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

by Christi Caldwell

  Rowena wetted her lips. “I don’t know.”

  Graham eyed her blankly. Surely this discussion, with talks of partings and the end of any future between them, belonged to someone else? He stood, a silent observer in his own misery.

  She hesitated. And for one breathless moment where hope dwelled, he thought she would give him words of love and give the possibility of them together a chance.

  Instead, she bowed her head and left, closing the door behind her, leaving him alone with the tortured truth of lies unveiled too late.

  Chapter 23

  “You are going to leave, aren’t you?”

  From the windowseat overlooking the Mayfair streets, Rowena shifted her attention to the young lady who occupied a nearby shell-back chair. “I—”

  “You’ve only just arrived, you know,” Ainsley pointed out.

  Had she? It felt like she and Graham had never parted, and this fortnight together rolled neatly into all the times they’d once shared. But, at last, they had honesty between them. All truths had been revealed, and though there could never be the loving marriage they’d dreamed of as children, there would be peace. Her lower lip quivered and she bit it hard. There would be no peace. There would never be anything more than the regret for what could have been. “I am afraid I must go,” she said when the girl stared at her expectantly.

  Ainsley dropped her chin into her palm. “Where will you go?” The girl’s question, an echo of the very one Graham had put to her, raised a slight smile.

  “I...” Do not know. What was there for her in that small country cottage on Graham’s properties other than memories of all that had been and would never be? Mrs. Belden’s was no longer possible. For if word had not yet reached the esteemed headmistress, it soon would, and then Rowena would be thrown out on her illegitimate arse.

  A knock sounded at the doorway and they looked up. “Mrs. Bryant, you’ve a visitor.”

  The gold floor-length mirror from across the room reflected her and Ainsley’s equal shock. Swinging her legs over the side of the bench, Rowena climbed slowly to her feet and moved toward Wesley who held a silver tray.

  She plucked the card from it. Her heart dropped to her stomach.

  “I’ve taken the liberty of showing her ladyship to the Blue Parlor.”

  With a murmur of thanks, Rowena continued to study the card. The butler rushed off. What need did any of the nobility have with her?

  “Do you know where it is?”

  She shot her head up.

  “The Blue Parlor,” Ainsley clarified, hopping up. “I will help show you there.”

  In her tenure at Mrs. Belden’s, she had been the object of scorn and ridicule by young ladies who treated her with disdain for nothing more than their elevated statuses. Never, in the nearly eleven years of employment, had she known the kindness Ainsley had shown her over the course of even a single day. “I would appreciate that very much.”

  Together, they started for the Blue Parlor. “The peculiar thing about it,” Ainsley prattled, blessedly filling the quiet. “Is that the duke has a blue parlor, a pink one, a green, and gold. And do you know, not a single one bears upholsteries or curtains in those respective shades,” she groused, startling a laugh from Rowena. Oh, how she would miss this girl. Flinging her arm around Ainsley in a move that would have shocked Mrs. Belden, Rowena gave her a quick hug.

  And again, she would be forever grateful to Ainsley for that brief distraction that made her march to her meeting bearable.

  They arrived at the Blue Parlor, and with a grateful smile, Rowena forced herself to enter. She located the marchioness at the hearth, staring down into the empty metal grate. With the comforting presence of Ainsley gone, the same sick dread of having her secrets and life bared before all rushed forward.

  “My lady,” she said quietly, and Lady Waverly spun about. Her skirts whipped noisily at her ankles and the fabric tightened across her slightly rounded belly. A horrible, vicious envy twisted inside, stunning Rowena with the depth of her own selfishness. “Forgive me,” she said quickly, rushing over. “Would you care for refresh—?”

  “No. No refreshments are necessary, Mrs. Bryant. Please.” The marchioness motioned to the brocade sofas. “I hoped we might speak.”

  This from the woman who’d served at Mrs. Belden’s, whom Rowena had also caught carefully studying her. “Speak,” she echoed dumbly. Other than berating her for creating a stir at the recital last night, what could they have to talk of?

  “Yes,” the lady repeated. “Talk.”

  Springing into movement, Rowena, wholly out of her element, found a seat, with the marchioness claiming the wingback Bergere chair. “Perhaps I might get precisely to the reason for my visit.” The golden-haired woman spoke in purposeful tones, drawing off her gloves. “I recall you from Mrs. Belden’s. You were a dragon.”

  “Am a dragon,” Rowena instantly corrected. Her gaze fell involuntarily to her lap. Or she had been. How quickly did such news travel to a finishing school? Or mayhap the ton wouldn’t bother with mention of her when she was gone. Or mayhap pigs would fly over the skies of London.

  A gentle hand covered hers, and Rowena snapped her head up. “Is it still as miserable there as it was when I was there?”

  “More so,” she muttered. The frank honesty pulled a laugh from the marchioness. With the old headmistress’ passing years, Mrs. Belden grew stodgier and more demanding.

  “And do you wish to go back?”

  I’d rather pluck my fingernails out one by one. Rowena rested her hands on the arms of her chair and curled her fingers into the cherry wood. “I expect I’ll not truly have a say on it either way now.” Except, where that prospect had filled her with terror in the immediacy of the scandal at Ainsley’s recital, she had a peculiar... peace. A peace she’d not had since Graham had left for war. One in which all lies had been, at last, revealed, with a heart now able to heal.

  The marchioness edged her chair forward, scraping it along the floor. “But would you?” she persisted.

  “It is the only place I’ve known for ten years,” she settled for.

  “Very well. What is your opinion on Mrs. Belden’s instructions?”

  “Truthfully?”

  The other woman inclined her head.

  “If you’d asked me that question not even a month ago, I would have praised her methods of instruction. I would have applauded the efforts to shape ladies into proper ladies with a respect for decorum.”

  The marchioness leaned forward. “And now?” she asked, hanging on to Rowena’s words.

  “I’ve learned how wrong I was. Mrs. Belden’s methods are archaic,” she said automatically. “I believe desperate young women take on work as instructors in her distinguished institution because we have no choice. And in that desperation, we sell a piece of our soul for security, by transforming young women into empty shells of who they once were.”

  Lady Waverly nodded slowly. Then said softly, unexpectedly, “I have a finishing school.”

  Rowena tipped her head.

  “Mrs. Munroe’s Finishing School. I am searching for instructors. I’d like to offer you a position.”

  Rowena’s mouth fell agape. “But... but... you do not even know me.”

  A twinkle lit the other woman’s eyes. “I’ve seen you with Miss Hickenbottom.” At Lord Wilkshire’s. So that accounted for the lady’s staring. “And I saw you at Hyde Park.” Rowena blinked. She’d seen her? “Miss Hickenbottom was sketching and skipping.” She smiled. “It was the skipping which confirmed the rightness of my decision.” She held her index finger aloft. “Furthermore, any young woman who can survive eleven years inside Mrs. Belden’s, and then enter the miserable world of London is a woman of strength and character.”

  A woman of strength and character. For more than eleven years, she’d only seen her own weaknesses. She’d viewed her mother’s past as their family’s weakness. Only to find it was, as she’d said to Ainsley... It mattered not what your birthright wa
s or the blueness of your blood. It mattered the courage one showed through the uncertainty that was life. Her mother may have once been a courtesan. But she’d survived. And she’d transformed her life to make a better world for her daughter. Just as Rowena had sought and attained some control of her own existence. Not everyone, however, was of like mind. Certainly, not one of the nobility.

  She folded her hands primly in her lap. “I thank you for your... offer... but I am not a lady. I’m a bastard. My mother was a—”

  “Do you know who my father is?” the marchioness cut in.

  Puzzling her brow, she shook her head.

  “My father is the Duke of Ravenscourt. I, too, am a bastard. Judged by Society for my birthright. My school is one that serves ladies like ourselves.” Ourselves. Even though she had ascended to the rank of nobility, she would place Rowena into her own category? “It caters to the illegitimate children of noblemen. Merchant’s daughters. Families who’ve faced scandal and want better lives for their girls.” In short, everything that Mrs. Belden’s was not, nor would ever be.

  The marchioness dangled a beautiful gift before her. A promise of a future not built on fear. A new beginning where no one knew who she was or would care, either way.

  A life without Graham.

  Grief scissored her heart. Could she let him go and begin again without him? “Why would you do this?” Rowena asked hoarsely.

  “Because we all require a bit of help sometimes, Mrs. Bryant.”

  “Rowena,” she swiftly corrected and held her fingers out. “My name is Rowena.”

  The young marchioness smiled. “And you must call me Jane. Will you accept my offer?”

  If she took this, she would never again see him. There would be no reason or need for their lives to intersect. They would continue on as though they’d never been. He would eventually find a dignified English miss with blood to match his own. The truth knifed around at her belly and she had to press her hands to her stomach to blot the pain.

  It was as she’d said to him last evening, however. Too much had come to pass. Too many mistakes that could never, ever be undone. Forcing a smile that she did not feel, Rowena nodded slowly. “I will.”

  She was going to leave.

  He was going to lose her, all over again. And the pain of her absence this time would gut him in ways it hadn’t before. Since Rowena had reentered his life, Graham had learned to again laugh and smile and tease and feel. And see himself not as the madman he’d believed but as a man who carried the invisible reminders of what he’d seen and done.

  And with her departure, she’d take all of that.

  Seated in his office, he examined the stack of ledgers on his desk, those meticulous books kept by his late father’s man-of-affairs. To keep from thinking of the agony tearing away at him, Graham absently flipped through the pages of the old ledger. He turned another. And then stopped. Heart hammering, he looked back at the previous page. The earth froze upon its axis as Graham sat frozen, staring at one specific column: 30th of June 1814.

  Two months after Graham’s father had passed. “No,” he whispered.

  It couldn’t be. There had to be a reason those fifteen pounds had been paid out, two months after the death of his father. Those funds had gone to something else. Someone else. God, no. And he knew. Knew it because of the treachery Rowena had opened Graham’s blind eyes to. That damning unmarked column with fifteen pounds recorded told him everything. The truth that she’d come to Graham all those years ago, and Jack had never uttered a word of it.

  And now this. Jack had known of Rowena’s past, and the sum settled on her by the late duke, and he’d continued to pay that silencing money.

  He closed his eyes tight and fixed on his breathing to rein in the violent fury simmering under the surface. What a bloody fool he’d been. Graham’s first order of business after his father died had been to replace the late duke’s loyal man-of-affairs with his own, trustworthy, honorable friend.

  That same friend, who, in Graham’s absence, attempted to woo Rowena and forced an embrace upon her.

  Bile stung the back of his throat. When they were young men competing for her affections, he’d never questioned Jack’s loyalty. Instead, he’d believed Jack had accepted her decision. All these years, however, that friendship been just one more lie in a quagmire of them.

  Graham picked up the book, taking note of details he’d never even given a cursory thought to. But now seeing it with new, open eyes.

  A knock sounded at the door and Graham glanced up. Punctual, as he’d been since the day he had hired him. Professional in every way. The bloody traitor. “Enter,” he called out.

  Folios in his arms, Jack stepped inside. “Hampstead,” he greeted, strolling over to his usual seat with a marked calm.

  Foregoing pleasantries, Graham searched the smooth planes of the other man’s face for a hint of guilt. Regret. Something. Anything that proved he was human. Proved that he felt some compunction at having destroyed his life and Rowena’s reputation.

  “I have brought the forms for you to sign, solidifying your business arrangement with the Duke of Huntly,” Jack said, after he’d claimed his seat. Setting his burden on the edge of Graham’s desk, the other man briefly froze, and surveyed the stack of older ledgers. “Huntly would like a meeting,” he continued, returning his attention to his papers. Jack rifled through his leather folio, searching around for papers that did not matter, with business that was irrelevant.

  With a violent hatred poisoning his blood, Graham stared at his bent head. How many times he’d sat across from this very man, trusted him with his secrets, and all along he’d committed the ugliest act of treachery.

  “I have the paperwork in order for the steam investment,” Jack said in his perfunctory businesslike tones. He withdrew a stack of documents and set them on the desk before Graham.

  “Why did you do it?”

  The other man furrowed his brow. “You asked me to pursue the venture with the Duke of Huntly—”

  Gathering his late father’s ledger, he slid it over to Jack.

  The traitorous bastard hesitated, and then taking the book, scanned the pages. “What am I looking for?” he drawled with such boredom, Graham’s fingers twitched with the need to bury them in his face.

  “The thirtieth,” he replied with a frosty calm that gave the other man pause.

  Giving that page a cursory look, Jack lifted his shoulders. “I don’t know—”

  “What were the fifteen pounds for?” he interrupted harshly.

  A beleaguered sigh escaped the other man. “This again?” he drawled, leaning back in his chair. He hooked his ankle across his bent knee with an infuriating detachment. “I already told you. You are focusing on numbers kept by your father’s—”

  “They are yours.” Graham’s quiet interruption froze the other man mid-speak. “They are your accountings,” he repeated. Jack’s mouth fell open, but no words came forth. Violent energy hummed in his veins, and the need to destroy the fiend opposite him called with a greater intensity than had ever struck on the fields of battle. “Rowena told me everything.”

  All the color bled from the man’s face in a damning testament of his guilt. Then, in a remarkable show, he smoothed his features into a bored mask. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  God, did Jack think him for a bloody lackwit? Except, he had perpetuated a lifetime of lies Graham had readily believed. Layering his palms to the desk, he leaned forward. “I’d think carefully in how I respond.”

  Swallowing loudly, Jack nodded. “I was acting on your behalf,” he said, that slight stammer hinting at his fear, and Graham reveled in it. He should be afraid. Graham had only done harm to those enemies he’d faced on the battlefield, but in this, he wanted to gleefully take this man apart limb by limb. “He asked that I see a final payment settled on her family.”

  Oh, God. He’d known. Of course, he had. It was the only thing that made sense. And yet, all these years, Graham h
ad believed him loyal, only to find, he’d been a part of the puzzle keeping him and Rowena apart. “You spread the word about her parentage around my home.” His own voice came as though down a distant hall.

  Crimson splotches slapped the other man’s cheeks. “I do not—”

  “Do not lie to me,” Graham thundered, and surging across the desk, he dragged the other man out of his seat and shook him. “I told you, Jack, I know all. She told me.”

  “She is a goddamn liar,” the other man said, desperation underlying his charge. Graham leveled him with a solid fist to the jaw.

  Jack crumpled in a heap. Ignoring the other man’s piteous moan, he came around the side of the desk and dragged his limp form up so he met his gaze squarely. “How dare you?” Jack cried, his nose leaking a slow trickle of blood. “You would doubt me? I, who stood by you when she broke your heart? She did.”

  “You offered her marriage. Kissed her,” he growled. In breathing those words aloud, the ugly visited upon Rowena that day in her cottage took on a realness that shattered his control. Fury pumped through his veins all over again, and he dealt Jack another punch.

  Panting, Jack collapsed to his knees. “She wanted it. Begged for—eek.” His words ended on a sharp cry as Graham gripped him by his throat. Squeezing Jack’s neck, he drove him backward into the wall, slamming him with a solid thunk.

  He loosened his grip, allowing this man he’d called friend to suck in a gasp of air. “You are a liar. You stole eleven years from Rowena and me. Why?” he pleaded, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him. “Why?”

  “B-Because you had everything.” Jack’s threadbare words barely reached his ears. “Because you had everything.” His lips peeled back in an ugly snarl that revealed the inner ugly of his soul.

  Flexing his fingers, he released the man he’d called friend. Sucking in slow, gasping breaths, Jack borrowed support from the wall.