How to Ruin a Duke: A Novella Duet

by Grace Burrowes

  “Indeed. If I could unmask the lady responsible for this libel—” He cut off the sentence, looking grim.

  “I thought it was written by a man,” Rowena said.

  “No one knows.” It’s all too much, said his expression, and she understood him as she’d never understood an aristocrat before.

  She couldn’t reconcile this man with the flippant, frippery Duke of Amorous. But it wasn’t her business to do so.

  “This is not why you have called.” The duke recalled himself. “I am told that you are the finest piano-tuner in England.”

  Right. That was her business. “Only England?” Rowena drawled. “Someone’s insulted me.”

  The duke’s haughty mouth curved. “The music room is upstairs. If you will accompany me?” As they ascended the stairs, Emory added, “I would pay you more to cut all the strings than to bring the instrument back into tune, but my mother thinks a lady ought to play the pianoforte regardless of her level of skill.”

  “I’m far too wise to step into a family feud,” Rowena replied. “Show me to the instrument, and I’ll have it in tune for you. Should you wish to cut the strings, Your Grace, and risk your mother’s wrath, I can be found in Bond Street and will happily restring the pianoforte for you for an exorbitant fee.”

  “Fair enough. You will please not cut the strings at this time.”

  They had reached their destination, an airy chamber papered in a floral print and dotted here and there with chairs and smaller instruments: a harp, a violoncello. In the center of the room, a shining black-lacquer pianoforte held pride of place.

  “When my footman made this appointment with you,” the duke said, “you mentioned the possibility of keeping your shop on retainer. While my mother is hard on instruments, she is not so musically skilled that she notices the difference. I do apologize if the footman raised false hopes.”

  Rowena set her case of tools on the plush carpet beside the pianoforte. “Of course not. I thank you for entertaining the possibility at all.”

  Ah, well—it had been worth mentioning as a means of ensuring steady income for the shop. She was disappointed, but only in the same way she’d once been when her father refused to buy her a puppy. She had hoped, but she’d only ever expected the answer no.

  “I’ll leave you to your work, Miss Fairweather.” With an inclination of his head, Emory departed the room, leaving her alone with the pianoforte and her tools.

  Or so she thought. She opened and propped the instrument’s lid, then the duke’s voice sounded behind her from the doorway. “I am told you’ve had help at your shop recently.”

  “Edith?” Rowena’s head jerked around. “Sorry. Lady Edith, do you mean?”

  His lids fluttered, but he otherwise betrayed no emotion. “I do not refer to Lady Edith. I mean a young man named Simon Thorn. Lord Farleigh doesn’t like it.”

  Lord Farleigh. The man whose wife had stuffed an amorous page into Simon’s horn…how long ago? Not long, yet she could hardly remember not knowing Simon. But then, she’d been awake and working almost ever since.

  Or awake and with him.

  The duke paused, long enough for Rowena to wonder at the size of the figurative sword dangling over her head. Was this a threat? “Your Grace?” she prodded delicately.

  “I do not like that Lord Farleigh has an opinion on the matter and have informed him so. He will not interfere with Mr. Thorn. Or with your shop.”

  Mystified, Rowena thanked him.

  “Think nothing of it. I do not care for bluster and menace.” And this time, he did depart, leaving her to work with her tuning hammer and her mutes of cotton felt.

  Years of experience had her working with pianoforte strings as much by feel as by ear, leaving her free to ponder.

  So. The Duke of Emory had exercised some of his privilege on her behalf. Or would it be more correct to say he’d protected Simon? Either way, Rowena was certain the credit lay with Edith. Rowena was known by the duke’s household to be a friend of Edith. There was simply no other reason why they would care about the fate of Fairweather’s.

  Why had Edith left this household? She’d been making a good wage, and the duke seemed all right. He demonstrated none of the crawling sort of flirtation that came from a man taking pleasure in a woman’s vulnerability. The Duke of Emory had seemed hardly to notice that Rowena was a woman at all.

  I’m not going to talk about it, Edith had said to Rowena of her departure. There’s nothing to say.

  Which meant Edith was either afraid or ashamed.

  Had she fallen in love with His Grace? Was How to Ruin a Duke embarrassing for her now that Emory’s true character was revealed?

  An hour and a half later, the pianoforte was back in tune, but Rowena’s thoughts were no closer to harmony.

  “‘I neither could thank my benefactor,’” read Nanny to Rowena, “‘nor inquire how I was to repay him. I could not help feeling some inward sensations of horror.’”

  “That’s not what I’d feel if a mysterious man tossed bank drafts at me.” By lamplight in the parlor, Rowena was sanding a new fingerboard for the broken-necked violoncello. The whole day had gone in travels about London, in tuning one pianoforte after another, and her repair work still remained. “‘Inward sensations of horror’? Please! I’d kiss him on the lips.”

  “Hush,” Nanny chastised. “There’s going to be a necromancer soon. The title says so.” Pulling the great magnifying lens to a handier spot, she continued, “‘Having recovered from my amazement, I went to the table, took up the papers, and saw, with astonishment, that each of them was a draft for a hundred dollars.’”

  “Only dollars? Not pounds? It might not be enough.” Rowena squinted down the length of the fingerboard, holding the instrument’s bridge beneath it. The curve of the latter would have to fit perfectly beneath the former, or the strings wouldn’t lie properly.

  “I can read this to myself if you’re not interested,” Nanny huffed.

  “I’m too interested. More than I should be. I’ve been doing too much to forget the lease on the shop.”

  At the end of the month, the money would come due, or Fairweather’s would cease to exist. The work of a century and more, gone under her guardianship.

  She couldn’t allow that to happen. She sanded harder.

  Through the open doorway, she heard a knock at the shop door. Her ears were attuned to it, the promise of Simon Thorn’s unexpected arrival. For several days, they’d been crossing paths at random times. She, to and fro from tuning pianofortes. He, popping in to change the shop window’s display and share new bookings gathered from his meanderings through the orchestra pits of London’s theaters.

  “A caller for you. Time for me to go to bed, that’s what that knock means.” Nanny winked.

  Rowena blushed, then pretended she hadn’t. “It could be the fishmonger’s boy. Alice will check.”

  “Twelve hours late, he’d be.” Nanny heaved herself from her seat, grimacing as her knees and ankles popped. “I can tell you’re not in the mood for The Necromancer. Maybe we’ll read more tomorrow.”

  Rowena had to agree with this. She couldn’t keep her mind on fiction. After kissing Nanny on the cheek and bidding the old woman an early good-night, she gathered up the pieces of her work and descended the stairs, laying out the fingerboard and bridge on her worktable before she passed into the foyer.

  It wasn’t Simon that Alice had admitted to the shop, wide-eyed and nervous-handed. It was their landlord, Mr. Lifford.

  The maid’s nervousness was entirely due to the man’s role, not his demeanor, for Mr. Lifford had a gentle appearance. A man of perhaps forty years, he had been a clerk for years until he had the great good fortune of inheriting several properties along New Bond Street. He was prematurely stooped and gray and shortsighted, seeming still to carry the scents of paper and ink. But he was not meek, despite his mildness, and was never late in collecting the rents arranged by his ancestors with the ancestors of his tenants.


  “Thank you, Alice.” Rowena asked the maid to make tea, and Alice scurried off.

  Lifford raised a thin, long-fingered hand. “No need for refreshment. I apologize for stopping by after hours. I did call earlier, but you were out.”

  “I’ve been out a great deal lately,” Rowena explained. “Business has been good.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I would very much like for you to keep this address.”

  “As would I.” Rowena took a breath, plunged in. “Mr. Lifford, I have been thinking of how that might be possible. I cannot pay you in one lump sum, but I would be happy to pay you quarterly. Or even weekly, at three guineas per week. That would equal one hundred fifty-six guineas per annum.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Miss Fairweather, that won’t do. I’ve been offered three guineas and a shilling per week for the space. If you can match that, very well. If you can pay me one hundred fifty per annum in a lump sum, now, that saves me the trouble of collecting each week.”

  Her heart plummeted. “I see.”

  Only an extra shilling each week, but what a difference it would make. A shilling a week represented any number of small luxuries: sweets and a library subscription and clean-burning beeswax candles for the workroom.

  Could she afford it, those three guineas and that extra shilling, without cutting her lifestyle to the bone? If she did nothing but tune pianofortes…maybe. Yes, maybe she could. But then she wouldn’t be a luthier anymore. She wouldn’t repair instruments, and she’d certainly never build anything of her own.

  She tried again. “Could I let only the ground and first floors? Would you be amenable to splitting the property?”

  Lifford frowned. “No, I’ve no desire to run a rooming house, no matter how trustworthy the tenants. I’m afraid this building rents as a single unit. Besides, if I agreed, you’d still need a kitchen, and anyone in the attics would have to walk up through your shop.

  “So,” he concluded, “it has to be all or none.”

  All or none. All or nothing. Success or failure.

  Save the shop. Run it as I’ve taught you, and all will be well. I’m relying on you. We all are.

  Her father had entrusted her with his legacy. Surely he hadn’t realized it would become a millstone.

  “I will consider the weekly rate,” Rowena said, even as her stomach felt icy and nauseated. Three guineas and a shilling every week; a financial burden every seven days. “Thank you.”

  “You’ve till the end of the month, but no longer. That’s a week from now. At that time, I will either need payment or for Fairweather’s to vacate this address. It’s very desirable, and I’ll have no trouble leasing it.”

  Yes, Rowena knew. She knew all that.

  By the time Alice returned with a tea tray, Lifford had bid Rowena good night and let himself out. “Bring a tankard,” Rowena told the maid. “And the brandy.”

  Idly, she wandered back into the workshop. She stroked the satin-smooth ebony fingerboard, the sharp-edged, intricately carved bridge. What if this was the last violoncello she repaired? What if her days never again held the surprise of what—of who—came through the door next? If she owed more than three guineas a week for the address alone, she’d have to accept the highest-paying jobs, not the most interesting ones. Pianofortes, one after another, forever.

  Would that truly be saving Fairweather’s? Would that be what her father had wanted—or what she did?

  She was glad when Alice returned with a pair of pottery tankards and a bottle of brandy. Nanny took a medicinal nip every night, but Rowena rarely touched it. Tonight, though, why not? She splashed a little brandy into each tankard, then topped them with tea and added sugar. Handing one to the surprised Alice, she clinked their tankards together.

  “To Fairweather’s,” she said, “whatever that means.”

  “Yes, miss,” Alice said dutifully.

  “You don’t have to drink that if you don’t want it.” Rowena stared into the depths of her beverage, then took a sip. “It’s good, though.”

  Alice curled protective fingers around the tankard. “I want it well enough, miss. I’ll take it to my room. If that’s all?”

  May days were long, and sunset hadn’t yet pulled all the blue from the sky. But morning came early, especially for a maid-of-all-work. “Of course, Alice. Thank you.”

  Once Alice bobbed a good-night and left Rowena alone, she sipped idly at her brandy-laced tea for a few minutes. Too tired to work, too busy to permit herself to sleep. It was an awkward in-between. Perhaps she’d try reading some of The Necromancer to weary her brain—but no, not even a book appealed right now.

  The bell over the front door jingled a greeting. “Hullo, I didn’t think it’d be unlocked,” said a familiar voice.

  Simon’s voice. The only distraction she’d truly welcome at the moment.

  “Simon?” Rowena thumped her tankard onto the worktable, then hurried into the front room. “Sorry, I must have forgot to lock the door when Mr. Lifford left. Stupid of me.”

  “I wouldn’t put it that strongly, but I do want you to be safe.” He smiled at her. “Hope I didn’t give you a fright.”

  “No, it’s quite all right. Why have you come?” Was that impolite? She didn’t really care right now.

  “Because I like seeing you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You like everyone.” No matter who came to the shop—whether a duke’s footman or the merchant father of a daughter in need of town polish—Simon spoke to them as if they were equals, as if he’d never wanted to do anything else.

  “I’m interested in almost everyone,” Simon replied. “But I don’t like everyone in the same way, or to the same degree.”

  She didn’t want explanations. She wanted…what the devil did she want? Sympathy? Solutions? Oblivion?

  All of it. None of it. “It’s not a good time, Simon.”

  Concern softened his features. “Something has happened. Is it to do with the lease? Do you want to tell me about it?”

  Did she? She supposed she did. It was good to tell someone who cared, who wasn’t relying on her for their daily bread as Nanny and Alice were.

  More than that: She truly did think of him as a partner. Someone she could rely on herself.

  “Come to the back,” she decided, locking the front door. “I’ll tell you all of it.”

  So he followed her into the workroom, picking up the wandering Cotton and stroking the spiny-backed animal as Rowena explained Lifford’s terms. After weeks of notice, she still couldn’t quite believe the figure she had to meet.

  She’d been prepared for another of the incremental increases built into the original lease. From a hundred pounds per annum to a hundred ten, perhaps. Or a hundred guineas, twenty-one shillings each instead of the nice common twenty per pound. A hundred fifty guineas? Extortionate!

  But it wasn’t, really. Here on Bond Street, she was surrounded by nobles, patronized by nobles, kept in business by nobles. So, properties commanded a noble rent.

  “There it is,” she concluded, “and the weekly rate is even higher. I have to look carefully at my accounts to sort out whether I can pay it. I can’t lose the shop.”

  Simon crouched, setting Cotton on the floor. “Because your father told you not to?”

  “My father, and generations before him, and…and what would I do? What else is there for a Fairweather?”

  He gave the hedgehog a little nudge, setting the animal into snout-wiggling motion. “Anything you’d like there to be.”

  “Easily said for an able-bodied man with a nice accent. No. I’ll have to think of some way to make this work.”

  Work, work, work. She picked up the fingerboard she’d been sanding earlier, then returned it to its spot. Was it finished? She wanted it to be. She wanted only to be done with it, to remove it from the list of things she needed to do. Poor violoncello; it deserved better.

  At her side, Simon stood again. “Do you ever do something just because you want to?”
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br />   Oh yes, and that violin needed a new sound post. She looked over her racks of wood, built in and carefully sorted, to find a piece she could sand to fit. Spruce would be best. “I want to save this business. So yes, everything I do is because I want to.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I’m asking if you ever do anything only for the joy of it.”

  “Read How to Ruin a Duke?” She laid hands on a spruce dowel. “Kiss you again, perhaps? I’d also rather like to go to Venice. Do you own a ship?”

  “I don’t,” he said. “And I don’t think kissing you again is exactly what you want right now either.”

  “I suppose not. Light that lamp, will you? I’ll place this sound post. That’ll make tomorrow’s list of tasks shorter.”

  He lit the oil lamp she’d indicated, sliding it close to her side. Before she asked, he handed her a short, sharp knife and a pair of tweezers. “For cutting and placing the post.”

  Impressed, she said, “You’ve been paying attention.”

  “I have been.” He puttered around the room idly while Rowena took measurements. “Look here. Can I tell you a story?”

  “A How to Ruin a Duke kind of story? Or a story about you?”

  “Both. It’s about me, but it’s got some ruin in it too. I just thought…I don’t know. You seem troubled, and I thought it might help you to hear it. It’s got problems you don’t have to solve, just like in Gothic novels.”

  She wanted to look up, to look him deep in the eye, but instinct kept her head down and eyes on her work. If she watched him, he might go silent. “Of course I want to hear it.”

  So he told her, as he paced the room—watching where he placed his feet, she noted, to avoid Cotton—of his birth to a vicar and his wife in a village near Wolverhampton. When illness swept through the village, fourteen-year-old Simon had been orphaned.

  Rowena cut the spruce dowel to length, wishing she could take his hand. “I’m so sorry. Losing a parent is terrible, and losing both abruptly must have been more so.”

  “It was a long time ago,” he said, setting the subject aside. “A tinsmith in the village agreed to take me on as an apprentice. It was a kindness—Glennon Lines was a fair and kind master—and he said I could work off the apprenticeship fee by completing extra tasks. Sometimes I worked as a groom and sometimes as a maid, and Lines kept careful account.”