He spoke with a note of amusement in his voice, but it was laced with a clear affection. “And I do understand—back when I was in Society it felt as though I were constantly under scrutiny.”
Della repressed a snort.
“But why am I telling you that? You would know about that, wouldn’t you, given your own history?”
Apparently she hadn’t repressed enough. And, of course, he knew about her scandal. Who didn’t?
Well, except for all the young women who arrived at her doorstep looking for help. And likely most of the kittens that had wandered in to be rescued as well. She couldn’t speak to the furniture’s knowledge.
“You know my history. Do you know everything?”
The duke shrugged his thin shoulders. “I believe so. That you eloped with an ineligible man, that you returned to London a few years later with a child and no husband. That your sisters have been desperately trying to maintain their own status in Society but have only caused their own scandals.”
Della felt herself bristle. To speak so cavalierly about her sisters, as though all that mattered to them were their reputations. Although she supposed that to any outsider it would appear that way; she wouldn’t have known what was behind their actions if they hadn’t kept writing one another.
She should remember to thank them, all of them, for keeping in contact with her. She hadn’t thought much about how difficult it must be for them, to have a sister such as her.
She hadn’t thought much at all those years ago when she’d eloped either. Just that she had not wanted the future that lay before her, presented on a gold tray with ducal strawberries.
But it was a few years later, and hopefully she was wiser, and knew what she wanted. Which at the moment was a very large former sea captain. And she also knew for certain what she did not want—the same thing as before, only more definitively. Not only did she not wish to be married to some lord who took her because of her family, not because of her, but she did not wish to be married to anybody.
“I apologize, did I offend you?” the duke asked, interrupting her thoughts.
She began to shake her head instinctively, then considered it and nodded. “Yes, you have.”
His eyes widened. As of course they would; ladies never cast blame toward any gentleman, much less a ruined woman such as herself toward a duke.
“My history is as you say,” Della continued. “But my sisters—there was more to what they were doing than merely salvaging their reputations.” She thought about them, from earnest Eleanor, to fierce Olivia, to stubborn Ida, to resolved Pearl. She also hadn’t realized, those years ago, how much she loved her sisters. Sarah was the sister of her heart, but her actual sisters were just as beloved.
“I apologize to your sisters for inferring they were concerned for themselves.” He drew his brows together in thought. “It can be difficult to discern the line between selfish and independent.” He gave a rueful sigh, and Della knew he had to be referring to Lord Arrogance.
“What happened?” Della asked in a quiet voice.
The duke shrugged again. “Griffith has always found himself on the other side of the usual opinion. His parents—my father’s brother and his wife—didn’t make it easy on him either. They wanted him to conform, and he wasn’t built that way.” He snorted. “Literally. I mean, it’s impossible for him to fit in anywhere, given his size.”
“And then he ran off to sea? He must have been so young.” Younger than she was, even, when she made her disastrous mistake. Although the mistake had brought Nora to her, and eventually Sarah. So perhaps not a mistake after all.
“He was sixteen.” The duke took a deep breath. “I helped him go. I gave him money, I kept his parents from discovering where he had gone until it was too late for them to fetch him. Even though I was terrified my own father would punish me.”
“Did he?” Della asked.
The duke shook his head. “No, he didn’t seem to care one way or the other. He had my two older brothers to worry about. I wasn’t even the spare.” He looked up past her head as though struck by a memory. “Griffith was the only one who cared about me.” A pause. “I wish he didn’t have to go through this.”
“Go through what? Return to Society?”
“Yes. Even when we were young, Griffith hated anything that had even the remotest whiff of privilege. It’s ironic that he ended up as a ship captain—in charge of all those people—”
“Capable people who presumably wanted to be aboard,” Della pointed out.
The duke nodded as though conceding her point. “True. He despised having to endure what he thought were pointless conversations.”
He’d said, but she hadn’t believed him, that he would hate it so much. But now, seeing how the duke spoke about him, she felt more sympathetic toward him. Yes, she had it harder. She was a ruined woman whom nobody wanted to see return to their midst. But given what the duke had said, it seemed as though perhaps Lord Arrogance’s attitude was bluster disguising something else. Shyness? Awkwardness? Self-consciousness?
And she wished she hadn’t had this revelation, because she hadn’t even had relations with him yet and she was already feeling softer toward him.
You are not allowed to feel more than pure lust, she reminded herself sternly. He is not for you. You know what life as a duchess is like, and you want no part of that. Nora cannot be part of that either. The Society that might be willing to tolerate me because of my presumed relationship with a newly arrived heir would tear my daughter to shreds.
“I don’t know when Griffith is returning, by the way,” the duke said. “I do appreciate your visit, although I suspect my butler gave you little choice in the matter.” He winked at her, and she smiled in return. “He worries about me being on my own so much. But I tell my staff that I am fine; I have them to keep me company, and now I have Griffith and Clark. Clark is Griffith’s valet,” he explained at seeing Della’s confused look. Ah, Clark the first mate! He’d found him after all.
And it should not hurt that he hadn’t mentioned it to her, but she couldn’t deny that it did.
It’s what you want, she reminded herself. He should not confide in you. The only thing he should do for her was locate Mr. Wattings and give her several paroxysms of pleasure.
“I should be on my way,” Della said, beginning to stand. “But I would like to visit you again, if I may.” And not just as a way of getting into Lord Handsome’s bedroom. She found she liked this duke quite a lot. “And perhaps I will bring my sisters? Not all of them at once, though,” she added quickly, more for her sake than his. She wasn’t certain she could handle all of her sisters at one time. Perhaps that was why her mother was so difficult to be around?
But no, Della recalled when it was just her and Eleanor, before the twins and Ida arrived, and the duchess had been just as unpleasant.
“That would be a pleasure,” the duke replied. “And I will inform Lord Stanbury that you came by. Did the two of you have plans this evening?”
Della shook her head. “No, he sent a note saying he couldn’t keep our plans. I am promised home to dinner and will be putting Nora to bed. My daughter,” she explained.
“Perhaps you would like to bring Nora for a visit at some point?”
Della felt as though she’d had the breath knocked out of her. That someone in his position would extend an invitation to her daughter without seeming to care about what it might look like.
“Thank you, Nora would love that.” And she would—her daughter was a sociable person and there was nothing she liked more than talking an adult’s ear off, as Della well knew. “I will come again soon,” Della said, holding her hand out to the duke. He took it and raised it to his lips.
“Thank you.”
“That was a close one,” Hyland said in a gleeful tone.
Griffith paused in his stride just long enough to shoot a glowering look at his sailing master. Or former sailing master, unfortunately.
“You assaulted an office
r.”
Clark smothered a laugh into his hand.
“He said I’d interfered with property. But how could I, I said, when I didn’t have any property to interfere with?” Hyland’s tone was outraged.
“So you punched him in the nose?” Griffith replied.
“You would have done the same,” Hyland retorted.
“As a matter of fact, I would not. I got arrested and spent a night in jail.”
“You’re getting soft, Captain.” Hyland punctuated his words by nudging Griffith in the shoulder. Or actually the middle of the arm, since Hyland wasn’t nearly as tall as Griffith.
“I am not!” he replied. Was he?
“He’s living the nob’s life, being a duke’s heir now,” Clark explained. “He can’t go around punching people just because he wants to.”
Griffith felt a twinge of discomfort. As though he’d like to go find some deserving person to punch in the nose just to prove Clark wrong. A cheating shopkeeper or a cruel master or an oblivious ship captain.
“What does a nob do?” Hyland asked. “Besides not punching people.”
“I get to sleep in a real bed, wear clothing that isn’t drenched in seawater, and sometimes get to attend parties where most of the people have all their own teeth.”
“It’s pretty dull, from what I can see,” Clark said in an aside.
Griffith resisted the urge to punch him.
“But why are you doing it, then?” Hyland asked. He gestured in the direction of the sea, even though they were a few miles from the docks. “When you are the captain of your own ship with the best crew in England?”
“It’s not that simple,” Griffith said. His tone was sincere, making both Hyland and Clark drop their grins and look intently at him.
“So what is it, Captain?” Hyland asked.
“I owe it to my cousin Frederick, if not my family.” Griffith’s mouth tightened. “We sail for queen and country, do we not?”
The men nodded.
“And if things are tumultuous at home, there is no queen. No country.”
Clark frowned in thought. “But why does it all rest on your shoulders?”
“Not all mine. Ours.” Griffith shook his head. “I have never wished to be a part of it, but the truth of the matter is that I am a member of the aristocracy, and part of a quite ancient title to boot. If not me, and people like me, then the system crumbles.”
“And what if it does?” Hyland always wanted to challenge authority, which was one of the reasons Griffith liked him so much—if he saw a ridiculous custom being maintained simply because it was the way things always were, he would challenge it.
“I am not knowledgeable enough about the system to answer that. Except that if it does, then good people, honest people, will lose their way of life. Their livelihood.”
He recalled what he’d been thinking about earlier, with Frederick. “What if I am able to effect a change because of who I am?”
He imagined that was how Della felt, leveraging her status as a duke’s daughter—even if she was currently disgraced—to make a difference. To help somebody.
“You’ll have to tell the crew,” Clark pointed out.
Not to mention he had yet to tell the Royal Navy.
“We’re with you,” Hyland added, as though it were that simple.
And to someone like Hyland, it was. Black and white, right and wrong. Griffith liked having someone like Hyland on his side, even if it meant that people’s noses got punched now and again.
“Thank you,” Griffith replied, glancing between the men. His men. “Thank you both.”
Chapter 11
“Did you have an interesting afternoon?”
Sarah’s voice was deliberately mild, although Della noticed her friend’s laughing eyes. Or not laughing, but smirking.
“I did,” Della replied as nonchalantly. “I ended up visiting with the Duke of Northam, he is a really kind gentleman.”
“Oh!” Sarah sounded startled. Not surprising, given that she thought Della had gone off to meet with the man currently dominating Della’s fantasies. Captain Passion, or something like that.
“Yes, I had hoped to see Lord Stanbury, but it turned out he was away from home.”
“So disappointing,” Sarah said. Della shot her a look.
“A duke?” Nora asked. “Like my grandfather?”
Della’s heart twisted in her chest. Nora had yet to meet her grandfather, but Della had told her all about their family, wanting her little girl to know she had people in her life, some of whom cared about her.
She’d met all of Della’s sisters, and already loved them; Ida was her favorite because she was willing to answer any and all of Nora’s questions. But the duke and duchess had kept themselves steadfastly away, refusing to speak of Della to their other daughters.
The sisters had wanted to cut ties with their parents entirely, but Della had stopped them; what if they had a change of heart? What would it do to the sisters’ own children, not to know their grandparents?
“Yes, like your grandfather,” Della replied at last. “And he has invited you to visit him.”
“And Emily?” Nora asked, looking at her friend who sat beside her.
Della and Sarah shared a look, and Della shrugged. If the duke wouldn’t receive a call from Nora’s friend Emily, then he wasn’t worth cultivating as an acquaintance. She just hoped she could discover what his response would be before she exposed the children to the potential unpleasantness.
It would be easier, she admitted to herself, if she were just able to conform to what Society expected. If she had married as she’d ought to have, socialized with the right people, and left the unfortunates to fend for themselves.
But, of course, then she wouldn’t be Della.
“I will send a note to the duke asking when it would be convenient to visit him.” That way she could ascertain if he was amenable to receiving a visit from Emily as well as Nora.
“Does he have any dogs?” Nora asked.
“I have no idea,” Della replied.
“If he doesn’t, we should bring him one of our kittens,” Emily said.
“Let’s wait to see when he might want to see you before we start bringing him gifts of live animals,” Sarah chided.
Della smothered a laugh. Sarah was constantly having to rein all of them in, Della included. Della felt for her, but she couldn’t resist diving into trouble if it seemed as though it would be fun and worthwhile. Occasionally both.
Which is why you are so intrigued by Lord Handsome, a voice reminded her.
“Are you feeling all right?” Sarah asked as she moved a gravy boat that was perilously close to Nora’s elbow.
“Yes, why?” Beyond being sexually frustrated, but she wouldn’t be sharing those details with her friend.
“You exhaled. Deeply, as though you were troubled.”
Della bit her lip to keep from bursting into laughter. “I am fine, thank you.” She rose, placing her napkin on the table. “If we are done, perhaps we can play a game before bedtime?”
Emily and Nora both scrambled out of their seats, while Sarah kept a worried glance on her. I’m fine, Della wanted to say. It’s you I worry about. That’s why I want to find your husband so desperately. I want you to be happy in a way I doubt I ever will.
The next time she saw Lord Stanbury, she’d have to make him commit to firm plans to look for Mr. Wattings. They had only gone to the docks once, and he hadn’t made it clear when they would go again. He’d mentioned Clark making inquiries; had he sent him instead? Without telling her?
Then again, he’d been distracted, as she had, by their mutual plans for strategizing.
So. New tasks: purchase shoes suitable for slipping in and out of houses for clandestine relationships; get protection so Nora wouldn’t wind up with a sibling; and require Lord Stanbury to lay out his plans for finding Mr. Wattings.
“Della?” Sarah was holding the door of the dining room open. Della had apparently
been thinking on her feet for far too long.
“Oh yes. Sorry,” Della said, walking out the door and down the hall. She heard the sound of their daughters’ giggling, and shared a warm look with Sarah. “Oh, and Miss Mary? Is she here?”
Sarah nodded. “She is. I’ve put her in with Becky. I have asked her to help out with the girls’ lessons. She is delighted to be able to assist.”
“Oh excellent.” This was family. This was the most important thing in her life.
“I met your lady today,” Frederick announced, holding a glass of sherry in his hand, a sly look on his face.
“Oh?” Griffith frowned at the table with all the liquids. He wanted whiskey, but the various bottles could have held medicine or could have held liquor, for all that he could tell.
“The one on the right,” Frederick said.
Griffith grunted as he picked the bottle up and gave himself a healthy pour.
“What did you think of her?” Not that it mattered, not really. It wasn’t as though they were actually engaged. And yet he realized it did matter to him. He would have to consider that later. Or not; it wasn’t as though he was particularly analytical. Just that he apparently cared what his cousin thought of his fake betrothed.
“She’s delightful. Even though she is not duchess material.”
“You said that already,” Griffith said in a curt voice. He tilted the glass up to his mouth and drained it, then immediately poured another one.
“I invited her and her daughter to visit. I liked her quite a bit.”
And then Griffith wished Frederick didn’t have such a good opinion of her, even though not a minute earlier he’d been hoping he did.
What was happening to him? Could he just attribute it all to sexual frustration? He certainly hoped so, because if there were other forces at work he wasn’t certain he wished to acknowledge them.
Never a Bride Page 12