On the Duke's Authority (Ducal Encounters series 4 Book 3)

by Wendy Soliman

  She gasped, looking up at him through huge wary eyes, probably expecting the worst. ‘Tell me,’ she said, choking on the words.

  Amos sat beside her, covered her hand with one of his own and passed her Clarence’s letter with the other. She snatched her hand free and he noticed her fingers trembling as she opened the letter. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she absorbed its contents.

  ‘He is alive?’ She looked to Amos for confirmation, as though she hardly dared to believe what she had just read. ‘And Lord Romsey has found out where he is.’

  Amos smiled and nodded. ‘So it would appear. He is working for the Spanish, but as you have read for yourself, they will not say where for his own safety. The fewer people who know, the better.’

  ‘Foolish boy!’ But she smiled radiantly as she issued the chastisement. ‘Always eager for his next adventure. He has yet to grow up.’

  ‘He is working to protect his country’s interests, Ariana. That sort of dedication deserves to be applauded.’

  ‘Not if it costs him his life.’

  ‘The war has been over for a long time. There is no danger now.’

  ‘Ha!’

  Amos knew she must be thinking about the perilous situation she and Martina had found themselves in when they had been duped into accepting an apparently respectable sea captain’s offer of transport to Barcelona.

  ‘The important thing is that he knows you and Martina are safe here in England. I am aware that you were worried that he wouldn’t be able to find you both.’

  ‘Part of me is proud of him for doing his patriotic duty, but my feminine side is furious that he puts duty ahead of his family responsibilities. If he had stayed with us when we needed him the most, then…’

  ‘Hush.’ Amos reclaimed her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘I doubt whether he intended to leave you unprotected for long, and he is probably wracked with guilt as a consequence. If Clarence’s opposite number is anything like as persuasive as Clarence himself is then I doubt whether Raphael would have been able to deny him. He would have likely been asked to undertake some seemingly simple assignment that wouldn’t take him away for long but which turned out to be a great deal more complex. And once he was involved, he would feel duty bound to see it through.’

  ‘Yes.’ Ariana let out a long sigh. ‘Very likely, but I shall still have a few choice words to say to my reckless brother when we next meet.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it in the slightest.’ Amos chuckled. ‘I have learned to steer well clear of you when you get that fiery look in your eyes, and if Raphael has a lick of sense he will do the same thing.’

  ‘Bah, you men have no courage!’

  ‘I freely admit that your Latin temperament terrifies me.’ And fascinates me, and makes me want to hold you and never let you go. Ye gods, I really am recovering. Amos waited for the guilt that ought to accompany such disloyal thoughts, but it failed to materialise. He was unable to dwell upon the changes in him because quite without warning Ariana threw her arms around his neck. The gesture was so unexpected—Ariana had never initiated physical contact between them before and had treated him with lively deference—it took him a moment to realise that gratitude had overcome her reserve.

  ‘You did this for me. Thank you! No one would tell me anything. I wrote letter after letter to everyone I could think of but it got me nowhere.’

  ‘You are entirely welcome,’ he replied, closing his arms around her and allowing her to sob tears of relief against his shoulder. ‘I have been on at Clarence for a long time to find out where Raphael was, but it’s taken all of his skill and diplomacy to break through the layers of protocol and get this far.’

  She lifted her face from his shoulder and hiccupped. She looked radiant, despite the fact that her eyes were blotchy from crying, and totally adorable. He smiled at her as he arrested a tear with the tip of his finger and then reached into his pocket for his handkerchief, which he handed to her. She mopped her face and blew her nose, glowing with happiness.

  ‘You have been so very kind to me, Lord Amos.’

  ‘Amos,’ he said softly.

  ‘You saved Martina and me from an unspeakable fate, and have now gone to all this trouble to find Raphael.’ She blinked up at him. ‘It is too much. I shall never be able to repay you.’

  ‘It’s not nearly enough.’ He looked away from her. ‘If I have helped you, you have already repaid me ten times over. If it were not for you, for your frankness and your practicality…you refused to let me mope and helped me to overcome a grief that I thought would cripple me. But you, who had seen at first hand the brutality of the war that tore your country and family apart, wouldn’t allow me to wallow in self-pity. I didn’t want to go on living, but you made me see just how selfish I was being, sweet Ariana.’ He gently cupped her cheek. ‘You have brought me back to life and now I am ready to live that life again, whatever it brings.’

  He lowered his head and gently kissed her lips, breaking that kiss again almost immediately, before she could object or imagine that he was attempting to take advantage of her gratitude. He still wasn’t sure if she would welcome his advances, and a rejection would crucify him.

  ‘I need to change and go to the children.’

  She sent him a prolonged, assessing look, opened her mouth to say something else and then closed it again without speaking. Abruptly, she stood and moved towards the door.

  ‘I shall see you again very soon…Amos,’ she said.

  And then she was gone.

  *

  Frankie smiled at Amos as he entered the drawing room seconds before the children were due to invade it. Everyone else was already there, including Devonshire and Mrs Brooke. The former looked complacent, a smug, self-satisfied smile playing about his lips. Frankie hadn’t had an opportunity to discover from Zach what precisely he had been up to in the village, or why he had stayed for so long. Zach said that he didn’t know, but Frankie wouldn’t accept that. He was keeping something from her, probably because it was distasteful. Well, they would see about that later, when she got him alone.

  ‘You have been riding, Amos,’ she said. ‘You look suitably windswept.’

  Amos grinned at her. ‘I didn’t see any profit in tidying myself up, given that the children will be climbing all over me, undoing my efforts in seconds flat. It’s fortunate that none of us Sheridan males have been taught to stand on our dignity.’

  Frankie laughed. ‘I rather think you wouldn’t be allowed to get away with it even if you were minded to try. Have some tea whilst the coast is clear.’

  She poured for Amos and passed him the cup. He thanked her with a jubilant smile that caused Frankie to look at him a little more closely. There was something different about him. Zach had mentioned that Amos had received a letter from Clarence that he’d been secretive about. Whatever it contained had brought him back to life, and Frankie was relieved to see glimpses of Zach’s favourite brother’s old character emerging from the cloud of despondency he’d been living under since Crista’s death. Frankie’s relief was not entirely altruistic. If Amos could get over his devastating loss then perhaps, just perhaps, Frankie would feel a little less guilty for surviving the bullet that had been meant for her.

  ‘I think we have company,’ Zach said, cocking his head to one side as the sound of the children’s voices reached them seconds before the door burst open and they spilled into the room.

  As usual, Josh and Leo led the way, bickering about something or other and applying to their fathers to adjudicate. Zach and Amos wisely declined, leaving the boys to resolve their own differences. Marley and Mungo joined in the rough and tumble that Zach and Amos were also encouraged to take part in, and chaos quickly reigned in the sophisticated drawing room of the Duke and Duchess of Winchester.

  ‘You look jubilant, Ariana,’ Frankie said, patting the chair beside hers and smiling affectionately at the war zone in front of her, wondering who was enjoying themselves more—the children or their fathers. ‘What has ha
ppened to put you in such a good mood?’

  ‘Did not Lord Amos tell you?’

  ‘Tell us what, my dear?’ Mrs Brooke asked, even though Ariana had not been addressing her. Devonshire watched her like a predatory spider waiting to pounce, his focus upon her unblinking. But if Ariana noticed, she was too jubilant to allow it to affect her.

  ‘He has brought me news of Raphael,’ Ariana said, pulling a letter, now slightly crumpled from several readings, from her pocket and passing it to Frankie. Frankie recognised Clarence’s precise hand as she quickly scanned its contents. She smiled at Amos and Zach, who were being clambered over by the children and were unaware of Ariana’s disclosure.

  Frankie now understood why Amos looked as though he had overcome a hurdle in his mind. He had mentioned to her when Ariana first came to them that he would try to put her mind at rest regarding her brother’s whereabouts, but he’d said nothing more and she had imagined nothing had come of it.

  ‘I am so very happy for you!’ Frankie squeezed her hand. ‘It must be such a relief.’

  ‘What must?’ Zach asked, emerging from beneath a tangle of small arms and legs with his daughter perched precariously on his shoulders.

  ‘Clarence has located Ariana’s brother. Isn’t that clever of him? We don’t know precisely where he is but we do know that he is alive.’

  ‘I shall have to tell Martina,’ Ariana said.

  ‘Of course,’ Amos replied, smiling at her. ‘I should have thought. Take the rest of the day off and go over to Stoneleigh Manor to tell her in person.’

  Her beaming smile, exclusively for Amos, made Frankie feel as if she was intruding upon a private moment, despite the mayhem that still prevailed in a room full of small children.

  ‘Thank you, Lord Amos,’ she said. ‘I shall do that.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Leona remained preoccupied throughout dinner; a fact which Doran remarked upon. She brushed his concerns aside by claiming a headache.

  Frankie had insisted that she remain at the Park until matters were resolved, which was very generous of her, but it could take weeks for the legal ramifications to be sorted out. During that time, Mrs Yaris would remain in her house with no intention of quitting it. She couldn’t afford to run the place but there were plenty of valuable odds and ends she could appropriate and sell off. That thought was the thin edge of the wedge, and Leona decided that she had to do something to help herself, rather than relying entirely on the generosity of the duke and his family.

  Her heart lurched at the thought of Doran leaving the Park before matters were resolved, but he had an estate to run and couldn’t neglect it indefinitely. The prospect of being separated from him cut her to the quick. He was impossible not to like—more than like. His quixotic personality and lazy, mercurial Irish charm had worked its magic on her. Her wild speculations about a possible future with him, despite her determination never to be beholden to a man again, came crashing down around her ears when she recalled the look of abject devotion on his face as he spoke of the woman who had played him false but whom he clearly still loved.

  The realisation brought her to her senses. She toyed with her dessert as she mulled matters over, allowing the dinner table conversation to wash over her. Leona was no longer sure about anything, other than the fact that she couldn’t remain here indefinitely and allow others to fight her battles for her.

  Tomorrow she would go on the offensive.

  ‘The Devonshires and that Mrs Brooke have just left,’ Ethel told her the next morning as she bustled into Leona’s room with her breakfast tray. ‘Good riddance an’ all, is what I say. They were waited on hand and foot by two of the duke’s senior staff and they never even left them a gratuity. I ask you. Some people.’ Leona sat up in bed and Ethel placed the tray across her knees. ‘There you are, pet. You enjoy that. What will you wear today? The thaw’s still continuing.’

  ‘Put my habit out then, Ethel. I shall take another ride.’

  ‘Not with that nice Mr Conroy, you won’t. He’s in the stud with Lord Amos. And the duchess has an engagement in Winchester. She and the duke are about to leave for it.’

  Excellent, Leona thought. There would be no one around to ask questions or dissuade her from her purpose.

  ‘Well then, I shall just have to explore the village on my own. I’m told there’s a decent haberdashery in Compton.’

  An hour later Leona made her way to the stables and was offered the use of the same gelding as before. Supplied with directions to Compton village and more specifically the haberdashery that she pretended an interest in by the obliging head groom, Leona went on her way. The village when she reached it was surprisingly prosperous and busy, the people going about their daily routines that had been interrupted by the bad weather with renewed vigour. She walked her horse sedately down the main road, aware that she was attracting a great deal of interest. But no one accosted her and she emerged at the other end of the village without any delays.

  ‘Now then,’ she told the horse, nerves causing her to talk aloud as she wondered about the wisdom of her plan. Theory was one thing, but now that she was about to turn it into action it seemed somewhat tenuous. But still, she had come this far…

  Leona pushed her horse into a trot, aware that the road would lead her to the outskirts of Shawford where Devonshire’s mistress’s cottage was situated. She halted her horse when she reached the isolated building on the left and recognised it as the one described by Doran’s man. There was smoke coming from the chimney but no other obvious signs of life. Her nervousness communicated itself to her horse, who shifted beneath her weight, reminding her that she couldn’t dither here indefinitely.

  ‘I merely wish to speak with her, woman to woman,’ she told the disinterested horse. ‘Women are far more rational creatures and don’t resort to violence to resolve their differences. If I can just make her understand that Devonshire’s efforts are futile, that he cannot possibly expect to emerge victorious against a man of the duke’s stature, then the entire business could quickly be resolved. That seems reasonable enough, surely.’

  The horse had no opinion to offer, so Leona—with no further excuse to loiter and now cloaked in renewed determination—slid from the saddle and attached the horse’s reins to the gatepost. Then, with her head held high, she walked up the short path and knocked at the door with the handle of her riding crop. No one responded and she felt disappointed rather than relieved. She knocked for a second time and was about to abandon her scheme when the door was opened by an elderly maid.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, subjecting Leona’s person to an impolite scrutiny.

  ‘Lady Marlowe is here to see your mistress,’ she said imperiously.

  The maid contemplated her demand for a moment or two, then opened the door to admit Leona. ‘Wait here,’ she said ungraciously, leaving her standing in the small entrance hall and letting herself into what had to be the front parlour, closing the door behind her.

  Leona resisted the urge to press her ear against it, listening instead to the muffled voices coming from within. After what felt like an interminable wait but couldn’t have been more than a minute or two, the door opened again and the maid ushered Leona through it by means of a jerk of her head in that direction. Leona felt as though she was walking into a lion’s den when a lady in her mid-thirties, judging by the network of fine lines radiating from her eyes, looked up at her with a shark’s smile, causing Leona to shudder and regret her decision to come here alone. She was a very beautiful woman, but her aura was ugly and Leona felt intimidated.

  ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ the woman asked, not bothering to stand or to offer Leona a seat.

  ‘Whom am I addressing?’

  The lady found the question amusing, as evidenced by her mirthless smile. ‘Since you came here with the intention of speaking with me, one assumes you already know the answer to that.’

  Feeling disadvantaged, Leona took control of the situation by seating herself directly a
cross from the woman. ‘Very well then, I shall get directly to the point. I would be interested to know what part you are playing with Devonshire in his and Yaris’s efforts to defraud me of my estate,’ she said pleasantly.

  She had finally succeeded in discomposing the woman, which Leona found surprising. She must have known who she was the moment her maid told her Leona’s name. In her place, Leona would have assumed that she knew about the deception and had come to confront her. But then again, perhaps she had been assured that Leona didn’t have that sort of courage, given that she had made so little effort to evict Yaris from her property, meekly vacating it as though admitting defeat.

  ‘Why should I know anything about that?’ the woman asked in a disinterested tone.

  ‘Because Devonshire spent a considerable amount of time with you here yesterday. You had to talk about something.’

  ‘I can assure you that very little conversation took place,’ the woman replied languidly.

  ‘You are his mistress.’

  The woman appeared amused by Leona’s observation. ‘How very astute of you.’

  Leona shuddered. ‘Which shows an appalling lack of judgement on your part.’

  The woman gave an elegantly dismissive flap of one wrist. ‘Your opinion is of no interest to me whatsoever.’

  ‘I imagine not. One must have a conscience in order for it to raise objections on moral grounds.’

  ‘Morals, pah!’ She threw up both hands. ‘If you are referring to Devonshire’s mousy little wife, there is no love lost between them. He will be delighted to see the back of her.’

  Leona hardly considered Amelia to be mousy. She was very pretty, despite her petulance. What’s more, given the conversation she had overheard the previous day between mother and daughter, Leona knew this woman had got it wrong. Amelia felt neglected and disliked being short of funds, but she still felt passionately disposed towards her worthless husband and would follow him to the ends of the earth. Leona would have liked to ask her if she had a shred of pride, pining after a man who did not return her feelings.