What the Duke Doesn't Know

by Jane Ashford

  As he’d expected, he had to jerk himself out of a nap more than once during the long oration, and he retained nothing of the subject matter. But when Ariel approached him afterward with a young woman in tow, he got an inkling of why she’d insisted he come. This must be another bride prospect. He’d nearly forgotten that matter. His joking request seemed to have been made an age ago, by another James Gresham entirely.

  “Horatia, this is my husband’s brother, Lord James Gresham,” she said. “James, Miss Horatia Grantham.”

  “So pleased to make your acquaintance,” said the newcomer. She was tall and lean, with gingery hair and alert blue eyes. Her face was attractive rather than pretty, lit by a lively intelligence. “I have wanted to do so ever since I heard that you are a navy man,” she added.

  “Have you?” said James.

  “Oh, yes. I’m passionately interested in naval exploits. I have made a systematic study of the subject.” She sighed happily. “Sailing thousands of miles from home, battling Britain’s enemies. A band of heroes.”

  “I wouldn’t say heroes,” he murmured.

  “That is because you are overly modest, like a proper naval officer.”

  James was startled by this characterization, which certainly did not describe most of his colleagues. He glanced at Ariel for guidance, but she just smiled and drifted off.

  “I was named for Lord Nelson, of course,” Miss Grantham continued. “Did you ever meet him?”

  “Just once, at a staff meeting.”

  Miss Grantham clasped her hands together and gazed at him with delighted reverence. “What did he say to you?”

  “Uh, it was more of a nod, really. I was a very junior officer, among many.”

  “Still, you were in his presence. The greatest hero of our time.”

  James might have objected that there were other candidates for that accolade. Wellington, perhaps? But Miss Grantham launched into a detailed, and extremely knowledgeable, rehash of the Battle of Trafalgar, and he was hard put just to keep up.

  He might have done a better job of it if he hadn’t been continually distracted by the sight of Kawena, not three yards away and attracting all sorts of attention.

  She’d put on a gown he hadn’t seen before—a simple fall of fabric without fussy trimmings. But the color! James supposed you’d call it orange, but the word didn’t really capture the deep, rich hue of the thing. It was like no dress he’d seen before, and it suited her to a T. Her skin glowed, warm and enticing, against the cloth. Her hair shone black as a raven’s wing. All in all, she looked like…well, like a tropical bird landed in a flock of pigeons.

  “Don’t you think?” said Miss Grantham.

  James had no idea what she was referring to. “Ah, very likely,” he tried. It seemed to satisfy her. She plunged on into naval strategy, while James faced the fact that he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Kawena’s beauty. She was surrounded by a circle of the younger men, and a few of the older ones as well. They were bent forward, eyeing her like…like hungry hawks, if he was to continue the bird analogy. He was seized by a desire to swoop in and scatter them.

  Miss Grantham paused again, gazing up at him. He needed to say something. He was being rude. He searched for plausible words, and overheard a scrap of conversation from behind his left shoulder. “I know, such a color! Orange! But heiresses can wear whatever they like, I suppose.”

  James didn’t catch the murmured response. But the first speaker’s reply was perfectly audible. “Oh yes, my dear, vastly wealthy, like some sort of female nabob, they say.”

  Who said? Kawena wouldn’t have. Nor any of their party, James was sure.

  “No, not India,” the gossipy voice continued. “Some other place.” The volume sank to a suggestive murmur; he had to strain to hear. “A native of some kind, I understand. But she’s not really dark, is she? Not that it would matter to some.”

  James controlled a surge of rage. However the news had gotten out—and London was crammed full of servants and shopkeepers and eavesdroppers—it was unstoppable now. He glared at the men surrounding Kawena.

  “Lord James?” said Miss Grantham. “Is something wrong?”

  He recalled himself. It wasn’t fair to treat her this way, no matter how uninterested he might feel. “I beg your pardon. I was distracted for a moment. What were you saying? Broadsides, was it?”

  From the look she gave him, it wasn’t. But she forgave him and went on. He took care to listen this time. He should have turned his back on the spectacle of Kawena’s admirers, but he couldn’t quite manage that.

  Kawena was enjoying this gathering more than any she’d attended before. She was very pleased with her new gown, and credited it with drawing the surge of flattering attention.

  “What did you think of the lecture, Miss Benson?” asked the young man on her right. Ariel had mentioned his name, but she’d forgotten it in the spate of introductions that followed the talk. “Do you intend to make use of the memory techniques?” he added.

  She hadn’t really followed the speaker’s reasoning. His plan of associating items you wished to recall with other quite unrelated things, which seemed equally difficult to keep in mind, had seemed very complicated. She shrugged. “I expect I shall just have to remember what I remember,” she replied. “And what I don’t…well, those things I forget.”

  All around the circle, gentlemen laughed heartily. “A wit, by Jove,” exclaimed the one who’d asked the question.

  Their response seemed exaggerated to Kawena. But perhaps they were just being kind to a stranger.

  “I hope I may come to call on you,” said another.

  “And I,” several others chimed in.

  Kawena wasn’t sure if she had the right to invite visitors to Ariel’s home. “I’m not certain how long I’ll be in Oxford,” she temporized.

  This roused a storm of protest, all the men insisting she must stay. Kawena began to feel hemmed in. She could scarcely see the rest of the room for the tall figures that surrounded her. Spotting Flora Jennings between two jostling shoulders, Kawena said, “Excuse me. I must speak to my friend.”

  Flora stood with her back to the wall, eying the chattering crowd as if someone might fly at her at any moment. “I dislike being in a room full of strangers. I never know what to say.”

  “Surely here you can ask about their studies?” Kawena replied. She would have thought that the scholarly Miss Jennings would be quite at home in a university town.

  “Very few of them will talk seriously to a woman about their work. Were they speaking of it to you?”

  “No,” Kawena admitted. “They said mostly silly things. I don’t know how I got in among such a crowd. The last time I came to a lecture, hardly anyone spoke to me.”

  “They’ve heard about your fortune,” said Lord Robert. He’d come up behind Kawena and now lounged elegantly beside them, a glass of wine in his hand.

  “You told them,” Flora accused.

  “I did not! What do you think me? Don’t answer that.” He sipped from the glass.

  “But how could they know?” Kawena asked. She surveyed the people ranged before them. A great many seemed to be looking their way.

  Lord Robert shrugged. “Certain kinds of news travels with astonishing speed. As fast as a horse can gallop, I suppose. Scandals, indiscretions, possession of a large fortune. James said you went to the ton’s favorite jeweler to discover their value, after all.”

  “I was told our inquiry was confidential,” Kawena replied. She had no objection to the truth, but the intensity of the gazes fixed upon her was startling.

  “I’m sure they meant it to be.” Lord Robert finished his wine. “But a great pile of jewels…the story’s irresistible.”

  “To those who have nothing better to do than gossip,” said Flora, with a severe glance in his direction.

  He tur
ned away from her with a weary sigh. “It looks as if James is getting on with this wife prospect, at any rate.”

  “What?” said Kawena.

  Lord Robert indicated his brother and a ginger-haired young lady, deep in conversation. “Ariel’s well-known in our family for promoting perfect matches. When he first came to stay, James asked her to find him a proper English bride.” He smiled as if this was amusing.

  Kawena couldn’t help repeating the words, “Proper English bride.” They came out before she could stop them. “Proper. To marry.” Immediately, she flushed at the stupidity of this, but the others didn’t seem to have heard.

  “I thought better of Ariel,” said Miss Jennings. “You make it sound like…like picking fruit, or something equally insulting.”

  He had been doing this when she’d first entered the garden and pointed a pistol at him, Kawena realized. And all along, ever since.

  “She promised no more than to present him to some likely young women,” Lord Robert replied. He sounded annoyed, and as if he’d had more than one glass of wine. “It’s no more than is commonly done.”

  “In your circles,” Miss Jennings retorted. “At the disgusting displays of the Marriage Mart.”

  Even when he’d held her in his arms, when he’d made his forced proposal to her, he’d been engaged in this hunt. He had known he wanted—told his family he wanted—someone quite different from her. She had never been part of his future. And if her plans might have started to include him…

  “People have to meet,” said Lord Robert. “If they keep their heads buried in dusty old books—”

  “I knew you were mocking me!” Miss Jennings exclaimed.

  “You put everything I say in the worst possible light.” He stared at her, arms rigid at his sides. “I see there’s no convincing you. It’s useless to keep trying.” Turning on his heel, he walked away.

  Kawena was suddenly filled with a burning desire to shove propriety down Lord James’s throat and let him choke on it.

  “Useless, exactly,” hissed Flora. “Just go.”

  Since he was already gone, and unable to hear this dismissal, Kawena turned to look at her companion.

  “I certainly don’t care.” The flashing glance of Flora’s blue eyes argued otherwise. She turned toward the door. “I’m going back to the house. Tell…anyone who wonders where I am.”

  Perhaps it was impossible to understand a people when you had not grown up among them, Kawena thought. Flora was obviously as furious as she was, but she had no idea why. But if she could understand, Kawena suspected the knowledge would be useful. She followed Flora’s path toward the exit. But Lord James caught her before she reached it.

  “Enjoying yourself? ” he asked. The two words sounded mocking.

  One sure way to outrage the dreaded propriety was to hit someone at a party. She couldn’t do that. But the English used words as weapons. “Shouldn’t I be?” she replied, matching his tone.

  “Oh, indeed. Now that you’re being lionized, there’s no reason to be interested in old friends any longer.”

  Kawena had no notion what lions had to do with it, and in fact, only a hazy notion of what they were. A few days ago, she would have asked him. They might have laughed over the explanation. “My ‘old friends’ seem quite occupied with their own affairs.” That was the way they did it, she thought. They never said exactly what they meant. Then if they were taxed with some insult, they could blandly deny any such intention.

  “You expect they will spend every moment looking out for you, instead?”

  Kawena had never realized, before this, that you could long to kiss a man, and to shake him until his bones rattled, at the very same time. She would almost have done it—the shaking part—right here in front of everybody and damn propriety, but for the distance in Lord James’s eyes. They showed no sign of the fire that had burned so deliciously when he held her. The figure before her was every inch a duke’s son—haughty, closed. He used his very proper manners as a barrier and a silent, unanswerable rebuke.

  The ginger-haired girl he had been talking to came toward them, on the arm of a stout older man. “Lord James,” she said when they were closer, “my father so wished to make your acquaintance. Like me, he is a great supporter of the navy.”

  She spoke as if she ruled this room. She looked utterly at home. Lord James turned automatically in response to her demand. Kawena couldn’t believe that this was really what he wanted—this rigid little world. But if he thought it was…

  He introduced her. She smiled.

  If he thought that, someone would simply have to show him how mistaken he was.

  Fifteen

  Although all of the residents of Ariel’s house were gathered at the breakfast table the following day, the meal was rendered silent by the arrival of a stack of letters. Everyone but James had a missive or two to read, and he was just as glad not to have to pretend to be in a good humor.

  Alan was the first to look up from his pages. “Mama says they’re going to Brighton to discover what’s wrong with Nathaniel.”

  “Is something wrong with him?” Ariel replied, looking concerned.

  “He’s stopped answering letters,” Robert said.

  “He is on his honeymoon,” Ariel pointed out.

  “That didn’t stop him from going up to London and spending a packet on a high-perch phaeton,” Robert responded.

  Alan frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Nathaniel. And how do you know?”

  “Lord Robert hears all the gossip,” said Flora Jennings, without looking up from her own letter.

  Robert glared at her before flicking a finger at the letter before him. “Friend of mine mentioned it. Thought it was odd.”

  “It is, rather,” agreed Alan.

  “I suppose a man can buy a carriage if he wants one,” said James. It came out surly, and earned him sidelong glances. He resolved to keep quiet, and not to crane his neck any farther to try to see Kawena’s correspondence. She was engrossed in a thick packet on heavy paper. He’d hoped to get a look at the signature, but she was keeping it close.

  Robert indicated another of his letters. “And he told Randolph that if he didn’t like the breed of bishop he’d found for him, Randolph could hunt down another himself.”

  “Breed?” said Ariel, frowning. “What does that mean?”

  “No notion,” Robert replied.

  “Perhaps it’s some sort of joke?”

  “Perhaps Violet has driven Nathaniel mad,” James suggested, earning more puzzled stares from his family. But women did drive you mad. Apparently.

  “She has altered her entire wardrobe,” Robert said, picking up the first letter to consult it again. “Looks like quite a different creature, it seems. Prinny’s been ogling her.”

  “The Regent? Violet?” Alan looked startled.

  Flora Jennings made an involuntary sound, drawing the attention of the table.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Robert.

  “Not bad news, I hope?” said Ariel.

  The self-assured Miss Jennings looked uncomfortable. “I had meant to return home tomorrow,” she said, “but my mother writes that our cook and housemaid have contracted some sort of fever. The doctor doesn’t believe it is serious, but Mama suggests that I stay away until they are recovered.”

  “Of course you are welcome to stay,” said Ariel.

  “I don’t like to impose on your hospitality. And I should be at home to help.”

  “You can’t do everything,” said Robert.

  Flora started to speak, then folded her lips closed over whatever retort she’d been about to loose. James didn’t know what it was between these two. The woman’s mere presence seemed to turn his most socially adept brother into a blunderer. It was as much a mystery as why Kawena didn’t seem to be speaking directly to him any longer.

&nbs
p; Flora rose. “I must answer her and inquire how they are doing.”

  Kawena folded her thick letter. “I hope you know that I am very grateful for your hospitality, and for the help in recovering my property.” She included James in her look around the table. And that was all. Then she rose, taking her letter and following Flora from the room.

  He should have gone off to the Admiralty days ago and lobbied harder for a new posting. Why hadn’t he?

  * * *

  Kawena found Flora in the room they shared, sitting at the small writing desk with a blank sheet of paper before her. “I don’t want to stay,” she said when Kawena came in. “Ariel is very kind, of course, but…” Uncharacteristically, she blurted out the rest. “I don’t feel comfortable making a long visit with members of Lord Robert’s family. With him always here. Mama knows that.”

  Kawena sat in the armchair by the fireplace. “Perhaps I can help.” When Flora turned to gaze at her, she added, “I have decided to take a house of my own in Oxford. And I would be very glad, and grateful, if you would join me for a while.”

  “On your own? But that isn’t—”

  “Proper,” said Kawena, nodding. “I hoped you might help me make it so.”

  Flora looked both curious and puzzled. “Why?”

  “Because you will know just what I must do.”

  “No, why get a house? Everyone expects you to go home now that you’ve recovered your inheritance.”

  Kawena looked down. Flora’s blue eyes were acute. “Mr. Crane has undertaken some…business for me, which requires time to complete. I cannot go until it is done. And I find that I want to learn more about my father’s country.” Both things were true, and reasonable. There was no need to mention Lord James, and certainly no way to describe the jumble of feelings the wretched man roused in her.

  “You would have to find an older woman to act as a chaperone,” Flora replied. “I wouldn’t do for that. If, that is, you care about such things.”

  “I intend to be a model of English propriety.” It came out fiercely. Indeed, the intensity in her voice surprised her a bit.