When a Duchess Says I Do

by Grace Burrowes

  “Passed them on, though I had only hasty recollections of Matilda’s translation to go by.”

  Duncan squashed a frisson of pity for this inept spy in uniform. “Did it never occur to you to question the people telling you where to look?”

  Parker sat up. “These are not men who’d take kindly to questioning. They’d never given me bad information before, and they were right: Wakefield was in possession of very sensitive plans.”

  “And you,” Stephen drawled, “were doubtless scheming to beat them at their own game. Clever fellow that you are, you intended to expose Wakefield as a spy—as a leader of spies—and do your war hero part for England while putting yourself unassailably above suspicion. Instead of pocketing paltry sums for passing on gossip, you doubtless sought a promotion to general officer—the fellows at Horse Guards have remarked your objective well. You simply underestimated the lady and those loyal to her.” He swept Parker a bow. “Forgive me if you have failed to rouse any emotion in my bosom save contempt.”

  Stephen was entitled to his dramatics, and he’d spared Duncan a recitation of the charges. What Parker lacked in honor and brains he made up for in ambition.

  Matilda came to stand immediately before the colonel. “Atticus, did you never wonder why such important plans were left in such an unprotected location? I found that document while I was searching for a pair of scissors. A valet, a footman, anybody might have found it. You were all but told where to look, weren’t you?”

  He stared up at her. “What are you saying?”

  “My father is not a traitor. I am not a traitor, but you, my lord, have been a very, very great imbecile.”

  “A pawn,” Duncan said, “to use your term, and they are easily sacrificed, as you have been sacrificed. Lord Stephen, Your Grace, if you’d escort his lordship abovestairs, he’ll want to change out of uniform. The marquess has been summoned, and he will be consulted before other authorities are involved. At the very least, you will resign your commission, my lord. The criminal charges will be complicated, though they’ll be nothing compared to the scandal.”

  Parker made a sound worthy of a dyspeptic cat.

  “Come along, Colonel,” Quinn said. “I can tell you all about how to barter your linen for privileges in Newgate. I can even tell you the exact protocol observed before a hanging. Being a military type, you will be vastly comforted to know there’s etiquette involved. All quite civilized, though not exactly a dignified way to die.”

  Quinn assisted Parker to his feet by virtue of a hefty shove under the colonel’s elbow, then he and Stephen left, keeping Parker between them.

  “All those months,” Matilda said, staring at the empty doorway. “All those nights shivering in hopes I’d not freeze to death before dawn. The days without eating…I was helping to catch a traitor while being made to feel like one. Where is my father, Duncan? I still don’t entirely grasp who was spying upon whom, or for what purpose, and I want very much to hear what Papa has to say.”

  While Duncan wanted only to hold his duchess and never let her go. “Thomas Wakefield returned to London yesterday. I can take you to him now, if you like.”

  She kissed Duncan’s cheek. “Please, and when I’ve heard Papa out, I have a few things I’d like to say to you. I am…I am glad to see you.”

  That was encouraging, though Duncan dared not return her kiss until the whole drama had played itself out. “I have some sentiments to convey to you as well, but they can keep a while longer.”

  Five minutes later, he handed Matilda into the ducal carriage and took the place on the backward-facing bench, the better to behold his beloved and the better to keep his damned hands to himself.

  Chapter Twenty

  Duncan had never looked handsomer to Matilda, or more remote.

  “You were very confident in your conclusions with Atticus,” she said as the coach lurched forward. “When did you put the pieces together?”

  He took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure I have all the pieces, but I was certain that Parker would offer you marriage as a means of avoiding the duty to testify against you. Then I realized that’s a drastic remedy.

  “Why not simply hold his tongue?” Duncan stared out the window as he went on. “Why not accuse Wakefield and remain silent about your role? One of the first lessons a boy learns on the path to becoming a gentleman is to remain silent rather than jeopardize a lady’s good name. Your description of Parker’s tepid courtship confounded me, and then his continued pursuit of you in the absence of any passionate display of affection…”

  “You concluded the marriage would benefit him, rather than benefit me.” Why had Matilda been unable to consider that possibility?

  “I examined that perspective. You are also a duchess with connections all over the Continent. Those connections would benefit an ambitious officer. They would benefit a spy even more.”

  Sometimes, Duncan’s logic was a little too infallible. “You think Parker was told to court me?”

  Duncan considered her, his expression unreadable. “I think the idea was planted somewhere between his ambition and his arrogance, and in that abundant and fertile soil, the concept took root. How are you, Your Grace?”

  Your Grace, not my dear. “I could hardly tell you I was a duchess, Duncan. You probably would not have believed me.”

  “You forget, I count a duchess among my cousins. I might well have believed you. Jane is looking forward to making your acquaintance.”

  To perdition with Jane. “Duncan, are you angry?”

  The carriage slowed to take a corner, and Matilda felt as if the few inches between her knees and Duncan’s might as well have been the English Channel.

  “I have not the gift of dissembling,” he said. “Not even for you. I am consumed with fury, ready to lay about with my fists, to shout vile oaths, and draw blood with my bare hands. I am not angry with you, I am not even very angry at Parker, who likely would have made some attempt to be a decent husband to you. I was ready to kill that damned priest.”

  “The priest?”

  “He would have married you to Parker, despite your protests, despite your refusal to speak the proper vows. For money, he would have obliterated your legal personhood by signing the appropriate lines. If I ever had any doubts about my decision to leave the church, they have been laid to rest.”

  Matilda switched seats, so both she and Duncan were facing backward. “Duncan, you sent him packing. You snapped your fingers and he scurried away, clutching his prayer book and hoping you wouldn’t say anything to his bishop.”

  “What I want to say to his bishop isn’t fit for a lady’s ears.”

  A knot of worry in Matilda’s belly began to ease. “If you feel that strongly, then you ought to speak up. A certain Continental duchess will happily join you when you call upon the bishop.”

  The coach came to a stop.

  Duncan donned his hat. “Good to know. Would that same duchess like for me to join her when she confronts her father?”

  Was the question as neutral as it seemed? Matilda was angry too, ready to curse and pitch fine art in all directions.

  She stared at her gloves, which had been sewn with pearls in honor of the wedding that had not—thank God and Duncan Wentworth—taken place. “Please come with me, Duncan. I can’t do this alone.”

  Something soft and warm grazed her cheek. “If you are as upset as I believe you to be, then you must speak up, Matilda. I am also furious on your behalf, but he is your father.”

  Matilda straightened. “Meaning I’m supposed to honor him, that my days might be long upon the earth?”

  “Meaning that if you want me to thrash Thomas Wakefield within an inch of his cowardly, conniving life, I will cheerfully do so. Quinn will take up when I leave off, Jane will want a turn, and Stephen will finish the old schemer off, but we do so only if we have your permission.”

  Matilda was still anxious, still angry, but she had a reason to smile too. “Thank you for tha
t. When we’re through with Papa, I want an interview with you.”

  Duncan opened the coach door and kicked down the steps. “You shall have it.”

  * * *

  Carlu opened the door before Matilda had knocked upon it.

  “Your Grace.” He swept a bow with a Continental flourish. “On behalf of the entire staff, welcome home. Shall I announce you? Mr. Wakefield is taking breakfast before a planned call on Colonel Lord Atticus Parker.”

  Throughout that little speech, Carlu had alternately beamed at Matilda and cast Duncan curious glances. Duncan pointedly ignored him, except to pass over his hat, gloves, and walking stick.

  “No need to announce us,” Matilda said, tucking her gloves into the pocket of her cape. The words It’s good to be home refused to pass her lips. “It’s good to see you, Carlu. I have missed the staff.” She had not missed her father.

  Had Papa missed her? Worried for her?

  Now, when the moment of reunion with Papa was upon her, Matilda was particularly glad for Duncan’s steadfast presence. He seemed utterly composed, possibly even bored, as she led him past a fortune in tastefully displayed art.

  “Don’t let me say anything I’ll regret,” she muttered, pausing outside the door of the breakfast parlor.

  “In this life, I think it a greater regret to have left words unspoken than to have aimed them at those who’ve earned our ire. The more pertinent question is, will you accept his apology?”

  “You are certain he’ll offer one?”

  Duncan’s gaze flicked over Renaissance saints in gilded frames, antique porcelain, and an original King James Bible displayed at the end of the corridor.

  “Your father will apologize, or I’ll make him wish he had.”

  Matilda leaned in, resting her forehead against Duncan’s chest. She did not want to open the door, did not want to confront the author of her troubles.

  “You are my duchess,” Duncan said, taking her in his arms. “You have been wronged by the one man who was honor bound to value your well-being above his own. You are entitled to justice, and I would dearly like to see that you have it.”

  She nodded, sheltering in his embrace and gathering her resolve before she stepped back.

  Duncan opened the door for her, as if he were her footman, then followed her into the parlor and closed the door behind her.

  “Papa,” Matilda said. “You’re looking well.”

  She’d caught him with a silver forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. He set the fork down, and to his credit, he half rose, smiling hugely.

  Her mood must have communicated itself to him, because he finished getting to his feet more slowly.

  “Matilda, good morning. Welcome home. I am very pleased to see you in good health, and to see that Colonel Lord Parker has not accompanied you.”

  Papa sent an inquiring glance in Duncan’s direction, but Matilda was not inclined to offer introductions.

  “I do not care that”—she snapped her fingers—“for what pleases you. I was very nearly married to Colonel Lord Parker this morning, or should we call him Colonel Lord Traitor? He chased me from the wilds of Berkshire, where I might have frozen to death or starved, and told me that I was two steps from a noose myself. My crime, of course, was attempting to protect you. This has apparently become a hanging felony.”

  Papa’s faltering smile disappeared altogether. “You seem none the worse for your ordeal, daughter.”

  “You will address the duchess as Your Grace until she has given you leave to address her otherwise.” Duncan spoke patiently, as if Papa were a servant new to his livery.

  “And who are you, to be instructing me on the—?”

  Duncan held up a hand. “Her Grace was not finished.”

  Not nearly. “I sent you three messages, Papa, and you never replied. I waited, I hoped, I prayed. I had no idea for whom you were spying, or if one of your abundant staff was the party responsible for landing me in such trouble. You made no effort to find me, no effort to bring me to safety. I was bait in another one of your little games, and I need to hear what mattered to you more than my life.”

  Matilda’s voice was shaking, and her knees were shaking, but it was Papa who subsided into a chair.

  “Your life was never in danger, Matild—Your Grace.”

  Duncan held a chair for her. “I beg to differ, Wakefield. When I first met Her Grace, a ferocious snowstorm was bearing down on the shire. The duchess was alone, had obviously not eaten well for weeks, had no decent shelter. Those challenges she’d have met, but two armed felons were roaming my woods in search of game. They would have delighted in trifling with a woman weakened by deprivation and hardship. A woman far from home whose plight was ignored by the very man responsible for it.”

  To hear Duncan recount her own situation, his voice calm to the point of dispassion, affected Matilda as living through the experiences had not. She sank to her seat, lest she advance on her father and do him a grievous injury.

  “Papa, how could you do that to me? How could you do that to anyone?” Matilda might have descended into shrieking, except that Duncan stood silent and steady behind her chair.

  Papa sat not at the head of the table, but in the seat to the left. He looked to have aged, now that Matilda studied him, and yet, he had not missed meals, had not shivered his way through nights spent in haylofts and sheep byres, had not fended off the advances of knaves and blackguards.

  “I could not find you,” he said, “and by the time you sent those messages, Parker was all but sleeping on my porch steps. We knew Parker was involved with the wrong people. He lives quite well on his officer’s pay, never seems to be short of blunt, and kept mistresses who reserved their favors for wealthy men. When we realized he was in the pay of foreign powers, we alerted the marquess. Parker’s brother did not believe us. His lordship demanded proof.”

  “So you manufactured it,” Matilda said, “dropped the bait in his lap, and then I got in the way. There was no plot against France, and there certainly wasn’t any affection on Parker’s part for me.”

  Papa tried for a smile. “I wouldn’t go that far. You are a duchess. Parker doubtless esteemed you on that basis alone.”

  Matilda closed her eyes and fisted her hands in her lap. “To covet the benefits of my worldly station is not the same as to feel affection for me.”

  She was enraged at her father, enraged at foolish games played on a chessboard she’d never sought to understand, but amid all of that anger she also realized that Duncan Wentworth had not been enamored of her station. Duncan had not known he courted a duchess, had not cared that her problems might cost him his life.

  “Tell her the rest of it,” Duncan said. “Her Grace’s time is precious and you have wasted more than your share.”

  What rest of it?

  “You ask why I could be prevailed upon to engage in these stratagems,” Papa said. “I told myself that I wanted you to be secure when I went to my reward, and that was a fine argument, until it became apparent you’d have no trouble finding a proper match.” His gaze fell upon a porcelain vase on the mantel, a vividly detailed blue dragon swirling across a glaze of white. “That’s Ming Dynasty, you know. Worth a fortune.”

  “Wakefield, get to the point.”

  “I like…I cannot resist beautiful art. Being a keen observer and careful listener allowed me to have beautiful art while serving my country. When certain people asked me to ensnare the marquess’s brother, I was not in a position to refuse them. I knew Parker had not engaged your emotions. I did not know you’d find the evidence that was meant for him and disappear with it.”

  “And?” Duncan prompted.

  “And I am sorry, Matilda. I am very, very sorry. I never meant for this to involve you, other than requiring you to endure long evenings listening to Parker’s opinions on military affairs while he made up excuses to absent himself from our guest parlor. I never foresaw that you could be so clever and determined. I never realized Parker would be so desperate.�
��

  Matilda had expected a great drama, not this sad, quiet conversation, surrounded by pretty art, tea, and toast.

  Duncan’s hand rested between her shoulder blades, a slight warmth radiating from his touch.

  “Your mistake, Wakefield, is not that you left a trap for Parker where Her Grace could stumble into it, it’s that you and your generals did not call the game off once you knew she was in danger. You failed her and left her to the elements. How do you propose to make reparation?”

  Matilda hadn’t thought this far, but Duncan was right: She wanted more than an apology. Words were easy, too easy for a man of Papa’s glib charm.

  “I could not call the game off,” Papa retorted. “A marquess has significant consequence, and then a general became involved, and who was I—?”

  Duncan leaned over the table. “You were Her Grace’s only source of protection, though I hesitate to refer to you as a father of any kind. The two brigands threatening me in my own woods were criminals, in the process of committing hanging felonies, and both armed. The duchess, though exhausted and nigh starving, bested them both, or I’d likely be dead. There is nothing I would not do for this woman, including see you ruined or worse.”

  Duncan made a very convincing knight. Very convincing.

  Papa stared at his vase. “Matilda, what can I do to show my remorse?”

  “All I ever wanted was a home,” she said. “A place to call my own, to raise a family or simply grow old tatting lace and petting my cat. I never asked to be the bait you dangled before an ambitious younger son for your generals and lords. Even Parker offered to provide me a home of my own.”

  But what did she want now? She’d been a duchess in a huge stone castle by the North Sea, and even that formidable edifice had not felt like a home to her.

  Duncan paced to the mantel. “Perhaps you’d like this home or some of its contents? The place is certainly well situated, and I’m sure if your dear father is sincere in his guilt, he won’t begrudge you the one thing you’ve always wanted and never really had.”