by Anna Cowan
Drowning.
‘Then a man takes pity on her, and he fashions her a suit of armour. He teaches her to demolish castle walls with a single word. With his help, she learns to bring the world around her to its knees in worship. She is a queen. But her family, who sent her from the country as a young, impressionable woman, demand that she give that man, that single ally, up.’
She counted sixty whole seconds of silence. Her father had rearranged reality with words, too, and she had discovered that if she allowed some time to lapse she could begin to pick through his fancy for the pieces she knew to be true.
Oh, God, had Lydia really been so alone?
‘She doesn’t need to be worshipped. She needs to be esteemed and liked and respected.’
He made a graceful bow then continued walking. ‘All of those things, I feel for your sister.’
‘She needs those things from her husband and her peers, not from a lover.’
‘And her family? What does she deserve from them?’
The shot pierced her clean through. She stopped to allow for the curious pain of it and looked up at him. ‘I want you to stay away.’
His eyes met hers and it hit her, forcefully, that he was right – she had nothing to offer him in return for what she asked.
She saw with excruciating clarity that all those years she’d been turning Lydia into the kind of woman who could marry well above her station, she’d been turning herself into a narrow kind of woman with no power. Not of the sort she desperately needed now. Why hadn’t she tried to make an ally of her uncle after Father died, no matter how hopeless it seemed? A relation like Lord Barton might at least have made the Duke pause.
He watched her steadily, waiting, because they both knew he could demand anything he liked of her.
‘If there is anything I can give in return, name it,’ she said, and each word was pulled painfully to her will, like arrows knocked to the taut string of a longbow.
He looked away across the park. ‘I want you to leave London,’ he said.
She couldn’t believe it. She wanted nothing more. She would comply in a heartbeat.
‘And I want to come with you.’
Darlington watched, but he couldn’t detect any particular change in her. She was perhaps a little paler, but it was hard to tell beneath the bonnet and with the mottled shade of leaves across her face.
He did not feel so composed as she. What fate had put her so wholly within his power, when he needed her so very much?
‘You cannot,’ she said. The sunshine in her voice surprised him, as it did every time she opened her mouth. There was, still, nothing sunny about her. ‘You cannot come with me.’
‘Do you have no proper chaperone at home? That will not be a problem.’
‘I have no proper home for a duke.’
They stood not too far from Lydia’s carriage. He was aware that Lydia and the Dandies watched them, as did half the ton, it seemed. The Dastardly Duke of Darlington, not content to rest after last night’s efforts, already seducing an innocent.
It was difficult to say whether she was innocent or not.
He waved to Lydia, one graceful swish of his hand through the air. He knew already that he would desert her. He would put his needs above hers, and prove himself irredeemable.
‘I do not need a proper home, Miss Sutherland. I am not going to burden you with my retinue. My valet will cry himself to sleep, poor man, but even he shall not accompany me.’
‘You don’t understand, Your Grace. I cannot – cannot expect a duke to live where I live.’
‘Then you may rest easy. I will not travel as the Duke of Darlington – even he will be left behind.’
She drew in a deep breath and looked directly at him, the way only she did. ‘This is what you ask?’ Her words were slow, distinct.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you not need to stay in town, now that there’s a second claim to your title?’
He was entirely lost for a moment, before he realised what she must mean. ‘That boy, that accountant from Leeds? I am the acknowledged son of my father. He has no claim.’
She dropped her hands then, and they hung still by her sides. There was something unnatural and eerie about them that put him in mind of dead things.
‘Whose skin will you wear this time,’ she said, ‘if you are not coming with me as the Duke?’
He didn’t say anything; he was curious about what she might betray to fill the silence.
‘Do not bring the man in black,’ she said. ‘Do not bring him.’
Then before he could respond she said, ‘Will we take your carriage, Your Grace? I have none.’
He swept her a bow. ‘I see. Of course.’
‘You will see,’ she muttered. ‘More than you should.’
He walked back to the Row a pace behind her and watched the dust rise in a fine cloud around her shoes and hem. Jewellyn was having trouble holding Darlington’s horse still, and when Miss Sutherland approached the beast butted his large head against her outstretched hand. The quality of her movement changed in a way Darlington couldn’t define as she stroked the horse’s nose. Even ten minutes in her company had braced him. Already the world was beginning to matter again.
‘Lovely man,’ she murmured to his horse.
Run, his instincts told him. Run until your boots are worn through. And then keep running.
‘Do you like him?’ he said, forcing himself a step closer. ‘I won him from Mr Ballantine in a card game last week. I have named him BenRuin, after another great golden beast we both know.’
She turned to hide her surprised laugh and stroked the horse’s muscular neck under his mane, where she would feel the hot pound of blood.
She pulled herself up into the carriage before the footman could reach her. What a wrinkle she was in the fine fabric of society, this Miss Sutherland who was as tall as he and wore the current confectionery of fashion so badly. She was right, though for the wrong reasons: he could ill afford to disappear from London now, with the Marmotte game afoot. But he felt, and didn’t look too closely at the feeling, that he hadn’t many chances left.
Kit held the letter that had arrived half an hour after they returned from the park, and knocked at the door of BenRuin’s study.
‘Enter.’
She paused at the sound, that deep, Scottish reminder of the man she was about to face. He was bigger and more intimidating than the Duke of Darlington. But somehow, now that she’d faced the Duke, easy in comparison.
She didn’t think she imagined that his face fell by a fraction when he saw it was only Miss Sutherland. He should have known Lydia would never have knocked.
He was as different from the Duke as could be. Nothing hid him. His golden hair was clipped back against his head, exposing a strong face. His nose was bent, like hers, and his neck and shoulders suggested great strength. What had the Duke said? That Lydia had married a man who was too much for her, and she spent her days trying to keep him at bay.
‘I’ve had a letter from Ma,’ she said. ‘Her asthma’s grown worse – she asks for me.’ The letter was from the Duke, a list of details.
‘You want to go back to the Manor?’
‘I do,’ she said. ‘Er, my lord.’
BenRuin moved to his desk, and she couldn’t help thinking how aptly the Duke had named his new stallion. He touched one of his large, scarred fingers to a stack of papers, then looked directly at her.
‘Have you told the Countess?’
‘Not yet.’
‘She’ll not be happy to see you go.’
She’ll not be happy to lose her plaything, Kit thought. ‘She’ll attend the royal wedding next week and they’ll all adore her gown, and she’ll be happy again.’
BenRuin was easy enough to read; he pitied her. ‘She’ll not like it,’ was all he said.
Kit bowed her head. ‘Have I your permission to leave, though?’
‘If your mother needs you, then you must go. You’ll have my carriage.’
‘There’s no need. I anticipated your kindness and booked my place on the stage five days from now.’ She had no idea why the Duke needed five days – she wanted to leave London tonight.
BenRuin nodded and his large hands flexed.
Before she left she needed, to some small degree, to put his mind at ease. ‘The Duke of Darlington won’t be bothering my sister any longer. I thought you should know.’
BenRuin stood before her, his hand grasping her shoulder, before she could think. ‘What has he done to you? That bastard son of the devil, what did he dare to do?’
‘N-nothing.’ Her heart was so loud and persistent it took her a while to realise that the hand engulfing her shoulder was gentle.
‘If he has promised you anything, made a bargain with you, approached you in any way, I need you to tell me.’
Kit gathered her strength about her. She would decide when Lord BenRuin needed to know anything; the last thing they needed was for him to commit murder. ‘I spoke with him last night. It was brief, but enough to convince me that he’ll leave Lady BenRuin be.’
The Earl’s hand had begun to shake. ‘If he makes a single advance on you,’ he said, ‘he advances on me. He knows what that means.’
So that’s it, thought Kit with a sinking heart. He’s not finished with BenRuin, yet.
Darlington called on Mme Soulier that afternoon. She was lately retired, but lived in opulent infamy in Soho, having dressed all the great ladies of her time.
Mme Soulier had received him in her second-best drawing room, ‘Because you and I are old friends, darling,’ her fingers spry on her teacup, her eyes sharp on his face. The only reason she had retired, he suspected, was because her clients had been dying off, and she turned her nose up at the simple French dresses currently in fashion, with their abhorrent negligence of material and fanfare.
Which was precisely why he had chosen her, of course. When it came to great, rigid masterpieces of dress, Mme Soulier was without equal. She had also dressed his mother. Darlington had never learned how to sit still and quiet as a boy the way his mother preferred. Mme Soulier had indulged him as few adults had, managing him with words like pins tucked into the fabric of his wayward nature.
‘I believe you are bored, my well-shod madame,’ Darlington said in French. He took another lazy sip of tea and shrugged. ‘You will make me a wardrobe.’
‘My fingers are not what they used to be. Bah. Leave an old woman in peace.’ Mme Soulier’s fingertips traced the delicate lace at her still-fine bosom.
‘You have the fingers of an artist. They will never grow old.’ He leaned forward and took her hand gently in his, grazing the swell of her breast with his knuckles. He looked up at her from beneath his lashes – one dusky, heated look – and stroked her calloused fingers. ‘Death could not stop these fingers, I think. Your hands will have to be cut from your body when the rest of you expires, that they may work on in some ghastly Gothic workroom and put dressmakers to shame for an eternity to come.’
‘Fanciful boy,’ she said, smiling. It was impossible to tell, behind her thick white face paint, whether she blushed, but her unsteady breathing and parted lips would suggest that she did.
But this was purely business. When he began to outline his needs, the interest in Mme Soulier’s eyes changed, as he had known it would. Darlington wasn’t the only one to whom this presented a challenge that, if met, promised the triumph of a lifetime. She called him naughty and an arrogant boy, but by the time they had finished their second pot of tea she had drawn up an invoice that was entirely outside his means to pay.
Chapter Five
They had set out at six that morning, making south-west from London. Though the Duke’s unmarked carriage travelled well on the dry roads and Kit had made herself a nest of blankets and cushions, she was exhausted by the time they stopped in the late afternoon in Totton. They had changed horses twice already, but eaten in the carriage throughout the day. Every coaching house they’d stopped at had been too full to accommodate them even for a cup of tea; half the countryside was heading to town for the wedding.
They sat now in the corner of a packed public room, by a window where they could watch other travellers out in the yard. Kit didn’t look out the window. She watched her companion.
Even after nine hours she could not stop staring.
Across the table, taking tea, was the most magnificent woman Kit had ever seen. She wore the rigid dress of the previous generation, but instead of looking outdated she made you long for the gorgeous, riotous colours of another age. Yellow poppies burst across the wine-red silk that bound her torso, chest and shoulders. They trailed down the skirts that waterfalled under their modest table. She was tightly corseted, her trim figure accentuated by the flare of small hoops beneath her skirts. She looked out the window, offering Kit her profile – the fine, straight nose, the smiling, expressive lips and heavy eyes. She wore a black wig, one thick coil falling over her shoulder on to the white linen tucked around her neck.
The woman turned away from the window and the Duke’s difficult blue eyes laughed out of her face. He took a sip of tea. ‘Not hungry, Miss Sutherland?’
‘Your Grace —’ His brow rose, and Kit scowled. ‘I feel like a bloody fool, calling you Lady Rose. I swear, I can’t do it.’
‘Then I must return to London,’ the Duke murmured, his voice a frightening, compelling thing. He did not sound like a man, but neither did he sound like any woman Kit had ever met. ‘Your sister will be happy to see me return, I think.’
Kit looked out the window at the carriage that had driven behind them all day, piled high with luggage. ‘I think my house will suit you even less well than it would have suited the Duke, my lady.’
The Duke gave an elegant shrug and flicked his fan open. A water scene had been painted onto the paddles with exquisite care, and the lazy motion of his wrist seemed to bring it to life. Kit had seen her brother, Tom, assume theatrical roles in the local, amateur productions – she’d even seen him act the woman more than once, when the number of parts required it. He always remained Tom, acting. The Duke’s transformation was absolute, down to the very marrow of his bones. There wasn’t a single hint of self-consciousness about him. His demeanour, the set of his mouth, the lazy sway of his hand, all belonged to Lady Rose. The ease with which he changed his skin was frightening.
How could she ever hope to glimpse his true face? Kit knew first-hand that he would let her think she had if it served his purpose.
Her mind turned again, as it had turned all day, to the question of his purpose. She suspected, still, that his actions were directed not at her but at BenRuin, though she could not answer what he hoped to achieve by sending himself into exile.
And why disguise himself so that he was as far from the Duke of Darlington as could be?
‘My dear Miss Sutherland,’ he murmured, and watched her over the top of his fan. ‘Do not think too deeply about it. I’ll be gone and forgotten soon enough.’
She wondered if anyone, ever, had managed the trick of forgetting him.
It was dark, and they had been travelling through uninterrupted countryside for close on three hours now, as Darlington reckoned it.
‘We’re almost there,’ Miss Sutherland said. She sounded exhausted. He soliloquised briefly on the hardships of travelling while corseted, and how he had found one must particularly rely on one’s feminine fortitude to undertake the longer journeys.
He’d meant to entertain and distract her, but was left with the distinct impression he’d only exhausted her further.
She rapped on the roof, signalling that the driver should turn into the driveway coming up on the right. They turned and the road immediately grew worse.
When they stopped it was still dark, and Darlington assumed they were waiting for the estate gates to be opened, until Miss Sutherland opened her door and alighted without the help of his footman. What trick was she playing on him now? He placed his gloved hand in that of the foot
man who opened his door and accepted his help down from the carriage.
They were parked in front of the unlit shell of a house. It had perhaps been grand once, though small. Smaller than his Surrey hunting lodge, certainly.
‘We’ll need to carry the luggage around the back,’ Miss Sutherland said, not bothering to look at him. ‘The front hall’s blocked up, and I don’t like to risk using it now. I’ll go and get Tom to help us.’
‘Could we not drive around the back?’
‘It’s dark, my lady, so you probably can’t see the state of the gardens. No, we can’t drive around the back.’
Then she was gone into the dark, an animal returning to the wild.
He had looked at himself in the mirror last night, bound in one of Mme Soulier’s masterpieces, his face shaved twice and made up by Grey to soften his cheekbones and accentuate his eyes and lips. He had been giddy with delight. He’d ordered the Dandies to attend to him all evening, pouting and flirting when they particularly pleased him.
Standing in front of this ruined house, he had to remind himself that in all the world, and with all the resources available to him, he hadn’t found anything better than the sharp edge of this woman’s tongue.
A twig snapped, breaking the silence of the night, and he started. Miss Sutherland emerged, sure-footed, from the dark again, and another figure came after her. Tom – he must be the brother, Mr Thomas Sutherland – was taller than Miss Sutherland, but his steps were more careful. He didn’t look Darlington directly in the face, and it was hard in the dark to see him properly.
‘Lady Rose, my brother, Tom. Tom, Lady Rose.’
Darlington’s laugh tinkled uneasily into the country night and was absorbed by quiet brush and undergrowth. ‘Am I to address your brother by his Christian name? It is rather forward, but then so am I.’
