The Dressmaker's Duke

by Jess Russell

  About to turn for home, Rhys remembered the attics. He had never been up there. It seemed important he comb through every corner of the house so that no hint of her whereabouts might be left undiscovered.

  He ascended the cramped stairway and opened the door. Hot, heavy air engulfed him, and his candle flame flickered and almost guttered. He pushed the door wider, hoping fresh air would save his light. Raising it high, he looked into the shadows. His hand jerked and he almost lost the light again. A ghostly ring surrounded him. It took a moment to recognize them as paintings, her paintings, propped on old chairs and broken easels, shrouded under white dust covers.

  He did not want to look. It would be like ripping off a bandage where the wound had just begun to crust over. After a flurry of movement he stood utterly still among the wreckage of white pooled around his feet.

  He had never seen paintings like this. They looked almost unfinished with their jarring slashes of pure color overlaying delicate washes. They were mostly land and seascapes—the cove, the west wing of Valmere with the sea below, a flock of shags taking flight over a placid sea.

  He did not know how long he stood, soaking up their wild beauty. But eventually he moved further under the eaves, drawn to the very back of the room where, half hidden, a few canvases leaned against the wall.

  One by one he turned them. They were her portraits. Mrs. Wiggins and her roses, a cat, Reverend Hargett with the Norman abbey as a backdrop, and even old Toby, his long nose settled between his paws. And then there was him.

  He was naked, lying in the surf on the beach, his face thrust up to the waning sun. The picture was dark except for a bit of bright sun lighting half his face.

  He finally reached out to touch the canvas; drawn to become one with that man who lay in darkness, but who looked toward hope and life.

  He could not lose that hope. He must find her. He must.

  ****

  Olivia had taken the duke’s carriage as far as Thetford and then changed to the mail coach. Once in London, she had sought out Hazel and Jeb, now newly married. They had immediately taken her in, but she knew she could not stay long. They could not afford to keep her, and Olivia had no money to contribute.

  Busy with a bit of lace work, she startled when Hazel burst in the room and pushed the latest paper under Olivia’s nose.

  “He’s getting pretty desperate now, I would say,” she pointed to what must be the duke’s latest notice. “I may not be able to read well, but I can certainly decipher a number, even one that high.”

  Olivia felt slightly nauseated. She had to get out of London as soon as possible. It would only be a matter of time before he found her. And she, most assuredly, did not want to be found.

  The carefully folded bit of paper that announced the Duke of Roydan and Miss Arabella Campbell’s betrothal lay in her pocket always within reach. Whenever she felt weak, she would take it out and make herself read every word. She would not be his mistress. She could not share him. Yet she would give just about anything to see his face once again.

  Her eyelids closed but his image only became clearer. She shook her head and the news sheet in her hands rattled. Enough. She smoothed the paper and moved on… A name jumped out at her.

  “The solicitors of Finney and Cobb are looking for a Mr. August Allen Hartner to assume the title of the Earl of Stokesly.”

  The paper dropped to her lap. Her father was dead.

  ****

  Heavily veiled, Olivia sat in Mr. Finney’s office pleating her handkerchief into precise folds as the solicitor perused a sheaf of papers. Emotions shifted across his face, first concern, then incredulity, now sympathy, and finally back to concern. Olivia was ready to throttle the old fellow. Finally, he spoke.

  “I am sorry to inform you, Mrs. Weston, but the earl, your father, left nothing but debts behind. Fortunately they will be the new heir’s responsibility along with the heavily mortgaged estate.”

  “Do you know how he died? The papers gave no particulars.”

  The man sucked on his teeth and then looked down at his papers. “Yes, he had been out of the country for some time—nearly thirteen years.” He looked up. “You must have been quite young.”

  “I was ten and seven years.”

  Shortly after her disastrous season. Her father’s last words to her and her step-mama: You both are worthless to me. One can’t breed and the other can’t catch a husband. I wish you both to the Devil.

  Mr. Finney’s face folded itself back into concern. “He was found in the city of New Orleans. I am afraid the circumstances were not very honorable, Lady Olivia.”

  Lady Olivia…the title so utterly foreign to her ears.

  “And my step-mother?

  “She left the country six months ago. I know only because she came to me in March, claiming that your father must be dead, and she was surely entitled to some monies. When I told her there was nothing, she declared she would go abroad. I believe the countess settled in Canada. I can try to find a direction if you—”

  “No. No, I thank you. That will not be necessary.” Bile rose in her throat. She swallowed, remembering she had not had anything to eat today. She would risk going to a tea shop for a hot cup and a biscuit. She began to rise.

  “However, Lady Olivia, your mother left you a small dowry and a parcel of land at the very corner of the estate, which is outside the entailment. We tried to find you, but your step-mama did not know of your where-a-bouts. I believe the plot contains a small farmhouse and a barn,” he said, consulting his notes.

  The Point. Her mother had named it so. She had used some of her family’s jewelry to buy the land. “Who needs baubles when one can have a garden full of carrots and a lovely chicken or two?” her mother had said. Olivia’s father had been furious when he looked to sell the missing jewelry. But the scruffy barn and tiny cottage was her mother’s haven. It was where Olivia had painted her purple tree…

  Was the old tree still there, and would it still look purple?

  Well, she sent up a silent prayer, she would soon find out.

  ****

  The nearby church bell tolled three times. So late? Rhys reached for his fob out of habit. It was time for tea. He had eaten nothing since this morning, his breakfast being interrupted by his solicitors Fink and Ponzer. And then by Sir Richard of Bow Street.

  Mrs. Dee Gooden had been found dead, her body tortured and mutilated. His father’s codicil leaving Dee Gooden Valmere unless Rhys married had loomed over Rhys’s life for almost a year. It now shrunk back down to a few harmless words conceived by a bitter, old man.

  Rhys had never wanted his father’s whore to get her hands on Valmere, but he could not wish for her death either. And such a terrible one. Apparently, the Reverend, her brother, had barely been able to recognize her, but in the end a clear identification was made. There had been no arrests and the Reverend, given Mrs. Gooden’s past, was all too willing to put the matter to rest along with his sister.

  Valmere was safe. But the fact left Rhys empty. What did it matter now? The house and grounds were too full of memories. He had not been back since the wedding.

  His stomach growled. The hunt for undiscovered treasures had lost its savor. Rhys raised his hand to signal his waiting servants who stood with the carriage farther down the block. Then he saw the painting.

  He froze. He knew this painting.

  He knew the bluffs and the way they jutted out over the sea. He knew the light at that time of day and how it caught the spray of the water where it pulsed into the cove crashing up onto a huge rock that lay in its mouth.

  But even more than the landscape, he knew the figure standing on the bluff, the set and width of the shoulders, the length of the back, the stance. But mostly he knew the mind. Though the figure was murky and indistinct—almost anonymous—the artist had managed to capture its terrible anguish.

  It was he.

  And she had painted it.

  Rhys heard a cough to his right. He jerked around spreadin
g his arms, as if to protect the poor soul on the rock from prying eyes.

  “Your Grace, will you come?” His footman held out his hand as if Rhys were some doddering old fool. He waved him off.

  This was intolerable. Any passerby could see and know. Know that it was he there on display in all his vulnerability. Just like Hannah Humphrey’s shop when she had exhibited that Gillray trash. Yet he saw no one, only his servants by the carriage whispering among themselves. He pushed into the shop.

  The young clerk, startled by Rhys’s abrupt entrance, nearly dropped his polishing cloth. Rhys reached into the window and yanked the painting out of the display.

  The clerk, whom Rhys had never seen before, twisted his rag, clearly torn between summoning his employer, Mr. Bottoms, and trying to deal with Rhys himself. He had a chance to do neither.

  “Where did you get this?”

  The young man gaped like a fish. Rhys could see the poor boy registering Rhys’s upper-class tones and authoritative bearing, juxtaposed against his rumpled linen and coat, his too-long hair and bristled face. Rhys allowed him to teeter for a moment.

  Luckily for the young man, he correctly slid Rhys over into the category of Quality instead of riff-raff.

  “Your lordship has a very good eye, why—”

  “Where.”

  “Your pardon, sir, it is a new acquisition, I believe. A Monsieur Oy-eff is the painter if I am not mistaken, which means”—he paused, pulling his shoulders back to better demonstrate his acumen—“Egg in fren—”

  “Get your employer.”

  Again, the fish mouth.

  “Now.” The mouth closed.

  “Yes, your lordship. Right away, your lordship.” He bowed and backed away, heading, as if his posterior had eyes of its own, directly for the shop’s back room where he reached for the knob, still bent in supplication, and disappeared.

  Oeuf. How clever.

  By God, he could feel her.

  As he stared at himself in the painting, he felt, if he turned, she would be there, on the beach below with her canvas and brushes.

  “Your Grace! What an honor.” Mr. Atticus Bottoms’s familiar pear-like figure minced into the room, his old-fashioned bob wig slightly askew, a crumb of pastry on his lips. “Gibbons, why did you not tell me that it was the duke who was waiting?”

  The clerk attempted to stammer a rejoinder.

  “Where did you acquire this?” Rhys asked for it seemed the thousandth time, his nerves severely stretched.

  “Gibbons.” The clerk jerked forward as if his employer held a leash. “Bring me the file on the seascape. His Grace would know all the particulars.”

  Once again, the young man bowed his way out, disappearing into the back room.

  Mr. Bottoms smiled in anticipation. “A beauty, Your Grace. If I may be so bold, one feels the turmoil of the lone figure on the precipice, as if he is in the throes of some weighty—”

  “Damn it, man, I am buying the thing. Spare me your salesmanship.”

  Mr. Bottoms attempted to speak again, but Rhys raised an eyebrow.

  Blessed silence, except for the ticking of various clocks situated about the room. Their measured strokes usually steadied Rhys’s nerves, rounding off the staccato edges of his thoughts, but now they only ratcheted them up. Suddenly the whir of gears yielded to a chorus of bongs as the clocks announced the top of the hour. A cuckoo, slightly late, warbled to finish off the cacophony.

  Rhys curled his toes tightly within his boots.

  Bottoms eyes shifted from the errant cuckoo, to the duke, and back. Gibbons appeared holding out one thin sheet of paper as if it were the Holy Grail.

  Bottoms snatched it and fumbled for his spectacles.

  “Ah yes, here we are, Your Grace. A Monsieur Oeuf. French for Egg, I believe.” The shopkeeper looked up expectantly, as if to catch Rhys’s approval. He received none. “Ahem…yes, Oeuf, very talented. It was brought in just last week.”

  “Where can I find Monsieur Oeuf?”

  Mr. Bottoms scanned the paper, frowning.

  “This is the second work we have acquired. The agent was no one I had ever dealt with before, and as you know, I am very careful with my acquisitions. After all, I have a reputation to maintain. Can’t let just anyone in to ply his wares, don’t you know. I was about to show him the door, but I happened to get a look at the painting as he was leaving, and I must say I was struck. It was another seascape, Your Grace, with two figures in the distance and a flock of birds which seemed to be following them—very riveting. Needless to say, I called him back.

  “His name and direction.”

  “He would give no name, pardon, Your Grace, he said if I wanted the painting it would have to be on his terms. I almost showed him the door for a second time. I don’t deal in stolen goods, Your Grace. I never have, never will. I always say, ‘A man may not have much, but if he has his reputation he is well enough.’”

  “Describe the man.”

  “Yes, well, let me see…a rather good-looking young chap, wouldn’t you say, Gibbons?” The young man gave a reluctant nod. “About two and twenty, I would say…Possibly younger. Ginger-colored hair, one of these dandies you know. But there is no accounting for these young people’s tastes these days.”

  Gibbons tapped his employer and whispered in his ear.

  “Oh, yes, quite. I was getting to that, Gibbons.” The clerk dutifully nodded. “He was sporting a beauty of a watch. An extremely fine Henlein with a pierced leaf design. Unparalleled to my view. Wouldn’t sell, though. A pity, that.”

  Something of the man’s description registered in Rhys’s mind, but he could not spare the time to make the connection.

  “You say he will be back with more work?”

  “No doubt, Your Grace. I told him I had a prospective buyer for the painting already, and I would be very pleased to accept any others he cared to bring me, if they were of the same quality. I will be very happy to send word when another comes into the shop.”

  “Yes, do that. I want to know the minute the man returns.” He turned to leave.

  “Your Grace!”

  Rhys turned back.

  “Pardon, sir, I did not have a chance to tell you before, you seemed so immersed in the work, but I am very much afraid that particular painting has been sold.”

  “Sold?”

  “Yes, as I mentioned, Your Grace, the gentleman who bought the first painting said he would take any others. I have yet to contact him about this newest offering—I must say I wanted to revel in its splendor before consigning it to a private home. The world should see this painting.”

  “What is his name?”

  “I am afraid he did not give his name. But a woman was with him. It was she who gave me the draft for the painting. Indeed, I believe you may know the woman, Your Grace.”

  Rhys heart jumped in his throat. “Was the name Weston? Olivia Weston?”

  “Weston? No, Your Grace. The name was Battersby. Daria Battersby.”

  Rhys tightened his grip on the painting. “Daria Battersby?”

  “Yes, Your Grace”—another glance at the paper before him—“a Mrs. Daria Battersby.”

  Rhys forced himself to relax, schooling his features into a mask.

  “I will deal with her and give you twice what she paid. And consider any others that come in to be sold to me.” He started out of the shop but turned at the door. “I want to know the minute you see the red-headed man again. You will send word immediately.”

  ****

  Where was Jeb? Olivia pushed back the curtain and scanned the yard again. Likely all the rain had delayed him. Hazel, more impatient, had gone out to the woods to look for Dumpling, who had gone missing again. Somehow the bird always managed to escape the coop when the weather turned wet and muddy.

  Olivia dipped her hand into her apron pocket, feeling the worn edge of Egg’s letter. She had taken to carrying it, folded alongside the duke’s betrothal announcement. She supposed it was silly, but she felt cl
oser to Egg with the letter always within reach.

  Poor Eglantine, with only that brief note Olivia left on the night of the ball and then one other written from London within the first week of her leaving. Jeb had posted it from Brompton and fifteen days later, to her utter surprise, she had received a letter in return.

  They had just moved into the farmhouse and Hazel, who had been out with the cows had run in from the barn at Olivia’s shriek.

  “What? What’s amiss?” She ran to Jeb, her apron dripping wet milk.

  Jeb simply grinned.

  “We have just received a letter from Lady Bertram!” Olivia laughed.

  “Lady Bertram?” She looked between the two of them; sure she was part of a joke. “Who in the bloody blazes is Lady Bertram? And it better be good because I have just spilled half our morning’s milk on the barn floor. Prudence and Chastity are sure to be in heaven.”

  “Perhaps I should say Eglantine Wiggins Merrick, Lady Bertram.”

  It was a good thing Hazel had left her milk pail in the barn with the cats, or Olivia was sure the other half would have been lost as well.

  “Cor! You’re jesting Miss O,” she said, and then looked to Jeb who only grinned.

  Olivia cleared her throat, smoothed the letter, and began to read.

  “‘I was so very worried when you left, and I did not know how or where you would live. The duke was—

  “Never mind that.” Olivia moved on.

  “‘I could not go on with my deception to Bertram, and so I told him all. He was very angry at first, and rightly so. He used the word ‘betrayal’ and I tell you the look on his dear face cleaved my heart in two. But, not long after, he came to me and said he could not abide a lie, and we would have to set about remedying that lie. You can imagine how very shocked I was when he got down on his knee and asked me to be his very own lady; his wife! We were married by special license on the fifteenth of September. I am going to trust that you will be well, as Bertram very much wants to show me Venice and Rome. We will likely be gone till the New Year, I suspect. Please, I beg you, to write me again as soon after that as you can. Indeed I will not be steady if I do not have a letter waiting for me. Your dearest, Egglet’”