Daring a Duke

by Claudia Dain

  “Either. Both. I leave it up to you, Lord Penrith,” she said.

  “As it is being left up to me, I accept your challenge, Miss Elliot,” Penrith said, and without a backward glance to either Prestwick or Raithby, Penrith walked off with Jane Elliot tucked against his side.

  When they were a good fifteen feet away, Raithby said to Prestwick, “Ten pounds that Edenham marries her.”

  George Prestwick grinned and said, “And lose ten pounds? I think not.”

  “You’re certain Edenham will get her,” Raithby said.

  “Not at all, Raithby,” George said. “But I am certain that she will get him.”

  “Of course she’ll get him,” Louisa said in a hushed voice.

  “If she wants him. I’m not entirely convinced that she does.

  He’s made such a bungle of it. I’m very much surprised that a duke could be made to look so thoroughly ridiculous.”

  “I’m not,” Amelia said. As her father was a duke and as her brother, whom she thought completely ridiculous, was the heir apparent, her sentiments were hardly surprising.

  “What I can’t understand is why it’s all taking so long. He’s besotted, kissed her in full view of at least forty people, asked for her hand, been refused . . . and now, nothing!

  Nothing has happened. Shouldn’t he be asking again?

  Seducing her somehow?”

  “If she wants him, she could simply seduce him,” Penelope said. “That hardly takes a minute of a woman’s time.

  A very efficient way to get a man, I’ve always maintained.”

  The three women nodded. It was true. They’d each got their husbands by seducing them into it. Either Jane did not want to seduce Edenham, which on its surface was patently absurd as the man was as handsome as a Greek god, or she did not want to marry a duke, which was equally absurd.

  Who on earth would disdain that life of privilege, ease, and power?

  She was an American. They might not have given that enough weight in their calculations.

  “Blakes is being an absolute prig about the whole thing,”

  Louisa said, toying with her fiery curls.

  “Iveston is as well,” Penelope said softly. “I do wish he would put some effort into appearing intelligent and insightful on our wedding day. One would think he would realize that on his own, but no, I am forced to point it out to him. He did not take it well, poor old thing.”

  They were sequestered in the antechamber of the gold bedchamber. No one would find them here, unless they were specifically being looked for. As they had each parted on slightly harsh words with their husbands, they were not likely to be looked for at present.

  “What does Cranleigh say?” Louisa asked Amelia.

  “Very little,” Amelia said. “He knows the family better than anyone here and seems very concerned, though for Edenham and not for Jane. That does indicate something, though I’m not certain what.”

  “Something not very good for Edenham, I should think,” Penelope said, patting her closed fan against her thigh. “Perhaps he believes that Jane will refuse him completely and permanently. That would devastate him for a week or two, wouldn’t it?”

  Amelia looked at Penelope a bit oddly. “Not longer? You don’t think he would pine for her?”

  “A duke? Pine?” Penelope snorted indelicately. After all, they were alone. There was no reason to be delicate now. “He could marry nearly anyone within the month, if he so chose.”

  “He hasn’t chosen,” Amelia said. “That’s my entire point. He’s been a widower for a year and this is the first woman he’s shown any interest in.”

  “One year and four months, actually,” Penelope corrected. “I’ve kept careful watch on Edenham, in a desperate panic that he would marry again before I’d found my way to him.”

  “And now he’s found his way to Jane,” Amelia said, “and botching it completely. I do wonder how a man can ever persuade himself to believe that he swoops in and carries the girl off when it is the girl doing every bit of the work.”

  “How utterly true,” Penelope said.

  “The only bit that redeems them is that they make it all so very much fun,” Louisa said.

  The three women smiled, their husbands almost forgiven for being such idiots on the subject of Jane and Edenham.

  “You don’t think that he’s, well,” Amelia said hesitantly,

  “had it beaten out of him, do you? I did think Edenham had more pluck than that.”

  “He has got all his previous wives quite easily,” Louisa said, biting her lower lip. “I remember that very well. This is quite certainly more than he’s accustomed to.”

  “I certainly thought better of him, if that’s the case,”

  Penelope said sternly, her sable brows furrowed in disapproval. “I did think Edenham showed such promise, and I hate to have my conclusions thrown into doubt.”

  “Don’t we all,” Louisa said musingly, tapping her fan against her mouth absently. “Cranleigh has no insight at all?” Louisa asked Amelia.

  “None that he’s sharing,” Amelia said, which was stating it most clearly.

  “I don’t suppose there’s anything we can do, anything further, to encourage Jane in Edenham’s direction,” Louisa mumbled, still tapping her fan, scowling at the floor, deeply in thought. “Or Edenham in hers, if he’s lost the scent.”

  “Had it beaten out of him, you mean,” Penelope said, thoroughly annoyed with dukes in general and Edenham in particular for not living up to her expectations of him.

  “He did go to Sophia,” Louisa said. “Certainly she should be able to manage him if Jane cannot.”

  It was at that precise moment that the Duke of Edenham opened the door between the antechamber and the gold bedchamber, a quite saucy smile upon his exquisitely handsome face. The women stood gaping, which was only to be expected.

  “Ladies,” he said, bowing, and then, grinning, he opened the door to the music room and strolled through it, looking for all the world like a man prepared to conquer France, Russia, and Spain combined.

  It was as they were still recovering from that shock, that they distinctly heard Sophia’s voice coming from the direction of the gold bedchamber. Looking at each other, wide-eyed, they hurried over to the closed door of the gold bedchamber and, without a moment’s pause or indeed a particle of shame, put their ears to the door and listened.

  Twenty-three

  Quinton listened to the sounds of the people around him in the blue reception room in much the same manner as one listens to the surf: abstractly. He was a man given more to listening than to speaking, just as he was a man given more to solitude than crowds. As it was Hyde who had requested his presence, he had forgone his normal pursuits to honor Hyde.

  The Earl of Quinton had the same triangular-shaped face as his son, Lord Raithby. He had the same blue eyes, the same set of the ears close to his well-shaped head, the same straight dark brown hair though just lightly threaded with silver, the same perfectly shaped nose. Quinton did not have a scar on the top of his left cheekbone. What Quinton did have was a small dimple in his chin. He had been born with the dimple. Raithby had acquired the scar.

  As was his normal practice whilst in a crowd, Quinton stood with his back to the wall, studying the faces and mannerisms of everyone who passed before his gaze. It was thus that he observed the Marquis of Ruan approaching him casually. Actually, it was not so much that Ruan was approaching Quinton, but that Ruan was wandering through the crowd and found himself being directed toward Quinton. Ruan didn’t seem to care where he wandered.

  The earl did not know Ruan beyond the rumors of him, but he had not thought him a man to either wander or not care. He was therefore suspicious when Ruan stopped at his side without a word and turned to survey the room with him.

  Quinton, as was his practice, waited for Ruan to speak.

  He had nothing at all to say to Ruan and so waiting was quite easy for him. Ruan,
it became apparent, was not a man to be put off by uncomfortable silences, particularly as he didn’t seem to find this silence uncomfortable. Quinton found himself slightly more disposed than usual to like the man on that fact alone.

  The Marquis of Ruan was perhaps ten years younger than Quinton, although perhaps not quite that much. Ruan was possessed of rugged features and a few smallish scars scattered about his face. In all, he looked very much like a man who had seen his share of life and had not yet been tamed by it. Whether Quinton had been tamed by life he was not altogether sure; he rather suspected he had been and on some days he considered that very wise of him and on others he rode over his land, his dogs running at the feet of his hunter, like a ghoul from hell.

  Today, in London, was neither of those days.

  “I’ve just had my ballocks handed to me on a plate by Sophia Dalby,” Ruan said in a throaty murmur.

  As a conversation starter, it was impressive. Quinton’s attention was fully captured.

  “That sounds not at all pleasant,” Quinton said.

  “It wasn’t.”

  “I suppose you deserved it.”

  Ruan cut a glance at Quinton nearly without moving his head. “She’d say so. I don’t have to agree with her, do I?”

  “It will be easier for you if you do,” Quinton said softly, his mouth tucking up into a brief smile.

  “You know her.” It was not a question. And so it became obvious why Ruan had wandered over to him.

  “I do.”

  They said nothing after that. Ruan likely wanted to ask him all sorts of things about Sophia Dalby, the sort of things that every man who had not yet been tamed by life wanted to know about Sophia Dalby, but Quinton was not a man to offer up the details of a person’s life as a form of entertainment, sordid or not. That Sophia’s life had brushed often against the sordid made him more inclined to be tight-lipped, not less.

  “Do you know why I sought you out, Quinton?” Ruan said after a few minutes of nearly companionable silence.

  Quinton didn’t bother with a reply. “It is because I presumed you to be a man who would not eagerly discuss Sophia with me, or with anyone. I mean her only the best.”

  “And you are the best,” Quinton said. It was not a question.

  Ruan looked at him fully, his gaze unwavering and determined. The man’s eyes were green, vividly green.

  “No. I’m not. But I begin to wonder if she is,” Ruan said.

  It was a most unexpected reply. Quinton found himself wondering if he should be slightly impressed, or if Ruan was just cleverer than the usual sort who trailed after Sophia like a starving wolf.

  “She’s a remarkable woman,” Quinton murmured, looking at Ruan. Ruan returned the look and said nothing.

  “What did you do to offend her?”

  “I tried to help her.”

  Quinton smiled fractionally and looked at the floor beneath his feet. “You are too late to help her.” Quinton lifted his gaze and looked at Ruan again. “You insulted her by suggesting she needed saving, am I correct?”

  Ruan nodded, holding his gaze.

  A footman approached carrying a tray of drinks. Ruan waved him off.

  “I was in America,” Quinton said. “I served with Hyde for a time in Boston, an aide of sorts back when I thought soldiering meant adventure. You knew that?”

  “Hyde’s youngest mentioned something about it to me today. Sophia’s known Molly from the beginning, hasn’t she? If Molly, then Hyde, then you?”

  “No, not from the beginning,” Quinton said quietly.

  “Sophia guards her beginning from everyone who knows her. I only know what I was there to see.”

  “And what did you see?”

  Quinton lifted his head and looked at the ceiling for a moment. “Why do you want to dig into this woman’s past, Ruan? She will hand you more than your ballocks on a plate if you disturb the image in the pond.”

  “I am riveted by the image, or was,” Ruan said. “But having sensed that it is an image, I want to see what lies beneath. Will she be less fascinating to me? Impossible.”

  “You are not the first man to be beguiled,” Quinton said.

  “I know I am not,” Ruan said. If he wanted to say he would be the last, he refrained. It did show some humility, or at least caution. “You are worried about her?”

  “I have known her for many years,” Quinton said. “I admire her.”

  “As do I.”

  “You want her in your bed. It is not the same.”

  “They are not mutually exclusive, Quinton. Have you never wanted her?”

  “No, I haven’t,” Quinton answered, entirely truthfully.

  “You hesitate not because you are afraid for her,” Ruan said, studying Quinton’s face, “but because you respect her.”

  Quinton smiled. “Sophia can take care of herself. She does not need me to protect her. I will tell you what I can.

  Do with it what you will. Sophia will then do to you what she wills.”

  “I suspect I should be afraid,” Ruan said. He did not smile.

  “Perhaps when I finish, you will be,” Quinton said. He also did not smile. “Did you know that Molly Hyde has a sister?”

  “The mother of Jane Elliot and the Captains Elliot, yes.”

  “No, there was another, the oldest sister,” Quinton said, his eyes unfocused as he looked across the room. “Betsy was her name. She was taken by the Abenakis. She did not return. It is not believed that she survived.”

  Quinton looked at Ruan, seeing understanding flicker behind his eyes.

  “Yes,” Quinton continued, “now you see why Molly Hyde has embraced Sophia. Sophia’s mother, Elizabeth, was taken in the same year as Betsy. If Betsy had survived, had a child, Molly and Sally would have welcomed her back. They would do no less for Elizabeth’s child, Sophia.”

  “But Sophia is Iroquois.”

  “Elizabeth was stolen by the Iroquois from the Abenakis, or rather, she encouraged Joseph, a Mohawk warrior, to fight for her. He did. He killed to have her, took her, married her by their custom . . .” Quinton shrugged. “This is what Hyde told me; I think Sally got it from Elizabeth when she first appeared in New York. Elizabeth left the Iroquois, taking Sophia with her. The brother, John, stayed with the Iroquois. They were children at the time, perhaps ten or so, I don’t know the why of any of it. Only that when I met Elizabeth she was married to a man named Paxton and living in New York, Sophia a slender, dark-eyed child who watched all and said little.”

  Ruan’s face was as hard as flint, his eyes burning with astonishment. “You knew her mother? You knew her as a child? What was she like?”

  “Mother or daughter?” Quinton said on a grunt of air. He didn’t wait for an answer. Strangely, talking about Sophia bled off some of his old wounds, the wounds of memory.

  “The mother was a beauty. Black-haired, black-eyed, just like Sophia. Her skin was exceptionally fair, her carriage queenly. She was composed, endlessly composed.”

  “Like mother, like daughter,” Ruan said, his gaze contemplative.

  Quinton smiled briefly. “More than you can imagine.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Their estate in New York was seized under the Act of Attainder. They were known Loyalists, you see, and so,”

  Quinton paused, swallowed, “they were dragged out of their home and murdered. By the Patriots. By a mob calling themselves the Sons of Liberty.”

  “And Sophia?” Ruan asked sharply.

  Quinton looked at him and said nothing.

  “What happened to Sophia?” Ruan asked again.

  “Just what you’d expect a mob of men to do to a beautiful young girl more Iroquois than English,” Quinton said grimly, staring into the middle distance, not seeing the candlelight flickering against the blue silk damask on the walls, not seeing the twinkle of jewels or the white purity of women sheathed in muslin, seeing only torchlight in a black
night, hearing only screams and anguished sobs. “I found her, bleeding, beaten, silent. One of the Patriots knelt beside her, trying to force water past her lips, his frayed coat laid upon her like a blanket. You may have met him.

  John Fredericks is his name. He’s with her still.”

  “Fredericks? Her butler?”

  To Ruan’s look of astonishment, Quinton nodded and continued, “We took her to the Elliots’ farm. I didn’t know where else to go. They were the enemy, of course, but I knew I could trust them to take her in. The connection to Hyde, Molly and Sally still clinging to each other though their marriages should have dragged them apart, Sophia’s very vulnerability . . . it all fit. I thought she would be cared for there.”

  “Why didn’t they keep her?”

  Quinton smiled without humor. “Clinton held New York. The Elliots were hardly safe themselves. Besides, Sophia insisted. She wanted to go home. She wanted to go home to England, to the family Elizabeth had told her of.

  God knows she had nowhere else to go. And so Sally Elliot got her to Boston and onto an Elliot ship bound for the Brit-tany coast. After that . . .” Quinton shook his head. “I don’t know what happened after that. The war ended and when I came home, Sophia was the Countess Dalby.”

  “She was just a child,” Ruan said softly.

  “I’m not sure she was ever a child, not in the way you mean,” Quinton said.

  Ruan looked at him sharply, his green eyes slicing.

  “You told me far more than I expected, and far more easily.

  Why? This is not a tale you tell often. I would have heard of it if you had.”

  “It’s a tale I’ve never told,” Quinton said quietly, returning Ruan’s look. “I told it now only because Sophia asked me to.”

  “What? When?”

  “Not a half hour ago,” Quinton said. “She came up to me and said, ‘When Ruan asks you what you know, tell him.’ And so I have. Why does she want you to know this, Lord Ruan? That is what I want to know.”

  Ruan lowered his eyes, his brow furrowed in thought.

  “As do I.”