by Amy Lake
Even the housekeeper's rooms, downstairs, had been preferable, but-occupied as they now were by Mrs. Throckmorton-Lord Torrance had been forced to move into the duke's suite, with Josiah taking the valet's bedroom next door.
This was the outside of enough, thought Benjamin, grabbing a towel. The duke's rooms were designed to be the finest in the house, but the roof-otherwise intact, thank the heavens-had its one weak spot overhead, and this was not the first morning he had awoken to water on his bedchamber floor. If the ton could see him now, the Duke of Grentham, on his hands and knees mopping up water with one benighted, moth-eaten towel.
Benjamin threw down the cloth in disgust. Why had someone not been sent to purchase more linens?
Oh, yes, he remembered. Mrs. Throckmorton had purchased new linens-of course she had-but there was no place in the duke's bedchambers to store such items. Not a single set of drawers, or a clean hook anywhere.
If the ton could see him now, indeed.
"Blast and damn,” the duke added, his mood worsening as thoughts of London society begat memories of the previous evening's ball. The waltz, Lady Pamela, and that unfortunate conversation ... What had he said to her? And I asked you to marry me, did I not? The duke groaned. She had taken it as a reproach, although he had not intended it so.
Or had he? Benjamin told himself that he had no cause to reproach Pamela Sinclair. What she had done with her life was entirely her own business. Lady Pam was a woman past her twenty-fifth year, and ‘twas not to be expected that she was a milk-and-water miss, fresh from the schoolroom. Her maturity, her intelligence, and her calm outlook on life were each aspects of her personality that had attracted him, after all.
But other thoughts surfaced, less pleasant. He had expected to marry someday. A duke must marry. But his duchess—the kind of woman she would be—
He had never anticipated there would be any questions on the matter.
Devil take it. Benjamin shook his head and dressed quickly, intending another early start on the day. ‘Twas fortunate that Marchers presented so much work and left him so little time for rumination.
* * * *
"I wonder if I might trouble you for your assistance in a small matter..."
Lord Jeremy Burgess had spent much of the day disentangling his mother from another undesirable suitor-her fortune brought them out in droves-and so it was evening before he was able to make inquiries on Lady Detweiler's behalf. Although nothing involving Amanda surprised him anymore, the ‘small matter’ of which she had spoken came close.
She had insisted on waiting until the waltz ended before she said any more, to his frustration. And then, after they had made their way out to the Marthwaites’ terrace, Amanda explained to Lord Burgess what she wished him to do.
"You want me to send a message to Lord Torrance's valet?"
"That I would like to meet with him, yes."
This was a dubious endeavor, in Lord Burgess's opinion, but Lady Detweiler had been adamant.
"It is a matter,” she told him, “involving Lady Pamela."
"Ah.” Lord Burgess still hesitated. “I suppose..."
"Josiah Cleghorn seems to have unusual ideas concerning his role as the duke's manservant, but I believe he still holds Lord Torrance in high esteem. I'd wager he has some notion of the duke's feelings for Pamela Sinclair."
"Is that what the fuss is about? Lady Pamela and the duke?” Lord Burgess risked a small chuckle. Lady Detweiler's propensity for matchmaking was familiar to him, despite her protestations concerning the subject of love.
Amanda shrugged. “Pah. She's been moping about for months, you know. ‘Tis dreary beyond words. And Lord Torrance—I don't suppose dukes are allowed to mope, but he looks none too happy tonight."
"Indeed,” said Lord Burgess. He was wondering, ruefully, how it happened that he had again been caught up in one of Lady Detweiler's schemes. Although, he would have to admit, her machinations had proved successful more often than not.
"At his convenience, I suppose,” Amanda was saying, and Lord Burgess realized she was still discussing plans to meet with the duke's valet. “Although sooner would be better than later. I'll wait for him outside Marchers in the cabriolet."
"Amanda, there's no need for you to meet this man. I'll speak to him myself."
"Very kind of you I'm sure, but valets,” Lady Detweiler pointed out, “are close-mouthed when it comes to their employers. ‘Twill be fortunate if he even agrees to talk to me."
So that evening found Lord Jeremy Burgess visiting every tavern within walking distance of Marchers House. With any luck, thought Jeremy, the Duke of Grentham's man would not be a teetotaler.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lord Torrance sat at his library desk and wondered, dispiritedly, how one went about removing the mildew from an entire collection of books. Of all the problems that Marchers presented, the situation in the library troubled him the most. The odor had been only moderately unpleasant on first inspection of the room, but as soon as the maids had begun removing each volume for dusting it became strong and unmistakably mouldy. Airing the room day and night had been scant help. Poor Bess and Mary had never complained.
He felt, for the first time, a surge of anger against the old duke. What had the man been thinking, to be careless with something so valuable and unique? The volumes were bound beautifully in leather and gilt, neatly organized by subject and author-and had been left here to rot, it seemed. Even the atlases, as fine a set of maps as he had seen, had not escaped damage.
His uncle had not even bothered to send them to a bookseller, thought Benjamin. Where they might have found an appreciative buyer, someone who would have given them the attention they deserved. The duke felt strongly about books, and remembered his years in Virginia when they were not as readily available to him as they were here in London. Books were a means of escape from the everyday world, when the everyday world grew difficult. He wouldn't mind sitting down right now, as it happened, a volume of Shakespeare or Donne in hand.
Benjamin looked up as the door opened, and one of the young footmen entered.
"Milord,” said the footman, extending a silver dish piled high with letters.
Benjamin thanked him, and looked curiously down at the stack of envelopes. They were of various sizes, addressed in different, ornate hands.
Letters? During the weeks they had been in London Benjamin had received an occasional missive from James Pharr-his steward-at Corsham Manor, but most days there had been nothing at all.
"Eh?” Josiah had followed the footman into library. He eyed the duke, and the stack of letters. For a moment, Lord Torrance thought the valet was about to grin.
"I don't understand,” said Benjamin, slitting open the first envelope.
"Invitations, most like,” said Josiah. He looked smug.
"Invitations?” said Lord Torrance. “Surely not.” He'd received the one from Lord Marthwaite, of course, but that was days ago.
The valet, to his astonishment, was correct.
Benjamin frowned. “How can this be? I attended a single ball! And there were no invitations before—"
"Waiting to see if y'd attend the one,” said Josiah.
"I have no time for this! Of all the ridiculous ways to waste a person's time, and with the house about to fall down around our ears!"
The valet did not attempt to argue. “Be for dinner, some of ‘em,” he commented.
Dinner ... Lord Torrance had a sudden, almost painfully vivid memory of his last meal at the manor. A pie of mixed game in short crust, a fine roast pork accompanied by figs in cream, and followed by a blancmange. They ate simply in the country, of course, but the food at Corsham was always abundant and well-prepared.
The work at Marchers had been so taxing that Benjamin had spent little time worrying over what he did or did not have to eat. He trusted that Mrs. Throckmorton had matters generally in hand, but Cook was as stubborn and fastidious as the housekeeper, and the kitchen was being scrubbed, aired, and sande
d with a vengeance. Cook insisted that cleanliness was a necessary prerequisite for meals.
"No food comes out of my kitchen,” she told him, “until the rats are gone."
Even a duke could hardly argue with this. So they had been making do with meat roasted on a spit in the garden, and pastries purchased by the score from a nearby shop, and it would still be some time before the regular habits of a ducal household could be observed.
Benjamin found his mouth watering. Dinner parties were a normal part of London society. He would need to reciprocate eventually, of course, but in the meantime...
But if he was to accept even the occasional dinner, thought Benjamin, the stack of invitations would grow ever higher until he found himself as much a part of the ton as if he had entered London in a carriage and four with His Grace, The Duke of Grentham emblazoned on its side. His intention had never been to spend a great deal of time in society, or even in London for that matter. The Wiltshire plain was a far better place to avoid Pamela Sinclair.
To avoid Lady Pamela? said the little voice. ‘Twill be difficult to avoid the lady, if you continue to waltz with her.
No more balls, then, thought Benjamin. At least, he could refuse to attend any balls.
* * * *
Lord Burgess had stopped into several of the local establishments before finding Josiah Cleghorn at the Rose and Crown on Curzon Street. The valet was nearly finished with his pint of ale and amiable enough, especially after Jeremy had stood him to a second pint. He was also stubborn as the day was long, and as horrified at the prospect of talking to a lady of the ‘toon’ as Lord Burgess was to be conveying the request.
"Eh,” said Josiah, shaking his head, and at first it was all the answer he would give.
But Lord Burgess had purchased ale at each of the public houses he had visited that night, and a drunken Lord Burgess could out-stare a mule. Several more pints disappeared between the two of them, and at last a meeting with Lady Detweiler was arranged.
"Crazy as a shoe-horned loon, the lot of ‘em,” said the valet, referring generally-as Jeremy believed-to the female sex.
Lord Burgess was inclined to agree.
* * * *
So Amanda arrived in front of Marchers House the following day at the agreed upon time-half past nine-and waited impatiently in the hooded cabriolet until Josiah Cleghorn made his appearance.
She pulled back the curtain and bade him enter. The valet hesitated.
"Wha d’ ye want, then?"
"Don't stand there in the street for the gawkers,” she hissed.
"Don’ like it,” Josiah said. “Don’ like sneaking around behind his lordship's back."
"Yes, yes, it's horrible. Do get in."
"Eh,” said the valet, and spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the pavement.
Amanda rolled her eyes. “I concede your point,” she told him. “Crusty old colonial, not much taken with British notions of aristocracy—"
"Lot’ a tom-foolery."
"Agreed. Get in."
"Eh.” But, at last, he climbed into the cabriolet, and she pulled the curtains closed, signaling the driver to take a turn around Green Park.
Their conversation did not begin smoothly.
"Don’ know nobbut ‘bout that lady,” Josiah claimed, before Lady Detweiler had said a word.
"'That lady'?"
"The fancy lady with the yeller hair. Don’ know nobbut ‘bout her."
"You don't remember Lady Pamela Sinclair?” This was nonsense, thought Amanda. Pamela and the duke had spent every possible moment together, those few weeks at Luton Court. Josiah Cleghorn did not strike her as the type of manservant who would have let that pass unnoticed.
"Remember her, alright,” he replied. “Don’ know nothing about her and his lordship."
Amanda closed her eyes. She wanted to get information, not give it away, but sometimes one had to adjust for circumstances. “I didn't say anything about Lady Pamela and the duke,” she began.
"Eh?” The valet seemed startled.
"But now that you mention it—” Lady Detweiler, having made the decision to break any measure of confidentiality she owed Lady Pam, went about it wholeheartedly. She reminded Josiah of the time Lady Pamela and Lord Torrance had spent together in Bedfordshire, during the few weeks before Charles and Helène's wedding. She informed him that his grace had proposed marriage to Lady Pam; Josiah said nothing, but Amanda was inclined to think that the valet had not been aware of that fact.
She informed him that the duke's offer had been refused.
This got a reaction.
"Refused him?” the valet sputtered. “Refused his dukeship?"
"Indeed."
Further speech was temporarily beyond Josiah, so Amanda continued. “I must say, however, that I believe the lady's answer was not predicated on her true feelings."
The valet took a moment to work this out.
"She wants—Why'd she turn him down, then? Stupid—"
He broke off at Lady Detweiler's raised eyebrows. “People make mistakes,” she reminded him.
"Eh,” said Josiah. “The duke's as fine a man as walked these shores. Someone like her, turn him down, she's an all-fired fool."
Someone like her. A trifling phrase, perhaps.
"Someone like ... Lady Pamela?” asked Lady Detweiler.
Josiah seemed to realized that he had said too much. He clamped his mouth shut and edged away from her, his hand raised to the curtain of the cabriolet.
One could easily jump from the carriage. Amanda grabbed his arm. Her grip was iron, and the valet yelped.
"Din’ say nought that were’ n true!"
Lady Detweiler increased the pressure on his arm. She leaned forward and spoke calmly, directly-"Tell me now, little man. Tell me all of it, or I'll have you strung up by your breeches before matins, and ‘twill be hours before Lord Torrance can cut you down."
"Din’ say nought!” cried the valet again.
Amanda hung on, waiting. A few seconds of silent struggle ensued, the valet unable to free himself without striking her-and Amanda's groom not three feet away.
Finally—"I told him about her! That night."
Lady Detweiler released him. “The night of the wedding ball?"
"Eh.” The valet nodded his assent, rubbing his arm.
"You told the duke what, exactly, about Lady Pamela?"
"Her being a mistress. That earl."
Fury surged through Amanda's veins. The muddling clodpole, the cross-eyed, addlepated jackass. How dare he? She reached again for the valet's arm.
"It were the truth!” protested Josiah, fending her off. “An’ I din’ know he loves her, not then!"
He loves her. The valet did not know it then—At Luton, he must mean.
But he knows it now.
"I liked her well enough,” Josiah was saying. “A fine lady, an’ pretty enough for anything. But I had to tell him. He's the duke."
Amanda would grant him this point. Lord Torrance was the valet's employer, and as such, his first loyalty. ‘Twould be an impossibility any other way. Still—
"And so,” she said to Josiah, fixing him with a glare, “you chose to interfere in the duke's ... romantic life?"
"How was I suppose’ to know he'd be pining away the whole summer for her?” the valet rejoined. “Known him ten years or more. Never pined for nobody before."
'Pining away’ had promise, thought Amanda. And it jibed with her impression of the duke's feelings, as well. But if Lord Torrance was pining and Lady Pamela was moping, what were they arguing about?
The valet's answer didn't satisfy Lady Detweiler..
"She turned him down, be enough, seems like."
"Hmm..."
Lady Pamela had indeed turned down the duke's offer of marriage. But why? Amanda could make a guess at the answer, and it only confirmed her opinion of the stupid knots people tied themselves up in when they took the suggestions of polite society and turned them into rules.
Rules
were no good. Rules assumed everyone was the same.
In this case, the rule said that a grown woman and a grown man could reside together and enjoy each other's company only under carefully selected circumstances.
To whit, marriage.
'Twas foolish, in Lady Detweiler's mind. Some people claimed to despise the very thought of marriage, so much so that they ran from the opposite sex as a fox from the hounds. Others made such a snarl of it—Lord Amesbury, for example, the man ought not have been allowed before priest and altar-that the life of their wife or husband was a daily misery.
Lord Torrance, she presumed, had asked Lady Pamela to be his wife, only to find out that she had been mistress to the Earl of Ketrick. He had rescinded his offer—
No. No, Pamela had said she turned him down.
Well, then, thought Amanda. He had offered for her in such a way to convince Lady Pam that he was not in earnest. Perhaps he had even managed to suggest that Lady Pamela was beneath him, that he was lowering himself to accept her, besmirched as she was.
Amanda leaned back against the cushions of the cabriolet and blew out a long breath.
"Well, it's a pickle,” she commented, addressing herself to no-one in particular. “I dare say she won't waltz with him again, but if only they could meet under less ... emotional circumstances."
"Waltzed?” Josiah looked pleased. “At that ball?"
"Indeed. But they seem to have argued their way through the entire dance.” Lady Detweiler shook her head. “If only there was a way..."
The valet puffed his chest. “It were me got the duke to that ball,"
"You?” Amanda raised her eyebrows. “How extraordinary. Now, I don't suppose..."
* * * *
Her conversation with Josiah Cleghorn lasted only a short while longer. The valet was nearly her equal in scheming, Amanda discovered, and it took the two of them little time to organize one or two preliminary stratagems. London was a large city, but not so big that Lady Pamela and the Duke of Grentham would never meet again.
