Seduction Regency Style

by Louisa Cornell

  Babcock squeaked. He actually squeaked and crumpled the letter in half. Endymion leaned forward, his fingers pressed to the curved arms of his leather chair. The man took another step back.

  “Stubble it, Voil. Babcock, is that letter addressed to me?” He didn’t know which irritated him more—his friend’s knowledge of the state of his marriage or his secretary’s odd behavior.

  “Your Grace, I…” The wiry man of middling years ran a finger under his neckcloth.

  Endymion fixed Babcock with his most benign gaze. Having inherited his title from his grandfather at the age of twenty-five, he had a carefully practiced repertoire of expressions with which to gain the best performances from those he employed. “Well?”

  “It… That is… Your Grace, I…”

  “Am I paying you by the word, Babcock?”

  “Of course not, Your Grace,” fairly stumbled from the secretary’s lips. He gasped at his own impertinence and then adopted a hushed tone. “This letter is from Cornwall, Your Grace. A second response to the invitation, that is, the letter. The letter you wrote. That is to say, had me to write.” He swallowed hard. “The letter.”

  Endymion pushed to his feet. And immediately regretted it. Poor Babcock blanched and took yet another step back. Two more and he’d be in the corridor. At a bit over six-and-a-half feet tall, the duke tended to intimidate even when seated. Should Babcock faint, he’d never discover the problem, and he had far more pressing matters to see to today than a swooning secretary. He reached for the leather-bound volume that contained his schedules and plans for the year—each day carefully divided by the hour, tasks to be accomplished and social engagements that required his presence. He had precisely ten minutes to conclude this interruption to his afternoon.

  Wait. What had Babcock said?

  “The letter?” Scarcely out of his mouth, the question shot into his brain and bottled up the air in his lungs. He refused to look at his friend, who had suddenly unfolded himself from the sofa enough to sit up completely, too damned attentive for anyone’s good. Especially Endymion’s.

  “Cornwall?” Voil looked from Babcock to Endymion and back. “In response to what letter? What sort of invitation?”

  “One that does not include you. Aren’t you expected somewhere for luncheon?” The duke stared at the single missive trapped in his secretary’s shaky grip.

  “By every marriage-minded mama in London. Why do you think I have sought sanctuary in the library of the dullest duke in Christendom? What letter, Babcock?” Voil had all the appearance of a hound pointing grouse.

  “Don’t answer that, Babcock,” Endymion ordered. His secretary paled another shade and swayed slightly. To be expected of a man trapped between a marquess and a duke.

  “You wrote to Cornwall?” Voil perched on the edge of the sofa.

  “I didn’t say that.” A line of sweat meandered along the twitch between Endymion’s shoulders. He took a casual step around the far side of his desk.

  “Babcock said it.” Voil pushed slowly to his feet. “You don’t acknowledge the existence of Cornwall, let alone write letters to anyone there. As far as you’re concerned, England stops at the River Tamar.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Pendeen’s family seat is in Cornwall. I am Pendeen. Therefore, I have estates to manage in Cornwall.” Damn Voil for spending half his life draped over the most nap-worthy furnishings in Endymion’s Grosvenor Square home.

  Babcock’s eyes followed this exchange, his breath bated.

  Voil snorted. “Your uncle manages those estates.” He sidled toward Babcock. “And writes and dispatches all your correspondence to Cornwall. Including your monthly letters to…”

  The marquess’s jaw went slack.

  Oh hell. Endymion suppressed a groan and stepped around the front of his desk.

  “You wrote to your wife?”

  “Babcock, give me that letter.” Endymion all but lunged at the terrified secretary.

  Voil scrambled over a tapestry-worked ottoman and made a grab for the missive, which Babcock raised over his head, attempting to hand it off to the duke. Babcock waved his arm back and forth as the two peers shifted from side to side in an effort to capture the now much-mangled, folded, and sealed parchment. Using the three odd inches he had on his friend, Endymion snatched it from his frantic employee’s trembling fingers.

  He failed to resist an “Aha!” of triumph. Voil used that moment to snatch the letter from his hand and dance away behind the sofa.

  Babcock stifled a gasp.

  “Your Grace, I…” The secretary appeared torn between a bolt for the door and a bout of tears. Voil had that effect.

  Endymion’s reaction was far more visceral. Determined to keep his frustrated trepidation to himself, he folded his arms across his chest and leaned a hip against the desk. “Don’t trouble yourself, Babcock. You and I are too far removed from our childhoods to defeat Lord Voil in such a juvenile game. His lordship is still in the midst of his.”

  “Says the man who has his uncle correspond with his wife on his behalf.” The marquess examined the folded and sealed letter from every angle, prolonging his schoolboy antics. Endymion refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

  “I am accustomed to my uncle handling all of my Cornwall concerns on my behalf.”

  “A point on which he makes certain everyone in London is quite clear. Why he continues to do so seven years after your grandfather’s death is rather less clear. To me, at least.”

  “Our friendship does not obligate me to offer you clarity on the management of my dukedom.” Endymion might have favored Voil with one of his ducal glares, but it would have been wasted on the arrogant arse.

  “As may be, Pendeen. However, neither you nor Babcock would be so concerned at my reading a response to one of your obsequious toad-eater of an uncle’s letters. Cut line. What in God’s name persuaded you to write to your wife?” He braced his hands on the back of the sofa, the letter pressed into the blue and gold brocade under his fingers.

  “Uncle de Waryn has decamped to the Continent for the next few months. I had no choice.” Endymion tapped a finger against the cool fabric of his jacket. A trick he’d learned long ago to clear his head when unwanted thoughts came to mind. Thoughts of Cornwall. And loss. And his wife.

  Voil came around the sofa and retook his seat, the letter now dangling from his hands, which rested between his knees. “Babcock said a second response. What was the first?” Even half-asleep, the man missed nothing. Dammit.

  “No.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The first response was ‘no.’” Which had both intrigued and infuriated Endymion. Not that he’d give his friend that information.

  “A simple ‘no’? Nothing more?”

  The duke and the secretary nodded in unison. Babcock cleared his throat and stared at the window at the end of the room. Plotting his escape from this debacle, no doubt. Endymion suspected he might like to join the man. Nay, he didn’t suspect. He knew. The only person who wanted to read the contents of that letter more than he did was Voil. Knowledge was power. And whilst Voil knew more than anyone about Endymion’s past, there were some things Endymion had kept to himself. A small bundle of power not even his grandfather had held.

  “And your response to that succinct reply? Don’t bother to lie about it, Pendeen. I’ve played chess with you for years.”

  “You’ve lost at chess with me for years.” Endymion uncrossed his arms, leaned back fully against the desk, both hands gripping the ancient, polished mahogany desktop behind him. “I sent my travel carriage to fetch her. That was my response.”

  Voil raised a brow. He rubbed his chin with one hand, still grasping the letter in the other. “Rather like fetching an incorrigible child who’s been sent down from school?”

  “I would not know. I was never sent down from school.” Endymion’s even tone covered his inward wince. Voil’s description, born of a great deal of personal experience, had struck a bit
too close to the mark. Had his duchess seen it that way?

  His duchess.

  Voil snapped the wax seal and opened the letter. “Shall we find out how this particular child has responded to being sent for, Your Grace?”

  Endymion pushed away from the desk but willed his feet not to move. Babcock’s sharp intake of breath punctuated the silence. At least, he hoped it was Babcock’s. Voil waggled his eyebrows and leaned back against the sofa cushion to read the letter.

  Voil’s response started with a snort. Followed by a childish chortle. In moments, Voil lay on the sofa howling with laughter. Waving that damned letter like a flag of surrender.

  Endymion strode over and snatched it from the idiot’s lax fingers.

  “Your Grace, I…”

  “Yes, Babcock,” Endymion said without a backwards glance at his long-suffering secretary. “That will be all.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace.” From the clatter of his footsteps and the scrabbling noises at the door, Babcock had fled the room like the last fox in England upon hearing the baying of hounds.

  Voil’s laughter subsided only to start up once more when he looked from the letter to Endymion and back. Breathing in through his nose, Endymion flipped the slightly crimped missive over to peruse the duchess’s latest reply.

  To His Grace, Endymion Michael George de Waryn

  Duke of Pendeen

  Your Grace,

  Thank you for your kind invitation. Again. It may be breeding season for dukes in London. As there has not been a duke of breeding age in Cornwall in my lifetime, I am unfamiliar with their breeding season here. And here is where I intend to remain.

  Rhiannon Harvey de Waryn

  Duchess of Pendeen

  “What did you write to deserve such a response?” Voil sat up and drew a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe tears of laughter from his eyes.

  Endymion stared at the piece of stationary crushed in his hand. He didn’t remember closing his fist around it. Ignoring his friend, he returned to his desk and smoothed out the letter. On the shelf directly behind him, he plucked the box marked This Month’s Correspondence Received from its place and tucked the still wrinkled page inside it before returning the box to the shelf. At the end of the month, Babcock would file it away in the box reserved for the duke’s correspondence with the duchess.

  The duke’s correspondence.

  With the duchess.

  Until a month ago, he’d not written a single letter to his wife of seventeen years. He’d left that task to his uncle. In spite of the many reasons that had arisen for Endymion himself to correspond with his interests in Cornwall, perhaps he should have left this chore to his uncle. What had possessed Endymion to write to her now? He stared at the rows and rows of boxes as if they might hold the answer.

  “If you cannot recall what you wrote, for God’s sake, man, can you tell me why you wrote to her after all this time?”

  He faced Voil, still seated on the sofa but more alert than he’d seen him in years. Alert and…pitying. Hell! This was not to be borne. Endymion lifted the book by which he conducted his life, strode to the sofa, and dropped the leather volume into his startled friend’s lap. A singular honor. Few people beyond Babcock and Endymion’s butler, Vaughn, had been allowed the privilege he now afforded the Marquess of Voil.

  “You cannot tell me the old bastard ordered you when to…” Voil stopped leafing through the pages of the schedule book and slowly raised his head. “Please tell me you did not invite your duchess to London in order to— Good God, you did.” He tossed the book onto the table before the sofa.

  “Did what?” This conversation was about to take a road Endymion did not want to travel. Not even with his oldest friend. Too many roads in his mind led to dangerous places. Places he had put behind him. Places he had no memory of and no desire to visit to regain those memories.

  “Hell and the devil, man, you’re still living your life by your grandfather’s rules. He’s dead, Pendeen. You’re alive. You can make your own rules.”

  “I know I’m alive.” Endymion collapsed into one of the high-backed leather chairs before his desk.

  “Do you? I’ve seen little evidence of it, especially since the old man stuck his spoon in the wall. I know bluestocking spinsters who’ve had more fun. They don’t hang you for breaking the rules.”

  “You will forgive me if I decline to take advice about rules from a man with little to no acquaintance with them.” Endymion resisted the urge to scrub his hands over his face.

  Voil grinned. “On the contrary, I have an intimate acquaintance with them. I use the rules to live the most scandalous life possible without offending anyone. You use the rules as a place to hide.”

  “Ridiculous.” He rolled his shoulders and slouched down into the chair. “What have I to hide from?”

  “I don’t know, but if that letter is an example of her response to your wooing talents, I suggest you hide from your duchess, for starters.” Voil slid down on the sofa, mimicking Endymion’s posture.

  “You are not helping.”

  “At least, until the breeding season for dukes is over.”

  “Nor are you amusing in the least.”

  “Very well, Your Grace.” Voil snatched the leather-bound book from the table and tossed it at Endymion. “What does His Late Grace’s book say you should do next?”

  Chapter Two

  Pendeen, Cornwall

  August, 1814

  Josiah Thomas turned his head and spat onto the packed dirt of the farmyard. “Missed him, Your Grace. Damned shame, that.”

  The disadvantage to firing one of Manton’s double-barrel percussion fowling pieces was the dust and debris it stirred up when one took a shot at a man who deserved it. The advantage was not having to take the time to reload before the second shot. Once one had a clear line to the target.

  “I didn’t miss, Josiah.” Rhiannon Harvey de Waryn, Duchess of Pendeen, snugged the butt of the long gun into her shoulder and blinked her target into focus past the mixed cloud of gunpower and flying dirt. “I was giving him a chance to run.”

  A chorus of guffaws and jeers erupted from her mines manager and the grooms and footmen who’d accompanied her on the long ride from Gorffwys Ddraig, the seat of the Pendeen duchy, to the Wilson tenant farm at the far end of the estate. The corner of Rhiannon’s mouth kicked up even as a sprinkling of sweat popped out on her upper lip. She steadied her grip on the Manton and inhaled slightly. Her palms remained dry and her hands steady. Thank God for small mercies. At a mere four inches over five feet tall, with a slender frame she despised for its lack of curves, wit and poise and her tenacious grip on calm were often all that kept her on her feet.

  “She’s a right’un, is our duchess.”

  “I’d do as she says, lad. Her Grace don’t miss, ‘specially when she’s vexed.”

  “S-she’s mad is what s-she is.” Robert Wilson windmilled his skinny arms to dispel the last of the smoke encircling his florid face. “Captain Randolph is the steward here, Josiah Thomas, not you. T-take your arse back to the mines and t-take her with you. S-she has no right to shoot at me on my own p-property.”

  Neither lowering the gun nor altering her aim, Rhiannon took a step toward the spluttering excuse for a farmer. He backed up and tried to hide behind his wife. The care-worn woman with the black eye and split lip shifted the babe on her hip and pushed her husband away with her splinted arm.

  “It isn’t your property, is it, Robert? And it isn’t Captain Randolph’s.” Rhiannon took another step and heard her men close ranks behind her. “It’s mine. And I’ll have no wife beaters here. You have fifteen minutes to clear out.” She thumbed back the hammer of the unspent barrel. She tried not to see his wife’s battered face, the wide-eyed stares of the brood of children—barefoot in ragged clothes—huddled behind their mother. The heat of unspoken fury swept up her body—most of it directed at the loud-mouthed drunkard gaping at her like a fish landed on a riverbank. Most of it.

&n
bsp; “She’s mine to beat.”

  “Not anymore.” Rhiannon blew the hair from her eyes. “Fourteen minutes.”

  “Who will work this land? Who will look after my family if you banish me?”

  “The same person who always has.” She glanced at the gangly youth of some fifteen odd years who stared at his father with the placid contempt born of a lifetime of abuse. “Agreed, Young Bob?”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” the boy said softly as he stepped in front of his mother. He raised his chin a notch. “Agreed.” Rhiannon fought the urge to smile. Young lads who had just become men did not brook tender emotions, no matter how richly deserved. She knew this from bitter experience. With a solemn nod, she turned her attention back to his infuriated sire.

  “You have no right to take a man’s wife. His children. Duchess or not. A man has rights.” Fists clenched and half-raised, Wilson started forward. Rhiannon lowered her aim to the man’s crotch as she heard the men at her back shout and scramble, prepared to intervene.

  “I doubt anyone here sees the least thing in you that even hints at a man.” Rhiannon met her target halfway, close enough to press the end of the Manton to his filthy, torn wool breeches. Her mind screamed “Danger!” but she refused to blink. Seventeen years as de facto mistress of this estate, seven years as the sole authority over the largest duchy in three counties, had taught her the power of a fearless demeanor. Even when circumstances had her shaking in her half boots. “One more step and I’ll geld you and remove all doubt.”

  Even the chickens scratching in vain at the impregnable dirt ceased their futile search for food. This close to the sea, yet not a breeze stirred the summer heat. Rhiannon’s cotton stockings stuck to her legs. The weight of her kerseymere skirts dragged at her waist. Her tightly braided hair, coiled on top and at the back of her head, threatened to slip its pins. Half a dozen lines of icy sweat meandered down her back. The men behind her shifted a bit. It had taken time and determination for her to train them to trust her to command a situation until she asked for their help. She took great pride in their scarcely reined patience, palpable, at this point.