His lips tightened even further, before relaxing into what might almost be called a smile. “I would ask the story of your life, but I expect it might take a week or so for you to relate it and we are nearly to Danbury House.”
“Your Grace is incorrect,” she said. “It would take at least a month.”
He laughed then, a short burst of mirth that transformed his shadowed face. His smiles were never grins, but more like secrets he shared. “I wonder, Miss Barrett, if you will not end up being the story of my life.”
With those words, the carriage crossed through the gates. It was late, the dinner hour, but a crowd materialized as they clattered round the front of the manor house. There was her brother at the front, looking red-faced and furious. Stephen yanked open the door the moment the carriage stopped.
“I can hardly believe it, Courtland.” He glared into the coach at the two of them. “And you’ll drive up here to the front door with all the pomp of a bloody king. No, I can’t fathom it at all.”
“This will not be handled publicly,” His Grace said. “If you will meet me in Darlington’s library, we will discuss the situation.”
“Discuss the situation?” Stephen snarled as the duke stepped down. “If you think you can talk your way out of this with your fancy, pompous—”
“Stephen!” Harmony pleaded. “Do not speak to him so. This was all my fault. Let me explain.”
Stephen cursed and leaned into the coach. “Yes, you had better explain, sister. What were you thinking, to run off this way? The gossips have come up with the most vicious names for you, all of them deserved.” She cringed as he raised his hand but it was halted before it could fall by the duke’s rigid grip. Harmony stared as the two men locked eyes.
“I wouldn’t do that,” the duke said in an icy murmur.
Stephen’s mouth fell open. “Oh, that is rich, coming from you.”
The duke’s grip tightened around her brother’s wrist. “We will go talk—privately—before you humiliate Miss Barrett any further.”
Her brother gave her one last aggrieved glare, and then he and the duke were gone, and Lady Darlington reached in to her.
“Oh, my dearest. My darling girl. Whatever has happened?”
Harmony regarded the white-faced matron. This was so uncomfortable, this fall from grace. “I am sorry,” she whispered. “What must I do? If you wish me to leave tonight, I will go at once to pack my things.”
“Leave? Oh, no.” The lady squeezed her hands. “Darlington will clear everyone away and then you must come inside and let me help you. I am so, so sorry, my dear. Everything will be made right, I am sure of it. But what on earth have you done?”
*** *** ***
The entire house reverberated with the thrill of a scandal. It sickened Court, but there was nothing for it.
Lady Darlington had wisely steered Miss Barrett upstairs. Court had enough on his hands dealing with her brother; he couldn’t tolerate female histrionics, not now. Lord Darlington accompanied Court and Mr. Barrett to the library, although he kept a discreet distance from the two men. Tension thickened the air, but Court, for one, was not anxious. Fate had made a comic but inexorable circle. It was in this very room he’d first stumbled upon Miss Harmony Barrett, and in this room that their betrothal would be set.
“Before you cut up at me again,” he said to the red-faced Mr. Barrett, “I will marry your sister. It shall be done before the holidays, in London, in a large, lavish ceremony so there will be no hint of scandal attached to our match.”
“It’s a little late for that.” Her brother approached him, shoulders squared. “How dare you? How dare you abduct my sister?”
“There was no abduction. Are you mad?” He pushed past Barrett and threw himself into a chair by the fire. “As it happens, she wanted to go see the wall.”
“What wall?”
Court glared at him. “The wall she asked you to take her to. Repeatedly.”
“She didn’t ask me to take—” The man stopped. “Well. She went on about some Roman wall but I didn’t have the least idea what she was talking about.”
Court sighed, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other. What he wouldn’t give to have this nonsense over with, and go upstairs for a wash and a fresh change of clothes. Not to mention a bloody drink. “There is an old Roman wall a few hours north of here. Since you wouldn’t take her, your sister decided to go alone and very nearly did.”
“How would she do that?”
“She hired a wagon in town, if you can believe it, and he put her off not halfway there. If I hadn’t come upon her walking the road to Newcastle, who knows where she’d be now.”
The young man paled and started pacing the length of the library. “Stupid girl,” he cried out. “Not a bit of sense. No brain, no anything. She’s always been that way.”
“You speak of my future wife,” Court reminded him in a brittle tone. “The future Duchess of Courtland, who shall outrank you by a fair margin.”
“Well, you ought to know, sir. She is blasted difficult to manage.”
“Is she? I hadn’t noticed.”
The young buck ignored his dry wit, blustering on. “Now she is yours, like it or not. The both of you have been gone all night. You have to marry her.”
“I’ve already said I would. But I would not lay this matter completely at her feet, nor mine.”
His words seemed to shame her brother into some small amount of remorse. Barrett rubbed his ear and sank down in the chair across from him. Seeing enough amity to suit him, Lord Darlington stood and left.
“So…Your Grace…” Court was edified to see the young buck’s manners had returned. “Your Grace, you will not…you will not be cruel to my sister?”
“As I imagine you frequently are? She was terrified to face you.”
Barrett’s gaze flew to his. “I don’t mean to be gruff with her. It’s only that she’s so difficult to control. She’s my responsibility, now that my father’s put his feet up in Hampshire.”
“She’s a woman. They are easily controlled with the right methods.”
“You say that now, but you’ll see. She thinks too much. She’s bookish and headstrong, always yammering away with questions and bumbling about with her head in the clouds, when she isn’t smarting off.”
“Do you want me to marry her or not?” Court interrupted wryly.
“I am only saying—” He seemed to screw up his courage. “I wouldn’t think it right if you resented her for this match. If you treated her badly in your marriage and so on. My sister addles me no end, but I would not wish a life of misery on her.”
Court leaned forward in the chair, working hard to rein in his ire. “A life of misery, Barrett? What an unflattering assumption you make.”
The man did not back down. “It is not an assumption. It is common knowledge why Tremayne’s daughter jilted you. I hear talk from those who know you. I know what you get up to and I don’t like to think of my sister being exposed to that nonsense. She’s crazy, perhaps, but she’s been gently raised.”
Barrett held his furious gaze for long moments, and Court felt an unwilling softening of his feelings toward the wretch.
“If you care for your sister, why did you let this happen?” he asked.
Barrett’s lips tightened and he tugged at his cravat. “I suppose because I’ve always cared more about myself than whatever she wants.”
“Well, you see,” Court said, “I intend to care at least as much about her happiness as I care about my own. So it seems your sister will be better off under my protection than yours.”
“I’m not perfect. I admit it, but you can understand why I have misgivings. I am only warning you—”
“Warning me about what?” Court knew the point Barrett was dancing around, but he enjoyed making the man squirm.
“Don’t abuse my sister,” he burst out. “I haven’t the power and fortune you wield, but if you torment her I will not hesitate to call you out.”
Out of respect for Mr. Barrett’s brotherly bravado, which he believed was motivated by a sense of honor, Court did not smile nor laugh, although he found the idea of Barrett saving his sister from him a rather ironic one.
“I swear on my honor I will never hurt your sister. Will that do? In fact, I cannot imagine any man so weak and soulless that he would stoop to torment a gentle soul such as her.” He saw the barb hit home. Barrett swallowed any further protests or excuses. Court regarded him, pressing his advantage.
“Why won’t you take her to libraries and bookstores if she wishes to read?”
Barrett looked confused. “What?”
“Your sister is an avid student of history. Why do you not support her in her endeavors? Why do you strip her of her books?”
The younger man shrugged. “It’s not natural, a young lady filling her head with such stuff. And we don’t have money for it anyway. Not lately. My father has debts.”
“They are your father’s debts, or your own?”
Barrett bristled. “Well, that’s a rather personal question.”
“So it is.” Court relented. It was poor form to confront a man about money—or lack of it—so instead he spoke generally and deliberately to some point just past Mr. Barrett’s left shoulder. “I think it very wise in general to accrue little debt. At least, to not accrue debt one is not capable of eventually paying. And it would be wise of any man not to expect assistance from some other…source…to finance his own self-indulgent life choices. In fact, I believe it wise for men of your age and stature to settle down to a calm and respectable life. Wouldn’t you say that’s so? Fill the nursery and all that?”
“You’re older than me,” he said morosely. “And I don’t see you with a nursery full.”
That comment came with a mental picture. Miss Barrett…and children. His children in her arms, at her breast. Which led his mind to the begetting of children…
“I take your point, Your Grace,” the gentleman muttered with a regrettable lack of deference to a person so much more distinguished than himself. But Court supposed it must do. He would soon be related by law to this repugnant young man, all because of his recently-developed taste for heroics.
“I will wait to speak with your sister in the morning if it’s all the same to you. She is doubtless tired.” Court frowned at him. “And unless you are of a mind to be exceptionally kind and supportive, I had rather you left her alone too. Lady Darlington has her in hand.”
“But the gossip,” her brother said. “How shall we show our faces?”
Court wasn’t looking forward to mingling with the other guests this evening, but it had to be done. Hiding away would communicate guilt and shame and feed rumors. He rose and stared into the fire. “I cannot speak for you, Barrett, but I shall do as I have always done. Hold my head high like a gentleman and act the part.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple.” Court turned to look at him. “Men behave as men. That’s the way of the world. My world anyway.”
At that couched insult, Barrett stood and prepared to quit his company, but halfway to the door he paused and turned back.
“Man to man, Your Grace—I know I said all those things about not hurting my sister. But I wouldn’t blink too hard should you see fit to give her a good leathering this once, for this stunt she pulled over on you.”
Court’s features hardened as he regarded the brash young man. “If you ever so much as touch your sister in anger again, I promise I shall destroy you, which I am quite capable of doing. Do you understand?” He glowered at him until a “Yes, Your Grace,” mumbled forth, which he answered with a nod of acknowledgement.
“I am glad that’s settled, Mr. Barrett. Now kindly get out of my sight.”
*** *** ***
Lady Darlington and two maids fussed over Harmony as if she were the survivor of some dire tragedy. “Are you certain you are all right?” Lady Darlington looked completely vexed. “He did nothing to…to insult you?”
“Oh, not in the least,” said Harmony. She outlined the main points of their adventure for her hostess, leaving out the humiliating part about the wagon leaving her in the middle of nowhere, and His Grace rescuing her from the moors, although it had been quite dashing and gallant of him. She left out the part about the spanking too, for that was too mortifying to be mentioned. “He was entirely a gentleman,” she finished on a weak note.
Lady Darlington became marginally less agitated, but she still frowned. “I am happy to learn His Grace did not take any liberties with your…your person, but there is still the unfortunate fact that the two of you were together, alone, all night!”
The maids’ eyes widened. Lady Darlington turned and shooed them off, sending them for a dinner tray to be delivered to Miss Barrett’s room.
“You poor thing,” Lady Darlington said, turning back to her. “Your sweet mother couldn’t explain to you. Your father ought to have, at least. Did you not learn from your friends? It is never acceptable for an unwed man and lady to be so long alone in one another’s company.”
“Oh, I know that.” Harmony squeezed her hands together in her lap. “But I wanted to see the Roman wall and he offered to take me. It seemed preferable to walking.”
The woman gaped at her. “Preferable to…walking?”
Harmony paused for a moment. “I understand what is to happen as a result. I know that everyone shall have to cut me now, including you.”
“My dear—”
“But he is a duke and I cannot possibly make demands on such a distinguished person. I am a woman of no consequence compared to him.”
“But he compromised you.”
“He was trying to be kind, Lady Darlington. I can’t reward his kindness by expecting him to marry me.”
Lady Darlington blinked and shook her head. “I don’t know that the choice is yours, my child. Whether he is your social equal or not, the Duke of Courtland compromised you. He is obligated to offer for your hand.”
“We did not do anything inappropriate,” Harmony said. “We did not even stay together at the inn.”
“That doesn’t matter. You traveled with him alone, in a closed carriage, to a town many hours distant. It was not proper. The duke understood that, at any rate. I cannot imagine what he was about.”
“He was being kind,” Harmony repeated. “He went out of his way to help me at great personal inconvenience.” Why must Lady Darlington frown at her so? It was such an embarrassing situation. From what she could fathom, everyone believed they had run off on some secret, libidinous assignation. How crude really, and how ridiculous. She tried to imagine herself and the duke locked in a fervent embrace, doing the lurid things everyone believed they’d done. Not that such an image was unpleasant…it was just beyond belief.
“Do not fret,” Lady Darlington said, patting her hand. “Your brother will insist the Duke of Courtland make things right. I believe His Grace would have anyway. He is not a man known for skirting duty. Even though… Oh, my dear.” Lady Darlington patted her hand again. “He may not be the ideal husband, but he is a duke and he is quite wealthy.”
“There is no need for marriage,” Harmony said, yanking her hand away. “To be honest, I would rather retire from society and live quietly somewhere for the rest of my days.”
“And what of the shame to your family? Your father and brother? And the duke?”
Harmony stiffened. She had not considered his reputation in this matter. “I have made matters very awkward for His Grace, haven’t I?”
“Why do you think the gentlemen retired to the library in such haste? There now, I am certain you shall be redeemed.”
“I don’t want to be redeemed,” said Harmony. “He was only trying to help me.”
“You have no mama to act on your behalf, but I shall do so for you, and tell you that this marriage is a necessity.” The woman nodded as if that settled things. “I know it seems frightening but he is a man of great prestige, and a formida
ble catch. You will realize all this in the morning when your mind is calmer. You just need a warm spot of tea and some rest.”
All of Lady Darlington’s words, all her assurances seemed completely bizarre. “I will explain to my brother that nothing of any romantic nature occurred between us,” Harmony said stubbornly. “I will explain that I don’t wish to saddle His Grace with any expectations. I told him so already, in as many words. Mr. Barrett and I will leave in the morning with many thanks for your kindness.”
There was a tap at the door. Harmony was relieved to see it was only the chambermaid returning with her dinner tray. It would have been terrible for His Grace to arrive in the midst of such a mad conversation. Lady Darlington touched Harmony’s cheek, gazing at her with a great deal of pity.
“It has been a trying day for all of us, my dear. I think…” She clasped her hands before her. “I think it would be best if you kept to your room unless you are called for, until this entire situation has been straightened out.”
“I agree, ma’am. I’m tired anyway.”
“Very good. I hope you will enjoy your dinner and take some rest afterward. Please call for a maid or footman if you need anything at all, or if you need me, dearest.”
Lady Darlington, bless her heart, was about to “dear” and “dearest” her to death even in her disgrace. “I will, ma’am. Thank you.”
With those words the lady swept from the room in a quiet swish of skirts, leaving Harmony alone. She began to laugh, soft chuckles that soon transformed to something more like sobs. Peculiar Harmony Barrett as bride to His Grace. It was too outrageous to imagine, but some small part of her still wished it might be.
But it could not be.
She hoped the duke stood up to her brother and Lord Darlington. She would hate for him to throw away all hope of future happiness only because she’d wished to visit a Roman wall. It was worth it for her, whatever happened, but him…
She had never meant for him to be punished too.
Chapter Eight: Honor
The next morning, Lady Darlington led Court into a little-used drawing room removed from the main area of the house. Muted sun warmed the space, rays of light arcing across patterned chairs and sofas.
Disciplining the Duchess Page 9
