No Other Duke Will Do (Windham Brides)

by Grace Burrowes

  As a small boy, Griffin had had frequent tantrums. Then his disposition had calmed as his studies had progressed. Julian had breathed a sigh of relief, telling himself Griffin had acquired what maturity one of his nature could.

  Marged Pryce’s meddling was an aberration, a rough patch Julian ought to have foreseen.

  “I’ve explained this to you, Griffin. In London, nobody speaks Welsh. You could not order a pint at the tavern or ask directions.”

  “You could do those things for me. You go to London all the time. Glenys goes to London. Abner went once, when he was a boy. I’m not a boy.”

  Oh, yes, you are. “We are very far afield from the topic of your misadventure, Griffin. You owe me, Biddy, Radnor, and Abner an apology for making us worry.”

  Griffin was on the path beside Julian one moment, and up in the branches of an oak the next. He’d grabbed onto the limb that hung over the path and swung upward in one lithe arc. For all his intellectual limitations, Griffin was strong, fit, and hale.

  Seizures notwithstanding.

  “What about the lady, Julian? Should I apologize to her?”

  “I will not address myself to a tree.”

  “I talk to the trees all the time. They don’t think I’m stupid.”

  Nothing for it. Julian climbed into the tree, though with far less grace than Griffin had.

  “You were thoughtless, Griffin, and that’s not like you. You’re usually kind, but to go off and leave us to wonder if you’d turned your ankle, taken a fall, or been bitten by an adder was inconsiderate.”

  Mention of the snake dimmed the grin Julian’s clambering into the tree had inspired. “I don’t like serpents. I don’t understand how they move without legs. You said they are shy.”

  “On summer evenings, they like to go out for rambles too, and right next to you would have been a nice, warm place to take a nap.”

  Griffin looked entirely at home lounging on a branch, his back propped against the trunk. “Then I’ll climb the wishing oak, next time.”

  “There won’t be a next time, Griffin. You must give me your word on that. No more rambling until all hours. You come home when it’s dark.”

  “You don’t come home when it’s dark. You were out with that lady, looking for me, and it was well past sunset.”

  Time to fire off the fraternal artillery. “I am disappointed in you.”

  “You said that already. Radnor walked me home, when I never get lost.”

  Julian watched the water babble by beneath the tree. This was a peaceful spot, probably one of dozens Griffin knew that Julian had walked by for years. Griffin’s mood was unrepentant, which was most unusual for him.

  “Radnor is a good friend,” Julian said.

  Griffin twisted off a leaf and cast it down to the river, to be immediately carried away. “Radnor said Charity is learning her letters.”

  Damn Radnor, though he’d probably been making conversation as best one could with Griffin. “She thrives in his care.”

  “Is she learning English letters?”

  The question was oh so diffidently offered, but it explained everything about Griffin’s mood.

  “Welsh and English use the same letters, Griffin, though each language puts them together to make different sounds.”

  Griffin pushed his hair out of his eyes, perfectly capable of balancing on the branch without using his hands.

  “So I already know all the English letters?”

  That pleased him. “You do, while Charity is just beginning her study of them.”

  Griffin skewered Julian with a direct look. “Will she be smart, Julian, or will she be like me?”

  In Griffin’s gaze was as much pride, determination, and self-awareness as Julian had seen in the eyes of any duke. That gaze demanded honesty, when whatever answer Julian gave would likely hurt Griffin’s feelings.

  “She appears to be quite bright. She’s learning her letters at the same age Glenys did.”

  Griffin closed his eyes and hunched up his shoulders, his face transfigured by joy. “Glenys is wicked smart.”

  “She seems to think so.”

  “I want to visit Charity. I want her to show me her letters.”

  A normal longing. Julian wished he could spend more time with the girl himself. “After the house party, I’ll take you to Radnor’s for a visit, but you must promise you’ll not wander about the hillside after dark again, Griffin.”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” Griffin said, swinging to the ground as nimbly as a monkey, “but there are forty-two coaches behind the carriage house. I counted them twice, and then I fell asleep. If each coach had two people inside, that would have been eighty-four people. Do you have eighty-four guests, Julian?”

  Julian’s descent was more decorous, also somewhat reluctant. Long, long ago, he’d napped in the occasional tree.

  “It feels like eighty-four hundred. I can’t keep their names straight, and they eat like a regiment of dragoons and drink like sailors on shore leave. Thank God, most of the people who came in those carriages are not guests, but maids, footmen, valets, and grooms.”

  “All those people cost a lot of money to feed, don’t they?”

  Why couldn’t Glenys grasp what Griffin saw easily? “A fortune. You’re not to worry over it.”

  “I’ll have my Biddy send you some bread.”

  Julian slung an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “That is very generous of you, but let’s not put Biddy to any extra trouble. She has her hands full looking after you and Abner.”

  “Who was the lady, Julian? You held her hand.”

  Oh, that lady. “I was being gentlemanly, ensuring she didn’t take a fall on an unfamiliar path.” And for once, I’d forgotten to worry that a woman would get ideas about becoming my duchess.

  Holding hands with a pretty houseguest hadn’t been part of Julian’s plans, but it hadn’t upset his plans either. Not enough to trouble over.

  He and Griffin ambled in the direction of Griffin’s cottage, when Julian would rather have walked another mile or two along the river. He hadn’t spent much time with his brother lately, which was an attempt to respect the independence of Griffin’s household.

  And perhaps, just a little neglectful on Julian’s part.

  “But what was the lady’s name, Julian?”

  “Miss Windham. She’s a friend of Glenys’s.”

  Griffin gave him a hard shove, which nearly sent him into the river. “You don’t hold hands with Glenys’s other friends. Does Miss Windham make your tallywags ache?” Griffin’s smile was sly, masculine, and naughty.

  “You and your damned tallywags,” Julian countered, shoving back. “Gentlemen don’t ask such questions.”

  “I’m your brother. My tallywags ache every time I see Nan Pritchard, down at the Boar and Barrel. She’s almost as pretty as Biddy.”

  Marged Pryce had been pretty. Nan Pritchard could be trusted, however, and Biddy’s perceived beauty was likely a result of her abilities in the kitchen.

  “You know what to do about aching tallywags, Griffin.” He’d figured out the joys of self-gratification by himself, St. David blood running true when it came to animal spirits. Learning to keep such behaviors and discussion of them private had taken the better part of several years.

  “Does Miss Windham make your—”

  Julian shoved him again. “Hush. Apologize to Biddy for worrying her last night, and to Radnor.”

  “I could write a note to Radnor. I could write a note to Charity too.”

  “You have a beautiful hand.” Griffin could copy anything, including Julian’s copperplate script. “I’m sure a note would suffice.”

  “I’ll write Radnor a note. And Charity.”

  That exercise would take the remainder of the day at least. Griffin was a perfectionist when it came to his penmanship.

  “I’m off, then,” Julian said as they approached the cottage.

  “Give Miss Windham my love.”

  “I’l
l do no such thing, you scamp.”

  Griffin accompanied Julian to the barn to fetch his horse, just as a polite host would with a caller. Nothing would serve but Julian must also have his hand shaken, and then be given a stout hug and a kiss to the cheek before he was allowed to mount up on Rhodri.

  “Visit again soon,” Griffin said. “If you send a card, I’ll have Biddy make tea and shortbread.”

  “Next time, I’ll send a card,” Julian said, saluting with his riding crop. “Biddy’s shortbread is not to be missed.”

  “And bring Miss Windham!” Griffin called as Julian sent Rhodri cantering down the drive.

  Oh, right. Bring Miss Windham, and introduce her to the ducal heir, who would sharpen eight quills before he began to write a short note. Who would spout off about his aching tallywags before any company, and who spoke barely twelve words of English.

  And yet, Julian wished he could introduce Elizabeth Windham to Griffin. She would be kind without being condescending. She’d brook no nonsense, and even in her rebukes, she’d charm and soothe.

  And damned if the woman didn’t, indeed, make Julian’s tallywags ache.

  Chapter Six

  “The targets are set up, the prizes arranged,” Radnor said. “The servants are putting out the punch bowls on the terrace, and the outdoor staff has been warned to stay away from the west park for the duration of the afternoon. What else might I do for you, Lady Glenys?”

  He’d like to kiss her silly, which would probably get him escorted from the property on the business end of her fowling piece.

  She put down her pen. “I’m forgetting something. I know I’m forgetting something.”

  Lady Glenys was forgetting how to laugh, how to enjoy herself. This chamber in the south turret was her private parlor, despite looking like an estate office. She kept lists and ledgers, much like the duke did, and the furniture was a hodgepodge of castoffs that should have been relegated to the attics.

  Her ladyship claimed the sofa, chairs, and chaise had sentimental value, but what each piece truly possessed were scratches, faded upholstery, and worn cushions.

  “I told Abner not to let Griffin ramble on the hill today,” Radnor said. “One never knows where a stray arrow might land.”

  Particularly an arrow shot by that master of mischief, Cupid.

  Lady Glenys shifted from the escritoire to her mother’s rocking chair. “I’ve been neglecting my younger brother. Not well done of me. I had to learn about last night’s escapade from the undercook, who heard it from the boot boy, who got it from one of the stable lads, who visited with Abner while bringing in the yearlings after a night at grass.”

  From long acquaintance, Radnor did not wait to be invited to sit. “Griffin came to no harm, my lady. Haverford will lecture him sternly, Biddy and Abner will keep a closer eye on him, and the incident will soon be forgotten.”

  Lady Glenys closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the rocker. “Griffin never forgets anything. Never, never, never.”

  “While you’re certain you’ve overlooked some vital detail. Shall I order you a pot of tea?”

  She treated him to a hazel-eyed glower. “Don’t presume to cosset me.”

  “Somebody must. This is your first house party, and keeping the whole business organized is more complicated than you realized.”

  Her glower faded to a pensive frown. “I hadn’t grasped the cost. Haverford will kill me.”

  “I’ll call him out if he’s the least bit ungentlemanly toward you, and His Grace makes a sizeable target. Send to Radnor for what you need, be it wine, extra stable hands, parlor maids, or kitchen help. I have more than I need, and you’d do the same for me.”

  Haverford might kill Radnor outright—Code Duello be damned—for that presumption, but the staff at the castle would be run ragged over the next three weeks if something wasn’t done to augment their ranks.

  “I like you better when you’re being obnoxiously witty, Cedric.”

  “No, love. You dislike me better when I’m being obnoxiously witty.”

  He’d almost made her smile.

  “Order me a pot of tea and some biscuits on your way out, your lordship. I’m so busy being charming and gracious at meals, I’m not eating enough.”

  Radnor would tear a strip from Haverford’s ducal consequence for leaving his sister to fret like this.

  “The house party is off to a wonderful start, and the gods of weather are smiling on your archery tournament. As long as the sun shines and the breeze remains soft—”

  “The weather,” she said, pushing to her feet. “I have nothing planned if the weather should turn fickle, which is all the weather does in Wales. Between the sea and mountains—what am I to do if it rains, Radnor? I know it will rain. It always rains here when nobody needs rain. I’d forgotten about the rain.”

  She’d forgotten about him. Radnor caught up with her on her second circuit of the room.

  “If it rains, then we will enjoy an impromptu musicale. I’m always good for a Welsh ballad or two, and the Windham sisters come from a musical family. Delphine and Hugh can play a duet at the pianoforte, and Haverford still has a guitar around here somewhere.”

  Glenys studied him, and Radnor braced himself for the first compliment from her in years. A musicale was a brilliant suggestion, if he did say so himself.

  “You look tired, Cedric. Have you been getting enough sleep?”

  He’d been going very much short of bedsport—for years. “I confess I was up past my bedtime last night. I saw Griffin home, and then walked back to the castle by the lanes. The moon was lovely.” And I should have been sharing it with you.

  “The moon was too bright. I couldn’t sleep.”

  Radnor hadn’t been this close to Glenys in ages, and her lemon verbena perfume ambushed him. The urge to take her in his arms and kiss the daylights out of her was a physical yearning beyond the merely sexual.

  Protectiveness and affection colored Radnor’s sentiments, as well as plain old possessiveness.

  And yet, Glenys was tired. Behind the usual hauteur in the angle of her chin and the relentless dignity of her bearing, she was tired and overwhelmed.

  “Take a nap,” he said. “I’ll explain to Haverford that you’re seeing to the last-minute preparations for the tournament, and he and I will manage at luncheon. I’ll warn him to tune his guitar, and I’ll have a word with the Windham sisters. Sir Nigel has a fine baritone, and I can accompany him if the tournament must be postponed due to weather.”

  Glenys freed a fold of his cravat from his waistcoat, a single finger’s worth of familiarity that made Radnor’s heart beat erratically.

  “I cannot take a nap, you gudgeon. I should have prepared two scavenger hunts. One for indoors, one for outdoors, and somebody must make copies of the lists of items to retrieve.”

  A knock sounded on the door. Radnor answered it, and accepted the luncheon tray from a startled maid.

  “I took the liberty,” he said, setting the tray on the sideboard. “I’ll also have a maid fetch you in ninety minutes, leaving you time for a short respite. There are sandwiches on this tray, and you will please partake of them. I’m happy to copy lists, shoot arrows, or flirt with Lady Pembroke, but Glenys, you must not try to do all of this by yourself.”

  She crossed to the sideboard and peered at the tray. “I have dozens of servants to help me, Haverford is being the perfect host, and—these are ham and cheese sandwiches on rye bread. I adore rye bread, but you know that.” She sniffed the bread, much as Griffin might have, then took a bite. “Away with you, Cedric, and if you let me sleep through my own archery tournament, I will never forgive you.”

  Just don’t forget me. “I have my orders. Your servant, my dear.”

  Radnor kissed the hand that wasn’t holding a sandwich and withdrew, only to find the Duke of Haverford coming up the corridor.

  “Is Glenys hiding in there?”

  “She’s planning your wedding to Miss Windham. It only l
ooks like she’s fretting over an archery tournament, a riding party, a musicale, two scavenger hunts, a country dance, a regiment of feuding housemaids, and your errant brother.”

  Haverford regarded the door to Glenys’s sanctum sanctorum as if it were inscribed with the warning, Hic sunt dracones. A single dragoness, rather.

  “Please spare Miss Windham your jests, Radnor. She has good cause to loathe all bachelors. Lady Glenys can make no such claim. Were you canoodling with my sister?”

  How I wish. “If I had attempted the smallest gesture in the direction of canoodling with Lady Glenys in her present mood, you’d be measuring me for a shroud.”

  Haverford retreated across the corridor, and took a wilting rose from a vase on the windowsill. He wrestled the window open, tossed the flower to the garden below, then closed the latch with more squeaking and scraping of old metal.

  “I sought my sister out to suggest she steal a nap during luncheon. I can certainly preside over a midday meal without Glenys. I do fear this gathering constitutes biting off more than her ladyship can chew.”

  “And you,” Radnor said, taking Haverford by the elbow before some guest caught His Grace impersonating a footman, “who can be a pontificating, humorless prig, are tempted to leave her hoist on her own petard, because the poor darling failed to adequately plan, schedule, and budget for this gathering.”

  Haverford twisted free of his grasp. “Have I given offense, Cedric?”

  Why was everybody determined to use familiar address today? “You have not. Lady Glenys’s foul humor is contagious. Let us prepare to be charming at the luncheon table while her ladyship puts the finishing touches on the afternoon’s diversion. You will ignore my ill-chosen remarks.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “Like you, I intended merely to suggest. Shall we have a bout of fisticuffs here in the corridor or cry friends and shake hands?”

  Haverford glanced up and down the corridor, then leaned closer. “A bout of fisticuffs might be just the thing. Griffin has developed a tendresse for Nan Pritchard.”