Jilting the Duke

by Rachael Miles

  “You made Cook very happy with the pistachios. You should ask her to save you a piece when she makes her lemon cake,” Ian announced without looking up from the green felt landscape.

  “I’m pleased they made Cook happy.” Aidan placed his next figure. “They weren’t that hard to find.”

  Ian considered his next move, then shifted a squadron of men to the side. An inconsequential move, Aidan thought with surprise.

  “I’d like to find something that would make Mama happy.” The boy spoke quietly, as if to himself. “She doesn’t laugh much anymore.”

  Aidan paused, giving his brain a moment to shift from one strategy to the next. “I’ve seen her laugh with you.” Aidan moved some of his men into the brush on the downward slope of the ridge.

  “I know. She says I make her happy. But it’s not the same. She used to laugh all the time. And not just with me.”

  “Do you know when she stopped laughing? Could she just be sad because your father died?”

  “No, she stopped laughing before he died. I don’t know when. She was in the hall one day, watching the men take away the trunks to come here. I realized I hadn’t heard her laughing for a while.” Ian chewed on the end of his finger as he stared at the playing field. He moved his soldiers.

  “She sent trunks back before your father died?” Aidan moved some of his soldiers farther down the slope to the point where there was no more brush before them, only open ground to the bank of the river running through the middle of the valley.

  “For a couple of weeks. Papa made us promise to return to London as soon as he died.”

  Aidan knew this. Sophia had told him as much when they had met to discuss Ian’s guardianship. “So, she was packing because she thought your father was about to die? Couldn’t that be a reason to stop laughing?” Aidan, paying close attention to the tone of Ian’s voice, absently moved more soldiers down the slope.

  “No.” Ian sounded frustrated. “We didn’t expect him to die yet. She thought we had at least another year. I think she quit laughing because she didn’t want to come back here.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “No.” Ian moved some soldiers farther to the right. “She is happier when she’s in the garden or with me. But she can’t be with me or in the garden all the time.”

  “No, I suppose she can’t.” Aidan further solidified his position on the face of the slope. “Is there something you would like me to do?”

  “I’d like for you to make her laugh . . . though I think it will take more than a bag of pistachios.” Ian sat back on his heels. He motioned toward the felt, smiling. “I’d also like for you to surrender, Commander.”

  Aidan looked at the position of his men, focused for a forward attack, and at Ian’s men who had somehow flanked him and were now taking the ridge behind. Disbelief, then recognition, then a touch of admiration. “I see, Commander, that I have been outmaneuvered.”

  Aidan stood, stretching. From the nursery window, he could see down into the garden, to Sophia sitting near the newest of the beds, a raucous mix of every-colored flowers that somehow reminded him of Tom. “Perhaps I’ll have more luck with laughing. Do you think your mother would like a game of croquet?”

  “That should make her happy.” Ian carefully reordered the soldiers in ranks and battalions.

  “Why?”

  Ian stopped for a moment, a red-coated soldier in his hand. “Because, your grace, she’ll beat you.”

  Then he turned back to the green felt landscape and began setting up another battle.

  * * *

  Sophia sat on the garden bench, surveying how her plans were developing. Perkins had found an old sundial under the debris of one garden bed. They’d laughed that the trees had grown up so much that time stopped every day at seven. She would need to find a space to place it.

  Her plants were growing well. Next year the perennials would have matured enough to fill their allotted spaces, but this year, while they were settling in, she’d need to supplement with some annual plantings. It was too late to grow from seed, so Perkins was investigating what was available from the nursery gardens in Lower Thames Street.

  She let her bonnet fall back, lifted her face up to the sun, and closed her eyes. Without the distraction of her plants, her thoughts turned to Aidan. For the last week, she’d seen him every day, but always unexpectedly. He never sent a note to indicate when he intended to visit. It kept her unsettled, but for Ian’s sake, she allowed Aidan’s intrusions.

  Today he had been reading the newspaper in her morning room when she had come down for breakfast. And no one had warned her. Somehow Aidan had seduced—there was no other word for it—her servants. She’d started to feel like her house wasn’t quite hers, but it was only for another fortnight. After that Ian would be gone, and she would have the whole empty house to herself.

  At the same time, Aidan’s kindnesses to Ian seemed limitless. For the past week, he had been taking Ian with him to events in town, introducing Ian to his circle, particularly those with young boys near Ian’s age. Ian had told Aidan of playing bocce in Italy, and with her permission, the pair had set a croquet game up below her garden beds. For the last several days, he and Ian had alternated between playing croquet or soldiers.

  On Monday, Aidan had taken Ian to Tattersalls to “help” choose a new horse for his stables and returned with a pony for Ian to ride at Greenwood Hall. The pony was to have been housed in Aidan’s London stable, but Ian had grown so attached to the animal—terrorizing his tutor by asking to see it every hour—that Aidan had sent over his own carpenter, groom, and stableboy to repair and ready another stable in Sophia’s mews. This morning the pony had arrived at its temporary home. Aidan had even loaned one of his grooms to Ian, so the boy could ride whenever he wished. There had been no way to object without disappointing Ian.

  It was a consolation, though, that the ward and the guardian were getting on so well. At least, she wouldn’t worry when Ian left with Aidan. There would be ample time to grieve when Ian was gone. For now she tried to enjoy Ian’s daily presence, his laugh, his enthusiasm.

  At the same time, she could never see Aidan without the clench of longing at the pit of her stomach. It never lessened, but she was growing used to ignoring it. Would she have to grow used to ignoring him all over again when the summer was over?

  Something hit her foot, and she looked down. A croquet ball. She reached down and picked it up, feeling its weight in her hand. A game of hide and seek? She waited, not turning around, expecting Ian to steal up behind her as a surprise.

  “Ian suggested I challenge you to a game of croquet.”

  She started, feeling his voice echo in her bones.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you would have heard me approach.” His tone was all solicitude.

  She turned to face him, but he stood between her and the sun. “I should have heard. But I was imagining how this bed would grow over time.... What did you ask?”

  “Croquet. Ian seems to think I need a break from being beaten at soldiers. He suggested you and I might play a round. He’s in the nursery setting up tomorrow’s battle.”

  “Did he tell you I’d beat you?”

  “He did mention that. But I find it difficult to believe him. I’m quite good.”

  She stood up and shifted so that the sun stood between them and she could see his face. “You haven’t played in a country where bocce is a blood sport and the women in your salon pride themselves on ruthlessness. It makes croquet look like . . . afternoon tea.”

  “Then I look forward to the challenge.”

  “As do I, but the ground is too wet. That’s why I was only sitting here.”

  “Watching your garden grow.”

  “Imagining it grow.”

  “Then you must compensate me for the loss of a game by escorting me to my garden and giving me some advice on how to reclaim it. Your man Perkins delivered some lavender, but I haven’t a clue where to place the plants.”

 
She’d thought he’d forgotten her offer, and her heart leapt.

  “I’ll need just a few minutes to put on a walking dress. Would you like to wait on the terrace?” She rose and ran her hands down the side of her skirt, straightening and smoothing.

  “It’s not necessary to change; we could cross behind the garden, around the mews and stable yard, and into the passageway behind my house. Of course, if you would prefer the more conventional route, I’m happy to wait.”

  His slight inflection on the word “conventional” taunted her. But she saw nothing in his face save the exceptional politeness that greeted her each time they met. He was right: for convention’s sake, she should change clothes and walk properly down the public street, not slip down an alley in a work dress with a known rake. Phineas would be horrified.

  “It doesn’t make sense to change to go from garden to garden. So, yes, let’s slip through the mews. My sketchbook is on the terrace.”

  As Sophia walked to the terrace to retrieve her pencil and papers, Aidan watched her walk, enjoying the gentle sway of her hips, the elegance of her carriage. When he’d first come upon her, she had looked so peaceful with her face open to the sun, her bonnet away from her face. Then a look of such sorrow had crossed her face that he felt a surprising sympathy. He wondered what she had been thinking of at that moment.... It was not, he was sure, how her plants would grow.

  * * *

  The path was not a direct one. Out the gate, around the mews through a short alleyway between the houses directly behind her, then through a paddock, and another alley into a passage behind his house.

  “I had no idea one could make that into a path, and I’m a bit disturbed to find that my gate doesn’t appear to lock. Is that how you simply appear without announcement?”

  “Guilty as charged. But your gate does lock—it’s just that the lockmaker for your gate and mine appears to have been a shiftless sort; my key opens your gate, and yours, I assume, opens mine.”

  “So it isn’t that my servants have lost all sense of loyalty. . . .”

  “I never give them the chance to intercept me.”

  “That explains a great deal.”

  Aidan paused at a wall heavily covered with vines and pulled back a section to reveal a door. “After you.” Sophia passed through ahead of him. The path into the garden had almost disappeared on the inside of the garden wall as well; unmaintained, it was thickly covered with leaves and dead branches. She paused to look around her.

  Directly in front of them, about ten feet from the garden gate, stood a hedge thick with years. A gap in the hedge at their right opened to a path she assumed led to the house. To the left in the corner of the grounds was a gardener’s shed and a small greenhouse, also neglected and unused. Sophia assessed the view. “You can’t see the house from here. This hedgerow nicely hides both the gate we came in and that shed there, so we wouldn’t want to interfere with it.”

  She turned to follow the path, but her heel caught on a downed branch. Aidan reached out just as she stumbled and pulled her against him to keep her from falling. She stood still catching her balance, then looked up. He was examining her face so intently that she could imagine his lips against hers. Then his face shuttered, and he set her back on her own feet as if setting a vase on a mantel, precise and without emotion.

  “That was clumsy of me.” Her waist burned where his hands had caught her.

  “No, the apologies are all on my part. I should have had the twigs and branches cleared away. May I offer you my arm?”

  Sophia was both tempted and wary. Tempted to feel his body closer to hers, and wary that she might reveal the desire that had flared with his touch. Yet there was no way to refuse without appearing impolite. She took his arm cautiously, maintaining a separation between his body and hers.

  The garden showed vestiges of an earlier design. At the bottom had been a small wilderness, with five box shrubs grouped to suggest they had once been topiary, but no hint of their former shapes remained. She could see the upper stories of the house, Palladian in its lines, above another hedge that grew about ten feet in front of them. If she guessed correctly, on the other side of the hedge would be the remains of knot gardens, leading to whatever terrace backed the house.

  “Has the property been in your family for some time?”

  “No, I acquired it when I returned from Europe—or rather, I won it at cards,” Aidan answered. “It had been empty for some time, and I never saw any reason to hire a full staff. But after I became duke, this house became a sort of refuge.”

  “So no one would object to my reshaping the garden to more contemporary tastes?”

  “No, when they are in town, all my siblings lodge either at the ducal residence, or—like my brothers Clive and Edmund—at their clubs. As for me, I live here irregularly, so the only expectations you would have to meet would be your own.”

  “Other than lavender, are there plants that you particularly like? Colors? Textures?”

  “I would enjoy it most if you did as you thought best. My garden is your palette, my lady. My only requirement is that you must share with me what you are planning.”

  She was surprised and intrigued that he would let go of his authority in his own garden. At her villa in Italy, though the shape of the garden was to her taste, it had not been her design. Tom and Ian had collaborated on the design, placing the beds and creating the effect. Sophia’s part had been to make the design come alive each year. Even in the London house, she hadn’t begun from nothing, but worked within the constraints already present.

  Here, however, in this overgrown mess, she could make something beautiful—something of her own creation.

  “Well, then, you see how those trees there and the hedge have grown together . . .” As she spoke, Sophia grew more animated and assured, and soon, without thinking, she had curved her body conspiratorially into his.

  Despite himself, Aidan found it fascinating to hear Sophia assess his garden. He had thought Tom had been the botanist, and Sophia his assistant. But he quickly realized that Tom had been the scholar and Sophia his muse. She was the artist, thinking about color and shape, texture and time. Planning not only what plants would look well and bloom together, she also considered thoughtfully the succession of colors across the seasons. When he watched her sketch the bare outlines of his garden, noting the placement of the trees and shrubs, he saw a new garden emerge in the swift movements of her pencil.

  He asked questions, encouraging her to explain her recommendations. As she spoke, he saw glimpses of his old Sophia. The one whose mind he thought had matched his. The thoughtful passion he had seen in their youth was tempered into a different key, one muted, but more richly inflected. He realized that in other circumstances, he would have been pleased to call this woman friend.

  But he wasn’t ready yet to give up his revenge, and after that, there would be no space left for friendship. Strangely, the thought did not give him the same satisfaction as it had even a week ago.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Aidan returned home to find Harrison Walgrave lounging in the study, a glass of Aidan’s finest claret in his hand, reading the London Times.

  Walgrave lowered the shipping news. “Ah, Forster, you’ve returned. I hear you’ve become guardian to Wilmot’s heir?”

  “I have.” Aidan examined Walgrave carefully. They’d been comrades during the war, but Walgrave was the man least likely to cool his heels waiting for an old friend, not even with a fine claret and a newspaper to keep him company. “What of it?”

  Walgrave elided Aidan’s question. “You’ve been spending time with her ladyship?”

  “With the boy, mostly. I’m taking him to the country, and I wanted to know him a bit better before we leave.” Aidan omitted that he’d spent the afternoon in Sophia’s company and that he’d decided Sophia would be joining them at his estate.

  Walgrave folded the paper and leaned forward. “How well do you know her?”

  “Who’s asking? You
or the Home Office?” Aidan chose not to sit. If this was to be an interrogation, he had no wish to make it appear otherwise.

  “It depends on your answers,” Walgrave countered.

  “I was with Wilmot when they met.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “Tom inherited an estate near her uncle’s. From Harrow, we knew Malcolm Hucknall and some of her Elliot cousins, so we rusticated at Tom’s estate holidays and summers.” Aidan leaned against the side of the desk. “My father bought me a commission. Wilmot proposed after I left. Until last week, I had had no communication with Wilmot or her ladyship in a decade.”

  “Tell me about her.” Walgrave watched Aidan intently.

  Aidan knew this was a test of his objectivity. Walgrave would compare Aidan’s answers—and level of detail—against what he already knew from other sources.

  “Then or now?”

  “Then and now.”

  Aidan offered the information as if it were a field report. “Her parents died years before we met. Her uncle had educated her without regard to her sex according to her parents’ wishes, but neither her brother nor her uncle’s second wife approved. At some point she was distressed that her governess had left unexpectedly. As I remember, the governess was her only friend. After that, she had a great deal of freedom, with her cousins acting as rather poor chaperones.”

  “Most of that we already knew. What else can you tell us?”

  “Sophia was witty, good-natured, and mischievous.”

  Walgrave raised an eyebrow at the use of Sophia’s first name. “What about now?”

  “Lady Wilmot appears much changed from her girlhood. Her solicitor describes her as a statue. Her sister-in-law says she is exhausted by grief.”

  “What do you think?”

  Walgrave wanted Aidan to identify with Sophia, to anticipate her perceptions, inclinations, and her dispositions. But Aidan had no desire to predict the turn of her mind. “I haven’t formed an opinion.”

  “What about their years in Italy?”