The Straight-Laced Duke Selbourne

by Kasey Michaels

  “Oh, forgive me, everybody,” she said as she sailed toward the center of the room. “Have I kept everyone waiting? Mr. Seaton, don’t you look just fine. How very good to see you again!” She dropped into a most graceful curtsy for someone who wore a living shawl, then looked at his right hand, which was wrapped in a cloth bandage. “Goodness! Whatever has happened? Have you cut yourself?”

  As conversation starters go, Sophie had stumbled into the mother lode, as her inquiry set Samuel Seaton off on a near orgy of explanation, demonstration, and lamentation—ending with a wide sweep of his left arm that succeeded in knocking over two small portraits that stood on the table behind the couch. “My fault. I’ll get those!” he exclaimed, turning and climbing over the back of the couch before Bramwell could utter more than a desperate “Good grief, Samuel, no!”

  Twenty minutes later, the table righted, the new debris swept up, Sad Samuel’s additional wounds attended to, and as Isadora smiled gamely while holding a cold wet cloth to her abused cheek—Mr. Seaton’s knee having come into fleeting contact with her face as he’d catapulted over the back of the couch—it was decided that dinner could be delayed no longer.

  More than an hour later, and with the cook being informed by a desperate duke that they could very nicely live without two of the planned courses—and, for God’s sake, no flaming desserts!—the small party was back in the drawing room.

  Sophie looked around the room once more as Lady Gwendolyn struggled to find some topic of conversation that could not eventually be led back to either bodily functions or the imminent threat of plague to the unwary.

  Deciding that she had found the perfect time to make a small announcement—a time when no one would be of a mind to delve too deeply into her account of what she was about to tell them—Sophie slapped her hands to her cheeks and gave out with a surprised, “Oh, dear, I forgot!” She called Giuseppe to her side, ordered him to lift his little red hat, and everyone watched as the monkey fished in it for a moment, coming up with Isadora’s garnet brooch.

  “My brooch!” Isadora exclaimed, grabbing at the piece of jewelry, so that Giuseppe bared his teeth and screeched, then headed directly for the chair, the mantel and, lastly, the chandelier, the brooch still clutched in his paw. “I thought it was gone forever. Miss Winstead, wherever did you find it? And how will we ever get it back?”

  Sophie stood beneath the chandelier and held out her arms, so that Giuseppe, after chattering a refusal or three, could hop safely down to her. “Much as I am ashamed to admit it, Miss Waverley,” she said as she returned the brooch, “Giuseppe is a thief. However, in this case, I believe the fastening on your brooch may be defective, so that you lost the piece somewhere in the house, and Giuseppe merely found it. In any case, I recognized it immediately when he brought it to me. You’re happy to have it back, yes?”

  Isadora was ecstatic to have it back, yes. So ecstatic that she didn’t seem angry with Giuseppe, or the least bit prone to question Sophie’s story. Bramwell, however, was another matter, and Sophie shot him a quick look from beneath her lashes. He, in his turn, was looking at his aunt, who was busying herself in turning an emerald ring round and round her finger, a puzzled frown on her face.

  “I lost something once,” Sad Samuel said as Isadora slipped the brooch into her reticule. “My coach.”

  “Excuse me, Samuel,” Bramwell broke in. “I couldn’t have heard you correctly. Did you say you lost your coach?”

  Sad Samuel nodded morosely. “I did do that, yes. Took it to Bath when I went there for the waters. Horrid, sulfury stuff, and did my phlegm no good, no good at all, in case any of you are thinking to try the waters for yourselves. Had to post home. I took a chill that first night, damp sheets at the posting inn most like. Never did find the coach. Or the horses. Strange, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Seaton,” Isadora said, always polite, even as she turned to look at Sophie helplessly. “Lud, I imagine such a thing could happen to anyone.”

  Sophie did her best to ignore Bramwell’s strangled chuckle as she sucked in her bottom lip and nodded agreement with Sad Samuel’s assessment of the strangeness of having mislaid a coach and four. “And the coachie, Mr. Seaton?” she asked when she could trust her voice. “Did you ever find him?”

  “Demned coachie!” Ignatius called out, definitely in Sir Tyler Shipley’s voice, so that Sophie had to hide a cringe at her silly mistake. “Squawk! Quick! My flask! Secrets to tell! Squawk! Squawk! Demned coachie! Secrets to sell! Quick, my flask! Squawk!”

  “I know that voice!” Sad Samuel exclaimed, hopping to his feet, not without incident, as his quick action had caused a collision between his shin and the leg of the low table placed in front of the couch. He limped over to where Ignatius sat on his perch, obviously about to prompt the parrot into speaking again. “Selbourne, help me out. Who is that?”

  Sophie swiftly stepped into the breech. “Oh, Mr. Seaton, Ignatius always prattles on like that. The voice you heard was that of my mother’s uncle. Uncle James. Do you really think you knew him? He was a seafaring man before he went into seclusion.” She sighed theatrically. “Poor, darling Uncle James. He contracted some strange tropical illness, in the South Seas, I believe. Last time we saw him, when he gave us Ignatius, his nose had just dropped off. Did you ever hear of such a thing?”

  Sad Samuel scuttled back toward the couch so quickly he nearly came to grief as he tripped over Mrs. Farraday’s knitting bag. “I—I must have been mistaken,” he gulped out, putting fingers to his wrist to monitor his pulse.

  Bramwell walked past Sophie’s chair on his way to the drinks table and bent down to whisper in her ear. “Well, that made him happy, all right. Do you know any other parlor tricks, or are you willing to cede victory to me?”

  Sophie merely smiled, snapping her fingers so that Giuseppe came to her, once more draping himself around her neck.

  “Mr. Seaton?” she ventured after a few moments, once the man seemed to believe he might not be on the verge of expiring from fright. “You will forgive a little boldness and plain speech, I’m sure, as I am country-raised, and don’t hold much patience with pretense and pretty words meant merely to flatter.”

  Bramwell, just passing behind her chair again, made a rather rude sound low in his throat.

  “I realize you and I have only just recently met,” Sophie continued, undaunted, “but I was taken with you from the first moment.”

  “You were?” Sad Samuel squeaked, his eyes going all round and shocked.

  “Oh, yes, indeed, sir,” Sophie continued earnestly.

  “Why?” Sad Samuel asked.

  She smiled sweetly, her shrug, she believed, one of her best. “How can I say this? I suppose I was caught by... by an air of sadness about you, Mr. Seaton.”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding in agreement. “I’ve not had an easy life, you know. Sickly, and all that. And then there’s this tendency I have to, well, to bump into things. You may have noticed? It’s my nerves, you understand. They’re easily overset. Why, I remember the time—”

  “Exactly!” Sophie broke in as Bramwell took up a position directly behind her chair, probably the better to be able to whisper. “Aha! I’ve got you!” into her ear when she, as he supposed, failed miserably in her attempt to make Sad Samuel Seaton happy.

  Foolish man. Did he think her a rank amateur?

  “And yet, for all of your trials, Mr. Seaton,” she pressed on, “you are truly a most likable man. But, I fear, a lonely one as well. Being lonely is a terrible thing, and can quite easily lead to oversets of the nerves, even to a concentrated concern over one’s health, and even to a certain physical clumsiness, yes? So I thought, and I thought—you don’t mind that I thought and I thought, yes? Because I do so like it when those around me are happy.”

  “She does, you know,” Lady Gwendolyn put in loudly from halfway across the room. She hadn’t come within ten feet of Sad Samuel the whole evening long, having already informed Sophie that she might be a cha
ritable soul, but she’d be twigged if she’d turn herself into a martyr to Sad Samuel’s clumsy ways.

  “Thank you, Aunt Gwendolyn,” Sophie said, biting at the inside of her cheek so as not to giggle aloud. Then she turned back to Sad Samuel. “As you can see, I hope, I am a fairly happy person. And do you know why?” She waited for him to shake his head in the negative, then said, “It’s because of Giuseppe. And Ignatius. My little animal friends. They have been such solace to me in my loneliness after my mother’s death. And they must be cared for, loved in return, so that it is impossible to be too sad or too concerned for oneself, not for long, yes? Aunt Gwendolyn? Will you please ask Desiree to come in now, and show Mr. Seaton what I’ve bought for him?”

  “Of course, my dear,” Lady Gwendolyn said, already heading for the double doors that led to the hallway.

  “What you’ve bought for me?” Sad Samuel said, swiveling in his seat, the better to watch the doorway.

  “What you’ve bought for him?” Isadora exclaimed, then smiled. “Oh, Miss Winstead, how kind of you. But nothing too personal, I hope. Because, lud, that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.”

  “What you’ve bought for him?” Bramwell ground out from between clenched teeth as he leaned over the back of the chair, making it easier for him to breathe fire into her ear. “You’ve bought Samuel a friend?”

  “Yes, Bramwell, oh, ye of the infinitesimal faith in my abilities,” she said, turning slightly in her chair, the better to whisper at the man—and the better to see his face as he realized he’d lost their wager. “I bought him a friend. A friend he can count on never to leave him, always to love him, completely and unconditionally. A friend to care about, so that he doesn’t have so much time to worry about himself. A friend to take out in public, where others can see, and admire, and enjoy—and begin to realize that Sad Samuel is not quite the nemesis everyone seems to believe him to be. In short, Your Grace, I’ve bought your cousin a dog.”

  “And you think that will work?” Bramwell whispered back at her. He gestured with his chin, urging her to look in Sad Samuel’s direction. The man was still waiting for Lady Gwendolyn’s return, occupying himself in prodigiously blowing his nose, then holding up his handkerchief to inspect his success. “It will take more than a dog to fix that.”

  “Yes, I know,” Sophie said happily, rising to greet Lady Gwendolyn as she came back into the room, Desiree behind her, doing her best to hold onto a pair of wriggling, yipping, wonderfully adorable coal black poodle puppies. “That’s why I bought two.”

  Bramwell walked back into the mansion after handing Isadora and her abigail up into the coach, eager to speak privately with Sophie before she could escape to her bedchamber. He caught her just placing her foot on the first step, called her back into the drawing room, then closed the doors behind them, surreptitiously locking them.

  “I could have waited until morning to listen to your concession speech, Your Grace,” she said, dipping down slightly so that Ignatius could step off her shoulder and back onto his perch. “I’m very good at what I do, yes?”

  “A single swallow doesn’t make a summer, Sophie,” he told her, going over to the drinks table and pouring them each a glass of wine. “Sad, er, my cousin may have become embarrassingly adoring and almost adorable when he saw those two dogs—”

  “Poodles, Bramwell,” Sophie interrupted. “Romeo and Juliet, to be even more precise. I wonder, does your cousin have the faintest idea what it means to have both a Romeo and a Juliet?”

  Bramwell smiled. “In another six months or so, everywhere he looks, there will be a Capulet?”

  Sophie returned his smile, accepting the glass of wine. “Ladies simply adore puppies. And Mr. Seaton has already assured me he intends to take the little darlings with him everywhere he goes. Just like Poodle Byng, he told me, and Heaven knows that man has made good use of his dogs. Why, Mr. Seaton says he’s already planning to have a special high seat fashioned for them up behind his horses, so that they can better see and be seen when he takes them driving in the Park. And did you notice? He didn’t trip over a single thing as he was carefully carrying them out of the drawing room.”

  “And it has been known to snow in June,” Bramwell shot back, knowing he wasn’t being exactly graceful in defeat. “Oddities do occur.”

  Sophie giggled. “Oh, give over, Bram. Your cousin took his first steps this evening in finding that something exists outside his nervous disposition and his—pardon me, please—his phlegm. I’ve won, and you know it.”

  She sat down on the couch, resting her back comfortably against the cushions Lady Gwendolyn insisted were necessary to bodily comfort. “So? What day would be best for you to escort me to Bartholomew Fair? I can’t tomorrow, I’m afraid, as I’m already promised to Sir Wallace early in the day, and Miss Waverley and I do want to drop in at Hatchard’s later in the afternoon, so that I might possibly locate a book I’ve recommended to her. Besides, I understand that the dear, widowed Lord Charles Anston brings his daughters to Hatchard’s quite often, believing good literature to be quite edifying to young minds.”

  Bramwell felt his stomach muscles tighten unexpectedly. “You’ve set your sights on Anston?”

  He watched as Sophie dipped a finger in her wine, then sucked the glistening liquid from her skin. God, she was driving him mad! All of Desiree’s lessons, and executed with all the innocence of a young woman who hadn’t the faintest idea what her actions really meant, what they invited, what the consequences to that invitation would be for her, for him. “Set my sights on him? Well, yes,” she said, smiling so that her adorable nose wrinkled. “I suppose you could say that. At the very least, I am exploring—options.”

  She took a sip of wine and changed the subject. “The evening went well, yes? But I will admit to an anxious moment or two, thanks to my carelessness in saying the word,” she shot a quick glance in Ignatius’s direction, “c-o-a-c-h-i-e. Now I understand why Uncle Tye—Sir Tyler—was so worried.”

  Bramwell sat down beside her, feeling in charity with her once more. How could he not? She was maddening, infuriating, more beautiful than anyone could imagine, had a heart large enough to care about people such as Sad Samuel, and she spoke to him as if he were her very best friend in all of the world.

  And she’d probably kill him if she knew how much he wanted to kiss her.

  “My cousin’s reaction gave me a bad moment or two as well, Sophie,” he said as companionably as possible. “And yet, your veiled reference to leprosy, I admit, bordered on the brilliant. But should I be making a list? I mean, does the bird imitate anyone else?”

  “Say Connie,” Sophie told him, leaning close, to whisper the suggestion in his ear, her breath wine-sweet and inviting. Driving him mad. “Ignatius is Uncle Cesse to the life. Honestly.”

  Bramwell’s smile froze in place. “I don’t believe it,” he said, a considerable amount of his good feeling, the hail-fellow-well-met camaraderie that a moment before had been growing between Sophie and himself also draining away. “He can sound like my father?”

  She nodded, watching him closely, as if her admission was a test, to see if he really was an unnatural son, a person who could dislike his father even beyond the grave.

  “Connie,” he said, loud enough for the parrot to hear.

  “Connie!” Ignatius responded at once, the bird’s voice so close to Bramwell’s father’s that he was hard-pressed not to jump to his feet, and say, “Yes, sir!” the way he had done as a child. “Kiss me, Connie! Squawk! Pucker up! Pucker up!”

  “Good God,” Bramwell said on a groan, shaking his head. “Somebody ought to strangle that bird.”

  “As she told me her grandfather owned a parrot himself, Miss Waverley likes him well enough. Ignatius,” Sophie said more loudly, as if to make the bird less obnoxious in Bramwell’s eyes, “you like Miss Waverley, don’t you?”

  Ignatius, upon hearing Isadora’s name, immediately began bobbing his bright yellow head up and down, showing off w
hat he’d learned since coming to Portland Square: “Squawk! Lud, no, Selbourne! Lud! Lud! Squawk!”

  “Oh, dear, I didn’t know he did that!” Sophie choked out, jumping to her feet. “Come on, Ignatius. It’s past time all naughty parrots were in bed.”

  Bramwell had risen at the same time, partly in shock at hearing his betrothed’s voice coming out of the parrot’s mouth, partly because Sophie had stood up and he, as a gentleman, was bound to do so as well—and partly because he really didn’t want Sophie to leave. Not just yet. Perhaps not ever.

  “Tell me about the brooch first, please,” he said, for the question had laid heavy on his mind all evening. “Did Giuseppe really find it?”

  Sophie lied well, he remembered, and she looked ready to give fibbing her best effort now. Strangely, she opened her mouth, then hesitated. She seemed to be having some difficulty in looking straight into his eyes, almost as if her considerable talent for well-intended deception had unexpectedly deserted her. Did that mean anything? Was she softening toward him, so that she found herself unable to lie to him quite so easily anymore? Or was he simply reading too much into her reaction, being hopeful when he really didn’t care if she told him the truth or smiled openly while she lied?

  But he did care, damn it! He cared very much! He wanted her to tell him the truth, to trust him enough to be honest with him. To trust him as a friend, as a man. On every level.

  “Sophie?” he prompted. “I’m waiting. Did Giuseppe really steal the brooch?”

  “Well, of all the silly questions, Bramwell! Of course he did,” she said at last, her voice bright even as she still averted her eyes. “Giuseppe is always finding things and bringing them to me. I immediately recognized the brooch as belonging to Miss Waverley.” She looked at him appealingly. “You won’t punish Giuseppe, will you? He means no harm.”

  “Neither does my aunt, Sophie. But, then, you know that, don’t you? You know it, and you’re protecting her, just the way I’ve been doing.”