It's All About the Duke--The Rakes of St. James

by Amelia Grey

  Mrs. Doddle rushed into the room, drying her hands on an apron that had goose feathers and dumpling flour all over it. “What’s wrong with Mrs. Portington this time?”

  Marlena looked up at her housekeeper. “I don’t know yet. She doesn’t look injured so I’m sure she’s just upset about something again.” Marlena grabbed hold of Tut and reached to hand him up to Mrs. Doddle. “Would you please take him out to the back garden for me and I’ll find out?”

  “Of course.” She bent down and took Tut in her arms. He scrambled to get down, knowing he was about to be put outside and miss the drama. Mrs. Doddle held firm. “Let me know if I can help the poor lady. She seems to have more than her share of distresses in her life, doesn’t she?”

  Marlena smiled at her tenderhearted housekeeper and nodded. “I’ll let you know if there’s anything you can do. Thank you.”

  Marlena laid a comforting hand on Veronica’s shoulder but she made no move to stop crying or look up so Marlena gave her a slight shake. “Veronica, you must tell me what’s wrong.”

  With her face hidden in the cushion, she mumbled a few words. The only word Marlena could make out was Eugenia.

  A slight chill raced over Marlena and she shuddered. “Has something happened to your sister?”

  Veronica nodded.

  Marlena felt her whole body shake. “What?” Had she and Eugenia been found out? Had someone finally figured out they were responsible for Miss Truth’s Scandal Sheet?

  There was no answer forthcoming so Marlena tried again. “Was she arrested? Was she struck by a carriage? Did she get hit on the head with something? Veronica, you must stop crying, sit up, and tell me. Where is Eugenia?”

  Slowly, Veronica quieted and rose to a sitting position, shaking her head, sniffing, and wiping her big, pale-blue eyes. “No, she’s fine I’m sure. It’s Mr. Portington who’s not.”

  Confused, Marlena shook her head. “But I don’t understand. When I asked you if something had happened to Eugenia you nodded. So what is this about? Is Mr. Portington hurt? I can’t help you if you don’t give me details about what is wrong.”

  She sniffed again. “Mr. Portington bought some eggs.”

  Heaven give me patience!

  Marlena struggled to hold her tongue. She’d long known that Veronica was emotionally delicate, predisposed to spells of crying, to having days when she wouldn’t eat or get out of bed, but it was ridiculous to be this upset over something as simple and everyday as buying eggs.

  And Marlena wanted to tell her that.

  But she couldn’t. Certainly not in Veronica’s current state anyway.

  Giving herself a few seconds to change her frame of mind from wanting to tell Veronica how silly she was being to cry over this and throw herself into a fit of despair, Marlena rose from her knees. Spouting unkind things wouldn’t help her friend feel better and could very well make her state of mind worse.

  With a silent sigh, Marlena seated herself on the settee beside her distraught neighbor, and asked, “Why would his buying food of any kind disturb you so badly?”

  “Because they’re Megalosaurus eggs!” she exclaimed, and then covered her face with her hands and started wailing again.

  Marlena wasn’t familiar with that word but undoubtedly it was some new type of rooster, chicken, or perhaps a bird that Mr. Portington had heard about. Threatening her friend was the last thing she wanted to do, but at this point, she had to be firm.

  “Stop crying please, Veronica, or I’ll have to leave the room until you get control of yourself.”

  At that, Veronica dried her eyes, dropped her hands into her lap, and quieted to sniffles again.

  “Now, I don’t know what you mean by these Megalo—”

  “Megalosaurus eggs,” she responded softly, sniffing into a handkerchief she pulled from beneath her long sleeve.

  “Yes. Why is that so bad?”

  Veronica kept her gaze down on her hands resting in her lap. “Mr. Portington took the money I was to pay the modiste for Eugenia’s gowns, gloves, capes.” She twisted her fingers together. “All the clothing she needed for the Season. And he bought the eggs with them.”

  Marlena still didn’t see why this was so disconcerting to her friend. There was quite a bit of difference in the price of a few eggs and a few gowns. He couldn’t have possibly used all the money Eugenia’s father had set aside for her Season.

  “What exactly is a Megalosaurus?” Marlena asked.

  “A giant reptile that lived millions of years ago. Bigger than an elephant and taller than a giraffe.”

  Speechless for a few seconds, Marlena could do nothing but blink. Rapidly. “I’ve read about large bones and fossils of these bones being discovered in quarries and other places around England and throughout the world, but not the creature’s eggs. I haven’t ever heard of the word Megalosaurus before.”

  “One of Mr. Portington’s friends, Mr. William Buckland, said the reptile hasn’t been officially named by the scientific community yet, but it means ‘great lizard.’ He came up with it and hopes they’ll approve the name he’s chosen before the end of the year. Soon anyway. He found the bones but not the eggs. It was a different friend who found those and talked Mr. Portington into buying them, assuring him they are indeed fossilized Megalosaurus eggs from one of these giant creatures. He said that once it has been named and cataloged as such by the Royal Society of Paleontology, the value of the eggs will increase tenfold or more.”

  Marlena didn’t know enough about this subject to even talk about it. She did know Mr. Portington had purchased some strange things and all of them were sitting around his house. There was the purported fossil of the extinct and legendary dodo bird, which had cost him a large sum a year or two ago. One of his prized possessions was a burial cloth he claimed came from the tomb of an Egyptian soldier that dated from the times of Ramses II, and there was a tusk from a long-extinct animal that looked very much like an elephant tusk to Marlena.

  “What do the eggs look like?” she asked Veronica.

  “Dark-gray lumps of coal. They’re about the size of my hands cupped together. They are packed tightly in what looks like a fossilized breadbasket.”

  “Oh,” Marlena said, not knowing what else to say about that for now.

  She would have to do some reading about this subject before she could really understand what Veronica was talking about. However, that wouldn’t help with the fact that Mr. Portington had used the money Eugenia’s father set aside long ago for her debut.

  Marlena knew Mr. Portington had managed to spend all the money left to Veronica by her parents and now he’d obviously started on Eugenia’s. Veronica had lamented to him about his gross expenditures on fossils and artifacts hunts for years to no avail. It was as if he were deaf. Either his eyes and nose were in an article or book about fossils, he was looking at one through a magnifying glass, or he was corresponding by letter with someone about them.

  “Are you sure he used all of Eugenia’s inheritance?”

  She nodded. “I asked him for money to pay the modiste and he told me he’d spent the rest of it on the eggs. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Veronica said. “Eugenia can’t attend the Season this year if she’s not properly gowned.”

  “We won’t worry about the possibility of losing all the gowns and other things she needs just yet. The Season is still weeks away and there may be something we can do to purchase some of them. At least a couple. Maybe not all the capes, gloves, and headpieces but enough to keep her properly dressed. We won’t know what we can do until we have time to think about this.”

  “I don’t know of anything we can do that will give us that much money.”

  Marlena didn’t, either. Not right now, anyway, but knew she would try to come up with something. Despondency seeped into Veronica’s demeanor. Whenever her shoulders hunched and her chin sank toward her chest, she usually spent a day or two in bed. The last time she was in such a state was when Eugenia had told her the Duke of Rath
burne was Marlena’s new guardian. Marlena had finally convinced Veronica that his guardianship of her would in no way affect the scandal sheet or what Marlena was doing to help the sisters stay in their house and keep up appearances in Society. Veronica was desperate for Eugenia to attend the Season, make a match, and have happiness and her own home.

  “Veronica, look at me and smile,” Marlena said lightheartedly. “Come on, look at me. Smile. This is not a situation we can’t handle. We took on three rakes with the scandal sheet and we’ll come up with a plan to take care of this, too. We always do, don’t we?”

  She faced Marlena but didn’t smile. Her eyes were red and puffy. Dull and distant.

  “Let me have some time to work on this,” Marlena said earnestly. “I don’t know whether we’ll make much or any money from the book I wrote. I’ll write Mr. Trout a note and put it in with the next scandal sheet and ask. Listen to me,” she said, taking hold of Veronica’s shoulders. “You cannot take to your bed over this. Do you understand? Eugenia needs you to help her. So you’ll stay strong, right?”

  She nodded again.

  “Good. I’ll also ask Mr. Trout if he can pay us an advance for the scandal sheets. That’s a possibility. I’ve not missed a week writing them so I do believe he’ll do that for us. And perhaps if the book has sold a few copies, he’ll give us some payment on that as well. So we have hope and prospects to getting enough money to pay for some of the clothing.”

  “I know the book is selling well,” Veronica said, seeming to perk up a little.

  “Really?” Marlena asked curiously. “How?”

  “I hear ladies talking about it,” she answered, brushing her dark-blond hair away from the side of her face. “They are enjoying it and recommending it to other friends, mothers, and aunts. Grandmothers and cousins.”

  “Oh.” This information lifted Marlena’s spirits immensely. Didn’t Veronica think this was something that Marlena would have wanted to know? But rather than scold her friend for not sharing the news, she simply said, “Thank you for telling me. Now, it’s important we don’t mention to Eugenia that Mr. Portington spent money that was intended for her. We don’t want her worrying unnecessarily that she may not get the new gowns and other things she needs.”

  “Yes. All right. I don’t want her to know what he did.”

  “Good,” Marlena said, and then repeated, “Do not take to your bed over this and don’t say a word to Eugenia. Somehow I will see that all is well.”

  “She must attend the Season, Marlena, and find a man who is not like Mr. Portington. I will not have her as miserable as I have been for all these years. I’d rather she spend her life unwed.”

  “There’s no reason she should have to do either. You know, she’s quite fond of Mr. Bramwell. He’s young, handsome, and prosperous now that he’s inherited his father’s tailoring business. I’m told that his easy charm and intelligence have made the company even more successful.”

  Veronica looked at her aghast. “He is a tradesman. Eugenia couldn’t possibly consider marrying him. I’ve seen her watching him in the mornings. He walks past our house every day on his way to work. And they talk over the hedge when they think I’m not watching, but I am. I believe he’s quite fond of her, too.”

  “He is,” Marlena agreed.

  “I appreciate his help, and we don’t mind if they visit over the hedge, but she can’t marry him. You know she’d never be accepted back in Society if she doesn’t marry a gentleman.”

  Marlena wanted to say, Would you rather she marry a gentleman like Mr. Portington who has no mind for business, no heart for home or family, or would you rather she marry a man like Mr. Bramwell who works a successful business, doesn’t buy odd things, and is good to his mother? But she held her tongue. She couldn’t step into the sisters’ affairs any further than she already had. Writing the column and the book, giving them the money she made from them, was all she could do.

  “You’re right, of course,” Marlena said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  And what was she thinking when she started writing about three gentlemen and other people she’d never met? The same thing she was thinking now: Veronica and Eugenia needed her. They had from the moment she’d met them. And though it was trying at times, she wanted to be needed by someone.

  She’d thought Veronica would feel better, do better if she knew they were not letting Society forget what the Rakes of St. James had done to young ladies with their secret admirer letters. But Veronica hadn’t changed. She still had periods of hysterics and the depression that followed. The constant reminder to Society of what the rakes had done hadn’t helped her despair.

  When Marlena wrote the first four columns and took them to Mr. Trout as a sample of what she could do, she’d never dreamed she’d still be writing them almost three years later. But what else could she do when her friends needed the money because Mr. Portington was so reckless with his allowance that the family was at times in dire financial straits? She was forced to keep doing it for their benefit.

  It wasn’t fair Veronica’s husband had become so reclusive and didn’t take better care of his family. What was wrong with him? He was supposed to put his wife and her welfare first. Not take from his sister-in-law’s inheritance and send them all to the poorhouse because he bought giant lizard eggs!

  With that thought, an idea came to Marlena. She didn’t know if she could actually do anything, but she would try. Turning to Veronica, she squared her shoulders and asked, “What is the name of the friend who sold Mr. Portington the eggs?”

  Chapter 11

  He could be a rake if he hesitates when a young lady makes a simple request.

  MISS HONORA TRUTH’S WORDS OF WISDOM AND WARNING ABOUT RAKES, SCOUNDRELS, ROGUES, AND LIBERTINES

  It seemed as if every carriage in London was on the same street as Rath’s. His driver was inching the horses and landau along with the usual occasional jolts, bumps, and sudden stops. The many shouts from frustrated people up and down the long stream of conveyances did little to speed up the process.

  Rath had forgotten there would be an end of winter carnival in Hyde Park later in the day. Everyone must have left their houses at the same time in the hope of getting to the park early enough to stake out a prime place to enjoy the afternoon and evening with family and friends. Not that Rath was minding the slower pace today. The longer-than-normal ride from his solicitor’s office to St. James gave him more time to study the papers in his hand before arriving at Miss Fast’s house.

  Shuffling through the loose pages, Rath’s eyes kept capturing the same information time and time again. Mr. William Buckland was a highly intelligent and well-learned man. Noted for being a clergyman, a fossil hunter, and a geologist. He’d recently been elected a fellow into the Royal Society. That was no small accomplishment. Rath was sure it had been a boost to his reputation and his rapid rise to prominence in his chosen fields of study, because he had the Prince’s ear. Thereby, the Regent’s monetary support as well. But the main thing that caught Rath’s attention—the man was also a bachelor.

  The probe into Mr. Herbert Wentfield’s life had been an entirely different story. And that was odd.

  It was perplexing to Rath why Miss Fast wanted to know so much about the two men. Why did Mr. Buckland’s obsession with diggings in the earth for scientific purposes in order to prove historical facts, or to look for animal bones and fossils interest her? Not to mention all the explorations he’d conducted and the honors he’d been given because of them.

  Rath hit his knee with the stack of papers. Was she interested in making a match with either of the men? That thought didn’t sit well with him.

  And if she had such notions, what was she thinking to send Rath a note asking that he obtain any and all information possible for her on Mr. Buckland and Mr. Wentfield? Did she consider Rath her personal secretary to do her bidding on gentlemen she might be interested in for marriage just because he was her guardian?

  He blew out a grunted lau
gh. That was precisely what he was supposed to do. And he had. If making a match with either of these men was her consideration, didn’t she know Buckland was too old for her? He was probably closer to four score than three. He did wonder how she knew about the unknown Wentfield when Rath’s solicitor couldn’t find out anything about him.

  Rath started out not even responding to her unusual and cheeky request of him. Nevertheless, in the end, his responsibility to her and no small amount of curiosity had gotten the best of him. After a couple of days stewing about her note and rereading it numerous times, he’d had his solicitor find all the articles available that had been written about Buckland and the ones the man himself had written. And then Rath had to read the damned stuff to make sure it was appropriate for her to see. He couldn’t allow her to be inquiring about someone who might have led a life completely unsuitable for her to read about. Rath certainly wouldn’t want an innocent young lady reading about his own life.

  Though it wasn’t a natural inclination for young ladies, Miss Fast had admitted she liked to till the ground around the flowers and cut the blooms rather than just walk in the garden and enjoy the beauty. Maybe it wasn’t unusual she’d be interested in someone who liked to dig deep below the earth’s surface for ancient carcasses. After all, she’d lived in a house with boys and followed them around until the day she moved to Mr. Olingworth’s. He could see her cousins had great influence in her life. And not in a bad way.

  Once Rath had gotten over his reluctance to do so, he’d done what she asked, and now she was going to do the same. And tell him why she’d wanted the details on these men’s lives and work.

  There was another reason he’d wanted to get the facts on Buckland and Westfield, though it took a while for him to admit it to himself. Being Marlena’s guardian had given him a challenge unlike any he’d ever accepted before. Over the years of his youth and beyond there had been many dares and gambles from friends and foes alike. Every one he’d met, and most of them he’d won.