The Perfect Duchess

by Erica Taylor

  “Is that a problem, Sarah?” Andrew challenged. “Am I not allowed a few moments alone with my fiancée?”

  Sarah’s lips pursed into a flat line. “A few moments is one thing, but we are still a few hours from our destination. That length of time is not entirely proper.”

  “Oh come now, Sister Sarah,” Susanna chided, linking her arm through her older sister’s. “Give the bridegroom and his bride a chance to be alone. What do you think they will get up to in a carriage?”

  Sarah eyed both Clara and Andrew before giving a curt nod. “Keep the curtains opened at least.”

  “Goodness, Sarah, they’re practically married,” Susanna said. “If this were London, and they were carousing about town, that would be one thing. But there is no one here, and we are with family.”

  “Such things from you are worrisome, Susanna,” Sarah replied.

  “I’m not about to go along in a carriage with a gentleman who is not my husband,” Susanna said innocently. “But this is Andrew and Clara. I daresay they’ve earned a little leniency.”

  Sarah sighed and nodded her permission, though Andrew was not really waiting for her blessing.

  “Lovely,” Susanna said, tugging on her sister’s arm. “Now, let us get out of this heat and into the shade before I am covered in freckles.”

  Clara chuckled under her breath before glancing at Andrew beneath her long lashes.

  “Your sisters are enchanting,” she told him.

  “My sisters are a handful,” Andrew replied. “They interject their thoughts and opinions into every aspect of my life.”

  “But they care,” Clara reminded him.

  “Patrick cares about you,” he told her, offering his arm.

  “Yes, I know he does,” Clara replied, linking her hand through his arm. “But he is not here permanently. At the end of his leave he will sail off into the sunset, and I will be left here again, alone.”

  “You know you are no longer alone, Clara,” he said, and she glanced up at him quickly.

  “Yes, I know,” Clara replied. “You and your family have been wonderfully welcoming.” He handed her into the carriage before settling himself along the opposite bench.

  They traveled together for a while in silence. Glancing to her, he made an effort to pull her into conversation.

  “You will like Foley Cottage, I think,” he said. “For one, the kitchen is divine. Whatever pleases you, the kitchen will prepare.”

  “The food at Bradstone House has been marvelous, Andrew,” she replied. “I wonder, does the kitchen at Foley Cottage offer a variety of desserts?”

  He caught the hint of a double entendre, and he could feel his heartbeat quickening, his temperature rising. Despite his irritation towards her, he could not help but remain utterly enchanted. He’d forced himself to stay away from her since the debacle at the musicale, and that only resulted in the explosive tryst in the library two days earlier. He ached to hold her, to feel her soft skin and supple curves beneath his hands.

  “They have the most delectable desserts available any time of the day,” he replied, pushing the memory from his thoughts.

  “What if I choose to indulge every hour of every day for a whole year?” Clara asked coyly.

  “Then the kitchen staff would be quite exhausted from the constant work to keep you satisfied.”

  She smiled demurely and looked out the window. “It is not the kitchen’s staff I’m worried about, but another staff entirely.”

  Andrew let out a bark of laughter, and she winked saucily at him. “Oh Clara, where have you been all my life?”

  “Right under your nose, you goose,” she replied.

  He tilted his head to regard her, taking in how truthful her statement was. She had truly been there all along.

  “Don’t think me the most horrid person in the world for saying this . . . ,” he began, but he stopped, unable to find the right words.

  “But my sister’s abduction might have been the best thing for both of us,” she finished for him.

  He looked embarrassed, but she laughed her tinkling laugh.

  “Don’t look so ashamed, Andrew,” she chided. “I happen to agree. I miss my sister terribly, and I have begun to appreciate the sacrifice she made for me. But I came to a realization last night after spending some time with Patrick.”

  “A good realization?”

  She nodded. “When you and Halcourt were talking to Joseph Baker, who is, for all intents and purposes, my brother-in-law, I had the strangest feeling that he had come to care for Christina. He seemed devastated that she had run off and supposedly died in that parsonage. He admitted to the abduction but was horrified at the thought of killing her. I wonder if they had come to some sort of understanding. They both acted out of love for their siblings, they were bound together by the threat of Jonathan. And it was a few years after her abduction that Christina ran away. I wonder if she only did so because of what she was afraid Jonathan would do if he found out she was with child. A Patterson heir would impede his plans, and Joseph looked grief-stricken that Christina and their child had died.”

  Clara’s compassion for a man who had caused her so much pain surprised him. “This was your revelation?”

  Clara shrugged. “I want to believe that Christina was not miserable the entire time, that she was able to form some sort of connection, even mutual respect, with her husband. They were forced into the situation together; I can only hope they were able to make the best of it. Joseph did not seem capable of handling that hot poker in his thigh or the thought of going to prison. I cannot imagine him actually causing bodily harm to Christina.”

  Andrew had not considered this, though truthfully, he had not given much thought to Christina’s circumstances after she left him standing at the altar. But now that he did consider it, he realized he hoped the same thing.

  “I suppose I am incapable of seeing only the bad in everyone I meet,” Clara concluded. “I could say the same for you too.”

  “I do not see the worst in everyone, but I can recognize the evil some people possess.”

  “You do not think Joseph Baker possesses such an evil,” she stated.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because you secured his passage abroad, for both him and Molly. That was a very generous thing to do, though it was not surprising. Sometimes it seems as though you want to save everyone in the world.”

  Andrew looked out the window, a little unnerved by how well his fiancée had pegged him down. He had never been accused of having a hero complex, but he made sure he did some good with the position he had so tragically inherited. It was the least he could do to honor Father and Sam.

  “No, I could not have him ordered to his death,” Andrew admitted. “Removing them from the country seemed a decent alternative. We never have to see them again and they have the opportunity to start anew. They too were victims of your brother’s hate.”

  Clara’s gaze was intense, and her brown eyes sparkled with some unshed emotion as she looked down at her gloved hands. She pulled her lip to the side and chewed the inside of her cheek, her brow furrowing before asking, “I am curious about something, but I am afraid you will not be honest with me.”

  “When have I ever not been honest with you?” he asked.

  Her face relaxed slightly. “All right. I want to know what happened between you and my brother. You said you had been a firsthand recipient of his vile nature but you have never elaborated.”

  Of all the things he thought she would inquire, that was furthest from what he expected. He sighed, deciding he should probably share the story with her.

  “Morton and I were boon companions at school,” Andrew began. “I was Morton’s lackey, as were Trevor and Connolly. We were Morton’s little troupe, his little band of miscreants. We did his dirty work. He always said his ‘illustrious title’ mad
e him better than us, since we were all second sons or lower and as such we had to do his bidding. And we did. We did his bullying, his taunting. Once we even beat someone up for him.” Andrew sighed, running his hand through his hair.

  “When Mother sent a note requesting Luke, Ben, and I return home for that weekend, I refused to go. She wanted to have a grand family affair for Mara’s first birthday. I knew it would irritate Mother, but at the time I thought the whole idea was silly. I did not want to go to my baby sister’s birthday party. I was ten days away from being seventeen; I was head strong and a bit rebellious. Luke and Ben went ahead and I stayed behind at Eton. The carriages brought my brothers to London where they joined the rest of the family before continuing on to Kent and Bradstone Park. On the last stretch of road before reaching Bradstone Park, the coaches were attacked, and my father and brother were killed.”

  “How awful,” Clara said.

  Andrew nodded. “I was the only one not present, and only because I did not want anyone telling me what to do.”

  “Had you been there, the outcome might’ve still been the same,” Clara said reassuringly, giving his arm a light reassuring squeeze. “Or you could have been killed too. You could not have prevented it from happening.”

  “I know,” Andrew said, nodding. “The day I was told of my father and brother’s death was the last day I was friends with your brother—I’ve told you this. But there was something that happened . . .” Andrew trailed off, frowning over the memory. It was not that he was bothered by what had happened, though he should have been. It was more he did not understand it. “We’d been arguing about something, and Morton was rather put out with me. Our argument turned into a brawl and somewhere in the middle of it . . . Morton kissed me.”

  Clara’s brows shot up in shock. “I beg your pardon?”

  “That was about my reaction,” Andrew replied. “But I was a lad brawling with my best mate, and to have him do that in the middle of it all, well, I believe I reacted rather badly. I hit him again, and we were broken up moments later by Halcourt, who was a prefect. Halcourt had always been a rule follower. It seemed he had been sent by the headmaster to fetch me and I left straight away, worried I’d be expelled for fighting. It was then I learned of my father and brother’s deaths. Afterwards, I ignored what Morton had done, pretended that it hadn’t happened, I suppose. We did not have any contact that summer. I missed my examinations, but Eton sent tutors to administer them to me at home. When I returned that fall as a duke, everything changed. I did not want the attention I received, suddenly it did not matter I had been a terrorizer on the school yard, everyone it wanted to be my friend. Connolly and Trevor stuck by me and later Bexley and Halcourt, who were a year behind us, got added to our little group. Redley arrived one day from somewhere—he never really explained where—and we welcomed his companionship and his fists.

  “Morton . . . pretended I did not matter. That our friendship had never meant anything, and he certainly never mentioned what he had done. At first he ridiculed me for not being there to save my father and brother. He told everyone how it was my fault they were dead. And when no one seemed to listen to him, he started to make things up. He told everyone I had confessed to orchestrating their murder.”

  “No one could have possibly believed him,” Clara said, horrified.

  “At first no one did,” he replied. “But slowly, he poisoned a lot of the boys against me. Some claimed to have heard me rant about how I hated my family and how I wanted them all dead, especially Father and Sam, so I could be the duke. The professors did not know who to believe and as a precaution, Bow Street opened an official investigation.”

  Clara gasped. “That is appalling!”

  Warmth spread through Andrew as he watched her dark eyes full of disgust, grateful the disgust was not aimed towards him. He felt a weight lift off his shoulders, realizing he’d worried she might believe Morton as well.

  “I’m glad you feel that way,” Andrew said softly. He could not hide the years of pain from his eyes; he could no longer mask his expression with her. He had tried so hard for so many years to be exactly what he was supposed to be. He was not born to be the duke, but he had made every effort to fulfill his duties correctly, to do it right. He needed to prove he deserved it, that he hadn’t slipped in and stolen it from its rightful owners. For years he had strove to force those hateful, horrible things Morton had said about him out of society’s mind with his actions, and he felt he had been successful, though the tinges of the rumors enhanced his Stone Duke facade.

  “Andrew, I would never believe such a thing about you,” Clara said gently. “How could you think that of me?”

  “There is something about Morton that people respond to. It is amazing, and I was once fully susceptible to it. Whatever he says somehow people take as the gospel truth. They actually opened an investigation. The Bow Street Runners came up to the school and went through my room and interviewed my classmates. They went to Bradstone Park.”

  “What did they find?” Clara asked when he paused.

  “Nothing,” Andrew said, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a half-smile. The memory of his mother, red-faced and in her blacks, standing at the front door to Bradstone Park blocking the Bow Street Runners entrance to the house. “Mother wouldn’t let them inside. Said that anyone who believed the vile things said about me were less than human, and she would not allow an investigation into something that was clearly a horrible set of tragic events. The highway men had killed Father and Sam, and I was not involved.”

  “And they believed her?”

  “She was the Duchess of Bradstone,” he replied with a shrug. “No one doubted her, and no one dared question her.” He glanced at her carefully. “I am relieved that you do not believe Morton’s version of things.”

  “I would never,” she replied. “I am surprised that anyone else would as well.”

  “Truly?” Andrew asked, skeptically. “People have believed what he has said against you.”

  “I am certain that Jonathan hates me. I’ve given up trying to understand him or his motives. Besides, his words did not do you as much social damage as they did me.”

  “I had some cleanup work to do in order to repair my reputation,” Andrew admitted. “Even after Mother put an end to the investigation, Morton still ran his mouth. When I made my bows to the King and took my place within the ton I had my work cut out for me, but eventually everyone stopped talking about my supposed patricide. I did everything I could to be exactly as one would expect a duke for twelve years.”

  “Hence the Stone Duke,” Clara surmised.

  “Partially,” he replied. “I took a page out of Mother’s book: if I was stern and unrelenting, people would do as I said. But I also thought it was who society expected me to be. My father was a stern man, though he loved his children, he was distant. We never doubted his love for us, but he was not a warm person. I thought that was what a duke was supposed to be. My hardened personality earned the moniker. I never much cared for it, though I understood the need for it. As for Morton . . . I never breathed a word of what had happened, until here and now with you. I suspect he panicked, thinking I would spill to everyone so he set out to discredit me.”

  “Then he likely did the same to me,” Clara admitted. “Just after Patrick had left for sea, three years ago, I saw . . . Well, first I had noticed the name of someone he had been corresponding with, and it was a gentleman’s name.” She laughed lightly. “It’s so strange how bits of old memories stick with you. One little thing will latch on to a more important memory, then that tidbit is forever connected, even if it has no other relation. Frederick Meyers. 15 Grosvenor Square. I only remember the name because, as children, Christina and I used to play with a Sally Meyers, and I wondered if there was a relation. And my birthday is on the fifteenth of April.”

  Clara sighed and looked out the window. “Naturally I inquired afte
r the letter. Jonathan was very displeased and told me to stay out of things that did not concern me. My brother has never been overly warm to me, but in the past ten years or so his resentment has grown stronger and his demeanor colder. I learned to not ask questions where he was concerned.”

  Clara turned her gaze towards his, her eyes hooded and guarded. “The truth is, there have been few people in my life that I could truly rely on. Most of the things promised to me have turned out to be lies or ended in betrayal. I put on a good face, but sometimes I feel as though I am barely holding my life together—barely holding my emotions in check from spilling all over everything. Sometimes it feels I am strung together by the tightest frayed string, and one more snip will send me tumbling into destruction. A person can only handle so much betrayal in life before they turn hard and cold. Perhaps that is what happened to my brother. But I’ve been given little reason to trust anyone.”

  “As you say, trust does not come easily,” he said. “Though I have a family that loves me past the point of suffocation, my time in society has not been easy. Having to convince everyone I did not have my brother and father murdered while navigating who was genuine and who was merely near me because I was a duke was not easy. I was fortunate to have a select group who I could place my trust in. It surprised everyone when I offered for you, when I chose to trust you. And to have you not reciprocate that trust . . . well it was very confusing.”

  “Truly, I did not intend to hurt you,” Clara said softly. “I hope I can show you that I am someone you can trust.”

  “And I hope you will learn to trust my affections for you,” Andrew replied.

  Clara did not respond, she just nodded and looked out the window again.

  Her hesitation, though rational, still irritated him. Finally he had opened his heart to someone, and to have her reject him was stunningly painful. And he had to prove himself to her? He did not doubt her love for him, how could she not trust his feelings?

  Begrudgingly, Andrew realized she had a point, her past relationships had not proved the best foundation of trust. Andrew understood that—even related—though he had moved through his past hurt. Now he simply had to wait for her to move through her own distrust.