Frederick chuckled. “I suppose she is, now that I think about it. From what I understand, she is very much her own lady. Determined to make her own way in the world.” A pause, and then he continued. “And she behaved in a way that affected her family profoundly.”
Griffith winced at the implied criticism. He hadn’t given a thought to the family he’d cared about that he’d left behind. He’d just known that the life his parents wanted for him wasn’t the life he wanted.
“I’m sorry, Fred.”
Frederick shook his head. “Don’t be. You did what was right for you. I just wish I had been that brave before—” He gestured to himself, clearly indicating his illness. “Speaking of which, I promised you I would consult with another doctor. I have one scheduled very soon. Not that I am hoping for a miracle, or anything.”
Griffith felt his chest tighten at the reminder of Fred’s illness.
“You know I will do my best to prove a worthy successor.” He meant it, even though it originally felt as though it were foisted onto him.
Poor Griffith, he thought ruefully. Forced to become a duke, with estates and wealth and power.
He was ridiculous.
“I know you will. That’s why I am relieved to hear that Lady Della will not be your duchess.” Frederick’s eyes crinkled. “She would make a terrible duchess, always doing just what she wanted to, not behaving with proper decorum.”
“Oh, like me, only she’s female.”
It was unfair, but that was the way of their world. And if he could help her regain some of her previous standing, at the very least so she could appear in Society without people whispering about her?
He would.
“My lord.” Clark stepped into the room after a cursory tap on the door.
“What is it?” Griffith said, turning to look at his first mate. No, his valet now. Always his friend. Clark’s expression was drawn.
“You’re needed.”
Griffith didn’t wait to hear any more; he strode to the door, pushing it wide to accommodate his body as he walked through. Clark held his hat out, and Griffith smashed it on his head with barely a pause. “They weren’t able to arrest you, so they’ve taken Hyland.” His sailing master.
“What are the charges?”
“Same as yours, I suppose. Interference with property and then he resisted, so they’re charging him with assaulting an officer.”
Hyland was as stubborn as Griffith, but didn’t have Griff’s size and his aristocratic background to protect himself.
Griffith shouted at the butler as he and Clark walked out the door. “Send to Robson, have him meet us at the naval police station. And a note to Lady Della that I cannot meet her this evening after all.”
He really should get the man’s name.
“Yes, my lord,” the butler replied.
He and Clark kept a quick pace as they exited the house.
“I don’t have any money,” Griffith said, recalling he’d forgotten to put his jacket back on.
Clark looked over at him, not slowing as he replied. “All you have to do is wave your privilege around. That’ll get him out better than a hundred pounds would.”
Griff felt the weight of it on his shoulders, so heavy it felt as though it would break him. And he had very broad shoulders, well used to holding responsibilities.
But there were significant differences in being the captain of a ship and the incoming heir to an ancient title. The former—well, the former he could control with his actions. The latter he could only act under, knowing the only effect he could have would be a negative one.
Marrying the wrong woman, saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, ruining livelihoods with the wrong decision.
While he was determined to do the best he could, as he’d promised Frederick, he also knew how quickly he could foul it up.
Was it any wonder he longed for an escape into oblivion in her arms?
Chapter 10
“I couldn’t dissuade her, you know that.” Sarah flung her hands up as she continued to speak. “Your sister is even more stubborn than you are!”
She was walking back and forth in their small parlor, irritated frustration emanating with every step.
Olivia had finally left after demolishing no fewer than half a dozen biscuits and asking ten times that amount of questions.
Della couldn’t help but laugh at Sarah, even though of course she was frustrated as well. In so many ways.
“Olivia is—well, the most determined of the duke’s daughters,” she replied.
Sarah whirled to face her. “We should ask her to make inquiries about Henry. I am certain she would get answers.”
“Yes, if only so that she would go away. Lord Stanbury and I will continue our search tomorrow.” Even though they hadn’t gotten the chance to discuss that. Which made her think— “And if you will excuse me, there is an errand I have to run.”
Because if the mountain—in this case, Lord Stanbury, who was indeed a mountainous man—couldn’t come to Mohammed—her—then she would have to go to him.
“Do be careful,” Sarah warned, the tone in her voice indicating she knew precisely where Della was going. Or at least what she planned to do once she got there.
Della nodded, giving Sarah a sly grin as she walked out. “Tell Nora I will be home to tuck her in.”
She caught a last look from her friend, who appeared to be both wistful and concerned. The former likely because Henry was still missing, and the latter—well, she’d seen that same expression on Sarah’s face often enough to know that it was directly related to her.
She took her cloak off the hook in the hallway, relieved nobody was there to insist she take someone with her. Perhaps it was foolhardy, but if she had Becky with her, she’d have to figure out what to tell the girl to do with herself when she went to discuss . . . strategy with Lord Stanbury. It wasn’t customary for ladies to care what their servants did when they were busy, but Della certainly wasn’t the usual sort of lady.
Nor was Becky the usual sort of servant.
Like everyone who was in the Howlett/Wattings household, Becky was a stray. Della and Sarah had found one another, and then they had kept going, collecting people and animals and even furniture that it seemed nobody else wanted.
That was why there were seven young ladies living with them at the moment as well as a multitude of kittens. Not to mention a few wobbly chairs.
Neither Della nor Sarah could resist rescuing someone or something that had been abandoned. Della didn’t have to examine her own life too carefully to understand her own impetus. And she knew Sarah had been tossed out by her family when they believed her to have married below her station.
Had Lord Stanbury been tossed out too? Was that why he had run off to sea?
“My lady.” Mrs. Borens placed her hand on Della’s arm as she was getting her cloak on.
“Yes, Mrs. Borens? What is it?” Della couldn’t help the note of impatience that crept into her voice. Because Lord Handsome was at the other end of her journey, and now that she’d asked, and he’d accepted, she couldn’t wait to engage in some illicit pursuits with him. Or licit ones, but the gist of it was that she was aching to be touched by him and touch him in return.
“There is a young female person in the sitting room.” Not a lady, or Mrs. Borens would have said. “She seems in . . . distress.” And then Mrs. Borens kept Della’s gaze as though to communicate through an intense stare rather than words.
Thankfully, Della spoke unspoken communication as well as English.
There’s a young woman in a delicate condition in the sitting room who needs your help.
Della sighed and withdrew the one arm she’d been able to slide into her cloak out again. “I’ll go speak with her. Do we have any room?”
Mrs. Borens’s expression cleared, as though in relief. Was she imagining that now that Della was hobnobbing—she’d have to share that word with Sarah—with a duke’s heir that she wouldn’t give help to
the women who found her?
Bosh.
“We don’t have a separate room, but she might be about Becky’s age. I could put her in there.”
Della grimaced at someone having to share a room with Becky. The girl was fine, but she was a bit silly. But that was no cause for not offering help, although she did feel badly for the potential new arrival. Although sharing a room with a silly girl was likely far better than whatever she’d escaped.
“Bring us tea, Mrs. Borens. And tell Mrs. Wattings I have not left after all.”
“Excellent, my lady.”
Della shook her head as she headed toward the sitting room. Thwarted in her desires first by her sister, then by some random girl who’d heard about Della’s soft heart.
Lord Handsome would have to wait, although she wasn’t certain she could.
The girl stood by the window, turning when Della entered. Her condition was obvious, although she was probably not more than four months along. Della gave a reassuring smile as the girl’s eyes widened at seeing her.
“You are—drat, my housekeeper did not tell me your name. I am Lady Della,” she said, extending her hand to the girl to shake.
The girl’s hand was soft, so she was likely a governess or something where she wasn’t doing manual labor. She looked awfully young, and Della bit back the anger at the person who caused the situation—probably some young nobleman down from college, seeing a vulnerable girl who could not refuse his advances.
“I am Miss Mary Ol—that is, Miss Mary,” the girl said, nodding her head in confirmation.
Della gestured to the sofa. “Would you care to sit down, Miss Mary?”
The girl glanced at the sofa, then stepped over and lowered herself down, her hand on her belly.
“How can I help you?” Della asked as she sat in the chair opposite. “Do you need a place to stay until the child is born? We have some funds, although not a lot. But enough to get you somewhere else, if that is where you want to go.”
The girl stared at Della for a moment, her eyes wide. She was very pretty; Della could see why some blackguard would want to seduce her.
And then the girl burst into loud, sobbing cries, which meant that Della couldn’t waste time thinking about what might have happened to her. She yanked a handkerchief from her pocket and went to sit beside the girl, wrapping her arm around her shoulders and holding the linen square up for the girl to take.
The sobbing continued for a few minutes, Della murmuring nonsensical words that she hoped sounded reassuring.
Normally Sarah handled the sympathy portion of the females who came to them for help, while Della was the one who made all the arrangements and helped to decide what might happen in each particular case.
“Thank you, my lady,” Miss Mary said at last. She raised a tear-streaked face to Della. “I don’t know why I am crying so much, I just—” And then she began sobbing again as Della tried to curb her impatience.
“The thing is,” Mary began again, speaking down into her lap. Her hands clutched the now sodden handkerchief, worrying the fabric with her fingers. “I am here because I don’t know where else to go.”
Well, Della knew that. Why else would a pregnant stranger arrive at their door if she had somewhere else she could possibly go?
But Della did not point that out to Miss Mary, since she did not think it would be helpful.
“Can you tell me more about your situation, so I know how I can help you?” Della tried to recall what Sarah would usually say in such a moment. She hoped she sounded gentle enough; sometimes, Sarah said, she asked questions as though expecting to be argued with.
As if you could argue with a question, Della thought to herself.
“I am a governess to two children,” Mary began. I was right! Della cheered inside her head. But that was not helpful.
Even though she was right.
“And I became involved with—with a relative of my employer’s family,” Mary said, sounding chagrined.
“It isn’t your fault,” Della replied, clasping Mary’s hand. “These gentlemen, they think because—”
“No, it’s not like that,” Mary interrupted. She sounded stronger now. “I knew just what I was doing, I just didn’t expect—” And she gestured toward her stomach.
It was on the tip of Della’s tongue to ask what she did expect, if not this.
Again, not helpful.
“And when it was discovered, my employer insisted that Mr. Robert marry me, only he didn’t really wish to, and I discovered I didn’t either.” She took a deep breath. “I have gotten to know Mr. Robert, and it is my belief he is not as kind as I first thought. When he heard of my situation, he—he threatened me, although my employer soon put a stop to that. She offered a dowry, which she did not have to do, not at all, and he was willing to take me.” She exhaled. “But he does not wish to marry me, and I cannot trust that he wouldn’t harm me or the child. But once we were married, he can do with me as he wishes.” She swallowed. “Can you imagine a worse fate?”
Della understood what Mary was saying, but she also knew that it wasn’t always sensible to refuse a future that promised more solidity than just running away.
But she’d be the worst kind of hypocrite if she said that, given her own behavior. And she felt Mary’s words—not wanting to be beholden to any man, not wishing to give up your own sense of self to someone who wasn’t you—as though it were words she’d spoken herself.
In fact, she had likely said them many times to Sarah when they were discussing their pasts.
Thank goodness Mr. Baxter had run off before she had to break with him. She would have, she knew that. There was nothing any man could promise her that was worth her freedom. Or Nora’s, more importantly.
“You don’t think I’ve made a terrible mistake, do you?” Mary asked in a pleading voice.
“No, I—” But Della was interrupted when the door swung open to reveal Sarah, a look of concern on her face.
“I heard we had company,” Sarah said in her usual soothing tone.
Della felt an almost palpable relief, then horrified at herself for her reaction.
But the fact was, as Sarah had gently pointed out on a few occasions, that Della was not nearly as good at the comforting aspect of their lives as Sarah was. Exemplified by Sarah’s fainting spell of a few days before.
“Mrs. Borens is bringing tea, and, Della, you have an errand to run?” Sarah said.
Della rose, nodding. Even though now the thought of indulging in carnal relations with Captain Enormous made her hesitate.
What if she got pregnant? She didn’t think she could be ruined twice—once appeared to be sufficient—but she didn’t want to have to confront that possibility.
But she knew herself well enough to know that once she’d made her mind up she wouldn’t be dissuaded, so she’d just have to take pains to protect herself.
But meanwhile, there wouldn’t be any harm in going to see Lord Stanbury, would there? Just to make plans for the next day?
“He’s not here?”
Della shifted on the stoop as the butler gazed at her impassively.
“No, my lady. Although the duke is, if you would like to see him?” The man didn’t wait for a reply, but widened the door to allow her to slip inside.
The household had been in enough of a tumult so she didn’t even have to prevaricate about not taking anyone with her—she just left, after telling Sarah she’d be home in time for dinner.
So now she was here, only he wasn’t. Drat the man. Why couldn’t he have stayed at home if there was even the remotest possibility she would be arriving to discuss strategy?
“In here, my lady,” the butler said, gesturing toward a door at the other end of the hall.
The duke’s house was much closer in size and majesty to her parents’ house; the foyer alone was as big as four of their bedrooms combined.
Small wonder it was difficult for anyone to believe she would rather live on her own with her friends
and her rescues than return to that splendor. But that splendor came with a price, and that price was slow suffocation.
Her heels made a sharp clicking noise on the parquet. It would be difficult to arrive without someone noticing, she thought to herself. Better invest in soft-soled shoes to better facilitate an illicit affair.
On the list now, then: protection against unwanted pregnancy and some secretive footwear. If it got any more expensive, she’d have to consider scrapping the entire idea since she might not be able to afford it.
But then she wouldn’t get to see him naked, she thought wistfully. I can go without tea for a time. Sarah would be fine with that.
Although she wouldn’t want to have to explain why.
“My lady.”
The duke—since Della presumed it was him—was seated in a large rolling chair in front of the fire. A blanket was draped on his knees, and a table filled with bottles of liquid was to his right.
Della had visited enough sickrooms to know that the duke was ill. How ill, of course, she couldn’t say. But it explained why Lord Stanbury was so determined to succeed at reentering Society if the current duke was on the verge of dying.
She felt a pang of sympathy for both of them—one for obvious reasons, the other because he so clearly did not wish to be foisted into his current situation, but he was too honorable or obliged or whatever it was he felt to refuse.
“Forgive me for not getting up,” the duke continued. He had a quiet voice and a friendly smile. He was nothing like her father, that was for certain.
“Of course.” Della went to sit on the couch that was perpendicular to his chair. It was luxurious, and she nearly closed her eyes in bliss at the sensation—the furniture at her house was worn because it was all hand-me-down, so the last sofa she’d sat on had lost most of its plushness.
But this was heaven.
There was something to being a duke, wasn’t there? Even if she had long ago decided there wasn’t enough to being a duke’s daughter. Or a duchess, for that matter, given her current subterfuge.
“Lord Stanbury explained everything to me,” the duke began. Della froze, wondering just what he’d explained. There was so much that could be explained. “That you and he had agreed to pretend to an engagement to ensure his return to Society wasn’t tinged with the strong likelihood of his being in the sights of so many young ladies.”
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