The Wooing of Miss Masters

by Susan Carroll

  The Wooing of Miss Masters

  By Susan Carroll

  Text copyright @ 2014 Susan Carroll

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Duke of Raeburn was in a black humor.

  The signs had been noted by His Grace's household throughout the castle that morning, as carefully as sailors reading the sky, and then battening down the hatches for the approaching storm. Most of the staff strove to stay out of the duke's way, from the laundry maid to the stately butler, all of them walking about on tiptoe.

  The only one who remained unaffected was John Farley, the head groom. But then he had been employed at Castle Raeburn some fifty years. He had known the present duke since the days when he had been but Lord Simon. Consequently, while the rest of the servants skittered about doing their tasks, Farley lingered near the suit of armor mounted in the front hall while he chewed meditatively on a wisp of straw.

  His cap doffed, there was no disrespect in his mien but no fear either as he watched the duke come stalking through the archway at the far end of the vast chamber.

  Early morning light filtered through narrow windows, which were sealed with heavy leaded glass. The gloom-ridden hall was the only surviving part of the medieval section of the castle with its barrel-vaulted roof and stark stone walls displaying a formidable array of swords, halberds, and battle-axes. Farley thought most modern gentlemen in their yellow breeches and frilled cravats looked rather foolish in such a setting.

  But not so His Grace.

  The duke was a large man with massive shoulders, built like a block of granite. As he strode into the hall, one half expected to see a squire come rushing forward to tug gauntlets upon those powerful hands and toss a coat of chain mail over that broad chest.

  Despite the fashionable cut of his dark blue riding coat, His Grace conveyed the impression of one who had stepped from another century when men were bred of iron. His hair swept back from his brow and shagged against his starched collar, the unrelenting blackness of those thick locks broken only by flecks of silver at his temples. He had inherited the Raeburn hawklike nose and square jaw, but the heavy forbidding brows and the eyes of blue-tempered steel were all His Grace's own.

  His face had tanned so deep as to almost give him a foreign appearance like some Barbary Coast sea captain, deep crags set at either side of his mouth. Most said those weather-beaten lines were the result of His Grace having traveled so much in heathen climates, but Farley thought it was because the duke rarely ever smiled.

  The groom had heard tell once how some fancy gentlemen in London had proposed a wager as to when if ever His Grace might be likely to grin. But nothing had come of it as no one had dared write Raeburn's name in the betting books, the duke's temper being as legendary as his famous frown.

  Farley noted that that ominous scowl was more pronounced than ever as His Grace's top boots rang out upon the hall's rough stone floor. He tapped a riding crop against the leg of his buckskin breeches, the look of barely restrained anger upon his face enough to put most men into a quake. Therefore it was not surprising that the pretty young lady who trailed in the duke's wake appeared highly discomfited.

  Looping the train of her riding habit over her arm, she ran to catch up with His Grace while essaying a laugh, which Farley supposed was meant to be a flirtatious giggle, but came out more as a nervous titter.

  "I never meant to be such a trouble to Your Grace. Goodness me! I simply don't know how I came to be lost upon your estate or have my horse pull a shoe."

  "Nor I, either, madam," came the cold reply. "But I shall have my carriage brought round to see you home."

  "Oh, no, pray, you must not go to such bother. I do not mind in the least waiting until my horse has been shod." She gave the duke a look that would have melted a heart of stone, but Farley reckoned that the young lady had never come up against a man entirely made of granite before.

  "Believe me, it is no bother at all to send you upon your way, Miss Long." The duke seemed to produce the housekeeper out of thin air with a gesture of the riding crop, but in truth, Mrs. Bede had been hovering anxiously in the background the entire time.

  "Your Grace?" The housekeeper ducked into a hasty curtsy.

  "See to Miss Long's comfort until the carriage is brought round."

  Miss Long started to emit a faint cry of protest but His Grace favored her with one of his dagger-like stares while running the length of the crop suggestively between his fingers.

  The lady stared at the crop, swallowed, and said no more.

  "Your servant, madam." The duke made a stiff bow as the housekeeper led the girl away. It was difficult to tell whether the expression upon Miss Long's lovely face reflected more of disappointment or relief.

  As the two women vanished beneath the arch, the duke's gaze turned toward Farley. When His Grace beckoned, Farley snapped to attention.

  "What progress have the stables made with that young woman's horse?"

  "The mare will be shod in no time, Your Grace." Farley scratched one of his few remaining tufts of hair. "It's a curious thing, Your Grace, but that horse appears to have been outfitted recently with a new set of shoes. How one could have worked loose so soon—"

  "I am sure you know as well as I how that horse came to be missing a shoe, John. What I want to know is whether the mare is fit to be led back to Miss Long's home?"

  "Yes, Your Grace."

  "Then dispatch one of the stable boys to do so at once and have Parker hurry along with that carriage."

  "Yes, Your Grace."

  Farley whipped about smartly to execute these orders. But he had not taken two steps when he was halted by the sound of the duke's voice. "And John . . ."

  Farley glanced back.

  "If any more young ladies lose their way in my woods—"

  "Yes, Your Grace?"

  "Throw them into the moat."

  "Very good, Your Grace." Farley gave a respectful touch to the side of his cap. Not until he was well outside the castle walls did he permit himself to break into a broad grin.

  "I don't see anything amusing about the entire incident." Simon Arthur Lakeland, the sixth Duke of Raeburn, was still growling long after the intrusive Miss Long had been transported from his castle. Ensconced behind the glossy surface of a mahogany writing desk in his library, he glared at his companion who made no effort to disguise her mirth.

  The library afforded an excellent selection of comfortable divans and settees, but Lady Augusta Penrose had drawn up a quaint maid of honor chair, well suited to her petite frame. A dark-haired woman, her elegant clothes spoke of town bronze, her twinkling eyes of unfailing good humor.

  Lady Augusta was one of the few who dared to laugh at Raeburn. But Augusta never could be brought to show a proper respect for her older brother, even if she was just a bit of a thing, scarce coming up to his shoulder. She had the Raeburn nose, but not the family height.

  When the duke had complained to his sister about his unexpected visitor, Lady Augusta had immediately gone off into whoops of laughter from which she had yet to recover.

  "Oh the poor girl," she managed to gasp out. "Imagine all the trouble she went to, discovering your habit of riding out early, removing her horse's shoe, setting up the scene for a romantic rescue, awaiting her fair knight. And instead she gets you, looking like the very devil, I daresay."

 
"It was a vulgar ploy merely to make my acquaintance—even worse than that chit in the inn yard yesterday."

  "Oh? You didn't tell me about her."

  "Some yellow-haired wench I'd never set eyes on before. She feigned a swoon in front of me."

  "What!" Lady Augusta's eyes danced. "Right into your arms?"

  "Not in my arms." Raeburn said with grim satisfaction. "I let her plop onto her bottom into the mud. That, I assure you, roused her fast enough."

  This sent Augusta off into fresh peals of laughter until tears stood in her eyes. "Oh, Simon, you are so dreadfully unchivalrous."

  "I can be chivalrous enough to a lady, but these baggages! What is amiss with these modern hurly-burly females? Don't any of them possess delicacy of mind or regard for proper conduct?"

  Lady Augusta dabbed her handkerchief at her moist eyes. "Oh, dear. You are beginning to sound more like Papa every day."

  Since their late, esteemed parent had been both high in the instep and full of starch, Simon did not take this to be a compliment.

  "Besides," Augusta added. "All these vexing incidents with the ladies throwing themselves at your head are entirely your own fault."

  "My fault?" Simon said thunderstruck. He straightened so abruptly, the leather of his chair creaked in protest.

  "Yes, my dear." Smiling, she quoted, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

  Simon had enjoyed the wry humor to be found in Pride and Prejudice as much as his sister, but the gentle gibe contained in the novel's opening sentence did not seem near so amusing when applied to him.

  "Blast it all," he said. "Looking for a wife is exactly what I've been doing, this past month and more." He was fully conscious of the fact he would turn thirty-seven before the year was out, and the nursery upstairs yet remained empty. Although Simon did not always do his duty with the best of grace, at least, by God, he did it.

  "It's only that I never expected to be regarded as some sort of a prize," he continued to complain. "Sometimes I think we might just as well set up a greased pole competition, only award me instead of the pig."

  Augusta threw up one hand imploringly. "Please, Simon. You have made my sides ache enough already."

  "It is all very well for you to laugh. I think you are more to blame for the antics of these dratted women than anyone. That confounded notion of yours that I should give a ball! You've got them all stirred up."

  "Why, you ungrateful wretch!" Augusta exclaimed. "And after I have been wearing myself nigh to the bone planning the affair for you. Remember it was you who commanded me to find some way of introducing you to all the eligible ladies in the county. What better way than inviting them all to a ball at Castle Raeburn? It seemed such a romantic notion, rather like that prince in the fairy story."

  "Rather like you are bent on making a damned cake of me," Simon groused.

  Lady Augusta sniffed. "Well, if you feel that way about it, I am sure I don't know why I should go to such bother. Stanton was loath to let me come to you for so long anyway. I am sure he will be quite glad to have me home again." She arose, briskly shaking out her skirts. "You may just hie to London next Season with all the other bachelors and visit the Marriage Mart."

  "Almack's? Good God! You know I look ridiculous in knee breeches. Besides I cannot abide London."

  Augusta merely lifted her shoulders in an expressive shrug. When she really did appear on the verge of leaving, Simon bolted out of his chair, positioning himself in front of the door. He had never been any good at coaxing, but he gave her the half grimace that passed for his smile and said, "Don't fly up into the boughs, Gus. You know how I get when something happens to disrupt my early morning ride."

  "Surly as a distempered bear," she agreed affably.

  "That ride is my one solitary pleasure before I am set upon by bailiffs, land agents, and complaining tenants. I didn't appreciate being plagued before breakfast by some scheming female, but I don't mean to snap at you. You must know how grateful I am for everything you've been trying to do for me. It's just this whole business of being in the market for a bride." He expelled his breath in a heavy sigh. "Well, it's not exactly like going to the horse auction and picking out a good hunter, is it?"

  As much as she struggled to repress it, Augusta's dimpled smile peeked out again. "Poor Simon," she mocked, but her eyes warmed with sympathy.

  "'Why can't you just pick out some chit for me?" he appealed to her, only half jesting. "Some sensible young woman who would know how to conduct herself, one who wouldn't chatter too much. She wouldn't even have to be a beauty as long as she doesn't have a face like a monkey. God knows I don't have many requirements."

  "No, you don't," she agreed sadly.

  "Would you like me to have more?"

  "I would like you to fall in love."

  Simon pinched her chin. "Stanton's been reading you too much of that romantic poetry again."

  But this time Augusta didn't smile. She said rather thickly, "I had always hoped, Simon, you would find the happiness in marriage that I have found."

  "Ah, but yours is a match made in heaven, my dear. Extremely rare. I never looked for such a thing, I promise you. I never expected to have to marry at all." His mood darkened again. "Any more than I ever expected to awake one morning and find myself the Duke of Raeburn."

  Abruptly he turned away from her and strode to the window to stare out. Set between the bookcases, the tall, mullioned panels of glass overlooked the vista at the rear of the house. Castle Raeburn was one of the few manors in Sussex, perhaps all of England, to be still surrounded by a moat. Just below Simon, swans sailed by in regal splendor, barely seeming to raise a ripple in the cloudy waters. In the distance loomed the shadowy outline of the deer park and woodland—oaks, larches, and elms stretching as far as the eye could see.

  The lord of all he surveyed, Simon thought with a sneer. Except that he had never felt himself to be anything other than a usurper, filling a pair of shoes cut to someone else's size.

  Lost in this gloomy contemplation, he wasn't aware of Augusta slipping up beside him until she spoke softly, "Even after all this time, it's never gotten any easier for you, has it, Simon?"

  His only reply was a curt shake of his head. But then Augusta knew better than anyone how little he had ever coveted the title, or these lands, how much he loathed his inheritance, especially the way it had come to him.

  Almost as one, the two of them turned involuntarily to stare at the portrait mounted over the fireplace. Encased within an ornate gilt frame was the painting of a man with dark curls, the infamous Raeburn nose set between laughing blue eyes. He sat perched upon a wooden stile, a hunting dog at his feet, a riding crop held carelessly in his grasp. The artist had captured all of Robert Lakeland's impatience with posing so well, Simon frequently expected his brother to leap out of the frame and go tearing off in search of more exciting pursuits.

  Except, of course, that the late Duke of Raeburn would never do so again.

  Simon averted his gaze, feeling the familiar ache of loss, little dulled by seven years passage of time. He felt Augusta slip her arm comfortingly through his.

  "I was still in the schoolroom when Robert died," she mused. "He was so much older than me I never felt as if I got to know him very well. What was he like?"

  "Oh, top of the trees," Simon said gruffly, unable even for Augusta to find the words to convey what Robert had meant to him. He still carried with him much of the younger brother's awe for the older sibling who had taught him to ride, to shoot and drive to an inch. When Simon had received his first black eye at Eton, it had been Robert who had descended upon the school in a blaze of magnificence to teach Simon to be so handy with his fives, he had never been milled down again.

  It had been Robert who had come to sit up with him all night when their father and mother had died of a fever within days of each other. The two brothers had shared a bottle of port even as they had shared the
ir grief in a silence that needed no words. And it had been Robert who had proudly buckled the sword to his little brother's side when Simon had received his first commission as a cavalry officer.

  But these memories of Robert faded as they always did in the face of that final grim one. Simon supposed he ought to be grateful at least that he had been home on leave from the army that cold winter's day, or else he would never have been there at the castle, never been able to bid his brother farewell.

  Simon had always told Robert he would be brought home on a hurdle someday, all because of that neck-or-nothing way in which he rode. It had been a jest between the two of them, nothing more, the younger brother presuming to chafe his elder.

  But all laughter seemed to have stilled forever that morning when Robert was borne back from the hunting field upon a litter. His neck had not been broken; that perhaps would have been a mercy compared to the agonizing hours that followed.

  His ribs crushed, bleeding inwardly, Robert had descended painfully into the arms of death, and there had been nothing Simon could do for him but remain at his side, bringing what comfort he could. Simon had never been given to displays of emotion, but he had allowed the tears to course down his cheeks, unashamed, making no effort to check them.

  Despite his agony, Robert had possessed enough strength to touch Simon's hand while summoning up that familiar lopsided smile.

  "It'll be all right, Simon. Truly it will," he had whispered. "You'll make a far better duke than me."

  But then, hadn't that been just like Robert? He had been the one who lay dying, and yet he had struggled to reassure Simon. The memory of those final moments with his brother still had the power to bring a burning ache into Simon's throat.

  He coughed to clear it. Realizing that Augusta regarded him with anxious eyes, he sought to change the subject. He tried to make his voice light. "Yes, Robert was a splendid fellow, though it was damned inconsiderate of him not to have left a son behind to save my neck from the matrimonial noose."

  "But he left two charming daughters," Augusta reminded him.