by Louise Allen
‘Bishop Wingate and I were having a private conversation,’ Will said, injecting all his grandfather’s froideur into his voice. He did not rise and he did not offer seats, but all four sat down regardless.
The Bishop smiled, a sad and patronising expression that implied that he, the older man, knew best. Will felt his hackles rise and hung on to his temper, somehow. Losing it in front of Bishop Wingate was not going to convince the man that Will was rational and meant only the best by his daughter.
‘But of course you do not comprehend the seriousness of the situation, Your Grace.’ Mr Alderton pressed on, despite the reception he was receiving. ‘A private settlement of the matter is impossible, given how many people know that you have spent the night with Miss Wingate.’
‘Who knows?’
‘Why, naturally, we had to widen the search with dusk falling. Your staff seemed reluctant to take the initiative, so I dispatched messages to the village to send out search parties.’
‘You did what?’ Will found himself on his feet, hands planted on the desk, glaring at the affronted Bishop.
‘How could you, my lord?’ The door was still open, he realised, and Verity was standing there looking like an enraged, drab sparrow in a brown gown and with her hair braided into a tight coronet. ‘If I was with the Duke I was, by definition, quite safe, even if...if temporarily lost,’ she said. He had seen her lose her temper, but never her poise. Even after that kiss by the pond her voice had been steady.
‘Miss Wingate, you are not yourself or you would not speak in that wild manner,’ the Bishop said, in the tone of a man used to dealing with female hysteria.
He probably encountered it a great deal, Will thought. Any rational woman patronised by this pompous prelate would resort to the vapours.
‘Calm yourself, dear lady. You must see that, for all we knew, you had been set upon by ruffians, the Duke killed or injured, yourself carried off.’
‘Poppycock,’ Verity retorted. ‘This man?’ She made a sweeping hand gesture towards Will. ‘Overcome by ruffians on his own land?’
Well, that was unexpected, Will thought, dragged out of his haze of anger by the compliments.
‘No ruffian would dare to do anything so inappropriate as to threaten the Duke of Aylsham on his own grounds,’ she swept on, her voice steadying now that her indignation was undammed.
Ah, not such a compliment then. At least he had not misjudged Verity. She did, after all, have the tongue of a scorpion. The Bishop was apparently unable to recognise sarcasm when he heard it. He merely shook his head sorrowfully. Will wondered what the penalties were for punching a bishop. Excommunication? It seemed increasingly tempting.
‘The question is, not whether rousing the neighbourhood was necessary, for we have gone beyond that now,’ Mr Hoskins interjected as Bishop Wingate’s hands moved urgently. ‘The question is, how may we mitigate the damage that has been done?’
‘By marriage! There is no other possible course of action if we are to save the good name of this dear young lady.’
There was a chorus of, ‘Indeed,’ and solemn head-nodding from the Bishop’s staff.
‘I stand ready to marry the couple and I will, naturally, provide a licence. We must consider whether, in view of the circumstances, an application should be made to the Archbishop for a Special Licence. What is your opinion, Brother Wingate? The disappearance of His Grace and Miss Wingate may be truthfully presented as the result of an ill-judged boating trip just before the storm. There is no need to mention the foolish jest the young people carried out that led to this.’ He sat back, looking satisfied with his solution.
And he is delighted at the prospect of presiding over the marriage of a duke, Will realised.
‘You mean to create the false impression that there was already an understanding between myself and Miss Wingate? That our marriage had nothing to do with the situation that was forced upon us? To lie, in effect?’ Will asked. To his surprise he found it possible to keep the anger he felt at this meddling prelate out of his voice. But Verity glanced across at him and the anxious frown that was creasing her brow faded just a little.
She trusts me to get us out of this.
‘Naturally, one cannot tell an actual untruth about the matter, but if that assumption is made then there is no need to correct it and it will be far less embarrassing for Miss Wingate.’
‘Miss Wingate will, I believe, find it far more embarrassing to be forced into a marriage she does not want with a man she does not care for,’ Will said. ‘There is no prior understanding: far from it. We have agreed that we would not suit. My family’s actions have already caused Miss Wingate considerable anxiety about the effect of her disappearance on her father’s health and she has had to endure the discomfort of a night spent in a primitive cottage during a thunderstorm. I fail to see why she must be made to suffer more. My staff will be discreet. The villagers are already familiar enough with the behaviour of my siblings to believe this was all a hoax on their part and they will be loyal enough, I have no doubt, to keep it to themselves.’
‘You are refusing to marry Miss Wingate, Your Grace?’ Bishop Alderton demanded. ‘I am astounded.’
‘I am refusing to force the hand of a lady. I am entirely at Miss Wingate’s disposal.’ It was curiously liberating to be doing what virtually everyone in the room clearly considered was the wrong thing. Twenty-four hours before, he would have thought it the wrong thing. It was totally inappropriate. Good.
‘Papa, please?’ Verity went and knelt in front of her father and Mr Hoskins lowered his voice as the three of them huddled together.
Then Verity stood up and kissed her father’s cheek and Mr Hoskins announced, ‘My lord is quite content that Miss Wingate’s reputation is secure and that there is no necessity to consider this matter any further.’
‘Excellent,’ Will said. ‘In that case we have no need to trouble you longer, Bishop, gentlemen. Your desire to help is much appreciated, as is your willingness to have your travel plans disrupted overnight. However, there is nothing to keep you here now.’ He should extend an invitation to luncheon, he knew. He should continue to offer hospitality to this pillar of the Establishment, but he was damned if he would. ‘And your absolute discretion is something I know I may rely upon.’
The Bishop bristled at him and Will smiled back, finding he was enjoying himself. He outranked a bishop, he did not like the man and he wanted him off his property. ‘If His Grace the Archbishop were ever to hear of this I feel certain he would feel you have come to the correct decision.’ He did not even trouble to hide the fact that this was a threat. Bishop Alderton bristled, one of the curates stared, open-mouthed. Bishop Wingate lifted one hand to his mouth and did not quite succeed in hiding his smile.
‘Your Grace.’ Peplow, who appeared to have recovered his poise and his dignity, opened the door and shot Will the warning look that normally preceded the revelation of yet another hideous exploit by the children. ‘Lady Bromhill.’
His stepmother swept in, her sky blue skirts swishing, her waving mass of hair caught loosely into a topknot secured with a large Oriental clasp. There was a portrait miniature of her late husband pinned to her bosom. Bishop Alderton visibly winced at the sight of her.
‘William, dear boy! You are both safe—I can call off the search parties, thank goodness. I should have known that darling Althea was taking too serious a view of matters when she told me that Basil had stranded you on the island in the middle of the storm. Naturally, I turned to Mr Blessington and the members of the sailing club and they put their smallest boats on carts to get here and have been scouring the lake for the past hour.’
‘Mr Blessington, my lady?’ Mr Hoskins asked. He was on his feet, along with every other gentleman in the room with the exception of Bishop Wingate, but his tone was hardly respectful. ‘Married to Mrs Blessington, the worst gossip in the county?’
&nb
sp; ‘Well, she is a trifle eager to spread news about and she is not always the most discreet of women, but that is because she has the most wonderful imagination. You should read the little pieces she writes for the newspapers...’
‘I have,’ the Chaplain said darkly.
Will sat down in his chair behind the desk. If he stayed on his feet he was going to lose all control over his temper and the result would be spectacular. Dukes did not lose control. Dukes stayed calm, Dukes did not tell their stepmothers that they were interfering, thoughtless baggages. Dukes solved the problem. And there was only one solution to this: marriage to a woman who disliked him before and was going to hate him now.
Chapter Twelve
‘No.’
But no one was listening. Verity slipped out of the door while everyone was still talking at once. All, that is, except her father and Mr Hoskins, who must be waiting for the noise to subside, and the Duke, who sat behind his desk, stony-faced, hands palm down on the leather surface.
She wondered how long his patience would hold and was answered as she reached the door to the terrace.
‘Silence!’ The resulting quiet almost shuddered in the air. ‘If you please,’ Will added, with a savage politeness that made her wince.
Verity opened the door and went out. There was a stone bench under an arbour on the edge of the terrace, a safe distance from the house. She did not wish to hear any more, certainly did not want to listen to Will sounding every bit as formidable as his grandfather must have done.
I am not going to marry that man. I will not live with him or share his bed. I have done nothing wrong and yet I am the one they want to punish, all for going for a row on a lake.
She sat down and tried to think positive thoughts, because panicking was not going to help. There was the advantage that Will probably regarded her as the woman he least wished to wed, the eligible young lady who would nevertheless make the most disastrous duchess. On the other hand, his sense of duty and honour probably overrode his personal preferences.
Oh, drat. Verity found her handkerchief and blew her nose inelegantly.
‘Why are you crying, Miss Wingate?’
Over the top of her handkerchief she could see a blurry row of heads. Verity blinked, blew her nose again and stuffed her handkerchief inelegantly up her sleeve. The wretched brats had arranged themselves in order of height, presumably because they thought it made them seem more winsome.
They need a small dog at the end for maximum impact. Basil has missed a trick there, she thought cynically.
‘I am not crying. I am cross,’ she retorted.
‘With us?’ Lord Benjamin, the youngest, asked. His face was screwed up with worry, his trouser legs were stained with grass and one pocket was inside out.
‘Of course with you. Whatever were you thinking to do such a thing?’
‘We thought you would marry Will.’
‘And what if we do not want to marry each other? What if you had caused my father to suffer another stroke with the worry?’
‘We asked Mr Hoskins if the Bishop was all right last night and he said he was “bearing up with fortitude.” If he hadn’t said he was all right, we’d have told, honestly.’
‘But why don’t you want to marry Will?’ Althea asked. ‘Everyone wants to marry a duke. We saw them in the churchyard, like hounds on the scent.’
‘Not everyone. I do not. I want to choose whom I will wed. Althea, you are almost old enough to marry. How would you like it if your brother announced that he was marrying you off to someone you do not like, just because they are a duke?’
‘He wouldn’t,’ she said with absolute conviction. ‘He could not anyway, because Will is the only unmarried duke under fifty at the moment. And you must like him. He’s rich, there’s the title and everyone likes Will. He has ever so many friends and they say he is a great gun.’
‘They do,’ Basil assured her. ‘Even we like him—and he can be jolly stuffy and starched up, you know. I mean, he makes us chaps learn Latin and Greek and we all have to do this etiquette stuff and the girls have to do embroidery. And when we do something wrong he looks pained, which is pretty grim.’
‘Idiot,’ his twin muttered, jabbing him in the ribs. ‘We don’t want to put her off.’
‘I had already noticed the stuffiness and the starch. It is understandable, because your brother works hard at being the perfect duke.’ Whatever else she felt, she could not abuse Will to his brothers and sisters. ‘I would not be a perfect duchess.’
‘We like you,’ Alicia, usually silent, piped up.
‘Thank you for the sentiment. But as you all think it is acceptable to strand people on islands and ruin their lives I cannot say I place much value on your opinions,’ she said severely. They really did expect to get away with murder, simply by adopting those expressions of wide-eyed innocence.
There was a collective sigh and shuffling of feet. ‘So, are you going to marry Will, Miss Wingate?’ Basil asked.
‘Until Miss Wingate makes a decision, that is none of your business, Basil.’ Verity did not turn as Will spoke behind her. ‘And I suggest that all of you remove yourself from my sight. I still have to decide on what punishment is appropriate for you.’
The children fled, vanishing with almost supernatural speed. Will walked out on to the terrace and sat on the balustrade beside the arbour.
‘You have got rid of them all?’ Verity said wearily, too depressed to worry about her choice of words. Her nose was pink; she could see the tip of it if she squinted. Her eyes were probably red as well. She never could weep prettily, not that she made a habit of crying.
‘My stepmother removed herself with some drama when I suggested that her actions, although well meant, were exceedingly badly thought out. The episcopal party departed with fulsome assurances of discretion after I became rather more forthright than I ever expected to be with a bishop. Once they had gone your father assured me that he entirely accepts that nothing untoward took place, but considers that matters have gone too far to cover up. I agreed with him and he has retired to his room. Mr Hoskins assures me he is coping well and his pulse is quite calm. We discussed sending for his doctor, but decided the fuss might only agitate him further. But if you think it best—’
‘Thank goodness. I was going in to check, but I had best not disturb him now. And you are quite right about the doctor.’
So what does the perfect Duke do in these circumstances? Get down on one knee? Issue a lordly announcement that we must marry? Ask me what I want? No, that is too unlikely—not now Mrs Blessington is spreading the news from here to John o’ Groats.
‘I have a common licence,’ Will said abruptly. ‘The Bishop apparently travels with stock and he and that prune-faced cleric—Carne, is it?—saw it signed and sealed before they left.’
‘I see. So you cannot, after all, wave some ducal wand—or sceptre, I suppose—and solve this?’
Of course he could not, she knew that even before Will shook his head. She had best make up her mind to it, then—she was going to be a duchess. Was she the only woman in England who could think that sentence and feel ill?
‘Solve it according to your wishes, Verity? I am afraid not. Not now the cat is well and truly out of the bag.’ Will met her gaze straight on. ‘As I have been pointing out from the beginning, you have no choice. We must marry.’
Yes. The word trembled on the tip of her tongue. He was very convincing, very used to being obeyed and, despite everything, her treacherous body still wanted him. Give in. Give up dreams of living her own life, following her own interests. Stop deluding herself that she was offering her friends anything other than a very temporary sanctuary at the top of her tower. Yes.
‘No,’ Verity said clearly, despite her insides knotting themselves even tighter. ‘I have a choice and I say no. You, Your Grace, can lay down the law and tell me what the sensible,
conventional thing to do is. You may say I told you so when they all whisper behind my back, or cut me to my face. But I am entirely the wrong woman to be your duchess and you are the wrong man to be my husband.’
‘You will live to regret this,’ said Will—the Duke. It was not a threat, simply a prediction. He looked bleak. Well, that was two of them.
‘I regret that I ever met you,’ Verity said. ‘I regret that I ever got into that boat with you. Doing the wrong thing now is not going to make any of that better.’
‘You are angry with me,’ he said with infuriating patience. He stepped forward and took her hand. For some reason she let him. Verity looked down, wondering, as if she was observing herself for a long way away, why she did not pull free. ‘I understand that. But you cannot let that ruin the rest of your life.’
‘I am angry, yes,’ Verity admitted. ‘Angry with those children who ought to have known better, but whose upbringing has not taught them to think of others before their own desires. Angry with your stepmother for failing to consider what damage gossip could do us. Angry with the Bishop for his patronising manner and his interference.’
Will was still holding her hand, she realised, shaken at how easily she had accepted his touch. She pulled free and walked away from him for a few steps.
You cannot run away, that will solve nothing.
She stopped and rested both hands on the balustrade, felt the roughness of stone and lichen under her palms. The gardens were developing towards their early summer glory, fresh tender green shoots everywhere, blossom on the trees, buds near to bursting on every plant.
A lovely season for a wedding.
‘And angry with me?’ Will asked again, close behind her.
‘I do not know,’ Verity said. She continued to look out over the borders to where the lawn sloped away, down to the lake. Was she? It was not his fault he was a duke, not his fault that he could not predict every wild scheme his brothers and sisters might come up with. He certainly had not invented the rules by which women were condemned to live their lives, even if he supported them.
