by Jaimey Grant
Derringer knew what they were thinking. He had brought home mistresses before although it hadn’t been for a few years now, having spent most of the last two years in France and on another of his estates. He almost laughed to think that they would believe he would be interested in such a little colorless wren like his wife. A mocking little voice in his head informed him that he was indeed interested in his colorless little wren of a wife. He ignored it.
“Is there anything else?” he demanded, just to make them squirm. He’d known the Starks since he was in leading strings and he knew they were the only people in his employ who had no fear of dismissal. They knew the real Hartley St. Clair, third Duke of Derringer, but they still squirmed when he was upset or used the tone of voice he used in that moment.
“Will you be requiring anything in particular, your grace?” the butler asked with a pointed look at Leandra.
“Such as...?” Derringer asked, brow knitting with feigned incomprehension.
“Master Hart,” Mrs. Stark said reprovingly. Derringer fancied she would stamp her foot if she were not old enough to be his grandmother.
He favored the old woman with a sweet smile. Leandra sucked in a breath, startled beyond belief that her harsh husband could appear so... so... normal, charming even.
“Oh,” the duke said, dark brows raising in what could only be surprise—real or feigned, Leandra couldn’t tell, “you mean her? She’s my wife.” Then he walked away and left Leandra to deal with the dumbfounded servants.
Leandra watched the duke skirt around the grand staircase and head toward the back of the house. Was he abandoning her already?
She smiled brightly at the servants standing mum-chance before her and held out her hand. “I am Leandra. His grace and I married just this morning.”
The butler and housekeeper just stared at her and neither made any move to accept her proffered hand. Leandra pulled it back and clasped it in front of her. Frowning, she studied the two old retainers. The woman was round and motherly while the man was tall, white-haired, and very austere, just as a butler should be.
“I believe you are the ones responsible for the immaculate condition of the interior,” Leandra said with a friendly smile. “I commend you. It must be very difficult to take care of so large an estate especially when the lord is off doing any number of important things.”
“Important things?” the butler repeated in confusion.
“Of course,” the new duchess agreed. “At least, I assume they are. I really have no idea. I just met him last night, you see. Do you know my lord at all well?” she asked ingenuously, her mind only half on what she was saying.
This confession was effective in snapping the couple out of their stupor. “You just met his grace last night?” the housekeeper said in tones of disbelief. “What is the world coming to, I ask you?” she muttered to her husband, who nodded in agreement.
“I rely on you to show me how to go on,” Leandra continued, wisely ignoring the impertinent comment and inwardly amused at their lapse in proper behavior. “I have been trained in the running of a large household but nothing of this size and I have never had my own household to care for.”
Mrs. Stark curtsied and replied dutifully that she would do all she could to help ease her grace into the position of mistress of the house. The butler agreed as well.
“Marvelous!” Leandra exclaimed in excitement. “And I expect you to tell me all you can about my husband. I think you know him far better than I do and I would do everything in my power to please him. I think he needs… something. I’ll determine what later,” she said with a tiny shake of her head.
And so Leandra, the new Duchess of Derringer, made a friend for life in the motherly housekeeper and a champion in the aged butler. They smiled their approval and commented to each other later that they—and the duke, of course—were lucky to have such a sweet, unspoiled soul like the new duchess for a mistress.
3
Derringer avoided his bride until dinner that night. She sat on the other end of the long table in the state dining room and fiddled with the ring of emeralds and diamonds on her finger. He had found the family heirloom and had it delivered to her apartments. He was absurdly glad to see her wearing it, though he scoffed at his own sentimentality. It was unlike him to find pleasure in anything so mundane.
The footmen came forward with the third course and Derringer was suddenly tired of squinting down the table trying to determine what his wife was doing besides eating.
He felt the need to tell her that he would be returning to London in the morning and would probably be gone for several weeks. Instead of examining and stifling this strange need to be honest, he acted on it.
He gestured to the footman nearest him, James or John or Philip, he cared not which, ordering, “Fetch her grace’s meal here.” He pointed at the spot to his immediate right.
The footman rushed to the other end of the long table and informed her grace of his grace’s instructions. Derringer saw her throw a considering look in his direction, then smile sweetly up at the footman and nod her head in a most regal manner. She seemed to be growing accustomed to this duchess business quickly, he thought without a trace of cynicism. He ignored the strange twinge he felt when she bestowed such a charming smile on a mere servant.
Within moments, the switch was completed. The duchess smiled complacently at her husband and continued to eat just as if she had not been moved from one end of a thirty-foot table to the other in the middle of her meal.
Derringer caught Stark’s eye and dismissed the servants with a wave of his hand. The butler gathered his footmen and withdrew.
The duchess faced her husband with her dark brows raised in question. He decided to get the matter of his leaving out of the way as soon as possible. “My dear,” he began.
“Do you even remember my name?” she asked with the most innocent of expressions.
Derringer opened his mouth to tell her that of course he did. Then he realized that he actually couldn’t remember her name, odd for a man who remembered some truly unimportant things from as far back as childhood. He gave her a rueful look and shook his head. A lock of black hair fell across his brow.
His wife chuckled and set her fork and knife down beside her plate. “My name is Leandra, your grace. You may call me that if you desire but I actually prefer Merri,” she added with a teasing grin.
“Merri?”
“My second name is Merrily, like happy. I think that’s why I prefer it,” she said, a thoughtful smile curving her unfashionably full lips.
“I see,” the duke murmured. “I think I prefer Leandra. Who named you?”
“Papa did. His name was Leander, you see.”
“You are named after your father? How extraordinary,” Derringer murmured. It wasn’t often that a peer named his bastard after himself.
“Because I am baseborn? I admit it is unusual but I think extraordinary is a bit extreme, don’t you?”
“Perhaps,” Derringer reluctantly allowed. He studied his little wife. “Leandra or Merri,” he mused.
“I think you might be more comfortable calling me Leandra, your grace,” she offered with an understanding smile. “I would find it difficult to call you by anything that would imply an intimate standing between us.”
“Such as Hart?” He picked up his wineglass and swirled the liquid around as he watched her over the rim.
“That is your name, your true name, I mean?”
“My name is Hartley Giles St. Clair. My intimates call me Hart, my acquaintances call me St. Clair or Derringer, nodding acquaintances call me Lord Derringer, and when my back is turned everyone calls me Lord Heartless.”
Leandra’s expression darkened. “Who would call you such a hateful thing?”
The duke snorted. “I said everyone, did I not? I have only been called that to my face once,” he admitted with a reminiscent grin. “And she was no bigger than you and equally as meek except when crossed. I crossed her and she called me Lord
Heartless.” He neglected to mention a certain group of unsavory individuals who knew him only as Heartless.
“Who is she?” the duchess asked, her round features devoid of expression. Instinct told him to trust that look not at all.
Derringer drained the contents of his glass and set it down. His wife’s gaze never wavered from his face. “Her name is Aurora,” he finally said, not liking the feeling his wife’s stare was giving him. It was unnerving. “She is now happily married to a very close friend.”
Leandra’s expression never changed and her voice was pleasant as a summer breeze. “I would call her out if I could,” she told him with deadly intent.
“Whatever for?” Did she think she needed to defend him?
She shrugged, regarding him a moment in careful thought. “Evidently nothing,” she replied dryly. She looked away and applied herself to her food with a single minded intensity that made him wonder if perhaps he had gone suddenly invisible.
“Leandra,” he said, “I have to return to Town in the morning.”
“Why?” she asked without looking up.
He frowned. He wasn’t used to being questioned about anything. “I have to show our marriage lines to my solicitor.”
Now she looked up. “Why?”
“Is that any concern of yours?” His tone was sharper than he’d intended.
“No,” she answered honestly. “I had hoped you would stay for a few days to introduce me to some of the locals perhaps or let me know how you prefer the castle to be run. I am like a fish out of water here, your grace. I have never undertaken a project of this magnitude before.”
“I have to show him the lines before my birthday on Friday,” Derringer grudgingly revealed to his petite bride. “If I fail to prove that I married, Grimsby is going to give my inheritance to my uncle’s family.” He wished suddenly that the words were unsaid. He was unsure what had even prompted him to reveal so much.
Leandra’s fingers clenched around her fork. “You married me to save your money?” she asked through white lips. She told herself it was nothing like an heiress being married for her money instead of herself. She told herself that her feelings were not hurt. She did honestly admit that she had no business having hurt feelings when she willingly entered into this marriage of convenience. “You married a perfect stranger, a girl you happened to meet stranded at an inn, all for money?”
The duke’s black brows drew down into a V. “Why the devil else would I marry?” he snapped.
“At least you picked one unable to say no. What would you have done had I refused?”
One black brow rose. “Found another girl,” he told her bluntly.
“I see. Well, then.” She shook her head slightly. “What’s done is done and there is no going back.”
“Just what the devil is that supposed to mean?”
Leandra shrugged and forced her fingers to ease, thus allowing the blood to flow again, causing prickles in each appendage. “How early will you be gone?” she demanded, meeting his eyes.
His frown deepened. Lines appeared around his lips—his sinfully tempting lips—at her blunt query. Leandra might have wanted to throttle him, infuriating man that he was, but in that moment she thought she might want to kiss him more.
“I am unsure. Why?”
“I just wondered when I would be free of you and your megrims,” she replied sweetly.
The duke stared at her for a few moments as if trying to determine if she was serious. Then he surprised himself by saying gently, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Merri. I had to wed someone and I had a sennight in which to do it. You were the first woman I came across who”—he almost said who didn’t turn his stomach at the thought of bedding her—“seemed to be the best candidate to be a duchess.”
Leandra barely heard anything beyond his use of her father’s pet name for her. It slipped from his lips like the caress of a lover and wrapped her in a warm cocoon of contentment and hope. Her desire to kiss him increased. What it would be like to experience the feel of his lips against hers again? Mr. Hubbard had never done anything so shocking as trying to kiss her since they were not officially betrothed.
“Leandra?”
The duke’s voice intruded on her thoughts and she blushed in mortification. She chided herself for this unlikely behavior. It was not as if the man could read her mind. “Yes?” she inquired pleasantly.
Derringer shook his head in a rare moment of actual amusement. “I asked if you would be all right. I would feel much better to have this business with the solicitor over and done with.” He reached over and refilled her wine glass then refilled his own, fingering the stem of the glass absently as he watched her.
“All will be well,” she assured him. “I have the reliable Starks to help me over any rough spots and my own sense of adventure to get me through the rest. You go and get your money situation squared away, your grace.”
“Didn’t we decide that you were going to call me something else?” Derringer asked.
“No,” his wife replied laconically.
“I am tired of being ‘your graced’ at every turn, Leandra. Your birth may require such formality but becoming my wife raised your social status. ‘Your grace’ is no longer the proper way for you to address any duke, especially your husband.” He paused, waiting for some sort of acknowledgment, some indication that she was aware of the significant change their marriage had wrought in her life. When she said nothing, he added, “By the time I return, I hope you have decided how you will address me.”
“As you wish, your grace,” she murmured with an impish light in her hazel eyes.
Green and brown with flecks of gold, he corrected. She had pretty eyes, made more so when she smiled, her round cheeks giving her the adorable look of a precocious sprite. When she smiled it was like watching the sun rise over the sea on a foggy morning, shedding its light on all those close enough to be blessed by the occurrence. He liked her smile.
It was a strange feeling for him which made him uncomfortable. He just met this girl the day before and knew nothing about her. She knew nothing about him and yet she seemed to be quite content being married to him.
Of course she is, he reminded himself cynically. She’s a duchess now. What girl wouldn’t be in alt over such a coup?
He rose to his feet. “I will bid you goodbye now, Leandra. And do something about your nauseating wardrobe while I’m gone,” he said stiffly. He walked out before he could see the hurt he knew would be visible on her overly expressive face.
4
The Duke of Derringer entered the building above which the sign Grimsby, Lehman, and Bimm, Solicitors swung in the slight autumn breeze. He walked to the back of the building, past the whiny solicitor’s equally whiny assistant, and into the main office in the back. He looked from Grimsby to the man who currently sat on Derringer’s side of the wide desk and smiled most unpleasantly.
“I say, Grimsby, what is all this? I had an appointment,” blustered the client, a peer from what Derringer could tell from the man’s dress and attitude, though he could not recall ever having met this particular gentleman before.
The duke turned a bland look on the man who shrank back into his chair as the solicitor rose to his feet. To prevent bloodshed?
“Your grace, may I make known to you the Earl of Harwood?” Grimsby asked desperately in an attempt to ease the tension.
The little man really ought to have known better, but the duke surprised him. “By all means,” Derringer drawled without removing his gaze from the earl. Merri’s brother, he thought darkly without even realizing that he had come to think of her as Merri.
“Lord Harwood, the Duke of Derringer.”
Derringer held out his hand as the other man stood. “Pleasure,” he said with an unreadable look.
Harwood bowed and shook the duke’s outstretched hand. “Harwood, my lord, at your service,” he murmured politely.
Derringer studied his new brother-in-law and decided he did not like
what he saw. The man had a truly unremarkable appearance. His hair and eyes were plain brown. His face was that of a cherub, innocent and guileless. Derringer distrusted him immediately. No one was as innocent as this man’s face implied.
And Derringer had found Merri alone at night at an inn having been turned out of her father’s home. Even in the very short amount of time the duke had known his bride, he realized that her sweetness of character was not something that was learned. It was an innate quality. It had somehow survived the stain of her illegitimacy and the probably many petty little indignities she’d had to endure at the hands of her half-siblings and stepmama.
Derringer smiled at his wife’s brother. “Hartley St. Clair, Harwood. Please call me Hart,” he invited with what appeared to be sincerity. “I believe we are bound to become much better acquainted fairly soon.”
The earl gave Derringer a look of pleased surprise. “Certainly, Hart. Please call me Lee.”
The duke turned a malignant eye on the lawyer. He wanted this scoundrel gone before he gave in to his urge to draw his cork.
The lawyer interpreted the look correctly and turned again to the earl. “Lord Harwood, perhaps we can continue this later. Lord Derringer has some urgent business I think.”
“But I had an appointment,” the earl said in confusion.
The duke quirked one black brow at the man’s obtuseness and said in a soft voice that held a menacing hint of steel, “Goodbye, Lee. We will meet again.”
Grimsby shivered.
The earl stared up at the duke with a confused frown. Suddenly his brow cleared and he was out of the office before the realization of exactly whom he was dealing with had fully formed in his mind. A disturbing laugh followed him as he left.
Derringer kicked the door shut and reached into the pocket of his black waistcoat. He tossed a folded sheet of foolscap onto the lawyer’s desk and leaned back against the closed door with his arms crossed over his chest.
Mr. Grimsby eyed the hotheaded young lord suspiciously. “What is that?” he asked.