A Duke by December

by Sabrina Darby

  “What exactly do you intend to do once we arrive?”

  “Look for work,” she’d said, but it had been clear she had little plan. “John and I are strong. Surely someone needs a maid or…”

  In a city as big as New York, there was always work to be had. Nate had shrugged and determined to help settle them upon their arrival.

  Sometime along the way, it had become clear that while John and Lizzie could read, neither had much occasion to put the skill to use. Illiteracy was not uncommon or unexpected among farmers, but if they were to survive in the city, they would need to be armed.

  By the time they’d boarded the ship in New Orleans, his pupils had demonstrated deft minds ravenous for more knowledge. He’d discussed details of his business, the mines he had sold, and his intention to invest in the mining of copper in South America. Two weeks later they had disembarked in New York and Nate had had no intention of abandoning the Smith siblings.

  He’d pushed aside their protestations, aware of the grateful relief that emanated from Lizzie as she settled into a new life. It had been easy enough to find a tutor and then a school that would take John, but Lizzie asked question after question until she became his shadow… and then his right hand.

  Her innate understanding of negotiations and contracts had surprised him. It was hard to remember the precise moment when teaching had transformed into a dependency on her support.

  “Perhaps in New York, sir. But here in London, curiosity about the new Duke of Beckworth’s identity is quite rabid. Your movements will be noted… If it is not too forward, I shall have my cousin Mrs. Meachum act as companion during your stay.”

  With a slight glance at Lizzie, who offered a small smile and another shrug, Nate agreed.

  “One other matter, Your Grace. You are the last of the line. For the sake of the title and the estate, an heir is of the utmost importance. Please do not think it impertinent of me if I underscore that your marriage—”

  “I understand,” Nate cut him off. He shifted in his chair, glancing at Lizzie yet again, but this time she didn’t meet his gaze and he was grateful for that. Somehow he felt distinctly uncomfortable discussing the matter in front of her, even though as far as Beckworth was concerned, Nate’s marriage would be a simple matter of business.

  The solicitor coughed and picked up another sheet of paper. Nate held up a hand. There were more details to attend to, papers to look over and sign and so forth, but all of that could wait until the next day. Both he and Lizzie needed rest.

  And Nate needed to let the enormity of the change in his life sink in.

  “Well,” Lizzie said, once they had settled in the hired carriage on the way back to the hotel.

  Nate met her gaze, and then they both burst out laughing.

  “Your Grace,” she added.

  “I hope you don’t mean to really start that, Lizzie. At least, not in private.”

  “It’s a relief to hear you say that. But I did start counting the number of times Mr. Tomkins referred to you as such.”

  “I am a duke, after all. To a man such as Tompkins, that matters quite a bit. Truthfully, it will matter to a great many people.”

  “And to you?” Lizzie prodded. “You do not seem entirely enthusiastic about this change.”

  Despite the fact that they had never actually talked about the matter of the inheritance, Lizzie had noticed his reticence. Were his conflicted emotions so obvious?

  “From what Mr. Tomkins says, it does not seem like a position from which one may simply walk away,” Lizzie continued. “Once you inherit, the choice is made for you. Not that most people would turn down such a fortune.”

  “The title alone is invaluable even were it weighted down with debt,” Nate admitted. “When I was a child, I would have been joyous at such a change in my fortunes.” He laughed, imagining. Certainly, he would no longer have been the outcast. “A rich man who makes his wealth through anything other than land might command respect in London, might even marry well enough, but will always be tainted by the source of that wealth. A duke who fritters away his inheritance at the gambling tables, or does not tend to his estate in the manner needed, cheating his tenants or any other such thing, will still be invited to the most exclusive circles of society.”

  “And for someone such as yourself, who prizes hard work and decency, who is fair-minded and intent on justice…”

  He shifted uncomfortably at her description of him.

  “Is that why you left?” she said. It was the first time he could remember that she had asked him a personal question, had crossed the careful reserve he had created ever since they had met. A distance necessary between an unmarried man and woman.

  Everything was different now, not least of all that the foremost companions of his youth, who had once been unable to spend five minutes in each other’s company without sparring, were yet again on the other side of an ocean, this time in love and engaged to be married.

  “I was born the son of a gentleman, but an impoverished one, and when he died my mother was fortunate to move us to a small village next to the country seat of the Earl of Trent.”

  “What makes someone a gentleman?” Lizzie asked, and he cocked his head at the question. Though when he’d left for America, he had instinctively rejected the social structure in which he had been born, he had never consciously questioned it.

  “A man who has no need to work with his hands might be one definition,” Nate mused. “One who has connections to landowners through birth, I suppose, even if those connections are somewhat tenuous. In any event,” he continued, “both Caro and Mark were the children of aristocracy, and we formed a deep friendship that lasted…”

  “Until she married.”

  He nodded, his mind filled with memories of those early days. Memories that he’d pushed aside but had flooded back when he’d seen his childhood friends on the docks in New York, disembarking from their ship just as he was about to join Lizzie and John aboard a ship bound for South America. They had come to find him. To let him know about his unexpected inheritance.

  It was odd to speak of this to Lizzie and at the same time a relief. To have someone with whom to share his private thoughts, the past that he had struggled to overcome and yet had shaped him indelibly.

  A past that had strangely made him the next Hughes in line for the Beckworth title.

  “Did you love her?” Lizzie asked. He should have known she would ask the more difficult questions. She always did when it came to business concerns.

  “Once upon a time, I did. In a youthful way.” At the time he had thought it only natural that he would marry his closest female friend, the first girl he had ever considered beautiful.

  Lizzie nodded knowingly, and he was curious if she truly understood. For all the time they had spent together over the past year, she’d never said much about her life growing up other than how it had fallen apart after her father’s death. Nor had Nate discussed much of his life before America.

  “Her father refused my suit, married her to a very wealthy and titled man. When I left for America, I put her from my mind.”

  His desire for wealth had been driven by the mocking words of Caro’s father, that he would never be worthy of his daughter, that a boy from an impoverished family only distantly related to anyone worthy of note, would never be considered. Nate could hardly change his birth, but he could change his fortune. The need to prove her father wrong had pushed him to succeed. Eventually he continued his pursuit of wealth because he simply enjoyed the world of business, of investing, speculating, growing something out of nearly nothing. Now, by his own merit, he was far wealthier than the earl.

  “Until she arrived in New York,” Lizzie reminded him. “A widow. Did you not think to fight Mr. Hawkins for her hand?”

  Nate laughed. When he’d encountered Caro and Mark on the docks, he had first stared at the embracing couple, certain he was seeing a mirage or simply a fetch of his friends. When he had realized it was indeed them, he
had been furious to think that his erstwhile friend, who had so reviled Caro, now was having an adulterous affair with her. Thus, by the time he’d learned Caro, Lady Whytestone, was in fact a widow, it had been clear her affections were already engaged. It had been late that night, still reeling from the news that he was a duke, that he ruminated over the oddness of fate, that now Caro’s father would likely eagerly choose Nate over any other suitor.

  Considering Nate had once thought to marry Caro, and that seeking a fortune in order to prove himself worthy of her hand to her father had been more than half the impetus behind his sojourn to America, he was returning under different circumstances indeed.

  There was something oddly twisted in that Mark, who had been Lord Markus Hawkins, now chose to go by Mr. Hawkins, and Nate, who had always been a mere mister, was now a duke.

  “I am not heartbroken, Lizzie. If you seek to paint me as such, please disabuse yourself of the notion.”

  Even that night, his thoughts had been academic. His romantic love for Caro had faded before he’d even landed on American soil. It was her father’s goading that had stayed with him, as well as the cruelty of others who had looked down on his impoverished family with its few genteel connections.

  Although again, all the connection he needed apparently was one thin line of blood leading back to a duchy.

  • • •

  At the hotel, Lizzie excused herself to her bedroom so she could think through the overwhelming morning.

  Traveling to England had seemed a great adventure and also barely real. The ship had been a new experience, one that she had savored. Surrounded by sea, the world had seemed quite different, and yet it all felt like a time apart, that eventually they would go back to life the way it was.

  But now it was clear to Lizzie that life would never return to the way it had been. She had grown comfortable and confident in New York, and yet she had been prepared to follow Nate to South America, as terrifying as that unknown had been. However, at least it would have been an adventure for all of them. One that wouldn’t change the dynamic between Lizzie and Nate.

  But after the morning at the solicitor’s office, it was clear that everything had already changed. The word duke was so foreign to Lizzie. In New York, when Nate’s friends had arrived and informed him that he had inherited, it had little meaning to her. Nate was already wealthy beyond anything she had ever imagined. But there was more to the title than simply wealth. There was power and responsibility. And as the solicitor had stressed, Nate needed to marry for the sake of the title. Because… apparently, that’s what dukes did.

  If only the thought didn’t make Lizzie so uncomfortable. Of course, she understood why it did very well. How could one not admire a man who was as noble, charming, intelligent, and generous as Nate? But despite her regard for him, she knew her place in his life, was grateful that he entrusted so much to her, and that he had brought Lizzie and John under his wing as if they were his wards instead of runaways he had happened to save.

  She was not angling for his affections. Yet every so often, her awareness of him as a man hit her hard in the chest and sent flutters through her belly.

  If he ever knew, she would die of embarrassment.

  She lay down on the bed. After weeks on the ship, she would have been grateful for anything that simply didn’t move. However, the mattress and pillows were luxuriously soft and within moments she succumbed to sleep.

  Sometime later, a very animated John shook her awake to let her know that the solicitor’s talkative and inquisitive sister was waiting in their private parlor and that he and Nate would be leaving the hotel on errands shortly.

  “Perhaps I should come with you,” Lizzie suggested, unease filling her at the idea of John wandering through this strange city without her protection.

  “You and Mrs. Meachum are supposed to go to the dressmaker,” John said. “I shall be fine.”

  Of course, John knew what she was thinking, and he was right. She couldn’t hover over him forever, and here in England they were relatively safe. And in Nate’s company, she had no doubt he was safest of all.

  Lizzie nodded, and in his wake, she felt momentarily abandoned. She had been in this strange country for less than a day, had hardly taken in the avalanche of information imparted during that morning’s meeting with the solicitor. But the time for thinking would be later. She took a deep breath and dressed quickly.

  Lizzie had only the briefest moment to meet and make an impression of Mrs. Meachum before they hurried down to the carriage to make the dressmaker appointment. The woman was perhaps a decade older than Nate. And she was garrulous. In the carriage, Lizzie quickly learned that she had four children, two boys and two girls, and the oldest was engaged to be married, of which she was very proud.

  Lizzie had only faint memories of her own mother, who had died in childbirth, along with the infant. In many ways, John’s mother had been more of a maternal figure in Lizzie’s life than her own. But all of that had been very strange. It was after Lizzie’s mother’s death that her father had freed Sarah and then begun their affair. It had taken Lizzie years to sort through her feelings about the relationship between them and the fact that she had an illegitimate brother, let alone one who was born of a black woman that Lizzie’s own mother had considered inferior.

  Over the years, Lizzie had shed any loyalty to her mother’s memory and formed her own opinions on the matter. While she was never quite sure if Sarah actually loved her father or if the relationship was one John’s mother had entered into out of necessity, Lizzie never doubted that Sarah had loved her as her own child. And the more the outside world judged, the more Lizzie hated people, the more she sat in church, her mind full of uncharitable thoughts.

  “Your brother is very well mannered,” Mrs. Meachum said, as if she could read Lizzie’s thoughts. “I must say, even forewarned by my brother, it is quite odd to think of the two of you as siblings.”

  Lizzie shrugged, uncertain what to say. There was nothing outwardly offensive about the observation, but it seemed to hide a depth of unspoken prejudice. Her nervousness grew with that exchange. It was possible that she and John would encounter such casual conversation everywhere and that Beckworth Park, other than Nate, would be completely inhospitable to them. This was not the same as following Nate from the south to the north. Perhaps slavery was illegal here in England, but prejudice was illegal nowhere.

  However, the dressmaker and her assistants knew nothing of Lizzie’s family and past other than that the Duke of Beckworth had requested that they provide her with a new wardrobe. Still, when Lizzie entered, the dressmaker, her two assistants, and another lady who stepped out into the public space in a magnificent sapphire evening gown, all eyed Lizzie carefully, as if taking in every detail about her and making their judgments. Not that she wasn’t used to such looks, and Lizzie naturally made her own assumptions. But these were judgments that could only be based on her current appearance and the accent that declared her an American.

  Madame Allard, an imposing woman of forty-some years with lustrous brown hair and deeply set eyes, finally strode up to Lizzie with a welcoming smile on her face and said, “Miss Smith, I am so pleased that I am able to assist you in your new wardrobe. I understand your desire to have new fashionable attire that is au courant in London. And you must be Mrs. Meachum. Shall we begin?”

  Madame Allard sat them down on the long sofa at the side of the room and handed Lizzie a magazine. “Please take a moment to see if there are any designs you prefer. I will be with you in just a moment.” With that, she went back to the side of the woman in sapphire.

  Lizzie flipped through the pages, Mrs. Meachum peering over her shoulder. “That, most definitely. And that, but without the frills, perhaps. And that as well.”

  After Mrs. Meachum had pointed to half a dozen riding habits, Lizzie closed the book and turned to the other woman.

  “This seems excessive. I’m his secretary,” she said. “His Grace’s,” Lizzie amended
.

  “Whatever you are, you are at one of the most exclusive dressmaker’s in London at his grace’s request. Do you know most women have to wait months for an appointment with Madame Allard? Moreover, it is winter, and a cold one. You will order a proper wardrobe. Perhaps only one ball gown is needed for now, and you may order more if you return to London for the Season.”

  “But…” Lizzie had never seen such luxurious fabrics before, and she almost didn’t dare touch them. All the clothes she had purchased for herself in New York had been plain and serviceable, befitting a woman who worked as a secretary. Despite the generous salary he paid her, despite the fact that he paid for everything else, her food, her lodging, John’s schooling, she had thought it imperative to save as much money as she could. To invest a portion of it the way Nate did. To think about her future and John’s future and a day when Nate would no longer wish to rely so much upon a woman who had never been known for her intelligence, a quality she knew he valued.

  Nate had never suggested she should do otherwise. Until now.

  But as Mrs. Meachum had said, Nate had practically ordered her to purchase a new wardrobe, and the bill would be sent to him. Was it less appreciative of his kindness to refuse the gift or to take full advantage of it?

  She settled on something in the middle and for the next two hours was lost in a wash of colors, fabrics, and designs. There were discussions about intimate apparel, hats, gloves, and other fripperies. Then at last she watched the assistant remove the final glorious swath of fabric from the private room. The feel of it on her skin was like a passing dream, and even though Mrs. Allard had assured her the first garments would arrive within a week, it was hard for Lizzie to believe. Instead, she put on the dress in which she had arrived. Plain, suited to a woman who served as a secretary, but certainly not one that made her feel sensual, indulgent, and… almost beautiful.

  As she left the store, one part of her wished she hadn’t ordered any clothes at all, despite Nate’s generous order. It was one more aspect of her life that was changing, and with so many moving elements, she wasn’t certain she’d ever find the stability she craved again.