Mistress of Two Fortunes and a Duke

by Tessa Candle

  “That is just how I feel about T—about my love. She is unequalled among women.”

  “But if she will not have you... Will you not consider another?”

  “Never.”

  “And yet,” the old man tapped his fingertips on his lips, “you have put Miss Colling in a rather difficult position, what with your visit to her home and your meander through the woods.”

  “Mrs. Colling. According to her own testimony, she is a widow, Uncle.” Rutherford rolled his eyes. “So I believe we may dispense with the Miss Colling designation. And however frail the dignity of a woman who does not give you her real name, as a widow, I believe her reputation may withstand being seen walking with me and my dogs. No one need know that we were alone in the cabin together.”

  “Perhaps. But you should consider her under my protection, William. So you must not toy with her.”

  “Toy with her?” Rutherford laughed. He wondered how much the duke knew about this young woman's real story. Rutherford was certain that she had one, and that it was probably scandalous. “I should as soon toy with a highwayman! If there is a woman who does not need protecting, it is she.”

  Chapter 31

  It had been two days, and Tilly's agents could get no intelligence regarding Clara and Sweep. It seemed to her that this was good news, for if her network of urchins could find nothing out, a lord like Screwe, however corrupt and connected to the evils of London, would surely fare no better.

  She had begun making inquiries into how to dispose of her opium business. It was not as simple as selling everything. She wanted to preserve the livelihoods of those working for her and she did not want the business to fall into the hands of the unscrupulous.

  Then she realized that she was the unscrupulous, at least in absolute terms. But there were much worse characters, and she was trying to make up for her lapse in ethics. Her past indifference certainly did not give her leave for the fresh sin of passing the business on to a nastier profiteering fiend than herself.

  Her head spun over such thoughts. It blue-devilled her and made her wish for a biscuit. But she was down to one per day, and she had eaten her ration when she awoke. Her headaches were now subsiding. She only got a faint one when she stayed up too late. Tilly was forced to concede that, much like Rutherford's symptoms, her headaches had been caused, rather than cured, by all her sugar.

  The comparison vexed her, but it was time that she accepted the truth. She was dependant upon biscuits and sweeties. She pursed her lips unhappily.

  She might be the only person in all of England to confess this weakness, but she would do so. If she could not give up this little over-indulgence, how could she ask Rutherford to claw his way through the hell of weaning himself off laudanum?

  She wondered how he was doing. She had procured a supply of the dried herbs used in the infusion that Ole Maeb gave Lydia for the birthing. The aged herbalist had confirmed that it should alleviate, but not eliminate the ordeal of quitting laudanum.

  Tilly had been so busy that she had not seen him in days, and anyway, she was not supposed to see him. Wasn't that the plan? But she had an excuse to see him now, if only she did not fear she were being watched by Screwe's henchmen.

  And it would be nice to chat with Rutherford. Who did she think she was fooling? She wanted more than a chat. Yet what she wanted most was to see that he was well. Perhaps they could encourage each other. He might be pleased to know of her progress in giving up sweets.

  But would her presence make things worse for him? Her heart throbbed. Why could she not rid herself of this pining after what could not be? Rutherford would not be happy in an affair. He wanted a wife, and Tilly was to marry another.

  Her fingers twitched with the memory of gliding them along his smooth skin and enjoying the lithe curves of his muscles. Giving up sugar was child's play. Giving up Rutherford seemed impossible. If only she didn't care so deeply for him, her life would be blissfully simple.

  Blissfully simple? Hah!

  She stood up, abruptly. “Right! Enough ruminating. I shall go see Lydia and her new babe. That will take my mind off the mayhem of my life.”

  When Tilly arrived at the Aldley house, she was shown into Lydia's chambers, where the countess was happily ensconced upon a chaise longue, the new love of her life asleep on her shoulder.

  Tilly paused in the doorway and felt wretched for the pang of jealousy that tore through her. Was she jealous of the child that now had all of her best friend's heart, or jealous of the friend who would evermore possess the heart of this child? Either way, Tilly was an awful person for envying a happiness that was almost holy. She entered and they exchanged their greetings.

  “Is she not a perfect little angel?” Serene contentment illuminated Lydia's features, as she showed the sleeping infant to Tilly.

  “She is very… pink.” Tilly shook her head. What a stupid thing to say. “Just like a little blossom.” She hoped it sounded convincing.

  “Oh, but you are such a bad liar. She has a ruddy complexion, but all the experts assure me that it may go away in time. I really cannot complain, for she must have got it from my side. My mother says I was a very red-faced little thing right up until I took my first communion.”

  “Who knew that the blood of Christ was so efficacious.” Tilly could not help herself.

  “Hah! Irreligious little goblin. Have you ever even taken communion, or does the wafer catch fire as soon as it hits your tongue?”

  Tilly tilted her head and arranged her lips in an expression of philosophical resignation. “Well, yes sometimes, but only if I forget to pay the tithe upfront.”

  Lydia played along and assumed an air of mock piety. “If only the Church of England had indulgences, you could defer payment on the wages of your sins.”

  “Would that be an interest-free deferral, do you think?” But Tilly's smirk soon soured. “Bah! This is enough holy talk. Even in jest it reminds me too much of Grandfather Fowler's speeches.”

  “And how is your future grandfather-in-law?”

  “Still alive.”

  “Tilly! You must not say such things, or I shall have to take measures to protect my daughter from your corrupting influence.” Lydia pretended to cover the one exposed ear of her daughter.

  Tilly gave her friend a nonchalant look. “I imagine the nursery might be lined with lead, easily enough. You could pop her in there, when I come to call.”

  “Ah, but I never relegate my babe to the nursery. Unless we are entertaining, she is always here with me, if she is not being fed. So you must learn to behave yourself.”

  “That I never shall.” Tilly grinned. “And anyway, I am the only obstacle between you and the maddening tedium of maternal incarceration. Prisoners cannot be too choosy about their visitors. But to answer your question, the old geezer is as puritanical as ever. However he gives every appearance of being ready to confer a large settlement on his grandson, and make him the heir, finally. I believe he has already begun redrafting the will, so he must be satisfied that Mr. DeGroen is of sufficiently good character.”

  Lydia had a strange look on her face. “And so you shall marry your own massive settlement with a prince's fortune. And it is certain—you have not changed your mind?”

  “My mind is unwavering,” Tilly lied.

  “I had hoped,” confessed Lydia, “that Mr. Rutherford might turn your head. True I have nothing against Mr. DeGroen, but it is so clear to me how much Rutherford loves you. It shall break his heart when you marry another.”

  Tilly knew that it would also break her own heart, but she had been over it in her head, and there was just no way out of things. DeGroen's inheritance was precariously perched on the long engagement followed by marriage, along with proving his moral character. If only the puritan grandfather knew how things really were, he would die of an apoplexy. But that would do DeGroen no good, as the old man was yet to make over everything to his grandson. No, these were the terms dictated by Grandfather Fowler, and there was no way
around it.

  “To be honest, Lydia, Mr. Rutherford has turned my head. But I am not free to follow my own inclinations.”

  Lydia's face lit up with hope. “But of course you are! It is a lady's prerogative to break off an engagement, after all.”

  Tilly sighed. She would like to explain it, but there were just some things that were private and it was not her right to share them, even to explain to her friend that she was not a heartless, money-grubbing fiend in petticoats. “It would not be without severe consequences. I cannot do it. And Rutherford is better off without me.”

  “Oh, how can you say so!” Lydia looked distressed. “You are wonderful. More fun than any young woman I have ever met, which is perfect for Rutherford. And Rutherford is perfect for you. He loves a little intrigue and irreverence, and does not, like three quarters of the ton, expect women to be dull and stupid. And you must concede he is as handsome as anything.”

  Tilly could not take much more of this line of talk, so she changed the subject abruptly. “And what of Lord Essington? Have you heard any news of him? Rutherford mentioned that your husband was concerned the bounder was up to something.”

  “Do not think I have missed remarking that you are changing the subject, but yes, I have heard a little something, and I believe it involves you.”

  Tilly cursed herself for not bringing up some other topic, any other topic. “Me? I cannot imagine how.”

  “Can you not? Tilly, I am your friend. It bothers me that you do not take me into your confidence, but I have come to a surmise and I should like you to answer me directly.”

  Tilly lifted a brow. “I see you take very quickly to being a countess. You certainly have adopted the requisite imperiousness.”

  Lydia merely proved Tilly's point by lifting a finger to cut off the objection and continuing, “I admit that we were rather too hard on you about the brothel, and I am thankful that you have forgiven me for my indiscretion. But, honestly, Tilly, this is beyond the pale. In short, you must stop selling Lord Essington opium.”

  “I am not selling Lord Essington opium.” It was true. No money had exchanged hands. But how had Lydia found out about it?

  “Oh, indeed?” Lydia squinted into Tilly's face, trying to scry out of its contours some indication of whether or not she told the truth. “Then why do you look guilty?”

  “If you are registering some troubled expression on my face, it is not guilt, but shock. Whatever has led you to accuse me of selling your brother-in-law opium?”

  “I will tell you,” said Lydia, not persuaded in the least by Tilly's dissembling. “After the baby was born, Thomas was more willing to discuss the distressing events involving Mr. Delacroix. He told me that he first feared Delacroix's return when Rutherford spotted Crump leaving Essington Hall.”

  “Indeed.” Tilly swallowed. This was not good. “What was Rutherford doing at Essington Hall?”

  “Thomas sent him to check on his sister, but do not change the subject. At the time he and Rutherford believed Crump to be still in the employ of Delacroix. We have since learned that you are his new master.”

  “And yet, I do not watch him every minute of the day. I will have a word with him about associating with turds like Essington. Will that do?”

  “No, it will not.” Lydia gave her a look of supreme disdain for such a trifling attempt to deceive her intellect. “Now, Thomas has not yet made the connection between the fact that Essington is somehow getting a supply of opium delivered to him, and the fact that Crump is your man. Or if he has, he has decided not to mention his suspicions to me.”

  “You see? He is not suspicious, though he is so fastidious a person.”

  Lydia raised a hand. “I know you, Tilly. I know, as my husband does not, that you made some sort of deal with Essington to buy his silence about the unescorted carriage ride he took with your sister-in-law, before you married her off to your brother.”

  “I had no need to make a bargain. Why should he wish to say anything about it at all? He is a bounder, but he is not a gossip. He gives every indication of holding common morality in contempt.”

  Lydia shook her head in complete dismissal of this reasoning. “You have your fingers in a lot of pies. That is just how you are, and I find it charming. It does not bother me in the least that you deal in opium.”

  Tilly would not allow herself to be relieved until she heard the equivocation that she knew was coming.

  “However,” continued Lydia. “Thomas is trying very hard to keep Essington away from the drug, for the sake of Lady Essington and the child.”

  Tilly sighed. “You have no idea how opium takes a person over, Lydia. Lord Essington would get that drug one way or another. If he is having it regularly delivered, it will keep him out of London, and out of trouble.”

  “Except for the trouble of destroying his health.”

  “I will not debate that point. But you have seen a little of the man's character, and your husband knows it only too well. Do you think he would not have his way and get the opium, no matter what?”

  Lydia huffed and gave a dissatisfied look. “I suppose you are right about that. But it is unseemly to have my own best friend delivering the poison to him.”

  “Very unseemly. So unseemly that it only seems that way to one person, notably you.”

  “It cannot be long until Thomas makes the connection, Tilly. And he is less broad-minded than I am.”

  “Well, put your mind at ease. If I were supplying it to your brother-in-law, which I by no means concede, I should certainly be thinking, at this point, of getting out of the trade.” She was willing to let Lydia think it was because she feared detection.

  Lydia looked relieved. “That is more than I could ask for. At least I will not have the pain of knowing that the noxious substance is coming from your hand.”

  Tilly shrugged at her friend's being so easily appeased with this cold comfort. It certainly would not solve anything.

  It was hard for Tilly to believe, but it appeared that neither Lydia nor her husband had recognized Rutherford's dependency on laudanum, probably because he behaved like a gentleman. So many people held onto the foolish prejudice that vice was always obvious in the conduct and the features of the vicious.

  “But Essington is a selfish brute,” Tilly could not resist adding, “because that is who he is, not because of opium.” And Rutherford, despite his dependency, was a good man. The drug could ruin that, to be sure, but it did not have the power to improve anyone's character. “Denying Lord Essington opium, even if such an effort succeeds, will not make him a better person, husband or father. Your husband should be prepared for that.”

  “If only there were some way of weaning him off, without having him turn into a completely rabid savage.”

  Her friend's wish floated about Tilly's cranium like a tiny dandelion seed carried by the winds of desperate fancy, before dropping into her head and poking her brain. That was it! That was what she would do with her opium business. She would not merely sell off her interest to someone yet worse than she was. She would hold onto it and use it as a base for a sanatorium to treat those who were addicted, to gradually wean them off, and to help them regain their nerves.

  She sprang up and kissed her friend loudly on both cheeks. “Lydia, my dearest friend, you are brilliant!”

  Lydia looked very surprised and unconsciously clutched her baby closer, as she watched her mad friend dash for the door. “Where are you going?”

  “I am going to see Rutherford!”

  Lydia's face brightened. “That is wonderful. But you know he is out of town to see his Uncle Bartholmer.”

  “Then I shall go to him there.”

  “But you have not been invited!” she called to the disappearing back of her friend.

  As she skipped down the hall, Tilly heard Lydia add, in a disappointed voice, “And I have not told you of the name we selected for the babe.”

  But Tilly was too excited to stop. Baby names could wait. She had to shar
e her news with Rutherford.

  Chapter 32

  Rutherford inhaled the fragrance of his uncle’s roses and stroked Molly’s silky ears. He thought the new mother deserved an outing after having been pent up inside with the pups, so he had brought the whole litter out into the rose garden for a frolic, while Mrs. Colling read to Bartholmer.

  That whole Miss Colling business had only been his uncle not hearing her correctly when she introduced herself, apparently. After that, she said, she did not feel equal to correcting a duke. It seemed plausible enough, and at least it meant she had not deceived the duke about her name. But Rutherford suspected there was a lot more to her story than she was letting on. Still, so long as she was not actively misrepresenting herself to his uncle, Rutherford supposed her intrigues were none of his concern.

  And yet, he could not deny his curiosity about a woman who levelled guns at strangers and lived on her own in a cottage in the woods. There was no question that with her looks, she could marry advantageously. There was certainly no need to put herself on the shelf and live in poverty, just because she was a widow. If her vivacity was any indication, he did not think she was especially pining for her dead husband, either.

  He shook his head. There was no reason to be brooding about it. His own oddly motivated woman kept his mind sufficiently occupied, without borrowing someone else's. He picked up the puppy that resembled Mack and rubbed his long ears. “How do you do, little Mick? Are the other pups treating you well? Do not let them tease you about your ears. Did I ever tell you the story of how your papa helped to save my life?”

  “Rutherford?” A head peeked around the hedge. “I thought I heard your voice.”

  He blinked. It was Tilly. His heart surged with joy. He had been missing her, wishing she could be with him to meet his uncle, see Blackwood, meet the puppies. And now she was before him. She walked over to his blanket, Mrs. Carlton in tow, and plopped herself down next to him.