The Duke Diaries

by Sophia Nash

  She bit her lower lip. “I suppose you know, then.”

  “That you are extraordinary?”

  She whispered, “You can say the truth.”

  He pondered his words. “You were not a virgin.” He paused. “There’s no need for an explanation. If you start, then I’ll feel compelled to tell you about my past indiscretions, which I am sorry to say will surely shock you, and then where will we be?”

  “But I want to tell you, even if I really don’t want to.” Her smile was wan.

  Levity was clearly not giving her ease. He gathered his thoughts. “I gather it is something more serious than riding astride.” He pressed a kiss on the top of her warm head.

  “I wish I could say it was riding. I hadn’t thought that was a possibility.”

  “You know it doesn’t matter to me. It only matters to you. You can still tell me it was due to riding, V.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. “I cannot.”

  He waited to see if she really wanted to tell him more or not.

  “I—I . . . did something unpardonably imprudent the summer I was seventeen.”

  He felt a slight chill. Seventeen was such a dangerous age. The same age Catharine had been. Females were usually not quite out at that momentous time, but desperate to begin life. He should know. “What did you do?”

  “I fell in love. Or I thought I fell in love. I cannot be certain. I was so young and foolish.”

  “You fell in love,” he said with certainty. “Love does not pay attention to age.”

  “And so . . . against everything I knew or believed to be right or true, I entered into a secret engagement.”

  He raised his brows. “And who was this lucky fellow, may I ask?” He had the oddest sensation in the pit of his gut. He simply had to know who it was. He tried to relax without success.

  “Mr. Battswell,” she whispered. “You probably remember that my cousin Esme’s father was a great artist. Well, he invited three of the most promising students from Hillwood’s Fine Arts School to spend a month on his estate—painting, and sketching the vast beauty of the peaks. Theo was one of the three.”

  “And?” He asked the question casually, taking care to keep every trace of ill ease from his voice.

  “And I was always there. Visiting Esme as usual. And . . . and, well, I became infatuated. Mr. Battswell possessed an extraordinary talent. He was witty and charming, and he was . . .”

  “I don’t like him already.”

  “He was very handsome.”

  Rory could feel her growing sadness, and tried to cheer her. “But not as handsome as I, one could hope.”

  “No, of course not,” she said, biting her lower lip.

  He wanted to kiss her lip, tell her not to worry so, but he did not. Speaking was more important. “And yet you did not marry him,” he continued. The gentleman must have died. They must have yielded to the wild passions of youth, anticipated the wedding night, and then this ill-behaved young man had probably succumbed to a sudden, violent illness. That’s how it always went in romantic cases such as these.

  “No, we did not marry.”

  Her legs were restless and so Rory carefully spread a deep green velvet throw over them both. “You don’t have to go on, V.”

  “I want to.” She rushed her words. “When he went to my brother to ask for my hand, James agreed, but then added a proviso.”

  “Yes?”

  “He explained to Mr. Battswell that there would be no immediate dowry due to our father’s wishes. That James had been instructed to provide one thousand pounds a year should any of his sisters marry, but any dowry would be left in a trust until we were five and twenty.”

  “And how old was this Mr. Battswell?”

  “Eight and twenty.”

  God. She had been eleven years his junior. James Fitzroy, the premier duke of England, was no fool. “I assume Mr. Battswell had pockets to let, then?”

  “He had a very modest sum from his family. James understood he was a second son of a vicar.”

  “I’ve never trusted vicars,” he murmured.

  Her eyes cheered a bit. “Of course you don’t. You’re clearly not one for sermonizing.”

  “Or promises of hell or heaven. I already know where St. Peter will send me when I clang on his gates. At least I won’t have to endure any more of these blasted wretched English winters.”

  “I’ve always admired your ability to see the positive in any situation,” she replied softly, her eyes finally taking on a gleam of humor.

  “You should always smile like that, V. It’s very becoming.”

  She didn’t respond. Instead her grin disappeared. “And so, Mr. Battswell agreed. He said he didn’t care about my dowry, that we would live modestly and very quietly in a tiny cottage in the country somewhere. He would paint, I would keep house, and have children, and eventually all would fall into place. He said eight years was nothing to wait. Everyone knows money did not bring happiness, he insisted.” She was studying the tips of her fingers as she spoke.

  “And then he took advantage of you.” He was careful to keep the anger threatening to break into his voice.

  “No. It wasn’t like that, and yet—” Her voice caught. “—it was in the end.”

  “When?” His word was more curt than he meant it to be. “Verity, tell me.”

  “Does it really matter? It was ten years ago,” she whispered. “The day before the summer solstice.”

  “Where?” he asked, his voice more even.

  She stared at him mutely, uncertainty on her face. Finally she answered. “At the heart of Boxwood’s maze. Where I knew no one would find us.”

  He waited, his body tense.

  “I am the only one who knows how to find the garden in the center without getting impossibly lost.”

  He would not let himself speak.

  “Oh, I shall tell you all, what does it matter? We picnicked in secret after his meeting with my brother. He said he would return to Town, make all the arrangements for us to marry there, and also secure a cottage as close to London as we could afford.” One of her hands was so tightly clenched her knuckles showed points of white. “And I told him I loved him, and he said something very like it in return. I cannot remember precisely what he said, but he told me to wait for him, and then, well . . . you can imagine the rest.”

  He replied evenly without emotion. “The heartless bastard took advantage of your generous young heart, ruined you, and never returned.”

  “Actually,” she murmured, “he disappeared. Esme’s father learned that Mr. Battswell’s father was not a vicar, but rather a tooth-drawer who went from village to village to ply his trade.”

  Rory’s eyes never left hers. “And James tracked him down and extracted all of the son’s teeth, followed by all of his limbs.”

  “No,” she replied calmly. “James doesn’t know what happened in the maze. I never told anyone. Except one other person and now you, and, well, I’m certain my—my mother guessed, although she never said a word.” The last was said in a whisper that Rory had to bend his head to hear.

  “And that is when you decided you would never marry anyone,” he replied.

  “I suppose my decision formed then,” she said slowly. “But, you see, it never really mattered. My older sisters, Faith and Hope, and I had decided long before that we would never marry. So it was not such a grave tragedy as you obviously think by the look on your face.”

  “Ah, there you are wrong. Very wrong.” Suddenly he envisioned a handsome, black-hearted devil of a bastard taking the innocence of the lady. The first icy cold taste for revenge flooded his senses. He narrowed his eyes as he stared at her.

  And he could do it.

  If there was anything he had learned as Wellington’s wily, chameleon henchman, it was deception, tracking, and murder.

  She looked at him steadily. “But Rory, please don’t misunderstand. That is merely one of the reasons I decided long ago that I would not mar
ry.”

  He lay back on the chaise again and closed his eyes. Of course that was only one of the reasons. Had he not just figured out that nothing would ever come easily regarding Verity?

  The next morning, Verity handed Captio’s reins to the stable boy with carrot-colored hair in the tidy stables bordering one side of the village green. She tousled his thick hair and he dimpled.

  “My lady,” he said, bobbing his head. “I saved the best alfalfa for Captio.”

  “Perfect,” Verity replied with a wink and a smile. “And I saved the best ha’penny for you.”

  His eyes shone as she pressed the coin into his hand.

  “So are you ever going to visit the school?” she asked. “You remember what I promised.”

  He looked away, sheepish to the nth degree.

  “What? You’ve heard I’m an ogre at a chalkboard, have you?”

  “Not at all, Lady Fitzroy. It’s jus’ me pa, he needs me here.”

  “Don’t you worry. I shall have a word with your pa. I’m very good with fathers.”

  She gathered her books and papers from her saddlebags and marched out of the dark stable into the bright sunlight of a Wednesday morning. The air was fresh, and a few small clouds slowly drifted high above. She would rather be riding or . . .

  And in a moment she was right back with Rory, and the shock at what she had instigated and what had transpired between them. She never would have imagined something could be so mesmerizing, so elemental, so wildly, heartbreakingly beautiful. And yet, it would never happen again. It could not for she knew he would never love her as deeply as she loved him. She had already experienced that sort of pain with Theo Battswell. She had survived by promising herself never to make that same mistake twice.

  Brushing aside Mary Haverty’s words of concern during the evening meal, Verity had tossed and turned in her bed in her elegant, cozy bedchamber, desperate for sleep but then desperate to wake when the terrible dreams began.

  She inhaled sharply the scent of the freshly cut lawn of the green. She’d had the horrible dreams of so long ago. Of Theo and his laughing brown eyes. But then they had changed to green and then turned serious and hard. Just like Rory’s eyes had changed as she confided her story yesterday afternoon.

  He had taken great care not to show his disgust of what she had allowed to happen with Theo Battswell all those years ago. But she had felt the tension in his body next to hers as she revealed all. And his carefully phrased questions, oh-so-casually spoken, had shown the truth of his thoughts.

  For years she had determinedly fought her memories to gain a measure of peace. She hadn’t even told Rory the entire sad truth of it. His eyes had begged her not to say another blasted word. And so she had not. It was far easier this way. Besides, she never allowed herself to dwell on the last event of that same summer.

  Her poignant moments with Rory had turned awkward in the end. When he had become silent, she became discomfited and insisted she had to depart. And so she had taken her leave of Rutledge Hall—unlocking the connecting door to the other chamber, where she quickly dressed, while he did the same and then unlocked the chamber’s door to the hall.

  And when he had insisted on riding beside her during her return to Boxwood, she urged Captio into a canter, as it was obvious any intimacy that had developed between them was at an end.

  There had been less than a dozen words exchanged when they arrived at Boxwood’s immaculate stables. She had marched toward the avenue of tulip trees, which was the main approach to Boxwood’s sweeping entrance, and refused to look back at him as he departed.

  What did it all matter? They would never marry. Why should she care what he thought of her? Oh, but in the recesses of her heart, she knew she cared a great deal. She had bared her most private secret to him and been found as guilty as she felt. His every kindness to her afterward had reeked of insincerity.

  Now, Verity forced back her regrets and entered the small clapboard structure she had come to love. None of the students had arrived yet and so she quickly glanced through her lesson plans and organized her ideas. She was so grateful for the distraction.

  The boys heading off to Eton in the fall entered the school first, with shy grins. They bowed and found their desks as the other children crossed the threshold. Verity approached the older boys and with a hushed voice pointed out the sections of the books she wanted them to read and discuss later. And then there was the mathematics she had to suffer through.

  She loathed mathematics. Numbers gave her hives—unless they were in a ledger and involved simple addition or subtraction. Anything involving more than three letters in equations made her cross. Numbers mixed with letters reminded her of inedible legumes attempting to mix with lovely mashed potatoes.

  The hours and minutes in the quiet schoolhouse ticked by. Tommy Redmund shocked all by reading aloud a poem he had written. It was about a lighthouse and a shipwreck, and a duke who appeared to save the day. His schoolmates were mesmerized, just like she. Verity looked at the young boy with pride. She was certain he would eventually follow the other three to Eton one day in the distant future. Not that she would be there to witness it. She would be in her family’s ancient abbey, lost somewhere in the northernmost portion of the Lake District.

  “Excuse me, Lady Fitzroy,” a booming voice called from the doorway. It was the village baker. “I has the loaves you ordered.”

  “Very good, Mr. Terrel. You may leave them over there”—she indicated a long side table —“And Mr. Felton?”

  “Is coming, ma’am.”

  The room had gone silent as twenty-odd pairs of eyes watched the bread being laid out on the table.

  Mr. Felton, the butcher, entered on the heels of Mr. Terrel’s departure, carrying so many parcels that his knees nearly buckled under the weight.

  “I knews I shoulda bring the cart. But ’twas silly, you’re jus’ across the green, you are!”

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Felton. Please deposit it all over there, beside the bread.”

  She said not another word while the tradesmen arranged all the foodstuffs on the long table.

  As soon as they departed, leaving the door open to allow a breeze to enter, she looked at the sea of thin faces in front of her. Their huge eyes, a sea of brown, blue, hazel, and green, stared back at her.

  She smiled and felt slightly embarrassed. “Well, let’s see, how do I explain this? I know. You all have been the most perfectly wretched students since I’ve replaced Miss Woods, the greatest teacher this village has ever had the pleasure to have. And I expect she will return any day now, so I decided you all deserved a gift from me.”

  Not one of them moved a muscle.

  “So here it is, in all its simplicity. You are each to take two loaves of bread and a parcel of meat and give it to your parents to thank them for allowing me to teach you. I shall also bring a few things from Boxwood’s vegetable gardens tomorrow, before I leave you.”

  “Leave us?” a small voice called out.

  “Yes, for a short while. I must go away for a very little while—but I shall return if Miss Woods is still away. But I expect you all to read at least three books apiece and write brilliant essays on each. But . . . well, we shall not worry about your mathematics until I return.”

  “No mathematics?” a deep voice echoed from the open door.

  Verity turned her head only to find Rory leaning casually in the doorjamb. He had not a hair out of place. His immaculate dark green superfine coat fit him to perfection. His eyes matched it. His buff breeches molded his thighs and ended where his gleaming, spit-polished boots began.

  Not a sound could be heard in the schoolroom as the boys gaped at their exalted visitor.

  She could feel a blush creeping from her bodice toward her collarbone. In a few more moments the unbecoming color was sure to rise to her face.

  “Your Grace.” She curtsied. “May I help you in some way?”

  “Not at all. Please don’t let me interrupt you. I merely came to
watch our village’s newest teacher. My position in the parish requires supervision of schoolteachers.”

  A few small giggles escaped from one of the boys’ lips before another hushed him and sent an elbow to his ribs.

  She took her decision in a rush. “All right, you are all dismissed. Please, once again, tell your parents how grateful I am that they spare you each day. I shall have word sent when I am returned. It will be less than a fortnight.”

  They filed past the long table, in wonder at the bounty. Arms full, they each bobbed their youthful heads in awe of the Duke of Abshire, who had entered and stood to one side.

  Tommy Redmund was the last and he stopped in front of Rory.

  “Yes?” Rory asked with great hauteur. “What is your name, sir?”

  “Tommy. Tommy Redmund, yer highness.”

  Verity worried her lower lip.

  “Delighted to make your acquaintance, sir. Did you have something to say, then, for I am a very, very busy man.”

  “Yes, yer honor. Dids ye like them signs I made fer ye?”

  “Indeed, Mr. Redmund. Excellent. I may have to commission you for a few more.”

  “I don’ts know about missionin’ me fer anything, yer graceness. Me da won’ let me follow the drum till I’m grown. I’m sorry.”

  Rory tipped his hat. “Well, then, we shall just have to negotiate with your father. I’m certain we will come to an agreement. I could use a man of your intelligence in my regiment.”

  Tommy’s eyes widened with excitement. “Me da said he wagered you be Wellington’s Chameleon. Is it true then, yer lordness?”

  “Tommy?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I promise you I will eat that, uh, confection on Lady Fitzroy’s head if someone can prove it.”

  Verity did not know if she wanted more to laugh or cry. The awkwardness between them was still there. It was palatable. She valiantly attempted to maintain the fixed smile on her face.

  She came behind Tommy and whispered in his ear, “Bow and tell His Grace that you would be honored to paint any sign he needs.”

  Tommy’s eyes lit up. He tapped Rory on his hand. “No problem, yer sirliness, I’ll paint any ol’ sign ye want. Good-bye, then.”