Heir to the Duke (The Duke's Sons #1)

by Jane Ashford

  “We are looking for Lord Hightower,” said Cates before the man could voice the protest clearly on the tip of his tongue. “He and Lord Rochford went out driving today.”

  “I know that, don’t I? And won’t be back before morning, I expect.” The man smirked in the lantern light.

  “Morning?” said Cates before Violet could ask. “Why would that be?”

  “Who the devil are you?” replied the man.

  “Lord Hightower’s valet,” said Cates. “He was expected back some time ago.”

  “Valet, eh?” The man looked Cates up and down. “Well, I’m Lord Rochford’s, and I can tell you that since it’s got so late, they aren’t like to be returning. His lordship likes to go to Mrs. Strathmore’s after he’s been out driving. Ready for a bit of an outlet, if you know what I mean.” He smirked again.

  “Mrs. Strathmore?” The question escaped Violet. She’d never heard the name.

  At the sound of her refined accent, the man in the doorway frowned. “Who’s that?”

  Cates stepped in front of her, blocking her view. “Thank you for the information,” he said. He backed up, forcing Violet to do the same.

  Rochford’s valet peered into the darkness. “Who’s there?” he repeated.

  Cates continued to herd Violet away from the house. Confused, Violet let him. After a bit, the door snapped shut behind them.

  “I have never met anyone called Strathmore,” said Violet. “I suppose she must be a friend of Lord Rochford’s?”

  Cates began to walk rapidly back the way they’d come. She had to hurry to catch up with him.

  “Have you heard of anyone of that name?”

  Cates seemed at a loss for words. Violet had never seen the self-contained valet so rattled.

  “You have, haven’t you?” She had a sinking feeling that there was more bad news coming. “Tell me.”

  “Mrs. Strathmore is”—Cates cleared his throat—“not anyone you should know, my lady.”

  “Shouldn’t? I don’t understand.”

  “I…I really can say no more.” Cates walked even faster. They were practically trotting down the street.

  Violet started to insist that he be clearer. Then the implications of his tone and discomfort, along with the attitude of Rochford’s servant, sank in. They combined with the stories she’d heard about Rochford at the charity tea to tell her that Mrs. Strathmore must be a member of the demimonde.

  She stopped short. Nathaniel had gone along to see this woman, and to spend the night? He could not have.

  “My lady?” Cates was peering back, shining the lantern to light her way.

  Violet made herself move. They walked back to the house in silence, and once there, she went directly to her bedchamber. She couldn’t think. There had been too many shocks, one on top of another. But the one constant bulwark through it all had been Nathaniel. Could she have been mistaken in him, after all? She couldn’t believe it. And yet, why hadn’t he come home?

  * * *

  Nathaniel found a few men setting off in the darkness of the summer night, and they were going short distances, not toward Brighton. Rochford had long since disappeared upstairs with another of the young ladies, obviously not intending to reappear before morning. His horses had been stabled behind the house, along with Nathaniel’s phaeton.

  Nathaniel was weary and annoyed and feeling a bit of a fool. His situation was ridiculous. He had no wish to attract more amused sidelong glances from the patrons of this place. He’d inquired about borrowing a mount from the stables and been told by one of the thugs watching over them that there was none to be had. He’d actually considered stealing a horse, but he gave up the idea at the thought of the uproar it would cause.

  So here he was, hanging about the front door of a bawdy house, looking for transport—like a…well, not like anything he wished to be considered. It was straight out of a bad farce. A man went to a brothel or he didn’t. Nathaniel didn’t; he didn’t wish to. And yet here he was, lurking. He could almost hear the laughter of his brothers, a raucous chorus. He would have laughed too, if he hadn’t been conscious of how Violet must be worrying.

  The first gray light of dawn was showing before he found a young man driving back to Brighton and willing to take him up. He then had to endure half an hour of braggadocio about the lad’s amatory prowess, with far too much corroboratory detail. Fortunately, not much response was required. A few nods and the occasional appreciative sound sufficed. And the fellow’s self-absorption was so complete that he evinced no curiosity about Nathaniel’s situation. Nathaniel wasn’t even certain that he’d retained his name.

  His accidental benefactor set him down on the doorstep of their lodgings. Nathaniel used the key he’d been given to let himself in very quietly. But his bad luck held. The housemaid was already up and saw him enter. She gave him a sketchy curtsy, her eyes and mouth round with surprise as he strode up the stairs.

  He hadn’t intended to conceal his absence. He couldn’t, of course. He had no need to; he’d done nothing shameful. But a few hours’ rest were in order before explanations, a little time to marshal his thoughts and decide just what to say.

  Nathaniel slipped into his bedchamber. Violet was lying on his bed, fully clothed, with one corner of the blue coverlet pulled over her feet. A shaft of sunlight speared through curtains inadequately closed and burnished the skin of her arm, her emerald gown. As he looked down at her, her hand twitched, and she muttered in her sleep. “No duchess…can’t…never taught me French!” The last phrase had a curious vehemence, the product of some odd dream.

  She looked anxious and vulnerable, even in sleep. Clearly, his absence had worried her. She had waited and paced about, and then dropped off here. Not his fault, but he was sorry. Let her rest, Nathaniel thought. He could ease into her room and sleep for a while there…

  Violet opened her eyes. For a moment, they were blank and disoriented. Then they cleared and fixed on him. She sat up abruptly. “I was afraid you’d been killed in a carriage accident! There was no message or…”

  Why hadn’t he spent some of those tedious hours outside the brothel concocting a story that wouldn’t distress her? But meeting that apprehensive gaze, Nathaniel realized he couldn’t fob her off with some half-truth. He could, however, put the blame where it belonged. “It was Rochford’s fault,” he said.

  Violet blinked as if struggling to full consciousness. “Is that supposed to reassure me?” she asked. She sat straighter. Her sandy hair fell in wild tendrils about her shoulders. “Rochford is a rake, a libertine, a—”

  “Violet.”

  She pressed her lips together as if physically stemming the flow of words.

  “Rochford’s character is not the issue.”

  “It is if he corrupts you!” she interrupted.

  “Corrupts? Do you have any idea how insulting that—?”

  “I know you went to visit some woman,” she accused. “Some…you needn’t bother to deny it.”

  “How the dev…deuce do you know that?”

  “You don’t deny it?” She sounded forlorn.

  “Rochford chose to go to a…place well outside town. As we were using his horses, I had no way to return until I could find someone to… How did you know?”

  “I went to look for you at Rochford’s lodgings. His valet said that Rochford had gone to seek some…relief. It was obvious what he meant,” she finished with distaste.

  A surge of annoyance flashed through Nathaniel. Not only was it humiliating that his wife had been traipsing about town inquiring into his movements, it would cause a storm of talk. Violet should have known that; she must know that. “Why did you go searching for me?” he said tightly.

  “I was worried!” Violet cried.

  “You might have trusted that I know what I’m doing. Someone would have ridden directly here if there’d been an accident, obviously.” He could easily imagine people staring and whispering behind their hands. His parents might well hear. “At our station in
life, we attract a greater degree of attention than others,” he said. “A duchess cannot be seen sneaking about, questioning servants…”

  “Well, I’m not a duchess!” she cried.

  “Yet. You are—”

  “Maybe I never will be!”

  This was irrational, and Nathaniel was worn-out from a frustrating evening following an active day. “You are overwrought.”

  “Yes! I am! You don’t know what’s been happening.” Violet wrung her hands. They were shaking.

  The distress in her voice and posture moved Nathaniel. “There was no accident. I am home and well. You can rest easy.”

  “It isn’t that.”

  He sat on the bed beside her, concern dissipating some of his annoyance. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I’m sure you’re too busy with your dissipations to care!”

  “Violet.” He used the tone that always brought his brothers to heel, no matter what wild mood was upon them.

  She put her hands to her cheeks as if to contain her emotions.

  “Violet,” he repeated.

  She looked at him, wavering. And then a whole convoluted story began to pour out. She was some sentences into it before Nathaniel understood that the problem was her friend’s, not his wife’s. After that, relief let him listen more attentively. But it didn’t prevent him from exclaiming, “Shot Granchester?!”

  Violet nodded. “With a pistol, I think.”

  “What does the weapon—? You’re telling me this young fool actually wounded him?”

  “From behind a stack of barrels. He got away, though. No one else knows that it was—”

  “And Granchester?” Nathaniel still didn’t quite believe this. He wondered if Violet’s friend had run a bit mad.

  “Hit in the shoulder, Marianne said. The doctor promised her that he would recover. Of course that is the most important thing.” She twisted her hands together again. “I would not ask you to help if he was dead.”

  “I don’t know that I could. Or why I should, really. I hardly know this woman.” At this moment, he wished Violet didn’t either. What a thing to be faced with after a sleepless night. “What did you imagine I might do?”

  “I’m not sure. I…I thought perhaps you’d know. You always know just what to do.”

  “Not in this case.” His brothers always assumed the same, Nathaniel thought. Perhaps he gave that impression. He needed to know how he did that—so he could stop. “I don’t think we should interfere,” he said.

  “But Marianne needs—”

  “Despite what you believe, I get no pleasure from…involving myself in other people’s business. And I have no desire take a hand in your friend’s affairs.”

  “You won’t help?”

  It sounded like an accusation, nearly as impassioned as when she’d called him a busybody. “You want me to interfere now?”

  “To help,” she repeated. “Perhaps if you just talked to Mr. Whalen,” she began.

  “Who?”

  “Marianne’s…friend.”

  “The terrifying stripling who fired on Granchester?” There was a discussion that could not go well, he thought.

  “I wouldn’t call him a stripling. He looked to be more than twenty.”

  “Whatever his age, I do not intend to meet…” His mind caught up with her words. “Wait, you know him?”

  “No. I saw him when…”

  “When?”

  “It was a…sort of…accident.” She couldn’t say that Marianne had tricked her. That would only make him angrier. Violet gazed up at her husband. He looked so tired. Which was his own fault, for going about with a man like Rochford. Surely he ought to have known… But she mustn’t get diverted. “The thing is, I am somewhat…involved.”

  “You? How?”

  “Marianne used me as a…an excuse for her meetings with Mr. Whalen.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t know. I thought we were just going for a walk. But she’d arranged to meet him in a church. When we arrived there, I was surprised—”

  “So,” Nathaniel interrupted, gazing at her. “You thought you were going on one kind of expedition, and you ended up on quite another? Through no fault of your own.”

  “Yes,” replied Violet eagerly.

  “Rather like I did tonight.”

  She stiffened. “I saw no reason to expect an illicit rendezvous. Marianne is not an infamous libertine.”

  “Neither is Rochford,” replied Nathaniel wearily. He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, one walk is hardly—”

  “Two,” Violet had to admit. “And at a ball, I walked in on them. By mistake.”

  He sighed.

  She hesitated, then went on in a rush, to get the worst of it out of the way. “Grandmamma has heard about it. She said everyone has. And that Granchester will do something…that he will ‘crush’ Marianne. If he brought an action for divorce, I…I fear I might be called to provide evidence.” Violet clasped her hands tight at the anxiety this provoked.

  “Ah.”

  Violet didn’t know how to interpret his tone. “If there is a public scandal…”

  “That would be one for the ages,” Nathaniel agreed. “Very well. I will see what I can do.”

  “I’m sorry to drag you into this matter.”

  “It appears there is no choice,” he replied. “I’d like to get some sleep now, before embarking on this…quest. I’ve been up all night.”

  He wanted her to go, Violet thought. He didn’t want her here in his bed. Her spirits sank further. She scooted to the edge, closer to him, yet feeling farther away. “What is that perfume on your coat?” Violet sniffed. “It’s not a scent I use.”

  “Oh, some of the girls…” he began. And stopped.

  “Girls? What girls?”

  “Ah, perhaps I should say young women…that is…”

  “Perhaps you should just say the truth.” Violet remembered Rochford’s smirking valet. “Oh. That sort of… How many of them were there?”

  “I’m not accustomed to discussing…”

  “I’m a married woman,” she declared. “I’m allowed to know things.” Fleetingly, she wondered if she would regret his answers as much as she did her interrogation of her mother. But no, this was entirely different. “And you’re supposed to tell your wife everything,” she concluded.

  “Indeed? I hadn’t heard that particular rule.”

  “Now you have.” Violet sat up straighter and stared at him.

  “Oh, very well, it’s not as if… Rochford insisted on going for a drink when we’d finished driving, and he directed me to a bawdy house.”

  “A whole house of…” It was shocking and a bit fascinating.

  “I had no idea that’s where we were going,” Nathaniel repeated. “Though I see now that he steered us in that direction during the afternoon.”

  “And how did the perfume get on your coat?”

  “Some of them mauled me about, trying to get me to…” He closed his lips on the rest of that remark.

  “A man can’t be mauled about,” Violet objected.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it just sounds…odd.”

  “Men may do most of the mauling. Well, they do. But that doesn’t mean we wish to be pawed by—”

  “Young women.” She drew the words out, still disturbed by the picture they represented.

  “Complete strangers,” Nathaniel corrected.

  “But I thought men… I mean, the reason there are such houses in the first place…”

  Nathaniel acknowledged this with a nod. “Especially young men. But eventually most of us realize that intimacies are much more gratifying with a…closer acquaintance.”

  “Like a wife,” she ventured.

  “Precisely like a wife. A woman of birth and breeding, with the sensitivity and intelligence to enter into all one’s concerns as well as share the heat of passion.” He held out a hand. “A wife like you.”

  It would have been everything V
iolet wanted to hear if not for that fateful word “birth.” Her soaring emotions ran up against it like waves meeting the seawall down the street. They crashed and broke and made her eyes prick with tears. She felt like the foolish heroine of a fairy tale—the sort who had everything she ever wanted safe in her hands and yet could not resist taking the one forbidden step that ruined all. No one had warned her, an anguished inner voice exclaimed. No magical helper had said, do as you please, go where you will, but do not question your mother. Violet eased her hand out of his. “I’ll let you sleep then,” she said and went out before he noticed her renewed tears.

  Eighteen

  Two days later, Violet’s friend Marianne called at the Brighton lodgings of Viscount and Lady Hightower, at their request. She found them in their pleasant parlor, with the windows open to a warm sea breeze. It was a beautiful August afternoon, almost too beautiful for worries. But not quite.

  Marianne’s gown and shawl were of an uncharacteristically subdued brown. Violet supposed that she wanted to acknowledge Granchester’s condition, but the hue had a suggestion of mourning, which did not seem the best choice. She waited along with her friend to hear what Nathaniel had to say. He hadn’t yet shared the information with her, claiming he preferred to tell his tale only once. It was not unreasonable, yet she feared that the real explanation was the lingering distance between them. It wasn’t large. A stranger wouldn’t have noticed it at all. But she felt it like a weight on her heart.

  Marianne was seated, refreshment offered, and the servants shut out of the room, the door securely latched. Marianne clasped her hands tightly in her lap.

  “I finally tracked down your friend Mr. Whalen,” Nathaniel said then. “It took some time, because he has left his home and is staying at an inn a few miles out of town. Since he was denied admittance to your house—”

  “I couldn’t let him in!” exclaimed Marianne. “What was he thinking to come?”