The Perfect Duchess

by Jen YatesNZ

  Pountney shrugged.

  ‘Say hello to Uncle Bax, Mary.’

  The black pigtails almost whipped Pountney’s nose and the child squealed again.

  ‘Uncle Bax! Uncle Bax! Papa! I want to go to Uncle Bax. He’s sooo big! Uncle Bax, plee-ease can I ride on you?’

  Bax sighed. He’d made the mistake years ago of allowing one of her older siblings to ride on his shoulders.

  Peering about the gardens, he said, ‘I only carry very quiet little girls on my shoulders and I don’t see any of them hereabouts, only something squealing like a piglet. And Earls don’t carry piglets on their shoulders,’ he finished in a deep gruff voice.

  Emitting a merry peel of laughter, the child threw herself into his arms. With an easy swing he settled her high on his shoulders and followed Pountney into the house, ducking through the doorways to the accompaniment of high-pitched giggles. She was clutching great fistfuls of his hair and squealing again as he dipped her through the last doorway. Dropping her forwards over his head, he caught her in his arms before placing her on her feet beside her mother’s chair.

  ‘God’s teeth, Cel! Why do you keep making squealing creatures like that? I doubt I’ll hear another thing you say to me—ever,’ he declared, bussing his sister’s pale cheek.

  ‘Haden! Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?’

  She started to rise and Bax pressed her back in her chair.

  ‘I couldn’t let you know, m’dear, because I had no idea of it myself.’

  At her puzzled frown, Pountney said, ‘His horse threw a shoe so he sought the comforts of the Hall rather than a strange bed at an inn.’

  ‘Which means you can’t possibly be back in town in time for Mama’s drum!’

  ‘I’ve ordered my horse extra rations as a reward for throwing a shoe!’

  ‘Hello, Uncle Bax. I think his arrival is perfect, Mama. He can escort us to London,’ said an attractive young lady with the trademark coal black curls and eyes more blue than green.

  The perfect distraction from his sister’s exasperated frown.

  ‘Miss Selena?’ Bax queried, pretending astonishment. ‘It must be an age since I was here last. I distinctly remember you as hoydenish as the Piglet. And here,’ he said, winking at Mary who now leant against her mother with her thumb in her mouth, scowling at him, ‘I find you an elegant young lady about to set out in search of a husband. At least, so your Papa tells me.’

  Reaching for her hand, he made her an elegant leg and pressed the lightest of kisses to her fingertips.

  ‘I don’t think I want a husband yet,’ the young beauty remarked, retrieving her hand with perfect aplomb, ‘but I do mean to have a wonderful time.—This is Lady Rotherby,’ she continued, indicating the woman at her side. ‘She’s to accompany me to London and help with chaperone duties.’

  ‘Very prettily done, Selena.’

  ‘Thank you, Uncle Bax, though I’m really not sure I should introduce you to Lady Rotherby. She’s respectable, you see.’

  ‘Meaning I’m not?’ he shot back at her, delighted with the rush of color to her youthful cheeks. ‘I might consider my praise of your manners a little premature—if your—insinuations—were not so perfectly accurate. Respectability is greatly over-rated, you know.’

  ‘Haden!’ Celia snapped. ‘You will not encourage my daughter in her forwardness!’

  Bax allowed a small smile to soften his mouth.

  ‘Sorry, Cel,’ he said in the dulcet tones that usually gained him forgiveness from the fairer sex. ‘Being constantly proper is dashed boring.’

  Everything was boring at the moment. Boredom was directly responsible for the strained cordiality between him and his cousin, the Duke of Wolverton, and for the fact the Duke now owned Zeus, his prized palomino stallion—

  ‘So—a dozen years on and nothing’s changed. Still Hell-bent Hades, as the old stable master at The Dene used to call you.’

  The elegantly tall, exquisitely formed paragon of womanhood who stood with her hand out-stretched wasn’t the image associated with that unusually deep and husky voice. It was the only alluring thing about her as a teenager. For the first time Bax found himself facing a woman without a single word of empty flattery, heated seduction or any other of his armory of tactics with females, anywhere in his mind.

  ‘You’re not—can’t be Angular Jane!’ he blurted with no hint of blasé charm.

  Her throaty laugh danced over every nerve ending in his body and before he could think to apologize, let alone speak another word, she stole his last shred of suavity by drawing his attention to the very fact he was trying to ignore.

  ‘No, I’m not angular any more. That’s one epithet you can no longer tease me with.’

  Get your tongue unstuck, Baxendene! There’s never yet been a woman who could throw you off your stride, and certainly not Angela Jane Bracewell. Lord, she’d been a skinny, gangly tomboy, all legs and arms, wild red hair and huge golden eyes. There wasn’t a hint of correlation between the youngest daughter of the Vicar of Baxter Village and this exquisitely formed woman who was—laughing at him!

  Somehow he dragged his eyes from the evidence of that lack of angularity, bent his head and knee, reached for her hand and air-kissed a mere inch above her glove with at least some evidence of his famed gallantry.

  But when he straightened and she retrieved her hand, he found her hazel-gold eyes still shimmering with amusement. She’d loved to tease and taunt him and Jason, for they’d been more gangly and ungainly than she as adolescents. But at five years older he’d considered himself a young man about town while she’d still been a schoolroom chit giggling in corners with his youngest sister, Holly.

  Cat eyes. Another name he’d called her, for even then he’d been aware of their singular golden sparkle, and it seemed he hadn’t kept that memory to himself either.

  ‘Are we reverting to our adolescent habit of name-calling, Bax the Axe? I prefer to be called Jane these days.’

  ‘You know each other?’ Selena asked with astonishment.

  Finally regaining something of his usual sangfroid around women, Bax laughed outright.

  ‘Apart from being a distant cousin, Angu—Angela—er—Lady Rotherby spent a lot of time at The Dene with your Aunt Holly when they were still in the school room. They were forever under a fellow’s feet.’

  ‘And such big feet they were,’ Lady Rotherby murmured to Selena.

  Thereby demolishing his carefully honed shields of polite urbanity all over again. Thankfully the Pountney’s housekeeper wheeled in the tea trolley to distract everyone.

  ‘I heard as Lord Baxendene had arrived so I’ve brought an extra cup, my Lady.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs. Blake. His Lordship will be staying the night if you’d see to his usual room and tell Cook there’ll be one extra for dinner.’

  ‘Certainly, my Lady.’

  The woman hurried from the room and Bax fought to keep his focus on the deft movements of his sister’s hands while she poured the tea. Taking his cup over to the mantelpiece, he leant his tall frame against one end, Pountney at the other. Dick would talk horses wherever he was, as good a topic as any to keep his mind from wandering to the coil of rich auburn hair resting against a creamy, lightly freckled neck—and that the freckles he’d teased her about with the merciless unconcern of youth were less noticeable than they had been back then.

  ‘Is the grey mare Harmon was grooming the one you bought at Newmarket last month? Is she everything Galloway claimed her to be?’

  ‘Absolutely. Jumps like a stag. How about that handsome palomino stallion you paid a crazy price for to keep him out of Haverfield’s hands?’

  The challenging twinkle in Dick’s eyes left him in no doubt he was in possession of facts Bax’d rather he wasn’t.

  ‘Prime piece. He’ll sire some stunning progeny. Lady Sherida Dearing is keen to use him at her Springwoods Stud.’

  ‘But rejected his owner. And did I hear you lost the animal to Wolverton in
a bet over the very same Lady Sherida?’

  ‘Stap me, Pountney! You never stir beyond Bell Barr yet you have the latest tattle from the capital!’

  If he hoped that outburst would slow his brother-in-law he quickly learnt otherwise.

  ‘And is that a little discoloration around your nose and lip, old fellow? Not like you to let anyone do that much damage to your handsome phiz. Quite spoils your looks—and Wolverton with nary a scratch, I believe. You must’ve really nicked his principles. Rarely known His Grace resort to anything so—common—as fisticuffs in a dark alley.’

  His chest swelled with rage, attributable more to his own lack of judgement than the loss to his cousin.

  ‘Wolverton didn’t play fair,’ he muttered as he took a sip of the tea, burning the cut not quite healed on the inside of his lip. ‘He’s going to marry the chit.’

  ‘Heard that. Didn’t believe it. Lady Sheri’s been banging around the ballrooms of the capital for several seasons and turned down at least as many worthy offers for her hand. Not to mention the odd unworthy one. Why her? Why marriage after all these years? I was tempted to hie myself to London just to have those questions answered.—And here you are. Saved me the trouble.’

  When Bax forbore to answer, Pountney pressed harder.

  ‘Marriage, Bax? You?’

  ‘Of course not me, you dolt!’

  For a moment, the questioning expression was frozen on Pountney’s thin face then he tossed back his head and roared with laughter, drawing the attention of the women.

  ‘So, Wolf planted you a facer for daring to pursue the Heavenly Iceberg with dishonorable intent!’

  As her husband’s loudly voiced ribald comment echoed round the room Lady Pountney observed in a voice of surprisingly steely annoyance for one so pale and languid, ‘Your topic of discussion would be better pursued over port after dinner, I believe, Pountney.’

  ***

  Lord Baxendene wore a strange expression, more a grimace of pain than the show of amusement he was likely trying for.

  The stories of his exploits Holly had whispered to her over the years and Jane had privately considered the exaggerations of a hero-worshipping younger sister, possibly fell short of reality.

  Bax was still the handsomest, most scurrilous and exciting rake in town! She’d not allowed him to turn her head as a teenager, so she was armed against his charm now as a widow—wasn’t she?

  A haughty set-down would have been good—but she’d allowed her tongue an unguarded response, putting an immediate smolder in the smoky grey eyes.

  The man was a practiced charmer, an avowed bachelor, whose greatest sport, if one believed the gossip, was bedding foolish women, who probably believed they’d be the one to snare his heart.

  Maturity and a pampered life with a man, more indulgent guardian than husband, had improved her appearance, but at thirty years of age she was past having value in the marriage and motherhood stakes for any man. Life in the Dower House at Rotherby Manor, suited her.

  And her mind was as fanciful as it ever was! She took another careful sip of her tea. Hades Delacourte never dealt in terms of marriage, was more likely to consider widowhood made her eligible for the terms on which he did deal; clandestine affairs of a torrid and short-lived nature.

  She’d do well to shore up the sagging façade of her carefully constructed ‘Lady of the Manor’ persona rather than dream like a wide-eyed ingénue come to London for the purpose of finding a husband during the Season. She was over the hill in that regard; relegated to the chaperones’ corner, to watch from the side-lines.

  ‘Will you escort us to London tomorrow, Uncle Bax?’

  Selena’s query brought her out of her musings. She’d hoped that suggestion lost in what followed.

  Lord Baxendene might be considered a rakish blade, but she’d never heard anything dishonorable of him. Escorting his niece, they’d make a singular pair, both crowned with those amazing, coal-black Beresford curls, and it’d probably be as well to have a show of male protection. Holly believed her niece would take the salons of London by storm and Jane, having barely spent an hour in the young woman’s company, was certain that was Miss Carstairs’ intent.

  The Earl bowed towards his niece, but his glinting grey gaze glissaded across Jane’s person in the process. Startled at the sensation of her bones softening to the marrow, she made a small production of brushing a wrinkle from the skirt of her gown.

  ‘I’d be honored to escort two beautiful ladies,’ he declared, his voice a smoky rumble, resonating deep in Jane’s core. She reminded herself the deeply caressing purr and the bedroom allure of his eyes was likely so natural to the man he knew no other way to be—and she was mature enough to know and dismiss it as practiced gallantry.

  As she sat before the mirror and watched Dolly dress her hair into a crown of artfully restrained curls on top of her head, Jane considered the phenomenon of Lord Baxendene. She’d never seen a man taller—or so beautifully proportioned. Around him she’d never have to worry her hairstyle added extra inches to her unwomanly height. Physically they were a good match.

  A little sigh escaped her.

  ‘Something amiss, my Lady?’ Dolly asked.

  ‘Not at all, Dolly. A little weary, I guess.’

  It was only a small lie. How could she admit to her practical but far-seeing maid she regretted the plain, semi-mourning, greyish mauve of her gown? What would Hades, with his artist’s eye, think of the flat, drab color?

  Did he still paint? Many an afternoon she and Holly had come across him at The Dene, seated before an easel or sprawled on a grassy knoll with a sketchpad and a lump of charcoal in his blackened fingers while his twin brother had been off somewhere with a dog and a gun.

  She’d longed for the ability to capture a scene on canvas, but had little talent for it. Hades, on the other hand, in the rare moments he’d allowed himself to indulge the serious, creative side of his nature, had a talent her younger self had found awe-inspiring. It was incongruous considering that most masculine of men with a reputation as a Corinthian and a rake, wielding a paint brush. He probably no longer did.

  Rich, autumn colors suited her best; forest green, rusty reds, and periwinkle blue. But that would have to wait until her visit to La Callista in London. Meantime, she’d wear the mauve and remind herself looking attractive for Hades Delacourte was not why she was here. James always told her if all a man saw was the external trappings of silk, lace and artifice, his opinion was not worthy of her concern.

  It was a good time to remind herself everything James had taught her she still knew; all he’d shown her she could be, she still was.

  With a little nod, she dismissed Dolly and made her way downstairs for dinner.

  ***

  He’d come close to losing his polished, blasé façade when Pountney had twitted him about losing Zeus before he’d owned the prime animal above a couple of weeks. There was no one to blame but himself. He’d been determined to direct Wolverton’s attention away from Windermere’s wife to a woman who was perfect for him in every way—and available. He could blame it on alcohol, but he’d made the damned wager, set the terms of engagement knowing Dom’s honor would force him to strive to win.

  ‘We’ve both just acquired some new bloodstock. Prime pieces. First to claim the cherry wins the hunter from the other’s stable.’

  He hadn’t even intended to win the bet! Merely force Dom to stop mooning after Jassie and notice Sherida Dearing! Born to be a duchess if ever a woman was!

  Tugging at the knot of his neck cloth, he swore at his image in the mirror. Rarely so careless with his possessions, or his image, he’d let it slip with Pountney and that wily dog would worry the bone to death. The shadows of darkness that often clawed the edges of his sanity must have been raking closer than he’d realized. Those same shadows were probably the reason he’d been dipping a little deeper into the vices of Bacchus of late. He’d retreated to Bancombe Park as always when the shadows threatened to bleed t
he real Haden Delacourte through the ironclad façade of the Earl of Baxendene. He should’ve stayed longer.

  The illusion of the ‘Great Bax’, as the ton called him, was a work of art he’d been creating ever since he’d inherited the title. A prominent man was vulnerable in so many ways: through his actions—or lack of them; his interests, friends and associates; those moments when he allowed his vigilance to be compromised. He couldn’t allow the ton to see the real man, wouldn’t allow himself to be that man anywhere but at Bancombe Park or The Chase.

  With a last tug at the front of his silver grey waistcoat, he accepted his jacket from Fosse, and shrugging into it, left the room. Ambling lazily down the stairs in an effort to still his anticipation of seeing Angular Jane—Angela Jane—he stopped at the door to gather his habitual cloak of careless elegance about him.

  His niece sat prettily thumbing through a copy of Belle Assemblée, her brother leaning over her shoulder to deride the latest fashions therein portrayed. Pountney hadn’t yet arrived, but Celia and Jane sat on a window seat overlooking the formal gardens at the front of the Hall.

  Jane, dressed in an unremarkable gown of smoky lilac, studied Celia’s pattern while his sister pointed out some detail. Her profile, outlined against the mullioned windows, made his fingers itch for a piece of charcoal. An almost straight nose, elegant neck, and hair that captivated. It appeared smoothly groomed, but against the light he could see fine wisps of flame curling away from her head.

  Rarely without handwork of some sort, his sister made a doll or bear for each new child to own and treasure. Jane seemed genuinely interested.

  Genuine. There was nothing artificial about Angela Jane. Never had been.

  Pushing himself away from the doorframe, he crossed the room, reminding himself Angela Jane Bracewell was now Lady Rotherby and he never seduced happily married women. He assumed she was happily married from the air of serenity surrounding her. Although as he settled himself into a chair beside his sister and took the latest creation off her knee to examine, he noted a faint air of sadness about Lady Rotherby.