A Duke for Christmas

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  Considering how Mrs. Lemon fainted at the very sound of the word “blood,” Sophie doubted if she could actually use a cleaver on an intruder, even if she did use one on dinner.

  “I’m sure that’s a good idea,” Sophie said reassuringly. “But I’ll have a word with Lord Danesby. Maybe he can have the stable lads guard the house.”

  “It’ll be a bitter cold night, ma’am. I’d better start tea and hot soup. Split pea ‘n’... no, that won’t do. Maybe a nice chicken stew.” She began ticking off ingredients on her fingers.

  Sophie, beginning to grow concerned, went looking for Tremlow. “I can’t find the Ferrara girls. Do you know where they’ve gone to?”

  This time, she had no difficulty reading his feelings. She could tell he didn’t know as soon as she asked. The knowledge that he did not know something about his own household rocked him. “I will find out, madam.”

  Kenton agreed that measures should be taken to secure the house, though he obviously didn’t believe a stolen ham merited so much security. He felt so even less when Mrs. Lindel professed that she’d forgotten that the Ferrara girls had asked permission to go for a walk into the village. “They said they wanted something, but Lucia didn’t seem to know the word for it.”

  Sophie didn’t like to criticize her mother, but no one else spoke. “You let them go alone?”

  “They are not alone. They have each other and Finchley is hardly a sink of iniquity.”

  Sophie admitted the justice of this. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous. So much has happened so quickly, I can’t keep pace with events.”

  “Perhaps you are still accustoming yourself to being at home. Also, you have worked so hard on these poems. Why don’t you lie down for a little? I will bring you a cup of my special herb tea.”

  Not even three years had dimmed her memories of her mother’s “special tea.” She could tell from Kenton’s expression that he had had a dose of it at least once.

  “Actually,” she said hastily, “I think I will finish what I have to do. I’d like this to go to the post tomorrow and I still have the letter to the publishers I must write.”

  But when she was alone, she didn’t immediately take up her pen. She felt restless and out of sorts and had not Maris’s good excuse for these feelings. Focusing on writing praise of her late husband’s work was an activity which engendered no enthusiasm. It required a close and focused examination of her true feelings. If Dominic had been there, she could have used him for a sounding board, however unfair such a role might be for a man who confessed to want her for his wife.

  Sophie tossed down her pen and resolved to go for a walk herself. She could always claim that she went to smooth the Ferrara sisters’ path in Finchley.

  The weather had warmed, despite the breeze that flapped at the skirt of her heaviest dress and Maris’s fur-lined pelisse. Yet the bracingly cold wind seemed to sweep the cobwebs from her brain. She began to walk more quickly, her arms swinging freely. Her mother was wrong. She didn’t need more rest, she needed more exercise, more freedom. And yet, even as she exerted herself, she felt as though someone walked beside her. Not the ghost of her husband, crying at her shoulder, bidding her to remember or to forgive. This shade was taller, kinder, and more joyful. But Sophie refused to look for this phantom. She wanted to walk her own way, not chained anymore to her own betraying wishes.

  Sophie stopped into Mr. Harley’s shop, the only source in Finchley for those thousands of necessities of great use but not valuable enough to be specially ordered from the metropolis. Since Kenton’s marriage, he’d begun to carry a “choicer” line of goods and to wear a cherry-red damask waistcoat, a gold chain stretched across an increasing waistline. The mingled fragrances of spice, toilet water, and apples swept Sophie back to her childhood, when the rare penny would be spent on boiled sweets.

  Mr. Harley came trotting around his counter as Sophie entered. “Miss Sophie! Miss Sophie! Mother,” he called, looking over his shoulder into the back of the shop, “Mother, it’s Miss Sophie!”

  She hadn’t expected such a daughter’s welcome. True, Mr. Harley had traded with her family for years and Mrs. Harley had taught her to knit when no one else had been able to drill the rudiments into her head.

  Mr. Harley seized her gloved hands. “How do you do?”

  “Very well, thank you. I’m very glad to be home. I have missed Finchley very much.”

  “Certainly Finchley has missed you,” he said, beaming like a stout lighthouse.

  Mrs. Harley came out from the rear of the shop, flicking aside the curtain that separated the public and private venues. “There you are. Father and I were just wondering when we’d see you. You weren’t in church.”

  “No, I’m afraid I overslept.”

  “There now, isn’t that just what we said, Father? Young people need their rest. Would you like a cup of tea? I baked yesterday,” she said in the tone of the serpent in the Garden.

  “Thank you, but no. I only came in to ask if you had...”

  “Hungary Water?” Mr. Harley said eagerly. “Florida Water? Essence of Persia?”

  “Nothing, thank you. I came to ask if you had seen two young girls, blond, pretty ... they speak very little English.”

  The Harleys exchanged a glance. “No, not today,” he said. “They came in two days ago to buy some basilicum powder and an ounce of pipe tobacco ... Mr. Tremlow’s kind.”

  “Two days ago?”

  “Didn’t they have permission?” Mrs. Harley said, clicking her tongue chidingly. “They seemed like such nice girls, even though I couldn’t understand hardly a word. They took tea.”

  “No, they didn’t have permission to come to the village. I’m sure no harm was done. They aren’t used to the restrictions of good service.” She paused a moment. “They didn’t come in again today?”

  “No, Miss Sophie. That was the only time I’ve seen them,” Mr. Harley said.

  Mrs. Harley echoed him. Then, as if this were what she’d wanted to say all along, said, “I hope all is well with her la’ship and the dear little one?”

  “Yes, indeed. Maris is recovering nicely and the baby is as sweet as can be.”

  She smiled like the grandmother she was. “The dear little thing. And a boy. This is the best news we could have had. There’s been a Danesby in Finchley since I don’t know when. So lovely to know the line will continue.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Mr. Harley said, nodding like a mandarin. “Excellent for Finchley to know there will always be a Danesby here.”

  They seemed to be taking rather a lot for granted. She could think of a hundred ways in which Danesbys would be gone from Finchley in a month, let alone a hundred years. But if thinking otherwise made them happy, she would not damage their confidence.

  “We are delighted that he is so healthy and strong. His cries could wake the dead.”

  The draper and grocer chuckled. “Now then, that’s what we like to hear,” he said.

  “Bless me, I all but forgot!” Holding her apron in two hands, Mrs. Harley hurried away out of sight behind the curtain. She came back in an instant, a soft package in her hand, white cloth wrapped up with a pale pink ribbon. “This is for the little love with all our remembrances,” she said, pressing it into Sophie’s hand. “Just a little knitted jacket to keep off the cold.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Harley. I know Maris will love it. I must be off.”

  They came to the door to wave good-bye. Sophie didn’t dare show hesitation in choosing a direction. She set off up the street. Glancing behind her, she saw that the Barleys had gone in, though it didn’t mean they weren’t watching her from behind the narrow shop windows. She stepped into the apothecary’s.

  Strangely, no one else in Finchley had ever noticed the two girls. Sophie began to have the feeling that the two Italian maids were a shared hallucination, with herself as the center. Maybe she hadn’t brought them back with her. Horrors, perhaps her family and the Harleys were only humoring her, as one did with peop
le who had strayed from the path of reality. Even she recognized that she’d been behaving rather oddly. Any sane woman would have leaped at the chance to be Duchess of Saltaire.

  Therefore, when she glimpsed another face she knew, she nearly dismissed it as a figment of a disordered mind. What could Clarence Knox want in Finchley? She turned to watch the man enter the Royal Oak and started to cross the street, but two horsemen passed in front of her and she lost sight of the man for a moment. When she reached the inn, she saw the courtyard was empty except for a boy sweeping the yard. “Did a stranger come through the gate just now?”

  “No, ma’am. I haven’t seen a soul ‘cept for you and Mr. Pye, a gentleman come to wet his whistle.”

  “How long ago did he come in?”

  The boy squinted up at the clock above the stableyard. Why, Sophie did not know, as it stopped working twenty years ago. “Must be an hour or so now, ma’am.”

  “Thank you,” she said, fishing a penny from her pocket. “Maybe I am going mad,” she murmured.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Never mind. Thank you.”

  Sophie did not care for mysteries. The world seemed complex enough without people making difficulties. As soon as she returned home, she would ask the Ferrara girls not to go to Finchley without asking. It simply wasn’t wise to disappear like this, especially as they did not know their way very well. If they became lost, they could easily flounder in a snowdrift or be lost in the woods.

  Her first action, however, was to give Maris Mrs. Barley’s gift. Maris sat up on the edge of her bed and unwrapped it and smiled down on the tiny white garment. Lifting it to her cheek, she rubbed it there, enjoying the softness of the wool. “Look at this pattern. It’s so pretty.”

  “You’re lucky. She doesn’t give much of her work away.”

  “Yes, I bought several things at the last church sale. I snatched this pair of pillowcases right from under Mrs. Pike’s hand. She resumed speaking to me, eventually.” Maris ran a finger along the hand-crocheted edge of the pillowcase.

  Sophie smiled. “Tell me, Maris. How did you adjust to this house and this position you hold? You weren’t born to be the mistress of a manor.”

  “Oh, I don’t know ...” Maris put her chin up and looked down her nose. “Give me a lorgnette and a pigeon chest and I will look like every dowager duchess I know.”

  “What about the Dowager Duchess of Saltaire?”

  “I haven’t met her. Dominic says she doesn’t wish to interfere with his pleasures.”

  “What pleasures? He doesn’t seem to enjoy being a duke.”

  “I can understand that. I don’t enjoy being Lady Danesby. What I enjoy is being married to Kenton. The rest—the house, the people who curtsy, the money— that’s enjoyable for a while. Very enjoyable,” she added, with a reminiscent smile. “But none of it would be worth anything if I were married to anyone else.”

  “Still, how did you learn to ...”

  “Order people around?”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s what I mean.”

  “Kenton told me that if I meant what I said every time I spoke to a servant, then I would never have any trouble. I’ve found that to be good advice.”

  “Is it that simple?”

  Maris nodded happily. “I make mistakes, often. Fortunately, the staff here is very understanding. Tremlow, of course, is a treasure.”

  “Would it be wrong to marry a man because he keeps a good valet?” Sophie said, half to her herself.

  If Maris’s eyebrows rose any farther, they would have disappeared in her hair. She opened and closed her mouth two or three times.

  Sophie smiled at her. “Have you received many baby gifts?”

  * * * *

  She asked Tremlow to tell her as soon as the Ferrara girls returned. He promised he would with an air of determination.

  She sat down in the library, pulling a piece of paper toward her. She had every intention of writing a smooth, intelligent, and powerful piece of pleading. It must be a letter that would demand attention. She only wished Dominic were there to write it. Signing something “Duke of Saltaire” commanded both attention and respect.

  The ink in her standish had sunk by half and she’d achieved little but a page that looked more like a sheet of music than a letter. Every paragraph had strong horizontal slashes running through the lines.

  Irritated with herself, she lay down her pen and took up the poetry. Maybe she could find inspiration in Broderick’s work. She’d hardly begun on the first one when a soft, butlerine cough interrupted her.

  “I have them, madam.”

  The two girls still wore their outdoor clothing, close-fitting hats and black capes edged with broad scarlet ribbons. Except for the mark on Angelina’s face, they looked just as they always did, open-eyed and innocent.

  Sophie waved to them, motioning them to come closer. “Thank you, Tremlow.”

  He bowed. “Shall I wait?”

  “There’s no need. I shall explain to them that it isn’t safe for them to wander off like this. They’re good, sensible girls. They will understand.”

  “Very good, madam. I may as well say that their behavior has given rise to a certain sense of resentment among the other female staff.”

  “Yes. I see. Thank you, Tremlow.”

  Angelina had moved over to the writing desk and had begun straightening the desktop, shuffling the papers together, wiping the pen, and brushing a little spilled sand into her hand. The smile on her lips lent her a certain beauty. She seemed utterly contented to be doing this work. When Sophie spoke to her, she grew solemn, glancing often at her sister.

  Looking at them, seeing them so honest, Sophie felt a great reluctance to question them about the missing ham. Though she strove for tact, for a moment she wasn’t sure if Angelina would explode in anger. Lucia took her sister’s hand, calming her. She said that they were both ignorant as to the ham’s fate.

  Sophie passed quickly on to her other subject. They both seemed to understand Sophie’s difficulty when she explained it. They promised faithfully not to stray from the grounds without asking leave. She reminded them that she had only the status of guest in her sister’s house. The first duty of a guest was not to alarm her hosts with avoidable difficulties. Soon, they would retire to her mother’s house and new arrangements might be made, such as an extra afternoon off per week.

  Lucia denied that they required so much liberty. There simply wasn’t enough work here to keep them occupied as fully as they would like. The staff was “molto rapido”—so quick, in fact, that no sooner did something need to be done than it was done. They did enjoy working on the Christmas decorations, but so many hands made very light work.

  Sophie assured them that there would soon be plenty to do. In the meantime, she promised to ask if there were any special tasks that needed doing—a pre-spring cleaning, as it were. She couldn’t blame the girls for seeking more occupation. As it was, she longed for some small but satisfying work, some task that could be completed in an afternoon. She wanted to step back from a freshly painted wall or a well-sewn seam and announce that she had accomplished this.

  In the meantime, however, she had a letter to write ... again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “We shouldn’t put off visiting our friends any longer,” Mrs. Lindel said early on Thursday morning. “I’m sure they must be wondering what we are hiding.”

  “Hiding?” Sophie looked up from her breakfast. “What could we be hiding?”

  “Knowing our friends, anything from disfiguration to murder. I only hope Miss Bowles has been able to finish one of your day dresses, though I suppose your gown for tomorrow evening was more important. We shall stop by to check on her progress.”

  “Thank heaven for the custom of not allowing a new mother out in public until she has been churched,” Maris said, with a laughing glance at her husband. “They are welcome to gossip about me as much as they choose.”

  “As if they could,” Kenton replied
gallantly.

  “Believe me, they can. But listen, I haven’t been entirely idle while lying in bed. I have a surprise for, you, Sophie.” With something of her old lightness and quickness of movement, Maris left the table, leading her sister out by the hand.

  When Sophie came down again, she wore a modish carriage dress of rich blue poplin, a deep flounce of blond lace drawing attention to her feet, matched by the collar of lace at her throat. It fit her to perfection, as did the deeper blue Levantine pelisse that she wore thrown open.

  If the fit were not exact, with a pelisse it did not matter so much. Sophie paused on the bottom step, posed as if for her portrait, the large muff she’d borrowed before hanging from her hand.

  Maris, watching from above, clapped her hands at the expressions on her mother’s and husband’s faces. “Isn’t that your very best bonnet?” Kenton asked.

  “Yes, darling. You bought it for me.”

  The deep brim of the dark blue hat was lined in cream satin and came forward like blinkers over Sophie’s cheeks. Three curling plumes in three shades of blue, the lightest one larger than the other two, gave her the appearance of impressive height.

  “I like it on her, very much,” he said consideringly. From up above, a slipper struck his shoulder, followed by a giggle. With a grin, he stooped and picked up the small black shoe. “Pardon me, ladies. Enjoy your drive.”

  Two at a time, he raced up the stairs, laughing. A small shriek was followed by the sound of kisses.

  Sophie and Mrs. Lindel sighed indulgently. “You do look magnificent,” her mother said.

  “I feel magnificent, but am afraid I look as though I am playing dress-up in my big sister’s clothes. It’s true enough.”

  “On the contrary, you look as though you’ve always worn such things.”

  “I suppose, muff and all, I must be wearing thirty guineas on my back.”

  “Nearer seventy, my love. Kenton will have everything of the best.”

  “Seventy?” Sophie paused, glancing up as she debated changing into her own clothes. “I trust I won’t spill anything.”