’t take any pleasure from her show of solicitous gratitude.

  He made a movement to remove the edges of his hat from the straps above them, and she stayed his arm with her hand. “No. It’s dreadful outside, and I’d rather not be the cause of any further inconveniences.” In truth, she wanted to remember him like he was now, ensconced in ducal plushness—or like last night in the moonlight.

  He looked at her for a long moment, ignored her request by tugging his hat onto his head, and opened the door to jump out. Apparently chivalry could not be repressed in a duke.

  It was pouring like the afternoon deluges of foreign jungles she had read about. Peter and she watched as he grasped the umbrella Mr. Crandall offered, then dodged mud puddles to reach the cottage door. The umbrella offered little protection from the storm.

  A man who appeared to be marked with a great many stains on his clothing stood waiting in the already open doorway. Much gesturing and talk emanated from the man. None emanated from the duke.

  It seemed an age before the man in the doorway bowed deeply, and the duke returned to Mr. Crandall. The noise of the rain drowned out their conversation, but Victoria used the moments to collect the book from Peter, button his plain coat, and straighten her gown in preparation for their descent.

  And then, with a rush, the duke was back inside the carriage, water running in rivulets down every part of him. He was as wet as a school of fish in the River Thames. And he did not appear happy about it.

  “Well, madam. It appears you are to move about all of England with an epic portion of ill luck.” He used one of the carriage blankets to ineffectively swipe at his large wet form, which seemed to take up more than half the carriage.

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  He glanced between Peter and her before picking up a walking stick to rap three times on the carriage roof. Before she could utter another word, the carriage jerked forward, and they reentered the roadway.

  “Wait! Please stop the carriage. I assure you we don’t mind getting a little wet. The boys and I—”

  “Miss Givan?” he interrupted, his face set.

  “Yes?” she replied.

  “Do you know the location of the closest structure with four empty beds?”

  “Yes. It’s behind us.”

  “No. That insult for a cottage features crumbling walls within and certainly not a single bed, cot, or pallet. There’s been a delay. Some sort of illness has forced most of the men from their labors. And those selfsame men lie abed in every last corner of every last inn in the neighborhood.”

  She was speechless for the first time in her life.

  “The nearest place with four empty beds is Beaulieu Park—my home, Miss Givan, which is miles from here.”

  “I see,” she said, her voice low. “Well, we shall just have to make do.” She grabbed the walking stick from the corner where he had placed it and struck the carriage ceiling again three times. She fell forward onto his lap when the carriage came to an abrupt halt. “Please arrange for Mr. Crandall to turn around. We’ll sleep on the ground in the cottage. It’s really not such a hardship. We are not used to feather beds, I assure you.” She did not know why she had such an ungodly urge to provoke this man, who had shown so much kindness to them.

  His face now as dark as the storm clouds in the sky, he grabbed the stick from her stiff fingers and rapped the ceiling yet again in rapid succession. The carriage jerked forward, and the duke’s head bumped into hers, causing her to see stars. She bit her lip to keep the tears from her eyes.

  When she finally allowed their eyes to meet, she saw for the first time a flash of displeasure there—just the barest flicker before it disappeared. She had to give him credit. He had more command of every inch of himself than Wellington before the French army.

  “The cottage has a quarter foot of water lining its floors due to the storm. And the second and third levels require better supports. It seems there are no doors or windows yet in the rear. And it stinks of the gutter inside. Now, Miss Givan, I have just one request.”

  “Yes, Your Grace?” she whispered.

  For a long moment he was silent. Peter’s fingers crept into hers. “You will not refer to me as ‘Your Grace’ when we are in
private. For some insane reason it has the hollow ring of an insult coming from your lips.”

  “I assure you it’s unintentional,” she said quietly.

  “Now, it’s all arranged. The four of you are to stay at Beaulieu Park for the next fortnight until the cottage is aired and habitable.” He paused and brushed off the inconvenience. “It’s not an imposition of any sort. The number of apartments in Beaulieu rivals the royal pavilion in Brighton. I shall assign two dozen maids to see to you and the boys to maintain a level of unquestionable propriety, since any breaches in decorum could result in actions already deemed unpalatable…to all of us.”

  She burst out in a little breath. “Of course.”

  “At any rate, I shall be in residence a mere week or so. I’ve only come to resolve a long-standing dispute between the former Duke of Beaufort and our neighbor. Then I must return to London. You shall then have Beaulieu to yourselves.” His eyes had become lazy and half-closed, his amusement returned. “I trust you not to cause too much damage in my absence, ma’am.”

  She hated having so little chance to exercise the smallest measure of pride. Poverty did that to a person. “Of course, Your Grace.”

  His eyes darkened with displeasure.

  “I mean, yes and thank you, Mr. Varick.” When his gaze did not waver from hers, she snapped. “What?”

  “I find even ‘Mr. Varick’ sounds like an affront, coming from you.”

  “Well, then what on earth am I to use when addressing you?”

  “John.” His gaze never wavered, his voice decisive yet cool. “When we are in private, of course.”

  “I beg your pardon? I—”

  “Think of it this way, your demands will take on an entirely new level of importance with such equality of station.”

  “I rather doubt I shall ever rival your rank.”

  “Well, you can’t say you weren’t given a rare opportunity last night.”

  She looked away, only to encounter Peter’s confused expression—another reason to change the subject. She cleared her throat. “What sort of dispute do you have with your neighbor? Perhaps I could at the very least offer an impartial opinion—if only to erase the smallest dab of our debt to you.”

  He studied her for a few moments before he retrieved the thick sheaf of papers, which he had placed in a cubby on the side of the carriage. “My neighbor, the Earl of Wymith, refuses to allow a road to be built at the northernmost minuscule corner of fields he has left fallow.”

  “And?”

  He rubbed a hand over his face. “And for decades my family and all the tenants of Beaulieu, as well as the nearby village, have had to travel nearly twenty miles to circumvent Wymith’s property to arrive at Cromford Canal, where barges stop to transport goods to market. And I had hoped…”

  “Had hoped what precisely?”

  “Well, the last time I visited my uncle here—just before he died—I saw that the area has become more and more depressed. Many families have lost their men to the war—and those husbands and sons who have returned have lost their tenancies to others.”

  “Well, what are you going to do about it?” She was instantly contrite about the note of insistence in her voice. Really, she had no sense of reticence when it came to injustice.

  He sighed with a great show of tolerance. “I was about to tell you. I had planned to construct a large mill on the edge of Beaulieu. It would be an ambitious project, designed to bring employment and wealth to the people of Derbyshire. But we will need the easement to encourage others to mill their grains here. If we could create the road, the distance to the canal would be negligible.”

  She felt a sudden rush of affection for this man before her. He was not like most aristocrats she had known, always after amusements and loath to promote commerce. Victoria had never understood why great men and ladies viewed honest work and industry with such contempt. “Why does your neighbor hate the Beaufort family so much?”

  “According to the Earl of Wymith, my uncle almost killed his father two decades ago when the former earl was trying to retrieve wounded game—a duck—he had shot from a blind on his property. According to my uncle, who never failed to repeat this story ad nauseum at every opportunity, the earl was trespassing in search of Beaulieu-raised pheasants, and he had every right to shoot at him. My uncle was, ahem, fanatical about hunting and very particular about poachers. Thank God he was also a very poor shot.”

  “So, your uncle wounded the earl?”

  “Mostly his pride. According to the apothecary who tended him, the earl sustained a small flesh wound on his arm that did not require stitching.” The duke shook his head. “I recently sent an apology to the new earl, but he would not accept it. And when I tendered an offer to buy the tiny yet critical eighth of an acre to build the road, Wymith said he would sooner give land to a Frenchman than sell it to a Beaufort. I’ve pressed members in the House of Lords to use their influence, but the man won’t see reason.”

  “So this entire dispute is over a nicked arm and a lost duck?”

  “Or a pheasant.” He shook his head. “Can you imagine what I’ve offered through an army of solicitors to soothe the Wymith feathers?”

  “I’m not sure I want to hear this.”

  “Fifteen thousand pounds.”

  Something caught at the back of her throat, and she could not stop a fit of coughing that overcame her. Peter came to her aid, pounding her back. She could not manage to stop. She wasn’t sure if she was more embarrassed by her coughing or shocked by the outrageous amount he had named. Why, fifteen thousand pounds was nearly thirty years’ worth of food for the foundlings at the home in London.

  Through her tears, Victoria saw Peter eyeing the duke. “Do you think you could spare a bit of the, uh, water in that silver flask you keep trying to hide, Your Grace? I think Miss Givan might need it.”

  Chapter Three

  For nearly five days, John Varick avoided Victoria Givan and her merry band of boys. It was the sanest course of action. For some absurd reason, he just didn’t have the heart to find out the truth behind this irritatingly tempting female. She was either a spirited but virtuous young woman with a tenuous hold on a position in a foundling home, or she had a mysterious benefactor who supplied her with fine footwear and a position in the foundling home, no doubt to provide an outlet for her boundless reserves of energy. In the first case, he refused to lead an innocent down the path toward ruin, and in the second case, just the idea of her in the bed of another man made him want to unleash every last one of his bloodthirsty Beaufort character traits and hunt down the bastard.

  And so, he had shunned temptation for both their sakes.

  It had been easy to do given the acres of paneled, gilded, and richly furnished rooms between them and the mounds of documents in his study. Oh, he had played the perfect host—in absentia. His housekeeper had reported that she had, indeed, given Miss Givan and the boys a daylong tour of Beaulieu. Apparently, her young charges had taken particular delight in the hundreds of fallow deer racks, and the battlefield paintings by masters and demimasters attesting to the family’s vicious feudal beginnings. Only the stuffed, mounted, and framed remnants of the past remained. In overwhelming quantities.

  Surprisingly, the bewitching young woman had not made a single effort to engage his notice. Quite the contrary. Safely ensconced in the easternmost wing of Beaulieu, she had taken her meals with the boys and occupied them inside and outside of these walls, keeping out of sight. He should be grateful. But for some perverse reason it only served to irk him. For it proved he had not had the same effect on her as she had had on him—which was a deviaton from the swarms of females in his past. And if there was one thing John Varick detested, it was aberrations of any sort.

  Well, she would be gone soon enough, and the memory of the entire episode with the exquisite green-eyed beauty and the less than exquisite words flowing from those lush lips would fade. He had done his duty by retrieving her party’s battered possessions from the i
nn where the north road mail coach driver had at last seen fit to deliver their bags. And at the appropriate time he would arrange for one of his carriages to transport them to the refurbished cottage at Wallace Abbey.

  Closeted in the vast study that was now his alone to prowl, John tried for the third time this morning to bury himself in the mountains of problems he had always relished untangling. If he hadn’t been allowed the honor of serving his country in the war against the French with his body—and his powerful uncle had forbidden it given John’s future station—then he had long ago decided to serve his countrymen with his mind.

  A sound drifted from the open window, and he stood abruptly and strode to look outside. She was there…walking from the direction of the stables, her cheeks glowing with exertion, and her well-worn straw hat hanging from its black ribbons down her back. She was even lovelier than he remembered.

  Oddly, she was alone, a look of consternation worrying her brow. Shading her face, she stopped and gazed past the rise of the formal gardens.

  He hated seeing her ill ease. Despite the clamor in his mind—much like a midnight church bell, warning of disaster, he closed the distance to the ornate door and all the barriers between them to join her outside.

  “Miss Givan?”

  She whirled around to face him. How could he have forgotten how vibrant and beautiful she was? The force of it nearly knocked the wind from him.

  “Oh, Your Grace…I mean, oh, please excuse me. So good to see you.” She tugged her hat back onto her pretty head, her deep plum-colored locks flooding her shoulders and back like a schoolgirl. At a guess, all her pins were lost hodgepodge about the countryside.

  “May I be of service? I spied you from my study and you appeared overanxious.”

  “Well, you see…well, the thing of it is—I can’t seem to find the boys and—and”—she bit her lip—“Oh, John—I fear they’re lost. They’re quite taken with this first taste of the country. And, I’ll admit I’m not very good at negotiating the hills and vales, and I don’t doubt the boys are very ill at it as well.” She appeared embarrassed. “All the dales look the same—very green, very beautiful, but endless and quite, quite barren of the wonderful signposts in town. Oh, botheration—where could they be?”