A Duchess a Day

by Charis Michaels

“Lady Helena,” he began. He let out a weary breath. “You do not know me. You’ve not met my father. What if he is . . . he is terrible? What if my sisters are—”

  “If they are, or if the forest does not suit them, then I will sell a piece of my grandmother’s jewelry and give you the money.”

  “This is outrageous,” he said.

  “This is a trade,” she said, circling back. Perhaps he would be more open if he saw the offer as a barter. “You help me in a few small ways—namely not reporting my scheme to Girdleston—and I shall provide for your family when I am restored to my home.”

  “Why can you not simply marry this rich git chosen by your parents? Then I will earn my money serving as your groom and provide for my family myself. Can you not do what is expected of you, Helena?”

  “Oh, like you have done?” she asked.

  “What exactly do you mean by that?”

  “You’re meant to guard me, spy on me, run me down,” she said. “And yet you haven’t even tried. I’ve revealed myself to you. I’ve made you complicit in several outrageous ways. And yet I am still . . . unchecked.”

  “I’m riding in your carriage to keep you from bolting out the door.”

  “Are you?” She glanced at the door.

  “Don’t you dare.”

  She went on. “At least I know why you’ve been hired. You’ve just admitted it.”

  “I admitted nothing.”

  He was quiet for a moment, studying her face. She worried that the terms of the trade made it sound like a choice between something he did not want to do and abandoning his family. This was no choice at all. The truth was, she wanted to provide for his family, even if he would not help her. She knew this as well as she knew her own desire for the future. She wanted to help. Of course, it would be far easier to help if she could escape Lusk herself.

  She reached out finally, and touched him. Two hands clutching one of his.

  “It would give me great pleasure to welcome your father and sisters to Castle Wood. Have you been to Somerset?”

  “Yes.” A vague whisper.

  “Well then, you know. It’s paradise.”

  He closed his eyes and turned his face away, a man torn.

  She spoke to his profile. “Something has motivated me to fight this wedding for five years, to make a fool of myself and risk safety and sanity. It has not, I assure you, been my freedom alone. It has been to protect this forest and the orchard and the families who have lived in Castle Wood for generations. I would not have gone to such lengths if I was not protecting something wonderful.” She held up her palms, fingers open, as if she delivered the truth to him in handfuls.

  Declan said stonily, “It’s more complicated than that. Lady Helena—”

  “Very well,” she said, dropping her hands. “I understand. You cannot help me. You will not allow me to try to help you. Stop the carriage, then. We are at an impasse. Take the list to Girdleston so that I may revise my pla—”

  She was cut off by a jolt from the road. The fragile contents of the vehicle clattered like a china shop under cannon fire and Helena was pitched from her seat. One moment she’d been on the bench, the next she was launched into the air. She landed with an “Oof” against a wall of wet muscle.

  Shaw caught her with lightning reflexes. “I’ve got you,” he said.

  Helena went rigid, every fiber of her body attuned to the sudden closeness. For a long beat, she said nothing. She held herself upright and still, waiting for him to deposit her on the opposite seat. She waited for irritation or disgust. She waited for him to touch her.

  Slowly, breath held, she glanced up. She blinked, licking her bottom lip. She would thank him, she thought. She would say, I beg your pardon, and slink away. She would tell him again to hand her over to Girdleston. She would—

  She raised her lashes to look at him. The words were on the tip of her tongue. Their eyes met.

  Shaw made a growling noise and descended on her mouth with a kiss. Helena barely had time to suck in a breath before he pulled her close. They fell into the embrace like a stone dropped into a swirling stream. The carriage, the entourage, the world, were a torrent around them, and they sank and sank.

  There were no words. No are you comfortable or damn these wet clothes. He ravished her with his mouth. He crushed her against him like he wanted to absorb her. The smell of rain and wind pervaded the carriage. Unsettled gifts tipped against them. The wheels bounced over uneven cobblestones, jostling them blissfully closer. Helena wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held on.

  She’d done her duty at the party, she’d gotten her names, she’d offered his family sanctuary, but she was so very tired of duty and families and talking. What she really wanted was this.

  When he pulled back to breathe, he panted, “I cannot give you over to Girdleston. I’ve tried, but I cannot.”

  She nodded, breathing hard. She grabbed his tunic in desperate hands. “I will not bolt,” she told him. “It is imperative that I do as they wish until the very last moment. And then it will be the duke’s choosing. You will get your payment.”

  “This is madness,” he said, claiming her mouth again.

  She shifted, climbing to her knees in his lap, scrambling to get closer. His hands went to her waist, steadying her. She hovered above him, hands on his shoulders, her hair falling around them in wet clumps.

  “Come back,” he begged, pulling her down.

  She endeavored to slide her legs around his waist, but her dress was tangled and the fabric was wet, and she toppled back to his lap, laughing.

  “But no more of this,” he said, scraping his emerging beard across her cheek. “No more.”

  Her laughter continued and he said against her ear, “This will get you into trouble from which I cannot protect you.”

  “I don’t need protecting,” she gasped, digging her hands into his hair.

  “If I help you, we must be meticulously careful. We cannot mishandle it. No matter our . . . our . . .”

  She claimed his mouth again. “We will not mishandle it,” she panted. “We will be professional. And mindful. We will get your family to Castle Wood. We will beat this . . .”

  “Go,” he said, but he pulled her closer. “Stay back.”

  “Yes,” she said against his mouth.

  “Honestly, Lady Helena,” he mumbled, nibbling her mouth with repeated brisk, pecking kisses. “Go.” He cupped the back of her head with his palm and tipped her, reclining her across his lap. He buried his face in her neck.

  “I’m going,” she moaned, on fire with pleasure.

  Only when they heard a shout outside the carriage, when the vehicle slowed, when she heard the barking of her father’s wolfhounds, did Helena have the presence of mind to pull away.

  They both dropped their heads and breathed in. He held her loosely with one hand and secured the door handle with the other. She blinked at the ceiling, panting, willing the world to slide back into focus.

  Slowly, she began to disentangle from Shaw. When she was steady, he fell against the opposite seat, his arms stretched wide like a brawler against the ropes. Helena picked her way back to her bench. Her mind returned in surges. She yanked her dress into place and tied back her hair. With shaking hands, she smoothed the redness from her face.

  “You should follow my lead,” she directed. She sifted through the packages on the seat, took up a silver teapot, and held it in her lap.

  “Wait,” he said, “do you mean you are in charge?”

  “What? Well, yes.”

  He shook his head. “Let’s be perfectly clear. This is a collaboration. Half and half. I’m risking the future of four people.” He shoved his wet hat on his head and worked his fingers into his gloves. “We decide together.”

  “I was the mastermind of the plan from the start. I thought of it, and I’m seeing it through,” she said. “Collaboration should honor that.”

  “Lady Helena,” he said lowly, a warning.

  “Shaw,” sh
e said, mimicking.

  She was just about to tell him that she would entertain suggestions, when the door to the carriage whipped open.

  Shaw shot her a look she could not decipher and jumped out.

  Lady Helena closed her eyes. She patted her bodice, feeling around for the folded parchment. She took a deep breath. She was capable and motivated and prepared. She had not planned for a—what had he called it?—“collaboration,” and certainly not with a man she almost trusted and urgently desired. But nothing about Declan Shaw frightened or stifled her. Nothing about Declan Shaw suffocated. Nothing else mattered.

  She could do this.

  You can have both. For a time. For now.

  You’ll sort it out.

  “My lady,” said Shaw, his voice supplicant and detached. His servant’s voice. She looked up. His gloved hand extended into the carriage, palm up, ready to hand her out into the street.

  Helena clutched the teapot and went.

  Chapter Ten

  “You summoned me, my lady?”

  Two days later, Declan stood in the doorway to the Lusk House armory, his hat in his hands.

  “Ah, yes, there you are, Shaw,” said Lady Helena, not looking up. She was leaning over a glass case, studying a map. “You received my note, then? My schedule and our plan?”

  Our plan? Declan thought, his temper rising. Our. Plan.

  For two days, he’d been stewing over the notion of “our plan.”

  She’d described the next steps in a sealed letter delivered by a stable boy; the notion of “our plan” a resounding battle cry on nearly every page. The muscles in Declan’s neck constricted every time he read it. He’d been so annoyed, in fact, he’d balled up the parchment and pitched it in the fire. The paper burned for five seconds before he’d scrambled to retrieve it.

  And now here he was, reporting.

  What a fitting metaphor for the last two days.

  To his surprise, Lady Helena had departed the wet carriage after the party with a totally new regard. Strict heiress-groom protocol had, apparently, become the order of the day. Icy detachment, no eye contact, words only to issue an order.

  Fetch this.

  Yes, my lady.

  Hold that.

  Yes, my lady.

  Declan had been given little choice but to bend and stoop and respond to her myriad whims. Her sidelong glances had stopped. Knowing looks and moments alone were no more. There were only orders about heavy trunks and forgotten parcels and walking her father’s dogs. She was a young heiress and he was a stable groom.

  And now she would not even look at him?

  No.

  His voice was as hard as steel. “I do not recall our formulation of a plan.” He put his hands on his hips and cocked his head. “You and I.”

  And now she finally looked up. Despite her new detachment, his reaction to her face was unchanged. Always. Every time. His breath caught, his heart seized, and the broken thing in his chest lost another piece.

  She’d worn pale green today, the color of a caterpillar. Sun streamed through a window, reflecting light off the blackness of her hair.

  Declan had taken up the useless habit of cataloging what she wore: the spring greens and ruby reds and pearlescent whites. Her canary-yellow cape. The black gloves. It was an intimacy he allowed himself because—

  Well, actually, he deserved no intimacy.

  What he deserved was to return to jail.

  He’d been hired to contain her, and he’d kissed her within hours and began conspiring with her the next day.

  Jail seemed more and more like an inevitability.

  The night after Girdleston had locked him in the wet carriage with Helena, the old man had summoned him to his favorite room in Lusk House, the green salon. While Declan watched, Girdleston curated his prized collection of miniature cottages, buildings, and trees, a tiny toylike village arranged on a large table like a general’s model battle. While he formed little walkways with a tiny rake, he’d asked Declan about Lady Helena’s demeanor in the carriage.

  It was the report and reckoning Declan had known would come. And what had he said?

  “She was petulant and weepy but compliant. Sir.”

  If he thought it would pain him to lie, he was wrong. The words rolled off his tongue like a song.

  Girdleston had been pleased, but he punctuated the visit with an explicit reminder that the payout and his freedom would be waiting for Declan only at the end of a job well done.

  Today he stared at the subject of the job—a job at which he would fail. “Perhaps my notes outlined more of my idea for our plan?” Helena said carefully. “But the schedule is set in stone. These will be my errands for the week. Or rather, my mother’s errands on which I will be dragged along. She never wavers once she’s decided. Changes interrupt her wardrobe.”

  Declan considered this, trying to make sense of her expression, which had gone soft for the first time in two days. Her voice was light and familiar. She couldn’t know this, but he loathed fickleness, loathed it even more than flat-out betrayal. One of the many things about the army that had suited him had been the very straightforward nature of a command.

  “I have your notes,” he said flatly, reaching into his pocket for the charred parchment.

  Lady Helena’s “plan” involved her sneaking from Lusk House every afternoon. She would track down the potential duchesses on the streets of London after her schedule of morning errands with her mother. Declan’s role was to arrange mounts or hail hackneys, give advice about the route, and mind the horses.

  Everything hinged on her mother’s need for a daily afternoon nap.

  Doubtless, she’d laid out only an abbreviated version, but Declan had seen enough to know her “plan” was shortsighted, high risk, and doomed to fail. She would be easily found out, hauled back, and burdened with tighter security. Declan would return to prison. His father would die an early death in the heartless chaos of London.

  If she would not reconsider the plan—and her behavior of the last two days suggested she would not—Declan would be given no choice but to renege on their agreement.

  Declan kicked his leg back, closing the door with his boot.

  “Oh,” piped Helena, raising up.

  “Oh,” he repeated. He stalked to her. “Hello. Remember me?”

  “What? Of course I remem—”

  “I thought we were collaborating.”

  “We are collaborating.”

  “No. A note telling me what I will do is not a collaboration. It is you ordering me about. I must be consulted. From the beginning. There is too much at stake to mishandle this.”

  “Well, look who is now keenly interested in not mishandling this,” she said. “Previously I had to beg you to stand in the garden and take down a few names.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  “The notion of stealing away from this house every afternoon is improbable and dangerous,” he lectured. “Perhaps you could manage it once or twice, but not seven times.”

  “Alright,” she said, and his brain misfired. He’d not expected her to agree.

  He cleared his throat. “Do you have the list of potential duchesses from Lady Canning’s party?”

  “You need only ask.” She slid a piece of parchment across the glass case.

  He stared at her, suspicious of some duplicity or conceit. Her expression was open and bright. She looked interested. She looked so beautiful his heart lurched.

  “If I remember correctly,” he said, dropping her schedule beside the list, “these women can be found at known locales around the city. The errands and social calls on your mother’s schedule are, likewise, scattered about town. Why not engineer some sort of encounter with as many as possible while we are out? If we are shrewd and crafty,” he added, “and if your family and Lusk continue to ignore you. If a miracle occurs, this may work.”

  Slowly, Helena began to bob her head. “So we would scout the girls while we are on morning calls?”

 
“In theory—yes. Look, tomorrow you are meant to be in New Bond Street for a fitting. This girl . . .” he pointed to the duchess list, “. . . is said to frequent New Bond to shop nearly every day. This one . . .” he pointed down the list, “. . . goes to the country market in Wandsworth for medicinal herbs. You are scheduled to visit Lusk’s farm in Wandsworth, not a mile from the market, on Tuesday. And on and on it goes. At least four of their known haunts align with your business in town. The others, we can improvise while your mother naps. A ride in Hyde Park would opportune this one.” He pointed again. “These two you can approach at this Winter Solstice ball.”

  She made a face. “I was hoping to decline the Winter Solstice ball. It’s a masquerade.”

  “If you can encounter these girls as a matter of course, you’ll lower the risk of discovery. They’ll be less confused when you turn up.” He glanced at her. “It’s a very long shot. We will need incredible luck on our side. But—”

  “I love it.” She beamed at him.

  And just like that, Declan felt his fight drain away.

  “Aren’t you clever,” she went on, studying the notes more closely.

  He forced his brain and mouth to work. “Right. So, tomorrow. The fitting in New Bond Street.” He pointed at the map. “If your discoveries about these women can be believed, this girl . . . Lady Genevieve . . . would consider no other street for her compulsive shopping.”

  “Yes! Lady Genevieve,” Helena enthused, rounding the case to stand beside him and peer at the map. The closeness conjured the smell of clean air and apple tarts. His vision blurred. He squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Have you worked out what you will say when you approach these women?”

  She nodded, the satin bow at the base of her neck sliding up and down her shoulders. Declan fought the urge to reach out and give it a gentle tug.

  “I’ll need to revise it now,” she mused. “I am working on several renditions. I am not so hopeful as to think every girl is appropriate for Lusk. If they look all wrong, I’ll not approach them. If they seem alarmed or put off by my vague suggestions, I’ll retreat. I’ll only move in if the girl has real potential. And, in the end, I’ll invite the best candidates to meet the duke at Girdleston’s birthday party next week.”