A Trace of Roses

by Connolly, Lynne

  Had he?

  But her faith in him bolstered his resolve, restored his confidence in his memory of the event. Of course, he hadn’t told anyone else, and since he had no other siblings, he had nobody to tell. Until he’d met his two friends and fellow dukes. But men were different. They didn’t dwell on the vagaries of life. They just got on with it.

  The morning was advancing, and if he was to forward his plans, then he needed to move. “I hadn’t meant to marry you quite so soon, but I needed to look after you. And that means keeping you close. I can’t bear the thought of you being hurt again.”

  “They didn’t hurt me, they hurt you.”

  The anger in her voice was balm to his soul, because he knew the anger was directed at his attackers, not at him. If only that house was habitable! He’d whisk her off there today. He wanted privacy, to share their marriage and his joy in her.

  “They hurt me to get me away from you. They didn’t know me well enough to know that was never going to work. Even if I hadn’t—fallen in love with you.”

  The kiss they shared then was one she would never forget. Long, slow and entirely an expression of their love. How easy it had been, once he’d admitted that his feelings for her were more than deep regard!

  Grant rose, went to his room and dressed. He bade his wife sleep on but, being Dorcas, she disregarded his advice.

  In half an hour, she tapped at the connecting door, and informed him that she would spend the day in the orangery.

  She watched with interest as his valet put away the shaving gear. “I have no mind to be trapped here with your mother and the Duchess of Beauchamp. Annie has a gift of making herself scarce when she has no wish for company, and I believe I’ll do the same.”

  She spoke to Johnson. “Did my husband give you the papers?”

  Johnson finished stropping the razor he’d just used before he answered her, “Yes, your grace, he did. I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the lettering, but I’ll take another look later today. My mother did teach me Cantonese, but this isn’t Cantonese, although it has some similarities.”

  Disappointed, she thanked him. “Is Chinese, then, not one language?”

  “No, indeed, your grace.” He slid the razor into its place in the leather holder. There was one for every day of the week, she noted with interest. She’d never seen a man’s accoutrements so closely before.

  Aware of her own double-entendre, even if she had not spoken it aloud, she looked away. Into the eyes of Grant, who was sitting at the dressing table. Heat rose to her cheeks at his knowing smile. Was she not to have any thoughts of her own anymore?

  But she couldn’t say she minded terribly much.

  “Johnson,” he said casually, “would you mind saying something different in the servants’ hall?”

  “Your grace?”

  “Tell them that the writing is very important, and it contains important information. Say you have given me an English translation. Make a point that the papers were found wrapping the seeds.”

  Alarm rose to tighten Dorcas’ throat. “What do you mean to do?”

  Grant propped his arms on the back of his chair, half-turning to face her and the valet.

  “I’ve been thinking. Everything appears to point at your plants. Someone doesn’t want you to grow them, and now the household knows you’ve found shoots on the roses and you’ve rescued the seedlings. There are any number of people looking for the yellow rose, so they might be planning to sabotage you. I want this business done. I want us both out of danger, but while this person is unknown, there’s not a lot I can do. But I will. Let’s flush whoever it is out of hiding. This is a start. If Johnson makes mysterious hints that the writing is readable and important, that might be enough. And if he says he has given me the translation, that will…”

  “Point them at you. Oh, Grant!” She rushed over to him. “You can’t do this, I won’t have it!”

  He took her hands in his. “We’ll be waiting for them. I have men at the mine, and men here, including Johnson, who is handier than he looks.”

  Johnson intoned, “I’m flattered, your grace.” It was said in such a dry tone, he made his master laugh.

  “You’re welcome. You will have your footmen with you, and the gardeners. You must not go out of their sight, you hear me?” He squeezed her hands.

  “Very well.” Intrepid she might be. Foolish she was not. “But you must promise the same.”

  “I will.”

  But she was deeply troubled by his decision. How could he put himself in danger like that? She agreed with him, that matters had to be sorted out, but not like that. She’d give up the roses, rather. It would be a wrench, there was no denying that, but if the person who’d destroyed the orangery wanted her to stop, then she could do that. For him. Not for anyone else.

  But when she told him that, he wouldn’t allow it. “You must do this thing. It means too much for you to give it up.”

  He wouldn’t budge on that.

  Since he was dressed, he accompanied her down to the orangery and ensured that her servants were there. He gave them strict instructions. “Her safety comes before everything else. Everything.” They solemnly promised to keep his words in mind.

  They bowed, Grant kissed her, and whistling in a most ungentlemanly way, headed for the mine. She had told him not to go on his own, but he’d shaken his head. “They won’t want me, my love, not now. I’ll finish my business there and then I can devote myself entirely to you.”

  That sounded good. More than good.

  Feeling like a new person, her world completely changed, Dorcas set to work. They planted out the seedlings that had survived, added more seeds from the packages, and nurtured the shoots on the roses which had strengthened now that they knew what to do with them. “Heat and water,” Dorcas murmured.

  “Indeed, your grace,” the older Crombie said. “That’s what they need all right. But we’ve got to get it right. We can’t scorch them.”

  There was a danger of doing that in a glassed-in building like the orangery. “What do you suggest?” Dorcas asked. She already had her own ideas.

  “Maybe a bath of pebbles under the soil,” he said. “Keep the pebbles wet.”

  They discussed possibilities, took notes. “Do you think we can move them?” That was her concern. Getting away from here seemed ideal, going to a place where she could be alone with her husband. Although nobody had mentioned her new state, she was acutely aware of it.

  Crombie shot her a knowing glance. Was everybody watching them? It certainly felt that way. “Maybe when we get some cuttings going. The top of this plant needs cutting down, pruning, so the shoots get all the goodness. We could try taking cuttings from them, now that we know what they like.”

  “Yes, that makes sense.” The Crombies, father and son, had proved godsends. She would ask Gerald if she could steal at least one of them. “And perhaps trying them in different environments will show us what we need to do.”

  “Yes, your grace.”

  “Ma’am,” she said absently.

  “Yes’m.” The acute shortening of the word ma’am amused her, made her smile.

  But when the door to the orangery opened and the clear voice of the Duchess of Beauchamp rang out, Dorcas lost her smile. “So this is where you are hiding yourself! Goodness, it’s hot in here! Beauchamp, leave the door open, would you? We will all roast in here.”

  “Close it,” Dorcas called out. She laid her trowel down and turned.

  The duchess was in full duchess mode but, fortunately, her yellow silk was slightly simpler than the gown she’d appeared in for dinner, and even better, her hoops were smaller.

  Dorcas crossed the room, her sturdy shoes rapping on the tiles beneath her feet and closed the outer door. “We have some delicate specimens in here. They must be kept warm.”

  Only then did she make her curtsy to the duke.

  The duchess made the introductions, rather perfunctorily, but they were perfectly correct, as was Dorc
as’ curtsy, duchess to duke. The Duke of Beauchamp turned out to be tall and thin, his fashionable garb all but disguising his spindly legs and narrow shoulders. But Dorcas knew padding when she saw it. “Charmed,” he said, sounding anything but. “I believe I have you to thank for my new acquisition.”

  Lifting a quizzing glass, he surveyed her from head to foot. “I see you favor the rustic fashion,” he said in a bored tone.

  “When I’m working, yes. It’s more practical.”

  Unlike the duke’s satin coat and breeches in a vivid plum color. Even less, his white, heavily embroidered waistcoat.

  “I’m afraid this is not a place to linger in, but I understand there are several pavilions in the gardens. However, if you wish to see what I’m doing here, I’d be glad to show you.”

  The duke raised his glass to give the large space the same kind of disinterested study he’d given to Dorcas. “I can hardly believe you are a duchess,” he drawled. “But my wife says you are, so it must be true. Were you the daughter of a Cit?”

  Dorcas thought she was used to that kind of question, but nobody had asked her so blatantly before. Still, just because he was rude, that did not mean she had to follow suit. “No, your grace. I am the daughter of a country gentleman. My mother died in child bed, so we never knew her, but my father—brought us up well enough.”

  If only they knew. But their father’s behavior after his beloved wife’s death had scarred all three of the triplets in different ways. Definitely not this man’s business. “We moved to London to help care for our brother on his return from the Grand Tour, and we just stayed there.”

  “You did not visit your estate?” the duke said, in accents echoing his disbelief.

  The Hampshire estate meant pain to the triplets, even though it was a pleasant, tidy estate. Since he’d inherited the earldom, Gerald had refurbished the house, changed the purpose of most of the rooms, altered and enlarged the place. So the women could go there now and not see their father in every room.

  “Naturally, we did. But we preferred town.”

  “Why did you not live in a more salubrious area?”

  She was tiring of this interrogation. She would answer this one and then, enough. “We already owned the house. And the area is not insalubrious at all. Our house was spacious and pleasant. Why everyone should live in the same small area of London, I’ve never understood. Why should we sell our house only to live in a house we lease for the season, that does not even properly belong to us?”

  The duke scanned her again. He had remarkably clear eyes, gray and hard. His face, she noted, was powdered to enhance his natural pallor and his wig was of the most elaborate, with curls set perfectly above his ears and a large black velvet bow tying back the length. The ends stuck out from the back of his head like black bee wings.

  “I could ask you why you chose not to enter society,” she went on, “so we have not even met you, but I consider that entirely your concern. Does your predilection mean that we will be deprived of your wife’s delightful company in the future?”

  The duchess looked as if someone had slapped her. She took a breath, lifting the fine lawn of her neckcloth, and another. “I trust not,” she said eventually. “In fact, I cannot see why my husband would wish for that.”

  “Perhaps he might want to keep you for himself?” she suggested. “You are, after all, a most sought-after lady.”

  Turning around, she indicated the house in all its serried, neat glory. Benches were lined up in parallel, restoring the order that had been disrupted the day before yesterday. Troughs and pots stood in neat rows, all labeled with sticks shoved through paper labels, but even without them, the gardeners knew from the order what belonged and what each was.

  “The first two rows are vegetables and more exotic fruit for the house.”

  “I see no pineapple plants,” the duke said. “One would have imagined that pineapples would be the first thing to be cultivated.”

  “Indeed?” she asked, frozen. In fact, they had planned them, but she wasn’t about to say that because she was tired of defending herself and her family. “There are other plants that are more interesting. My projects are at the back and the right side of the orangery.”

  “This building would make a delightful pavilion,” her grace interjected. “The architecture is really quite pleasant. Ah…” She turned with a smile Dorcas did not trust at all. “We’re about to put that to the test.” She addressed the younger Crombie who was standing, arms akimbo, staring at the party, and the servants currently trooping past the window and in through the door. Some carried tables and chairs, others tray with tea and delicacies.

  Dorcas’ new mother-in-law brought up the rear. She looked around. “Yes, my dear Elizabeth, I see exactly what you mean. This place is too good to be wasted on plants and such. It needs palms and pineapples. Perhaps a banana tree. I have heard of many houses like this. Leave the door open.”

  Yet another servant pushed Lord David, resplendent in his wheeled chair, the canes stuck in a special slot created for that purpose at the back.

  They entered, although Dorcas hadn’t given them permission to do so. The footmen, resplendent in the house’s livery, went to the benches. “No!” Dorcas cried sharply. “Do not move anything.” She tried to keep her temper and failed spectacularly. “This is not a pleasure palace.”

  She moved, standing before the footmen. Faced with her wrath, a couple of them faltered. They halted, a procession that trailed out of the open door. Were they trying to sabotage her project? If so, they were doing a remarkably good job of it.

  Lord David looked around, and nodded. His sharp gaze seemed to take in everything.

  “No,” she repeated to them all. “Take that paraphernalia out of here and put it somewhere else.”

  “Where would that be, your grace?” one of the men asked.

  From the back of the building, Trace stepped forward, his colleague close behind them. By request, they were not in livery. They stood either side of Dorcas, silently. There was a confrontation.

  “Wherever you please. There must be some pleasant pavilions on the grounds. Go and enjoy your tea there,” she said. She refused to budge. One footman tried to dodge around them, but Trace merely took a step to the side and halted him in his tracks.

  “I cannot understand why this building is going to waste,” the dowager duchess declared. “Or why you are so insistent on avoiding your duties. And us. We thought to share tea like civilized people, to discuss our differences and come up with a solution.”

  “I’ll have tea with you,” Dorcas said. “But not here and not now.”

  “Mama.” Lord David’s voice cut through the fraught silence. “Surely you can see that we made a mistake. This place is not suitable for an elegant afternoon tea. It’s a place of work.”

  In the continued silence, he addressed Dorcas directly. “My apologies, ma’am. I assumed a building called an orangery would be an elegant pavilion. It is entirely my mistake, I assure you. We will find somewhere else. And of course, you are welcome to join us.”

  She turned to him, the first person to say something sensible. But her dander was up, and she would have her say.

  “You’re right. This is a place of work. I daresay my brother will change that eventually, but not for the next month or so. I will be leaving soon with my husband, and when I do, the plants may come with me. Some of them at any rate,” she said. “But for now, they are very delicate, and we must await results.”

  “I see.” The gaps between the benches weren’t all wide enough for his chair to pass through, but he motioned to his servant, who maneuvered his chair up one of the gaps, and down the other side.

  Dorcas had to accompany him, walking behind with his man. She spoke briefly about her plans, grateful that at least one person took an interest in what they were doing here. “And this is Crombie,” he said, eyeing the old man. Crombie nodded silently, and made his bow before turning back to the plants.

  “A usef
ul servant,” Lord David said. “So until these plants are ready, the orangery is out of service as a pavilion. Do I have it right?”

  “You do,” she said.

  He made a humming sound in the back of his throat. “You know, I could do some of this. If the benches were lower, I could help. Let me think about it.”

  So then she would have help whether she wanted it or not. However, Lord David did not appear to have the animosity his mother carried. It would be a way of fostering a better relationship in the family, especially between the brothers.

  Lord David’s obvious injury sparked Grant’s guilt, but she guessed the main problem in this unhealthy trio was the mother. She stood between the brothers, and clearly she resented Grant for being the older brother, and the uninjured one. She blamed Grant for her younger son’s injuries.

  Having Lord David help her with the plants would mean she could talk to him without the constant presence of his mother. Perhaps even persuade her husband to talk to him, too.

  “That’s a splendid idea!” she said warmly. “Grant tells me there is a glasshouse in your Scottish home. I could make use of that. Perhaps horticulture would appeal to you.”

  The dowager’s soft exclamation of protest did not go unnoticed. “Two sons grubbing around in the muck!”

  Lord David’s distraction meant the men carrying the furniture and the food could leave without declaring war on the Crombies and her two attendants. Very clever of him, and much appreciated. She gave him a warm smile as his attendant pushed his chair towards the main door.

  As the rustling of silks heralded the exit of her other unwanted guests, she clearly heard an exasperated, “Well!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six