Undercover Duke

by Sabrina Jeffries

  “So you see,” Grey went on, “there’s no reason for you to even return to the country. As long as you’re in town for the play this afternoon, you might as well pop into the box my aunt’s brother has at the theater and see what you can find out. You can pretend you’re there to chat with Vanessa.”

  “That’s assuming they even attend the play,” Sheridan said. “Charitable productions don’t sound like things Lady Eustace would enjoy.”

  “Oh, they’ll be there,” Grey said. “Vanessa will make sure of it. It’s Juncker’s play, remember?”

  “Right.” He stared down into the shimmering liquor and bit back an oath. “Very well. I will endure Lady Eustace’s suspicions to learn what I can.” Which meant he’d also be enduring Vanessa’s foolish gushing over Juncker.

  His throat tightened. He didn’t care. He wouldn’t care.

  “Thank you,” Grey said. “Now if you don’t mind . . .”

  “I know. Beatrice is waiting for you at the estate, and you’ve got quite a long journey.” He met his brother’s anxious gaze and softened his tone. “Everything will be fine. The Wolfes come from hardy stock. Not to mention our mother. If she can bear five children to three husbands before the age of twenty-five, I’m sure my cousin can give you an heir without too much trouble.”

  “Or give me a girl. I don’t care which. As long as Beatrice survives it, and the child is healthy . . .”

  “Go.” Sheridan could tell from Grey’s distracted expression that the man’s mind was already leaping forward to the moment he would reach his wife. “Go be with her. I won’t disappoint you.”

  Sheridan knew firsthand the anguish love could cause, how deep it ran, how painful the knot it tied around one’s throat. Helene hadn’t meant to, but she’d made him wary of love.

  That was precisely why he never intended to be in such a situation again. Just seeing Grey’s agitation was more than enough to caution him. Love could chew a man up and spit him out faster than his Thoroughbreds could run. Sheridan already had plenty of things to worry about. He didn’t intend to add a wife to that number.

  Chapter Two

  “Wait, girl,” Vanessa’s mother said as she stopped her daughter from entering the Pryde family box. “Your headpiece is crooked.” She shoved a hat pin into Vanessa’s fancy turban, skimming her scalp.

  “Mama! That hurt!”

  “It’s not my fault it won’t stay put. Bridget must have put on the trim unevenly. Serves you right for not buying a new turban.”

  Her mother always wanted her to buy new instead of remaking something. Unfortunately, the estate of Vanessa’s late father didn’t produce enough income—and the widow’s portion for her mother never stretched far enough—for Vanessa to spend money recklessly. So Vanessa and her lady’s maid, Bridget, were always practicing small economies to ensure she and Mama lived within their means.

  Mama didn’t see the point of that. First, she was incessantly trying to impress someone with how lofty they were. Second, she was pinning her hopes on Vanessa marrying well.

  “It’s not the trim, Mama,” Vanessa grumbled. “The whole thing is lopsided from your fooling with it.”

  “I’m merely trying to fix it. You must look nice for the gentlemen.”

  Vanessa really only wanted to look nice for one gentleman, but he would probably ignore her as usual. If he did, she would have to give up hope of ever gaining his attention. So far, nothing seemed to have worked in that regard.

  Uncle Noah Rayner, her favorite relation next to her cousin Grey, patted Vanessa’s arm reassuringly. “You know your mother—always thinking about your suitors.”

  “And with good reason,” her mother said. “The girl doesn’t have the sense God gave her when it comes to men. She should be married to Greycourt, but instead she dragged her feet, and now he’s married to that low chit Miss Wolfe.”

  “That ‘low’ chit,” Vanessa bit out, “is the granddaughter of a duke just as I am. So if she’s low, then so am I. Besides, I like her.” Beatrice had proved a fitting match for Grey when Vanessa had despaired of ever seeing him wed.

  “Of course you do.” Mama fussed a bit more over the turban. “You always prefer the wrong sort of people.”

  “I find they’re generally more interesting than the right sort,” Vanessa grumbled.

  “Like that playwright you’re enamored of?” Her mother shook her head. “Sometimes I think you want to marry the poorest fellow you can find just to vex me.”

  “Mr. Juncker is very talented,” Vanessa pointed out, for the very reason her mother had given—to vex her. Despite his very German name, Konrad Juncker had been raised in London, having been born to German immigrants. He was handsome, too, with a winning smile, teasing eyes, and good teeth, but Vanessa didn’t care about any of that.

  Her uncle huffed out a breath. “Are we going to enter the box sometime before the end of the century, Sister?”

  “Oh, stubble it, Noah. The orchestra is still tuning its instruments.”

  “That sounds like an overture to me,” he said. “Which is why the corridor is empty except for us.”

  “Almost done.” Her mother finally left off adjusting Vanessa’s turban, only to give Vanessa’s bodice a tug downward.

  Vanessa groaned. “It will just creep back up. Honestly, Mama, do you want me looking like a strumpet?”

  “If it will catch you a good husband? Absolutely. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

  Her mother pinched Vanessa’s cheeks. Hard.

  Vanessa winced. “I fail to see how pinching rolls back the years.”

  “You must trust your mother on this,” Mama said. “I swear, someday I hope you have a child as recalcitrant as you. ’Twould serve you right.” When Uncle Noah cleared his throat, Mama scowled at him and opened the door. “Very well, now we shall go in.”

  Thank heaven. Navigating Mama’s machinations and attempts to wed her to “the right sort” was as perilous as sailing a ship on the deepest ocean. One moment a light breeze carried it along on wings of silk, and the next moment stormy seas threatened to engulf it. She never knew which to expect of her mother—bad temper or cool disdain or syrupy kindness as false as it was cloying. Mama had kept her off-kilter her entire life.

  “Are you expecting someone in particular tonight?” Vanessa asked as they entered the box. Her mother usually primped her, but this went beyond the pale.

  Mama lowered her voice as she scanned the boxes. “I heard that the Marquess of Lisbourne might attend.”

  An involuntary shudder passed through Vanessa.

  Her mother went on without noticing. “They say he owns more property than even your cousin. And if he does come to the play—”

  “He will magically decide to marry me because my cheeks are rosy and my bosom is half-bare?”

  “Men do that, you know,” her mother said. “Anything to make him notice you is good.”

  Heaven help Vanessa if Lord Lisbourne noticed her. She would have to join a convent.

  “Lisbourne is sixty if he’s a day, Cora,” Uncle Noah said.

  “A robust sixty,” Mama said.

  And a notorious debauchee to boot.

  Uncle Noah shook his head. “Personally, I think my niece should set her cap for Armitage. He’s closer to her age, very eligible, and related to your nephew.”

  “But according to the gossips, Armitage has pockets to let,” her mother said.

  “He’s a duke,” Uncle Noah said. “As long as he’s not a gambler, he can get money.”

  Her mother’s voice turned steely. “Then let him get it from Greycourt and not my daughter’s dowry.”

  “My dowry is provided by Grey, Mama. So Armitage would be getting the money from Grey either way.”

  “Yes, but if Armitage uses your dowry to pay his debts, then Greycourt has kept the money in his family and hasn’t had to lay out both a dowry and financial help for his brother. I don’t need to fatten his family’s coffers, do I?”

&n
bsp; Uncle Noah blinked. “That makes no sense. And what do you have against Greycourt, anyway?”

  “He’s Mama’s nemesis,” Vanessa explained with a sigh. “I don’t know which she considers worse—that Grey resisted her attempts to marry him off to me, or that I think of him as the big brother I never had.”

  Mama snorted. “If you’d had a big brother, there would be no problem. Your brother would already have inherited your father’s estate, and we wouldn’t need to rely on my pitiful widow’s portion to live. But since you didn’t have an actual big brother, you should have married Greycourt.”

  “Mama! I didn’t want to marry him, nor did he wish to marry me. Besides, he has been more than kind to us.” Especially considering how her parents had treated him when Vanessa was in her infancy. “Aside from my large dowry, he has paid the rent on our town house so we can remain in London, which is more than generous.” And he’d done it so Vanessa could find a husband. Very kind of him indeed.

  “All the same,” her mother said, “I mean to make sure you don’t marry Armitage. If you marry Lisbourne, who by all reports is rich, you’ll have pin money to spare.”

  Which Mama was undoubtedly hoping to get her hands on through Vanessa.

  “But if you marry Armitage,” her mother went on, “and your dowry goes to the man’s debts, which it will, you won’t have any pin money at all. Indeed, Grey undoubtedly doubled your dowry because he knew he could get it back into his family by arranging for his penniless half brother to marry you.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Vanessa said. “Sheridan—I mean, Armitage—isn’t penniless. Besides, he has no interest in marrying me.” More was the pity.

  Her uncle nudged her. “I thought you were friendly with him.”

  “Not exactly. We know each other, and we’ve shared a few dances, but—”

  Someone nearby shushed them, and they took their seats.

  From the moment of her first dance with Saint Sheridan—she would never get used to calling him Armitage—the dratted fellow had relegated her to the position of pesky little sister, even though he was only twenty-nine years old to her twenty-five. By their third dance, Vanessa had realized she didn’t want to be his pesky little sister. She wanted to be his wife. It was most annoying.

  Why him? He wasn’t her sort at all. Her firmest requirement was that the man have no secrets and be incapable of subterfuge—in other words, be as opposite to her late father as possible. So whom did she fancy? Sheridan, of all people, with his well of quiet that hinted at nothing but secrets. Worse yet, all she ached to do was uncover them, drat him.

  Why was he the only man who made her blood roar and her pulse falter? Was her body that stupid? Because somehow, despite his aloof manner and a typically duke-like reticence she fought to ignore, he gave her goose bumps . . . and then goose bumps on her goose bumps.

  She’d think he was playing some game to catch her, but he didn’t seem to play any games. He certainly didn’t seem to notice her in that way. Or care if she was drawn to him. It maddened her.

  If she could just figure him out, she could prove whether he’d make a reliable husband. It was all she could hope for these days, with Mama going to increasingly desperate lengths to catch her a rich fellow. Vanessa lived in daily fear that her mother might trick her into being caught in a compromising position with the likes of Lord Lisbourne.

  Fortunately, Sheridan wasn’t known to be a debauchee. Unfortunately, after their initial three dances, Sheridan had avoided her. At first, she’d chalked it up to his being in mourning. But mourning had ended for him at the beginning of last season, and still he’d kept her at a distance. Meanwhile, Mama had nearly thrown Vanessa into Lisbourne’s arms half a dozen times. One day she would succeed . . . if Vanessa didn’t find a husband herself before that.

  Her uncle leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “If it’s not Armitage you have your eye on, who is it? Juncker, perhaps, as your mother claims?”

  Oh, dear, this was a dicey conversation. “Mama doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “No? She’s not the first person to say you’re enamored of him.”

  That was her own fault. She cursed the day she’d told Grey she had a tendre for some unnamed poet. She’d said it just to tease him . . . and to keep him from guessing she really had a tendre for Sheridan. Because if he were to tell Sheridan and Sheridan were to disdain her for it, she would die of mortification.

  After that, at Grey’s wedding, Sheridan had asked her, rather condescendingly, about the identity of the poet she was romantically interested in. First, she’d wanted to brain Grey for telling him about her “poet” at all. Then, desperate to think of a poet she might know, and having just read a book of Mr. Juncker’s poetry, she’d told Sheridan it was Mr. Juncker.

  From there, her white lie had run amok with her life. Mr. Juncker had discovered it and had started flirting with her. Grey had learned of it and started teasing her regularly about it, while Thornstock had taken her aside to warn her about Mr. Juncker’s raffish ways. Even Mama had heard and now lectured her frequently about not being taken in by people of Mr. Juncker’s “sort,” whatever that was.

  Out of that, however, had come one distinct advantage. Sheridan had seemed jealous. She couldn’t be certain, since he was mostly as inscrutable as ever. But having him regard her as a grown woman—no matter how infrequently—was better than not having him regard her at all.

  Which prompted the question: Was Sheridan even here tonight? Leaning forward enough to see if he sat in the Armitage family’s box would give Vanessa’s interest away. Then a thought occurred to her. “Mama,” she whispered, “do you have your polemoscope with you?”

  With a nod, her mother drew it from her reticule. But before Vanessa could seize it, her mother asked, “Whom are you using it to observe?”

  After her mother’s diatribe against Sheridan, she dared not say it was him. “The marquess, of course.”

  “Don’t toy with me, girl.” Funny how Mama always assumed other people lied as much as she did. “I know you have your heart set on that playwright, and he is far beneath you.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Taking the polemoscope from her mother, she put it to her eye and leaned forward. Mama had purchased the curiosity after Papa’s death, but Vanessa had never used it.

  Until now. The polemoscope looked exactly like an opera glass or spyglass, which was ironic because it literally allowed one to spy on the people in the boxes to one’s right or left without anyone knowing. She could easily see everyone in the Armitage box.

  Thornstock and Sheridan sat behind their sister, Lady Gwyn, and their mother. The two ladies were clearly chatting, but although his brother chimed in from time to time, Sheridan seemed disengaged from them, cloaked in his usual stoic manner. Like a saint.

  Or a sphinx. A sphinx fit him better, given his impenetrable character. Suddenly he looked over at her, and she started, unnerved by his attention, though she knew he couldn’t tell she was watching him.

  She dropped the polemoscope into her lap.

  “Is he there?” Mama asked.

  “Who?”

  “Your Mr. Juncker.”

  Good Lord, she hadn’t even checked. “Yes,” she said, praying he was. She lifted the polemoscope and scanned the other boxes. And there he was, Mr. Konrad Juncker, the supposed object of her affections. Plenty of women worshipped him for his wild golden hair and his Nordic blue eyes, though he wasn’t really accepted in good society. He dressed like a poet and talked like a playwright. Indeed, at the moment, he was clearly flirting with some lady Vanessa didn’t even know. That was why she would never be enamored of him. He was rumored to be quite the rakehell, resembling her late father too well to suit her.

  Still, she wished she’d never blurted out the words that had set her on the path to pretending to care for him. Because if she seemed to switch her affections to Sheridan at this juncture, Sheridan would think her fickle. Or worse, playing some dee
p game. Which she hadn’t been initially. But as Sir Walter Scott had written, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave / When first we practice to deceive.” Her web grew more tangled by the day.

  She set the polemoscope down. Vanessa had prayed she’d get a chance to speak to Sheridan, but she despaired of that happening. Especially as the play reached the end of the first act, and a quick glance at the Armitage box showed he’d disappeared. No doubt he was flirting with some other—

  “Good evening,” said a smooth-as-brandy voice. “I trust you’re all enjoying the performance?”

  Vanessa’s pulse jumped as Sheridan came around the chairs to lean against the balustrade, facing her and Mama. Sheridan was in her uncle’s box? How unexpected.

  How delicious.

  “We’re liking it as much as one can, given that it’s not new,” Uncle Noah said from his seat behind Mama. “Still, I’ll take an old play by Juncker over a new one by just about any other playwright. He knows how to entertain, I’ll give you that.”

  Only the slight furrowing of Sheridan’s brow told her he wasn’t pleased by the praise of Mr. Juncker. She only wished she could be sure why.

  “Armitage,” Mama said coldly. “I don’t believe you’ve met my brother, Sir Noah Rayner.”

  Given the rude familiarity of Mama’s greeting, Vanessa wouldn’t have blamed Sheridan one whit if he’d left. Fortunately, Uncle Noah glossed over it by rising and coming around Mama’s seat to thrust out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Duke.” His gray eyes twinkled a bit. “I’ve heard so much about you from my sister.”

  “Don’t be silly, Noah,” her mother snapped. “Ignore my brother, if you please, Your Grace. I am not a gossip.”

  What a lie. Mama was both a gossip and a manipulator.

  Her uncle gestured to the seat beside his, the one directly behind Vanessa. “Do join us. My niece was just saying she would love your opinion on the performance.”