I am dying inside. My heart, broken first when Graham left, is dying all over again. “I’m not.” Where did that lie come from? Where, when she’d leave behind her family and friends. She choked down a sob. “I-I am overcome with happiness.” Would the ladies of Berkshire who’d taken you under their wing of friendship still feel kindly toward you should they discover the truth? They’ll never know. She steeled her jaw. Not Aldora, not Emilia, not Constance, not Meredith, and certainly not her own sisters. “I’m going to someplace wonderful,” she said softly, continuing the stream of lies to reassure her sister.
Blanche widened her brown eyes. “Truly?” She sprinted over. “Where are we going?”
We. Not “you.” Except, Rowena had never been more alone than she was in this instance. Cupping her sister’s cheek, she blinked through the tears. “It is a secret.” One that no one would ever know.
Blanche pouted. “A secret. When can you tell me? When will you return?” As her sister peppered her with questions, a sob stuck in her throat, and she quickly dragged the little girl close. Over her small shoulder, her gaze caught on the forgotten freesia lying on the floor.
“Someday,” she promised. “I’ll be back someday.” When Graham returned, she’d come back. He would marry her, as he’d vowed, and all would be right again.
A knock sounded at the door, sparing her from any further questions, and she and Blanche looked up.
Jack Turner, with his thick crop of blond hair, stood in the doorway ringing his hat in his hands. She, Graham, and Jack had been friends from the moment she’d entered the village, and the sight of him chased back some of the panic cloying at her breast. “Your mother said I should come in and see you,” he murmured.
My mother. That coward who’d been unable to meet her eyes. Heart twisting, she patted the top of Blanche’s head. “Run along so I might speak to Jack.”
Blanche rushed off and stopped beside Jack. “Mr. Turner.” She dropped a curtsy.
“Miss Endicott,” he greeted with a bow and equal solemnity. Giving him a final wave, her sister left.
Jack lingered in the doorway, his gaze traveling over her tear-stained cheeks. “What is it?” he asked, drawing the door closed.
Unable to speak, she bit her lower lip and gave her head a hard shake. And then the enormity of this day slammed into her. She dissolved into tears. The force of her sobs shook her frame and burned her lungs.
Rowena dimly registered Jack coming close and taking her into his arms. He made useless, nonsensical calming noises that only further increased her weeping. “H-He’s sending me a-away,” she rasped against the fine fabric of his wool jacket.
His fingers ceased their distracted circles. “He?”
And through the noisy mess of her crying, she explained all, carefully omitting the shame of her family’s past that had resulted in her banishment.
Jack held her like that for a long while, saying nothing, and then—“Marry me.”
Rowena’s ears rang from her own ragged breaths and tears. Blinking, she edged out of his arms. Marry him? This was Graham’s closest friend. A young man he’d called brother, and who was forever at his side.
There was an earnestness in Jack’s gaze. “Surely you know...” he said hoarsely. Rowena gave her head an uncomprehending shake. After the duke’s visit, nothing made sense. “I love you.”
The air left her on a hiss, and she recoiled at the depth of that betrayal. Were there any limits to the lack of loyalty this day? “Graham—”
“Is gone,” he said firmly. “He doesn’t matter. He is dallying with French beauties while you are left here with his father who will see you ruined.” Jack gathered her cold hands and dragged them close. “I will care for you. Love you. Be a good husband to you.”
The gentleness of that offer was contradicted by the fierce glint in his eyes. He offered her stability, security, and yet, she’d sooner carve out her heart with a dull blade than betray Graham. “Oh, Jack,” she said softly, giving his hands a squeeze. “I love Graham. You know I could never—”
“You’ve given him everything,” he whispered. “Your body, your heart. I’ve offered you my name and security, and you’d reject my offer?”
Her heart twisted. He’d been a good friend, and she hated to see him hurt... and hated even more that she’d caused it. “I am grate—” Her words ended on a sharp gasp as he slammed his mouth down hard on hers. Jack swallowed the sound of her protest, thrusting his tongue inside. Reaching between them, he grabbed her breast, squeezing that flesh. Shock and fear made her motionless.
As he dragged her closer, terror threatened to choke off her airflow. Gagging, Rowena shoved at him but he was immovable. She whimpered and caught him hard between the legs with her knee. A hiss slipped past his lips and he jerked away. Writhing in pain, he glowered at her. “You would be lucky to have me as your husband, whore,” he spat. Then he froze, blinking wildly.
Legs shaking, Rowena touched her fingers to her bruised lips.
“R-Rowena.” He stretched his hand out and she recoiled.
Then shaking her head, she raced from the room. He called after her, his voice wreathed in agony. “Forgive me. I don’t know... forgive me,” he implored.
Ignoring his pleading, she sprinted from the room... wanting to run and hide forever from the pain of this day—a day of nothing but betrayals.
Chapter 1
London, England
1820
Graham Linford, the Duke of Hampstead, lived a lie, and but for one loyal friend, not a single person knew it.
Society once saw him as a rogue who lived for excess, and now as the reformed duke, driven by rank and power. A man who honored societal customs and traditions. For that and his title alone, he found himself sought after by every last-matchmaking mama in England.
Ultimately, the world was content to see what it wished: a powerful, austere duke, and not much more. That façade allowed him to keep secret the nightmares that had haunted him since the battlefields of Bussaco. The truth of his insanity he intended to take to his grave, once he drew a final and, at last, peaceful breath.
Until now. Now, he very nearly thought of drawing forth that truth and revealing his greatest shame. Before a stranger, no less. Because no lord, lady, or anyone with a jot of sense would entrust a young lady to a madman’s care.
Seated before the same mahogany desk his own father had occupied, and his father’s father before him, Graham peered at Mr. Dappleton, the solicitor. A man who’d invaded his office with the intentions of foisting a ward on him.
“I beg your pardon?” he stretched those five steely syllables out.
“Guardian, Your Grace.” Not taking his gaze from the task before him, Mr. Dappleton shuffled through a leather folio and drew out page after page. “You were named guardian by Lieutenant Hickenbottom.” Then, staking a claim on Graham’s desk, the man of middling years laid the documents out like a commander on the eve of battle, pouring over his plans. Surveying the documents, the graying solicitor tapped his fingertip in a sharp, staccato rhythm. TapTapTap
PopPopPop
Sweat beaded his brow. Mr. Dappleton had requested this meeting for more than a fortnight; a meeting which Graham had neatly sidestepped until now. All memory and mention of the past had the power to yank him under, and Hickenbottom’s name alone drew him back to that dark day. Do not give in to the damning weakness. His stomach churned. TapTapTap
PopPopPop
The blare of cannon fire thundered inside his head. Agonized screams. Men dying around him.
Linford, I’ve got you, man!
“Your Grace?”
Pulled back from the brink of his waking nightmare, Graham counted slowly to five. In a bid to maintain a façade of calm, he drew forth his watchfob and consulted the timepiece. “You were saying?” he asked in smooth, emotionless tones long perfected.
“I trust you do recall Lieutenant Hickenbottom?”
“Indeed,” he said in austere, faintly mock
ing tones. Even after all these years, his thigh occasionally throbbed from the dull pain of a bayonet, and then being unceremoniously carried upon the back of the very man, in death, who asked a favor of him now. Did he remember him? He peeled his lip back in a cool grin. Yes, one tended to remember the man who’d saved one from certain death, even taking a bullet in the shoulder for his efforts.
“According to Lieutenant Hickenbottom, you would recall the favor he sought of you, in the event of his death.” A drunken discourse between two equally inebriated rogues who’d toasted the hell of those days in Belgium, slipped forward. Only, it hadn’t been the sole reason for Graham’s descent into a drunken state. Rowena Endicott’s clear bell-like laugh echoed around the chambers of his mind. The muscles of his stomach seized. Dappleton slid another page across the desk.
Grateful for the diversion, Graham automatically picked it up. He scanned the official-looking document. The document that would see his life invaded and his carefully crafted façade threatened. Setting it down, he pushed it back, and reclined in his seat. “Hickenbottom must have named another guardian.” For, drunken pledges aside, even from a dissolute rake, the man would have had the sense to know Graham would make a rotted guardian for any child.
“Lord Tannery. Also dead,” the solicitor issued that blunt deliverance with nary a crack in his careful demeanor.
How easily Graham had come to be one of those dissolute lords, consumed by the blaze of his own wickedness. In the earliest days of his return from Belgium, in the darkest corners of his mind where the demons dwelled, he’d clung to the dream of death. In the even further recesses, he’d entertained bringing himself into the only place oblivion would truly be found. Instead, he’d attempted to lay siege to his monsters with the same wickedness that had killed Hickenbottom.
Where he had ultimately shifted course, and sought sanity along the path of respectability, Hickenbottom had been consumed by his own recklessness.
“Given the death of Lord Tannery and the absence of any familial relative, care for Miss Hickenbottom has fallen to you.” The solicitor slid another page across Graham’s previously immaculate desk. Picking it up, Graham skimmed the sheet.
Modest dowry. Seventeen years old. His gaze lingered on one detail of the girl Hickenbottom would leave to him:
Natural daughter.
Unwanted, the face of another girl from long, long ago slipped forward, a smiling face, with rosy cheeks and emerald eyes. Assaulted by memories better reserved for a crypt, his hand shook. Graham swiftly released the sheet and shoved it across the desk. “This is no place for a child.” Nor any man or woman.
Mr. Dappleton nodded once. “I understand, Your Grace.”
Ignoring the latter part of the gentleman’s statement, Graham steepled his fingers under his chin and leveled the solicitor with a stare. “And what is it you think you understand?” he asked, with a deliberately condescending smile. After two episodes of madness at the then-wicked clubs he’d attended ten years earlier, he had kept it all at bay. His friend, Jack Turner, had helped cover up that humiliation. From that moment on, he crafted the aloof image that allowed him the veneer of sanity. As such, with the exception of Jack, the world only knew the details Graham carefully fed them.
Demonstrating a remarkable composure, Mr. Dappleton lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “She is a bastard.” As though Graham were a consummate idiot who couldn’t read, the solicitor jabbed his finger in the middle of the page.
Not deigning to look at the man’s gesture, Graham’s cold tone turned glacial. “I’m well-aware of her birthright. That is not why I’m rejecting the role of guardian.”
Mr. Dappleton’s gray eyebrows shot up over the frame of his wire-rimmed spectacles.
Of course, this man, and all of Society would rightfully assume that the severe Duke of Hampstead wouldn’t want a dead rake’s by-blow underfoot. They could not know, at one time he’d given his heart and ultimately would have offered his name to a woman of that same ignoble fate. A pang stuck in his chest. He rubbed at that dulled-by time ache. An ache determined to linger, no matter how much he’d buried thoughts of Miss Rowena Endicott from his memories. Damn you, Rowena Endicott, and goddamn the resurrection of old ghosts from every corner. Battling the restive fury her name always roused, he stacked the papers requiring his signature and held them out.
“Your Grace?” the man puzzled aloud.
When he made no move to collect his paperwork, Graham let it go. The papers hit the surface of the desk with a soft thwack. “Let me explain it to you in terms you might understand.” Terms that had nothing to do with belittling a girl’s worth because of her parentage. “I’ve no duchess.” Not yet. It was a task Jack had been wisely pushing him toward, with the duchy and future of the estates in mind. The Hampstead line, once revered and held of more importance than even his own children’s happiness by the late duke, meant rot to Graham. Rather, it was the men and women dependent upon him to whom his allegiance came. “As such, a bachelor residence is not for a young girl.” He peeled his lip back. “Surely, even you see that?” The miserable twaddle who’d besmirch Hickenbottom’s child.
“But there will one day be a duchess.” Redirecting his bespectacled focus to the sheet before him, Dappleton prattled on with his late employer’s requests.
And with the man’s tenacity, Graham didn’t know whether to haul Dappleton by his jacket and heft him from the room, or hire him.
Yes, the insolent servant was indeed right. There would one day be a duchess. Soon. Very soon, to be precise. The papers had already begun to speculate as to which lady it would be. With even more speculations that the young woman was, in fact, Lady Serena Grace. A lady Jack had put forth as a suitable prospect. Daughter to the Duke of Wilkshire. Flawlessly perfect from her manners down to her golden curls. The nineteen-year-old lady had been ruthlessly honest in her desires for him from the moment they’d been introduced.
It is expected that I’ll be your duchess, Your Grace...
How very different her avowal from the false ones given him by another. His fingers curled reflexively so hard, he left crescent marks on his palms. He eased his grip.
It was Lady Serena’s ruthlessness he appreciated. Society anticipated a power-match between two ducal families, and Wilkshire’s daughter had been honest in that very same prospect. After having learned for himself the perils of love, Graham no longer had a heart to offer. Lady Serena would live her life as revered hostess, and he could retreat to the countryside and continue to live his lie. As such, they were a perfect match. Most would consider him heartless for the coldhearted arrangement he sought. As he saw it, he had no other choice.
What he did have were people dependent upon him. Tenants. Servants. And having failed too many at Bussaco, he’d sooner sell what remained of his soul than allow his wastrel cousin to inherit. Mr. Abelard Marlowe, rumored to bugger children and beat servants, would never touch a Linford farthing. “We are done here,” he said, unfurling to his full-height.
The solicitor peeked up from his documents, and in a remarkable show of courage remained sitting. “I am afraid we are not, Your Grace.” Other than that slightly emphasized word, there wasn’t a single apologetic air about the man. Hickenbottom’s solicitor may have a condescending view of the girl’s parentage, but he was fearless, and that Graham respected. Dappleton tapped his finger on the desk, like he sought to drum his point into the surface. “Lieutenant Hickenbottom’s family has adamantly stated they’ve no intention, desire, or willingness to take her in.” By that rote deliverance, these were familiar words, uttered many times to the man. The solicitor paused. “The young lady has nowhere else to go.” Had there been more than that blunt reality, it would have been easier to send Dappleton on his way with his official documents.
“He has a sister,” he ground out.
“Lady Casterlon,” The graying man shook his head. “will not take her.”
“His brother, the earl—”
“Stat
ed you are the living guardian, and he’d not take her in, even if you won’t.”
By Christ in hell.
Tension and terror mingled to set his heart pounding. With the episodes he suffered when the horrors of war unexpectedly crept in, he’d fought for evenness in every aspect of his life. He’d not give over to the mind-numbing panic that came in: one, conceding that Dappleton was indeed correct, and two, facing the intrusion of an innocent young miss underfoot. Struggling for calm, Graham smoothed his features and returned to his seat.
Dappleton pushed the documents requiring his signatures his way once again.
A thick silence descended as Graham grasped the pen from his inkwell. There would be not one but two people with whom he’d now share the sanctuary that had become his home. For this bastard ward was far worse than a wife he could leave to her own amusements. This was a charge and her companion, who’d require oversight. Suddenly, the urgency in marrying reared its ugly head in a whole new, necessary way. Once he was married, the chit and her presentation to Society would fall to the duchess. “See that she and her companion are readied by nightfall.” The scratch of his pen, inordinately loud. “I will send a carriage to collect them.” He added his last signature. His palms grew moist, and setting his pen down, he laid his hands on his buckskin-clad thighs, brushing the moisture from his skin.
“As you wish, Your Grace.”
If it were as he wished, Graham would even now be free of the responsibility of looking after the bastard daughter orphaned by his reckless friend. He bit back the acerbic reply. It was hardly Dappleton’s fault that Hickenbottom had gotten himself killed, along with the other guardian. Or that Hickenbottom’s surviving relatives were the same propriety-driven, ruthless bastards Graham’s own father had been. When Dappleton remained seated, he snapped, “What is it now, man?”
“There is one more issue, Your Grace.”
He gnashed his teeth. “Issue?” What else could there possibly be this day?
Schooling the Duke (The Heart of a Scandal, #1) Page 2
