When a Duchess Says I Do

by Grace Burrowes

  “Maybe Lord Atticus hasn’t met the right woman,” Jane said. “Did you know your Matilda is a duchess?”

  The unhappy infant was making enough racket that Duncan wasn’t sure he’d heard Jane clearly. He took Artemis upon his knee and gently bounced the child in rhythm with the coach’s movement.

  “Did you say that Matilda is a duchess?” She’d failed to note the details of her marriage in her Book of Common Prayer, which volume Duncan had had packed with his own effects for this journey.

  Though perhaps to Matilda, a man’s titled status didn’t signify.

  “She married a duke,” Jane said, “either Danish or German, I forget which. The poor fellow didn’t last long, but Matilda is the Dowager Duchess of Bosendorf.”

  Of course she was a duchess. The castle, the house full of servants she’d managed, the husband with the leisure time to make automatons…

  “This fact weighs against the notion that Parker was smitten with her,” Duncan said. “Dowager duchesses tend to be financially secure and very well connected.”

  “As is the younger brother of a marquess.”

  The baby was cooing now, while Duncan’s knee had begun to ache. Another vague connection teased at his awareness, something about younger sons of the aristocracy.

  “Why do the children always behave for you?” Jane asked. “Even Quinn hasn’t your ability to charm that baby.”

  “Quinn is a duke. I am a mere teacher. He has authority by virtue of his status, while I must enchant with knowledge and the promise of eventually imparting some skills. I do believe Lady Artemis has your smile, Jane.”

  “What will you do about Parker?”

  “I’d like to put out his lights, but then, he doubtless believes he’s rescuing Matilda from a dire fate.” And his belief might be accurate.

  “You aren’t convinced of that?”

  Duncan passed the now-smiling infant to her mama. “I doubt Parker will keep his peace regarding the fact that Thomas Wakefield was in possession of compromising information, though I’m troubled by one aspect of the situation in particular.”

  In fact, Duncan was troubled by every aspect of the situation.

  “What would that be?”

  The coach slowed, suggesting a change of teams was in the offing, or that Stephen was inquiring at another inn regarding a certain colonel.

  “Parker had to have read the translated notes Matilda made regarding the intercepted message,” Duncan said. “She put them in a desk drawer, but those locks are laughably easy to pick. Why is Wakefield still at large?”

  The lights of an innyard came into view, illuminating Stephen still in the saddle, in conversation with a hostler.

  “You’re trying to make some point of logic,” Jane said. “I left my logic back at Brightwell, along with my ambitions for a good night’s rest.”

  “Colonel Parker is a loyal soldier. He stumbled across sensitive information in the wrong place, if Matilda’s conjectures are to be believed. That information, at the least, put Thomas Wakefield’s loyalties in doubt. Parker has had months to incriminate Wakefield without any mention of Matilda’s role, and has apparently refrained from doing so.”

  The coach came to a halt and the usual shouting for a fresh team, hot bricks, and a quick pint for the lads ensued.

  “Are you suggesting Parker has an agenda other than staunch loyalty to the Crown?” Jane asked.

  “Perhaps Parker’s sole priority is protecting Matilda’s good name, but if so, he’s joined the growing legions who’ve either abetted treason or become accessories after the fact.”

  The innyard was lit with torches, which reflected on the muddy snow. Stephen passed his flask to the hostler, then bent low in the saddle when the hostler spoke to him.

  “Have you another theory?” Jane asked.

  Duncan had dozens, some leading to misery, some to tragedy. “Another theory is that Parker has notified his superiors regarding the whole mess, and they have directed him to curry favor with Wakefield and pretend to be the concerned suitor. When Parker can promise his generals that not only should Wakefield be arrested, but also Wakefield’s daughter and his staff, then the trap will be sprung.”

  “Is Matilda to be the bait that inspires Wakefield’s confession?”

  “Possibly.”

  Stephen was tasked with making inquiries at each inn along the way. So far, the grand coach with an odd wheel had kept up a good clip in the direction of London. Thank the heavenly powers that Jinks had spotted that odd wheel on Parker’s conveyance, for that detail had made tracking the vehicle much simpler.

  Stephen directed his horse across the muddy yard and came to a halt beside the coach window. “Parker is here,” he said, quietly. “I let on that I was trying to reach London ahead of my friend, a colonel traveling with his wife, likely using a crested coach with the panels turned and one replacement wheel. The colonel and his wife have retired to separate rooms, though his colonelship is demanding brandy, a writing desk, and the inn’s best paper.”

  Duncan surveyed the innyard, the edifice facing it, and the stables flanking the far side of the yard. Light shone from one window about twenty feet up on the side of the inn across from the stables.

  “Matilda will be in that room,” he said, nodding. “That’s the busy side of the innyard, also a virtual tower for anybody intent on escape. A sheer drop, no handy tree to climb down, no balcony to secure the sheets to. With one man watching from the stables and another posted outside her door, she’ll be a virtual prisoner.”

  “That’s two men,” Stephen said, gaze on the only upper window giving any light. “We have four times that number. We can simply demand to speak with her—”

  Duncan shook his head. “We have something better than a duke’s loyal minions.”

  “We have a man in love?” Jane asked.

  “That too. Jane, you will please invade yonder inn demanding that you and your offspring be treated in the fashion to which any duchess is accustomed. Stephen, you will be the petulant knight lordling. John Coachman, like the stalwart rook, will be a tower of indignation over the inadequacies of every team that’s led out from the stables.”

  “While you do what?” Stephen asked. “Pray for us like a bishop?”

  “To blazes with the bishops. I will advance a pawn who is almost as loyal to my queen as I am.”

  * * *

  The inn’s staff had apparently been told that Matilda was not to be disturbed. She paced the confines of her room, unable to sleep, unable to organize her thoughts. Traffic in the innyard had slowed, but the mail coaches and other conveyances continued to straggle through despite the darkness.

  Wild schemes flitted around in her imagination: Wait for a coach to pass beneath the window and leap onto its roof…except, no coaches came that close to the building, and if she missed her target, she’d end up seriously injured. If she did manage to land squarely on the roof of a moving vehicle, she’d doubtless be returned to Parker as an hysterical female in want of the loving protection of her fiancé—or husband, as Parker had styled himself.

  What if she protested the marriage ceremony? Would Parker have her arrested while a priest looked on? Would Parker have Papa arrested?

  A commotion in the innyard drew her attention to the window. A coachman and a hostler were having a disagreement, the coachman contending that the team led out would never do for Her Grace.

  Was another duchess on the premises? Parker had pointedly refrained from referring to Matilda by either her name or her title.

  The hostler gestured to the horses and to a large coach sitting amid the slush and mud of the innyard. The conveyance was majestic, a crest emblazoned on the door.

  “The Duchess of Walden does not tolerate puny wheelers or lame leaders!” the coachman bellowed. “Either present me with adequate cattle, or you’ll hear from His Grace of Walden in no uncertain terms.”

  A shiver prickled over Matilda’s skin. Had she been meant to hear this altercation?
Duncan’s family held the Walden title, and that man with two canes making an awkward progress across the yard had to be Lord Stephen. Anxiety and despair buffeted her, for surely Duncan was pursuing her, and surely that would not end well.

  She studied the innyard, which had stirred to life with the arrival of a second crested coach. A woman got out holding hands with a small girl, a second woman climbed down with a child in her arms. A youth scrambled off the box and went to hold the reins of the on-side leader.

  Instinct prodded Matilda to look elsewhere, to resist the curiosity stirred by arrivals and altercations.

  Duncan stood in the shadows of the stable’s eaves, his stillness alone calling attention to him. He’d had the same stillness at the chessboard, which convinced Matilda that his appearance at the inn was not a coincidence.

  Nor did it bode well.

  A raised voice came from the corridor, the words indistinct. A moment later, Matilda’s door opened and a small boy in a knit cap bustled in carrying a bucket of coal.

  “What sort of inn would this be if we let a lady’s hearth go cold?” the lad groused. “For shame if this fine establishment should be disgraced, and all because some nob hasn’t got the sense God gave a senile hound. The guest will have her coal or my name isn’t Duncan Stephens.”

  The boy’s name was Hiram Jingle, and he was doing a fine impersonation of a sulky under-footman.

  “The room is chilly,” Matilda said, for the benefit of Parker’s footman, who was lurking in the doorway and looking annoyed. “Please thank the innkeeper for his consideration.”

  Jinks made a racket, dumping coal, poking it about on the hearth, sweeping ashes from the bricks.

  “Some folk don’t know how to treat a lady,” Jinks muttered. “Other folk would rather die than see a woman distressed unnecessarily.”

  Oh, Duncan.

  “I much prefer that sort of fellow,” Matilda said, “the sort who has a consideration for a woman’s well-being. Rough louts who leave a lady’s fire to go out, so she shivers all alone by the hour, should be made to pay for their inconsideration.”

  The footman had the grace to tromp back to his post in the corridor.

  “Perhaps you’d like a tea tray, ma’am?” Jinks asked. “Nothing like a nice hot cuppa tea to end the day. The kitchen’s all in a lather over some duchess and her brats, but I’m sure we could send you up a tray.”

  That was for the benefit of the footman, who’d doubtless be curious about a duchess in the house.

  “A nice hot cup of tea would be agreeable. Hughes,” Matilda called to the footman, “a tea tray, if you please.”

  “Finish up, boy,” Hughes said. “You can tell the kitchen to send the lady a tray.”

  “I don’t take orders from you, guv,” Jinks said, “and you’re letting out all the warm air.”

  Hughes withdrew, but left the door ajar, as a proper guard would.

  “You heading to London?” Jinks asked, making another pass with the hearth broom.

  “With all possible speed,” Matilda replied. “We’d be there by now but for a lame horse.”

  “The muddy going is hard on the beasts, but never fear. If that pair of ducal barges can navigate the king’s highway by moonlight, you’ll reach your destination tomorrow.”

  Duncan was going ahead into London. Why?

  “I’ve never enjoyed Town in winter,” Matilda said. “The coal smoke turns everything gray and hopeless.”

  Jinks dumped the ashes into the dustbin. “Spring comes, ma’am. Spring always comes. Don’t lose hope. Sunny days will come around again.”

  Matilda approached the hearth and held her hands out to the rejuvenated fire. “He means to marry me tomorrow, Jinks,” she said very softly. “The colonel says he seeks to protect me.” Though such protection would also break her heart, if protection it was.

  “What should I tell the others?”

  “I can’t marry Atticus Parker, and I can’t let him arrest my father.”

  “Mr. Wentworth won’t let him arrest you.”

  “He more or less already has.”

  The door scraped open. “Begone, boy.” Hughes jerked his thumb toward the stairs. “The lady needs her rest.”

  “A body won’t find any rest in a freezing cold room,” Jinks retorted. “You ever tried to fall asleep when you’re shiverin’? Can’t be done.” He gathered up his empty bucket and gave the hearth a visual inspection. “Some people would thank me for tending to my duties, might even pass me a copper or two for being so conscientious. Other people is idiots what disgrace their livery.”

  “Thank you for the coal,” Matilda said. “You give me hope that chivalry is not dead.”

  “’T’weren’t nothin’.” Jinks touched the brim of his cap, bowed, and strutted from the room.

  Hughes drew the door closed after him without sparing Matilda so much as a glance.

  She went to the window, where a fresh set of hot bricks was being loaded into the floors of the ducal conveyances. Hostlers backed prancing teams into the traces of both coaches, and some moments later, the nursemaids, one for each child, trooped from the inn into the second coach. A woman escorted by Lord Stephen emerged from the inn, a baby in her arms.

  Fussing and shouting ensued, a footman trotted across the yard with a hamper in each hand and passed one into each coach. How many times had Matilda enacted this scene with Papa all over the Continent?

  And had all that racketing about from capital to capital been to further the agenda of a spy?

  Duncan emerged from the shadows of the stable, and closed the door of the coach housing the two children and their maids. A boy in a cap scrambled onto the bench of the lead coach as Lord Stephen handed his companion inside.

  Don’t leave me. Matilda wanted to fling open the window and shout that plea, even though it would bring Parker running.

  Duncan took one last look around the innyard, pulled on his gloves, and climbed into the first coach. He utterly ignored Matilda standing by her window, and she reciprocated by refusing to raise so much as a hand in parting. With a snap of the whip and a shout to the leaders, the coaches lurched forward, and disappeared into the darkness of the winter night.

  * * *

  “Matilda is not at Thomas Wakefield’s home and neither is her father,” Jane said. “If anybody should have been able to get answers from Wakefield’s staff, it’s a duchess making a social call and claiming to be interested in acquiring expensive art. The knocker was off the door, the butler’s livery was less than tidy. Jinks found an empty bay in the carriage house, and no traveling coach.”

  Duncan wanted to smash the porcelain figurines on the mantel of the duchess’s family parlor, his impulse partly a result of sheer fatigue.

  He and Jane had reached London after midnight, and neither of the servants dispatched to trail Parker’s coach had reported to the ducal town house despite morning being all but gone. Quinn was nosing about his clubs, listening for any gossip pertaining to Colonel Lord Atticus Parker, while Stephen…

  “Has Stephen come down yet?” Duncan asked.

  “I don’t believe he has.” Jane took a seat on the parlor’s red velvet sofa, her manner maddeningly serene. “He claims to love travel by horseback, but I suspect it taxes him.”

  A blond Viking of a footman brought in a tray laden with sandwiches and biscuits.

  “Thank you, Ivor,” Jane said. “Duncan, eat something. You slept through breakfast, or kept to your room to brood rather than partake. You can’t rescue Matilda on an empty stomach.”

  Duncan was beginning to wonder if he could rescue Matilda under any circumstances. He took a wing chair and let Jane set a plate before him rather than provoke the duchess to further scolds.

  Matilda was a duchess. Her Grace of Bosendorf, an imposing title, and fitting for a woman who’d held a gun on armed thieves and survived on her own in the English countryside for months.

  Too good a woman for Atticus Parker, regardless of the colonel’s no
ble motives.

  “Kristoff is below,” Ivor said, referring to one of the footmen who’d been tracking Parker’s coach. “If Your Grace wishes to speak with him—”

  “Send him up,” Duncan said, “and we don’t care if he’s sporting a day’s growth of beard and has horse manure on both boots.”

  “Spoken like a Wentworth,” Jane murmured. “Do as Mr. Wentworth says, Ivor.”

  The footman bowed and withdrew, nearly running into Quinn at the door.

  “You have news,” Duncan said, otherwise the duke would not have returned home.

  “I have news,” Quinn said, kissing Jane’s cheek and taking the place beside her. “I’m not sure it’s good news.” He reached for a sandwich.

  Duncan swatted his hand aside. “Report first, eat later.”

  Quinn’s glare was frigid, also the same posturing Duncan had seen him turn on arrogant lordlings and other heedless puppies. Duncan’s return glower was a promise of lingering death for any man who put sustenance above Matilda’s welfare.

  “Welcome to the family,” Quinn said, exchanging some sort of glance with Jane. “I had my doubts, but my duchess—as usual—had the right of it. I ran into Elsmore at the club.”

  “The Duke of Elsmore,” Jane said. “Bachelor, on the sensible side of thirty. Said to be wealthy, Quinn considers him trustworthy.”

  “He went to school with Lord Atticus,” Quinn went on. “Elsmore does not care for the man.”

  How Quinn had wrested that confidence from His Grace was a mystery known only among dukes, and Duncan frankly did not care if thumbscrews had been involved.

  “Does Elsmore envy the war hero a soldier’s glory?”

  “His Grace has no patience with bullies, with courtesy lords who terrorize the younger lads, who charge usurious interest on schoolyard loans, who forge a letter that nearly got another boy from a lesser family expelled.”

  And this wolf in war hero’s clothing had Matilda. “His Grace of Elsmore was a font of interesting information.”