0373298803 (R)

by Annie Burrows

  ‘She has a point, Halstead,’ said Hugo. ‘You do tend to snap your fingers and expect everything to fall into place.’

  ‘It comes of being descended from a pirate, I expect,’ put in Lady Mixby.

  Benderby glanced at Lady Mixby’s empty port glass with a shake of her head, while Hugo barked out a laugh.

  ‘Yes, there have been times when you have looked as though you’d have loved to tell me to walk the plank,’ said Hugo.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Gregory turned to Hugo and raised one eyebrow in a way that somehow expressed a sort of disdainful astonishment.

  Hugo wasn’t a bit cowed. ‘Oh, don’t bother to deny it,’ he said. ‘You’ve wished you could be rid of me many a time. You’ve told me to my face I’m just a drain on your resources...’

  Prudence remembered Gregory confessing something of the sort to her. And her reaction then: that he wasn’t really bad enough to do anything of the sort.

  ‘And if it wasn’t for the fact that my existence has spared you from having to marry again,’ Hugo continued, ‘you’d wash your hands of me...’

  That jolted her right back to her own dilemma. Which was how to extricate themselves from a betrothal she was becoming increasingly convinced he couldn’t possibly want.

  ‘No, I would not,’ said Gregory. ‘I may find you extremely tiresome, but I would never wish any harm to come to you.’ He glanced at Prudence, as though recalling the very same conversation. ‘Hugo...’ He sighed. ‘I have only ever wanted you to learn habits of economy because of the immense responsibilities you will have to carry. Hundreds of people’s welfare will be in your hands. You will not wish to let them down.’

  Hugo winced. ‘I’m sick of hearing about duty and responsibility and not letting the family down. Especially since, as Lady Mixby has just pointed out, our ancestors got away with being pirates. Or leading armies into mad battles. Or offering up their womenfolk to the King for a mistress. All of which would be considered scandalous these days, apart from going into battle—but, since as an only son I’m too precious to risk having my blood spilled on foreign soil, apparently I cannot even make my mark that way.’ He sat back and folded his arms across his chest.

  Gregory blinked. ‘So that accounts for your freakish starts, does it? The notoriety of our ancestors? Combined with the frustration of being constricted and robbed of any real challenge?’ He paused, seeming to gather himself together. ‘Much as I hate to admit it, I think I can see what you mean. For something of the sort went through my mind when you issued your wager. How, I wondered, would I have fared on a battlefield, like the Fifth Duke? Or on a voyage of discovery, like the First? When, as you had so recently pointed out, I had never been permitted out of doors without a retinue of servants to smooth my path.’

  Something jogged Prudence’s memory, too. Gregory confiding that he’d never climbed a tree as a boy. And then his clumsy attempt to do so. And then the look of utter triumph blazing from his face when he not only scaled it, but helped her up and over the wall, too.

  She took a sip of her port as she mulled this over. She could see, she supposed, why he’d felt he had to prove himself, if he’d been so coddled and cosseted all his life. She could see how tempting it must have been to take up Hugo’s wager. She only had to think of the way he’d reacted to her own challenge to think of other ways to deal with the loss of their transport. He’d not only taken her up on it, but raised the stakes—the way he’d done with Hugo.

  It was simply part of his nature to rise to any challenge. And master it.

  It was part of what made her admire him so much.

  Not that it excused him for allowing her to believe he was the kind of man she could marry, when he clearly wasn’t. Girls with an upbringing like hers didn’t marry dukes. She didn’t know how to move in the elevated circles to which he belonged. Why, she couldn’t even join in the kind of conversations he held over a dinner table. Let alone penetrate the mystery of why a room was called a morning room when people used it in the evenings.

  Prudence must have made some kind of sound, expressing her turmoil, because he turned to look at her, a question in his eyes. She was just lifting her chin to stare him down when Lady Mixby startled everyone.

  ‘And of course you were already in low spirits,’ she observed. ‘With it being the anniversary of Millicent’s death.’

  He whirled on her, a look of complete shock on his face. Quickly concealed. So quickly that Prudence was probably the only person in the room who noticed.

  ‘I recall it being close to Easter, you see...’ Lady Mixby was carrying on, blithely unaware of having provoked such a strong reaction in a man who was trying so hard not to show any. ‘I was bitterly disappointed at having to go into black gloves just when I was hoping to start enjoying all the pleasures of the season. I dare say that every time Easter comes round your mind gets jogged by little things that throw you right back to that terrible time. The daffodils coming into bloom, for instance. I can never see daffodils bobbing in the breeze but I think of that churchyard, and how sunny and cheerful it all looked in spite of the terrible tragedy you’d just suffered. To lose your wife so suddenly, and she so young... Well, you both were...’

  She ground to a halt, finally noticing the grim way Gregory was staring at her.

  ‘Oh, dear me. I do beg your pardon. How tactless of me...’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Your remark was most perceptive. And your memory is perfectly correct. It was at Easter-tide when Millicent passed. The very date that Hugo came to me. A day I always wonder whether—’

  The Duke of Halstead—Prudence must get used to calling him that, since she could never allow him to be anything more to her—stalked away from them all. Twitched the curtains aside and stared out of the window for a moment. Lowered his head. Raised it, took a deep breath, and turned round.

  ‘And so I decided,’ he said, raising his chin with a touch of defiance. ‘To find out, once and for all, whether I was worthy of the name Willingale, or whether I was merely a shadow of a man. An apparition created by the brilliance of my title blazing over a great mound of wealth. Hugo had offered me the perfect way to find out. Because, as he’s already pointed out, I could never seriously consider joining a regiment and fighting in a battle, nor sailing away to India on a merchantman—not with all the obligations I have. But I thought that perhaps my estates could do very well without me for just one week.’

  Prudence recalled the things he’d told her about his wife and how she’d made him feel. And then she thought of Hugo blundering in, in the completely insensitive way that young men do, and challenging him when he had already been questioning himself.

  Her heart went out to him. Beneath the pompous exterior he’d adopted since coming here and taking up his role as Duke was a man who was painfully aware of his own faults and failings. Even the way he had just spoken made him sound more like the Gregory she’d known before they’d come to Bramley Park and he’d turned into the self-contained Duke of Halstead.

  She still felt hurt by his deception, but she could see why he’d set out on what had been far more than just a silly wager between two bored, titled gentlemen. He’d wanted to prove himself.

  ‘Well, now you know,’ said Hugo with a smile of triumph. ‘Because you couldn’t last a week on your own with only the resources available to me. So I’ve won.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Gregory drawled quietly. ‘I could very easily have stayed out the full week if I’d thought fulfilling the terms of the wager I had with you was the most important consideration. But by that time it wasn’t.’

  ‘It’s all very well saying that now—’ said Hugo.

  Prudence’s heart began to flutter. Because Gregory had turned to her and was looking at her in exactly the same way he’d looked at her when he’d kissed her, that second time, in the shrub
bery.

  ‘You can say whatever you like, Hugo,’ said Gregory, without taking his eyes from her. ‘I have nothing to prove to myself or anyone else any longer.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Her heart plummeted. She’d so hoped he’d been going to say he’d decided she was more important than winning the wager. Instead he’d more or less said that nobody’s feelings mattered but his own.

  ‘I have learned a lot of things during the course of this week,’ he said, turning to Hugo. ‘That I am every bit as resilient and inventive as any of my ancestors. I got myself to Wragley’s in disguise, located the false ledgers, and subsequently fought my way out. And then I extricated Miss Carstairs from the clutches of a pair of villains, survived the consequences of a robbery which left us penniless, and faced down a farmer with a gun.’

  ‘I say, it does sound as though you’ve had an adventure,’ said Hugo, with what looked like a touch of jealousy. ‘You should be thanking me.’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, looking a little taken aback. ‘I suppose I should.’

  ‘That wasn’t what you said before,’ Prudence pointed out. ‘You practically accused me of being in league with Hugo to make you lose the wager,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘What?’ Hugo sat up straight. ‘You thought I’d stoop to cheating?’

  ‘Well, you did procure that vile creature I hesitate to describe as a horse, and the most broken-down vehicle it has ever been my misfortune to drive. Can you wonder that I thought you were attempting to prevent me from even reaching Wragley’s in the first place?’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Hugo with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘That was just in the nature of a jest. You are never seen out on the road except in a spanking rig with the most magnificent horseflesh between the shafts. I thought it would be fun to see you brought down a peg.’

  ‘Hence the clothes, too?’

  Hugo grinned, completely unabashed. ‘That’s it. Though you have to admit the disguise I provided did the job, didn’t it? Neither Bodkin nor Miss Carstairs suspected for one minute that you’re actually a duke, did they? And you should have seen how inventive I was with reasons for your disappearance from London. Just as the Season was getting started, too. Everyone wanted to know where you were.’

  ‘The only person who might have been really worried by my absence,’ said Gregory repressively, ‘and might have had the gall to demand answers, would have been Jenkins. And I’d already sent him to Ely to make sure I’d have a change of horses at all the posting houses en route. But never mind all that now,’ he said, turning to Prudence. ‘I admit when we first met I was so fuddled that I couldn’t believe anyone but Hugo could be responsible for what was happening to us. And, yes, I was still obsessed with winning at that point. But the moment I knew you really had been the victim of a crime I decided to bring you straight here. Which meant forfeiting the wager.’

  Oh. Now he came to mention it, she did recall the rather determined look that had flashed across his face when he’d said he was going to bring her here straight away.

  ‘Surely you can tell that by the time we reached that barn none of that mattered any more?’

  She recalled the way he’d held her all night. He had not only kept her warm, but had made her feel safe. Cherished.

  He seized hold of her hands. ‘What matters now is the future we can make together.’

  A maelstrom of conflicting emotions surged through her—hope, longing, suspicion, fear. They brought tears to her eyes.

  ‘We cannot make a future together.’

  It wasn’t what he really wanted. Why, Hugo had said he’d rather cut off his arm than marry again.

  ‘What? What are you saying?’

  ‘That I cannot marry you.’ She reached inside herself for the little speech she’d prepared. ‘We only met because of the sordid, money-grubbing plot hatched by my aunt and that vile man she married—’

  ‘Which I can easily thwart. They cannot very well accuse you of having loose morals once you have married a duke. They wouldn’t dare risk the notoriety and expense of challenging your grandfather’s bequest with me at your back, either.’

  ‘But I am not,’ she said grimly, ‘going to marry you.’

  ‘Nonsense—of course you are,’ said Gregory.

  ‘There is no “of course” about it,’ she snapped.

  ‘Then why on earth did you propose to me?’

  There was a gasp from Lady Mixby. And Hugo, who’d been in the act of taking a sip of port, sprayed ruby-red droplets in all directions. But Gregory didn’t appear to notice.

  ‘And why do you think I accepted?’ he continued, in the teeth of her determination to set him free and the muted sounds of shock emanating from every other person in the room.

  Damn Prudence for getting him so worked up that his usual mastery over his emotions, over his actions and speech, had totally deserted him. How could he be standing here with his cousin, his aunt, her companion, and a virtual stranger watching while he blurted out things he’d vowed nobody should ever know?

  ‘But you didn’t,’ said Prudence, to his complete astonishment, relegating what anyone else in the room might think to a very minor position.

  ‘Yes, I did!’

  He cast his mind back. Came up blank.

  ‘That is, I may not have said in plain speech, Thank you, Prudence, yes, of course I will marry you, but you knew I’d accepted. I spoke of our marriage the next day as a fait accompli. Subsequently I introduced you to everyone in this house as my fiancée. The wedding will follow as a matter of course.’

  ‘It doesn’t need to, though.’

  She gazed at him in the way she did when she’d made up her mind about something.

  ‘Yes, it does need to,’ he said, scrambling for a reason that would reach her. ‘I have...er...tarnished your reputation. You admitted as much in front of Lady Mixby.’

  ‘Tarnished—fiddlesticks! Now that I know you are a duke I’m certain you could dispose of me in some other way than by marrying me.’

  ‘Perhaps I do not wish to dispose of you.’

  ‘Of course you do. You cannot seriously wish to marry a mere Miss Carstairs, from Stoketown. What will everyone say?’

  ‘I do not care what anyone will say. In fact I care so little that I have already sent the notice of our betrothal to the Gazette.’

  ‘Well, you will just have to unsend it, then!’ She stamped her foot. ‘I mean, send another letter telling them it was a mistake. I’m sure it will catch up with the first before it gets into print. You cannot marry me just because I’ve admitted, to one person, that we spent a night together.’

  ‘And to the other people present. Besides,’ he put in swiftly, ‘this is not just about restoring your reputation, Prudence. It is about justice. Can’t you see what would come of letting people like your guardians think they can go around abusing their position of trust? Or what it would mean if it ever got out that they’d tricked a duke, and that duke had let them get off scot-free?’

  He simply could not permit anyone to cross him, or wound those he loved.

  ‘Justice?’ She looked pensive. ‘Well, I suppose...’

  ‘Obviously,’ he plunged in, seizing upon what looked like a weak spot in her defences, ‘not only must they return the money they thought to steal from you, but they must also be suitably punished.’

  ‘Punished?’ She looked at him rather reproachfully. ‘Is that really necessary? Wouldn’t depriving them of my money be punishment enough?’ She pulled her hands from his. ‘If you persist in hounding my aunt she could end up in prison. Which would destroy her. And I’d never forgive myself. Because she isn’t a bad person—not really. Until she married Mr Murgatroyd she tried to do her duty by me, even though she found it so hard. And who could blame her? My grandfather left me the money she cons
idered hers.’

  ‘Did he not also leave her a similar sum?’

  A frown flickered across her face. ‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose he must have done. She was certainly considered well-to-do.’

  ‘But instead of being satisfied with her own inheritance she decided to rob you of yours, too?’

  ‘No... I don’t think she did. I think it was Mr Murgatroyd who put the notion in her head.’

  ‘Nevertheless, she went along with it.’

  ‘Isn’t a wife supposed to obey her husband?’ she shot back.

  ‘In theory. From experience, however, I can testify that it is rarely the case.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure it was in this case. Because Mr Murgatroyd isn’t the sort of man a woman can disobey.’

  ‘And yet she married him. Even though she was well-to-do. She didn’t have to do any such thing. And don’t forget I was on the receiving end of her diatribe that morning in The Bull. She put on a performance worthy of Drury Lane. Flung herself into the role of aggrieved guardian of an ungrateful, unruly ward with a gusto that had nothing to do with coercion.’

  ‘Do you have to rub it in?’ she complained, rubbing at her arms. ‘Don’t you understand how much it hurts already to know that they could do such a thing to me?’

  Of course he understood. Didn’t she see that was exactly why he’d spent that sleepless night in the barn, working out ways and means to see the pair of them destroyed? Utterly destroyed!

  He tried to take her hand again. She hid it behind her back as though she couldn’t bear to let him touch her.

  ‘Well anyway,’ she said firmly, ‘there isn’t any point in arguing about something that won’t happen. For we will not be getting married.’

  ‘Why do you persist in saying that?’ He was starting to feel as if he was standing on quicksand. No matter what argument he put forth to smooth away the obstacles in their path, she persisted in trying to avoid walking down it with him.