Dukes by the Dozen

by Grace Burrowes

  Furious, in fact.

  “My sisters are not cravat pins, to be chosen among based on your whim or fancy. They are dear young women with feelings and dreams. They didn’t ask for this ridiculous situation, and yet, they will be the ones affected.”

  Blue eyes went frosty. “I didn’t ask for it either, Lady Iris.”

  “But you agreed to it. You’re a duke. Papa would have had no recourse if you’d asserted your authority. He’s trading on your agreeable nature and your respect for your mama, and you have offered not one word of protest. I had best be going.”

  He drew his gelding to the edge of the path. “A moment please.”

  In a moment, I will cry. “I will not be your spy, Clonmere. I’ve told my sisters what little I know of you, and that is the extent to which I’m willing to participate in this farce.”

  Clonmere passed over a silk handkerchief with his coat of arms embroidered onto the corner. “I beg your pardon, my lady, for having spoken cavalierly about a serious matter affecting those you care for. Your good opinion of me matters exceedingly.”

  She snatched the handkerchief from him, though she wasn’t crying. Not at all. “Bother your gallantries, sir.”

  “Will you spare me a waltz tonight?”

  Iris was on the verge of honking into his silk handkerchief in the hope of spooking his horse. She peered at the duke.

  “You seek a dance with me?”

  “You are correct that I’ve allowed Falmouth to dictate the terms of this exercise. He has four daughters, not three, and I’d at least like the pleasure of a dance with you. The most difficult part of my conundrum is how to make my choice without hurting anybody’s feelings. But for that, I’d have asked Falmouth for permission to pay my addresses to one of his daughters weeks ago.”

  A conscientious brother would know all about hurt feelings between sisters. Iris hadn’t thought that far ahead, though—gracious days—what of the two sisters not chosen to be Clonmere’s duchess?

  “Dance with me, Lady Iris. Please.”

  She ought not. He was being kind again, decent and gentlemanly, drat him. “Why dance with me?”

  “Because I wish it above all things.”

  That reply could have been a jest, a line of flirtatious banter. Clonmere presented his answer like a single rose, lovely and fragrant, though thorny enough to require careful handling.

  “You may have my supper waltz tonight,” Iris said, “though I’d ask that you decide within the week, which of my sisters to court. For everybody’s sake.”

  The sun had crested the horizon, and golden beams were slanting through the trees. Overhead robins caroled a greeting to the day while a pair of swans glided regally across the Serpentine. On his white steed, Clonmere looked like some fairytale prince, which mattered to Iris not at all. Mayfair was full of handsome lordlings who rode well. Clonmere, though, had impressed her.

  He’d given her the one justification for equivocating among her sisters that she could respect: He didn’t want to hurt the feelings of those he rejected. Would that Falmouth had shown his daughters the same consideration—all of his daughters.

  “Until this evening, then,” Iris said, turning Rosie back the way they’d come. “I’ll look forward to our waltz.” She was, for once, telling Clonmere the absolute truth.

  “As shall I, my lady.” He doffed his hat, and smiled, as if he too, were telling the absolute truth.

  Clonmere had spent the past several weeks engaged in two deceptions. The first deception was that he intended to offer for Lady Lily, Lady Holly, or Lady Hyacinth. They were adorable, sweet, pretty, and not in love with him—thank heavens. Marriage to him would be a duty to them, albeit a tolerable duty.

  The second more difficult deception was to pretend he was only cordially disposed toward Lady Iris when he was wild for her.

  She had the patience of a saint, standing amid the wall flowers by the hour, smiling while her sisters twirled down the room with every eligible bachelor sober enough to dance.

  She was kind, fetching punch for the dowagers, bringing them their shawls, sitting with them at supper.

  She was dignified, ignoring Billings Harman’s wandering hands—Clonmere’s fist had had a short discussion with Billings’s nose thereafter—and refusing to be drawn into gossip. Thomas, Dersham, and Amherst had all assured Clonmere of that.

  “Though I must tell you,” Dersham said, “I don’t think Lady Holly would suit you either.”

  Clonmere occupied an alcove in the Duke of Quimbey’s ballroom. Dersham had joined him, and the violins tuning up meant that their conversation was not overheard.

  “Lady Holly seems a very agreeable sort,” Clonmere said.

  “She’s too agreeable for you, meaning no disrespect to the lady. You’d trample her delicate spirit inside a year.”

  Clonmere consulted his watch. “Do I detect in your warning more than a champion’s chivalrous regard for the lady?” Please, please, let Dersham be as besotted as he sounded.

  “Well, you can’t marry them all, Clonmere, and marrying the youngest first isn’t the done thing.”

  No, it wasn’t. The eldest typically married first. “If Lady Holly is not my choice, do you intend to offer for her?”

  Dersham struck a pose, hand on hip, nose in the air. “I believe I well might. I won’t stand in her way if she longs for a tiara, but neither will I push her into your arms when a more suitable fellow has learned to appreciate her charms.”

  “There you are,” Amherst said, slipping into the alcove. “Dersh, be a love and fetch us some punch, would you?”

  Dersham sent Clonmere a look that was probably intended to be severe, but mostly looked desperate. “Do we understand each other, Clonmere?”

  “We do.” One down, two to go. “Amherst, you had something to say?”

  Amherst and Dersham exchanged the same sort of look Ladies Holly and Hyacinth traded. “Only need a minute of your time, Clonmere. Dersh, I’ll meet you—”

  “—at the punchbowl,” Dersham said, sketching a bow and bouncing away.

  “Here’s what you need to know, Clonmere. I’ve spent the past few weeks getting to know Lady Hyacinth, just as you requested. I know her favorite flavor of ice, I know she speaks French nearly as badly as I do. I know she likes puppies better than kittens, but she don’t care for you above half.”

  Amherst, who was notably vague on many points, was very sure of his lady.

  “I don’t expect my duchess to be madly in love with me, Amherst.” Though a love match would be wonderful, provided the duchess involved was Lady Iris.

  “Nobody can be madly in love with a duke,” Amherst said, “though a duke is often in love with himself. You lot are too high in the instep, and Hyacinth ain’t that sort of lady. She likes to be silly, and laughs at bawdy jokes if her sister ain’t about, and she don’t care for the country. You don’t care for Town.”

  Amherst, in his bumbling way, had lit upon several salient truths. Lady Hyacinth was a dear, but decorum was not a priority for her, and she did seem prodigiously fond of the shops.

  “Are you enamored of her, Amherst?”

  Amherst grasped his lapels with both hands. “And if I am?”

  “Then give me about a week before you offer for her.”

  Amherst blinked. “D’ye mean it? She’s the dearest thing, and she don’t mind that Dersh and I like the occasional night with the fellows, and she isn’t always trying to take the reins, if you know what I mean. She’s a comfortable sort of lady, not a duchess sort.”

  “I must orchestrate matters so that nobody’s pride suffers, regardless of my choice.”

  Amherst rocked up on his toes, then back on his heels. “Dersh is powerful smitten with Lady Holly. The feeling’s mutual, I daresay. Suppose that leaves you with Lady Lily. She’ll want you to take her to the opera.”

  This condolence was offered with the most sincere fellow-feeling Clonmere had been extended in years.

  “Some things ca
n’t be helped, Amherst. Wait until my betrothal has been announced, then call upon Falmouth. You can pass the same guidance along to Dersham, though I’d rather you not discuss this at the punch bowl.”

  Amherst paused two steps from the edge of the alcove. “Clonmere, one doesn’t bandy a lady’s name about. Have a damned care or Dersh and I will have to take you in hand. Discuss this at the punch bowl, indeed.”

  Two down.

  Amherst nearly knocked Thomas onto his arse, so intent was Lady Hyacinth’s swain to not discuss his marital fortunes at the punch bowl.

  “Clonmere.” Thomas bowed, not a smile to be seen. “I have secured Lady Lily’s supper waltz, but I must make something clear to you.” He paused, cocking his head. “That second fiddle is at least a quarter tone sharp.”

  As if Clonmere knew what a quarter tone was. “You were saying?”

  “I am waltzing with Lady Lily tonight, not because you asked me to befriend the lady, but because the lady has befriended me. She fancies me, and I’ve reason to believe she does not fancy you.”

  Thank you, Cousin. “Not above half?”

  “She says she could esteem you greatly, and you’re very estimable, and a fine gentleman, and any woman would be flattered to have your addresses, but that’s all so much twaddle. She and I play duets. You could never play a duet with her. We argue about the virtues of French versus Italian opera. You view an opera as a chance to catch up on your sleep.”

  “Thomas—”

  “She has a lyric soprano that will turn lullabies into arias, while you can’t carry a tune in a bucket even when you’re drunk. Lady Lily has discernment, artistic discernment, while you—”

  Clonmere stepped closer, before his cousin burst forth into song. “Thomas.”

  “No need to shout. I’m merely reciting facts. That violin is an abomination. I owe it to every refined ear in the ballroom to tune that instrument.”

  “You owe it to Lady Lily to court her, but I beg you to first allow me to offer for one of her sisters.”

  Thomas studied him as if Clonmere’s tuning were off by a quarter tone. “You really aren’t suited to either of the twins, Clonmere. They are wonderful young women, but your temperament is not compatible with theirs. They are flutes, you’re a trombone, old man. Not a good combination.”

  Three down. Clonmere scanned the ballroom for his would-be duchess. “You’ll wait until I’ve become engaged to pay your addresses to Lady Lily?”

  “Yes, but I cannot bear another instant of that violin. I wish I had a solution for you, but you can’t marry both twins, and you can’t marry Lily. I won’t have it, and neither, I hope, would she.”

  “Go tune the violin, Thomas, and my thanks for all you’ve done.”

  “I’ve stolen the best of the lot out from under your nose,” Thomas said, tugging down his waistcoat. “Well done of me, if I do say so my own, humble, handsome self.”

  He disappeared into the throng beyond the alcove, leaving a very relieved duke in the shadows. The next part was delicate, but critical. Three of Falmouth’s daughters did not fancy becoming the next Duchess of Clonmere. Clonmere had yet to confirm that fourth daughter did fancy that station, or was at least willing to become his wife.

  Chapter 5

  Spring had advanced during the weeks Clonmere had courted Iris’s sisters. Lily, Holly, and Hyacinth had bloomed as a result of his attentions, while Iris’s spirit wilted with each evening of dancing, music, and socializing she was forced to endure.

  Puck’s company was beginning to look attractive. He was soft and warm, he purred, he didn’t chatter or leer or mash a lady’s toes. In his way, he was hand—

  “Lady Iris, the supper waltz approaches.”

  Clonmere had come upon Iris in the gallery that ran parallel to the ballroom. The duke was tall and imposing in his evening attire, though a gleam in his eye hinted of something not quite civilized.

  And even that, that hint of determination or impatience, whatever it was, made him interesting to Iris.

  “Your Grace.” She curtseyed. “You found me.”

  “Were you hiding?”

  Yes—from all the gaiety and joy in the ballroom. “Not from you. I sought cooler air. The weather has become mild.” The evening was warm enough that the ballroom was growing uncomfortable.

  “The terrace beckons.” He offered his arm. “Shall we steal a moment of peace and quiet?”

  He’d never escorted Iris, never led her out. She took his arm with a sense of wistfulness bounded by resentment. She was one of Falmouth’s daughters. By the rules of this silly courting game, she should have at least danced with Clonmere a few times.

  “I am desperate to get back to Surrey,” Clonmere said. “I have the sense the ladies are desperate that the Season should never end. What of you, do you long for the country, or is Town your preferred habitat?”

  “I’d forgotten your family seat is in Surrey.”

  The terrace was quiet and inviting, lit by enough torches to chase the shadows into the garden.

  “I hack out as many mornings as I can,” Clonmere said, “because the maples remind me of the forest back home. You didn’t answer my question.’

  He led her down the steps, onto a gravel walk. The illumination along the walk was intermittent, which emphasized the garden’s scents. Too early for roses, though the lavender was evident, and tulips were still making a show. The daffodils were fading, and yet their sweetness lingered on the air.

  “I prefer to be where my family is,” Iris said. “The first two years after the late countess presented me, I was the only daughter who came up to Town in spring. That was lonely.” Particularly with the earl quibbling over ever yard of ribbon and pair of slippers the countess insisted on buying.

  Clonmere steered her toward a shadowed bench. “Are you lonely now?”

  Iris took a seat and the duke came down beside her. “That is a very personal question, Your Grace.” A very painful question.

  “I bring my whole family up to Town when I must be here, or as many as I can bribe and wheedle into coming along. Mama loves the shopping, the cousins love Mama, and I love them all.”

  And soon, if he didn’t already, he’d include one of Iris’s sisters in the happy, lucky horde. A thought more painful than loneliness threatened: What if Iris, aging and unmarried, lost Cousin Hattie, and had to become one of Clonmere’s tribe of relations?

  “The waltz will start soon,” Iris said. “We should be going inside.”

  Clonmere remained on the bench beside her. “Might I confide a secret? I’m all waltzed out. I have no more waltzes, minuets, quadrilles, gavottes or Roger de Coverley’s in me. Not tonight. Your sisters have worn me to flinders.”

  I want my waltz. And yet, Iris was also relieved. To twirl around in Clonmere’s arms, pretending to be merely amused, pretending to merely enjoy what Iris would instead be savoring and resenting and treasuring…. Clonmere’s demurral was in truth a reprieve.

  “My sisters thrive on society’s entertainments. You will have a waltzing duchess, Your Grace. Best accommodate that reality now, even if it’s not precisely what you wish for.”

  Clonmere plucked a flower from the urn beside the bench. “What do you wish for? If you had a fairy godmother, and she granted you a wish-come-true, what would it be, Lady Iris?”

  Just as the duke was out of waltzes, Iris was out of witty rejoinders. The plain, honest truth begged to be spoken, if only this once, if only to a man making conversation to avoid the ballroom.

  “A wish? My deepest, most secret wish?”

  “The wish your heart whispers as you drift into dreams, that wish.”

  To not end up with Puck-hair all over my life. To not be a burden on my family. To never… but those wishes were all in the negative. What did Iris wish for affirmatively? She had the sense Clonmere would wait for her answer until Michaelmas, though by then he’d be married to some sister or other.

  A lady and a gentleman on the terrace pretended
to admire the moonlit garden, though in truth they were standing too close to each other, and like Iris, probably enjoying the simple warmth of a companion in close quarters.

  “I wish that a worthy man would regard me, the true me, as the fulfillment of some of his dreams, Your Grace. Not all, of course, just as I wouldn’t expect him to be the sum total of my life either. I was raised to expect that I’d find a partner though, and I’m not ashamed to long for it. I wish that man would find me, and kiss me as if all the love in his heart had finally found a home, and as if all the love in my heart was his dearest treasure. Just once, I’d like to experience such a kiss.”

  The admission surprised her, but also came as something of a relief. Twenty-six was not ancient, and longing for somebody to love was purely human.

  “You are very brave,” Clonmere said, rising. “Very fierce.”

  Now he was ready to return to the ballroom? “I am neither.”

  He offered his hand—not his arm—and Iris rose. She’d confided much more than she’d intended, but the recitation had given her courage. She would not slink off to Surrey, she would not consign herself to the company of dyspeptic cats and literary spinsters.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, for the duke was not taking her in the direction of the ballroom.

  “Someplace private.”

  This was not a strictly proper idea, though Clonmere would soon become family to Iris—an idea that struck her as increasingly improper.

  “Your Grace, we were to dance the supper waltz.” In public, where Iris had a prayer of not betraying her feelings to him.

  “What matters one more waltz, when I can make a lady’s wish come true?” He came to a halt toward the back of the garden. The sound of the ballroom faded to a distant roar, moonlight glinted on a trickle of water splashing from a fountain sculpted into the shape of a blooming rose.

  “I must make my own dreams come true,” Iris said.

  Clonmere shifted his grip on Iris’s hand, linking their fingers. “On Saturday, I will choose which of Falmouth’s daughters to court. From that day forward, I will be devoted to her and only to her, if she’ll have me. I must make my choice in a manner that offers none of your sisters insult, or the woman I choose for my duchess will forever regret that she caused her siblings to suffer. Jealousy among siblings is the very devil, and I won’t be the cause of it in my wife’s family.”