Falling for the Heartbroken Duke: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Bridget Barton

  *******

  Atwater walked into Brooks’s. The familiar silk rugs cushioned his steps, and he headed to one of the game rooms he rarely visited. He had no desire to see anyone with the possible exception of Tom. He had much on his mind and was looking for a game of cards to take his mind from the contents of it.

  Seeing Charlotte Evans on the street, an hour before, had shaken him to the core. She’d been arm in arm with a dandy, the plume in her hat bobbing to and fro as she conversed with her escort. And, as before, he marvelled at her uncanny resemblance to Lady Judith.

  At the time, his stomach had sunk. Presently, he continued to have an uncomfortable feeling, even after he’d downed a brandy at the bar before ascending to the game rooms.

  “Psst. Your Grace.”

  He turned. “Tom.”

  “I can see you aren’t feeling social.”

  “Well, it’s a peculiar circumstance when one needs to visit one’s club to clear one’s head. How can I be unsocial here? I should have stayed at Regent Street, but if I barricaded myself away from my wife, I should feel guilty.” He laughed a wry chuckle.

  “And she, no doubt, would be worried about you.” Tom waited for Atwater to respond, and when he said nothing, Tom asked him straight out. “It’s that maid, isn’t it? Olivia? I saw her at your wedding party.”

  “She was at your wedding party also.”

  “I know, I was with Mary when Olivia approached. She spoke in circles. I told Mary that evening that the girl was jealous and only wanted to cause a stir.”

  “I don’t know about that, Tom. I find it better never to underestimate a desperate person.”

  “Is she so desperate? She was wearing an expensively made frock. I thought maybe she’d caught herself a wealthy old geezer, tired of a fat wife.”

  “I don’t believe so. No, there’s something peculiar about her showing up to both of our nuptials. She threatened Phoebe, you know.”

  “What? My God, Robert. What did she say?”

  “The day Phoebe terminated Olivia’s employment at Wimpole Street, the girl told Phoebe that she would be sorry she’d done so.”

  “Sounds ominous despite being so vague. And because of this threat you think Olivia is desperate? Because she has that kind of audacity?”

  “Phoebe let her go without a letter of reference. The girl, I daresay, is having quite a time of it trying to procure employment.” Atwater smirked.

  “She caused much consternation for Mary. Mary told me the awful things Olivia had said to her.”

  “Which is why Phoebe dismissed her. And in all good conscience, she couldn’t give Olivia a good reference. Phoebe did vow not to discuss the maid with anyone. She offered to keep any ill feelings to herself,” Atwater offered.

  “So Phoebe isn’t allowing any good news to circulate about Olivia, but she’s promised not to circulate anything bad. Is that about the gist of it?”

  “Yes. The kind of jealousy Olivia has for Mary festers. There’s no place for it in any household. And I know Phoebe, and I presume Mary, both want loving homes,” Atwater said.

  “Yes.”

  “And on my way here, I saw our Lady Judith imposter.”

  “No! She certainly is a cheeky one. I wonder how long she’s been in the city. And what do you think she’s doing for money?” Tom wondered.

  “Maybe she never left. She might have laid low for a bit. Her husband or paramour ... he robbed the bank where he worked. I feel sure she got the money, but there’s no way to prove it. And he was nowhere in sight when I saw her. I would venture to say she’s being kept.”

  “A step up for one with such devious machinations and schemes as Charlotte Evans has had.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is, Tom. She won’t find domestic work ... everyone knows how she impersonated Judith. There’s no lady, I daresay, who would want her in their circle, studying her mannerisms, planning how best to impersonate them.”

  “Were you able to find any details about Judith’s death in Spain? Is there a record of what she succumbed to?”

  “The only details we have are that Judith reputedly left this earth during the night. The very night that Charlotte impersonated her at the ball in Seville. Presumably with Judith gone, Charlotte came up with the idea to keep the ruse going. I believe she planned to take over Judith’s identity indefinitely.”

  “But there is no proof that Judith is actually dead. Is that correct?”

  “Oh Tom. Ever the lawyer you are. Yes, it’s true. But where is Judith if she’s alive?”

  “I can’t venture to guess. But, if she is dead, I don’t believe it was from illness.”

  “Tom, I can’t begin to imagine that as a possibility.”

  “Well, you might want to begin, Robert. And do we share these thoughts and information with our wives?”

  “I think not, Tom. I believe it would only serve to upset them.”

  “Hmm. Yes, I believe you’re right, Your Grace. Come ... instead of cards, let us have some dinner downstairs.”

  “Private room?”

  “Yes, I believe His Grace, the Duke of Atwater, can have that arranged.” Tom laughed and slapped his friend on the back of the shoulders.

  *******

  “Susan! Hurry girl. I want you to go over to the baker ... get three loaves ... three loaves that were baked today, don’t let him swindle you with yesterday’s bread. I need two dozen eggs, butter, and get some flour from the miller. Ten pounds. Dan brought the wagon to carry us and the goods back to Regent Street.”

  “Yes, Mrs Crabtree. Anything else?”

  Mrs Crabtree smiled to herself ... this Susan was a godsend, much as Lady Mary had been when she was a girl. And now to see Mary as a rich, married Lady. Mrs Crabtree was proud of both girls. She had high hopes for Susan catching the eye of a well-to-do suitor. “Mind you keep those cotton gloves I made for you on your hands. Your hands are lovely, my dear. We must take pains to keep them so. A lady must have lovely hands.”

  The younger woman laughed. “I think Jimmy likes my hands just fine, Mrs Crabtree.”

  “Of that I’m sure, but what’s to happen if you change your mind about him? It’s as easy to love a rich man as a poor one. Now, off with you. Mind you, don’t be too long. I will meet you at the fountain.”

  “Yes, Mrs Crabtree.” The girl turned away and was soon enshrouded among the shoppers.

  Mrs. Crabtree consolidated the few purchases she’d made. Spices, sugar ... what else? She decided to go to the butcher ... they could use a ham at the house, as well as a goose. The newly married couple were prone to entertaining at the last minute. The housekeeper liked to keep up with their whims.

  She continued walking, perusing all the items for sale and trying to keep the hem of her frock out of the mud and dung that littered the street. She ducked into the butcher shop and headed to the back to look at the special cuts. There were two women in the next row over, talking in hushed tones as they prepared to haggle the price of an oxtail.

  There was something familiar about the women, and Mrs Crabtree’s tendency to delight in overhearing gossip got the best of her. She moved closer, still shielded by the shelving between that divided the rows of items.

  “We have two crowns left. Get the oxtail as cheap as you can. We must get back to the hotel soon. Baby Robert will be waking and wanting his brekkie. Go on. Move.” The smaller of the two women gave the other a shove. There was no mistaking who the boss was in this duo.

  Mrs Crabtree craned her neck to see who it was being so nasty to their co-worker. She’d heard that the help at Hudson House were always at each other’s throats. She had her eyes on the back of the woman’s head when the bell over the door chimed and the woman looked towards it.

  Mrs Crabtree shrank against the far shelves behind where she stood. It couldn’t be. Every fibre of her being called for her to look again and assure herself that who she saw was not Charlotte Evans. But she would risk discovery if she were to do that.

  Charlo
tte Evans ... back in London. She would have to let Her Grace know immediately. She slid along the shelves and out the shop door taking care not to let the bell chime.

  Chapter 14

  “Yes, Terence. I believe we’d all like more wine. Pour a glass for yourself if you like. Our sense of casual living doesn’t change now that I’m married. Am I right, my dear?”

  “Quite. Please, Terence, sit. Have some food.” Phoebe smiled at the kindly butler.

  “Thank you, both of your graces. I have prepared the drawing room for everyone’s after dinner entertainment. Susan, our young maid will be playing the pianoforte for your enjoyment.”

  “How lovely.” Lady Mary Radcliffe was rapidly acclimating to life as a lady since Phoebe had discovered that Mary’s father had been an Irish Duke.

  A letter had come to Wimpole Street for Phoebe. It had been misplaced what with the nuptials and subsequent parties. The letter’s information confirmed that Mary O’Reilly was a lady in her own right.

  Since she’d stopped feeling like an interloper of the peerage, she found she was remembering the vague notions and etiquette her mother had shared with her before the age of five when Mary had been orphaned. She’d then been sent from one distant relative to the next until, finally, an elderly aunt had given Mary a domestic position so she could, at least, learn a trade and stay out of the orphanage or the poor house.

  “Yes, and while you ladies enjoy that, I’ll take your husband from you for a moment, Lady Mary. Tom, may I see you in the library?”

  “Your Grace.” Tom nodded, then gave Mary a light kiss, after which the women retired to the drawing room.

  In the library, Atwater poured two glasses of Spanish brandy. “Cigar, Tom?”

  “No, but if you have any of that snuff that was going around at your wedding party.”

  “Yes.” Atwater opened the top right-hand drawer of the huge desk that had belonged to his father, the first Duke. It stood solid and imposing in a corner of the room. His adoptive father’s desk. Now his. He’d told no one … no one but Tom, about the knowledge his mother had bestowed upon him just before her death.

  He’d found it almost amusing that he was now Duke Atwater, and he wasn’t even related to the man he’d thought until the age of fifteen had been his father. As it was, there were no other male relatives in the family. Robert had no issues with appropriating a title and fortune that was bequeathed only as primogeniture.

  “Thank you.” Tom accepted the little snuff box and partook of the contents.

  “Mind or you’ll begin to resemble that hideous cousin of my wife, Duke Carlisle.” Atwater grinned.

  “If that were indeed even a remote possibility, I’d forsake the stuff and never go near it again.” Tom laughed. “So? What is it you need to have a glass of brandy to discuss?”

  “Why the sightings of Charlotte Evans and Olivia McGowan. All four of us have seen them about London. All of us. And even Mrs Crabtree happened upon them in the butcher shop a few days before we came out here to Hempstead. It makes me uncomfortable, I tell you. I put nothing past Charlotte. Her nerve and audacity are beyond bounds. And even more curious, and frightening, is that both Charlotte and Olivia seem to have disappeared once again. Where do they go?”

  “It’s been some weeks since a sighting’s been had, but we’ve all been here for the last month.”

  “She’s planning something. I have no idea what it could be, but mark my words, Tom, Charlotte is planning something. As sure as I am that you are standing in this room at this moment, that’s how sure I am that Charlotte Evans has some kind of scheme up her translucent sleeve.”

  “I guess we can alert the colonel. He can place some soldiers outside to guard the house in London. Do you feel threatened here, at Hempstead?”

  “I don’t feel threatened at all. It’s Phoebe and Mary I’m worried about, Tom. Olivia spoke condescendingly to Mary, and she outright threatened Phoebe.”

  “Mary is a bit spooked by her. I don’t think she’s as afraid of Olivia as she is afraid of what she’d do to Olivia if she, or Charlotte, were to harm Phoebe.”

  “That’s just it. I live with the same fear. If either of those women hurt Phoebe or Mary, I don’t know if I could control myself.” Atwater looked at Tom with flashing eyes. His skin was as white as snow, and he trembled all over.

  “Your Grace. Robert. You must not let the thought of what could happen affect you in this way. You’ll be unable to protect Phoebe if your nerves are under such strain.”

  Atwater took a deep breath. “You’re right, Tom ... let us go to the drawing room and hear some music. I also have something I want to give you.”

  Tom chuckled. “Is it that three pounds you owe me from our whist extravaganza of one month ago?”

  “I’d forgotten all about that.” Atwater reached into his vest and pulled out three gold sovereigns. Here you go.” He tossed the coins onto the desk. “That’s not what I wanted to address, but now it’s out of the way, please come with me.”

  “Robert? You’re so serious. Is there something wrong?”

  “I might be overreacting, but I feel the presence of Charlotte and Olivia to be exceedingly wrong. You know my true father was an Irishman, Tom. The Irish sometimes ... well, they see things.”

  “I understand. My father’s mother was Irish. She had the sight. I presume you have it?”

  “Not exactly. But I feel things. And I feel something is very wrong. And I fear something bad is on the horizon.”

  “You mustn’t do that to yourself, Robert. You and Phoebe will be here, in the country, until November at least. Much can happen in five months. Charlotte and Olivia will tire of their game sooner or later.”

  “I hope that is true, and we both can bear witness to it. But enough of this unsavoury talk. Here we are.” He opened the heavy oak doors to the library. Susan was in the middle of a song, and the gentlemen stood near the doors until she’d finished.

  Mrs Crabtree came to the little side door as Phoebe and Mary clapped and oohed and aahed over Susan’s substantial talent. “That was lovely, Susan. Now, go ahead and take your bow, then I need you downstairs, love.”

  “Susan, I should like to enlist the services of a piano maestro to help you in furthering your technique. I will have you entertain at all my soirees. And you will be paid for your services. Is that agreeable to you?”

  The girl looked at Mrs Crabtree, who nodded pleasantly. “Yes, Your Grace. I should like that very much.” The girl curtsied and hurried from the room followed by the ample form of the housekeeper.

  Mary looked at Phoebe. “She really is quite talented. She’d learned every piece she performed tonight by ear.”

  “Exceptional.” Phoebe smiled wider when she saw her husband and Tom. “Your Grace.” She stood and went to his side and whispered. “Have you said anything?”

  “What’s this? Say something about what? What are you two conspiring?” Tom laughed as Mary joined him, then they all went to the sofa and chairs on the other side of the room.

  “My love ...you do the honours.” Atwater smiled indulgently at Phoebe.

  She nodded. “Lord Thomas. Lady Mary. This is a little beyond the fact, but His Grace and I were so busy planning our nuptials we lost track of the time.”

  Mary and Tom sat on the sofa with bewildered expressions.