Schooling the Duke (The Heart of a Scandal, #1)

by Christi Caldwell

  “I didn’t want to go to Almack’s anyway,” Ainsley assured him, sprawling back in her chair.

  He didn’t know how much he believed the girl. What he did know, however, was the importance of that introduction to Society. An introduction she’d been denied by the esteemed hostesses, Lady Jersey and Lady Sefton and distinguished others. Those bloody arbiters of a lady’s fate. Clearing his throat, he neatly folded the page and set it down. “Miserably dull affairs anyway.” Ones that even he, with his desiring of an orderly existence, hadn’t put himself through. Not for the first time, selfish bastard that he was, Graham damned his late friend. Life had been vastly safer and more preferable when his only worry was the image he presented to the world, and the only events he sought out were the ones that maintained his reputation of aloof, austere duke.

  “Oh, undoubtedly,” Ainsley concurred, again swinging a leg back and forth.

  “Consider yourself fortunate.”

  “Regardless of Almack’s, you now have a companion.” Rowena. His stomach tightened. How very odd and wrong to speak of her as though she were nothing more than a servant in his employ. But then, wasn’t that what she was? “And we’ll begin introducing you to Society.” Beginning with Lady Serena’s intimate card party.

  “That really isn’t necessary.”

  Absolutely it was. If he wanted to go back to the routine that was his life where he wasn’t forced to confront the memories of his past—or worry after Ainsley’s future. Where he could simply exist in a cold, emotionless state. That was why her entry into Society was so damned important. Not wishing to further discuss in any depth, way, or form Ainsley’s exclusion by the leading patronesses of Society, not when it stirred a dangerous anger that could never be good for his calm, Graham inclined his head. “If you’ll excuse me? I’ve matters to attend.” Which wasn’t an untruth. With his landholdings, and the sizeable number of tenants and staff dependent upon him, there were always responsibilities he had to see to.

  Ainsley hopped up. “Oh, very well, Duke. Until tomorrow.”

  Until tomorrow. Those words lingered after she’d gone.

  For now, there were people, people outside of Jack, that he had to share his home with... Ainsley—Rowena. People he had to speak to and worry after. And feel things about. A cold sweat beaded on his brow.

  Picking up his brandy, Graham took a much-needed drink. He’d survived war with the French. Surely he could manage to muddle through this.

  Chapter 11

  Rowena’s steps fell silent upon the carpeted halls as she followed the butler Wesley for her meeting with Graham.

  By rights, she should be well-rested. After their arrival yesterday afternoon, Graham had allowed her the remainder of the day to herself. She’d welcomed a warm bath in her new, extravagant chambers... chambers vastly fitting a duke’s esteemed guest and not a courtesan’s daughter-turned-finishing school instructor. She’d enjoyed a meal that was not over-salted and under-seasoned like Cook’s at Mrs. Belden’s. And after having moved livestock across the English countryside, she should have been suitably fatigued.

  Except, last evening, sleep had eluded her. Rest had been impossible. Instead, she had lain in the grand, gold silk-papered room, contemplating sharing the walls of this Grosvenor Square townhouse... with him. She’d buried all thoughts of Graham Linford in the far recesses of her mind, battling back those infrequent musings when they would sometimes surface. She hadn’t wanted to think about him and his inconstancy, or how he’d broken her heart. The only purpose in thinking of him had been to remind herself why she needed no one and why it was far safer to trust no one than let anyone in.

  Somewhere between the moment she’d lain upon that massive four-poster bed, staring up at the mural overhead and the moment she’d been summoned for a meeting with Graham, Rowena had accepted the truth: she could not accept the post. She could not remain here. Being around Graham forced her to remember old hurts and feel the ache of loss, as though it were new.

  Nor would she accept that small fortune he’d offered for simply meeting his charge. Not if she wished to have her pride, and in a world where one had so very little, such a thing mattered.

  The butler guided them down another long corridor. “It is beautiful, is it not?” Wesley said with the pride of ownership. He gestured to the fresco paintings and pale-robin’s-egg blue satin wallpaper finer than any fabric she herself had ever owned, let alone had adorn her walls.

  “Indeed,” she murmured. None of this had ever mattered to her, however. As a girl, Graham’s connection to wealth and privilege had been a barrier that, even in her youth, she’d spied and hated. Hated because it marked them as belonging to two different worlds.

  “And it is to be your home, now, ma’am,” Wesley said with a wide-toothed smile.

  Her home.

  This place was never destined to be her home. A whore’s bastard daughter and a duke’s son... they may as well have been born in entirely different universes. Her lips pulled in a sad smile as she stopped alongside a family portrait of the three Linford males. Those all-powerful lords whose aquiline noses and noble brows served as a testament through time of their origins. Unlike her, whose own mother had been between two lovers at a given time period and, as such, had never been able to say with any certainty who had sired her daughter. Rowena fisted her hands tight, hating how the circumstances of her birth still had the power to hurt. Hating...

  Her gaze snagged on Graham’s father. She took in the vile, loathsome figure sneering down at her even in death. The late Duke of Hampstead who, with his son, had shattered her existence and cut her off from the people she’d called family.

  A family that had so very easily let her go.

  Ripping her eyes away from his hateful stare, she studied Graham memorialized upon that oil painting back to when he’d been commissioned to the Royal Guards. He stood, resplendent in the crimson of his military attire. How would their lives have been different if he’d not gone to battle Boney’s forces? She stretched a hand up and grazed her fingertips over the gleaming black Hessians.

  You will hardly have a use for me when you return a war hero.

  You are all I want, Rowena Endicott...

  In the end, what a liar he’d proven himself to be. How many widows and unhappily wedded women had he had in his bed? And why did that truth still rip at her insides? She turned her attention to the two foils in that painting, taking in the harsh, emotionless painted planes of his late father and brother’s faces. There were too many old hurts between them... and any polished instructor would do as well for Graham’s charge. They needn’t suffer through the pain of the past.

  She could not stay here.

  Not for him. Not for two thousand pounds or any pounds. Not to try and put her demons to rest. Because as she’d said, there could be no undoing a lifetime of hurt.

  “Mrs. Bryant?”

  Gasping, she wheeled about to the forgotten servant.

  The young butler stood patiently, smiling. With his affability, he was so very different than the butler who’d greeted her on the steps of Wallingford Castle all those years ago. Servants wouldn’t have been permitted the luxury of a smile in the late duke’s employ. “Forgive me,” she said, her cheeks burning hot.

  “It’s all a bit overwhelming.” Wesley lowered his voice to a whisper. “The majesty of it all?” He followed that with a wink.

  Content to allow him his erroneously drawn conclusion, Rowena forced a smile. “It is.”

  Without waiting to see if she intended to follow, Wesley marched with military precision to his employer.

  Hastening her steps, she rushed to keep up, all the while training her gaze on the servant’s back. After they’d cleared the sheep from the road, Graham had handed her inside the carriage, and then ridden his mount the remainder of the journey. She’d not seen him since. Nor after this meeting would she see him again. A vicious pressure weighted on her chest, and she fought the urge to rub that peculiar ache.
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br />   She did not want to be in this townhouse. She did not want to be beholden to Graham for her position. The only place she wished to be just then was in a return carriage to Mrs. Belden’s so she might set her off-kilter world to rights, and then present herself once again as The Mrs. Bryant, first instructor at Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School.

  Now, with the kind-eyed butler guiding her through the palatial townhouse, she swallowed down a frustrated groan. The butler came to a stop outside an opened doorway, and her belly knotted. Stop this. I am a dragon. I am a fearless instructor who thrives off propriety and survives on respectability. Rowena brought her shoulders back.

  “Mrs. Bryant,” he announced, and setting her facial muscles in a mask, she entered Graham’s office. She braced for that same powerful regret and pain that had filled his eyes earlier that morn. He picked up his gaze briefly from the work commanding his notice and not a hint of emotion glittered in their depths. He motioned her forward.

  Had she imagined the night at the Fox and Hare Inn and the ensuing discussion along a muddied Roman road? The man before her, in a neat black jacket and crisp white cravat, bore no hint of a duke capable of smiling or one who’d willingly converse with a person of her station. How was it possible for him to present two very different faces to the world?

  “There is no need to hover at the doorway, Mrs. Bryant. I assure you, I’ve no intention of biting you.”

  At his booming voice, Rowena jumped. And God help her for being the shameless wanton that she was, Graham’s words conjured forbidden memories of long ago. Back to when he’d nipped and suckled at the sensitive flesh of her neck. Marking her as his. Laying claim to her. Stroking—

  Graham lifted his head again and winged an eyebrow upward. She rushed over with a lack of decorum that would have seen her sacked by Mrs. Belden, and then abruptly stopped. Rowena eyed the two leather seats before his massive mahogany desk. He flicked a hand, and she promptly perched herself on the closest chair, and then set her book down on the edge of his desk.

  “Gra—Your Grace,” she swiftly amended. “I’ve come to speak to you about the post.”

  “My ward will be along shortly.” Her stomach sank. She didn’t wish to meet his ward, the young lady he believed to be so much like her. Didn’t want to find a reason to stay. She had, however, promised to at least meet his charge. “Wesley will be collecting her. I will perform the introductions, and you will then be permitted to meet with the girl.”

  Some of the tension drained from her frame. “Of course, Your Grace.” How neatly he’d shuffled her back into the role of servant and how grateful she was for the safe, comfortable station into which he placed her. It would be all the easier to decline the request he’d put to her.

  He resumed scratching away at the ledger in front of him, pausing periodically to dip his pen into the crystal inkwell. The sharp, swift strokes of his pen melded with the long-case clock ticking away across the room. How very in control he was. Collected. Master of every moment. Unlike Rowena. With each click of his pen-tip striking paper, her nerves stretched and stretched, fraying to the point of breaking. “The girl, as I mentioned, is spirited.” Graham continued writing, not deigning to so much as look at her. “Her father entrusted her to the care of a fellow soldier.” His fingertips froze, and he stared unblinkingly down at the page.

  Rowena waited dutifully in silence.

  “He was a good soldier, a better man, who upon his return, lost himself in drink. Stumbled down the stairs one night and broke his neck.” She gasped and he held her stare. “I tell you this so that you are prepared for some of the gossip she’ll face. It is why it is imperative that she adheres to propriety. She needs to demonstrate impeccable deportment. Conduct herself in an exemplary manner.”

  His concerns and goals were no different from any of the other powerful nobles who’d enlisted the aid of Mrs. Belden’s instructors. Yet... this was wholly different. Rowena stared in abject befuddlement at the man across from her, this stranger who with a curt enumeration demonstrated both pomposity and stodginess. “Should I also instruct her on the proper way to chew?” she asked masking all dryness to that acerbic reply.

  He resumed writing. “I suspect she knows the rudimentary formality of dining. But you are indeed, correct. In order to be safe, it is best that she be instructed in how to conduct herself at formal dining parties.”

  With an ever-growing incredulity, she watched as he scribbled several sentences upon the page. Safe?

  “There is also the matter of her wardrobe. Despite her elegant gowns she insists on donning breeches.”

  Some of the shock and disappointment with Graham’s transformation to stuffy duke was masked by a new kind of surprise. “Breeches.”

  He nodded once. “Indeed.” He made another note on the sheet. “The girl is free with her words and thinks nothing of sharing her thoughts and opinions in the moment.”

  “And it matters so much to you that she conceals that part of herself?” she asked cautiously.

  “I’m concerned that the girl conducts herself in a way that she does not attract further scandal and gossip.”

  While he sprinkled drying powder upon that ink, and then gently blew on the page, annoyance roiled in her belly. I am a dragon. I am upright. I am... “Ainsley.”

  Graham looked up from the page, a question in his eyes.

  “You continue to refer to her as the “girl” but never mention her by name,” she said crisply. “Her name is Ainsley.” The solitary figure he described, who’d never known a mother’s affection or a governess’ care, should be known by her Christian name.

  He shoved to his feet with a languid grace that momentarily held her spellbound. “I assure you I do know the girl’s name.” He handed over that sheet.

  Rowena studied the brief notes he’d made—a list—with an enumeration of all the ways he sought to change his charge. She dimly registered his movements as found his way to the sideboard. Those inked words, however, held her immersed. Demure. Quiet. Reflective. In short, passionless. This is the manner of woman he wished Miss Hickenbottom to become?

  The tinkling clink of crystal touching crystal filled the room. “Given you’re both...” He paused mid-pour.

  “Bastards?” she offered up, without inflection.

  “Of like spirit,” he neatly supplied, “she will benefit from your guidance. To your earlier question as to why I’d upset your life and force you to London, I know the g—Ainsley is wholly unprepared in the ways of the ton. Her father was a rake and a drunkard.” He returned the decanter to the sideboard with a loud thunk, a remarkable crack in his icy veneer. “I received a note indicating she was denied entrance to Almack’s.”

  The air left Rowena on a whoosh, and she lowered the sheet to her lap. His ward, even with her connection to him, had been coldly slighted by Society. Then, should any cruelty by the peerage surprise her?

  “Which is fine,” he said tightly, turning back. “The lady doesn’t require their support.”

  Did he seek to convince her of that? Or himself? Poor Graham. So unaccustomed to being shunned in any way by Society, what must this experience be like for him? “Have you provided instructors for the young lady?”

  “Jack has coordinated the finest. You’ll oversee her lessons. We’ve been issued an invite by the Duke of Wilkshire to an intimate card party. It is essential you see Ainsley prepared.”

  A muscle ticked at the corner of his eye, holding her riveted. It was a subtle but telling movement. Rowena shoved slowly to her feet and took several steps closer to him. “It matters to you so much how she is received and treated?” She damned herself for caring about that mark of his character.

  He shoved out of his elegant repose and wandered closer with lazy steps befitting the rogue those papers had once purported him to be. “You think me a monster, don’t you?” he countered in those teasing tones of long ago. Only now an edge of ice underscored them.

  She gave her head a dizzying shake, dislodging a
curl from her tight chignon. “I never said as much.”

  “Ah,” he whispered, capturing that errant strand and tucking it behind her ear. “You didn’t have to.” I always knew you too well... That meaning hung clear. He lowered his head slightly, and when he spoke, his breath, tinged with brandy and chocolate, fanned her lips. “I’ll prevent her from any cruelty as long as I’m able.”

  Those somberly spoken words devoid of the earlier brevity, however, posed even more quixotic than the sweet yet masculine scent caressing her flesh. For it had been vastly preferable... nay, easier, when she’d taken him as an austere duke unknowing of his ward’s name and eager to be rid of her. The evidence of this powerful nobleman who, in fact, worried after her, held her momentarily flummoxed.

  His gaze darkened, and then fell to her mouth. And God help her, staring at his own lips, her body burned with the memory of them on her, everywhere. Heat pooled in her belly. He dipped his head lower, and on a shuddery sigh, she tilted her head back.

  Footsteps sounded at the front of the room, and they looked as one. A diminutive lady with frizzy brown hair and freckled cheeks looked unapologetically back. Curiosity spilling from her saucer-shaped eyes, she alternated her focus between Graham and Rowena, before ultimately settling that stare on her. “Hullo,” she greeted, startling them into movement. They jumped away from one another. Liquid droplets splashed from the rim of his snifter and littered the floor.

  Skipping forward, Miss Hickenbottom skidded to a stop beside Rowena and stuck a palm out. “You are?”

  With his spare hand, Graham motioned them to the two winged-back chairs opposite his desk. How was he so blasted calm? “Miss Hickenbottom, allow me to introduce you to your companion, Rowen—” The young lady’s eyes went wide in her face.

  “Mrs. Bryant,” Rowena swiftly amended, placing her fingertips in the girl’s.