Least Likely to Marry a Duke

by Louise Allen

  The oldest, Althea, she recalled, said, ‘Oh, yes, there are six of us. I am sixteen, Araminta and Basil here are twins and they are fourteen, then Alicia is thirteen, Bertrand is ten and Benjamin is nine.’

  ‘And you live with your brother and your mama? I would like to meet her, but I am sure she does not feel like visits just at the moment. I was so grieved to hear about your poor father and, of course, your grandfather.’

  ‘We didn’t know the old Duke. He and Mama and Papa did not get on,’ Basil confided. ‘We live with William now and Mama lives in the Dower House because William is our guardian and he says we are little savages and need civilising and Mama considers civilisation stunts natural creativity. We miss Papa and Mama is sad. But Will doesn’t care, he just makes us learn the stupidest things, like arithmetic and Latin. And we have to behave. All the time,’ he added darkly.

  ‘We have to learn deportment and sewing and the use of the globes,’ Araminta added. ‘The girls, that is. The boys don’t have to sew or balance books on their heads.’

  That did not sound too tyrannical—a typical aristocratic education, in fact. ‘Arithmetic is very useful,’ Verity offered. ‘It will help you manage your allowances, for example, and make sure you are not cheated in shops.’

  That appeared to strike home with the girls, but Basil seemed unconvinced. ‘There is lots of money. Too much to worry about. And Mama and Papa never made us do anything we didn’t want to. Mama says mourning is an outdated convention intended to oppress women and that we should be sad about Papa just how we want and not go about draped in black. She would like you to visit, I’m sure.’ He grimaced. ‘I think mourning is meant to oppress boys as well. Papa wouldn’t want us not to enjoy ourselves. It doesn’t mean we don’t miss him, because we do.’

  ‘It is only right and natural that you miss our father.’ The deep voice behind her made Verity jump. ‘But society has its conventions which are part of what makes us civilised. And you want to be civilised, do you not?’

  ‘Yes, William,’ three voices chorused. The three faces looked unconvinced.

  He is turning them into little puppets, Verity thought, studying the young people’s expressions. ‘Would you like to go out into the gardens?’

  They jumped to their feet, earning a hiss of displeasure from behind her. Verity stood, too, and turned to face the Duke. He towered over her. Too close, too large and too sure of himself.

  ‘Such a lovely afternoon, don’t you think, Your Grace?’

  ‘Delightful,’ he agreed smoothly. ‘And I would very much enjoy seeing the gardens.’

  I did not mean you, too. Stay in here and be pompous. But she could hardly say that.

  ‘This way.’ She led them to the glazed doors opening on to the terrace and, of course, he got there first to open them for her. His cologne was a subdued hint of Spanish leather. Very masculine and restrained. How appropriate.

  ‘Thank you so much.’

  The Old Palace had once been a fifteenth-century fortified house with four wings which made a square around a large inner courtyard. As the country became less unsettled under Henry VII, the Bishop at the time had demolished one wing, opening the courtyard out to the south and leaving a U-shaped building. Under Henry VIII, the scars of the demolition were disguised by two fanciful towers at each end of the U and finally, under James I, a garden was created where the courtyard had been.

  Now, in the sunny May weather, the early roses were coming into flower, bees buzzed in what would soon be billows of lavender and rosemary and water trickled from the central fountain.

  ‘This is delightful. The colours are most harmonious.’

  Finally, she thought. Something you approve of.

  ‘Yes, is it not charming? It is generally regarded as a most romantic garden.’

  ‘Romantic.’ He sounded as though he had never heard the word before. ‘I was thinking that it was well planned.’

  Verity shot him an exasperated look, stumbled on the top step and was caught around the waist and set firmly on her feet again before she could blink. The Duke removed his hands, leaving the impression of size, warmth and strength.

  ‘Thank you.’ It was most disconcerting, that easy physicality with that very restrained behaviour. Disturbing, somehow...

  The youngsters had vanished down one of the pathways. The Duke turned from frowning over that as Mr Hoskins helped her father to his seat just outside the doors.

  ‘My lord would be delighted if you would care to explore the garden, Your Grace,’ Mr Hoskins said.

  Her father was regarding her with a particularly bland expression that aroused Verity’s suspicions. What are you up to, Papa?

  Then she saw his gaze was flickering from her to the Duke and back and understood.

  Oh, no, Papa. We have had the conversation about matchmaking before—and the fact that this one is a duke makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

  But he was a guest and common courtesy must be observed at all costs. ‘Do allow me to show you the fountain, Your Grace. It was created to a design of my late mother’s, although she never saw it completed.’

  He offered his arm as was proper and she placed her fingertips on it as they began to stroll along the central path. Was it simply the fact that he was a duke that created this strange aura of power that he carried with him? Or was it just that he was a tall, broad-shouldered man approaching his prime? Or perhaps it was simply this ridiculous awareness she had of him, a potent combination of physical attraction and dislike.

  Her friend Melissa Taverner would doubtless say it was because Verity was suppressing her natural animal instincts and she should indulge in some flirtation, or even kissing, in order to give them free rein. But then Melissa would probably find the Duke’s stepmother a sister spirit, with equally advanced notions about ‘natural’ behaviour. Verity did not want to revert to nature. She had given in to those instincts once before—and discovered them seriously flawed—and now she simply wanted to have control over every aspect of her own life.

  As they approached the central pool she chatted brightly about plants and garden design without receiving any response beyond polite murmurs. Then the Duke said, abruptly, ‘Did you lose your mother recently, Miss Wingate?’

  ‘When I was ten. It was a short illness of a few months. She was gone almost before anyone realised how serious it was.’ There was something about the quality of his silence that prompted her to add, ‘You were young when you lost your own mother, I believe?’

  ‘I was nine. Eighteen years ago. I hardly knew her.’ Perhaps he thought that sounded harsh because he added, ‘Do you recall your mother clearly?’

  ‘I remember her face—but that is easy, her portrait hangs in the dining room. I can recall her voice—it was gentle and sweet. I do not think I ever heard her raise it. Her hands were soft.’ Verity caught herself before her voice wobbled. ‘She was very pious and a very...traditional wife, I think.’

  Not very intelligent, I suspect. No intellectual to match Papa. But a good woman. One who was loved. One who created a happy home.

  ‘Are you pious and traditional, Miss Wingate?’

  Startled, she glanced up, and caught a flicker of something unexpected in the heavy blue gaze. Amusement? Warmth? Sarcasm, probably. ‘Pious? I hope I am a faithful churchwoman, but I lay no claim to piety. You know already that I am not traditional, Your Grace. But as I am not married, who knows whether I would be such a wife as my mother was.’

  They had reached the fountain and she moved away from him to sit on the stone rim of the pool. She trailed her hand in the cool water and waited until the fish rose, as they always did, to nibble hopefully at her fingers. In the distance the laughter and calls from the young people told her that they had found the maze and over that happy sound drifted the first rippling bars of a piano sonata.

  ‘Who is the pianist? They are ver
y skilled.’ The Duke propped his cane against the stone and stood beside her, too much on his dignity, she supposed, to perch on the fountain rim and risk the spray. He looked up and his gaze sharpened on the eastern tower.

  ‘She is a friend of mine. There is no pianoforte in her house and so she uses mine to practise.’ The others would be up there, too, in the Demoiselles’ Tower as Mr Hoskins, with one of his unexpected flights of fancy, called her private turret. Lucy playing; Melissa, fingers inky, working on her latest novel; Prue with her nose in a Greek grammar; and Jane painting the view, or her friends at work. The door at the top of the decorative external stairway that encircled the tower was firmly closed, thank goodness.

  ‘That is very generous of you. Your friend makes good use of the opportunity.’ He paused so long that Verity looked up to see him frowning in the direction of the catcalls and laughter. ‘Excuse me if I am jumping to conclusions, but if the fact that she does not own her own pianoforte means that her financial circumstances are a trifle restricted, might she be interested in teaching my sisters?’

  There was no pianoforte in Lucy’s home because her parents, who could perfectly well have afforded one in every room, considered music, other than church music, to be decadent and probably sinful. Most things were sinful, according to Mr and Mrs Lambert, especially anything that gave pleasure. Verity sometimes wondered how Lucy and her four brothers were ever conceived. Miserably, probably. She had learned to play at school, from which she had been removed when her parents discovered that three of the pupils were the illegitimate daughters of an earl. When they realised that Lucy had been practising on the old piano in the church vestry she had bruises on the palms of her hands for days and now they had no idea she was still playing.

  ‘I am afraid not. It is not lack of funds, it is her mama’s sensitivity to any loud noise that prevents Lucy from playing at home.’ Loud sounds including laughter. ‘It is a good pianoforte, but I am an indifferent player, so I am delighted that she puts it to such good use.’

  ‘No doubt you are proficient at other musical instruments. The harp, perhaps? Or you sing, I have no doubt.’ The question seemed automatic, as though he took it for granted that she was merely being coy.

  ‘No, I play no musical instruments, Your Grace, and my singing is of the kind better heard at a distance.’

  Like bagpipes—ideally with several intervening glens.

  ‘You are too modest, I am sure, Miss Wingate.’ He was still frowning in the direction of the maze, she noted. And finding it impossible to believe that I do not have the full set of desirable ladylike attributes. The Duke’s opinion of her must be sinking lower with every discovery about her true nature. Excellent. I will seem so very ineligible that he will not even recognise Papa’s hopes of throwing us together.

  ‘I do not indulge in false modesty, Your Grace. I am aware of my strengths and abilities and quite clear about my weaknesses.’ That earned her a very penetrating look. Perhaps young ladies were not supposed to discuss weaknesses. Now that she thought of it, there was a possible double entendre there. Or was she sensitive about it because her worst weakness had most definitely not been the kind of thing one discussed in polite society? ‘Shall we walk to the maze and see whether your sisters and brother have discovered the way to its heart?’

  ‘Most certainly.’ He offered his arm again as she stood, the frown lines between his brows relaxing as they moved to a safer topic. ‘Is it a complex pattern?’

  ‘Very, Your Grace.’ It was quite trying, being so comprehensively disapproved of. How difficult for him, but, of course, he could not ignore the attention due to a bishop living in the neighbourhood. Verity found a bland smile from somewhere. ‘The summer house in the centre is very charming, but it rarely receives visitors, the maze is so devious.’ She did not look up at her tower as they passed it. She doubted very much if her friends had interrupted their work to come to the windows, but they might have been distracted by the children and she had no desire to explain her ‘reading circle’ to the Duke if he saw a collection of female faces looking down at him.

  ‘And here is the entrance. It is a very ancient maze, Tudor, my father believes, judging by the thick trunks of the yews in the hedges. I can hear the young people and it does not sound as though they have reached the centre yet.’

  ‘One can normally hear them all too clearly, Miss Wingate,’ the Duke said drily. But there was a hint of affection there, a touch of amusement in the deep voice, and Verity felt a sudden, unwilling, twinge of liking.

  He does love them after all, she thought. Perhaps there is a warm heart under that starchy exterior, even if it is only for his badly behaved siblings.

  ‘Their mama believes in a very liberal approach to child-rearing, I understand?’

  ‘“Each child, if left to his or her own devices and not bound by the chains of convention and artificial disciplines, will unfurl as a perfect flower.” That is a direct quote, Miss Wingate. I have yet to discover what bloom Basil is destined to be. A bramble, perhaps. Or deadly nightshade.’

  ‘I am sure the theory is well meant,’ Verity ventured.

  Of all the dangerous ideas! Children need security and boundaries and an education that will open their eyes to the delights of the world, as well as preparing them for its pains and duties.

  ‘Now that, Miss Wingate, is damning with faint praise.’ This time the amusement was plain to hear.

  Goodness. The man has a sense of humour. How unexpected. And how admirable that he can smile about the task he has before him. ‘I agree that it is wrong to suppress joy in a child, or to warp their natural character. The knack, I suppose, is to allow the flowers to continue blooming, but to ensure they are fitted for the soil in which they must continue to grow,’ she suggested. ‘If I might stretch the horticultural simile somewhat.’

  ‘Exactly that, Miss Wingate. I have three sisters and three brothers. The girls must make good marriages and the boys must find occupation suited to their rank and talents. They cannot simply run wild their entire lives. We will get there, I am certain, but to be quite frank with you, it will be an uphill road.’

  ‘Basil, you beast! You said you could find the centre easily and now we are lost and you have no idea at all how to get out and we will starve in here and our bleached bones will be found in a hundred years!’ The shrill voice came from just behind the nearest stretch of yew hedge.

  The Duke sighed. ‘It seems I have a long way to go yet.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘Lady Araminta,’ Verity called. ‘Stay where you are, keep talking and your brother and I will come and find you.’ She lowered her voice and smiled up at the Duke, suddenly at ease with him. ‘I assume Lady Araminta enjoys Gothic novels.’

  ‘Apparently, yes. I must speak to her governess about that. Bleached bones, indeed.’ Was it her imagination or was there the smallest hint of a smile on those severe lips?

  And I really ought to stop finding excuses to study his mouth. Looks are not everything. Looks are no way to judge anyone. And he means to censor innocent, if fanciful, novels, just because she is a girl.

  ‘Here is the entrance.’ She led the Duke under the arch of yew and into the shadows of the maze. She knew the way to reach the centre, but where had Araminta got to?

  ‘It is very gloomy in here.’ The voice was still close. Araminta had clearly calmed down somewhat and now she was beginning to sound peevish.

  Second left—it looks wider, it would have attracted her. Now right and right again and—

  ‘There you are, Lady Araminta. Now, follow me and we will soon be at the centre.’

  The girl beamed at her. ‘Thank you! Will, do you know the key to the maze?’

  ‘No. I am relying upon Miss Wingate, otherwise I would be as lost as you are.’

  ‘I thought you knew everything.’ The wicked look she slanted her brother made Verity want to laugh. The
girl had nice, natural manners and a sense of humour that was attractive.

  ‘All mazes are different,’ the Duke said. ‘I know that much about them.’

  They had regained the entrance and now Verity could count in her head. First, then second, then third, then second, then fourth, then fifth...

  ‘Help!’ That was Althea. They saw her the moment she spoke, standing with her back to them. ‘Oh, there you are.’ She turned as her sister called her name and fell in behind them with a sigh of relief. ‘Basil, the little wretch, has found the centre. He has been mocking me for five minutes at least.’

  ‘He’ll be sorry,’ Araminta assured her.

  And four, then five, then six.

  ‘Here we are.’ They stepped out into a sunlit circle with a tiny thatched building in its centre.

  Basil was perched on a bench on the miniature veranda, swinging his legs. ‘What took you so long?’

  His sisters regarded him with loathing. ‘How did you get here so fast?’ Althea demanded.

  ‘Look at his knees. He crawled through the bottom of the hedges,’ his twin said. ‘You beast, that’s cheating.’

  ‘I got here first, that’s what counts,’ Basil said with a smirk. ‘I used my intelligence.’

  ‘And you appear to have ruined a pair of perfectly good pantaloons in the process,’ the Duke said sharply. ‘Besides abandoning your sisters and failing to stand up when ladies appear. The cost of the trousers will be taken from your allowance. You may now apologise to Miss Wingate for your poor manners and will escort your sisters safely back out of the maze by the conventional paths.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Wingate. But I don’t know the way out.’ Basil was on his feet now, brushing ineffectually at his knees.