Dukes Prefer Bluestockings (Wedding Trouble, #2)

by Blythe, Bianca

  Or perhaps he’d seen her at the park.

  That’s it.

  He returned his gaze to Miss Charlotte Butterworth. The woman was certainly worth his attention. “Why exactly are you here?”

  He doubted Miss Butterworth desired to steal from him, but one could never be certain. Vicar’s daughters could hardly be considered wealthy, and perhaps she believed she attended church with sufficient frequency so as to avoid the fiery flames painted in ominous Dutch artwork even if she did resort to blithely breaking a commandment.

  “I thought it unlikely that I would be allowed entry in the daytime.”

  He chuckled. “You are correct.”

  “So I had to come.” She shrugged. “I thought it improbable you would call on me.”

  “Well. You were correct in that.” He realized too late that the statement could be construed as ungentlemanly. Blast it, did she think because he asked her to dance that there would be a romance between them? Perhaps this was the reason men advocated staying away from debutantes.

  If Miss Charlotte Butterworth was insulted, she did not reveal it. “I will be brief. You asked me if there was anything you could do. Because of my health.” The last word was said almost in a whisper, and she glanced in the direction of her maid.

  Oh.

  It was far nicer not to dwell on her impending death. She seemed livelier than the other women in the ton. Her words were more surprising, as if she’d not worked them out beforehand at an elite finishing school.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m happy to help. In any way.”

  Even though he’d recently met her, he realized with surprise that he meant it.

  She raised her chin, as if seeking to summon the courage to speak.

  “I have some connections in Bath,” he said. “If you would like, I might be able to arrange for your family to live in a townhouse there.”

  Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. “You would do that for me?”

  He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. “It wouldn’t be that difficult. Many people are in London for the season.” And heaven knows Hades’ Lair has clients eager to impress me.

  “It’s very kind,” she said seriously. “But not what I had in mind. I-I was hoping you would keep my illness quiet.”

  “I can understand your family will want privacy.”

  She averted her gaze.

  Damnation. The chit still hadn’t told them. Was she meaning to do so? “You must tell them.”

  She shifted her feet. “I-I will. But in the meantime, I want you to promise not to tell them. I don’t want you to tell anyone.”

  “You should tell them, and then you should go to Bath.”

  “I don’t intend to spend the last months of my life with my family fussing over me and sitting in water with strangers.”

  The maid gasped, but Miss Butterworth raised her chin and widened her stance.

  Brave chit.

  “I want my sister to have a nice season. My illness would disturb it, making it even more difficult for finding a husband.”

  “She could find a husband next year.”

  Miss Butterworth shook her head. “You don’t understand. She’s on her third season, and the expenses are already too large. Please.” Her voice wobbled. “Let me keep this secret for longer. It’s my request.”

  “If there’s a chance your life might be prolonged, you should do everything to prolong it,” Callum said.

  “Perhaps you’re correct. But I want to decide if they know. Because why give up the rest of my comfort and disrupt my family’s chances of landing a husband for my sister, for only a chance? Especially when that chance is

  “Why risk coming here when someone could see you? Your reputation might be ruined.”

  “I was willing to risk that. Taking appropriate precautions—dressing in black, taking my maid, lowered my risk. Besides, soon I’ll be dead.”

  He rose and tried to act matter-of-factly, even though her words squeezed his heart. “I’ll have my groom prepare a carriage for you and your maid for your return.”

  “Percentagewise, the likelihood of anything horrible happening is very slim.”

  “Any percentage would be too high for me,” he declared, and rang the bell. He soon gave instructions to a surprised looking servant.

  “I refuse to go yet,” she said.

  Tension surged between them, and she dropped her gaze to his ledger. “Are you having difficulty?”

  He blinked, not expecting the change in conversation. “Accounting is most difficult.”

  “Perhaps.” She was silent for a moment, but her face soon transformed. “I wager I can balance your sheets.”

  He smiled. “That is kind of you. But accounting is quite complex.”

  “You’re probably right. But if I can find the mistake in your ledger, will you keep your mouth shut?”

  “I suppose I could—”

  “Very well.” She approached him. “Now please stand up. Accounting is most successful when not viewing ledgers upside down.”

  He blinked. “Do you do much accounting?”

  “I manage my father’s personal accounts. And the vicarage’s.”

  It was impossible to not note the pride in her voice.

  He should be demanding she leave the room, but he couldn’t deny the hopeful gaze in her eyes. He sighed. “Very well. If you can solve my ledger, I will honor your wish.”

  I’d already decided to.

  Miss Charlotte Butterworth settled into the chair.

  “Now what are you trying to do?” Miss Charlotte Butterworth asked. “These accounts are decades old. And this gaming hell was only installed much more recently.”

  “There’s too much money,” he said.

  “Most people wouldn’t think that a problem.”

  His cheeks flushed.

  “Only a duke would consider that a problem,” she said.

  “I know.” The warmth of his cheeks increased.

  “Well,” she said. “You may as well tell me. I won’t be around for so long.”

  Callum winced.

  He shouldn’t be sharing his ledger with anyone. And this was the old earl’s ledger that he’d taken from Wolfe’s shelves.

  Still...It would be nice to tell someone. He’d never told anyone before.

  And Miss Butterworth... She wasn’t in his circle. He doubted she would gossip about him, but even if she did—he doubted she would be believed. Perhaps if he were musing about something else except his parents, the thought she would not be believed might upset him, but now it only imbued her with the quality of safety.

  “My parents died when I was seven,” he said.

  Her eyes widened. “I’m so sorry. That’s young. It must have been—”

  “Horrible. I know. It was.” He sighed. “My guardian always told me my parents had died penniless. He took over their debt.”

  “That was kind of him.”

  “Indeed.” Callum gave a tight smile.

  Everyone was always telling him how kind Lord McIntyre had been.

  “But I’m not seeing any expenditure that would relate to paying off that debt. I’m worried Montgomery Castle might have fallen further in debt.” He tried to keep his voice calm, but it seemed to quiver with anger.

  Lord McIntyre had told him he was paying his parents’ debts. Had that never been done after all?

  “Then you should hope the interest rate is low,” Miss Butterworth said matter-of-factly.

  “I know,” he said, settling into a chair beside her. “It just does not make sense. Lord McIntyre always insisted I marry his daughter.”

  “Lady Isla?”

  He nodded.

  A frown came over Miss Butterworth’s face, and he wasn’t certain what he should ascribe it to. Probably it was Lady Isla’s behavior at the ball.

  “I’m sorry she was rude to you,” he said. “She often is.”

  Miss Butterworth rifled through the papers, not answering him.

&
nbsp; He sat back in his seat, unaccustomed to this.

  After a while, she took off her cloak, and he swallowed hard. The fabric of her shift was far too thin. He could see exactly the curve of her bosom, exactly the shape of her figure, ponder exactly—

  “Is something she wrong?” she asked.

  “N-no,” he stammered and forced his mind to muse over more appropriate things.

  “I find comfort essential in problem solving,” Miss Butterworth declared. “More would be done if more people were not distracted by their attire.”

  An hour must have passed, but she did not remove her focus from his books. Her concentration was impressive.

  “Ah ha,” she said finally.

  “What is it?”

  “Lord McIntyre did not pay off the debt of your parents’ castle.”

  “That odious man. I suspected it, but—”

  “He did not pay it off, because there was no debt.”

  Callum blinked. “That’s impossible.”

  “Did you ever receive notification from a debtor?”

  He shook his head.

  “Look,” she said. “Here are regular payments. The increase each month is by the same percentage, down to two decimal marks. Too precise to be a coincidence.”

  “So he was getting money... That can’t be unusual.”

  She gave him a hard stare. “He was pretending the estate was in debt. He was reaping the rewards.”

  Callum furrowed his brow.

  There must be a mistake.

  But his heart hurt. This wasn’t a mistake, he was certain.

  “Of course, this is not sufficient proof. And there might be another explanation. But the vastness of the sums does make it seem highly likely that money from your father’s estate was coming into your guardian’s account. I would suggest you investigate further.”

  Callum had been so foolish.

  The old earl had hurt him even more than he’d suspected at the time.

  He should have realized that long ago. The property was not mortgaged. It had never been mortgaged. That was something the neighbor had told two little boys who didn’t know any better, and there had been no one else, no family members—not after his aunt had died—who had said something, and no official who had thought to inform him.

  His fingers tightened.

  Perhaps Lord McIntyre had paid off his father’s former steward, the one man who would have known. Or perhaps the steward had simply never heard the lie. Stewards didn’t run in the same circle as aristocrats, no matter if they were really the ones who ran the estates and secured the aristocrats’ continued good fortune.

  He’d always thought his parents had squandered their money. It had seemed odd after all. Why would they have? Had they really held too many parties?

  He hadn’t seen signs of great expenditures, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t existed.

  He’d been so foolish for so long. He had known better than to trust Lord McIntyre, but about this, he hadn’t thought to question him.

  But then, as a child, he hadn’t even known basic financial terms.

  He’d been told his parents left him with no money, and that Lord McIntyre was rescuing him, out of a kind-hearted neighborly instinct that Lord McIntyre never failed to remind him of.

  “Was he a close relative?” Miss Butterworth asked softly, pulling him from his reverie.

  Callum’s feet felt unsteady. “He was no relative at all. Just a neighbor.”

  “Well, I can’t imagine your relatives didn’t protest.”

  “My parents came from small families,” he said. “My mother had a sister. I-I think, now, she most likely did suspect something. But she died a few months after my parents.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” she said.

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “That doesn’t make it better,” she said, and he nodded.

  “I want revenge.”

  “Then don’t marry Lady Isla,” she said.

  His eyes widened. “What would you do?”

  She shrugged. “You can marry anyone. Why not someone inappropriate?”

  His lips twitched, and for a moment, he imagined putting a ring on the finger of a scullery maid or a lady of the night.

  The servant knocked on the door. “The carriage is ready, Your Grace.”

  “Ah.” Callum and Miss Butterworth rose and he made sure the driver had instructions to take her and her maid straight to her home and nowhere else.

  “You will keep your promise?” Miss Butterworth asked sternly.

  “Indeed. I always would have,” he confessed.

  She flushed, as if realizing the impropriety of her visit.

  He watched her depart, conscious he should feel relieved, but feeling oddly disappointed. He returned to his study and stared at the accounts.

  Lord McIntyre had swept Callum and Hamish away, perhaps thrusting some forged papers in some official’s direction, perhaps not, since what official would question the word of a prominent earl? The old earl had spent his life telling Callum and Hamish that he’d rescued them both from certain poverty, and that the only way they could pay him back would be if Callum one day married Lady Isla.

  Callum snorted. He wasn’t going to marry her.

  Not when the matchmaker had killed his aunt.

  Not when the matchmaker had lied to Callum his entire life, making Callum feel so guilty.

  No, this was when Callum would become a man. He would take the money, and then he would be certain Lady Isla never married him.

  He would marry someone else.

  It didn’t matter whom he would marry. The more inappropriate, the better. A thought occurred to him, and a smile played on his lips.

  Chapter Ten

  Charlotte took another slice of bread. Her appetite hadn’t vanished with the doctor’s death notice. Perhaps appetite loss would come later. Dying was a most novel experience. She rubbed her eyes, still sleepy from the night before.

  Mama barreled into the morning room, and the laces on her cap fluttered, waving in such different directions, one would have thought she was conducting an experiment in physics.

  “You have a gentleman caller,” Mama shrieked.

  Charlotte must have misheard.

  “You must get ready, my dear child,” Mama said. “He’s in the drawing room. Waiting for you.”

  “Oh.” Charlotte scrambled up.

  “You must look your best. And you really don’t today.”

  Heat rose along Charlotte’s neck. “Is there really someone right outside the door?”

  “Precisely,” Mama said gaily. “First gentleman caller you’ve ever had.”

  “Who is he? Did you take his name?”

  “Name?” Mama scoffed. “You think we’ve procured a butler? No, I ran out to tell you, since I know you needed to look nicer than you do.”

  “Oh,” Charlotte whispered.

  “Why on earth are you whispering, dear girl? Is something wrong with your throat?”

  Charlotte didn’t answer the question, but Mama became preoccupied with fussing over Charlotte’s hair, even though Flora had just done Charlotte’s hair today. Mama’s best efforts seemed only to be dismantling Charlotte’s curled locks, since Mama’s fingers could hardly be described as curling tongs, no matter Charlotte’s own fondness for her mother.

  “But, Mama,” Charlotte said quickly, “if he is right outside this door, he can probably hear everything you’re saying.”

  “Oh? I’m not one for chemistry.”

  “Physics,” Charlotte said. “You’re not one for physics.”

  Mama beamed. “I had no idea you were so impressed by my chemistry skills.”

  Charlotte sighed. The education of women did not include very much. The cracks on the door did seem of the wide variety, and she had the dreadful feeling the sound could make its way from room to room with little hindrance.

  It’s probably not the duke.

  Why would the duke call?

&n
bsp; Had he decided to tell her parents after all? If not of her fatal illness than of her visit last night?

  If she were truly lucky, Mama had simply fabricated the man. Papa was always saying Mama’s imagination was far too strong, and perhaps he had in fact had a point all these years, and she had been in the habit of conjuring up whole men who just happened to have the pleasing sort of facial features that only the Duke of Vernon managed to have.

  The room did seem silent.

  That had to be a good thing, though the duke was unlikely to make a whole lot of noise, especially when all by himself.

  “Is Papa in the drawing room?”

  “Oh, he’s in there, too,” Mama said gleefully.

  “But I don’t hear him speaking,” Charlotte said.

  She hoped it was because the door was rather thicker than she’d thought, despite the large cracks in the frame, but if Papa was there, well Papa had a tendency to—

  “He’s reading, dear,” Mama said.

  This was mortifying.

  She unwound herself from Mama’s clasp.

  She had to see for herself.

  “My dear, you must wait!” Mama shrieked.

  Charlotte pushed the door open, and her heart tumbled to the floor.

  Papa and the duke were sitting inside the parlor. The duke rose instantly, and Papa lifted his head from the book. “My dear child.”

  The duke was here.

  All six foot four inches of him. She hadn’t measured his height previously, but since the ceiling was only six feet two inches, and the man seemed hunched in an angle to which he’d not previously been prone, she suspected his height extended another two inches.

  Whomever had designed the room had likely never suspected a man of such aristocratic proportions would be inside.

  She would recognize the duke’s curly blond locks anywhere, as well as his high cheekbones and bright blue eyes that seemed to radiate amusement.

  “If you’re going to stand at the door, you may as well come back here so I can finish your hair,” Mama said.

  Charlotte’s cheeks warmed, and the duke’s eyebrows seemed to have reached a higher perch.

  “You have a visitor?” Georgiana asked, brushing past Mama.

  “Oh, she does,” Mama said. “And he’s most handsome.”