What the Duke Doesn't Know

by Jane Ashford

  He went off to his room to write the letter. Kawena’s hosts said their good nights soon after, leaving her alone in the parlor. She sat there for some minutes, bemused by the evening’s revelations. A duke! Her father had told her about England’s king and parliament and the different classes of English society. She understood that a duke was near the very top of it. But she’d never expected to encounter such an august personage. She tried to picture a duke in her mind. Would he wear a coat and breeches just like any other man? Would he carry some sign of his noble title? It was too bad that she’d probably never meet the man. She would have liked to see. On the other hand, his sons seemed quite down-to-earth, so perhaps there was no particular marker of duke…hood.

  It occurred to Kawena then that it was a stroke of great good fortune that the man she had pursued—wrongly, it seemed—for theft had such powerful connections. And that he was willing—grudgingly—to use them to help her. All the fears and warnings that her mother had poured into her ears when she left their island ran through her brain. Things might have turned out so much worse.

  She brushed a hand over the fabric of the dress Ariel had lent her. She owed this James Gresham more thanks than she had expressed, Kawena concluded. She rose. She would thank him now, before this day was done. It was only right.

  * * *

  At the writing desk in his bedchamber, James wrestled with the wording of his letter. Alan seemed to think it a commonplace thing to ask Nathaniel for a favor, but it wasn’t so for James. He’d scarcely seen his eldest brother—well, any of his family—for the last ten years. This was the life of a navy man. Brief shore leaves, letters exchanged across leagues of ocean, had been his family life for all that time. He felt the sting of it yet again as he tried to frame sentences to address his brother. There were times when he didn’t even feel part of the Gresham clan any longer.

  James sat back, melancholy. He put down the pen. Surely Nathaniel had better things to do than find him an admiral. Why would he bother? Why should he? And with that final question, a memory from more than twenty years ago popped into James’s mind.

  He’d sneaked off from the nursery at Langford, as he did every chance he got, yielding to the temptation of a perfect summer day with a brisk wind. He’d taken advantage of the cover offered by the shrubbery and made his way to the fountain in the rose garden, an irresistible, forbidden spot. He even remembered his five-year-old reasoning. The fountain wasn’t the lake, was it? He didn’t try to go down to the lake alone anymore, after the terrible dustup with Nurse the last time. The fountain was a poor substitute for those broad waters—except that he could sail his model ship across the basin and retrieve it on the opposite side for another go. Voyages launched into the lake often ended with a lost vessel. And it was increasingly difficult to persuade his parents to replace the little ships. They didn’t seem ready to acknowledge that his existence was empty without one.

  So, he’d rigged up his toy boat, retrieved from its garden-shed hiding place, and sent it out into the fountain waters. He’d been so engrossed in maneuvers that he hadn’t realized anyone had seen him until Nathaniel appeared at his side.

  The eight years that separated them in age made Nathaniel a rather awe-inspiring figure. He was also seldom seen about Langford, as he was mostly away at school. Gazing up at his tall eldest brother, James had expected a scold and to be sent back to his minders. But Nathaniel had watched the little ship scud across the fountain and said, “Where did you get sailcloth?”

  James had hunched a bit at the question. But he had to tell the truth. “I cut up one of Father’s shirts,” he admitted. Quickly, he offered his excuse. “I would have used my own, but it wasn’t big enough for the mainsail.”

  To his surprise, and delight, Nathaniel had laughed. And they’d spent the next hour sailing his ship together, back and forth across the fountain. The jets of water from the dolphins in the center had done double duty as hazards of the sea. They capsized once or twice, and Nathaniel had even taken off his shoes and waded into the fountain on a rescue mission. When Nurse finally caught up with him, the scold was not nearly so bad because Nathaniel was there.

  With a lingering smile, James picked up his pen. He could write to that Nathaniel. It would be all right.

  He’d just started to do so when there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” he called without looking up.

  He heard the door open, and a lilting voice say, “Hello.”

  James turned in his chair. Kawena stepped through his bedchamber door, shut it, walked over, and sat down in the armchair by the empty fireplace. “I wanted to thank you,” she began.

  “You can’t sit here,” James said.

  She looked down at the comfortable chair, back up at him. “Why not?”

  “This is my bedroom.” The moment he said it, he became acutely conscious of the bed just a few feet away.

  “I know. I came up to thank—”

  “It isn’t proper,” he blurted out.

  “But you are taking some trouble to help me. When you don’t really wish to. I can see that, you know. It is only right that I thank—”

  “Not that. You shouldn’t be in a man’s bedchamber. Alone. With him. Me.” He heard himself stammering like a callow youth, and was revolted. She was just so very beautiful. Utterly alluring, really. The effect seemed multiplied here in his private quarters. And she appeared so at ease—as if they knew each other far better than they actually did. James could almost imagine her coming over to him, offering a hand to pull him to his feet, and closer… No, this line of thought was unacceptable. He stood and moved toward the door instead. “It isn’t done,” he added. “Young ladies do not visit gentlemen in their bedchambers.” Well, some did, if what he’d heard about country house parties was true, but that was irrelevant to this discussion.

  “We must speak only downstairs?” wondered Kawena. “Is that an English rule?”

  Her honest bewilderment was rather charming. “If a man and a woman are alone in a bedchamber, people assume they’re…up to something improper,” James explained.

  “Getting into bed together, you mean?” Kawena replied, without a trace of embarrassment. She gazed at the wide four-poster as if it was on exhibit.

  James felt his cheeks redden. Years at sea might have left him unused to polite female company, but even his brother, Robert, the town beau, would have been confounded by this quite unusual young woman. “Er, yes.”

  “But we are not.”

  “No… Not in this case. However—”

  “And no people know that I’m here,” she pointed out. “I told no one I was coming up.”

  “You can never tell when there’s a servant about,” James replied. The staff at Langford always seemed well aware of everyone’s movements.

  “Do they hide and watch?” said Kawena, looking surprised.

  James choked back a laugh, and then wondered if maybe they did. How else would that housemaid have seen Sebastian with the frogs…? But that was beside the point. He needed to remove a lovely young woman from his bedchamber—didn’t he? Yes, yes. And wasn’t that a problem he’d never imagined having? When had it become his job to preach the proprieties? He felt like a fool even trying. But if she didn’t go soon, he might not be able to resist… James decided to shift the onus off onto someone else. “This is my brother’s house. I wouldn’t wish to upset him, or his wife.”

  Kawena cocked her head. “Your brother and Ariel would not approve of my being here?”

  James assumed so. No, of course they wouldn’t. And that was beside the point. He nodded.

  To his relief, Kawena rose at once. “I would not wish to offend them. They have been very kind to me.” She shrugged as she moved toward the door. “My father always says…” She paused, swallowed. “Said that it is rude to disregard others’ customs when it does you no harm to observe them.”

  “
Pr-precisely.” She passed quite close to him on her way out. Her long fall of black hair swayed seductively with each step. Was he really throwing her out of his room? Her initial words came floating back. She’d come up to thank him. Perhaps with something warmer than words? Some marvelous island custom? No. She hadn’t meant that. Clearly, obviously. No sign whatsoever of any such thing, despite her unembarrassed mention of bedding. Besides, it would be an awkward complication, as they were living together in his brother’s house. Not together. As fellow guests. Strangers, in fact.

  “Good night,” said Kawena.

  “Good night,” James replied, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  He leaned against it, listening to her soft footsteps retreat along the corridor. Perhaps helping her wasn’t quite such a burden. It would give him a chance to become better acquainted with one of the loveliest, and most unusual, girls he’d ever encountered. Her courage and fire drew him—now that she’d stopped calling him names. How many women, how many people, would have done as she had, sailing halfway around the world to find justice? Very few, hardly any, really, he thought. She’d looked positively intrepid, stepping out of the shrubbery with her gun. And under his hands, on the turf, she’d felt… James fell into a pleasant reverie. It was some time before he returned to his letter.

  * * *

  Kawena was wakened the next morning by a young maid bringing her a cup of tea and pushing back the draperies on the windows. Kawena didn’t really like tea, but she took a polite sip and suppressed a grimace at the bitterness. Her father, who had been inordinately fond of the dark beverage, claimed it was much more palatable with milk added, but milk had never agreed with Kawena’s digestive system. When the maid went out, she set the cup aside.

  Sunshine streamed through the windows. Apparently it did not rain all the time in England, as she’d been told. She could see a corner of the garden below, bright with unfamiliar flowers. It was a comfortable house, the largest she’d ever been inside. And her hostess, Ariel, seemed very far from hidebound and prim. Had her father been prejudiced by his decision to abandon his home country? Immediately, Kawena felt disloyal. Ariel Gresham was probably not a typical Englishwoman.

  Surely James Gresham must be an odd sort of Englishman. Mustn’t he? Last night, in his room, he’d been clucking over her behavior like the circle of watchful old women at home on the island. In her experience, young men did quite the opposite. They were always on the lookout for ways to circumvent rules and get you to go off alone with them into the trees. Were they so different here on the other side of the world?

  Kawena stretched and threw back the bedcovers. No doubt she had much to learn about her father’s homeland. She only hoped it would all end well.

  Dressed in her borrowed gown once more, Kawena found Ariel and James at the breakfast table in a bright room at the back of the house. “I’ve made a list of the crew from my ship,” James was saying.

  “But there’s no sense doing more until we see if Nathaniel knows an admiral,” Ariel replied.

  As Kawena sat down, James nodded.

  Ariel picked up the teapot and gestured toward the cup beside Kawena’s plate. “No, thank you,” Kawena said.

  “Would you like coffee? Cook could make some.”

  Kawena shook her head. Coffee was even more bitter than tea. She didn’t see how anyone could stand to drink it.

  “You must be used to quite different foods,” Ariel added, setting down the pot. “Perhaps I could order—”

  “I am in England. I will eat English food.” Kawena smiled to show that it was no hardship. She was deeply grateful for their hospitality.

  “Fruit,” said James.

  Both ladies turned to look at him.

  “They eat a deal of fruit on the Pacific islands.”

  Ariel smiled and nodded. Kawena examined the man, wondering why he seemed uneasy. Then she gave up wondering and went to fill a plate with the items on the side table. The eggs were familiar, and she had eaten sausages in the course of her travels. Some she had found palatable, others revolting, with no way that she could see to tell the difference beforehand. Bread was safe. She liked bread, though they did not eat it on Valatu. And jam—jam was a welcome addition to her life indeed. This on the table was raspberry, her newly discovered favorite.

  Silence fell as they ate. They were, after all, three strangers thrown together by family ties and circumstance. “Have you been to Oxford before?” Ariel asked James after a while.

  “No. Never had the occasion to come.”

  “You should look around. There are a great many lovely buildings. You could take Kawena about,” she suggested. “Show her something of her father’s country.”

  “You’d be a far better guide,” James answered. “And Alan best of all.”

  “He’s gone off to his laboratory. And I have an appointment this morning. I’ll come with you another day, but you should go out exploring.”

  James shrugged. “I don’t know anything about the colleges, but I could use a bit of exercise.”

  “I’d like to see this place,” Kawena agreed. And so the matter was settled.

  Three

  Lord Alan Gresham kept no personal carriage, preferring to hire a vehicle if he needed one and save the expense. James and Kawena found this no hardship when they set out on foot a little while later. Less than half a mile down the green lane, they came to a place where three roads met at a bridge across the River Cherwell. On the other side, they were immediately among Oxford colleges. “I don’t know the names of any of these places,” James said. “They’re hundreds of years old, most of them. And, er, architectural.” He was very conscious of her vibrant presence by his side, though she didn’t take his arm as an English girl might have. He’d offered it as they’d left the house, but she obviously hadn’t understood the gesture. She’d marched off like an explorer on an expedition instead.

  He watched her gaze at the intricate stonework and leaded windows that surrounded them. She was far more fascinating than any fusty carvings. And it wasn’t just her unfamiliar style of beauty that made it so difficult to tear his eyes away. He’d thought that was it, of course. She was one of the loveliest creatures he’d ever seen. Then, as they walked and talked, he’d started to notice an air, a manner, unlike anything in his previous experience. Kawena’s lively presence brimmed with…the unexpected, with an exhilarating whiff of adventure.

  Some of the buildings loomed as large as mountains to Kawena, and as unlike her island home as anything could be. She felt squeezed by narrow passageways under heavy arches. “I’ve never seen anything so old,” she said. “Not built things, I mean.” Beaches and oceans and cliffs were far older, she noted. And yet not oppressive at all. “Your brother went to school here, but you did not?”

  “No. I couldn’t wait to escape the classroom. The idea of going on to university…” James shook his head. “Never in the cards. There are two kinds of Gresham brothers, you see. Randolph and Alan, and Nathaniel a bit, took to their books like fish to water. Sebastian and Robert and I could hardly sit still long enough to turn a page. We’d far rather be doing other things.”

  For no good reason at all, the phrase reminded Kawena of their recent conversation in his bedroom, and all the “other things” a man and woman might do together, besides walking under great burdens of stone. Her errant mind offered up the moment when he’d thrown her over his shoulder and carried her off.

  Of course, that had been outrageous. She’d been angry—and rightly so! She wasn’t the least bit sorry that she’d pummeled him. And yet… Briefly, Kawena lost herself in his vivid blue eyes. Everyone she’d grown up with, even her father, had had brown eyes. She’d glimpsed other hues on her travels, while keeping her head well down. Now that she no longer had to duck under the brim of a cloth cap, she could look her fill. There was something particularly compelling about this man’s gaze.
Each time she met it, she felt an odd little shock.

  Kawena realized that the silence had stretched too long. What had he said? Oh yes. “What other things?” she said.

  “What…?” He blinked. “Oh. Ah, for me, captaining a sailing ship. Riding and cultivating his side-whiskers and waving his saber about for Sebastian. He’s a cavalryman, you know. Robert’s addicted to high society, cares more about the cut of his waistcoats than the written word.” James paused, then added, “Though I hear that may have changed lately. Which is dashed odd.”

  Kawena didn’t understand all of this, but she let it pass. It was tiresome to be questioning every unfamiliar phrase. And this was not the time to be staring into a man’s eyes. She had important things to accomplish. She walked on, feeling a tiny twinge of gratification when he automatically followed.

  “What about you? How were you…educated? Is there a school on Valatu?” James acknowledged that he knew nothing about the place, beyond the quality of its fruit. He’d thought ten years ago that he would explore the far corners of the world when he went to sea. But the navy gave you little time to look about the countries where you stopped, unless you counted the dockside establishments designed to separate sailors from their money, which he did not.

  Kawena strode past another massive stone structure. “My father and mother taught me. As did others, sometimes, if they had some skill I wished to know. That is the way we learned.”

  Thinking of his formidable parents, James decided that the exigencies of Eton hadn’t been so very bad.

  “My father taught me English things. Like how to read and write.”

  “Your…people on the island don’t read?”

  “There is nothing to read in our language. And no reason to.” Kawena smiled at the confusion on his face. “We can all talk to each other.”

  “But if you want to send a message…?”

  She shrugged. “We can ask a child to run and find someone. Or just wait. The English don’t like to wait, I think.”