by Mary Brendan
‘Why is Luke angry with him?’ Joan enquired. According to her sister, Drew had been a true friend to Luke when they were growing up and Luke had been unhappy at home. ‘Is Rockleigh no longer deemed fitting company since my brother-in-law settled down to a staid family life?’ Joan hoped Luke’s loyalty ran deeper than that.
‘Not at all!’ Maude wiped crumbs from her lips with a napkin. ‘Luke wants to be friends. Apparently he offered his chum a loan to get him back on his feet, but Rockleigh flatly refused to have it. Drew is now living like a degenerate, consorting with quite the wrong sort of people. Luke is out of patience with him.’ She frowned. ‘It is inconceivable that somebody would willingly remain in the gutter. It might be all exaggeration.’ Maude’s expression turned optimistic.
‘I fear this time the gossip might not live up to the reality, ma’am,’ Joan said quietly.
‘You know the ins and outs?’ Maude was intrigued enough to push away the tempting plate of tartlets and give her stepdaughter her full attention.
‘I might as well own up, for no doubt Papa will regale you with details of my latest scrape.’
‘Indeed, you must, if you wish to have my assistance in the matter,’ Maude answered with a wink.
Five minutes later when the saga about the beggars and Drew Rockleigh’s heroics had been related, Maude was looking much less amiable.
‘Oh, Joan!’ the woman wailed. ‘I wouldn’t have gone off to Essex for so long if I’d known you’d get embroiled in the vicar’s ragged school. There’s always a price to pay for doing a good deed, as my late husband would say.’ Maude sorrowfully shook her head. ‘I’ve always sanctioned your friendship with the vicar as he is kin of the Finches and I know your late mama liked him. Alfred is sure to remind me of my interference when he gets home.’
‘You know you have my father wrapped about your little finger.’ Joan managed a fraudulent smile, inwardly wincing at having caused yet another person’s upset. She’d not wanted to bring tears to her stepmother’s eyes, but equally she would never regret teaching some slum urchins their letters.
Thus far her stepmother had been her ally. Maude would gently chide her husband over keeping a too-strict rein on his eldest child. Her own daughter, she would remind him, had braved the hazards of travelling hundreds of miles in the seeking of employment and in the end the adventure had enriched Fiona’s life rather than ruining it.
The Duke would listen and nod. He would heed Maude in most things. In this particular case he had no need to humour her though, as there was great truth in her boast that Fiona’s courage had been well rewarded: Joan’s stepsister had travelled to Devon to take up a position as a governess when her life was at a low ebb and instead had fallen straight into the loving arms of her future husband.
‘Oh! That is your father back now.’ Maude had agitatedly gained her feet at the sound of voices in the corridor.
Joan had also heard the Duke’s baritone mingling with her Aunt Dorothea’s shrill treble. She was itching to speak to her father in private to discover why he’d found it necessary to reward Rockleigh with as much as fifty pounds. But now Maude was home husband and wife would want time alone, so Joan would have to wait her turn for an audience with him.
She was wrong on that score. Her father strode into the rose salon with his sister trotting in his wake. ‘Ah, capital to have you home, m’dear,’ he addressed his wife with a fond beam. A moment later Alfred’s beady gaze was turned on his daughter. ‘It seems you and I must have another serious talk, miss,’ he announced.
Over his shoulder Joan could see Dorothea’s fingers nervously plucking at the skirts of her widow’s weeds. So her aunt had blabbed about the encounter with Rockleigh in Hyde Park and had doubtless put her own fantastic interpretation on it.
‘I should like to speak to you, too, Papa,’ Joan replied stoutly.
‘You will have an immediate opportunity to do so, miss, never fear,’ the Duke retorted. He turned a softer gaze on his wife. ‘Why do you not retire for a while, Maude, and I’ll join you shortly?’ He raised her fingers to his lips in tender salute. ‘Off you go, now. There is no point in bringing you in on this half the way through. I’ll explain it in private, for deuce knows there are bits that stretch the bounds of credibility and might need oft repeating.’
Maude glanced at her stepdaughter, seeking a small signal that Joan had no need of her support. Satisfied by a smile, the Duchess greeted her sister-in-law by clasping Dorothea’s thin hands before quitting the room.
‘I should like permission to retire, too, Alfred,’ Dorothea piped up the moment her niece’s fierce grey gaze veered her way. ‘My headache is worse. I have missed an appointment with Lady Regan because of it.’
Joan guessed that it wasn’t a migraine, but the thought of awkward questions being fired at her over the teacups that had caused the woman to abort her social engagement.
A grunt of agreement sanctioned Dorothea’s request. Before his sister quit the room the Duke said, ‘Now my wife is home you will no doubt wish to hurry back to your own hearth, Dorothea. Tobias will see to it that you have every help to get packed up to leave the moment you are ready.’
‘Indeed, I should like to be back in Marylebone, Alfred.’ Dorothea’s puckered lips formed a thin line at the termination of her services. ‘My nerves have been stretched beyond bearing these past weeks.’ A blameful gaze landed on her niece.
‘My bank draft for your trouble will no doubt soothe them, my dear.’ Alfred followed up that dry remark with an unmistakable nod of dismissal. He then sat down. Having shaken the teapot, he poured tepid tea into his wife’s abandoned cup, then took a gulp.
‘So...explain yourself, if you will,’ he commenced testily, jabbing a glance Joan’s way. ‘You had a meeting this afternoon with Rockleigh in the park, under cover of a stroll with your vicar friend, that much I know.’ He waved an impatient hand at his daughter’s immediate protest. ‘I’m not so easily duped by the use of a beard. I’ve some personal experience of a clandestine tête-à-tête from my own youth, you know.’
‘It was no arranged meeting!’ Joan burst out. ‘I was promenading with the Reverend Walters and we came upon Mr Rockleigh with a companion.’
‘A companion, eh?’ The Duke seemed interested to hear that. ‘And who was this person?’
‘I’ve no idea. He was dressed like a clerk; when Mr Rockleigh caught sight of us they parted and the fellow disappeared into the trees. Why on earth would you believe I’d plot an assignation with a man I don’t like?’
‘So...it is all an innocent coincidence. There are no lingering passions between you in danger of rekindling?’
Joan spluttered a sound that hovered between amusement and amazement. ‘If you mean pleasant feelings, then, no, there are not! Nor were there ever any. And I don’t know why you’d think differently; we were constantly at one another’s throats when you tried to force us to wed. And I have just said I have no liking for him.’
‘Mmm...love and hate are close kin. I recall you both protested too much,’ the Duke commented reflectively. ‘You mooned about for a while and as for Rockleigh...most fellows would have accepted a token of my gratitude and esteem if only to humour me. But he wouldn’t take a penny, then or now. I applauded his lack of avarice two years ago, but this time I’m uneasy about it.’
‘But you recently gave him fifty pounds, didn’t you?’ Joan sounded perplexed.
‘Is that what he said during this private talk you had?’
‘Yes...no...’ Joan amended in confusion. ‘He told me you’d offered him that amount and I assumed he’d taken it.’
‘I did offer it, but he would not have it. He also refused to come and thank me for my most generous gesture.’ Alfred was still smarting over the snub.
‘You wanted a street fighter to come here?’ Joan’s dark brows shot together in d
isbelief.
‘Of course not, my dear,’ Alfred answered tetchily. ‘I travelled to his territory and waited in a carriage in Cheapside. The detective I engaged delivered the note asking him to meet me and claim his reward.’ Alfred snorted in indignation. ‘Rockleigh dismissed me as though I were a nobody! Deuced cheek of the man!’
Joan nibbled her lower lip while digesting that astonishing fact. People—even those with wealth and standing—kowtowed to her father, bowing and scraping to earn his favours. But Rockleigh was a breed apart, it seemed.
‘So...what are we to do about all of this?’ the Duke muttered to himself as he got up from the sofa and began prowling the Aubusson carpet. ‘I’m hoping the Squire, as my man Thadeus Pryke named him, is as honest and sincere as was Drew Rockleigh, but I’m not sure.’
‘What do you mean, Papa?’ A shiver of apprehension rippled through Joan. The Duke of Thornley was rarely lacking in confidence, or at a loss to know what to do about any situation.
‘Rockleigh is cognizant with our secrets. He has not once hinted to me about your youthful indiscretion since you committed it and in the past we’ve often met at clubs and functions. But he is a different person now; who is to say the Squire will not seek to capitalise on what he knows? A man who has lost wealth and rank might claw his way back into society by whatever means present themselves,’ Alfred concluded bleakly.
Joan realised that her father’s attitude was horribly cynical, yet a similar fear had tormented her when Rockleigh had reminded her of her disgrace. ‘Your secret’s safe with me, my lady...but that might be all that is...’ A sultry gleam had been in his eyes, leading her to believe that lust was behind the threat. But perhaps the base desire he had was not for her, but for the riches lodged in her father’s bank vault. ‘He promised not to betray us, Papa,’ Joan said forcefully in an attempt to reassure herself as much as her father.
‘Promised? You talked about your disgraceful behaviour two years ago?’ The Duke had stopped roaming the room to bark questions at his daughter.
Joan nodded, inwardly berating herself for having brought her heated exchange with Rockleigh to such a dangerous point. The vicar had told her the Squire was a womaniser and she’d been unable to resist hinting at what she knew. He’d retaliated by bringing up the subject of her brazen visit to his hunting lodge.
‘If he means to blackmail me...’ The Duke left the rest unsaid, but his florid physiognomy told of the impotent rage he felt at the idea becoming reality. ‘He is no longer friendly with your brother-in-law so there is no loyalty at stake to make him hesitate.’
‘He will never risk you calling his bluff, Papa. A gentleman accused of seduction is not completely off the hook.’ Joan managed a wan smile, but her rapid heartbeat made her quite breathless.
‘It seems Rockleigh is no longer a gentleman and I doubt he gives a toss for fair play or etiquette.’ The Duke headed towards the sideboard to use the decanter. The cognac he poured was shot back in a single swallow. ‘Of course he might welcome marrying you now to get himself out of the mess he’s in.’ The Duke rubbed his chin with thumb and forefinger, adding rather wistfully, ‘If I truly believed that beneath the Squire’s scruffy exterior still beat Drew Rockleigh’s heart, then I’d hear him out if he called.’
A few of Joan’s slender fingers stifled her horrified laugh. ‘Well, thank heavens he made it clear he wants no more of me now than he did then.’
‘That must have galled,’ the Duke said gently, eyeing his daughter’s proud profile. His little Joan was easily wounded; indeed, when he’d told her two years ago that Rockleigh had declined several thousand acres of prime Devon farmland, together with a handful of Mayfair freeholds, rather than contract to marry her, Alfred had thought she might blub. Of course she had not...pride had seen to that. His daughter had concealed her humiliated expression. Then she had acted as though Rockleigh’s slight was to her liking. Just as she was doing now.
‘I don’t know why the matter cropped up,’ Joan rattled off airily. ‘Our lucky escape from a forced marriage was of little importance then or now.’
‘Yet crop up, it did,’ Alfred said. ‘And who raised it?’
‘It wasn’t raised...just hinted at.’
‘By whom?’ The Duke stubbornly insisted on knowing, even though he could tell that his daughter desired the subject to be dropped.
‘I don’t recall, Papa.’ It was a fib. Joan could remember everything that had occurred during her meeting with Rockleigh. She’d wanted to know whether a street fighter regretted turning down the chance of netting a fortune and a duke’s daughter. And she’d received an answer without asking the question. ‘Nothing’s changed for me...’ he’d drawled while looking privately amused that she might have thought otherwise.
‘Do you believe him corrupt, Papa, and capable of blackmail?’ Joan asked solemnly.
For a moment the Duke said nothing, simply shaking his head slowly from side to side. ‘I always liked the fellow; Rockleigh was not only your brother-in-law’s chum, but a friend to you and me when he dealt so coolly with your misbehaviour. But now...who knows? An empty belly might turn a saint into a sinner...’
Chapter Five
‘You are lucky, Joan! Nothing thrilling ever happens to me.’
‘Lucky?’ Joan spluttered, gently extricating herself from her friend’s welcoming embrace. ‘You think it fortunate to be set upon by beggars while an elderly relative swoons at one’s side?’
‘I almost swooned with boredom in Kent,’ Louise Finch riposted. ‘There was nothing to do in the evenings but play bridge with my elderly relatives. I did attend a jig at the local assembly rooms, but I can’t recommend a country affair. The ladies were quite standoffish and all the gentlemen had ugly clothes and loud voices.’
‘Not so different then from the people we are used to,’ Joan commented wryly as they strolled past two young bucks in garish waistcoats, quaffing champagne and chortling at their own jokes.
‘Speaking of coarse fellows...’ Louise winked slowly. ‘Vincent mentioned that a pugilist nicknamed the Squire acted the hero, putting an end to the skirmish in Wapping.’ She grinned on noticing Joan’s heightened colour. ‘A gentleman down on his luck who is acquainted with your brother-in-law, is how Vincent described him. I’ll wager your Mr Rockleigh is a very handsome rogue.’
‘Handsome is as handsome does...’ Joan bit her lip, feeling uncharitable. Her saviour might fight for a living, but just minutes spent in Rockleigh’s company proved him to be mannerly and intelligent. And protective...and provocative. Intriguing, too, she realised; she certainly couldn’t stop thinking about the infuriating individual.
Joan forced her concentration to another gentleman as they strolled on towards the supper room. She was miffed that Vincent had blurted out her news before she’d had a chance to tell Louise in her own way about the drama.
Within hours of his aunt and cousin arriving home from visiting his family in Kent the vicar had made a point of paying a call on the Finches. He’d been eager to report how one of the Duke’s coachmen had taken a wrong turning, landing his female passengers in a dreadful pickle. Louise had listened, open-mouthed, to her cousin’s account, but had been keen for more gory details. The invitation to the Wentworths’ ball, propped on the mantelshelf, had provided a prime opportunity for a chinwag with the main protagonist. Louise was confident that Joan would attend as the Duke and Duchess of Thornley were chummy with their hosts.
Moments ago the two young ladies had spied one another through the throng of guests. Simultaneously they’d left their groups to have a fond reunion beneath the scintillating chandeliers.
Joan linked arms with Louise and they began to perambulate the edge of the dance floor, avoiding the sets forming for a quadrille.
‘This is something else I’ve greatly missed,’ Louise said. They had arrived in the supper r
oom, where a dining table was spread with silver platters filled with delicacies. ‘Country fare leaves much to be desired.’ Louise popped a marchpane pineapple into her mouth, enjoying it and licking her lips before adding, ‘Vincent’s people are nice folk, but I couldn’t live on broth and stew as much as they do.’
‘I enjoy a good pheasant casserole.’ Joan fondly remembered the hearty meals served up at Thornley Heights, her father’s primary ancestral seat. During dismal Devon evenings, when the winds sometimes blew so loud that it seemed banshees inhabited the chimneys, she’d loved to curl up by a roaring fire with a book, feeling cosy and content after a satisfying repast.
‘Who is that young lady? She keeps staring at us,’ Louise hissed, holding a napkin to her lips. ‘I’ve not seen her before.’
Joan had been choosing titbits from the buffet, but stopped to glance over a shoulder. Her grey gaze collided with a pair of china-blue eyes, then the stranger flounced aside her face. The girl was buxom and fair-haired, although a sulky twist to her lips marred her pretty features. By her side was a couple Joan guessed to be her parents. The woman was very similar in looks and colouring; the fellow dark-haired and heavy jowled. ‘I don’t recognise any of the family. Perhaps they are just arrived in town.’ Normally Joan might have taken more notice of newcomers, but since her friend had brought up the subject of the beggars moments ago her thoughts had been back in Wapping. She wanted to know what Rockleigh might be planning to do. In common with her father, she longed to believe him still honourable, despite his hardship, yet niggling doubts were chipping away at her peace of mind over his trustworthiness.
‘Ah, there you are, girls.’ Maude had sailed up to join them with Mrs Finch in tow. ‘Oh, those look tasty.’ The Duchess began filling a plate with an assortment of tiny vol-au-vents.
Hot on their tails came Aunt Dorothea’s thin bombazine-clad figure. She announced her presence with a cough.
