A Highland Duchess

by Karen Ranney

  A Highland Duchess

  Karen Ranney

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Author's Note

  About the Author

  By Karen Ranney

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Chavensworth, outside of London

  January, 1864

  Emma, Duchess of Herridge, approached the great house of Chavensworth feeling sick. Her palms were damp inside her gloves; her skin was clammy, and nausea had been her constant companion since leaving London.

  Her maid, Juliana, said nothing as they entered the long drive sweeping up to the house, but then, Juliana wasn’t married to the Duke of Herridge.

  If Emma could have invented any excuse to avoid this meeting, she would have. She should have told Anthony that she was sick in the mornings, that her stomach did not agree with her, leading him to think—erroneously—that there were hopes of an heir.

  She hadn’t thought that quickly. When she’d received the summons, she immediately left London for Chavensworth.

  The tersely worded note from the housekeeper had been a surprise but regardless of how Anthony had summoned her, he’d done so, and she was not fool enough to anger him by being tardy. Anthony was even more vindictive when she did not obey him instantly. Whenever she thought she’d experienced the depths of his depravity, he managed to shock her again.

  If only Chavensworth were a greater distance from London. If only snows had blocked the roads. If only ice had made the journey dangerous. If only . . . if only . . . if only . . . the wheels of the carriage seemed to sing that refrain as if mocking her.

  The coachman halted in front of the north façade, the most dramatic face of Chavensworth. Here, the three story, yellow stone structure was topped with a pediment adorned with Greek statues in various poses. The fact that all of the figures were barely dressed should have given her some hint about Chavensworth.

  Emma nodded to Juliana, attempted to rearrange her features in an aspect that would be pleasing to Anthony, and waited for the footman to open the carriage door. He did so a moment later, and all too soon she was walking up the steps to the massive front door, her maid a few steps behind her.

  Williams, the majordomo, greeted her now, his bald head ringed by a tuft of white hair, his stocky figure immaculately attired in the Herridge livery.

  “Your Grace,” he said, his usual sepulchral tones even more muted.

  “What is wrong, Williams?” she asked.

  Please God, don’t let Anthony have planned another entertainment so soon.

  “Your Grace?”

  She turned her head to see Mrs. Turner, the housekeeper Anthony had employed just weeks before their marriage. In a sense, she and Mrs. Turner had learned the secrets of Chavensworth together.

  “Mrs. Turner,” she said, greeting the other woman.

  “I’m very sorry, Your Grace.”

  “Sorry?” She began to remove her gloves, ignoring the sudden plummeting of her stomach. “Whatever for?”

  Had some housekeeping emergency called her to Chavensworth? The housekeeper’s look, however, did not lend itself to relief.

  “His Grace has expired.”

  For a moment Emma didn’t understand. It took Juliana’s gasp behind her for her mind to race to the unthinkable.

  “Anthony?” she asked. “He’s dead?” How very calm she sounded.

  The housekeeper nodded. Williams moved to stand beside her. An armed front?

  “He was found in his library this morning, Your Grace,” Williams said. “Slumped in a chair.”

  “Anthony is dead?”

  Williams’s face was smoothed of any expression as he nodded, an indication that the impossible had become possible.

  Slowly, Emma removed her bonnet and gave it to Juliana. Soon she would go to the Duke’s Suite or to a dozen or so rooms that were comfortable in their way. At the moment, however, she couldn’t move at all.

  “If I may speak to you in private, Your Grace,” the housekeeper said. She looked pointedly at Juliana. So, too, did Williams.

  Emma nodded, and followed Mrs. Turner down the hall to the main corridor of Chavensworth, saying nothing as they passed the Yellow Parlor with its welcoming fire and entered the Chinese Parlor. There, on the other side of the room, was a bier, already erected by the carpenters.

  Emma began to tremble.

  “He’s really dead?” she asked softly.

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “We shall have to cover the mirrors,” Emma said, all too familiar with funeral customs since her father’s death two years earlier. “And close the curtains and set the clocks.”

  She would need to have some dried lavender, grown in Chavensworth’s own fields, moved into the Chinese Parlor, arrange to have some beeswax candles burning. Should she have laurel wreaths adorning all the doors, or only those on the north façade? Did she have enough black-bordered stationery or would she need to order some? She would have to give instructions to Cook to prepare the funeral favors, biscuits wrapped in white paper and sealed with black sealing wax. Did she have enough black sealing wax on hand? If Anthony died this morning, the funeral should take place in four days. So much to do in so short a time.

  “We’ve already begun preparing the body, Your Grace,” Mrs. Turner said, pulling Emma from her thoughts. “Which is why I needed to speak with you privately.”

  Again Emma thought she might become ill. What had Anthony done to shock the middle-aged housekeeper, and put such a look in her eyes? What horror had he committed at the last moment of his life?

  “What is it, Mrs. Turner?” she asked, dispirited at the very moment she should begin feeling some joy.

  Anthony, Duke of Herridge, was dead. Anthony, satyr and despot, breathed no more. Anthony, who’d done everything in his power to squander the fortune she’d brought to her marriage, was to be interred behind stone blocks in the family chapel. Anthony, about whom people spoke in scandalized whispers, would never summon her to Chavensworth again, never insist that she perform in his revels to her disgrace and shame.

  “We were beginning to remove the headband from His Grace,” the housekeeper said.

  Emma was all too familiar with that task because of her father. As close after death as possible, a three-inch-wide band of cloth was placed
under the chin and then tied at the top of the head to keep the mouth closed as the body stiffened. Once the body was bathed—beneath a sheet in order to shield the naked limbs of the deceased from view—the headband was removed and the body dressed.

  “Something appeared on the body, Your Grace, that was not visible when we began to prepare him.”

  Mrs. Turner reached out and gripped her arm, something she would never have done at any other time. But the woman no doubt sensed that Emma would not advance on the bier without coaxing.

  The coffin looked quite sturdy, and was covered in black cloth. Did Chavensworth’s carpenters have a store of coffins waiting for all of them?

  Anthony looked restful but not asleep. In sleep he’d still worn that half smile of his, as if he knew that she watched him sometimes, wondering at his capacity for evil.

  “You’re sure he’s dead?” she asked.

  Mrs. Turner looked at her. “Yes, Your Grace, he’s dead,” Mrs. Turner said, her voice warm with sympathy. Because of her loss? Or because she had been married to Anthony for four years?

  Did they know, these loyal servants, of the activities that occurred in the ballroom on the third floor? Of course they did. Were they horrified? If they were, they had been careful not to reveal their emotions around the Duke of Herridge.

  “This is what I want you to see, Your Grace.”

  Mrs. Turner leaned into the coffin and unbuttoned three buttons of Anthony’s shirt.

  Emma stared, uncomprehending. Understanding came in a rush. She looked at Mrs. Turner, then back at what the housekeeper had revealed.

  “Dear God in Heaven,” Emma said, an oath no proper lady should utter.

  Of course Anthony could not simply die like anyone else.

  She couldn’t breathe; the air would not travel past her constricted throat. She swayed on her feet and was caught by Mrs. Turner. Emma began to laugh hysterically, the sound echoing around the Chinese Parlor until at last it faded, choked off by panic.

  Chapter 1

  London, England

  Late June, 1865

  “I have found another husband for you, Emma.”

  Emma, Duchess of Herridge, did not look up but concentrated on her needlework. A spot of blood bloomed beside a pink peony. If she stood now and went to the washbasin to blot it with cold water, the stain would surely come out.

  She remained seated.

  A ball of ice was forming in her stomach, growing until it chilled her chest, spread through her arms and down to her legs.

  “Did you hear me, Emma?”

  She clasped her hands together, the needlework abandoned, and bowed her head.

  “Emma?”

  “I heard you, Uncle,” she said, forcing herself to look up at him.

  Her uncle resembled her father so much that it was always a shock to look at him. His face was narrow and thin, his chin sharp, his mouth full. Unlike her father, however, her uncle seemed unaccustomed to smiling.

  The tips of his ears pointed through his thinning blond hair. Her father’s hair had been slightly darker, and fuller. Nor had he ever smelled of camphor like her uncle did, even now. The dish of potpourri at her side was no match for his overwhelming odor.

  “There’s no need for me to wed. I have my own income, Uncle.”

  He knew exactly how much money was at her disposal. Although Peter Harding had become the Earl of Falmouth at her father’s death, the earldom had not been accompanied by her father’s wealth. That had come to her, at least what had not already been spent by Anthony. After Anthony’s death, she’d been informed by her solicitors that her uncle had become her financial guardian.

  She hadn’t cared at the time nor did she now.

  All she’d wanted was to ignore the reality of the past four years as well as the circumstances of Anthony’s death. She’d planned to occupy herself with her needlework, her flowers, becoming an example to all how rumors could be false.

  Not that they were, in her case. Another reason to adopt a decorous mode of living. Now, however, her uncle was putting all those carefully made plans in jeopardy.

  “Regardless of what you want or don’t want, you have no choice in the matter.”

  She stared down at the stained peony. The blood had spread, her fingertip only now beginning to sting. Odd, she hadn’t thought it that great a wound.

  Was he correct? Did she have no say in this matter? She’d not been able to convince her father that Anthony was not the right husband for her. Her father had been so pleased to find a duke, no less, who would protect her, who would see to her long after he departed this world, that he’d paid no attention to her pleas.

  Had he known? Sometimes, Emma thought her father had died two years after her wedding because of his shame.

  “At least this time,” her uncle was saying, “you will have a young man for a bridegroom. Not one thirty years your senior.”

  She did not want to talk about Anthony. She didn’t even want to think about Anthony.

  For all these months, she’d been spared a husband. Now, it was going to happen all over again. She could barely breathe. Was she going to fall into a faint? After the last few years of being resolutely conscious, how very odd to want to collapse now.

  Her fingertips felt numb, and her feet were oddly cold. A soft buzz hummed in her ears. Perhaps she was simply going mad. At least insanity would spare her a marriage, would it not?

  “I will send for the dressmakers in the morning,” he said. “You will feel better about it once you have a new trousseau.”

  “I am in mourning, Uncle,” she said, looking up at him. “Have you forgotten?”

  “You are to be a bride again, Emma. What bride wears black?”

  One who does not wish to wed?

  “It is not proper, Uncle. I can’t marry now. At least not until I have begun half-mourning.”

  His narrow face was mottled, his color high.

  “When, exactly, will that be?”

  “It has only been eighteen months since Anthony passed, Uncle. Another year at least. It wouldn’t be proper to marry earlier than that.”

  “Why do you care about propriety, Emma?”

  She forced herself to face his gaze. Her face warmed but she didn’t speak. Did he know? Had he known, all these years?

  The ice ball in her stomach seemed to crack, causing her to tremble. She held both hands together so tightly she could feel each separate bone.

  “You will marry, Emma, and when I decree it, not when you feel it best.”

  He turned and, without another word, left the room.

  Why did she care what society said?

  Because a semblance of reputation was all she had. Because Anthony had stripped everything from her, decency, dignity, pride, and all she had remaining was her reputation for being cool and aloof, above the fray. She was the Duchess of Herridge, Ice Queen.

  Anything but Emma, a bride again.

  The moment she was alone, Emma lay her head back against the chair and sighed. She closed her eyes and willed the last ten minutes away, but they would not vanish. Nor would her uncle’s announcement.

  She’d not even asked her bridegroom’s name. In all honesty, it hadn’t mattered. Marriage had been a hideous experience for her and she would not repeat it.

  Emma opened her eyes, put aside her needlework, stood, and walked to the window.

  Her suite of sitting room, bathing chamber, and bedroom had been designed for a duchess. The house had been a gift from her father, on the occasion of her wedding. She’d wondered, at the time, if it was a gift of apology, a way of conceding that perhaps his decision to accept the Duke of Herridge’s suit had been a poor one.

  What had he known before her marriage that she’d discovered weeks later?

  The furn
iture in this room had come from France, delicate pieces crafted of mahogany with cabriole legs footed with delicate lion paws. A vanity, four-poster bed, armoire, and prie dieu furnished the bedchamber, while several tables and a bonheur du jour writing desk complete with two secret drawers sat in the sitting room. The upholstered pieces—love seat and two chairs—had been covered in a delicate blue floral pattern she’d selected herself, thinking her father wished advice for his own home. The walls were covered in silk the same color as the background of the floral pattern.

  Unlike the homes of her contemporaries, in which fabric draped everything from cachepots to furniture, this room was nearly sparse. Clutter had been set aside for space, and the few items that remained were those reminding her of better times. A pair of Minton Parian figures sat atop the mantel; a large Chinese red lacquer vase sat beside the fireplace.

  The day after Anthony’s funeral, she’d left the house he built not long after their wedding, a quite impressive town house not far from here, and moved to this house on Alchester Square. If people speculated on her actions, they’d probably thought that grief had driven her from the home she’d known during her marriage. They would be right in one respect—she couldn’t bear to be around anything that reminded her of Anthony.

  Soon after she’d come to live here, her uncle had moved into her home, taken over its management, including hiring a new staff, altering the library to fit his needs, and generally running the establishment. At the time, his presence seemed to fit her plans.

  She should have rebelled. Against what? Propriety? Residing with a relative was more acceptable than living on her own. Society? Getting her good name back was the one goal she’d had since Anthony’s death.