Dukes In Disguise

by Grace Burrowes, Susanna Ives, Emily Greenwood

  Whatever she was up to, she clearly meant to brazen it out, and though he ought to have been outraged that this woman was taking advantage of Foxtail’s hospitality, he found himself slightly amused by her. Not that he would let her see as much.

  “And what are you doing here?” he demanded. He could feel the housekeeper watching him.

  “I am…”—Miss Beckett cleared her throat—“on holiday. His Grace’s mother told my mother that the lodge was unused and I might spend a little time here.”

  “Beckett,” he mused, toying with her. “I didn’t know there was anyone named Beckett in the family.”

  She colored, and he repressed the smugness that tugged at his lips.

  “I am a second cousin,” she said.

  “Are you.” Before he could quiz her further, the housekeeper broke in.

  “You must be fatigued from your journey, Mr. Fitzwilliam. Have you eaten?”

  “No. In fact, I require something hot as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll have a tray brought up to your chamber.”

  Did she mean to ensure that he didn’t linger downstairs? He thought of demanding to eat in the dining room just to thwart her, but in truth it had been a long day and he did just want to retire.

  “Is the red velvet bedchamber available? I’ve been told I ought to experience it.” His mother still spoke of staying there when the family used to visit. Apparently the red velvet room was the perfect example of what a comfortable hunting box bedchamber should be—or at least it had been years ago. Having been a boy at the time, Rowan had paid no attention whatsoever to such things as furnishings.

  The two women shared a look.

  “I could—” began the blonde, but the housekeeper cut her off.

  “Miss Beckett is already occupying that room,” the housekeeper informed him. “But I’m certain you’ll be very comfortable in one of the other bedchambers.”

  Interesting. He’d wager anything that Miss Beckett had been about to offer to surrender her bedchamber to him, an entirely unnecessary offer that no gentleman would have accepted.

  “If you would follow me?” the housekeeper said.

  So he was to have an expedited journey from doorstep to bedchamber. Was the housekeeper eager to get rid of him so she could discuss him with his “cousin”? For now, he would oblige her.

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  “What on earth am I going to do?” Claire said to Louisa an hour later as they stood in Claire’s bedchamber. Beautifully decorated in tones of wine and gold with velvet hangings around the bed and a large, distinctive golden clock on the wall, it was the nicest bedchamber in the lodge. Claire had initially balked at taking it, but Louisa had insisted.

  Also, it was the only room in the lodge whose walls didn’t display at least one animal’s head. Most of the bedchambers had several, which both Claire and Louisa thought spoiled the coziness somewhat, though Louisa, out of boredom and a desire for companionship, however mute, had given all the mounted heads names and personalities; the ones in the breakfast room she called Tristan and Isolde, and the sitting room stag was Max.

  At least Claire’s bedchamber was at the other end of the corridor from the room Mr. Fitzwilliam had been given. Claire covered her eyes with her hand. “I ought to leave right this minute. What if he suspects I’m a fraud?”

  “You’re not leaving! Besides, why should he suspect anything? It’s often the case that cousins from one side of a family don’t know the other. I, for one, have never met any of my second cousins, since they live in the north. Anyway, he seemed to accept your presence here.”

  “Maybe.” Claire let her hand fall. “But he certainly seemed surprised, and he was scrutinizing me.”

  “Actually,” Louisa said, a smile curling the edges of her lips, “I thought he looked rather taken with you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He was even ruder to me than he was to you.”

  Louisa laughed. “He is a gruff character, isn’t he? But I like a plain-speaking man.”

  “Plain-speaking? He grunted at me!”

  “Isn’t it always the girls the boys like best that they torment the most?” Louisa moved toward the wardrobe and began inspecting Claire’s gowns.

  “That doesn’t go for men,” Claire said. “He clearly dislikes me. What are you doing?”

  “Just looking to see what you have to wear, now that we have a gentleman staying here.” Louisa plucked a cream-colored gown from among those hanging in the wardrobe and held it out, fluffing the skirts. “You haven’t worn this one yet, but it would look divine with your coloring. You should wear it tomorrow.”

  Claire made a face, took the gown from her, and put it back. “I hardly think a haughty, fine gentleman like Mr. Fitzwilliam would notice what I wear,” she said, recalling the way he’d glowered at her. Though she also remembered how overwhelmingly—and fascinatingly—male he’d been. “I think he was testing me with his questions about my relationship to the duke.”

  Louisa waved a hand dismissively. “You’re just nervous because you’ve become too used to telling people what they want to hear, so you’ve lost the capacity to lie when necessary. You always were a little too considerate of other people’s feelings for your own good, but honestly, what happened to you in the last few years? You didn’t used to be so revoltingly agreeable.”

  Claire dropped down onto the bed and Louisa joined her, and they settled back against the headboard as companionably as they used to on Claire’s bed when they were girls.

  “I don’t know. Once Mama decided I was a young lady and thus couldn’t run about as I liked anymore, I had to absorb all her lessons about being feminine and yielding to the guidance of men. I suppose it seemed right to discount my own opinions. That is, until the moment Papa told me I was to marry Lord Haight.”

  “Your mouth contorts hideously every time you say the baron’s name. Do you remember that rhyme we made up about him when we were nine? ‘Lord Haight, Lord Haight, can’t get through the garden gate.’”

  “If I’d guessed that he might one day be destined to be my husband, I think I would have run away from home right then. Which would have saved me from having to do it now that I’m twenty-one.” Claire sighed. “I suppose Papa just wants me to be provided for.”

  “There are better ways of providing for his only daughter,” Louisa said. “The baron must be almost sixty.”

  Claire nodded gloomily. “Everything about him sags, and his breath smells awful.”

  “If you marry that man, you will have to kiss that mouth.”

  Revulsion crawled down Claire’s spine. “I know. The thought of his breath was what spurred me to run away.”

  Louisa sat forward and twisted to grab Claire’s shoulders as if she were going to shake her. “Claire, you can’t marry him!”

  “But what choice do I have? Papa won’t brook my refusal. I’d be cast out—he’s already talking of disowning Robert.”

  “Maybe it’s just bluster,” Louisa said, releasing Claire and leaning back against the headboard again as she pondered. “How could your father really want to disown his son?”

  The corners of Claire’s mouth tipped down. “You’ve never seen Papa in high dudgeon. It’s terrible. And if I’m cast out, where would I go and what would I do? I suppose I’ll have to become a governess.”

  Louisa gave a hum of disapproval. “Unless you find a very good situation, you’d likely be expected to civilize impossibly spoiled children for terribly meager pay, and you’d no longer be looked upon as eligible by gentlemen.” Louisa’s expression turned serious. “Really, the best thing would be for you to simply find a husband on your own.”

  Claire slid off the bed, moved to the wardrobe, and began to look through the gowns herself. Except for her violet satin gown, which she’d originally packed in case Aunt Mary had a party, they were nothing very special, just the simple muslins she favored. They certainly hadn’t helped her find a husband during her one Season, last ye
ar in London.

  “I have thought of that, you know,” she said dryly. “But it’s hardly easy to meet a decent man and marry him quickly.”

  “Nonsense. Ladies do it all the time,” Louisa said, leaping from the bed with one of her customary gusts of energy. “What about Mr. Rutledge? You’ve met him in town twice already. He’s kind, pleasant-looking, and nowhere near sixty.”

  “Perhaps,” Claire said in a tentative tone. “He is very… nice. And there is that assembly coming up. But maybe I’m exaggerating and Lord Haight isn’t so very horrible. Perhaps I’m just being selfish.”

  “Claire Beckett! Do you want to be married to The Haight and his breath?”

  “The Haight?” Claire shook her head at Louisa’s irreverence, but then she straightened her shoulders. “No. No, I don’t!”

  Louisa cackled triumphantly. “You said no, Claire! And you said what you thought. There, was that so hard?”

  “Yes,” Claire said, then laughed. “Very well, it wasn’t, but it’s easy to say no when I’m talking to you. It will be impossible to say no to Papa and The Haight.”

  Her three brothers didn’t mind saying no to Papa. Two of them were still at home—Robert was at university—and they all ran up debts and drank too much, which meant yelling and strife that Claire hated. It was far better to be pleasing.

  Making people happy felt good, and all Claire needed to do to achieve that was to be agreeable. But now she had to admit that she’d become so accustomed to ignoring what she really wanted that she’d forgotten she had opinions and wishes of her own.

  Her father telling her she was going to marry Lord Haight had awoken something willful in her, and refusal had stirred from some deeply hidden place. He’d delivered the news the day before Claire was to leave for a few weeks’ stay with her great-aunt.

  “You’ll have a nice holiday with Aunt Mary, and when you return, we’ll post the banns,” Papa had said. “Haight will make you the perfect husband.”

  The shock of his words had been instant. She knew it was her duty to marry, but at twenty-one, she’d thought she’d have time to find a husband who suited her.

  Claire had somehow managed to speak. “Papa, I don’t want to marry Lord Haight. I couldn’t.”

  His face had darkened, and her stomach had dropped at the realization that his anger would be turned on her. But then his face had softened into a smile.

  “Of course it’s a surprise, my dear. But you’ll see, once you have a few moments to think, that you very much do want to marry Haight. Anyway, it’s all settled, so there ’s no sense in fussing about it. There’s a good girl.” And he’d given her a cheery hug.

  She’d gone to bed in despair and awoken knowing she had to find her way to the one person who would really listen to her—Louisa. And so Claire had left that morning pretending she was going to meet Aunt Mary’s coach in town. Instead, she’d left a note with the innkeeper to be given to her aunt’s coachman, announcing a change of plans, and bought a ticket on the mail coach that would take her to Foxtail.

  “Well, now I’m deceiving the town of Lesser Puddlebury, the staff of Foxtail, and the cousin of the Duke of Starlingham. Is that enough of a sign for you that I’ve departed from my obliging ways?”

  “No. For goodness’s sake, the first thing you said to Fitzwilliam was ‘I’m sorry.’ And you would certainly have offered to give up your bedchamber to him if I hadn’t kicked you!”

  “I feel guilty about being here.”

  “Don’t. For all we know, Fitzwilliam isn’t really the duke’s cousin either.”

  Claire treated her friend to a withering look. “Why would he be masquerading as the duke’s cousin, never mind the impossible coincidence of two people here at Foxtail masquerading as the duke’s cousins at the same time?”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Louisa said loftily. “But you know,” she continued, as if an idea had just occurred to her, “it’s really quite perfect that he’s come. What you need is practice in saying no and not being so agreeable. Fitzwilliam is the perfect person to practice on, since he’s certainly not agreeable, and after you leave here, you’ll never see him again.”

  Claire snorted. “What on earth are you proposing—a campaign of being rude to the duke’s cousin?”

  “Not rude, just not so endlessly obliging. Although, it wouldn’t hurt to be a little rude.”

  “That’s the silliest idea I’ve ever heard,” Claire said. “What I should really do is leave. What if Mr. Fitzwilliam discovers I’m no relation to the duke? And that you knew as much?”

  “He won’t. We’ve been careful to be sure that no one would think you were anything but a stranger to me when you arrived. Since none of the servants sleep here, and Grainger has his own little house out back, there’s been no one here to notice our late-night chats.”

  “Mr. Fitzwilliam might have heard us talking and laughing tonight,” Claire pointed out.

  “If he mentions anything, we’ll say it must have been the dogs.”

  Claire shook her head at Louisa’s brazenness, but in truth she yearned to be more daring, as she once had been. “Maybe you’re a little bit right that I need practice being bold.”

  “Certainly I’m right,” Louisa said.

  “And it does seem,” Claire said slowly, testing out the idea, “that the gruff Mr. Fitzwilliam might not even notice or care whether I’m nice.”

  “Exactly,” Louisa said enthusiastically. “You can start tomorrow.”

  A rising swell of sass made Claire grin. “And if he doesn’t like it, I’ll say something rude.”

  “That’s the spirit!”

  * * *

  In his bedchamber early the next morning, Rowan stood before the looking glass with a freshly stropped razor poised to meet his cheek. It had been years since he’d shaved himself. Or stropped a razor, for that matter. He could almost feel the eyes of the stag’s head mounted on the wall to his right observing his hesitation with disgust.

  “Getting on with it,” he muttered and drew the razor down his cheek, happily managing not to slice himself to ribbons. When had he become such a damned fancy fellow that he quaked to shave himself?

  Fifteen minutes later he was done, with only one small cut that would be noticeable above his cravat and a couple of nicks on his neck, but he didn’t think they’d show once he was dressed. He resolved there and then that, once he was returned to the ministrations of his valet, he would shave himself once a week to keep in practice.

  He intended to make his way downstairs for breakfast before Miss Beckett arose so he could discreetly quiz the servants about his “cousin’s” presence there. As he was sliding his foot into his boot, though, he heard someone greet her by name outside his room.

  He jerked on his boot. The night before, as he was lying in bed, he’d heard the repeated sounds of female laughter, which had surely been Miss Beckett and the housekeeper, since she’d mentioned that the maids did not live in. Did Mrs. Firth know Miss Beckett was a fraud? The mystery of her presence had only deepened.

  As he made his way downstairs, he recalled that strange feeling of familiarity—that veritable thunderbolt—he’d experienced at his first sight of Miss Beckett, as though she was someone very special. How ridiculous. Had the air of Lesser Puddlebury done something to his head? He’d spent the hours since parting from Mowne and Lucere touring the surrounding countryside, and perhaps he’d become more tired than he’d realized—tired to the point of imbecility, if he was imagining thunderbolts.

  As he entered the breakfast room, he found his fake cousin seated at the table with a plate of toast and a cup of tea. She looked up at his entrance. She was still very pretty by the clear light of day. Even lovelier, actually, than he remembered from the night before.

  Her eyes were blue, he saw now—the soft blue gray of lavender. Her fair, shining hair was dressed simply in a tidy knot ornamented with a few slim plaits, and she was wearing a stamped blue gown with a wide sash of darker blue u
nder her bosom. Her skin was exceptionally lovely, creamy and tinged with peach at her cheeks, and an absurd desire to touch her made him curl his fingers inward.

  “Good day to you, sir,” she said, looking at him over the top of her teacup. He grunted at her and went to the sideboard to fill his plate.

  He took a seat across from her and prepared to begin his interrogation. Lest he reveal his suspicions, though, he meant to proceed in an oblique manner.

  “So, Miss Beckett, what do you plan to do during your stay here?”

  “Oh… this and that. I find the Foxtail grounds very pretty.”

  If she was up to no good, she betrayed no anxiety about discovery, appearing collected and cool. He tested out the idea that she had come to Foxtail to escape the consequences of some sort of crime. Perhaps she’d stolen a lady’s jewels, or tricked an old fellow into parting with his blunt.

  But he couldn’t see it. She looked perfectly suited to her surroundings, as though she would have been completely at ease having tea with his sisters or sailing gracefully around a London dance floor. There was a dignity about her that argued strongly against criminal behavior. And the way she brought her teacup to her lips—surely no nefarious woman could have done so with such artless grace.

  He thought of how she’d been on the verge of offering him her bedchamber the night before and decided that, were she truly wicked, she would have brazened out the charade and insisted she was owed every bit of consequence due to a duke’s cousin.

  All of which evidence left him to conclude that whatever was prompting her to pass herself off as his cousin was most likely something harmless but reputation-ruining. Perhaps she was a governess who’d drawn the gaze of the master or been pursued by an eldest son. She was pretty enough to cause quite a bit of trouble in such a household.

  “So you’ve been wandering the grounds, have you?” he asked.

  “Mmm,” she said vaguely, employing, to his annoyance, one of his own cherished techniques of avoidance.