How to Ruin a Duke: A Novella Duet

by Grace Burrowes

  “Your Grace, I do not mean to be rude, but I have been more than patient with your accusations. I did not write that blasted book, and if your interrogation is at an end, then you really should be going.”

  He should. This was her abode, he was a guest, and he’d overstayed his welcome. He bowed. “Thank you for your time. Good day.”

  She held the door for him, and then he was back out in the afternoon sunshine, enduring what looked like a pitying gaze from the hound by the fountain.

  “Facts in contradiction, dog. They vex me.”

  A thick tail thumped once, then the beast sighed and went back to napping. Thaddeus tarried in the neighborhood for a few moments, taking stock of Lady Edith’s situation and considering possibilities.

  For the three minutes he’d been in her house, he’d remained politely in her foyer, if the cramped space near her front door could be called that. A parlor had sat off to the left of the foyer, a worn loveseat, mismatched reading chair, and a desk the sum total of the furnishings therein. The carpet, a faded circle barely six feet across, might have been woven in the days of Good King Hal, and the andirons hadn’t been blackened within living memory.

  The desk though, had been tidy and ready for use. The blotter had boasted a stack of foolscap, a standish, a bottle of sand, and spare ink as well as a wooden pen tray. Perhaps Lady Edith did have literary aspirations…

  Or perhaps her brother, the gentleman of letters without portfolio, had turned the recollections of a duchess’s companion into a popular satire regarding her former employer. That theory fit the facts, or most of them, and wanted further study.

  Once upon a time, Foster would have occupied the loveseat like a proper young gentleman, eager to slip any commonplace into a polite conversation. When he’d come into Edith’s life as a shy four-year-old, she—who’d reached the age of fourteen without any siblings—had been enthralled with him. He had been so little, dear, and earnest.

  Also lost. A small boy without a father was easily lost, which Papa, to his credit, had tried to rectify. His manner with Foster had been avuncular and affectionate, if somewhat offhand. Then Papa had died without making any provision for his fourteen-year-old step-son, and Foster’s earnestness had faded into moodiness and impulsivity.

  Now, he lounged on the loveseat, half-reclining, one leg slung over the armrest, morning sun revealing the adult he had become when Edith had been too busy humoring a cranky duchess.

  “Breaking bread with a duke,” he mused, one stockinged foot swinging. “Any chance of getting your old post back?”

  “I would not accept my old post if Emory begged me on bended knee.” Though the only time Emory would go down on one knee would be to propose to his duchess. He’d observe all the protocol—flowers, cordial notes, the carriage parade—which only made the tales told about him in How to Ruin a Duke more difficult to believe.

  “You might have no choice but to apply for your old post,” Foster said, “though I could come by some coin by the end of the week. Not a lot, but some, and it could turn into steady work.”

  His eyes were closed. He’d been out quite late, as was his habit, leaving Edith home alone and fretting.

  “You won’t tell me the nature of your employment?”

  He smiled without opening his eyes. “Not yet. You’ll be appalled. Tell me more about Emory’s predicament.”

  Edith drove her needle through the toe of Foster’s second pair of white stockings. Darning his stockings had become an almost daily chore, and yet, what sort of work would he find if he couldn’t leave the house attired as a gentleman?

  “You want to gloat at His Grace’s misfortune. He isn’t distressed for himself, Foster, he’s distressed for his family.”

  “I’m distressed for my family. Those plum tarts were divine, Edie. We shouldn’t be depending on a duke’s charity to keep us in plum tarts.”

  “I’ll pawn my earbobs.”

  Foster scrubbed his hands over his face and sat up. “You shall not part with your mother’s earbobs. You’ve accepted Emory’s charity and that’s bad enough.”

  “Not charity.” His Grace had been quite firm on that point. “Appreciation for my insights. The duke prevented a fortune hunter from compromising Miss Antigone Banner and Miss Antigone did not appreciate her cousin’s meddling. His Grace had forgotten that. I also pointed out that the duchess might be trying to inspire her son to take a bride, and now that I think on it, the duke also has several boy cousins at university who might consider publishing that book a lark.”

  “Where are my boots?”

  Edith knotted off her thread. “Wherever you left them. I suspect within three yards of your bed.” Foster’s entire bedroom was barely three yards square.

  “Did you mention those boy cousins to the duke?”

  “I did not. Emory is loath to think ill of his family.” That was not quite true. The duke was loath to admit his family’s faults. Not quite the same thing.

  “The whole book doesn’t make sense to me,” Foster said, rising. “You described Emory to me in detail on many occasions. His religious fervor for reform, his disdain for the frequently inebriated, his exasperation with Lord Jeremiah, and yet, the fellow in How to Ruin a Duke is a sot who makes foolish wagers and takes even more foolish risks.”

  An eighteen-year-old might be impulsive and broody, but loyalty to his gender had not yet afflicted him with the blinders he’d acquire later in adulthood.

  “You put your finger on a troubling point.” Edith snipped the thread right at the knot and rolled the stocking into a cylinder. “The Emory I know never sang other than to move his lips in church to a lot of dusty old hymns. The ruined duke accepted a bet to sing God Save the King at midnight outside Almack’s.”

  Foster tugged at his shirt cuffs, which were an inch shorter than fashion required. “And he won the wager. Did Emory imply that the incidents recounted in the book never happened?”

  Edith thought back over yesterday’s conversation. She’d been so peevish at the time, so out of sorts and mortified, she’d mostly been intent on getting free of Emory’s company.

  “He never once claimed the book’s narrative was untrue, now that you mention it.” And the rest of Foster’s point—that the ruined duke bore little resemblance to the duke Edith knew—was also puzzling.

  Foster used the mantel to balance himself for a series of slow demi-pliés, such as a fencer might make prior to a match.

  “You should take pity on a wealthy peer and help Emory solve his mystery, Edie. He’ll bumble about like a drunken footman in a china closet, overlooking the obvious, offending the blameless, and getting nowhere.”

  A slow pirouette followed the pliés, the movement accenting Foster’s height and the muscles he’d been developing in recent months. Such grace should have been on display at Almack’s, not that Edith had ever applied for vouchers.

  “I’m not offended that he’d question me,” she said. “I am a logical suspect.” Though so too was His Grace’s friend and fellow duke, Wrexham, Duke of Elsmore. Elsmore’s reputation was one of scrupulous integrity—his family was involved in banking—but then, Emory enjoyed the same reputation.

  Or he had, prior to the book’s publication. And who knew what constituted a jest among dukes?

  “Who else might have written that book, Edie?”

  She took up the second stocking and examined it for tears or holes. “Emory has countless opponents in the Lords, which means countless more MPs don’t like his politics. His younger cousins at university would know all the family stories, as would any close companion to Lord Jeremiah. Emory went to public school and university with peers and heirs, and many of them might enjoy a joke at His Grace’s expense.”

  Foster swung his leg like a bell-clapper, his bare foot brushing the floor. “Now you think the author is a man?”

  “I don’t know. All the incidents recounted are the sort of idiocy men get up to when unchaperoned by ladies. Are you training to be a dancer,
Foster?” Male dancers were few and usually French.

  “I am not, but I do enjoy watching dancers rehearse and perform. Emory should pay you to solve his mystery. Send him a note, tell him you’ve had a few more ideas. He’ll be back on our doorstep like Galahad on the scent of a meat pie.”

  The last of the cheese and bread would be Edith’s fare for the day, unless she walked to market and spent the coins she’d hoarded for coach fare the previous day.

  “Mr. Ventnor wants me to send samples of my work.” A silver lining, though delivering those samples meant another trek through the London crowds.

  “Then send them, you must. Perhaps you could interest him in a sequel to How to Ruin a Duke. Surely you know tales regarding Lord Jeremiah or the duchess that the public would enjoy?”

  The second stocking was still in good repair, and thank heavens for that, because Edith hadn’t much thread left.

  “What makes you think of a sequel?”

  “How to Ruin a Duke is wildly popular, Edie. I wish you had written it. You’ve a way with a pen, you know the material, and polite society hasn’t exactly treated you well. I’m just a common orphan, grateful for the charity your family has shown me, but you are a lady in more than name. You ought not to be hoarding cheese to have with your cold potatoes.”

  Rare temper colored Foster’s words, though he switched from the swinging, loose sweeps of his leg to tracing a wide half-circle on the floor with his pointed toe.

  For all his sleek muscle, he was skinny, now that Edith took the time to observe him in morning light. “Take the cheese and the last plum tart with you when you go out.”

  “I’ll take some of the cheese, but you shall have the plum tart. You earned it by enduring Emory’s company.”

  “The duke was unfailingly polite.” Though unfailingly high-handed too. Edith didn’t much mind the highhandedness when the result was good food in the house for the first time in ages. “Foster, you aren’t up to anything untoward in your efforts to find employment, are you?”

  He sauntered away from the mantel, pushing his hair from his eyes. “If I could find a situation as a cicisbeo, Edie, I’d take it, but English society hasn’t the breadth of mind to tolerate such arrangements.”

  How bitter he sounded for a man of barely eighteen. “Don’t compromise your honor for my sake, Foster.”

  He collected the stockings from her. “I won’t if you won’t, Edie. If that duke comes sniffing around again, he will mind his manners, I don’t care how lofty his title is. Extract some coin from him to solve his mystery, but if he thinks to take advantage of your circumstances, I’ll write a theatrical that makes How to Ruin a Duke look like a collection of dessert recipes. I’m peddling a script for a play, and so far, the reception has been very positive. Drury Lane promised me a decision by week’s end.”

  “A play?”

  “A farce. Something to make people laugh when life doesn’t go their way. I’ll be out late.”

  Again. “Best of luck with the play. I’m sure it’s brilliant.”

  He bowed, then left the room with a dramatic flourish, waving the un-darned stocking for comic effect.

  Foster had a way with a pen, he’d heard all of Edith’s recollections of life in Emory’s household, and Foster would know which pubs to frequent to chat up His Grace’s footmen and grooms.

  Oh, dear. Oh, drat and damnation. Edith put away her sewing, went to the desk, and took out pencil and paper.

  “The book should have been a nine days’ wonder,” Thaddeus said. “A bit of tattle for those moments when Prinny refuses to oblige us with a scandal.”

  “Which moments are those?” Wrexham, Duke of Elsmore asked, lounging back in the club’s well-padded dining chair. “Pass me the wine. It’s quite good. I’m sure the author is thrilled to be enjoying weeks rather than days of notoriety.”

  Thaddeus set the Bordeaux near Elsmore’s plate. The wine was good, though too fruity to be an an optimal complement to the boeuf à la mode. “That brings us back to the question: Who is the author?”

  Elsmore topped up both glasses. “You won’t let this rest.”

  “If you were the butt of an ongoing scandal, one that threatened to escalate, would you let it rest?”

  “Of course not, but scandal that touches me touches my bank and my darling sisters. You have neither sisters nor a bank, so why not enjoy being perceived as something other than the Duke of Dullards?”

  The schoolyard nickname had followed Emory ever since he’d taken successive firsts in Latin. “I have a brother and a mother, and the last thing Jeremiah needs is a reason to dismiss me as a good example. Half the incidents in the dratted book were situations he embroiled me in.”

  Elsmore held his wineglass up to the candles in the center of the table. “What does he say about possible authors?”

  Thaddeus pushed the bowl before him aside. The fare was delicious, but what was Lady Edith dining on this evening?

  “Jeremiah is vastly entertained by the whole situation. Maybe an impecunious friend plied him with spirits on occasion simply to hear his lordship expound on matters best kept private. From there to cobbling together a book takes only time and a well stocked desk.”

  Elsmore took Thaddeus’s unfinished portion and poured it into his own bowl. “Lord Jeremiah seems to be friends with half of London. What are you doing with that bread, Emory?”

  “I put butter on it.”

  “And then you made a butter sandwich with another slice. I can say honestly that in all the years I’ve known you, which are getting to be more than either of us should admit, I’ve never seen you make a butter sandwich at table.”

  “I don’t know as I’ve ever made a butter sandwich before.” Thaddeus had been thinking of Lady Edith having to choose between hackney fare and a proper meal. “I met with my mother’s former companion yesterday. We shared a luncheon.”

  “Lady Edith?”

  “The very one. She might be the author of the damned book.” Thaddeus took a bite of his butter sandwich, because he could not very well stuff it into his pocket with Elsmore looking on, nor could he have it sent to her ladyship with compliments from His Grace of Dullards.

  “Does her ladyship hate you?” Elsmore asked.

  “I don’t think so.” Thaddeus hoped not, in fact.

  “Then she doesn’t.”

  “You’re an authority on females now, Elsmore, and you such a legendary bachelor?”

  “I am blessed with three sisters, a mama, plus aunties and female cousins without number. I am an authority on disgruntled females. Why do you believe Lady Edith wrote the book?”

  “After my conversation with her, I’m fairly certain she couldn’t have.” Bread and butter was good food. Thaddeus had stuffed his maw with it countless times and never appreciated just how good.

  “Because she doesn’t hate you? You should consider courting her.”

  Elsmore had been at the wine enthusiastically, but he was a good-sized fellow whom Thaddeus had never seen drunk.

  “Court her simply because she doesn’t hate me? Town is full of women who don’t hate me.”

  “You hope. Lady Edith could make your dear mama laugh, something I daresay you and Lord Jeremiah don’t do often enough. Not a quality to be overlooked by a bachelor duke battling undeserved scandal.”

  Thaddeus took another bite of his butter sandwich. “Her ladyship carries a copy of Glenarvon in her reticule to use as a club.” He liked knowing she’d taken that precaution, but he detested that she had to racket about London without so much as a footman to see to her safety.

  “Best possible use for that tome. I suppose a lady’s companion hears all the family tales belowstairs, doesn’t she?”

  “Lady Edith is also well read, and more to the point, she hasn’t another post. She would need the money such a story should be earning, and if she’s not trotting after some crotchety beldame, she’d have the time to do the writing.”

  Elsmore gestured with his fork. “
Maybe she came into an inheritance. Women do.”

  “She ate as if famished, Elsmore, as we used to eat at public school, watching the food on our plates lest it disappear before we could consume it. I had the kitchen send the leftovers along with us when I walked her ladyship home. That food did not go to waste.”

  Elsmore set aside his now-empty bowl. “You carried leftovers across London like some ticket porter? That is a fact in contradiction to everything I know of you, my friend. If Lady Edith is truly short of funds, perhaps she’d accept an arrangement that benefits both parties.”

  Thaddeus’s own thoughts had wandered in that direction, late of a solitudinous night. He did not castigate himself for noticing an attractive female, much less one who put him in his place as easily as she dropped a curtsey.

  “Her ladyship would fillet me if I even hinted at such a proposition.” Which made her refreshingly different from the widows and duchesses-in-waiting who all but sat in Thaddeus’s lap to gain his attention. The odd thing was, Lady Edith, in her horrid pink cloak and tired bonnet was more interesting to him than any heiress or courtesan had ever been.

  Her ladyship could talk about something other than the weather, fashion, or gossip. She had common sense and a tart tongue, and how had Thaddeus all but failed to notice her for the two years she’d been a member of his household?

  But then, he knew how: She’d taken consistent, well thought out measures not to be noticed. A quiet manner, drab attire, unremarkable conversation. Just as she’d weighted her reticule with a hidden means of defense, so too had she avoided catching Thaddeus’s eye.

  “Not that sort of arrangement,” Elsmore said, lowering his voice. “Lady Edith knows your family and your social circle, she would respect your confidences, and you’ve already explained the problem to her. Offer her something she values in exchange for her assistance tracking down the author of How to Ruin a Duke. You could doubtless find her another post, for example.”