“Nonsense. If Alban is bringing gentlemen, then a couple of your friends will balance it out nicely and give the gentlemen a reason to come here to the cottage,” Lady Eliza said sardonically, her tears drying swiftly on her cheeks. “They might ordinarily avoid an old blind aunt of Alban’s, but if there are women, they will come.”
Kittie laid one hand over Lady Eliza’s folded hands. “I’m sure his grace would need no further incentive to come to see you but your own self. Anyone who knows you will always love your company.”
“You are a good girl, Kittie,” Lady Eliza said. “Leave me now to think; I will have a few lists for you to make over the next couple of days, so run along. Is that all there was in the letter?”
Kittie glanced at the rest of the missive. “I will read the rest to you by the fire tonight, but really all he says is that he will save all of his other news and court gossip for his visit. And of course, he gives you his love.” She folded the letter, slipped it through the slit in her gown into her pocket, and took her leave of Lady Eliza. She had much to do, but first—
First, she climbed the narrow staircase to her room on the third floor and crossed to her dressing table, taking a velvet pouch out of the drawer. She sat on her bed and spilled out the contents of the pouch and chose one item.
It was a tiny painting of a very lovely young woman; she had black glossy hair, the color of a raven’s wing, and wide gray eyes. Around her neck she wore a necklace of brilliant sapphires. Her expression, caught by the talented painter, was of wistful hope and limitless optimism. Kittie laid it back down on the dark coverlet and picked up the next item, a letter. She unfolded it and once more read the lines she had read a hundred times in the last three years.
This letter should come as no surprise. You will well know why I am leaving, Alban, for you have been Inconceivably Cruel in your behavior over the last years, and Jonathan has convinced me that you will never treat me with the Kindness I deserve. He loves me, and will see me Suffer no Longer, and so he is taking me to Italy. Where you have ever been Sarcastic and Cutting and Brutish, he is Gentle and Sweet and Kind. I think that I never Loved you, after all, for I could not have Loved you and yet think of you now with such Revulsion. I wish you every kind of Catastrophe. Goodbye.
Signed,
Your Wife In Name Only, Catherine
Kittie folded the letter, pushing it back into the black velvet sack. She laid back on the bed and thought over the last three years that she had been in Lady Eliza’s employ. As her ladyship’s sight had deteriorated, she had taken on the task of reading to her the letters she received from various friends and, most importantly, from the duke, Lady Eliza’s nephew.
And she had often sat in the dining room and stared at the Duke of Alban’s painting—albeit it was of him as a very young man—over the sideboard, tracing in his handsome face and large dimensions the man who wrote entertaining and yet loving letters to his aunt. How could he be one and the same with the man who was written such a hateful letter by his wife, the same wife who ran away with a courtier and died in a boating accident off the Adriatic coast?
If she trusted her instincts, and she had had to since her own tragedies had almost overwhelmed her, she would believe him to be a good man, a kind man, saintly almost. And so very handsome. Regal. Courtly. Polite. Good-natured.
She sat up and, with a deep sigh, considered that it would do her no good to moon over the man when she had not even met him yet. There was much to do if he was already on his way north and could arrive within, at the most, a couple of days.
But what would she do when she met him, this man who had become a demigod in her mind? She would have to rein in her wandering imagination or he would know in a second how she felt, and how intimately and how often she had thought of him.
She would certainly have to tamp down her wildly imaginative nature, for in her mind he had become a golden idol, almost, and it was impossible that any living man would live up to her expectations. Or was it? Maybe he was everything she imagined, and then what would she do?
Two
A long, loud groan was the first thing Alban heard upon waking, and yet surely he was alone? Or was that . . . the duke opened his eyes on the sight of his inn room and the bright stripe of sunlight that bisected the chamber through the almost-closed curtains. Yes, his bed was empty other than his own self, and yes, that had been that same self groaning so loudly.
He swung his legs around and sat on the edge of the bed, holding his aching head in both hands. The room whirled for a moment and then settled as he closed his eyes again. What had he done?
He remembered his friends, the private dining room of the inn they had stopped in outside of Harrogate, then there was the obsequious innkeeper and the pretty barmaid the man had assigned them exclusively. He remembered playing cards long into the night with Orkenay, Fitzhenry and Bart, and many tankards of ale, followed by many bottles of wine, followed by—
Followed by the barmaid on his lap, a few rounds of a local song, “When North I Came a’Questing,” which he taught his companions, and a tickling bout with the giggling girl, a redhead, if he remembered. He did like redheaded girls, despite what fashion would say.
Alban opened one eye; the room had stopped whirling and that was a good sign. It was a simple room, done up in some Yorkshire landlady’s idea of elegance, with the ubiquitous touches in the Swaledale region of knitted coverlet and homespun curtains. There was a tap at the door and a redheaded maid came swishing in with a pitcher of hot water. She curtseyed, crossed to the dressing stand and poured the steaming water into the ceramic bowl on the top.
Alban watched her. Was she the same girl who was serving their dining room the night before? And did he have anything to apologize for? He was not one of those who thought that his elevated position excused every kind of behavior.
“Tea in half a tick, yer grace,” the girl said, her cheeks turning pink from simply having to address a duke, it seemed.
Hmm, he remembered the redheaded barmaid as a forward lass, not shy. “Good,” he replied. “I shall breakfast in the dining room with my companions. Are they awake?”
She shook her head.
“Do I . . . uh . . .” Alban passed one hand over his gritty eyes. “I hope I did not offend anyone by my behavior last night. And yourself, miss, I hope I was not too free—”
“’Twas m’sister who served you in the dining room last night, yer grace.”
“Right. Of course. I hope I did nothing to affront the young lady, your sister, then. Please tell my friends that we will breakfast within the half hour.”
The girl curtseyed and exited. Alban crossed to the dressing table, splashed some cold water from the standing jug into the basin of hot, and performed his morning ablutions. His head still ached but he felt somewhat more human as he left the room, negotiating the narrow passage with some difficulty—it was not created with one of his large frame in mind, certainly—and descended to the dining room.
He was grateful, as he sat down by the fire, that he at least did not have anything to regret as he would if he had awoken with a woman in his bed. It was too soon after dismissing his mistress, la petite Jacqueline, to even consider bedding another female. Much too soon. Betrayal tainted his memories of her, and although she had been surpassingly good at the skill at which all mistresses should be proficient, he would not change how things stood. It had been time to end it.
He missed her, oddly enough, even after finding out that she was passing on every scrap he told her to someone in Prinny’s household; with whom she was in league he might never know. But hearing Prinny relay a certain piquant piece of unsubstantiated—and false—gossip had been the one thing that confirmed Alban’s suspicions, for he had passed that tidbit on to Jacqueline with the knowledge that if Prinny did appear to know about it, then it confirmed the duke’s worst fears.
His lovely, flirtatious and skillful mistress was a traitor to him. He did not trust easily, so betrayal stung like nettles.
&nbs
p; Agitated by the memories, wanting forgetfulness, Alban stood and crossed to the window that opened onto the back garden. He swung open the casement and a bird fluttered up from a morning feast on the pavement; a half-eaten worm wriggled, and the hungry bird swooped back down and retrieved his treasure, then retreated to a more private dining area. Birdsong fluted through the misty morning air, and somewhere a cheery stablehand was whistling; it was “When North I Came a’Questing,” and Alban grinned. They truly were in Yorkshire, and it was enough to make his heart glad. They were half a day’s ride from his hunting box and his Aunt Eliza. She would likely see them coming and would be out to greet them before they even stabled their horses. He remembered so well her long, loping stride from days gone by. She really was the most unusual woman, with the sensibility, sometimes, almost of a man. For she had no patience with whining, no time for tears, and a raucous bellowing laugh that echoed through the stable.
But how she loved children. And how she had loved him, even when he was fractious or impertinent, broody and impolite. She would simply glare at him, box his ears and demand that he behave.
She had been the one steady force in his young life, for the seventh duke, his father, had been on one diplomatic mission after another and his mother had been caught up in London entertaining or visits to Italy. He had spent more of his school vacations with Lady Eliza, the seventh duke’s spinster sister, than with his parents. In that family history he was not unusual among his friends, but he was sensitive enough as a lad to wish it otherwise.
“Alban, what ho? Did you really have to send that redheaded termagant to awaken us?”
The duke turned to find his three companions groggily trooping in. It was Orkenay who had spoken, of course. He always was the most vocal of the gang. But of the three, Alban best knew his old friend Bartholomew Norton, third son of the Earl of Awnlea and his boon companion from school days. When he realized his trip north would not be a solitary one he had immediately thought of Bart, who had recently suffered setbacks that left him gloomy. Bart knew Alban’s Aunt Eliza from the old days and would be glad to see her again.
But the third man who followed Orkenay and Bart was almost unknown to Alban, and he couldn’t imagine how Sir John Fitzhenry had insinuated himself on the trip. Fitzhenry was a younger man, a baronet, good-looking and jovial, but mostly known by Alban as a hanger-on in the court of Prinny. So why did he interpose himself in this journey?
“I did set the lass on you all,” Alban said. “I will not have you laggards laying in bed all day. We have a half day’s ride ahead, and I prefer to ride well fed. I have ordered breakfast and they have promised to bring ale and coffee.”
Orkenay groaned and Bart was silent, as usual.
“I have already been out for a walk, your grace. Beautiful country, this part of the world. I have never been this far north.” Fitzhenry had a cheery smile and it was obvious that he spoke no more than the truth. He had, by appearances, been up for a couple of hours.
“Then you will like my situation at Boden House, my hunting box. It is set in the prettiest hills for miles around.”
Sir John Fitzhenry: there was a puzzle to give Alban pause. Was the young man trying to ingratiate himself with the duke? It was possible. He had many estates in his holding and many positions at his command, and gentlemen had in past made the attempt to befriend Alban for the favors he could bestow. Few knew how he despised sycophants, but if a fellow proved to be steady, reliable and worthy, he was not opposed to helping him along in his career. Fitzhenry had to this point not proven to be sycophantic, nor groveling. He would bear watching. In time he would inevitably reveal his reasons for pushing himself into this party.
As they ate, each devoting himself to the various dishes of kippers, curried eggs, ham, beef, mutton, pigeon and toast, with jams and relishes accompanying, there was silence, and before the half hour was up, they were on horseback again.
Alban thought ahead to his sojourn at Boden House. He could not imagine that it had been three years since he had been north, but he supposed that first, after the blur of misery over his wife’s desertion, and then finding out about her death, he had existed in a kind of fog for a while. Not very manly to be so consumed by grief as he was, but though he did not make a show of his emotions he felt the pain of her abandonment keenly. Her death was a severe blow, coming as it did a mere month or so after she left him.
It was then that he had retreated to Yorkshire the first time, not even bothering with the usual folderol of opening Boden House, staying instead at his aunt’s house on the grounds, Bodenthorpe Cottage. By the time he left Yorkshire to return to London she had roused him back into some semblance of himself, but in the three intervening years he supposed he had not even wanted to think about going back to the scene of so much despair as he had felt while there. He had been grateful to hear that she had retained a companion, for, stubborn as she was, Eliza would not consider moving south, even though he could tell even in his abstracted state that her eyesight was failing a bit. It eased his conscience and made not going to see her easier, more shame to him, for he knew all the gifts he sent and his regular letters did not make up for his lack of attention.
That companion, a Mrs. Douglas—he pictured a widow of a certain age, upright, vigorous, and with a wrinkled, pursed mouth—had taken over many of Lady Eliza’s duties, including the actual writing of the letters, though he could tell by the wording that they were dictated by Eliza. It was a good thing she did so, for his aunt’s handwriting had always been atrocious, and she crossed and recrossed the page so many times it occasionally took his secretary to make out the words. In the months after his return to London it seemed that they got much worse, the lines slanting crazily across the page, and it was a relief to be able to read the neat, elegant hand of the widow Mrs. Douglas.
The day was brilliant, with a clarity that turned even the most ordinary sight into a jewel; a rambling shack, in the brilliant sun and set against the cerulean sky, appeared to be an artist’s picturesque setting. And the hills as they rose and fell, first cradling the Nidd, then the Ure and then, finally, as midday passed, the Swale rivers, were a glorious green, zigzagged with stone fences.
Bart was quiet as they rode, even when they stopped at an inn to partake of lunch. But Orkenay, of course, was talkative enough for all four of them.
“How far are we from your hunting box?” he asked as they rode along the Swale after stopping briefly at Richmond. He moved in his saddle. “I have not done this much riding for a decade or more, and I fear I ache. And I do not feel quite myself without the attentions of my valet.”
“Not more than an hour,” Alban replied, hiding his grin at the earl’s grumbling. When he had proposed making it a riding tour of the moors the earl had protested, but when Alban held firm he did not back out of the trip, as the duke had half expected he would. Instead he had sent his valet north with Alban’s, ahead of them, with the full complement of servants and luggage. “We leave the Swale at Grinton and travel north a few miles along the Arkle Beck, and we are there.”
“I never suspected this was such beautiful country,” Sir John said, his tone awed as he pulled his horse to a halt and gazed around him.
Alban, with fresh eyes, took in their surroundings. From the banks of the Swale the green hills rose in an emerald sweep of majesty, with “dry” gray stone fences—the builders used no mortar, yet the fences stood for centuries—demarcating properties and fields and wooded copses dotting the slopes. “You have only just entered; wait until you have seen Boden’s situation.”
“And met Lady Eliza,” Bart said, the first words he had uttered in hours.
Alban cast him a swift look and was overjoyed to see color in his friend’s pale visage and a sparkle in his blue eyes. Bart had always been of a melancholy cast, and though Alban had never understood his friend’s long, brooding periods and occasional withdrawals from society, he valued Bartholomew too much to abandon him for that character flaw, if such it was.
He thanked the inspiration that had urged him to invite his friend north with them, for Bart had been in one of his withdrawals, and this was rousing him nicely. Lady Eliza had always been good for him. Perhaps she would still have that magic.
“My aunt is the most vigorous country woman I have ever known,” Alban said, expanding on Bart’s introducing her into the conversation. “It is she who taught me how to hunt, and that is why she has stayed north, I think. She could live anywhere she likes but she prefers this district, even though she was born and raised, of course, with my father at Alban Hall. She moved north when I was still a lad, so upwards of twenty years ago. She has never explained why. Just her preference, I suppose. She always did like the wild country.”
Orkenay said, “Yes, I have heard many a story of Lady Eliza and her unique preferences.”
It was said with an innocuous tone, but something in the earl’s manner made Alban watch him for a moment.
“Regardless, gentlemen,” Sir John said, breaking the brief silence, “let’s ride on, or we shall stand our horses too long. Mine is restive already.”
Soon they turned away from the Swale and followed Arkle Beck, then turned away even from that humble stream. The sun had passed its zenith and was descending toward the west hills when finally they passed onto land belonging to Boden House. From above, on the crest of a long fell, Alban could see the wooded glades planted centuries before by his ancestors for their hunting pleasure, and the long road that led through his property.
“We’re here,” Alban said. “This is my land.”
As they drew closer he felt the anticipation build, and he realized he had missed his aunt fiercely, though he supposed he would not have recognized the feeling if he had not been about to see her. She was a rock in a shifting world when he was but a boy.
They passed, as they rode along the fence-line road, the ruins, in the distance, of Mawkethorpe Castle. He stopped as always to gaze at it.
The Duke's Secret Seduction Page 2
