Not the Duke's Darling

by Elizabeth Hoyt

  She blinked, and then he was looking into gold-flecked green eyes.

  Something within him turned over. What he wouldn’t give to wake every morning thus, to Freya’s sleepy moan, the light in her eyes that he wanted to believe was for him and only him.

  “Good morning,” she husked.

  “Good morning to you as well, my lady,” he returned.

  “What time is it?”

  He glanced at the clock beside the bed. “Almost seven,” he said regretfully. “My valet will be here in half an hour, and although I trust him…”

  He trailed away because she was already moving, tumbling from the bed. She’d fallen asleep still clothed, so all she had to do was shake down her skirts and look for her shoes.

  He wanted her to stay. Wanted this time together to go on, perhaps forever.

  But even as he was thinking that, it was over.

  She darted to the door, and for a moment he thought she would simply leave without further word to him. But then she turned, looking at him, her eyes curiously vulnerable. “I…Thank you for last night.”

  She opened the door and left.

  Christopher flopped back on the bed as Tess decided to join him. He ruffled her ears as he thought. Freya’s parting words were a rather formal dismissal save for the fact that she’d blushed as she said them. She was such a guarded woman, as if her heart were walled in by thorny vines. A man wishing to brave those thorns was sure to be bloodied in the endeavor.

  Almost any other woman would be easier to woo.

  And yet he didn’t want any other woman. He wanted her, Freya. If he could not persuade her to his side, he had the feeling there would be no other opportunity in his life for companionship.

  For love.

  It was Freya or no one.

  He lay abed a moment longer with Tess before he rose and drew on a banyan. Christopher paused when he saw Sophy’s letters lying forgotten on the table by the bed.

  Freya had drawn his attention away from them, first with her sympathy and then with her seduction. When she’d touched him nothing, not even the end of the world, would have distracted him from her.

  But even in the midst of that sensual exploration, he’d known that she hadn’t been experienced. Or at least not very experienced—and the difference hardly mattered in any case.

  And having once made love to her? He couldn’t imagine never doing so again. His chest physically hurt at the thought. He had to somehow persuade her that he could wed her without taking her freedom from her.

  But first there were other matters.

  Christopher stirred the embers in the fireplace, tossing coal on them until flames flared up. Then he plucked Sophy’s letters from the table and fed them, one by one, into the fire, watching as they blazed and crumbled to ashes. Perhaps he should feel something—a sense of justice, of a duty fulfilled.

  But destroying the letters brought no satisfaction.

  Sophy was still dead.

  * * *

  “This is the most exciting house party I’ve ever attended,” Lucretia said later that morning, buttering a piece of scone. She popped it into her mouth and chewed, looking around the breakfast table cheerily.

  Lucretia was the only one so bubbly this morning, Messalina thought sourly. She had a sore head, possibly from overimbibing brandy the night before. Lady Holland was a bit pale and very quiet. Mr. Plimpton, of course, was absent from the table, having been almost literally thrown from the house, and the remaining party members were not talkative.

  There was one exception—or rather two. Arabella Holland was sitting beside Lord Rookewoode, her face alight with obvious joy as they idly made morning conversation.

  Messalina had to suppress a wince. To wear one’s emotions so openly on one’s sleeve seemed to beg fate to bring one crashing to the ground. She sipped her tea, hoping her cynicism was without merit.

  “I wonder if Mr. Plimpton has found a way to return to London?” Lucretia said, still abominably cheerful. “He did look in a state last night after the duke was done. Why do you think His Grace took such a dislike to him?”

  “I think it’s better we don’t ask,” Messalina said darkly.

  Viscount Stanhope cleared his throat portentously. “My man informed me that Mr. Plimpton was seen riding in a wagon leaving the nearby town this morning.”

  The table turned their attention to this unlikely source of gossip.

  “Then he’s gone?” Mr. Aloysius Lovejoy asked, brows raised.

  “It would appear so,” Lord Stanhope replied. “I myself wonder what would make Mr. Plimpton lock the duke and Miss Stewart in the well house in the first place. Perhaps he had knowledge of the duke the rest of us do not?”

  “Or perhaps he’s a conniving little worm,” Lady Lovejoy said sweetly.

  The viscount blushed, and Freya walked into the breakfast room, drawing everyone’s attention.

  “Good morning,” Lucretia said brightly as at the same time Regina Holland said, “Oh, Miss Stewart, there you are.”

  Freya blinked at the sudden assault of voices.

  She said, “Good morning,” and took the empty seat beside Messalina.

  Everyone was carefully not looking in her direction—everyone but Lucretia, who was munching on her second scone and staring at Freya interestedly.

  “Tea?” Messalina asked because the pot was in front of her.

  “Yes, please.” Freya widened her eyes in question.

  Messalina shook her head slightly and murmured so only she could hear, “Jane told me James the footman is bringing the scullery maid to meet us this morning.”

  Freya’s expression was politely inquiring. “When?”

  “As soon as he comes back—probably directly after breakfast.”

  Freya gave a small nod and attended to her tea as the table conversation turned to more benign matters.

  A few minutes later a footman entered the room and bent to whisper in Jane’s ear.

  Jane nodded and glanced at Messalina. “I wonder if you’d like to see those new fashion dolls my modiste sent from London?”

  “Yes, of course,” Messalina said, rising.

  She sent a significant glance at Freya before following Jane from the breakfast room.

  They crossed the hallway and went into a small sitting room, where they found James standing next to a thin girl. The footman was dressed in a common worker’s clothes, a soft hat pulled over his face. Beside him the scullery maid was a tiny little thing, all raw bones and reddened knuckles. She couldn’t be more than fourteen or fifteen.

  The door opened behind them and Freya slipped into the room. “Have I missed anything?”

  “No.” Messalina shook her head. “We haven’t started yet.”

  Freya glanced at Jane. “With your permission, my lady?”

  Jane nodded. “Please.”

  Freya squared her shoulders and turned to the footman. “James, is it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Who have you here?”

  James came to attention at Freya’s calmly authoritative tone. “This is Lucy Cartwright, who used to be a scullery maid at Randolph House.”

  Lucy, who was wrapped in a gray knit shawl, looked as if she wanted to bolt from the room.

  “Now, Lucy,” James said with paternal sternness, “these ladies wish to ask you some questions. All you need to do is answer them.”

  Lucy nodded timidly as the three ladies took seats around her.

  Freya smiled at the girl. “Have you worked for Lord Randolph long, Lucy?”

  The girl lifted one shoulder. “A year, miss.”

  “Then you no doubt knew Lady Randolph.”

  “Yes.”

  “What was the relationship between Lady Randolph and Lord Randolph like?”

  Lucy’s wide eyes darted to James. “Relationship? They was lord and lady, miss.”

  “Yes,” Freya said patiently, “but how did Lord Randolph treat Lady Randolph? Was he a loving husband?”

&
nbsp; Lucy knit her brows before her expression cleared. “He’s a shouter, if’n that’s what you mean.”

  “Indeed it is,” Freya replied. “Did he often shout at Lady Randolph?”

  “All the time, ma’am, and in awful nasty terms, too. My lady was right sad about it. Her lady’s maid used to tell the kitchen that Lady Randolph wept in her rooms.”

  Freya raised her brows a little, as if this news were only of little interest, and asked casually, “Did he ever hit her?”

  Lucy stared. “Oh no, miss. Lord Randolph isn’t one to raise his hand.”

  Messalina felt her shoulders slump in disappointment.

  But then Lucy continued, “He didn’t even hit Lady Randolph when she tried to run away.”

  Messalina exchanged an excited look with Jane. This was real information.

  Freya cleared her throat. “Can you tell us about that, Lucy?”

  “Well…” Lucy scrunched up her face. “Mind, I wasn’t there when it happened, ’cause it were at night. But Bob the stable boy told me that Her Ladyship was found in the stables in just her chemise and cloak. Hastings, the head groom, would’ve turned a blind eye, but His Lordship was there as well. He took Lady Randolph’s arm and dragged her through the rain and back into the house. Bob said he could hear the shouting even from without. Awful bad, it was.”

  “And after that?” Freya asked.

  Lucy shrugged. “Nothing, miss. I never saw her after.”

  “Blast,” Messalina muttered. She’d felt so confident when they heard about Lucy that finally she would learn something about Eleanor’s final days.

  “What about when they called the doctors?” Freya persisted.

  “There wasn’t any doctors called,” Lucy said, sounding puzzled. “They just put her in the cellar.”

  For a moment Messalina missed the implication.

  Then she sat upright. “Lady Randolph was put in the cellar?”

  “Yes, miss?”

  “Is that where she sickened?” Freya asked softly. “In the cellar?”

  “Sickened, miss?” Lucy asked.

  “The illness she died from,” Freya clarified.

  Lucy’s brow cleared. “Oh, Lord love you, miss. Lady Randolph isn’t dead.”

  Beside Messalina, Jane stifled an exclamation.

  Messalina maintained her calm with difficulty.

  Freya was leaning a little forward now. “You’re saying Lady Randolph is alive and imprisoned in Randolph House’s cellars?”

  Lucy glanced at James as if verifying that aristocrats were this dim. “Yes?”

  “Oh my God,” Jane said, apparently unable to hold back her emotion anymore.

  Messalina was about to ask Lucy to explain exactly where the cellars were when the door to the room opened and Lucretia entered.

  Messalina turned. “What is it?”

  Lucretia glanced at the servants and then her. “Lord Randolph has returned to Randolph House.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ash led Rowan to the Fairy King and urged her to kneel with him.

  “My liege,” Ash said, head bowed.

  The Fairy King slowly turned. “Why have you brought a mortal to my court, Brother?”

  “This woman has a boon to ask of you.”

  The Fairy King stared at Rowan with silver eyes. “Speak, mortal.”

  Rowan trembled with fear, but she lifted her chin. “I want Marigold back.”

  The dancers stopped dancing.…

  —From The Grey Court Changeling

  That afternoon Freya strolled the small enclosed garden at the back of Lovejoy House, trying to think of a plan to save Lady Randolph. If she could get Eleanor out, then they might be able to use Lord Randolph’s abominable treatment of his innocent wife as leverage against the Witch Act. Even in an English society biased against women, a husband telling everyone his wife was dead but secretly imprisoning her was beyond the pale.

  As she understood it from James, whom she’d ordered to watch Randolph House, the problem in freeing Lady Randolph was that the cellar had only one entrance, which was well guarded. Lord Randolph had already declared his wife dead, complete with funeral and headstone. If he was alerted in any way that there was to be a rescue attempt, he might simply murder Lady Randolph to cover up his crimes.

  If Lady Randolph had a living male relative of any power whatsoever, they might call upon him to take up her cause, but Eleanor did not.

  Freya trailed her fingers over a pale-pink rose, peering into the curled heart of the flower. Lady Randolph was well and truly at her husband’s mercy. He could imprison her, he could kill her and cover up the crime, and he could use her dowry to do it.

  The whole thing was terrible, wrong, and infuriating.

  The only way that Freya could see to foil Lord Randolph was to produce Lady Randolph herself for society and prove that she was alive and entirely sane.

  But to do that they first had to liberate her.

  Freya sighed. Lady Randolph’s horrific use by her husband rather gave a woman pause when it came to dealing with the male sex. Yet she’d freely lain with Harlowe just the night before.

  She bent to inhale the heady perfume of the rose. Should she feel guilty for sharing herself with Harlowe?

  For taking a lover?

  Yes, most definitely, according to all she’d been taught growing up by governesses and vicars. A lady should preserve her virginity, even if she meant never to marry.

  But her heritage was with the Wise Women. Her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother and on beyond time had been Wise Women. Any woman brought into the family by marriage was taught their ways by the de Moray women. All daughters were initiated when they came of age.

  The Wise Women saw sex and marriage from a slightly different point of view. Most Wise Women were married and had children, but there were some who lived in Dornoch who remained unwed and took lovers. Some had children without a husband. Some had no need of men at all. And some took other women as lovers.

  No one way of being a woman was considered better than another. If she decided to return to Dornoch to live she would be welcomed, particularly if she was carrying a child.

  Every child was considered a gift by the Wise Women.

  The crunch of boots on gravel made her turn.

  Harlowe walked toward her with purposeful steps, the sun making his hair glint bronze. He wore black today and he looked both stern and heart-stoppingly handsome. Tess trotted behind him, pausing now and again to sniff a flower beside the path.

  “Good afternoon,” she said.

  He walked right up to her and curled his big hand around the back of her head, holding her as he bent to kiss her.

  The kiss caught her by surprise, sudden and intense. She moaned beneath his lips, opening her mouth for more, greedy for his taste.

  He let her go, looking quite satisfied with himself. “Are you ready to go riding?”

  She nodded as Tess came up to her for a welcoming pat. Freya had received a note from him just after luncheon, proposing a ride, and she already wore her habit.

  He held out his arm and she took it as they walked to the stables.

  This was strange. For five years she’d lived as a paid chaperone. Her status had been just above the servants’, and she’d grown used to sitting in the background while the Hollands rode or danced or were courted by gentlemen.

  Was she being courted?

  She glanced from beneath her eyelashes at Harlowe. He had been her childhood dream so many years ago, and for a moment she felt a sense of vertigo. She remembered him as a youth, tall, bony, handsome but unformed.

  And now: still tall, but broader, fully matured, a shadow of cynicism in his dark eyes. The two images wavered and merged, for he was the same being, a man she’d known all her life.

  With a fifteen-year gap.

  She flexed her fingers on his arm, feeling the muscle beneath the cloth. He was real. He was here.

  Her life had been turned upside down
that night fifteen years ago. The de Moray family hadn’t realized it at first, but they’d all of them lost their standing, their friends, their place in the world, and things had remained that way for Freya.

  Now in an odd way her life had been turned upside down again. A gentleman of her own rank was walking with her.

  This, once upon a time, had been what was expected of her life.

  Freya wasn’t sure how she felt about it. She’d lived so many years alone and independent. Perhaps it was too late to revert to what the rest of the world considered normal.

  They came to the stable yard, where two horses were waiting already saddled. The horse she was to ride, she couldn’t help noticing, was a better mount than the one she’d ridden to the picnic. He was a bay gelding, shaking his head as she settled herself in the sidesaddle.

  She looked at Harlowe, and at her nod, he turned his horse’s head and rode out of the yard with her by his side.

  He chose the opposite way from that strange little wood, following the path they’d traversed to the picnic. Tess loped ahead of them, sometimes stopping to investigate the hedges that grew beside the road.

  The sky was a wide, deep blue, with clouds making dashed white brushstrokes on the horizon. It was a beautiful day.

  After a minute or so Freya asked, “I suppose you heard that Mr. Plimpton has quit the area?”

  His upper lip curled. “Yes, and good riddance.”

  “That does seem to be the general consensus.”

  He snorted but didn’t reply.

  For several minutes they rode in silence.

  Freya kept thinking about Lady Randolph’s dilemma. She wished she could ask Harlowe’s opinion.

  That thought brought her up short. She didn’t usually seek anyone’s advice. She might work with the Crow or Messalina, but she made her own decisions, debated her next move only with herself.

  Suddenly that seemed rather lonely.

  Harlowe glanced at her almost as if he’d heard her thoughts. “All right?”

  She took a breath. “Yes.”

  “Good,” he said gravely. “I wouldn’t want you to endure a jaunt about the countryside simply for my exemplary company.”