by Karen Ranney
Right now his bearing was as stiff as it had been this afternoon. His shoulders were straight and rigid beneath his black suit, almost as if a board was strapped to his back. His right leg was stretched out before him. Near one perfectly polished shoe was the end of the walking stick he was using. His hand was clasped around the top, so tightly Susan could see his white knuckles.
He hadn’t smiled since Josephine had appeared a few minutes earlier, greeting him with a high-pitched—and strangely annoying—laugh.
Reese Burthren was much more personable, addressing himself to Susan with a distinctive charm before greeting Josephine.
Susan had the feeling Jordan was pretending Josephine wasn’t sitting opposite him attired in one of her new gowns, this one a dark green to set off her lovely eyes.
Josephine was difficult to ignore when she was attempting to be charming. The girl had a way about her, especially around men. She made the butcher stutter and the gardeners blush. Nor were the footmen exempt. Many times she watched the hunger in a man’s gaze as he followed her granddaughter’s walk across a room.
Jordan was proving to be an exception, however. Josephine might as well be one of the upholstered footstools.
Amy entered the room, giving the duke a perfectly executed curtsy. She could always depend on Amy for being proper.
Where was Martha? They couldn’t go into dinner until she appeared.
“Begging your pardon, Your Grace,” Amy said before turning to her. “Miss Martha sends her apologies, ma’am. She says she’ll be here as soon as possible.”
“Where is she, Amy?”
“In her room, ma’am, but she’s just returned from the cottage.”
Before she could say anything further, Josephine leaned toward Jordan.
“You truly don’t wish to see her when she’s been playing in the water, Jordan,” Josephine said. “She smells of fish and her face is sunburned. Martha cares nothing for female pursuits.”
Josephine added a charming laugh to her description of her sister, but it didn’t make her criticism any less caustic.
She really did need to talk to the girl. Regardless of whether she was soon to be a duchess, she should show some loyalty to family members.
Before she could decide what, exactly, to do—either to go in to dinner without Martha or convince the others to wait longer—her granddaughter appeared in the doorway.
Josephine was right in one instance. Martha’s face was red from the sun. Her hair was also curling around her face. There was an expression in her soft brown eyes Susan couldn’t read, but she didn’t have the chance to ponder anything before Martha spoke.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had every intention of being here immediately, but I needed to expel some of the Goldfish’s air. I’d fueled her for a test earlier, you see.”
“No one is interested, Martha,” Josephine said, interrupting her with a soft laugh.
Josephine stood, went to stand beside the chair on which Reese was sitting. He would escort her into the dining room while the duke would see Susan to her chair.
She didn’t have a good feeling about this dinner, especially since Josephine was being insensitive. Martha had subsided to a hurt silence. The duke was being taciturn, while Reese was obviously compensating for everyone’s bad behavior.
Susan almost turned around and went back upstairs.
“Do you like the Queen’s Rooms?” Josephine asked.
“It’s a magnificent suite,” Jordan said.
Martha stole a look at the duke. She’d always thought the Queen’s Rooms were like being inside an abattoir. There was just too much crimson fabric used in the suite.
Crimson was also one of Josephine’s favorite colors. Perhaps she should warn the duke not to allow her sister to redecorate any of the rooms in Sedgebrook.
“The suite is reserved for the queen normally,” Josephine continued. “Of course, the queen has only been here once, but we’re prepared just in case.”
“Then I feel doubly honored, and I promise to vacate the premises if Her Majesty does come calling.”
Josephine’s trilling laughter would have been truly charming had Martha been in a mood to appreciate it.
She’d wanted to take a tray in her room, but she’d been forced to attend this dinner in the formal dining room because Gran’s orders were never disobeyed. Besides, she’d always been lectured that she was a York and Yorks are studiously polite.
Very well, she would be polite even though she wanted to be anywhere but here. Any other place in the known world would have been better than sitting at the long mahogany table and watching as Josephine tried to charm both Reese and Jordan.
Jordan hadn’t smiled once since approaching the table. He’d been gracious to everyone, but he’d focused his attention on the meal as if he was a man who’d never before seen lobster bisque, roast beef, or the other courses being served.
His one recent contribution to the conversation was to comment on the china pattern, saying it was similar to one at Sedgebrook his mother had preferred.
That statement led to Josephine asking, “Has your mother been dead for a great many years?”
Martha caught Gran’s wince out of the corner of her eye. In her new role as duchess, Josephine was going to have to be more tactful and phrase her questions in a kinder way.
“Yes,” Jordan said. He didn’t elaborate, which was a clue to anyone that he had no interest in speaking about his mother.
“How terrible for you,” Josephine said. “I don’t know what I would do without Maman. She is so charming and sophisticated as well as well traveled. She would be here now, but she much prefers France.”
Jordan only nodded, leaving Reese to say something complimentary about the French.
Martha glanced at her grandmother. There was every possibility Marie would not return for her daughter’s wedding. Gran gave a slight shake of her head, a sign that she either hadn’t heard back from Marie or her stepmother had, indeed, conveyed she wouldn’t be able to make it back in time for the ceremony.
However, it was difficult to muster any compassion for Josephine, given her actions in acquiring the duke as a husband.
Most of the conversation related to the wedding ceremony to be held in a matter of days. The village church was going to be beautifully decorated. A choir comprised of village children would welcome the wedding guests. The ceremony would be officiated by the bishop, not their usual minister. Josephine had insisted on it since she was marrying a duke.
Notices had been sent throughout the two nearby villages. Every single villager was invited to Griffin House for a reception to honor the bride and groom.
They were expecting a few hundred people at least, which was why the kitchen staff had been increased and everyone was industriously working. Martha couldn’t walk from her sitting room to the library without smelling something delicious like Cook’s meat pies or the chocolate biscuits she loved.
She’d already decided that she would make the obligatory appearance at the wedding, school her face into a quasi-happy expression, then attend the reception for a few moments. She’d stroll through the lawn, or under the tent if the weather became inclement, say hello to those people she knew before spending the rest of the day in her room. Above all, she didn’t want to have to say farewell to Josephine and her new husband. She didn’t want to have to wave as the ducal carriage stopped at the crest of the hill. She didn’t want to imagine Josephine and Jordan arriving at Sedgebrook and having their wedding night.
Dear God, anything but that.
Would Jordan take his elixir? Would he somehow know the woman in his arms was not the same one who’d been there weeks ago?
Did he ever think back to that night? Of course, it had been a momentous night for her while it had only been a drunken dream to him.
The three of them—Gran, Reese, and Josephine—kept the conversation going. Did they even notice she and Jordan didn’t say more than a word or two?
She really didn’t want to be here and felt almost as petulant as a child. Perhaps she would invent a fever, something to keep her in her room until after the wedding. Illness wouldn’t be far off from what she truly felt.
Thunder suddenly rumbled overhead. Martha looked up at the ceiling. When she was a little girl, she’d thought thunder was God’s way of demonstrating his anger. Evidently, she and God were in the same mood tonight.
She really didn’t want to talk about ribbon and fabric and song selections and trays of biscuits. Everyone knew Josephine’s wedding and reception would be lavish despite the short notice. All the shopkeepers from here to London had been pressed into service. They’d hired dozens of extra servants. Heaven knows what they’d spent.
She just wanted it all to stop.
“I think I’ve discovered what my father did,” she said when Josephine took a breath.
There, that stopped the talk of the wedding. The two men turned to look at her. Jordan even put his fork down, his attention on her.
Josephine started to say something, but it was Gran who lifted her hand to silence her. Surprisingly, her sister subsided into a pout.
“I think it has to do with the rudder,” Martha said, and explained in more detail.
Jordan nodded thoughtfully while Reese looked on.
“Have you tested it yet?” Jordan asked.
She shook her head. “No, not yet, but if it’s a fair day tomorrow I will.”
“I absolutely refuse,” Josephine said, ignoring Gran’s look. “Must we have talk about that silly ship at the dinner table?”
There was so much wrong with her comment that Martha was silenced. That silly ship was the reason their father had died. That silly ship was of great interest to the man she was going to marry in a matter of days.
Standing, Martha forced a smile to her face. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said.
Without a glance toward her grandmother, she left the dining room, making her way back upstairs. Until the wedding, she was going to eat in her room, regardless of the York reputation for politeness.
Chapter 27
Martha hadn’t been able to sleep well. Part of it was the knowledge that Jordan was beneath Griffin House’s roof.
He was as handsome as he’d been weeks ago. She wanted to stare at him at dinner, mark the changes in the past few weeks. He looked tired. Did regret strip him of his sleep? Now she couldn’t stop herself from recalling everything she noticed from her quick glances: how his hair was longer and how much easier he seemed to move. Was his leg improving?
Finally, when the sky was light, she rose, but didn’t ring for her maid. Instead, she dressed in one of her oldest dresses, something suitable to her intentions for the day.
She wasn’t trying to impress anyone. Jordan wouldn’t be stunned by her beauty or silenced in admiration of her grace and poise. She was only herself, Martha York, and this morning she was going to prove her father’s invention worked.
Jordan had the strangest sensation he’d been here before, seated in a large library on the other side of a desk presided over by an officious-looking gentleman.
The man was not unlike the Hamilton family solicitor. He had bushy muttonchop sideburns, a whitish-gray head of hair, and an air of competency. The only thing he didn’t have was a funereal expression. That’s because, no doubt, he was accustomed to smoothing the way for copious amounts of York money to be transmitted to various places and personages.
Jordan’s solicitor had presided over one thing: the announcement of the deplorable state of the Hamilton funds.
He was hard-pressed to keep his face from betraying his astonishment. Although he’d known the York women were, by anyone’s standards, heiresses, he had no idea it put them among the richest women in not only England, but the Commonwealth. Josephine could spend outrageous sums of money every day and not make a dent in her principal.
The fact that he was made privy to this information wasn’t surprising, but the presence of Josephine and her grandmother was.
Also slightly astonishing, given that he’d thought he’d have to go to Josephine for funds for Sedgebrook’s upkeep, he was informed his house now had an allowance, of sorts. So did he. The bulk of Josephine’s inheritance was placed in a trust for her to use, with twenty percent of it held over for their children.
He suspected the allowance was an addition from Susan York, since it freed him from having to ask Josephine for money. In the same fashion, he could spend the funds for Sedgebrook as he saw fit—to repair the roof or work on the chapel altar or a dozen things worrying him. In addition, the funds would be renewed every year.
In other words, he would never have to worry about money as long as he lived.
He should have been overjoyed.
He should have had a sense of liberation.
Instead, a small voice whispered to him that nothing ever came without a price. Josephine was the price. Perfumed, pampered, flirtatious, and coy, she was to be the Duchess of Roth and from the moment in the church she would carry the title to either the Hamilton glory or their eternal shame.
After signing where he was told, he sat back in the chair and looked at Susan.
He suspected she’d lectured Josephine sternly and, for the time being, it had made an impression. He’d never seen the woman behaving so demurely. Nor had Josephine ever been as silent.
Martha was nowhere in sight, but then she wouldn’t be. The arrangements for him to sell himself had been made among those most involved. Susan as matriarch. Mr. Donohue as financial matchmaker, and the bride and purchased groom.
“You said something about Matthew’s cottage. Would it be possible to see it?”
Did Mrs. York know how desperately he wanted to be out of this room? How much he needed air at the moment? She stood and smiled at him, offering him a lifeline if she only knew.
He grabbed his walking stick and stood.
“I’ll have one of the footmen show you the way,” she said, opening the door and motioning a tall young man inside the room.
His request had evidently made Josephine angry, because when she looked up at him her smile thinned. Josephine had a honed kind of beauty, aquiline features, pointed chin, and a mouth thinner than Martha’s. She could easily go to mean: the eyes narrowed, the lips turned down in constant disapproval. With the years her jawline would probably become even sharper, her nose longer.
“I’m not going to the cottage, Jordan. Besides, it’s not a short distance. Are you sure you can manage it?”
He pushed down the comment he normally would have made, nodded to the solicitor, managed a smile for Mrs. York, and left the room as quickly as he could.
Behind him, Josephine said something. Jordan deliberately blocked out her voice.
Martha fueled the Goldfish, the process taking nearly two hours. Biting back her impatience, she remembered her father’s words: “Most important things in life take a bit of time, Martha.”
She’d never spoken to him after his death, but she did now, addressing her soft words to his spirit.
“I’m going to do it, Father,” she said. “I’m going to prove that you made it work.”
She wound a long wire around the retaining hook then wrapped the excess into a circle, carrying it with the Goldfish to the dock.
Once at the end of the dock, Martha slowly dropped to her knees and gently lowered the vessel into the water. The ship’s nose bumped to the surface before settling.
She waved to Sam, one of the stableboys who was manning the rowboat that was acting as the target this morning. He often helped her, being eager to learn and more than willing to exchange his duties in the stables for piloting the boat.
She raised her arm then lowered it, a signal she was ready to begin. Her shoulders tightened.
Her father had died for this. He’d been exultant in those final hours, overjoyed that his vision had been accomplished, the task of his later years done. If she could recreate the moment it would be like fulfilling a promi
se to him.
She felt almost as if he was standing there, his spirit blessing her as she unwound the wire. If the Goldfish sank she would still be able to retrieve it.
Had Jordan started using a leash for his vessel, too?
No, she was not going to think of Jordan right now, but it was difficult. He’d featured in so many of her father’s discussions. Now he was here, at Griffin House.
He was going to marry Josephine.
He’d never known she’d been in his bed.
She was not going to think of him. Instead, her thoughts should be focused on what she was doing.
If the changes she made to the guidance system worked, the Goldfish would reach the rowboat. In an armament test, the nose would be filled with explosives, but only after she’d proved the vessel design was both seaworthy and accurate.
The Goldfish bobbed in the water, buoyant and eager. Stretching out on the dock on her stomach, she reached into the water and placed her hand on the rounded hull of the ship. After saying a quick and fervent prayer, she turned the lever midpoint on the ship.
Air bubbles exploded on the surface as the Goldfish took off, racing beneath the water. A few seconds later she lost sight of the ship as the wire tightened.
Where was it?
She rose to her feet, brushing off her skirt. No air bubbles were visible between the dock and the rowboat. Either the Goldfish had sunk or it had gone off in another direction.
She’d been wrong. The changes to the guidance system hadn’t worked. The disappointment was sharp and painful. Blinking back her tears, she began to pull on the wire to retrieve the vessel. Only then did she hear Sam’s screaming.
“Miss Martha! Miss Martha!”
He was nearly overturning the boat by leaning over the side. Any caution she might have shouted to him was silenced when he retrieved the Goldfish and stood, his face split by a wide smile.
She’d been right. She’d been right. No, her father had been right. The Goldfish had made the journey from the dock to the target as straight as an arrow. It had dived deeper than she’d planned, but it had made it.
