How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  She’d thought Frederick wanted to be alone with her because he actually liked the tall, gawky girl with red hair and freckles who lived at the wrong end of Madison Avenue. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Edie stared out at the Thames, and the sun glinting off the water must have been terribly bright, for it stung her eyes. She blinked, and everything blurred, and she realized it wasn’t the sun’s glittering reflection that burned her eyes—­it was tears. Furious, she blinked again, forcing them back.

  She shook her head, working to clear away any useless thoughts of desperation, self-­pity, or despair. She could not think about the past, she had to deal with now and plan for the future.

  Her reasoning mind told her that Stuart was not Frederick. He was a different sort of man altogether, but she knew that didn’t matter. He was still a man, and he was her husband, and now, he wanted what she couldn’t freely give him. He had the right to her body, and there would come a time, somewhere, somehow, when he would take it. She could not let that happen.

  If a legal separation was the only way to prevent it, she would have to find a way to make him sign one. The question was how.

  The first, and easiest, possibility was a threat to cut off his income. She held the purse strings, and if she shut them tight, he might knuckle under. If that failed, she could do the opposite. She could offer him more money, hundreds of thousands of pounds—­all she had, if that would persuade him.

  If those options failed, she would have to go abroad.

  Her heart sank at the thought of leaving Highclyffe, and Almsley, and Dunlop, and all the other ducal estates. She’d refurbished those houses, redesigned their gardens, invigorated their villages, and improved their lands. The idea of leaving it all behind tore at her heart, but if Stuart wouldn’t agree to a separation, she’d have to go away.

  If going abroad became her only option, she would inform Stuart that she intended to return to New York and fight for a divorce from there, but that would only be to throw him off the scent, for she had no more intention of living near Frederick Van Hausen now than she had had five years ago.

  No, she’d tell Stuart she was going home to New York. She’d buy the passage, just to make it convincing. But then, she’d take Joanna and slip away somewhere else—­France, South America, Egypt, even Shanghai—­it didn’t matter where. Daddy wouldn’t like it, but he wouldn’t tell Stuart her whereabouts if she asked him not to.

  She couldn’t hide from her husband forever. She knew that. But maybe, once he understood that her refusal to live with him was final, he’d give up this whole crazy idea and let her go. Besides, with his income cut off, how long could he chase her around the world?

  Her spirits revived a little at these plans, her sense of control over her life began to return, and she stood up, banishing any further inclination to feel sorry for herself. She would continue to be mistress of her own life. She would be no victim, not of her circumstances, not of Fate, and certainly not of any man. Not ever again.

  WHEN EDIE REACHED the hotel, she did not go in. Instead, she walked several blocks beyond to the nearby Cooks office. There, upon inquiring about ocean liners to New York, she learned that the next one departed out of Liverpool eleven days hence. She reserved a stateroom suite, paid the deposit, and asked that the billets be forwarded to her at the Savoy.

  Arriving back at the hotel, she paused in the Savoy’s luxurious tearoom to inquire about Lady Trubridge, for it was nearly half past four. Upon learning the marchioness had not yet arrived, Edie continued on up to her rooms to freshen up and fetch Joanna.

  When she entered her suite, she found her sister already dressed for tea and waiting for her. “At last,” Joanna cried, jumping up from her chair and tossing aside the book she’d been reading. “I was growing worried. Where have you been?”

  “I told you I had to meet with Mr. Keating.”

  “For three hours? Estate business never takes you this long.”

  Edie’s gaze swerved away. She’d been vague about the reasons for their trip to town and her meeting with Keating. She knew Joanna would have to be told the situation and that it was likely they would soon be leaving for parts as yet unknown. Still, there was no point in bringing up the topic now, not when they were about to go down to tea. And she hadn’t given up hope of convincing Stuart to abandon his intentions. “Yes, well, I went for a walk. It’s a nice afternoon.”

  Joanna, understandably, looked at her as if she’d gone a bit wrong in the head. “It’s London in the summer. It stinks.”

  No arguing with that. “Don’t use the word ‘stinks,’ dearest,” she corrected instead. “If you must refer to smell at all, use ‘malodorous.’ It’s more ladylike. I’m going to change, and we’ll go to tea.”

  She left the sitting room, only to find that her maid was not in her room, dressing room, or bath, and she stuck her head through the doorway into the sitting room. “Where is Reeves?”

  Joanna looked up from her book, which she had resumed reading. “She took Snuffles down for a walk. She had to, since he was dancing in circles. They’ll be right back.”

  “Well, you’ll have to help me then. We’ve no time to wait for her, or we’ll be late to tea.”

  Joanna followed her back into her bedroom and helped her out of her wrinkled green serge walking suit and limp undergarments. The Savoy, which had only opened a few weeks earlier, was the height of modernity, and the bath of her suite had both hot and cold running water laid on, enabling her to easily sponge away the sweat of her panicky race along the Victoria Embankment. Within ten minutes, she’d slipped into fresh undergarments and crisp frock of lavender silk. Joanna was just doing up the last button at her back when a knock sounded on the door of the suite.

  “That’s probably Reeves,” Joanna said. “I’ll bet she forgot her key. She’s always doing that when we stay in hotels.” She went to let the maid in, but a few minutes later, it was not Reeves who entered the bedroom. Instead, Joanna returned.

  Edie caught sight of her sister in the cheval mirror and stopped fluffing the leg o’ mutton sleeves of her dress in surprise. “Where are Reeves and Snuffles?”

  But even as she spoke, she noted the strange expression on her sister’s face and the sheaf of papers in her hand, and she knew it was not her maid who had come to the door. She cursed Cook’s for being so efficient.

  “Why are we going to New York?” Joanna asked, holding up the sheaf of papers. “These are steamship tickets.”

  Edie drew a deep breath. “We may go, or we may not. It depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “It’s complicated, dearest.”

  “You’re leaving him, aren’t you?” The dismay in the girl’s voice was unmistakable, and given that she did not want to go to boarding school, that dismay was rather surprising. “You’re running away.”

  “We may not go,” she reminded. “And even if we did, I wouldn’t call it running away.”

  “What would you call it?”

  A knock on the door saved her from having to answer. “Now, that’s sure to be Reeves,” she said, and brushed past her sister to head for the front door.

  Joanna, of course, couldn’t let the topic go. “It is running away,” she said, following Edie into the sitting room. “And it won’t solve anything.”

  “That’s a fine argument from the girl who jumped off a train to avoid going to school,” Edie countered, and reached for the door handle. “You should be agreeing with me,” she added over her shoulder as she opened the door. “Running away is sometimes a perfectly acceptable strategy.”

  She turned, expecting to see Reeves, prepared to tease her maid about forgetting her key, but the words died on her lips, for the person standing in the corridor was not Reeves. Instead, she found the man she was trying to avoid, the man who’d once been her salvation but who was rapidly becoming her nemesis.

&n
bsp; “You!” she cried. “What are you doing here?”

  “Is it me you’re running away from, Edie? What?” he added at her groan of aggravation. “Did you really think going off to London would be enough to rid you of me?”

  “Obviously not,” she acknowledged with a sigh. “I should have bought tickets to Africa.”

  Chapter 7

  STUART WAS NOT the least bit surprised by his wife’s less-­than-­enthusiastic greeting, and he chose to let her dismay roll off him like water off a duck. Having armor plating was, he felt, going to prove useful in the coming days.

  “Good afternoon, darling,” he said with a smile. And though he hadn’t a shred of hope she’d smile back, as he watched an answering frown etch its way between her brows, he couldn’t help thinking wistfully of that day on the terrace.

  “You have become the proverbial bad penny,” she accused. “How did you know where to find me?”

  “Wellesley, of course. It is one of the many duties of a British butler to keep his master informed about domestic matters. Being my wife, you are very much a domestic matter.”

  “There is no way Wellesley could have known I was staying at the Savoy!”

  “No, that’s true, but even at this time of year, London is full of ­people who adore gossip. Shall we just say a little bird told me?”

  “Little bird, my eye,” she muttered, and turned to the girl standing by the bedroom door, who immediately pasted on an expression of wide-­eyed innocence that Stuart suspected was quite familiar to Edie. “More like an interfering little sister.”

  Obviously realizing the jig was up, Joanna abandoned any pretense of innocence. “I thought Stuart should know where we were. In case . . . in case anything happened. What if you were run over by an omnibus or something? It could happen,” she added, as Edie made a sound of derision.

  “Of all the maddening, interfering, impossible sisters in the world,” Edie muttered, “the good Lord just had to saddle me with you.”

  “And Daddy’s in New York,” the girl went on, dropping the sheaf of papers in her hand onto a nearby table, papers that to Stuart looked suspiciously like ocean-­liner billets. “If anything happened to you, I’d be all alone in London, with no one to turn to.”

  “Your concern for my possible demise is overwhelming,” Edie said dryly. “I ought to tan your backside.”

  “Now, Edie,” Stuart put in behind her, impelled to come to the aid of his ally. “Don’t be so hard on Joanna. She was only trying to do a harmless spot of matchmaking.”

  Edie cast a wrathful glance at him over one shoulder, but before she could reply, a sound behind him caught his attention, and he turned to find Edie’s maid standing in the corridor. In her hand was a dog lead, and at the other end, sniffing his shoe, was a small brown ball of fluff.

  “Reeves,” he greeted the pale, somber-­faced woman in black with a nod, then he looked down. “This must be Snuffles.”

  At the sound of his name, the Norwich terrier looked up, planted his bum on the carpet of the corridor, and gave a bark of resounding agreement.

  “Hullo, old man.” Stuart bent down, sticking out his fist for further canine inspection.

  Snuffles took a sniff, and his docked tail wiggled against the carpet in approval. Edie, however, didn’t seem inclined to allow them to become further acquainted.

  “Reeves, here you are at last,” she said, and leaned through the doorway to grasp the maid’s arm, but Stuart spoke before she could pull the servant inside the suite.

  “Reeves, will you escort Miss Jewell down to the tearoom? I believe Lady Trubridge is waiting there,” he added, ignoring Edie’s sound of protest. “And then take Snuffles for a walk, if you please.”

  “He’s just had a walk,” Edie said. “He doesn’t need another.”

  He turned, and through the doorway, he met his wife’s aggravated gaze with a resolute one of his own. “Reeves, go,” he said, without taking his eyes from Edie. “I’d like to speak with the duchess alone.”

  The maid hesitated, but only for a moment. The command of a duke outweighed that of a duchess, and she knew it. “Of course, Your Grace.”

  Joanna followed, and as she passed Stuart to go with the maid, she paused to give him an anxious look. He winked in response, and she must have found that reassuring, for the worry vanished from her face, and she followed the maid down the corridor without any further hesitation.

  He waited until she and the maid had vanished around the corner with Snuffles in tow before returning his attention to the woman in the doorway, who was glaring at him, arms folded, apparently with no inclination to let him in.

  “So Joanna is your spy within the gates?” she asked. “That explains how you knew where to find me. How did you manage to win her over?”

  “Believe it or not, Joanna likes me.”

  She sniffed, unimpressed. “I suppose you told her you’ll manage to keep her out of school if she helps you?”

  He had no intention of betraying his ally. “I tell no tales,” he said, and quickly changed the subject. Looking past her shoulder, he gave a whistle. “This place certainly lives up to its reputation. Even in Nairobi, everyone was buzzing about its being the height of luxury. Aubusson carpet, pink marble fireplace, crystal chandeliers. Those are probably genuine Ming vases on the mantel, so I should advise not throwing any of them at my head though I daresay you can stand the expense. The place is quite posh, isn’t it?”

  He waited, but when she didn’t speak, he gestured to the room behind her. “Perhaps you should invite me in? Surely you don’t wish to talk with me in the hotel corridor.”

  “I don’t wish to talk with you at all.”

  “Edie, we have to discuss things. Although running away from me appears to be your strategy, it won’t work forever. And if that isn’t a good enough reason for you, remember that the more resistance you display toward my attempts to reconcile, the more dismal your chances are of winning any sort of legal battle with me later on. Courts hate intransigent wives.”

  She made a face. “I’m hoping my intransigence, as you put it, will impel you to realize the futility of your efforts.”

  He propped one shoulder against the doorjamb. “And what is your degree of success with that tactic?”

  She sighed. After a moment, she stepped back and opened the door wide to let him in. “You have five minutes,” she said as she turned away. “Then I have to join Lady Trubridge for tea. I won’t keep her waiting longer than that because of you.”

  “Five minutes? Excellent,” he said, with all the appearance of good cheer as he followed her into the suite. “Plenty of time for a drink.”

  “Perhaps.” She turned to face him. “But that hardly matters since I’m not offering you a drink.”

  “More’s the pity,” he replied ruefully. “If your afternoon here in town was as enjoyable as my afternoon in a hot, stuffy train, we could both use a spot of whisky right now.”

  “I don’t like whisky. I prefer tea.” She made an exaggerated show of looking at the clock on the mantel. “You have four and a half minutes.”

  “Don’t worry, Edie. You have more time than you think. As I said earlier, I encountered Lady Trubridge in the tearoom already. I explained that I needed to speak with you, and that in consequence, you would be late. She quite understood.”

  “You did what? What gives you the right to be so high-­handed?”

  “Well . . .” He paused, giving her an apologetic look. “We are married. As your husband, I have the right to be high-­handed. Speaking of Joanna,” he added, cutting off her sound of outrage, “if you are running away, why are you taking her with you? Isn’t she supposed to go off to school?”

  “I suppose you shall try to persuade me against it with some British nonsense about how girls don’t need to go away to school, or how it isn’t wise to give them too much educat
ion.” She held up one hand, palm toward him. “If so, don’t. I’ve already had that particular lecture from your mother.”

  This, he decided, was the perfect opportunity to fulfill his promise to his young sister-­in-­law. “Regardless of what my mother’s opinion may be, I think having Joanna go away to school is an excellent idea. I find higher education for girls quite commendable. Besides,” he added, “with Joanna away, you and I shall have plenty of opportunity to be alone together.”

  She gave a laugh. “You and I will not be spending any time alone together.”

  “Of course we will. We are married.”

  “Stop saying that!”

  “No sense ignoring the truth. As I told you five years ago, marriage is something that can’t simply be undone. I’m sure Keating reiterated the point for you earlier today.”

  “How do you know I’ve met with Keating? Joanna again, I suppose. So is that why you’re here? To find out what my attorney has advised and what I intend to do? I’m sure Keating didn’t tell you anything, and I shan’t either.”

  “I don’t need to be told. I can guess. Keating advised you that there are no grounds whatsoever for annulment and insufficient grounds for divorce. I’ll go out on a limb and add that he probably also strongly advised you against bringing either action, given the small chance of success and the certainty of scandal.”

  She stirred, looking uneasy, confirming that his enumeration of her attorney’s opinion was accurate. “I intend to obtain a legal separation.”

  “Now I really do need a drink.” He limped past her to the nearby liquor cabinet, set aside his walking stick, and poured himself a generous measure of liquor from the decanter. Fortified by a swallow of the excellent whisky, he turned around, glass in hand, to resume discussion of the subject at hand. “You’re serious? You intend to pursue legal action?”