Duchesses in Disguise

by Grace Burrowes

  Kit

  She folded the noted into a very tiny square and pushed it into her pocket. How could he have just left? And before she had had a chance to speak to him? And why did she care?

  It was better that he was gone!

  Their coach was still being repaired, but maybe they could borrow Stratton’s coach. She could try to persuade her friends to leave the following day, and then she wouldn’t be here when, or if, Kit returned, and she need not see him again.

  Looking at her friends as they talked with Colonel Stratton and Sir Greyville, though, she could see that neither Francesca nor Mary Alice was ready to cut short the two weeks they had agreed to stay at Rose Heath. Of course, Olivia might ask for Stratton’s carriage for herself, or hire one in town, and return to Brookleigh.

  But she wouldn’t, she decided. She would finish out her holiday and enjoy the company of her friends and the two other gentlemen. Spring was breaking out, and she was staying at a beautiful estate where no one cared whether she was a duchess, and no one needed a single thing from her. Rose Heath offered her the kind of utterly relaxing holiday she’d dreamed about when she’d been up to her ears in the business of being the Duchess of Coldbrook, and she’d be a fool not to enjoy it.

  And she would not spend a single moment more thinking about Kit Stirling.

  Chapter Eleven

  * * *

  Was there a slower, more sedate coach driver in all England than this fellow of the earl’s, Kit wondered for the hundredth time that hour. Surely the man drove as though the carriage was filled with eggs instead of four healthy adults. Had he been alone, Kit would have dispensed with a coach and been back at Rose Heath already. But he was not alone—he was accompanied by his uncle, the Earl of Roswell, and his aunt, and his cousin Kate. And for that he was deeply glad, no matter that their progress was at a snail’s pace.

  “Do you still love to read?” Aunt Caroline asked him. Ever since they’d left London, his aunt had been speaking of the things he’d liked and said and done when he was younger. These were the topics that might preoccupy a mother, and the awareness gave him a renewed pang. Aunt Caroline had been like a mother to him when he was a motherless boy. She had loved him as well as she had been able, and he had cut her out of his life because of his feud with his uncle.

  “I do, Aunt,” he said, and smiled at her.

  “We kept all your books,” his uncle said gruffly. But then, he said everything gruffly. He was a blunt man, a decisive man, as befitted an earl. A man not used to reconsidering his decisions.

  Kit’s aunt and uncle had been standing by the hearth when Kit entered their London drawing room three days before. Their expressions had, at first sight of him, given nothing away, but Kit had been prepared for a difficult reception. He need not have been. Hardly had he advanced a dozen steps when his aunt rushed over with tears in her eyes and embraced him. His uncle’s eyes had looked suspiciously misty as well.

  Kit had hastened to offer the apology he should not have withheld for so long. “I blamed you for my parents’ fate because that was easier than accepting that the people I loved could simply be taken from me by chance. I’m sorry.”

  “And I was a damned judgmental prig who should have put aside my rules and helped my brother,” the earl had told Kit in a voice grown more raspy in the years they’d been apart. “I judged your parents and smugly told myself that I could raise you better than they would have done. I was wrong not to help them, and it took years of you being gone to make me see that.”

  Cousin Kate had come in then, and there had been a great deal of embracing and expressing of hopes that they might all put the past behind them and look to the future. And that was when Kit had explained what, or rather who, had inspired him to come to them, and how he needed their help. They had agreed right away. Kate, whose fiancé had left Town for a family christening, had declared herself glad to abandon London for a brief respite.

  When, after another hour of their snail’s pace, the familiar shape of Rose Heath manor finally came into view, Kit uttered a silent hope that Olivia would still be there. And that he could matter to her.

  * * *

  Kit was not coming back. It had all been some sort of joke to him, some lark. Perhaps he had simply been too weak to tell Olivia he did not wish to see her anymore and so had concocted the proposal to scare her away.

  Which thoughts made absolutely no sense, Olivia told herself as she tossed a stick across the garden for one of Stratton’s dogs, a black and brown fellow called Bounder. His was the only company she could tolerate at the moment, as she had awoken quite cross that morning, and she had not wanted to admit that the crossness might have something to do with a dream she’d had about Kit. He was gone, and she would be leaving Rose Heath the following day, and she was going to forget all about him. She just hadn’t figured out how to make herself do that yet. But she would. She was a determined person.

  Forgetting him was going to be hard. He had come to fill her thoughts.

  She had always been ruthless in admitting what was true, and she did so now as she tossed the stick out across the garden with unladylike force. He had become special to her. She cared about him a great deal.

  She loved him.

  Oh, she was a fool.

  She had just accepted the stick anew from Bounder, who showed no signs of wishing to abandon this diverting game, when she heard voices. Kit was walking toward her, in the company of three other people. The Earl and Countess of Roswell and their daughter, she realized. Something in the region of her heart gave a squeeze.

  “Your Grace,” Kit greeted her, there being no sense, obviously, in maintaining her charade in front of other members of the ton. “I believe you are a little acquainted with my uncle, the Earl of Roswell, and my aunt, the countess, and my cousin Lady Katherine?”

  The earl was a man of perhaps sixty, with a craggy, hard face, and his smile had a rusty, unused quality, but it was a smile nonetheless. The countess was a small woman with cornflower blue eyes, and Kit’s cousin looked like a taller, younger version of her mother.

  Olivia greeted them warmly, trying to hide her puzzlement as to why they had come.

  “Kit insists that you are the most fabulous duchess in all England, Your Grace,” Lady Katherine said. “Which sounds as though there is some sort of duchess competition afoot of which I’ve not heard.” Her eyes crinkled merrily. “But Kit was always my favorite cousin, so if he says you’re the most fabulous duchess in England, I’m ready to agree.”

  Kit was avoiding Olivia’s eyes.

  “I can’t think what your cousin is up to,” Olivia told her.

  Kit’s only remark was to propose a stroll so that the travelers could stretch their legs.

  They set off on the path that led through the garden and meandered behind the manor amid a rose garden not yet in bloom. Olivia found herself paired with the earl and suspected he had maneuvered it to be so.

  “I think you must know that Kit has been estranged from my family for some years.”

  “Yes, he has spoken to me about that.”

  “We quarreled about the way I behaved towards my brother and his wife. Kit was justified in questioning me, but I had not been accustomed to being questioned.”

  “Perhaps the manner of his questioning was not respectful.”

  “Perhaps it was not, but he was young and impassioned by a matter to do with his parents, and I should have allowed for disrespectful behavior. Instead, I was harsh and dismissive, and he chose to leave the family home.”

  His lordship seemed to want to put Kit in a good light for her, and she was having a great deal of trouble not simply accepting his words. She forced herself not to give in.

  “But Kit might have returned at any time,” she said, “might he not have, and apologized? Instead, he seems to have been determined to make as bad a name for himself as possible.”

  Bounder, who had been running in circles, cavorted into the earl’s path, causing the older gentle
man to stop. The earl’s craggy features were tinged with sadness as he leaned down to ruffle the dog’s fur. “Have you never remarked, Your Grace, that there is no one so determined on dissipation as a disappointed idealist? When Kit lived in our home, he behaved as only the best and most loyal of sons would have done. Above all, he was a sensitive young man, and I believe those qualities were the heart of the troubles between us. He could not betray the parents he loved by accepting an uncle who’d been cruel to them. I can’t fault him for that.”

  She thought of that duel Kit had fought to protect a woman who’d been harmed by her husband, and of his tenderness with her, and of all the other things that told her he was a good man, and something in her chest cracked open.

  Ahead of them, Kit and his aunt and cousin paused to look at a statue of a dog. Perhaps he felt her eyes on him, because his gaze met hers, and her heart rose up in reply.

  Her heart knew him, knew that he was a good man. Only her mind, with its caution and deliberation and plans, resisted him now. Would she let timidity rule her, just as she’d accepted the reins of fear that had kept her away from ponds and lakes her whole life?

  And then Kit was by her side. “Can I persuade you to stroll into the maze with me, Your Grace?”

  He offered her his arm, and she rested her hand on it. The interior of the maze was softly shadowed and hushed, and they walked for a few minutes without speaking.

  “I was very glad that my uncle and aunt and cousin consented to come here to be presented to you.”

  She gave him a skeptical look. “Wasn’t it your design to bring them here to show me that you are reconciled with your family?”

  “Can I not have had a dual purpose, Olivia?”

  He stopped and took her hands. “I have been a fool for far too long. But I would be a fool forever if I did not awaken to what is good and what is possible. I did hope that reconciling with my uncle would show you that I have put the past behind me, but I also truly wished to reconcile with him. I think I had wished to do that for a very long time, but I had become accustomed to things as they were, and I did not see how to change them. Until I met you.”

  His words touched Olivia deeply. She had thought that she was done with love, that she had tasted its lovely fruits and been sated. But she had been putting limits on love, just as Kit had, in his own way.

  Love never ends.

  She had forgotten that, and it was Kit, the most surprising of men, who had reminded her and shown her that there was so much still to discover about love.

  Yet, still she clung to the need for absolute truth. “And I am such a paragon that you were inspired to do the right thing?”

  He smiled. “No, you are not a paragon, my dearest Olivia, though you are very good. What you are is lovable. Loving you has made me want more love, in every part of my life.”

  His eyes, his words, the touch of his hands on hers—everything told her that she could trust this man.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “Oh, Kit,” she breathed. “I love you too.”

  Their eyes locked, speaking of love as no words ever could. “Will you marry me, my darling? Will you make me the happiest of men?”

  She was smiling as widely as a fool, and she did not care. “How could I say no to you?” She stroked the side of his face. “Though I could not see it at first, you are in fact the finest, dearest man I know, and you have shown me so much that I did not even realize I was missing.”

  He gave a whoop and pulled her into his arms. Everything fell away, the maze and the sky and the faint murmur of voices beyond the tall hedges, and it was only the two of them. They held each other and kissed and savored the wonder of what life held for them.

  “You do realize that I shall teach you to swim, my love?” he said some minutes later. “For our honeymoon, I think we must get a house by a lake and swim there every day.”

  “You just want to get your hands on my body.”

  “I do.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “And I always shall.”

  They lingered together in the maze for a little longer before making their way out to share their good news.

  “And to think that if you hadn’t come here as a duchess in disguise, we might never have found our way to each other,” he said as they walked out of the maze. The earl and his family were standing by the rose bushes and looking at them with discreetly hopeful smiles.

  “An awful thought,” Olivia said.

  “And not to be contemplated,” Kit said. “Did I mention that I love you?”

  “Perhaps once or twice, but say it again, as I shall never tire of hearing it”—she leaned her head against his arm—“or of loving you.”

  —THE END—

  Dear Readers,

  I hope you enjoyed our duchesses' adventures during their unexpected visit to Rose Heath. It has been an absolute joy working with Grace Burrowes and Susanna Ives, who are not only fabulous writers, but tremendously kind and generous people.

  Duchesses in Disguise is not my first foray into the topic of Regency courtships between unlikely parties ruralizing for unlikely reasons. One of my favorite stories is The Beautiful One, which features Miss Anna Black, who flees to the countryside to avoid scandal. Her path crosses that of Will Halifax, Viscount Grandville, who flees anything resembling messy displays of emotion. I’ve included an excerpt below.

  You can keep up with all my releases and author events, and also sign up for my newsletter, on my website at http://emilygreenwood.net. I only send out newsletters two or three times a year, and I will never share your email. Happy reading!

  Emily Greenwood

  The Beautiful One

  * * *

  Anna Black gave a silent cheer as the carriage she was riding in lurched and came to an abrupt stop at an angle that suggested they’d hit a deep ditch.

  Perhaps, she thought hopefully from the edge of her seat, where she’d been tossed, they’d be stuck on the road for hours, which would delay their arrival at the estate of Viscount Grandville. She had reason to be worried about what might happen at Lord Grandville’s estate, and she dreaded reaching it.

  It was also possible she was being pursued.

  Or not.

  Perhaps nothing would happen at all. But the whole situation was nerve-wracking enough that she had more than once considered simply running off to live in the woods and survive on berries. However, several considerations discouraged her from this course:

  1. She had exactly three shillings to her name. Though admittedly money would be of no use in the woods, she would at some point need more than berries.

  2. She had agreed to escort her traveling companion, Miss Elizabeth Tarryton, to the home of Viscount Grandville, who was the girl’s guardian.

  3. If Anna abandoned her duty, along with being a wicked person, she wouldn’t be able to return to the Rosewood School for Young Ladies of Quality, her employer.

  Anna was nothing if not practical, and she was highly skeptical of the success of the life-in-the-woods plan, but the dramatic occurrences in her life of late were starting to lend it appeal.

  “Hell!” said the lovely Miss Elizabeth Tarryton from her sprawled position on the opposite coach seat. Her apricot silk bonnet had fallen across her face during the coach-lurching, and she pushed it aside. “What’s happened?”

  “We’re in a ditch, evidently,” Anna replied. Their situation was obvious, but Miss Tarryton had not so far proven herself to be particularly sensible for her sixteen years. She was also apparently not averse to cursing.

  Surrendering to the inevitable, Anna said, “I’ll go see how things look.”

  She had to push upward to open the door to the tilted coach, and before stepping down, she paused to tug her faded blue bonnet over her black curls, a reflex of concealment that had become second nature in the last month. The rain that had followed them since they left the school that morning had stopped, but the dark sky promised more.

  The coachman was already seeing to t
he horses. “Had to go off the road to avoid a vast puddle, and now we’re in a ditch,” he called. “’Tis fortunate that we’re but half a mile from his lordship’s estate.”

  So they would soon be at Stillwell, Viscount Grandville’s estate. Damn, Anna thought, taking a page from Miss Tarryton’s book. Would he be a threat to her?

  After a month in a state of nearly constant anxiety, of waiting to be exposed, she sometimes felt mutinously that she didn’t care anymore. She’d done nothing of which she ought to be ashamed—yet it would never appear that way. And so she felt like a victim, and hated feeling that way, and hated the accursed book that had given two wicked men such power over her.

  She gathered up the limp skirts of her faded old blue frock and jumped off the last step, intending to see how badly they were stuck. The coachman was seeing to the horses, and as she moved to inspect the back of the carriage, she became aware of hoofbeats and turned to see a rider cantering toward them. A farmer, she thought, taking in his dusty, floppy hat and dull coat and breeches.

  He drew even.

  “You are trespassing,” he said from atop his horse, his tone as blunt as his words. The sagging brim of his hat hid the upper part of his face, but from the hard set of his jaw, she could guess it did not bear a warm expression. His shadowed gaze passed over her, not lingering for more time than it might have taken to observe a pile of dirty breakfast dishes.

  “We had no intention of doing so, I assure you,” she began, wondering that the stranger hadn’t even offered a greeting. “The road was impassible and our coachman tried to go around, but now we are stuck. Perhaps, though, if you might—”

  “You cannot tarry here,” he said, ignoring her attempt to ask for help. “A storm is coming. Your coach will be stranded if you don’t make haste.”

  His speech was clipped, but it sounded surprisingly refined. Ha. That was surely the only refined thing about him. Aside from his lack of manners and the shabbiness of his clothes, there was an L-shaped rip in his breeches that gave a window onto pale skin and thigh muscles pressed taut, and underneath his coat, his shirt hung loose at the neck. She supposed it was his broad shoulders that made him seem especially imposing atop his dark horse.