The Duchess Diaries: The Bridal Pleasures Series

by Jillian Hunter

  “A book. Who’d steal a book?”

  “Books are beautiful, Nick.”

  “Gawd. Pardon the vomitus that is clogging up my throat.”

  “This is a private journal. It contains thoughts that can cause great embarrassment to individuals I care about.”

  “Tragic. An invitation to infamy. All those lords at your disposal. Another crisis that poor Nick is called upon to settle. Do you want to walk with me to the pub?”

  She frowned. “No.”

  “Why not?” he said, offended now.

  “Because you reek like gin, you’ve a hole in your shirt, and you’re ignorant, that’s why.”

  “I can read, you know.”

  “Then read the posters that went up this morning advertising a reward for a certain thief. You’ll hang if you don’t change your ways. You know it as well as I do. Maybe if you did good for once, someone in authority would give you another chance.”

  He looked her straight in the eye. “You’ve got a way with words, love. You always did ’ave a gifted tongue. There’s a Bible sitting on that table behind you. Go on. Pick it up. Mind you don’t knock over the bottle of gin beside it.”

  She hesitated, then rose to lift the Bible in her hands. “Are you going to swear on it?” she asked, taking a cautious step in his direction.

  He stared down at the floor and shook his head. “Nah. Not today. But do me a favor and wedge it in the door crack on your way out. I feel a nap comin’ on and don’t want another female slamming and yammering about to disturb my dreams.”

  He looked up and flashed her one of the grins that made the girls go weak. Harriet slowly lowered her arms and placed the Bible on his bed.

  “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, Nick Rydell, as sure as I’m standing before you. I don’t know yet what, but I swear you’ve stepped in it knee-deep, and if I find out you betrayed my confidence I will hunt you down and skin you until you’re grinning out the other side of your arse.”

  It was almost twilight when Gideon stepped outside his house. He was expecting a visit from Sir Daniel, and while he waited he realized that he hadn’t asked the regular street vendors whether they’d recently recovered any articles of interest in the gutter.

  The watercress woman shook her head and hurried off, not even trying to sell her wilted produce. Then the butcher rode by on his old horse with a basket of pig trotters. Gideon lifted his hand to slow him but the man pretended not to notice. The street people acted as if they were afraid of him.

  Was he rude to others of a different class? He thought back. Perhaps he shouted more than he should have when the gingerbread seller approached him outside his door.

  Why should he care what strangers thought? Except that Charlotte was anything but a stranger; he had not realized that his behavior caused offense, and he didn’t know how she had done it, but she’d made him value her opinion of him.

  “Your Grace! Your Grace!”

  He stared at the elderly gentleman gesturing with a cane in the middle of the street. It was old Major Boulton, a widower who lived in the town house that faced Gideon’s residence.

  “May I have a moment of your time?”

  “Yes, but not in the middle of the street. You’ll be run over at this hour. I thought you were away.”

  The cane flew up. “And it’s a damn good thing I was or I’d likely have been murdered in bed. I was robbed, you know. I don’t suppose you’ve noticed any strange characters about the place?”

  Gideon saw Sir Daniel walking toward them. He motioned him to hurry. “No, Major, I didn’t know. But here is someone who might be able to help.”

  “What is the matter?” Sir Daniel asked as he reached them, leaning back from the man’s cane.

  “I was robbed last week!” the man fairly shouted in Sir Daniel’s ear. “It happened when I was out of town. My butler did not even realize the house had been burglarized until this morning, when the chambermaids aired the upper floors.”

  “What is missing?” Sir Daniel asked.

  “My wife’s sapphire necklace. A few banknotes, and my silver snuffbox. Of these items I am sure. The thief may have taken more. But as these were all kept in my dressing closet; I’d venture a guess that he was in a hurry.”

  “Or merely a professional.” Sir Daniel stared across the street. “How did he enter the house?”

  “I don’t know. The door locks are intact. I assume he scaled the wall to go around the back. The ivy on the side of the house was damaged, but that could have been the duke’s tomcat chasing the females again.”

  “You will need to make a formal report,” Sir Daniel said. “And I suggest, if you haven’t done so, that you install lever locks.”

  “The locks look fine,” the major insisted. “They are brass and steel.”

  “Which indicates a skeleton key was used,” Sir Daniel said. “As for you, Your Grace, perhaps you were victimized by the same burglar who mistook your darkened house as a sign you were not at home.”

  Gideon frowned. “Do you believe that?”

  “It is logical.”

  “I’d no idea that you had been robbed, too,” the major said, lowering his cane. “Although to be perfectly frank, Your Grace is given to hosting parties for young ladies in the dark. It is difficult to tell whether you are in or out. Or how many people you are entertaining at one time.”

  Gideon coughed. “My days, or nights, rather, of entertaining in the dark are coming to end. I am shortly to be married, sir.” Which did not actually mean that Gideon would not be up to mischief in the dark, only that he would play to a private audience of one.

  “I wish I’d been informed that there had been another burglary in the square,” Sir Daniel said after a long pause. “I shall make inquiries. And, Major, I suggest you and your staff try to recall any suspicious persons you may have noticed in the neighborhood, perhaps even going back a month or so.”

  “I shall do that right now. I doubt any of us will sleep well until the bastard is caught.”

  As soon as the major was gone, Gideon took Sir Daniel into the house. “Have you learned anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “That the person who stole the diary was most likely a professional thief.”

  Gideon looked unimpressed.

  “It is not a small discovery, Your Grace. It narrows the number of suspects I have been considering.”

  “I can understand the theft of a sapphire necklace, but a young lady’s diary? And from my carriage?”

  “Perhaps the culprit was interrupted and grabbed the diary without knowing what it was. He might have been hiding in your carriage before or after the other theft. The necklace will no doubt end up in a dolly shop before long.”

  “And the diary?”

  “We can hope it was destroyed.”

  Gideon sighed. “Do you believe that?”

  “Not for a minute.”

  “Damnation, neither do I.”

  “I wonder…” Sir Daniel’s voice trailed off.

  “You wonder what?” Gideon inquired, gesturing encouragingly with his hand. “Speak your mind, sir. I do not have the patience for innuendo.”

  Sir Daniel looked embarrassed. “Well, I wonder what was in that diary that a person would go to any lengths to steal it, assuming that this was the case.”

  Gideon forced himself not to react. Far be it from him to reveal that he was the subject of the scandalous contents. “I can only hope that it is recovered before that question is answered.”

  “Hmm.”

  “‘Hmm’ what?”

  “I tell you this because the young gentlewoman is your fiancée and it seems that there are no secrets between you, but Miss Boscastle admitted to me…”

  Gideon gave him a hard stare. “Go on. There’s no reason to hem and haw.”

  Sir Daniel shook his head. “She led me to believe that what she had written could be viewed as controversial. Considering her flawless reputation, I
doubt that anything she could pen would cause a stir. Don’t you agree?”

  Gideon smiled inwardly.

  “Your Grace?”

  “Yes, yes. I agree. She must have been overwrought to confess such a thing.”

  “Overwrought.” Sir Daniel nodded slowly. “But now I do wonder…”

  “What?” Gideon said tersely.

  “That face at the window. Do you suppose that something in her diary could have attracted an undesirable’s attention?”

  “Yes,” he said after a pause. What else could he say? The few entries that he’d read had enthralled him. Why wouldn’t another man, another undesirable, react the same way? He wasn’t going to spell it out for Sir Daniel. He would hold out hope that the diary would be returned on the quiet to Charlotte. And if it wasn’t he would do everything in his power to protect her from whatever unpleasant consequences she might face.

  Chapter 26

  Audrey excused herself from the guests she had been entertaining and escaped to her private suite. She had a full crowd, including a young, virile earl whose eyes had seduced her on sight. His look said he wanted her in his bed tonight. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept with a guest.

  She took off her jewelry and went to the window. Her nemesis hadn’t appeared this evening, but she swore she felt his lingering presence—or did she hope he would return? That was dangerous. She would put a stop to that desire right now. She knew well that Daniel wanted her to be a woman with no past, without a voice or choice. She would never give up the security she had built for love. She had been trapped in an abusive marriage once, broken by a man who had betrayed both her and his country. It seemed like another life. She had threatened to turn her husband in as a traitor to England. In response, he had her imprisoned in the wine cellar of their London home while in the study above he plotted with other spies.

  One night she recognized the voice of the close friend whose capture and torture her husband had once arranged.

  It was Colonel Lord Heath Boscastle.

  Honorable, intelligent, tested by trials he would never reveal, Heath had rescued Audrey and ended her husband’s reign of cruelty and treason. She respected, admired, and adored Heath, but he did not love her, and she wouldn’t lose herself to a man she could never have.

  She was determined to control her life. She enjoyed variety, a steady flow of friends, money, and an amusing profession that surprisingly brought her respect. There was no emotional turmoil when a woman played with men only for pleasure and profit.

  Sir Daniel Mallory was the thorn in her side.

  “Madam,” her maid said, slipping in through a side door with a pile of warmed towels. “Are you entertaining tonight?”

  “No, Fanny. I’m going to read in bed.”

  “Is he there again on the corner?”

  “No,” she said, but as she pivoted she noticed a caped figure emerge from the direction of the corner pub. “At least I hope not.”

  “Sir Daniel is persistent. He’ll be back.”

  “I can’t imagine why he lingers. I don’t have any information for him. And he hates this house.”

  “He hates to see you here.”

  “He thinks that my profession puts me at risk,” Audrey mused, reclining on her chaise with a bitter smile. “He has no idea how dangerous it was to be another man’s wife.”

  “Not all men are monsters, madam,” Fanny said, coming to the back of the chaise to unpin Audrey’s auburn hair.

  “Yes, I know. But at my age the ones who aren’t are married.”

  “Sir Daniel is not.”

  “Is the earl still in the house?”

  “Yes. I don’t know where, though.”

  “Ah. He couldn’t wait.”

  Audrey sipped her wine, her eyes closing. This past spring she had turned down Daniel’s proposal, insisting she could not serve as a fit mother to the niece and nephew he had taken under his wing. She hadn’t even been able to save the child of his that she had carried. And when Daniel suggested she had brought on the miscarriage with her decadent habits, she had ended the affair.

  He had been wild with rage, accusing her of infidelity and immorality, not allowing her a chance to explain that she had never been able to carry a child to term. He had never forgiven her for the loss. And she had never forgiven him for not realizing that she was grieving, too. And for not believing her when she swore that she had never been unfaithful to him.

  “I’m sure a child is an inconvenience to a woman of your social influence,” he had stated.

  “We both took precautions, Daniel,” she’d said, hiding her own hurt and anger. “I did not ask for the pregnancy. Nor did I seek in any way to end it.”

  “I have offered you marriage, which you declined,” he said, his face shuttered. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you would resent being swollen with my child when more influential men seek your bed.”

  “I knew that this would be a mistake,” she said as coolly as she could. “I am devastated that I lost the baby, but now there is no reason for you to return.”

  Wounded, they had both retreated, she into the profitable decadence of the demimonde, Daniel back to his campaign to purge the city of crime and punish its prime offenders.

  “That diary is only an excuse for him to harass me,” she said as Fanny lifted Audrey’s hair to place a warm towel around her neck and shoulders. “When they find it, he will have to invent another reason to condemn me.”

  “I think he still cares for you.”

  “Cares? It is an act. He has threatened to expose customers whose confidentiality I’ve guaranteed. He has appointed himself my judge and jury because I made the mistake of taking him to my bed.”

  Fanny frowned in concern. “What shall I say if he asks to see you again?”

  “He shouldn’t make it past the guards. If he persists, we shall notify the authorities.”

  “Nobody would arrest him, madam.”

  “True,” Audrey said, her mouth curving in a thin smile. “But no one will arrest me, either, which doesn’t mean he can’t cause trouble in spades. I ask you, is that the behavior of a man who cares for me?”

  “It might be. Do you wish to change for bed?”

  “No. In fact, bring out my dark red dress. I feel invigorated. I can’t go to bed this early because a thief taker doesn’t approve of my profession.”

  “The silk or the satin?”

  “The silk. And, Fanny, if Sir Daniel does come to the door tonight, have the guards explain to him that in the future he must have an appointment.”

  Chapter 27

  Charlotte composed herself to make her farewell before entering the classroom. She refused to fall apart in front of her girls during her last days at the school. She wouldn’t confess to them that when all was said and done, she doubted that being proficient in the language of fans would take them far in the marriage mart. But the steps leading to a proposal—she couldn’t give them any helpful advice about that either, not given her accidental strategy. She was determined to leave some impression of dignity and encouragement at the academy. Unfortunately she hadn’t stood like a pillar of propriety as her proper world dissolved around her.

  The girls respected her. And she would miss them. It was a blessing that their innocent minds could not understand the scope of the imbroglio she had created with her wicked chronicles. And that no whiff of scandal had reached their parents yet.

  Her pupils looked to her as a model of correctness and she would protect their tender illusions with her last breath. She prepared herself for emotional outbursts and plaintive voices begging her to stay.

  She girded her loins for the good fight and opened the door.

  Not a head turned. Not a tear fell in the cluster of whispering girls at the window.

  “He’s keeping a woman at Mrs. Watson’s.”

  “He’s only marrying her because the marquess threatened to kill him if he didn’t.”

  “Why did she go to his house
in the first place?”

  “Why do you think, pea brain?”

  “I don’t believe she went there for what you’re thinking.”

  “She went there for something.”

  “It was her diary, and we’re not supposed to know.”

  “Oh, right. She and the duke just fell in love on the spot and had to get married. She was duke hunting.”

  “They were together at the dance.”

  “I wish they had carried on here so that we could have watched. How will we ever learn anything about love?”

  Charlotte’s voice dropped to a pitch used only by demons in the deepest recesses of hell. “Ladies! I cannot believe what I’m hearing. Haven’t you learned anything from this school?”

  The girls scrambled back to their chairs, guilty faces avoiding Charlotte’s withering stare. Not that Charlotte’s own conscience was unburdened. However, as Grayson had pointed out, it remained a primary rule in the polite world that admitting an indiscretion was worse than committing it at the start.

  She waited for the last whisper of silk to subside. “That is much better. Today, ladies, we continue to learn the subtle language of the fan. As you know, a proper fan is an essential fashion accessory for a lady. To carry an article one does not know how to use is gauche.”

  She paused, suddenly tempted to confess that a fan would have been a useless weapon against Gideon’s powerful allure, but she could not confide to the girls that she had brought his attention on herself. The truth was that she had seduced him, however inadvertent it had been, and…and…she wasn’t at all sorry.

  “One day,” she said in the most even voice she could manage, “I might understand enough about love to explain it to you. Or maybe I’ll never know what it is. Maybe one of you will be able to elucidate it for me when you are older. Until then there are feminine arts that can be taught to hasten our progress on the path of matrimony.”

  She looked into the angelic faces and smiled, and each girl looked back at her in complicit understanding. “Open your fans.”

  There was a moment of silence followed by the precise clack of eleven fans unfolding before the last snapped like a pistol shot carried across the room. Charlotte winced.