by Anna Cowan
The dark-haired girl flushed, deep and red, and she poked Sylvie in the ribs.
Sylvie turned to her, face pulled tight. ‘Everyone knows it’s true. Even Mama talks about it, and she abhors gossip. Mrs Armitage seated Lady BenRuin and the Duke together at her Christmas dinner for a lark, and Mama said —’
The other girl pulled urgently on Sylvie’s arm.
‘Lou, what the devil do you mean by —’ Sylvie looked where her friend pointed, and froze.
Lydia was making her way over with a man at her side. Her eyes rested briefly, indifferently on Sylvie and Lou, because they were in her way. They curtseyed, mute, and made themselves scarce. A countess was not so easy to dismiss when she stood right before you, apparently.
Kit didn’t smile at the thought. If even those girls felt they could talk about Lydia so loosely, Lydia’s world was more volatile than she had realised.
‘Sir William,’ said Lydia to the man at her side, ‘may I present my sister, Miss Sutherland?’
The man wore black and white; his hair was neatly styled, his smile impeccable.
‘What a great pleasure it is,’ he said, ‘to meet the sister of the ton’s darling.’
‘It’s a pleasure,’ Kit said. Then, ‘I mean, not to meet me, but to meet you, William.’
He stuttered over her hand and she thought, I wish you would just give up now. Neither of us is going to enjoy this.
‘My sister has only been in town this past month,’ Lydia said, leaning conspiratorially into him. Kit watched his eyes devour Lydia – her smooth, golden beauty – and wished suddenly she was the savage they all thought her, so that she could spit and scratch at him.
‘Katherine, dear, you should not address him so informally until you become better acquainted. Oh, I see Lady Sybilla. Please excuse me.’
Kit watched her sister leave. Did Lydia know if the Duke was coming tonight? Was she waiting for him?
‘Are you enjoying London thus far, Miss Sutherland?’ William asked, in that smug way they all asked it that sounded like, Has London taught you to despise your parochial home yet?
She turned to him. ‘You must have some money, or my sister wouldn’t be throwing you at me. The more eligible the man, the worse I come off, the better the joke. She doesn’t like me very much, you see.’
‘I, er, ha ha, yes, very original. Very original.’
Kit was called original a lot.
‘Would you do me the honour of dancing with me, Miss Sutherland?’
She thought of what Lydia had been saying to her, just before BenRuin interrupted their tea. Make use of your disadvantage. Make him think of having his arms about you. But Sir William’s impeccable smile had become difficult for him, his gloves twisted about his fingers. This was not the man to risk being charming for.
‘I don’t know how to dance,’ she said. ‘You know that no matter how much attention you pay to me, you will never touch my sister. That is a dream. One you’d do best to give up on.’
He started, like she’d just reached inside his trousers. ‘I beg your pardon? I have no such intentions —’
‘Aye, you do, sir. You dream about having her beauty to yourself in some dark corner.’
William flushed and looked away. ‘If you weren’t the sister of Lady BenRuin, one might feel at liberty to call you unfit for company.’
Dear Lord. ‘Was that supposed to be a cut? At least you have remembered whose wife she is. The only man who may touch her, after all, is her husband. Is that not true?’
‘Do stop speaking of touching! I never heard such indelicacy in my life!’
‘Of course you have. You have heard the rumours about my sister and the Duke, and it’s made you think of nothing else but trying for her yourself. After all, once a duke’s done with her she’ll be fair game for the mere sirs of this world, eh?’
He turned on her, and there was nothing handsome about him now. ‘My father used to play cards with yours. It’s more than she deserves, to have old blood like me interested, and I’ll touch if I want to.’
‘And there it is,’ she said, wiping his spittle from her cheek with the back of her hand. ‘There’s what you really think of the ton’s darling, hiding so close to the surface.’
‘I don’t. I didn’t.’ He looked suddenly unsure of what she had exposed in him.
He probably hadn’t deserved that. Likely he dreamed of her sister, but would never be bold enough to try for her.
‘If it’s any consolation,’ she said, ‘the Duke won’t be touching her any more either.’
William took a step back from her; his eyes wouldn’t meet hers.
‘So pleased to make your acquaintance,’ she said to his retreating back.
Sometimes, in the very early hours of morning before she had forced herself to throw back her covers and start the day, she would discover a cold fear lodged in her chest. She was twenty-eight years old. She wondered, on those mornings, whether it might be worth accepting the hand of any man who could be persuaded to offer for her.
Just not a man like Sir William.
Sylvie waved at her through the crush, like she’d been waiting for William to leave, and began making her determined way over, Lou in her wake. Kit wondered if they’d been sneaking drinks behind their chaperones’ backs.
The heavy air closed back in around her, the press of sweaty bodies, the gusts of breath, the chatter from too many mouths, the gulp and spill of drinks. She knew from experience that Lydia wouldn’t let her leave before at least three in the morning. Hours and hours of remaining upright.
‘We have news about the Duke,’ Sylvie said, standing much closer than necessary; this corner of the ballroom was less crowded than the rest. Lou came up beside her, closing Kit in.
‘Lady Marmotte has made it known —’
‘— all over town —’
‘— that she intends to have the Duke. Lord Marmotte is in a rage about it, and has the footmen bribed to keep an eye on the Duke’s every movement, should he —’
‘— should he dare to show his face tonight.’
Their faces were flushed with triumph. They thought this a marvellous piece of news. Kit, who had seen one husband’s rage already, didn’t. Devil take London and all the people in it.
‘Also,’ Lou said, looking guiltily around, ‘just last week —’
The steward announced the Duke of Darlington.
Kit’s heart beat hard, once, and she fought the urge to go up on her toes for a look. She’d only ever caught glimpses of him before, always surrounded: a mincing, perfumed sort of a man. The crowds parted around the stairs and through the centre of the ballroom.
Sylvie, who was pushed into Kit by the movement, said, ‘Do you think God might reach down and make him decide to dance with me? Lou, I can’t breathe. We must get closer.’ She pulled Lou away; Kit was certain they’d forgotten she even existed.
Curiosity won, and Kit went up on her toes. She could just make out his head, moving through the centre of the room, his distinctive storm of dark hair obscuring most of his features. He wore collars so long and pointed they could cut, and his coat buttons were bright enough to pick out across the room.
She landed back down on her heels.
‘Disappointed?’
She started, and turned to the man beside her. ‘You are —’
Oh, dear God, he was beautiful. A grave, pale face; eyes the deep, complex blue of an evening sky; thick black hair slicked back. He lounged against the wall beside her, wearing a plain black coat and trousers, a simple black cravat, small collars. He was the same height as she, his body lean and loose. She had seen grooms lean like that against a stable wall, but never a man drawn with such grace. He tilted his head, his eyes catching hers. They looked at each other without saying a word and then the corner of his mouth kicked up. ‘I am?’
Her heart bloodied itself against her ribcage. She didn’t want to open her mouth and speak. She would come off badly, as she always did; she would be shown
in all her unbelonging.
He didn’t ease the silence between them. A violin rasped out one note over the conversation in the room, then the music struck up again.
‘I don’t dance,’ she said at last.
‘No, I heard you tell William as much.’
‘You were listening?’
‘With rapt attention. You have a unique style, Miss Sutherland. I have been trying to unravel it, so that I may understand it.’
‘Style of what?’
‘Breaking into a man. As far as I can tell you were honest at him until he gave in. Not a style I can readily emulate. Why don’t you dance?’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why can’t you dance?’
How to even begin to answer this elegant, eloquent man, who wouldn’t understand even if she spelled it out plainly for him?
‘Mother wanted me to learn, but other things always needed my attention first.’
‘Such as?’
‘Feeding the pigs,’ she said, throwing it at him because he unsettled her.
He came upright off the wall, and for the first time his powerful self-possession was disturbed. ‘You are the sister of Lady BenRuin. Why do you feed pigs?’
She just stopped herself from saying, Because they’re hungry. ‘I take an interest in the home farm. It’s not so unusual.’
‘No,’ he said after a moment, and settled back against the wall. ‘I suppose not. Can your mother dance?’
‘You shouldn’t ask me that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s not —’
‘Polite?’ He laughed, and she wanted to put that laugh into the blue pot that sat on her dresser at home, and keep it forever.
‘I don’t care about polite. My mother’s none of your business.’
‘Then why did you mention her to me?’
‘You . . . eavesdropped on me. It threw me off.’
‘Did no one ever have the presence of mind to be rude back at you before?’ he said. ‘Ah, do not fight that smile. Your voice promises sunshine, you see. I thought at first it must be a false advertisement, but I have this curious feeling your smile will be a kind of sunrise.’
He said the words with easy confidence, but the slight tilt of his lips told her he knew his own extravagance. His eyes told her nothing at all. They were unflinching on her face, and she felt each of her features as he snatched them from her. She covered her crooked nose, realising too late that in her haste she’d used her free left hand.
He grabbed her hand, and held it close. Through the slide of her glove and his he explored the crooked joints of her two smallest fingers. She didn’t breathe.
‘What happened to your fingers?’ he murmured. ‘Was it the same fist that broke your nose?’
‘Excuse me.’
‘No, stay,’ he said. ‘Stay.’
She hesitated.
‘Please,’ he said, and tripped over the word. It was like watching a prize thoroughbred trip over a twig.
‘Don’t ask about my hand,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask about my nose. Don’t ask about my mother or my damn pigs.’ There. She was curt and spare, like the countryside where she had carved herself a home.
He hesitated – she feared he wouldn’t let it go – then he shrugged. It had been mere idle curiosity, then.
‘And so you leave us with only two topics of conversation,’ he said. ‘Your sister’s dress and how desperately we are dying for love of the Duke of Darlington.’
The Duke of Darlington. She had all but forgotten. She strained for a sight of him through the crowds and saw he was still standing by the giant mirror where he’d stopped earlier.
‘A newly minted duke is a spectacle, is it not?’ the man beside her said. ‘It’s rather sad, really, how he tries to fill his late father’s shoes. He’s too weak and silly by half – a mewling runt of a man. Even the simple task of properly acquiring his title seems beyond him.’
‘But . . . his father died a month or so ago. I walked past St George’s the day they buried him.’ The pavement had been washed out in black, the ton’s finest gathered together to mourn the passing of one of their own.
‘Even a duke’s son must make a claim for his title, and this man’s claim has gone to the Committee for Privileges. Perhaps they see him as clearly as I do, and hesitate to confer such power on him, though it is his by right.’
The men and women of London did not agree, then, when it came to the Duke of Darlington. Kit rather thought she sided with the men. If she truly must confront a duke, she would prefer that he be a weak and silly duke.
‘You may lean on me, if you want to go up on your toes for another look. Are they your pigs, Miss Sutherland?’
She almost told him, because she suspected he would enjoy it. But he wouldn’t understand the desperate pride you could feel in a couple of pigs that were yours.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
He tipped his head and watched her. She felt in those heartbeats as though he drew somehow closer to her, though he didn’t move. She flushed and looked away.
He said, ‘You won’t spare the Duke, will you, when you tell him to stay away from your sister? I would give much to be there.’
‘He is generally admired – but you do not admire him?’
His mouth kicked up again at the corner. ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘there’s no one alive who loathes him like I do.’ His eyes unshuttered, and she saw something she knew she should not have seen.
Until that moment she had thought she had his complete attention – had felt, in fact, like something pinned open on a dissecting dish. He gazed at the dancers and she realised only the smallest part of him was even here, in this room. The rest of him was off somewhere, and she couldn’t help wanting to follow, to find out where. To bring him into focus and see him clearly.
The dancers seemed distant, the music indistinct, the voices around them a constant hum from which a laugh or exclamation occasionally surfaced. It was such a long time since she’d focused on anything but her family. She felt tentative, taking that first step into curiosity. She, whose body was strong enough for anything.
‘What did he do to make your dislike so violent?’ she asked.
He turned his shoulders to the wall and tipped his head back against it. ‘We have a long history, he and I. It is quite, quite gruesome. Are you sure you want to hear the sorry tale?’
Her skin shivered like nervy horse-hide. ‘I live to hear the Duke slandered.’
‘I grew up on the Northumberland estate, where the family spends their summers.’
‘Were you and he boyhood friends, then?’
‘Ah, me. I feel sometimes the only thing worse than being interrupted is having someone break into your tale and guess what comes next. It makes one feel so very predictable. May I continue, or have you divined the whole story already?’
She gestured graciously for him to continue and tried not to smile, because her smile might be a sort of sunrise.
‘The Duke – he had the courtesy title of Viscount d’Auton then – was always a little wild, but I was worse. We were . . . very attached. We had a grand old time wreaking the devil’s own havoc, until he realised that he only got into trouble when I was around. Other people didn’t like me very much, you see.’
She watched this astonishing man, whose voice was as beautiful as the rest of him, and was sceptical. Then she thought about that unsettling thing she’d seen in his eyes.
‘I find it hard to imagine you tearing around the countryside.’
‘Then you haven’t much imagination, Miss Sutherland.’ There was no censure in his voice – just a stark reminder that she did not know him at all.
‘What did he do?’
‘The summer we were nine he greeted me with as much affection as ever. He suggested a game of hide-and-go-seek. I hid in the old scullery, which was an excellent spot, and he locked me in. He didn’t let me out for three days.’
‘Christ.’
‘
It became his favourite game, until I refused to come to the big house and play with him any more. Then he told his father that my father had been poaching. My father was a good, loyal servant and nothing could be proved, so instead of being transported we were simply made to move, with a black mark against our name. My name. My whole life I have not been able to rid myself of him. I feel, sometimes, that I am locked in that room still.’
He said these things lightly, but Kit’s listening became intent. His voice was expensive – a servant could not have afforded it for his son. And he had admitted already to having some difficulty with truth. So she listened instead to the things he did not say.
‘You are a man who feels he cannot move,’ she said, watching his face closely. He gave nothing away. ‘And you feel this, because you think the Duke is a powerful man.’ It was curious, given that he had called the man weak and silly.
He turned to face her, his shoulder and head against the wall, and he was close, she realised, much closer than he should be. ‘I do,’ he said.
‘Then you’re a bloody fool.’
He went absolutely still, and a second later she started to tremble. She couldn’t say what had changed, but she was sure he would crush her with the next words that came out of his mouth.
He opened his lips.
Closed them.
Gave a small, devastating smile. His eyes were shuttered, she realised, because sadness lay across them like the grime over the stained-glass windows at St Paul’s.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked simply.
‘Being a duke does not make him powerful,’ she said, her voice strong and even, giving no sign that her fingers longed to reach for his pale, perfect cheeks and make him warm. Bring him to her. Lay her forehead against his – to say, better than words could say, Be safe.
‘In the great British Empire only royalty stand above him, yet you say he is not powerful?’
‘He doesn’t take his seat in Parliament,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t risk an opinion before other men. What has he built? Who does he champion?’ She gestured to the much fêted duke. ‘What is he, but a hairstyle, some tall collars, and a cravat that other men envy?’
She turned back to him, feeling suddenly absurd, a retraction ready on her lips.
