The Duke's Holiday

by Maggie Fenton

  Alice turned away from Astrid and busied herself with sorting through a box of old horse tack. “I’m certain.”

  Astrid blew the stray hair out of her eyes and rubbed her temples. “This can’t end well. Devil take it, Alice, are you very certain? Because you do have a tendency to forget…”

  “Quite certain,” Alice bit out, her voice breaking at the end. She threw down an old brush with uncharacteristic violence, and her shoulders began to shake.

  Astrid stared at her sister’s back, at a loss for words. Of course she knew very well what the problem was. Wesley. He had picked a most inopportune time to visit. And he couldn’t see his own nose for his face when it came to Alice. Neither could Alice, it seemed.

  But the last thing she needed right now was to sort out her sister’s wounded feelings. She tsked impatiently. “You know, he isn’t worth all of this emotional upheaval,” Astrid remarked, which only made Alice’s shoulders shake harder. “You said yourself he’s an idiot. I don’t know why you insist on being infatuated with him.”

  “I’m not infatuated with him,” Alice sniffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Wes-ley. You’re infatuated with him and have been since you were both in nappies. Althought why, I don’t know. He’s a widgeon.”

  “He’s not a widgeon.”

  “He is. He’s not good enough for you,” Astrid retorted. She began picking out the straw from Alice’s coiffure, hoping to put a short end to this conversation and get on to the business at hand. “Look at you, darling, you’re the most beautiful girl in three counties. Everyone agrees. You could have your pick of eligible young men.”

  Alice stiffened and threw Astrid’s arm away. She stalked across the hayloft and rounded on Astrid, tears soaking her face, a mix of incredulity and fury contorting her normally placid features. “Do I really have my pick, Astrid?” Alice said venomously.

  Astrid crossed her arms in a defensive posture, completely caught off balance by her sister’s display of temper. “Of course you do.”

  “How old am I?”

  “What does that have to do…”

  “How old am I?” Alice repeated impatiently.

  “Twenty or so.”

  “Three and Twenty.”

  “And?”

  “And? And? Heaven on earth, Astrid, sometimes I think you are as dunder-headed as Aunt Anabel! Three and twenty is on-the-shelf.”

  “I’m twenty six,” she mumbled, a bit miffed.

  “Precisely my point. Do you know any gentlewoman my age or yours who is not married?”

  “There is Katrina Evans…”

  “Besides Katrina Evans!” Alice bit off, clenching her fists. Katrina Evans was the daughter of a baronet in the next county, whose nose had a wart on it the size of Yorkshire and a nose roughly double the size of the entire British Isles. “I am three and twenty and have received not one offer of marriage. Not one.”

  “We aren’t exactly at the center of the world. Gentlemen are low on the ground…”

  “There are plenty of respectable men about. Even Miss Bourke has had at least three offers, one from a baronet.”

  “Miss Evans’ brother, might I remind you, who inherited the family nose.”

  “Not the point,” Alice said through her teeth.

  Astrid held her ground. “I should hardly think you interested in anyone who has the bad judgment to court Miss Bourke. You are miles above her in every regard.”

  “In what way, precisely?”

  Astrid was incredulous. Did she really need to explain why Miss Bourke, a first-rate bully with blonde curls, was loathsome? “She’s the brain of a peahen and the character of a snake, to begin with.”

  “Mayhap, but she’s the fortune and respectability to make her character very pleasing indeed.”

  Astrid gasped. “What exactly are you saying, Alice? We may not be rich, but we are ten times above the likes of Miss Bourke in breeding and station. Our mother was an Earl’s daughter.”

  “Sometimes I think you must live on another planet,” Alice burst out, a fresh round of tears falling. “It doesn’t matter what our mother was, and it’s not as if her family even deigns to acknowledge us, aside from horrid Aunt Emily. We have only the barest of footholds above being considered in trade.”

  “And what’s wrong with being in trade? The way the upper classes in this country cultivate idleness is absurd. As if honest labor is a sin.”

  “You see? You have all these … convictions, and while I’m not sure they’re wrong, neither are they helpful, because all of your convictions are not going to change how the world really is.”

  Astrid stared at Alice, stunned. They were treading into deep waters now, waters Astrid had no idea Alice even knew how to navigate. Like Hiram had done this morning, and Wesley this afternoon, Alice was bringing up a whole host of unpleasant considerations that Astrid did not want to face.

  “Excuse me,” Astrid said rather peevishly, “for having opinions. Sorry for using my brain.”

  “You miss the point, as usual,” Alice sighed, looking resigned.

  “What is the point?”

  “Unlike you, I don’t want to end up an old maid. I want to be married, to have a family of my own. To get out of this mad house. And Mr. Coombes was right. This is a mad house.”

  Astrid was hurt by Alice’s words. Hurt and completely taken off guard. She had no idea Alice felt this way about Rylestone. Alice was understandably angry with her for being the object of Wesley’s pursuit. Though Astrid did nothing to encourage Wesley’s suit, a fact that Alice knew quite well, it was only human for Alice to feel some jealousy towards her.

  Yet Astrid wondered if Alice’s resentment ran deeper, if somehow Astrid had failed her sister in a more fundamental way. It was one of Astrid’s deepest fears. She’d been trying for the past decade to make all of her family members happy, and she thought she had been doing a decent job of it, at least where Alice was concerned. But apparently she’d been wrong.

  “I had no idea you felt this way,” Astrid murmured.

  She reached out to her sister, but again Alice dodged her hand. “No, Astrid.” Alice cried, moving towards the ladder. “I’m twenty three years old and had no offers, and do you want to know why? Because of you. No respectable man dare approach me because they think my sister is a … a hoyden. A shocking, forward, proselytizing hoyden.”

  “Alice!”

  “What do you expect people think of you? Running the estate? Speaking at the tenant meetings? Filling the workers’ head with father’s nonsense?”

  “Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson happen to agree with father’s nonsense,” Astrid cut in. I thought my sister did too.

  “You show no one the slightest deference, attend church infrequently, argue with the vicar. You curse in company, converse with the farmhands, and wear trousers.”

  “I never wear trousers in public!” she interjected. “Only around the castle. And in the garden.”

  Alice gave her a doubtful look. “You ride about the county astride.”

  “Sidesaddle is dangerous.”

  “It is when you tear off hell-for-leather like you’re riding into battle. Which you do all the time.”

  “I wear a perfectly respectable habit.”

  Alice snorted. “Which comes up past your ankles.”

  “What is so shocking about ankles? I’ll never understand it.”

  “Nor I, but that is just the way things are. Respectable ladies don’t ride astride. Respectable ladies don’t bare their ankles. Respectable ladies do not run breweries.”

  “What would you have had me do? Let our family starve?” Astrid burst out. “Someone had to run the estate when father cracked. Someone had to take care of you and the girls. Who else was going to do it? Aunt Anabel?”

  Alice blanched at Astrid’s harsh tone. “You make me sound like an ungrateful wretch.”

  “Perhaps that is because you are! I have done everything for this family, and you
chastise me for it.”

  “No! I am merely pointing out that your manner of doing things for this family is so very … blatant. Do you really need to wear trousers to save the estate? Really, Astrid.”

  “I wear trousers because they are comfortable and practical, and I ride astride because it is also eminently practical. All of these petty rules and codes restricting the behavior for ladies are designed solely to subjugate our sex.”

  Alice rolled her eyes. “Of course they are, but flaunting those rules is not going to earn you any friends. Or a husband.”

  “I don’t want a husband.”

  “But I do! And what of Antonia and Ardyce? What’s to become of them when they’re grown? Your conduct reflects on all of us. It’s a wonder we’re still received as it is.”

  “I had no idea the opinions of small-minded gentry were so important to you,” she huffed.

  Alice groaned in frustration. “You just don’t understand, Astrid. You never think beyond this pile of stones. Whether you like it or not, the opinions of other people matter. You’ll discover this soon enough when we’re tossed out of here.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “What? It’s true. The Duke has the right. And the way you’ve treated him thus far does nothing to help our case. We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t put us all in the workhouse.” Alice began down the ladder and paused. “You know you’d solve all of our problems if you’d just accept Wesley’s proposal.”

  “Are you insane? Me? Marry Wesley? You are actually suggesting I marry Wesley?” Astrid blustered.

  “Why not? He wants to save you from yourself, you know.” Alice’s tone was deeply bitter.

  “I don’t need saving. I am the one trying to save the lot of you!” Astrid cried.

  “How can you do it when you won’t accept the truth? Rylestone doesn’t belong to us anymore.”

  Alice started down the ladder. When she reached the bottom, she looked back up at Astrid, who stood staring down at her sister, dumbfounded and heartsick.

  “I suggest you find the book and give it to the Duke,” she said in the bossy sort of voice Astrid usually used.

  “You’re the one who lost it,” Astrid retorted.

  “It’s probably for the best, since I suspect you would have burned it.”

  “When did you become so … so…”

  “Practical? Reasonable?”

  “Cynical.”

  “I’ve always been like this, Astrid. You were just too busy to notice.”

  “I never knew you hated me this much,” Astrid murmured.

  Alice just shook her head and walked away, as if to say that Astrid was just never going to understand.

  Chapter Eight

  IN WHICH THE DUKE VISITS THE LIBRARY

  ASTRID STOOD on a ladder in her father’s library, thumbing through the titles on the shelves and sniffling. She blamed her watering eyes and running nose on the fine layer of dust covering the books and woodwork, not her argument with Alice earlier in the hayloft.

  Her eyes pricked with tears, and she paused in her search to wipe her face inelegantly with the back of her sleeve.

  She did not mean it, she tried to convince herself. Alice was just upset over Wesley, and she’d taken her anger out on her. But these assurances landed rather hollowly in her gut, for she knew deep down that Alice had meant every word.

  Alice was ashamed of her, and had been for years. Somehow Astrid had failed to see this. She thought she knew her sister, but it seemed she didn’t know her at all.

  Was Alice right, then? Had she been so caught up in the estate she had been blind to her sister’s true feelings? Had she ever really seen Alice at all? She thought she had. She had taken care of Alice and her younger sisters ever since their mother’s death. Astrid had never begrudged Alice her beauty and grace. In fact, Astrid had celebrated her sister’s looks, foregoing new dresses herself so that Alice could be outfitted with a wardrobe that could make her beauty stand out. Alice was the prize of the Honeywells, and in Astrid’s opinion far too good for any of the young gentlemen who had come sniffing at her heels. In her heart, Astrid held out hopes of a fabulous match for Alice.

  Not that she personally put any great stock in the married state. But it had been obvious to her that that was what Alice had wished from a very young age. With that in mind, Astrid had even begun to set aside a pound here, a pound there, for Alice’s dowry. It wasn’t much, but at least it would be something when the time came.

  But it never would, it seemed, since Astrid suspected the only man her sister wanted was never going to propose. When Alice began mooning over Sir Wesley, Astrid had hoped their cousin – unworthy though he might be of the perfect Alice – would return her sister’s affections, but that had not happened. Wesley seemed perfectly oblivious to Alice’s attachment, and instead seemed determined to court Astrid.

  How preposterous was that?

  She would never, ever, understand the workings of the male mind. She couldn’t swallow the notion that Wesley found her the least bit desirable. Alice’s assertion that Wesley wanted to save her from herself seemed more likely. Which was just like a man. Even an immensely stupid man like Wesley.

  She didn’t need saving. She didn’t need rescuing, especially at the hands of her bumbling cousin.

  Astrid pulled a book from the shelf at random. It wasn’t the estate ledgers. It was in fact a rather boring tract of sermons that likely hadn’t been opened in years, judging from the thick layer of dust coating its spine. She couldn’t read the words on the page through the haze of moisture in her eyes, but she suspected there was a reason the book was on the top shelf, far corner.

  Honeywells generally avoided religious tracts.

  She snapped the book closed and shoved it back into the corner. Dust flew off its spine, tickling her nose.

  She sneezed. Loudly.

  Then she sneezed again.

  Evidence that her tears were caused by the dust, not her emotions.

  “Excuse you,” came a voice behind her.

  She spun around and spied the Duke leaning lazily against the doorframe, his arms crossed, one leg propped up against the jamb. He studied her with his inscrutable silver eyes, one eyebrow arched in cynical appraisal.

  She lost her balance and flew forward, grasping the edge of the ladder. She managed to right herself – barely – and scowled at him.

  “Looking for something?” he drawled.

  She sneezed again, then wiped her nose with her sleeve.

  He cringed ever so slightly and pushed himself off the door. He glanced around the room at the jumble of books and papers, and a furrow wedged itself into his forehead. He turned his attention back to her, looking faintly accusing, as if to say, How do you live in such squalor?

  She turned back to the shelf and began to pull books at random from the shelves, ignoring him. Or at least attempting to. She was aware of his every movement at her back as he prowled about the room, scanning the rows of books, lifting and sorting as he went. She was definitely aware of him when he reached the ladder. She looked down at the top of his head as he studied the shelf in front of him.

  For an ogre, he really did have splendid hair. Thick and wavy, despite his attempts to tame it into submission, and as luxuriously colored as the burled wood shelves filling the room. She had the urge to reach down and run her fingers through those fiercely styled chestnut locks, for she suspected they would look even better freed from their pomade’s stranglehold.

  As if he felt her glance, he looked upwards, catching her in his intense silver gaze.

  She turned back to the shelf, scolding herself.

  Fool, fool! Thinking about her archenemy’s hair at such a time!

  What was wrong with her?

  “You’re still here,” she ground out, gripping the sides of the ladder until her knuckles turned white. “Was there something you wanted?”

  “You,” he said.

  She gasped and glanced down involuntarily at hi
m once more.

  His eyes went wide, and for a moment something resembling panic floated across those silvery depths. “That is, I wanted to speak with you, Miss Honeywell,” he went on quickly.

  “Oh,” she murmured. That was not disappointment curdling her stomach. “Well, what is it?” she continued, returning her attention back to the shelves.

  “Am I to talk to you while you remain ten feet up in the air?”

  “I am busy. Looking for something.”

  “The estate books?”

  She snorted. “Of course not.”

  “No, that would be too much to hope for. Is it your copy of L’Chevalier d’Amour?”

  She froze. Then she began to splutter as a furious blush rose on her cheeks. She was glad she was ten feet in the air so that he could not see. “Certainly not. What nonsense. Poetry? Good God, Montford. Do I look the sort to enjoy scandalous verse?” The lie sat very heavily on her tongue.

  “Then you are at least acquainted with the title.”

  “Well, yes. Who is not? But to suggest that I would read such poppycock …” She had no words to complete her sentence, so she just snorted disdainfully again.

  “You do not approve, then?” he asked in a deceptively lazy voice. “I would not have pegged you for a prude.”

  “Oh! Oh!” she exhaled, her fury rising at his nettling.

  “Someone in your household enjoys Mr. Essex. I found a copy of L’Chevalier tucked between Sir Thomas More.” He began to study his fingernails. “Shockingly inappropriate, wouldn’t you agree? I thought for certain it must be your doing. But perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps Miss Alice? You must have a talk with your sister, Miss Honeywell. It is one thing to read scandalous verse, quite another to disguise it behind lofty pretension. Thomas More indeed.”

  She could almost hear her temper snap in violent response to his goad. “Pretension? Ha! You are one to call me pretentious! And I’ll have you know that I have read Utopia several times. Thrice, to be exact. And in case you are operating under some false delusions regarding my intelligence, I can inform you I quite understood every word of it.”

  She broke off in chagrin, realizing she had just as good as admitted the Essex was hers. His eyes flashed in triumph, but all he said next was: