What the Duke Doesn't Know

by Jane Ashford

  The woman who stepped forward to greet them was tall and sturdily built, with sharp blue eyes and an aquiline nose, her dark hair gathered into a knot at her neck. It took a moment for James to recognize Aunt Agatha. He hadn’t seen her in years. Then something about the tilt of her prominent chin did the trick.

  “Aunt Agatha, this is Miss Kawena Benson, a…friend of the family,” said Robert. “And perhaps you remember my brother James?”

  Their hostess nodded in response to their bow and curtsy. “The naval officer, isn’t it? Miss Benson. How do you do?” She seemed unfazed by the arrival of strangers.

  “I thought the evening would interest them,” Robert continued.

  This was going too far. “What sort of evening is it?” asked James. “Is there going to be a lecture?” He ignored reproachful glances from both his companions.

  Aunt Agatha gave him a sharp look, a little like those she’d bestowed on impertinent boys in his memories. “We are marking my late husband’s birthday by gathering to celebrate his legacy,” she answered.

  “He was an authority on the Assyrians,” added Robert quickly. “Most particularly on their language, which was called Akkadian.”

  James rolled his eyes, waiting for the full brunt of his brother’s prank to fall upon them, but nothing happened other than Aunt Agatha saying, “You are welcome to join us.” More bewildered than ever, James allowed Robert to lead them over to a knot of people in the corner. At the edge of the group, not really part of it, stood a tall young woman with black hair and pale skin. She held herself very straight, and her face echoed the beauty of the antique cameo fastening the neck of her pearl-gray gown. James might have put her down as the meek daughter of the household, but then he met her eyes. Their intense blue suggested that a fiery spirit burned behind her serene facade.

  Robert gave her a graceful bow. “Miss Jennings, may I present Miss Kawena Benson and my brother, Lord James,” Robert said. He nodded to his companions. “This is Miss Flora Jennings, Aunt Agatha’s daughter.”

  “Flora?” James connected the name, if not the face, to an errant memory. “Wasn’t it you who pushed that beastly Teddy Raines into the lake after he stole my boat and smashed it into my head?”

  “I can’t abide bullying,” she replied coolly.

  “He was a great hulking fellow of nine or ten,” James recalled for the others. “I was six or so, I suppose.” He smiled at Miss Jennings. “You can’t have been much older, but you gave him a splendid shove. I seem to remember that he screamed like a stuck pig.”

  “As if he could have drowned in water up to his knees,” she replied, a smile lightening her expression. She looked much less reserved when she smiled.

  “Miss Benson is from the South Seas,” Robert said, with something of the air of a cat dropping a mouse at Flora Jennings’s feet.

  The smile faded. “Indeed?”

  James wondered what his brother had done to offend this young woman? Or, perhaps offend wasn’t right. She seemed extremely wary, however.

  “I thought you two would get on, as you’re both…”

  Flora Jennings raised her dark brows and waited. Robert usually shows far more finesse than this, James thought.

  “Fascinating,” Robert finished adroitly. “And you were bemoaning the fact that you have so few women friends.”

  Miss Jennings stiffened as if he’d insulted her. “Bemoaning! I never did any such thing.”

  “You did, when you were talking to your mother at the Maneleto concert.”

  The girl’s pale cheeks reddened slightly. “Do you make a habit of listening to private conversations?”

  “It was an accident. I was just coming to ask if you wanted some lemonade.”

  James watched their eyes lock. They seemed to have forgotten there was anyone else present. Belatedly, James finished making the connection. He’d been uncharacteristically slow. This was the young lady Robert was trying to impress, the object of his “contest.” And she was the reason they were here. Not as a prank, but as a…gift? A diversion? Why Robert should have fixed upon a young woman so unlike his usual flirts remained a mystery.

  Miss Jennings blinked and turned to Kawena. “What brings you to England from so far away?” she asked, polite rather than warm.

  “I’m hunting a thief,” Kawena replied.

  The other woman looked startled.

  “It might be best not to repeat the story in public,” James suggested. You never knew what connections might stretch out from a room full of strangers.

  Kawena gave him a sharp glance.

  “I can fill you in later,” Robert offered.

  “I have no interest in prying—”

  “Flora, my dear,” interrupted an old man in the nearby group. “Who was that fellow who first deciphered the royal names from the cuneiform?”

  “Niebuhr,” said Robert.

  “Grotefend,” corrected Flora.

  “Yes, yes, that’s the one,” replied the old man, nodding happily and returning to his conversation.

  “For some reason, Lord Robert pretends an interest in my father’s work,” Flora told the others.

  “I’m not pretending! How many times must I say it?”

  “Until you tire of the game, I suppose.”

  Robert’s hands flexed—closed, open. James actually felt sorry for him. “Shall we get a glass of wine?” he asked him.

  Robert drew in a breath, recovered some of his customary aplomb, and nodded. “May we bring something for you ladies?”

  “No, thank you,” said Miss Jennings. Kawena shook her head.

  The two young women watched the brothers walk away, their expressions remarkably similar.

  “Did Lord Robert ask you to speak to me?” said Flora Jennings without turning.

  “I met him for the first time today,” replied Kawena. “Hardly an hour ago, in fact. Speak to you about what?”

  “His imaginary interest in…” She made a weary gesture at the room. “All of it.”

  “Is there some reason that you don’t believe he is sincere?” Kawena had been struck by the interplay between Lord James’s brother and this coolly attractive woman. Perhaps her disputes with Lord James were not so unusual? Maybe the English enjoyed sniping at each other? Made an art of it? Did that explain things about her father and mother?

  “Men like him are never sincere.”

  “Like him?”

  Miss Jennings finally turned to look at her. Her eyes were a fiery blue. It was a powerful gaze. “Pinks of the ton. Their lives are devoted to amusement and frivolity. And the latest fads and fashions, of course.”

  “I don’t understand the expression. Why do they call them pink?”

  The other woman blinked. “I…I don’t know.”

  “They wear pink clothing perhaps?”

  Miss Jennings choked out a laugh. “No. That is, I have never seen… It’s just a bit of slang. I have no idea where it originated.”

  Kawena nodded. She was more interested in the subtleties of relationship than in oddities of language. “People sometimes change, I suppose? Perhaps he is no longer so…pink?”

  “He’d like me to think so,” Miss Jennings muttered darkly.

  “Why would he?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  It seemed to Kawena that there was an obvious answer. “If he likes you…?”

  “Likes!”

  “Why shouldn’t he?”

  “We have nothing in common. I do not frequent the exalted circles into which he was born. I have no interest in flirtation, and I certainly will not be seduced.”

  Her eyes flashed with conviction. Kawena knew enough not to suggest that her reaction was a bit extreme. And the mention of seduction cut rather too close.

  “But why are we talking of Lord Robert?” the oth
er continued. “You must tell me more about yourself. What thief are you hunting? What is your home like, so very far away?”

  Kawena obliged by describing the island and her father’s arrival there. She also gave a few details of her quest for the jewel thief, as there was no one nearby to eavesdrop just now. Miss Jennings seemed fascinated.

  “You are quite intrepid, aren’t you?” she commented when Kawena finished.

  “Sometimes I am,” she agreed. “But I worry I will never find the one who took my father’s treasure.”

  “I hope you will. But even having tried is inspiring. I should be proud to have acted so decisively.”

  She smiled at Kawena, and they exchanged a most cordial look. Kawena felt that they really could be good friends, given an opportunity. But just then Mrs. Jennings came to fetch Flora, leading her off to a group on the other side of the room. Lord James walked over to take her place.

  “Your brother and Miss Jennings are…?” Kawena didn’t know what word to use.

  “I have no idea,” he replied. “She’s not his type at all. I can’t think what he’s doing.”

  “Seduction?” wondered Kawena. The word had stuck in her mind.

  He started as if she had jabbed him with a fishhook. “Of course not! Robert would never contemplate such a thing.”

  The word did not apply to her either, Kawena thought. She had done as she pleased, not been lured into…whatever the English thought that word implied.

  “The cuneiform is sadly fragmentary on this point,” said someone behind them. “I don’t believe it is possible to determine a reference.”

  “I suppose he’s gone mad,” continued Lord James. “Like the rest of us.”

  “The rest of whom?” inquired a cool voice. Flora had returned as they talked.

  “Are all the duke’s sons quite irritating?” Kawena put in, resenting his characterization of her, and their quest, as “mad.”

  “Well, I haven’t seen Randolph or James since I was a child.” Miss Jennings eyed their companion as if trying to make a quick judgment. “Nathaniel is rather stuffy, I think. Sebastian thinks far too much of himself. Alan’s not bad; his scientific work is impressive.”

  “And Robert?” asked Lord James.

  Flora’s gaze found him across the room. “An enigma.”

  “But you like puzzles,” he found himself pointing out. And then wondered where that had come from.

  The glance she gave him was wide and startled. Kawena was nearly as surprised. Just when she thought him incapable of noticing what was going on right before his eyes, he said something that showed he was very aware indeed.

  Eleven

  Lord James spent the next two days visiting former crew members around London. He did not allow Kawena to don her boy’s clothes and accompany him, reminding her that his men would talk much more freely to him alone. Although she suspected his preoccupation with scandal was also involved, she had to admit the logic of this and stay behind. She spent the time wandering around his family’s huge house, occasionally speaking to a servant, looking at its furnishings, and going slowly mad from an unsettling combination of boredom and hope. She tried books from the library, a newspaper she found in the entry hall, but nothing held her attention for long. Finally, she took to pacing long corridors like a restless ghost, to work off some of her impatience.

  And in the end, it was all for naught. “It was the same as in Portsmouth,” Lord James told her on the second evening. “No one seemed to know anything. I sailed with these men for years, most of them. I’m well acquainted with their quirks and evasions, and I didn’t spot any lies. I even tried another visit to that fellow at the Admiralty, but he had no more information.”

  Kawena sat on the drawing room sofa with her hands folded tightly in her lap. She was afraid that if she moved, she would fly into a thousand pieces. This was it. This was failure.

  “I don’t know what more I can do,” he went on. “I simply don’t believe that any of my crew took those jewels. Sailors live in very close quarters on shipboard, you know, even the officers. And a voyage has long, boring stretches. They notice anything unusual, and they talk about it. Someone hiding a treasure… I simply can’t see it.”

  Her lower lip was threatening to tremble. Kawena bit it, hard, to hold back any hint of tears. That would be too humiliating.

  Lord James glanced at her uneasily. “I’m very sorry. But…I’ve done what I promised. I don’t see what else… We’ll head back to Oxford tomorrow.”

  There had to be something. But Kawena couldn’t think of a next step.

  “I’ll see about a post chaise,” he said, sounding increasingly uncomfortable. “Are you…have you heard what I said?”

  “Yes,” said Kawena. Unable to bear the pitying, uneasy look in his eyes, she sprang to her feet and rushed out of the room.

  In her borrowed bedchamber, she paced some more. She couldn’t accept the idea that her quest was over, ending in disaster. Yet she’d tried every idea. She’d used up all her resources, including the amount of help Lord James was willing to offer. Having sat with him and some of his crew in Portsmouth, she believed what he said about his men. He did know them. However…her father’s hoard had been taken. If not by someone on the Charis…

  Kawena had questioned everyone at home. More importantly, her mother had done the same. And people on Valatu did not lie to her mother. They might wish to. They might plan to. But she had an uncanny ability to detect falsehoods. Indeed, she had uncovered a number of petty sins during the hunt for the jewels. They were not there.

  But where in the wide world were they? And what was she going to do?

  Kawena strode from one side of the luxurious bedchamber to the other, feeling like the caged tiger she had seen during her long voyage here. She supposed that Lord James’s family would lend her money for the passage home. Or…why pretend? It would not be a loan, but a gift. And they wouldn’t care. The sum would be nothing to them. They would give it to her, carelessly, kindly, and she would fade into their memories to become an amusing story, part of the Gresham family lore. The idea grated on her sensibilities. She would never see Lord James again, and he wouldn’t care a whit. She would make her way back to a small life on the island. Her mother would see that she had a place there, as a dependent. Although she missed her family, the prospect did not appeal. It felt stark and empty.

  The hour grew late, but Kawena knew that sleep was impossible. She didn’t even try getting into bed. Her mind insisted upon going over and over her situation, as if repetition might produce a solution.

  It did not.

  She paced some more. Movement was a little better than stillness. It was the illusion of action, at least. It used some of the pent-up energy that made her want to run and flail and shout with frustration.

  She was still at it when the first light of dawn showed at the windows. Although she was finally a little tired, Kawena still couldn’t rest. She left her chamber, craving more space, and wandered the house again. She was up before the few servants who cared for this huge dwelling that was used for only months out of the year. She strode through room after room. She would never fit into this kind of life, she thought. The place was oppressive—windows shrouded by layers of draperies, walls crowded up against other grand houses, with closed gardens and fenced squares. Barrier after barrier between the people and the outdoors. She found it hard to breathe here, sometimes.

  Kawena came to a door at the end of a hallway in the back of the house. Her feet had led her here, unthinking. She opened it and went through, into a small parlor papered in stripes of cream and deep green. The draperies and carpet were the same dark green, and shelves held a collection of books, ornaments, and odd little items. Kawena had discovered that this was the duchess’s private parlor, told by a young maid who seemed almost afraid of the place. She’d dared to sit here, even though it felt like a
kind of trespass. The room had an air of ease and contentment that she hadn’t found in other parts of the house.

  She went over to stand before the arrangement of six small portraits on the far wall. When she’d asked the maid, she’d told her that these were the Gresham brothers, each painted at the age of five years. It was easy to pick out Lord James from among them. Though the boys all resembled one another in coloring, they had their unique looks. What was it like to be the mother of such an array of sons, the mistress of all this? she wondered. And the duchess had charge of several other big houses, too, she’d heard. It seemed to her as if it would be more burden than gift.

  Kawena walked the perimeter of the room, absently running her fingers along the shelves and chair rail in the growing morning light. She looked at the informal clutter of objects the duchess had chosen to put here. She could like the person who accumulated and arranged this collection, she thought. But it was unlikely she would ever get to meet her.

  The sun climbed a bit higher, and an errant sunbeam lanced through the half-open draperies and struck the upper corner of the room, gilding it with light. The sudden illumination caught Kawena’s eye, and what seemed a familiar shape held it. There was something tucked away on the highest shelf, half-hidden by a row of books. Frowning up at it, Kawena moved closer. It couldn’t be, but…

  She fetched the chair that sat before the writing desk and set it below the shelves. Climbing onto it, she reached up. Her fingers were still inches below the object. From this nearer distance, she could see that it was imperative she get her hands on it.

  She examined the shelves. They were thick and solid, built into the wall, immoveable. Clearing a space on the one just above the chair, she pulled back her skirts and placed one foot onto the painted wood. Gripping a higher shelf with both hands, she stepped up until she was standing on the shelf. Carefully, she reached again.