Last Duke Standing

by Cheryl Bolen

  Lady Georgiana had been more than a year younger when she and Freddie had announced their betrothal. Just before they were to have married, her mother had been stricken with apoplexy and nearly died. It was to Lady Georgiana’s credit that she refused to leave her mother’s side then or during the months of the dowager’s slow recovery which followed. Freddie had conceded that the marriage would be indefinitely postponed, either for Lady Hartworth’s convalescence or for a mourning period if the mother had died.

  Before Lady Georgiana left Alsop Hall with him and Sinjin, she had informed him that her mother had insisted she be accompanied by her lady’s maid. Therefore, the mute-acting French woman who looked a decade younger than her mistress rode in the carriage with them for the three-hour journey back to Gosingham.

  He felt compelled to attempt conversation with Lady Georgiana. Glad he was that she had not turned into a watering pot, yet he questioned the lady’s attachment to his brother. Had she not been in love with Freddie? Or was she the rare female who could manage to keep a tight control over her emotions? She had not shed a single tear.

  “I pray that your mother has made a satisfactory recovery?” he said to her once the coach had reached the main posting road a few miles from Alsop.

  “We’ve been vastly pleased with her progress. Her speech is almost back to where it was, and she is now able to walk with the use of a cane. Thank you, your grace, for asking.”

  “How long has it been?” Alex asked. “Since she fell ill?”

  “It was a year in November.”

  More than a year. Freddie was a patient soul.

  “Your mother suffered from sudden apoplexy?” Sinjin asked.

  The lady nodded.

  “I daresay if she’s made so successful a recovery,” Sinjin said, “she has received excellent care. When my grandfather was stricken, we attributed his reversal to my grandmother’s excellent ministrations on his behalf. She was devoted to him in every way. She not only never left his bedside, but she also forced him to try to speak, to try to walk. She never considered that he wouldn’t experience a full recovery.”

  “Who was the person responsible for your mother’s progress?” Alex asked Lady Georgiana.

  Alex noticed that the maid eyed her mistress. It was a moment before the mistress responded with a shrug. “I daresay my overbearingly didactic self rather forced poor Mama not to succumb to her infirmity.”

  “You should not malign yourself,” Alex said. “Your determination is most commendable.”

  Lady Georgiana eyed Sinjin. “Lord Slade, how old was your grandfather when he was struck down?”

  Sinjin pursed his lips, his brows dipping. “Let me see . . . yes, I remember. He was still in his fifties—a month shy of his sixtieth birthday.”

  “Mama was but eight and forty,” she said. “Far too young, I thought, to become a dependent invalid. Tell me, Lord Slade, did your grandfather fully regain his speech?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Mama’s speech is now only slightly impaired, but she’s developed the silliest practice of knowing exactly what she’s going to say, but the wrong words come out. For example, she’ll look right at the toad in the hole and say she wants that pig’s foot. I try not to laugh, but sometimes her statements are epically humorous.”

  “You should not feel badly. The fact both of you know what she meant to say attests to her mental acuity,” Alex said.

  She nodded, a faint smile rendering her face something quite lovely. He didn’t know if he’d ever seen teeth so extraordinarily white. Her attention then returned to Sinjin. “What about your grandfather’s ability to walk?”

  “His left side remained weak, but he never let it slow him. He refuses to use a cane.”

  “I believe Mama could walk without her cane, but she’s afraid of falling. I tell her she needs to test herself or she’ll become dependent on the cane.”

  “Then you’re a stern taskmaster,” Alex commented. Given this woman’s unemotional reaction to the death of her betrothed, Alex was not surprised to learn that Lady Georgiana could appear callous.

  She glared at him. “Nothing is gained from coddling.”

  This woman reminded Alex of Kathryn, the eldest of his four sisters. They were both pragmatic. It took no great effort to imagine this woman ordering about a parcel of younger siblings (as Kathryn had done) in the same way one would position tin soldiers. Unlike Lady Georgiana, though, Kathryn easily shed tears over those she loved. After Alex’s eldest brother had died when Alex was serving in the Peninsula, he’d been told Kathryn had been almost inconsolable upon Richard’s death. And in the letter she’d sent him last week, she revealed how relieved she’d been when her youngest daughter’s fever broke. “I stood bawling over her bed,” she wrote.

  He could not imagine this stoic woman sitting across the carriage from him ever bawling. He eyed her. “Now’s as good a time as any to tell you that you were the subject of a bequest in my brother’s will.”

  “Freddie knew I did not need money.”

  “It wasn’t money he left you.”

  Her brows rose.

  “It was his papers,” Alex said.

  “His papers? Like his personal correspondence?”

  “Yes.”

  “I shall be honored to undertake that task.”

  “I suppose some of them will go in the Fordham archives in the Gosingham basement.”

  She nodded. “Though reading his letters will make me melancholy, it is the very type of activity which suits my temperament.”

  Alex could well believe the woman thrived on being in charge of things. Something in her demeanor indicated that she was likely well organized. She did not appear to be the type of woman who filled her head with fashion. Even though her family was one of the wealthiest in the kingdom, the dress she wore was faded, and its print was of the style popular a few seasons earlier. At least that’s what his sisters had imparted to him.

  Perhaps he should steer the conversation to a brighter topic. “It appeared that as we arrived as Alsop, you were about to go riding. You obviously have a good eye for horse flesh. A very fine bay you had.”

  “His grace is horse mad,” Sinjin said. “He can see the most minute difference in two horses that look identical to the rest of us.”

  She forced a smile. “As fond as Freddie was of horses, he said you were stupendously knowledgeable about the beasts, and given the Fordhams’ legendary stables, that is towering praise.”

  He did not know how to respond without sounding conceited, so he said nothing.

  After a lengthy lull in conversion, Sinjin redirected the topic. “I hate to remind you of your grievous loss, old fellow, but has it occurred to you that you’ll now have to give up your hard-earned seat in the House of Commons since you’ll be joining me in the House of Lords?”

  “I hadn’t given it a thought.” Alex drew his breath. “There will have to be a by-election to fill my seat.”

  “As Duke of Fordham,” Sinjin said, “you’ll be in a position to sponsor your own candidates.”

  Alex nodded. “Edward Coke’s the very man to take my place.”

  “He’ll be perfect. I was sorry he lost last year.”

  “As was I. He’s a fine chap.”

  “And he’ll vote exactly as Wycliff tells him to vote.”

  Alex felt Lady Georgiana’s scathing glare. “Forgive me if it seems I’m profiting in any way from my brother’s death,” he said, eying her. “I would give every farthing I could ever own to bring him back.”

  “It’s understandable that you’ll profit from his death,” she said. “What is unforgivable is that you will vote against everything your brother believed in.”

  Neither he nor Sinjin had a retort. It was true that he and Freddie were on opposite ends of the political spectrum. He loved his brother—but not enough to turn his back on his own ideology.

  The only sound to be heard for the remainder of the journey was the monotonous churning of the c
oach wheels and the occasional cracking of the coachman’s whip.

  It was during the last remnants of dusk that the coach rattled up the tree-lined path to Lincolnshire’s grandest country house. Gosingham Hall had been built by the first duke more than two hundred years previously. In the last century, Capability Brown had selected these beech trees that now struggled to bloom after an exceedingly harsh winter. By next month the drive would be shaded by their canopy.

  When Alex beheld the magnificent house sprawling atop the hill’s crest and crowned by a gold dome, tears sprang to his eyes. This is all mine now. He had never thought to be master of such a place, and the very notion terrified him. Had he any expectations of inheriting, he would have made a greater effort to learn more about the generations of Havershams who’d come before him and to learn about their various contributions to the family and to this colossal monument of stone and glass.

  The tears he suppressed represented so much more than his overwhelming inadequacies. He mourned his parents. Most of all, he mourned his brothers who were cut down in the prime of life.

  In the distance he could see the prodigious stables where the brothers had spent so much time. They had fashioned their own steeplechase course, and even though Alex was the youngest, he’d always won. What good times they’d had during those lazy days of summer. His eyes moistened.

  The carriage drew up in front of Gosingham’s portico, and the coachman let down the steps and opened the carriage door. It was then that Alex remembered the coachman’s son had been accidentally killed the previous year at one of Freddie’s shooting parties. They never did learn whose bullet had struck down the ten-year-old lad. “Thank you, John,” Alex said, pausing to eye the man with heart-felt sincerity. “I’ve never been able to say how sorry I was about your boy’s death.”

  The coachman’s head inclined. Grief was still etched on his craggy face. The loss of the son who’d come so late in life and who had for so many years brought a smile to the old man’s face and lightened his step, nearly put the old man in his grave. Alex clasped a hand to his shoulder. For that second, the two men were joined by their respective grief.

  * * *

  She hadn’t seen Gosingham Hall until they crested the hill. Its gold dome shimmered beneath the diffused moonlight. There was no lovelier house in all of Lincolnshire. This was to have become her home. She felt as if a gold sovereign lodged in her throat.

  That disappointment was pushed from her thoughts by the greater, all-encompassing bereavement that obliterated all other thoughts from her mind. Freddie, dear thoughtful Freddie, was dead. It was as if a huge void hollowed her, robbing her of every cell, every feeling. All that was left was a vast numbness.

  How she regretted that she’d not been able to see the dear man happily wed before his life was so cruelly cut short. He had craved domesticity as heartily as other men pursued debauchery. She felt guilty she had delayed their marriage. Why had she persisted in keeping Mama at Alsop and avoiding marriage? It wasn’t as if she couldn’t have brought her mother to Gosingham once she married the duke. She could have overseen Mama’s care once she became Freddie’s duchess. Why had she so stubbornly clung to her spinsterhood?

  She’d been startled at how closely the new duke resembled Freddie. Even though he appeared pleasant enough, she could not admire the man. He had caused Freddie a great deal of distress. He was a Whig, and Freddie had been a Tory. All her family were Tories.

  Inside Gosingham, they were greeted by a butler carrying a brace of candles to complement the wall scones, which were all lighted. “I wasn’t sure your grace would return tonight. Forgive me for taking the liberty of allowing the other servants to retire for the night. If your grace is hungry, I can awaken the cook.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Alex said. “Lady Georgiana’s cook packed us something to eat in the coach.”

  “Very good, your grace.”

  “It’s been an exhausting day. Lord Slade and I will go directly to our chambers. All that we require is that you show Lady Georgiana and her maid to their rooms.”

  “I shall put Lady Georgiana in the yellow room,” Mannings said with a nod.

  She followed the aged servant up the broad marble staircase to the second floor where her host and Lord Slade bid her goodnight. Mannings continued down a corridor carpeted with a Turkish rug and stopped midway to open the door to the yellow chamber. “Had I known you were coming, my lady, I would have requested a fire be laid.” He walked into the dark room and began to light every candle.

  Though it was still quite dark, she could see that silken draperies of pale yellow hung from three tall casements as well as on the high tester bed. The silk coverlet upon the huge bed combined the same pale yellow with a pattern of soft green acanthus leaves. It was an inviting room, and like the new duke, all she required was to climb into the comforting bed.

  “I am quite certain I shall be fast asleep before a fire could possibly warm this chamber,” she told the butler. “The only thing I request is that you show my maid her quarters, then send her back to me.”

  Less than five minutes later, Angelique returned and helped Georgiana out of her traveling clothes. After Angelique brushed out her hair, Georgiana climbed atop the bed, and Angelique drew the draperies around her mistress’s bed before she left.

  As tired as Georgiana was, sleep eluded her. In the morning she would view the lifeless body of the man with whom she had planned to spend the rest of her life.

  Though she had always been a realist, some child-like side of her had emerged today, telling her that these people were wrong. Freddie was not dead. They all had to be mistaken. He was young. He was full of life. He was in excellent health. He had none of the vices of his philandering younger brother. He could not be dead.

  Is that why she was going to put herself through such a tortuous ordeal? Her stomach roiled. Her breath grew short. She dreaded what would occur in the morning.

  Yet it couldn’t be worse than this day had been—and still was.

  * * *

  She hadn’t been able to sleep, so when the duke rapped at her door just past dawn, she was already fully dressed. She opened the door herself and observed him. He, too, was dressed, and judging by the puffiness beneath his eyes, she knew he’d also been unable to sleep.

  “Should you like to see my brother now?” he asked. “We men will bury him today.”

  Burying Freddie. Those words, spoken so matter-of-factly, wiped away her childish denial. This was not some shattering dream. This was real. Freddie was dead.

  She nodded solemnly.

  As the two of them climbed the stairs, he said, “This won’t be as unpleasant as it was when I first viewed him. The chamber was then in darkness. I’ve instructed the servants to draw the draperies and open the windows. Freddie disliked the dark.”

  Windows open or not, approaching the bed where lifeless Freddie lay was the most difficult thing she’d ever done. No amount of hopeful thoughts could reverse the finality of his untimely death.

  In spite of her queasy stomach, she forced herself to study the face that had once looked so much like that of the brother who stood beside her but now looked so horribly alien. His deep golden hair had been combed into the same fashionable style he always wore. His eyes were closed. His skin had lost the color of a living being. She willed herself not to be sick, not to cry.

  She drew a deep breath and moved closer, reaching out to open one of his eyes. A wrenching feeling lurched when she realized how stiff his skin was, but she managed to open the eye closest to her.

  She had allowed herself to imagine that once he could see her, he would spring to life. How well she remembered his lichen-colored eyes. The color had not changed, but now his eye—except for the iris—was almost a solid crimson.

  She quickly closed it.

  Her gaze moved to the pillow upon which his head rested. Small puddles of dried blood had pooled there.

  “Someone smothered this man to death,” she s
aid with conviction.

  Chapter 3

  Alex drew the delusional woman aside and led her to the adjoining study. “What the devil are you saying?”

  “I know as sure as I know I’m standing here in Gosingham Hall that Freddie was smothered as he slept.”

  Her words cut through him as surely as a rapier. “How could you possibly know such a thing?”

  “While working with my mother’s rehabilitation, I became particularly interested in studies of anatomy. I’ve read the works of the surgeon Douglas MacKay. He cites a death by suffocation. Two signs can confirm such a death.” She paused.

  His heart pounded. His hands slickened. “Yes?”

  “Bloodied eyeballs and blood upon the pillow from drainage during the horrible, premeditated deed.” Her voice weakened, and then she drew a deep breath and faced him with renewed vigor. “Who wanted your brother dead?”

  “No one! You must know as well as I that my brother had no enemies.”

  She glared at him.

  Good Lord! Did this unbalanced woman think he had murdered his own brother? “I beg that you mention this no more—especially around the servants. I’ll speak to you on the matter later—after we’ve given my brother a proper burial.”

  “I must insist that a surgeon sees him before he’s buried.”

  * * *

  Their neighbor, Lord Harold Barnstaple, was the first to call and offer condolences over Freddie’s death. As Alex strode down the broad marble hall, it occurred to him that death did not abide by time restrictions. Normally, this would be far too early to pay a morning call, but mourners sought other mourners without regard to the hour. Had Barnstaple just heard?

  The viscount awaited Alex in the library, standing there with his hat in his hand. Alex did not precisely know his age, but he was a year or two older than Richard and had been Alex’s eldest brother’s childhood playmate. So he must be approaching five and thirty. He looked older, perhaps because his love of riding and shooting had leathered his skin. His hairline, too, was receding.