When a Duchess Says I Do

by Grace Burrowes

  “For the nonce,” Carlu said. “That is English for until you come to your senses, perhaps? Or until the eternal suffering referred to as the English winter can arrange another fate for his colonelship?”

  “Get into the house and tell Ambrose you’re in need of a toddy. You’ve had Parker followed?”

  A dark-eyed gaze worthy of a Renaissance angel turned upward to sullen clouds. “What have I done, what have I ever, ever done to merit such a lack of faith from one whom I esteem so greatly? Tell me, for I will not sleep, I will not eat, I will not partake of Ambrose’s most excellent toddy, until I have learned of my transgression and set all to rights with my treasured employer. The wound in my heart that your doubt has riven exceeds the bitterness of Lucifer when cast from the glories—”

  Wakefield pointed to the house. “My apologies for even hinting that I doubted your competence or your loyalty, but I am a father sorely worried for my daughter, as she is doubtless worried for me. Enjoy your toddy.”

  Carlu bowed, his expression fierce. “We’ll find her before the colonel does, sir. Depend upon it.”

  A lazy flake of snow drifted down and landed on the rough wool of Carlu’s scarf.

  “From your lips to God’s ears.” Though the timing would be delicate, and if Wakefield bungled, he and Matilda could both end up dead or worse.

  Carlu strode into the house, leaving Wakefield alone in the frigid garden. He was watched by loyal eyes at almost all times, as Matilda had been, and yet, she’d slipped away. The why of her departure was still unclear, though every explanation Wakefield came up with was bad for both him and his daughter.

  The challenge was to fashion a solution that boded even worse for Colonel Parker.

  * * *

  Secrets were like elaborate millinery. They weighed more the longer they were borne about. Matilda’s secrets were piling up like snow on a frozen lane. She knew not only the Brightwell property, but this very chess set. Her recollection of the house had been vague—children were not allowed to roam grand premises at will—but she would never forget the pieces on the board. She’d learned the game sitting across from the old duke, whose patience had been matched only by his appreciation for strategy.

  Mr. Wentworth had given her the choice of color, as a polite host would, and Matilda chose white simply to start the game as quickly as possible.

  Please let his chess be interesting.

  Her prayer stemmed from two sources: First, she had a passionate longing for a good game. She was as starved for the complexities of the chessboard as she’d been for shelter, sustenance, and human kindness.

  Second, she wanted a stretch of time to sit in the same room with Duncan Wentworth, in intimate congress of any variety. Intimate congress with his mind would do splendidly, for a well-played chess match stripped away all fig leaves and pretenses.

  Which meant Matilda would have to lose, of course. For her own fig leaves and pretenses had become necessary to her survival. She had thought to start out with the Bishop’s Game, then changed her mind in favor of the venerable Italian Game, a shade less aggressive. Mr. Wentworth made the predictable moves in response, suggesting he had some familiarity with traditional play.

  An hour later—an hour during which Matilda had lost her slippers, forgotten her problems, and eschewed any notion that she must lose—she had Mr. Wentworth in check. The delight of that, the sheer, crowing pleasure of it, the sense of coming home to herself, was better than all the warmed shawls and fresh biscuits in England.

  After a silence—delighted on her part, brooding from Mr. Wentworth’s side of the board—he moved his king, one small square forward, the direction his king must not even consider going, and the game became…a draw.

  Matilda stared at the board, then at her opponent—he was still brooding, doubtless waiting for her reaction—then at the board. How long had it been since she’d had an opponent this worthy? An opponent this enjoyable?

  “I am astonished,” she said. “I am wonderfully, delightfully astonished. I was completely distracted by your rook, which I was sure I’d capture twenty minutes ago. You and your timid bishops have hoodwinked me.”

  She hadn’t smiled like this—pure glee, undiluted joy—for months.

  “While your myrmidons were determined to waylay my queen. You have a ruthless streak, my dear. You keep it well hidden, but the chessboard reveals all. I have not enjoyed a match this much since Stephen dragged me to St. Petersburg in the depths of winter.”

  My dear. She beamed at the chessboard with the same sense of satisfaction and contentment she would have turned on her empty plate at the conclusion of a banquet.

  “My father used to say that the Russian winter has created a race more indominable than angels and wilier than devils.” She should not have mentioned Papa, or Russia, and she most assuredly should not be smiling like a complete gudgeon because Mr. Wentworth had played her to a draw.

  A draw. She hadn’t been able to win or lose, hadn’t been able to control the outcome of this game. What a surprise, what a relief.

  “Would you care to play again?” Mr. Wentworth asked.

  She could keep him in this parlor for days, while she forgot to eat, drink, or even move. “I’d like to study this game first, if you don’t mind. Perhaps tomorrow?”

  He rose and bowed. “I will look forward to that, Miss Wakefield.”

  The chessboard clamored for study, for a replay of various moves, a review of the options Matilda had discarded. Mr. Wentworth had slipped through her defenses and seen through her strategy. When had she lost sight of his cunning, when had her vigilance…?

  “Mr. Wentworth,” she called over her shoulder as he reached the door. “A moment, please.”

  He returned to her side. “Ma’am.”

  Matilda could not summon a smile, she could not even regain the sense of warmth she’d enjoyed since joining Mr. Wentworth’s household.

  “You called me Miss Wakefield, and yet, I’ve never told you my surname.”

  He moved his king back into check. “I apologize. I did not mean to presume, but my upbringing emphasized proper address, and I…” He fell silent, staring at the board.

  “You are unhappy with yourself for using my name.”

  “One doesn’t like to intrude. Might we discuss this?” He held out a hand, and Matilda took it.

  She ignored the pleasure of touching a man she esteemed greatly, ignored the even simpler joy of clasping hands with another human being. Mr. Wentworth had spoken her name, a name she’d not used since fleeing London and had told to no one.

  He’d used her name, and that made Duncan Wentworth her enemy.

  * * *

  Stephen had the same capacity for utter absorption that Matilda Wakefield had, though with Stephen, the physical signs of concentration were harder to discern.

  Matilda bit her lip.

  She blinked, she frowned. She sighed and scowled.

  The composure she habitually wore like one of her blasted shawls fell away when she played chess, leaving a brilliant mind and a lovely woman on display. Her fingertips were calloused, and a fading scar across the back of her left wrist looked like a healing burn. Duncan had been as fascinated with her hands as he had with her plundering rooks and charging knights.

  “Stephen has a theory,” Duncan said. “He has many theories, and this one might have merit. May I join you?”

  He’d led her to the sofa. When she gestured to the place beside her, he took it. People seated side by side need not maintain eye contact, which made confession easier on all concerned.

  “Lord Stephen offered me passage to anywhere I chose,” Matilda replied, “provided I’m willing to wait until next week for his coin to arrive.”

  Thanks be to the Almighty for the sorry state of English roads. “You are tempted to leave. You’ve been here little more than a fortnight, and you are tempted to leave Brightwell.”

  Leave me.

  “I don’t want to,” she said, “but my situa
tion is complicated.”

  Duncan waited, reassured by both her reluctance to depart and her admission.

  “If I tell you the whole,” she said, “you are implicated in something that might be criminal, seriously criminal. If I tell you nothing, you will think I have no regard for you and am merely intent on abusing your hospitality until it suits me to abandon my post.”

  No frowns, sighs, or scowls gave Duncan any clue to the emotions weighting these words. This was an opening gambit Matilda had mentally rehearsed many times.

  “Can you tell me anything?”

  She toyed with the fringe of her shawl. “I want to, but my silence protects you.”

  “Does your silence protect others?”

  “Yes.”

  Damn and blast those others for allowing a woman on her own to carry this burden. “You told me the law was not pursuing you.”

  “Not the magistrates and runners, not that variety of law.”

  “And no husband searches for you?” Duncan needed to be certain of this.

  “No husband, but we’ve discussed my erstwhile fiancé. You have no wife, I take it?”

  That Matilda would ask gratified him inordinately. “I did, briefly, long ago. She did not live to see her eighteenth birthday. Ours was a cordial union of near-strangers. I do not regret taking those vows, and I hope my late spouse is at peace.” Informing Quinn of that brief marriage had been excruciating, though admitting the tale to Matilda was a relief.

  “I was married once,” she said, smoothing her shawl over her skirts. “That union was also brief, and while I don’t regret my choice, my husband was…cordial is a good word. He was cordially distracted much of time, fascinated with clocks, music boxes, and automatons. I have always longed for a home of my own, and my present fiancé—let’s call him Alphonse—took notice of that yearning. He would allude to someday, when he had a proper household, when the children came along, when his life was more settled, and with each casual comment, he was watching for a reaction from me. I did not realize he was courting my dreams until too late.”

  “You’ve traveled much.”

  “Yes, which to a man of your background must be obvious. Tell me of Lord Stephen’s theory.”

  She’d traveled much and longed to settle, while Duncan was forced to bide at Brightwell and longed to wander—a puzzle for another day.

  “Stephen says that if we wish to disclose a secret, we find ways to do that, even if we don’t admit our wish to ourselves. I mentioned your name, for example, though I was determined to maintain a respectful silence on that topic.”

  Duncan wished to take Matilda’s hand. She had allowed him to take her hand to escort her across the room, and she had bid him to join her on the sofa. She’d kissed him on the cheek, once upon a time.

  “I hope I haven’t disclosed any secrets to Lord Stephen.”

  Duncan twined his fingers with hers, lest she bolt away. “You permitted him to peruse your Book of Common Prayer, and therein, he saw your name, date of birth, your parents’ names, and the parish where you were christened. He conveyed that information to me and to me alone.”

  Matilda pressed her forehead against Duncan’s arm. “I cannot believe I was that foolish. I cannot fathom how…I must leave. I must burn that blasted book, and I must leave. I dare not wait for Lord Stephen’s coin. I should decamp this very night.”

  No, she should not. “You carried your prayer book to prove your identity, if the need arose.”

  She drew back enough to regard him. “I also carried that prayer book in case somebody had to identify my remains.”

  Duncan considered that salvo, which was in itself a significant gesture of trust. “You are in a very great lot of trouble, Matilda Wakefield. You had better tell me the whole of it.”

  Her gaze fell on the chess set, and Duncan braced himself for a combination of lies and truth, all couched amid a truly perplexing set of puzzles.

  Firstly: What other varieties of law could reach into the English countryside, if not magistrates and runners?

  Secondly: Was Matilda protecting family, and, if so, from whom?

  Thirdly: If, in fact, the wisest course was for Matilda to flee to a distant corner of the earth, would she allow Duncan to flee with her?

  “I am embroiled in a situation that has consequences at the highest levels, Mr. Wentworth, though my involvement began unintentionally. If I share with you what I know, you cannot claim the same innocence and will find yourself embroiled along with me.”

  Stubborn woman. She’d fit right in among the Wentworths. “I enjoy nothing so much as a conundrum, which you apparently face. Embroil me, Miss Wakefield.”

  She rose and paced across the room. “You must not call me that. Not when Lord Stephen could barge in here, not when a servant could listen at the keyhole. For all anybody knows, I stole that prayer book or purchased it used. I am Matilda to you, or Miss Maddie, but never Miss Wakefield.”

  She’d expressed a wish to study their chess game, but now she was taking pieces off the board, lining them up in order of rank. Her white pawns, Duncan’s black pawns. Her bishop, knight, rook, and queen, her king.

  “Matilda,” Duncan said, getting to his feet, despite the protest from his right knee. “Please calm yourself. You have made a minor slip by letting Stephen see your prayer book. He will carry your identity to his grave if need be, as will I. I’d rather not. I’d rather see you free of the burdens you carry, else I shall never have an opportunity to properly court you.”

  She went still, Duncan’s king in her hand. “Did I hear you aright, Mr. Wentworth?”

  “My name is Duncan. Your hearing is excellent.”

  She set the king down slowly, right next to the white queen. “You seek to court me?”

  “I most assuredly do.”

  Based on the lady’s expression, this disclosure astonished her almost as much as it surprised Duncan.

  * * *

  The coachman and grooms, borrowed from Parker’s titled older brother, were unhappy to be poking around the countryside, and Parker was unhappy as well.

  “She’s below middling height, dark-haired, and pretty, though not stunning,” Parker said.

  The squint-eyed old fellow minding the tollbooth scratched under his cap. “Pretty, shortish, dark hair. That certainly narrows it down, guv, and you say she came this way sometime in the last four months?”

  If Matilda had come that way at all. London sat at the confluence of many roads and could be escaped through dozens of turnpikes. Foot traffic often skirted the tollbooths, and Matilda was also a competent horsewoman.

  “Or perhaps in the last two weeks.”

  The old man shot a glance at the coachman, the same glance Parker had seen passed among enlisted men: Did you know yon gentleman is an idiot?

  Parker was traveling out of uniform, the better to blend in among the hunt crowd and the squires. “She would have been intent on reaching a ducal property to the west of here, one that changed hands in the past few years.”

  “A ducal property sits at the end of every cow path this close to London, sir, and they change hands every time some old buzzard goes to his reward.”

  The pikesman spoke patiently, which Parker supposed was more than he deserved. “This is my card. If you should happen across a female traveling either direction, one who appears to be a lady fallen on hard times, dark-haired, petite, please notify me. She might be speaking a language other than English, but you’ll notice her comprehension of English is excellent.”

  Parker’s card disappeared unread into a pocket, suggesting literacy was not required of his majesty’s tollkeepers.

  “Why might you be looking for the young miss, sir? Is she a fugitive from the bench?”

  The old man was apparently impervious to the cold, while Parker’s toes were turning to ice. “She’s not a fugitive, and there’s no reward…”

  A coach horse stomped, the harness jingling in the frigid, gray air. Parker realized his error while
the tollkeeper examined the bare trees lining both sides of the road.

  “There’s half a crown in it,” Parker went on, “for the person who leads me to her. We are sweethearts, and her father has tried to come between us, but she’s of age, and so, obviously, am I.”

  A clearly unimpressed perusal of Parker’s person followed. “‘For aught that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth.’ I’ll keep an eye out for your lady, guv. Best be on your way now. Snow’s coming.”

  The tollkeeper raised the turnpike and waved to the coachman, who took up the reins. The groom clambered onto the back of the carriage, while Parker lingered, wondering what else he might have said, asked, or threatened to improve the odds of finding his intended.

  “John Coachman,” he called, “pull up at the next inn we pass that caters to the wealthy.”

  The coachman nodded, his hands full of a team eager to be down the road. Parker climbed into the coach, the footman closed the door, and the next instant, the team was trotting off to the west.

  Parker’s past dozen stops had been fruitless, and the next dozen likely would be as well, but at a fancy coaching inn, he would doubtless find a copy of Debrett’s. With some study, he could create a list of dukes who’d died in the past ten years, and their holdings immediately to the west of London.

  The list couldn’t be that long, and through diligence and determination, Parker would flush dear Matilda from her covert before she stumbled into a dire fate on her own.

  * * *

  For years, Duncan had told himself he wasn’t like the other Wentworths. His cousins were a noisy, bickering lot toward whom he felt a reluctant affection while maintaining a dignified distance. Long before becoming a duke, Quinn Wentworth had presided over that branch of the family like a papa lion. For the most part, he pretended an aloofness that fooled nobody. Let one of his siblings be threatened, and he roared into the affray. Where those Wentworths went, some sort of mayhem was always in progress. The cousins could be impulsive, unpredictable, bold, and self-centered. They had a morality all their own, and seldom apologized or looked back.