The Duke Who Loved Me

by Jane Ashford

  “You must take care of your people.”

  She was interrupted by a rustle of newsprint. “I daresay there are rats,” James said.

  “Do you think to frighten me? You never could.”

  This was true. And he had really tried a few times in his youth.

  “I am consumed by morbid curiosity,” Cecelia added as she slipped down the hall. James followed. Her attendants came straggling after, the maid looking uneasy at the thought of rodents.

  They found other rooms as jumbled as the first two. Indeed, the muddle seemed to worsen toward the rear of the house. “Is that a spinning wheel?” Cecelia exclaimed at one point. “Why would a duke want such a thing?”

  “It appears he was unable to resist acquiring any object that he came across,” replied James.

  “But where would he come across a spinning wheel?”

  “In a tenant’s cottage?”

  “Do you suppose he bought it from them?”

  “I have no idea.” James pushed aside a hanging swag of cloth. Dust billowed out and set them all coughing. He stifled a curse.

  At last they came into what might have been a library. James thought he could see bookshelves behind the piles of refuse. There was a desk, he realized, with a chair pulled up to it. He hadn’t noticed at first because it was buried under mountains of documents. At one side sat a large wicker basket brimming with correspondence.

  Cecelia picked up a sheaf of pages from the desk, glanced over it, and set it down again. She rummaged in the basket. “These are all letters,” she said.

  “Wonderful.”

  “May I?”

  James gestured his permission, and she opened one from the top. “Oh, this is bad. Your cousin Elvira needs help.”

  “I have no knowledge of a cousin Elvira.”

  “Oh, I suppose she must have been your uncle Percival’s cousin. She sounds rather desperate.”

  “Well, that is the point of a begging letter, is it not? The effect is diminished if one doesn’t sound desperate.”

  “Yes, but James…”

  “My God, do you suppose they’re all like that?” The basket was as long as his arm and nearly as deep. It was mounded with correspondence.

  Cecelia dug deeper. “They all seem to be personal letters. Just thrown in here. I suppose they go back for months.”

  “Years,” James guessed. Dust lay over them, as it did everything here.

  “You must read them.”

  “I don’t think so. For once I approve of Uncle Percival’s methods. I would say throw them in the fire, if lighting a fire in this place wasn’t an act of madness.”

  “Have you no family feeling?”

  “None. You read them if you’re so interested.”

  She shuffled through the upper layer. “Here’s one from your grandmother.”

  “Which one?”

  “Lady Wilton.”

  “Oh no.”

  Cecelia opened the sheet and read. “She seems to have misplaced an earl.”

  “What?”

  “A long-lost heir has gone missing.”

  “Who? No, never mind. I don’t care.” The enormity of the task facing him descended on James, looming like the piles of objects leaning over his head. He looked up. One wrong move, and all that would fall about his ears. He wanted none of it.

  A flicker of movement diverted him. A rat had emerged from a crevice between a gilded chair leg and a hideous outsized vase. The creature stared down at him, insolent, seeming to know that it was well out of reach. “Wonderful,” murmured James.

  Cecelia looked up. “What?”

  He started to point out the animal, to make her jump, then bit back the words as an idea recurred. He, and her father, had taken advantage of her energetic capabilities over the years. He knew it. He was fairly certain she knew it. Her father had probably never noticed. But Cecelia hadn’t minded. She’d said once that the things she’d learned and done had given her a more interesting life than most young ladies were allowed. Might his current plight not intrigue her? So instead of mentioning the rodent, he offered his most charming smile. “Perhaps you would like to have that basket,” he suggested. “It must be full of compelling stories.”

  Her blue eyes glinted as if she understood exactly what he was up to. “No, James. This mare’s nest is all yours. I think, actually, that you deserve it.”

  “How can you say so?”

  “It is like those old Greek stories, where the thing one tries hardest to avoid fatefully descends.”

  “Thing?” said James, gazing at the looming piles of things.

  “You loathe organizational tasks. And this one is monumental.”

  “You have always been the most annoying girl,” said James.

  “Oh, I shall enjoy watching you dig out.” Cecelia turned away. “My curiosity is satisfied. I’ll be on my way.”

  “It isn’t like you to avoid work.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him. “Your work. And as you’ve pointed out, our…collaboration ended three years ago. We will call this visit a final farewell to those days.”

  She edged her way out, leaving James in his wreck of an inheritance. He was conscious of a sharp pang of regret. He put it down to resentment over her refusal to help him.

  ***

  Thinking of James’s plight as she sat in her drawing room later that day, Cecelia couldn’t help smiling. James liked order, and he didn’t care for hard work. That house really did seem like fate descending on him like a striking hawk. Was it what he deserved? It was certainly amusing.

  She became conscious of an impulse, like a nagging itch, to set things in order. The letters, in particular, tugged at her. She couldn’t help wondering about the people who had written and their troubles. But she resisted. Her long association with James was over. There were reasons to keep her distance. She’d given in to curiosity today, but that must be the end.

  “Tereford will manage,” she said, ostensibly to the other occupant of the drawing room, but mostly to herself.

  “Mmm,” replied her aunt, Miss Valeria Vainsmede.

  Cecelia had told her the story of the jumbled town house, but as usual her supposed chaperone had scarcely listened. Like Cecelia’s father, her Aunt Valeria cared for nothing outside her own chosen sphere. “I sometimes wonder about my grandparents,” Cecelia murmured. These Vainsmede progenitors, who had died before she was born, had produced a pair of plump, blond offspring with almost no interest in other people.

  “You wouldn’t have liked them,” replied Aunt Valeria. One never knew when she would pick up on a remark and respond, sometimes after hours of silence. It was disconcerting. She was bent over a small pasteboard box. It undoubtedly contained a bee, because nothing else would hold her attention so completely. A notebook, quill, and inkpot sat beside it.

  “You think not?” asked Cecelia.

  “No one did.”

  “Why?”

  “They were not likable,” said her aunt.

  “In what way?”

  “In the way of a parasitic wasp pushing into the hive.”

  Cecelia stared at her aunt, who had not looked up from whatever she was doing, and wondered how anyone could describe their parents in such a disparaging tone. Aunt Valeria might have been speaking of total strangers. Whom she despised.

  She felt a sudden flash of pain. How she missed her mother! Mama had been the polar opposite of the Vainsmedes. Warm and affectionate and prone to joking, she’d even brought Papa out of his self-absorption now and then and made their family feel—familial. She’d made him laugh. And she’d filled Cecelia’s days with love. Her absence was a great icy void that would never be filled.

  Cecelia took a deep breath. And another. These grievous moments were rare now. They’d gradually lessened in the years since Mama die
d when she was twelve, leaving her in the care of her distracted father. She’d found ways to move on, of course. But she would never forget that day, and feeling so desperately alone.

  Until James had come to see her. He’d stepped into this very drawing room so quietly that she knew nothing until he spoke her name. Her aunt had not yet arrived; her father was with his books. She was wildly startled when he said, “Cecelia.”

  She’d lashed out, expecting some heartless complaint about his financial affairs. But James had sat down beside her on the sofa and taken her hand and told her how sorry he was. That nineteen-year-old sprig of fashion and aspiring sportsman, who’d often taunted her, had praised her mother in the kindest way and acknowledged how much she would be missed. Most particularly by Cecelia, of course. After a moment of incredulity, she’d burst into tears, thrown herself upon him, and sobbed on his shoulder. He’d tolerated the outburst as her father would not. He’d tried, clumsily, to comfort her, and Cecelia had seen that there was more to him than she’d understood.

  A footman came in and announced visitors. Cecelia put the past aside. Aunt Valeria responded with a martyred sigh.

  Four young ladies filed into the room, and Cecelia stood to greet them. She’d been expecting only one, Miss Harriet Finch, whose mother had been a school friend of her mama. Mrs. Finch had written asking for advice and aid with her daughter’s debut, and Cecelia had volunteered to help Miss Harriet acquire a bit of town polish. Now she seemed to be welcoming the whole upper level of a girls’ school, judging from the outmoded wardrobes and dowdy haircuts. “Hello,” she said.

  The most conventionally pretty of the group, with red-blond hair, green eyes, a pointed chin beneath a broad forehead, and a beautiful figure, stepped forward. “How do you do?” she said. “I am Harriet Finch.”

  According to the gossips, she was a considerable heiress. Quite a spate of inheritances lately, Cecelia thought, though she supposed people were always dying.

  “And these are Miss Ada Grandison, Miss Sarah Moran, and Miss Charlotte Deeping,” the girl went on. She pointed as she gave their names.

  “I see,” said Cecelia.

  “They are my friends.” Miss Finch spoke as if they were a set of china that mustn’t on any account be broken up.

  “May I present my aunt, Miss Vainsmede,” said Cecelia.

  Aunt Valeria pointed to one ear and spoke in a loud toneless voice. “Very deaf. Sorry.” She returned to her box and notepad, putting her back to their visitors.

  Cecelia hid a sigh. Her aunt could hear as well as anyone, but she insisted on telling society that she could not. It must have been an open secret, because the servants were well aware of her true state. But the ruse allowed Aunt Valeria to play her part as chaperone without making any effort to participate in society. Cecelia had once taxed her with feigning what others found a sad affliction. Her aunt had informed her that she actually did not hear people who nattered on about nothing. “My mind rejects their silly yapping,” she’d declared. “It turns to a sort of humming in my brain, and then I begin to think of something interesting instead.” Cecelia gestured toward a sofa. “Do sit down,” she said to her guests.

  The girls sat in a row facing her. They didn’t fold their hands, but it felt as if they had. They looked hopeful and slightly apprehensive. Cecelia examined them, trying to remember which was which.

  Miss Ada Grandison had heavy, authoritative eyebrows. They dominated smooth brown hair, brown eyes, a straight nose, and full lips.

  Miss Sarah Moran, the shortest of the four, was a smiling round little person with sandy hair, a turned-up nose, and sparkling light blue eyes. It was too bad her pale brows and eyelashes washed her out.

  The last, Miss Charlotte Deeping, was the tallest, with black hair, pale skin, and a sharp dark gaze. She looked spiky. “I thought you didn’t have a chaperone,” she said to Cecelia, confirming this impression.

  “What made you think that?”

  “We heard you went to a ball on your own.”

  “I met my party there,” Cecelia replied, which was nearly true. She had attached herself to friends as soon as she arrived. That solitary venture had perhaps been a misjudgment. But it was a very minor scandal, more of an eccentricity, she told herself. She was impatient with the rules now that she was in her fourth season. “My aunt has lived with us since my mother died,” she told her visitors.

  “I thought it must be a hum,” replied Miss Deeping. “It seems we are to be stifled to death here in London.”

  Cecelia could sympathize. Because her father paid no attention and her aunt did not care, her situation was unusual. She’d been the mistress of the house for nine years, and manager of the Vainsmede properties for even longer. Her father left everything to her, too lazy to be bothered. Indeed Cecelia sometimes wondered how she ever came to be in the first place, as Papa cared for nothing but rich meals and reading. She supposed her maternal grandmother had simply informed him that he was being married and then sent someone to drag him from his library to the church on the day. But no, he had cared for Mama. She must believe that.

  “Every circumstance is different,” said Miss Moran.

  She was one who liked to smooth things over, Cecelia noted.

  “And Miss Vainsmede is older than…” Miss Moran blushed and bit her lip as if afraid she’d given offense.

  “Three years older than you,” Cecelia acknowledged. “Do you all want my advice?”

  “We must have new clothes and haircuts,” said Miss Grandison.

  The others nodded.

  “We’re new to London and fashionable society, where you are well established,” said Miss Finch. “My mother says we would be wise to heed an expert.”

  “Which doesn’t precisely answer my question,” said Cecelia. “Do you wish to hear my opinions?”

  They looked at each other, engaged in a brief silent communication, and then all nodded. The exchange demonstrated a solid friendship, which Cecelia envied. Many of her friends had married and did not come to town for the season. She missed them. “Very well,” she began. “I think you, Miss Moran, would do well to darken your brows and lashes. It would draw attention to your lovely eyes.”

  The girl looked shocked. “Wouldn’t that be dreadfully fast?”

  “A little daring perhaps,” said Cecelia. “But no one will know if you do it before your entry into society.”

  “Don’t be missish, Sarah,” said Miss Deeping.

  Cecelia wondered if she was a bully. “You should wear ruffles,” she said to her. She suspected that this suggestion would not be taken well, and it was not.

  “Ruffles,” repeated the dark girl in a tone of deep revulsion.

  “To soften the lines of your frame.”

  “Disguise my lamentable lack of a figure you mean.”

  Cecelia did not contradict her. Nor did she evade the glare that came with these words. They either wanted her advice or they didn’t. She didn’t know them well enough to care which it was to be.

  “You haven’t mentioned my eyebrows,” said Miss Grandison, frowning.

  “You appear to use them to good effect.”

  Miss Grandison was surprised into a laugh.

  “And I?” asked Miss Finch. There seemed to be an undertone of resentment or bitterness in her voice. Odd since she had the least to fear from society, considering her inheritance.

  “New clothes and a haircut,” Cecelia replied. “We could call on my modiste tomorrow if you like.”

  The appointment was agreed on.

  “Oh, I hope this season goes well,” said Miss Moran.

  “There will be another next year,” Cecelia said. She heard the trace of boredom in her voice and rejected it. She was not one of those languishing women who claimed to be overcome by ennui.

  “I shan’t be here. It was always to be only one season for me.”
Miss Moran clasped her hands together. “So I intend to enjoy it immensely.”

  Two

  “Thank you,” said James to the club steward who brought his brandy. He sipped the mellow liquor and settled deeper into the plush armchair near the front window. Outside, it was growing dark, and rain sheeted over the pavement. Here within, all was comfort—warmth, color, paneled wood, and polished leather. The gentleman’s club was a wonderful invention, James observed. For those who lived in a small set of rooms, as he did, it provided expansive spaces as well as fine dinners. The staff was impeccable. Friends passed through, offering conversation or a convivial game of cards without the effort of making arrangements. Or one could read the latest publications. Really a fine idea altogether. He took another sip.

  “Tereford. Hullo.”

  James turned to find a stocky, older man standing by his chair. He couldn’t immediately recall the man’s name. He nodded a greeting.

  “My wife hopes you will attend her evening party on Friday,” the fellow said. “Be very pleased to see you there. M’daughter too. Most eager.”

  James stiffened. This was outrageous. The club was supposed to be a refuge, not another hunting ground for ambitious females. James focused the expression that Cecelia had called the most killing sneer in the ton on the man.

  The look had the desired effect. The fellow flinched, muttered something inaudible, and walked away.

  James remained, contemplating his unpleasant new state. Since inheriting the dukedom he’d been besieged by debs and their mothers. The attention he’d received as a mere heir was nothing compared to the hue and cry now that he actually possessed the title and a fortune to go with it. He thought this must be how the fox felt with the hounds in full voice—dogged by a predatory clamor. But he’d thought himself safe here. The club was meant to be an escape from all that.

  Henry Deeping appeared in the doorway, tall, thin, pale skin offset by dark hair and eyes. He noticed James, and strolled over. “Hullo, Duke,” he said.

  “I thought we agreed that you would not call me that.”