The Duke Who Loved Me

by Jane Ashford

  The soft look was back. She hadn’t imagined it. Perhaps the man who had kissed her so tenderly had not vanished into the old James.

  “Unless you will give me that right?” he added.

  He moved. It almost looked as if he meant to kneel at her feet.

  “Ah, they told me you were here, Tereford.” Aunt Valeria strode into the room and plopped down in a chair directly across from Cecelia. She gazed at them, her round face disgruntled. “I told the servants to inform me if any gentlemen called.”

  Now, now she was going to play the chaperone? She’d left Cecelia to the spite of the gossips, but she chose to interrupt James. This was to be a day when nothing went right, Cecelia concluded.

  James sat back. “I came to invite Ce…Miss Vainsmede to a play tomorrow.”

  “I don’t care for the stage,” said Aunt Valeria. “All that silly prancing and ranting while one stifles in a reek of perfumes and pomades. The stench of a crowd! I don’t believe I can…”

  “Lady Wilton will accompany us,” James interrupted.

  “Ah.” Aunt Valeria’s complaint was arrested. “Well, I suppose that’s all right then.” She brightened. “She can’t complain about my chaperonage if she’s taken charge. I will allow it.”

  “Al…” began Cecelia.

  “Very good of you,” said James.

  His tone and the understanding look he gave Cecelia cut off her explosion. She throttled her temper and refrained from telling her aunt that she had no right to allow—or forbid—anything. She was going to have to deal with this new, infuriating Aunt Valeria. Who sat staring at them, showing no sign of turning to her notebook and her customary oblivious state, nor any vestige of enjoyment. Clearly, she was willing James to go.

  He rose. “Until tomorrow,” he said. He held Cecelia’s gaze for a heart-stopping moment, and then he was gone.

  Fifteen

  James made certain that his party arrived well ahead of the start of the play the following evening. His goal was to be obvious to the entire audience. Cecelia looked lovely in a pale-rose gown with a spray of flowers twined in her blond hair. She appeared poised and serene. He didn’t think anyone would spot her anxiety. Lady Wilton was her usual imperturbably fashionable self. James dared anyone to challenge her. He was prepared to do social battle and to triumph this time. They settled in their box, ignoring the stares and whispers that rose around them.

  “So now we must look carefree and chat,” said Cecelia. James heard strain in her tone.

  “Indeed,” said Lady Wilton. “And I have a good deal to say.” She was clearly pleased to have James cornered for an entire evening. “Ferrington,” she added with a steely glint in her eye.

  James held up a hand. “I have found an inquiry agent to set on his track. He wants a place to begin. What can you tell me about your lost earl? Where should I send this fellow first?”

  “If I knew that, I would already have looked there,” replied his grandmother acerbically.

  “Sent your enterprising footman perhaps?” asked James, unable to resist.

  The old lady scowled.

  “Smiles, Grandmamma,” said James. “Don’t forget.” Not that the entire ton wasn’t accustomed to Lady Wilton’s glowers.

  “Insufferable boy,” she muttered. But she smiled for their observers.

  “Could Ferrington have gone back to America?” asked Cecelia.

  “America?” James had not thought to send anyone so far.

  Lady Wilton snorted. “Of course he hasn’t. No one walks away from an earldom.”

  “And yet he seems to have done so,” James pointed out.

  “Unless something happened to him?” said Cecelia. “What if he was attacked by footpads?”

  “All of his things and a horse I had purchased for his use disappeared with him,” said Lady Wilton. “Hardly the work of footpads.”

  “So why and where has he gone?” James asked. “Let us begin at the beginning, Grandmamma. He was here in London.”

  “The beginning is my daughter’s marriage to the earlier Earl of Ferrington,” Lady Wilton interrupted. “Sixty years ago.”

  “Yes I know, but…”

  “She had two sons,” Lady Wilton continued, in the tone of one reciting an oft-told tale. “An heir and a scapegrace instead of a spare. Ralph. We had to send him off to America before he was eighteen.”

  “Had to?” echoed James. He felt a surge of pity for the lad. He saw the same emotion in the Cecelia’s eyes.

  “He was intractable,” Lady Wilton went on. “Plunged into every vice from a scandalously early age. It was the best solution.”

  “Until you needed him again,” murmured Cecelia.

  James glanced at her.

  Lady Wilton merely nodded. “Because my elder grandson got himself killed on the hunting field without producing an heir. So we had to go looking for Ralph.”

  “You didn’t know what had become of him?” Cecelia sounded shocked.

  “We heard he made a dreadful marriage. Years ago. After that…” The old woman made a brushing motion. “But we finally tracked down his son.”

  “Ralph’s?” James had rather lost track of this proliferation of people.

  “Yes, Tereford. Have you not been paying attention?” Lady Wilton bared her yellowed teeth in what might have appeared to be a smile, from a distance. “I had this American fetched. A shabby, rag-mannered fellow. Prone to lounging. Wished to be called Jack, if you please! But I informed him that I was willing to lick him into reasonable shape to fit his new position. Despite his dreadful mother. The next day, he was gone.”

  “How very odd of him,” said James. He saw Cecelia catch his tone. They exchanged a look of mingled humor and sympathy for his grandmother’s victim. “Might he have gone to his mother’s family?”

  “She had none.”

  “Everyone has a family, Grandmamma.” James was rather wishing that he did not.

  Lady Wilton waved this aside. “The worst sort of riffraff.”

  “What was her name?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Then how do you know…?”

  The old woman leaned forward and spoke softly, as if fearful of being overheard, and murmured, “Her people were Travelers.”

  James frowned. He had heard of this rambling tribe. “They are rather like gypsies?”

  “Quiet!” hissed his grandmother. “We do not want that known!”

  James’s pity for the new earl increased. If he did return to London, he was not going to have an easy time of it.

  “I wonder if he might have gone to see Ferrington Hall?” Cecelia asked.

  “To take a look at his inheritance?” said Lady Wilton. “But if he saw the place, why has he not come back to claim it? It’s a substantial estate.”

  “I’ll send the agent up there to look around,” said James.

  “And what else?” demanded the old woman. Impatience was an inadequate description of her tone.

  “What do you suggest?” James asked her.

  “I don’t know. You’re the head of the family now. Think of something!”

  All the responses that occurred to him were ones his grandmother would not appreciate. Thankfully, the play was beginning, and he was able to drop the conversation to listen. But James wondered if this new earl had returned to America. Faced with Lady Wilton’s scorn, he would have been tempted to do so. Presumably the fellow had a life of some sort across the sea.

  Laughter at an actor’s antics filled the theater, including a ripple from Cecelia at his side. James turned to gaze at her delicate profile. He could trace signs of strain in her face, though they would not be visible from other boxes. He hated to see it. Throughout their long association she had been the calm solver of problems, the one who found a way to untangle the worst snarls. She’d never turned away
from a dispute. To see her shaken by this wretched excuse for a prince was dreadful.

  She turned, noticed his gaze, and smiled. The trust in her blue eyes, the lovely curve of her lips, led James to a moment of stark clarity. She mattered more to him than anyone else in his life. There was no one he knew better, none he valued so much. He realized that he couldn’t imagine his life without Cecelia. He…required her. He had for years, all unaware. But what did she feel? She’d refused his proposal. When she was in trouble, she hadn’t turned to him. Had he ever been more than a burden to her? A void seemed to open in James’s chest at the question.

  But she’d kissed him. She’d wanted to. She’d melted in his arms. She was not the sort of person to do that lightly. She must feel the bond that linked them.

  Unsettled by the demanding intensity in James’s face, Cecelia turned away. She watched the actors go through their speeches and tried to ignore the audience all around, many of whom continued to stare at her rather than the drama. Lady Wilton’s lost earl had temporarily diverted her from her own predicament. But now she was again conscious of innumerable sharp eyes focused on her. Much of society attended the theater to socialize and gossip rather than follow any action on the stage, and Cecelia felt that tonight she was the play. She was pretending nonchalance, presenting a picture of ease while emotion roiled unpleasantly inside her. She felt that she was succeeding, but the strain was considerable.

  Some people loved being the center of attention, craved it even. But she had found over the course of this unusual season that she did not. Her early excitement had given way to unease. And now she had learned that a reigning belle was the target of envy and malice as well as admiration. She hadn’t quite understood that before, from the outside. There were many in society avid to see her fall. And one, of course, who was trying to ensure it.

  She’d misjudged Prince Karl so completely. Any shame she felt was for her own blindness. Had her head been turned by the flurry of social success? Had the thrill of James’s offer addled her wits? She’d had no experience of a man like the prince, but this was no excuse in her eyes. She’d made an idiotic mistake.

  Did Prince Karl really expect that she would now make another? Yield to him under the threat of disgrace? Could he be so blind? No, he was punishing her for refusing his advances. He was a smug, vindictive blackguard.

  Cecelia diverted herself by imagining that she could challenge Prince Karl to a duel. It would be so very satisfying to slap his smug face with a glove. Did anyone do that these days? It was a sad loss if not. Think of his surprise and chagrin.

  She would accuse him of tarnishing her name with lies. Bid him name his seconds and give her an opportunity to redeem her honor. And then to pace off the steps in some misty dawn, to turn, and take a shot at him. She had never fired a pistol, but it didn’t look difficult. She couldn’t kill him, but surely she could wound him a bit, drain off some of his infuriating complacency?

  But the prince would choose swords, Cecelia realized as she embroidered on this fantasy. Of course he would. He’d delighted in besting James, who knew how to handle a blade. Prince Karl would make her look like a clumsy fool on the dueling ground. He would thoroughly humiliate her. She could not…

  Cecelia shook her head. She was pretending she could actually fight him. In fact, she could only sit here, as decoratively as possible, looking as if she didn’t care. It was no wonder that beleaguered ladies of the past had resorted to underhanded weapons, like poison.

  “Now we are for it,” said Lady Wilton.

  Looking up, Cecelia saw that the first interval had arrived. This was an opportunity for visitors to come and interrogate them. No doubt they would do so. She braced to offer bright confidence and carefree delight.

  But the very first to appear at the door of their box was an unwelcome surprise. Prince Karl stood there, tall, blond, and arrogant in one of his vaguely military coats. How dared he? James rose to face him. Cecelia remained where she was. She would not speak to him.

  The intruder bowed. “Lady Wilton, one sees you everywhere,” he said. “And the so charming Miss Vainsmede.” His smile became a leer. She tried not to see it. “Milord duke has reappeared also. To hit me again perhaps? Since his first effort was so…feeble?”

  James longed to plant a facer on that sneering countenance. He could almost feel the gratifying crunch of the blow, the welcome pain in his fist. It would be splendid to see this knave reel back and fall. But that would simply cause further scandal. Some might see it as the prince’s vindication.

  He struggled with his temper. The prince had put them all on display. Those in nearby boxes had certainly heard what he said. He was here to embarrass them as publicly as possible. James needed to defeat him with his own weapons. He groped for the right phrase.

  And then indecision subsided as the idea came to him. James said nothing at all. He looked Prince Karl straight in the eye and then slowly and ostentatiously turned his back. James sat down, catching the eyes of his companions. He nodded at them. His grandmother looked startled, Cecelia shocked. But they both took his cue and turned away from the visitor as well. And then the three of them acted as if Prince Karl did not exist. He had, metaphorically, vanished from their lives. He would never be recognized in their ambit again. The cut direct.

  Murmurs washed through the theater, a susurrus of delicious horror. It seemed as if every eye was now upon them. James listened for movement from behind. The prince might decide to retaliate with words or even a blow, which he would have to answer. But there was nothing for what seemed like an age but was in reality only a few moments. Then the swish of cloth suggested that Prince Karl had left their box.

  James did not lean back or sigh. He made sure to show no reaction whatsoever. But he was relieved. He had put his social position and credit up against the prince’s. It was a different kind of duel, and it remained to be seen whether his adversary was as skilled at this type. But he had won the first throw.

  “What have you done?” murmured Cecelia.

  James turned, smiled as if she’d made some commonplace remark, and quietly said, “We will not discuss it here.”

  “No indeed,” replied his grandmother, smiling like a sated vulture. “We will…rampantly enjoy the play. But I must say, James, I didn’t think you had that in you.”

  “Reckless audacity?” muttered Cecelia.

  “Resolute daring,” said Lady Wilton. “We will see what comes next.”

  “What will the prince do?”

  “We will not speak of it here,” James repeated.

  “No, we will leave that to everyone else,” replied his grandmother, running her eyes over the chattering crowd.

  Few audience members paid attention to the play after that. They talked through the action at a level that made some of the actors sulk visibly onstage. James knew that people would take sides. His action had set off a kind of war in society, but it was one he thought he could win. He’d been an admired member of the haut ton for years and had a host of friends and acquaintances. He’d recently been elevated to one of the highest titles in the land. Prince Karl, on the other hand, was a foreign stranger. He would be leaving England at some point, so there was less future advantage in backing him. Some might be spiteful just because they could be, but James thought they would be few.

  James’s party endured the stares and watched the rest of the evening’s program in their roles as carefree playgoers. They laughed as much as was reasonable. No one else visited them. “Afraid to,” Cecelia murmured to James. “Who knows what you might do?”

  He smiled at her. Not sardonically. He was feeling something very like joy after acting strongly in her defense.

  They lingered after the end of the performance, letting the room empty out, which allowed them to reach their carriage without pushing through a crowd. Once inside the vehicle, Lady Wilton said, “I haven’t seen that tried since the
Regent cut Brummell.”

  “Which did not go well for the Regent,” said Cecelia.

  The old lady shrugged. “He had less reason for the snub. And Tereford is rather more popular than the Regent.”

  James grimaced. “Please do not say that where anyone else can hear you, Grandmamma.” The Prince Regent was notoriously jealous of his consequence. And petty when he felt it threatened.

  She snorted. “I cut my eyeteeth before you were born, my boy. You do not need to tell me.” The vehicle slowed. “Here we are, Miss Vainsmede. You may tell your aunt I delivered you home safe and sound.” Her eyes gleamed with sarcasm in the dimness.

  James handed her down and escorted her to the door. There was time for nothing but a squeeze of her fingers. And then she was gone, and his grandmother was summoning him back.

  ***

  Sitting alone in her drawing room early the next morning, Cecelia was still prey to jumbled thoughts. She’d enjoyed snubbing the prince. There was no doubt about that. After the way he’d treated her, he deserved it. And she’d been touched by James’s decisive defense. “He might have consulted me,” she murmured. “Although I don’t believe he planned it in advance.” The cut had been an impulsive rejection, an automatic response to Prince Karl’s intrusion and sneering remarks.

  The problem was, the way things had unfolded made this seem a fight over her between the two men. Again. Still! Like their mock fencing battle and the rivalry they’d exhibited before the ton. So many people insisted on seeing her as a prize to be won. It made her think of the conversation she and her friends had had about their role in society. “Young men roam, young ladies stay home,” she muttered. Yet for much of her life she’d managed her father’s affairs. She dealt with tenants and tradesmen and servants. She’d played the diplomat when James and her father wrangled. She’d planned projects and seen them completed. There had to be some way to take control of her situation herself.

  Aunt Valeria came in. “Cecelia, you are up early today.” She didn’t look pleased.