Thaddeus didn’t want to find her another damned post, didn’t want her once again consigned to the conundrum of being neither servant nor family, but having the burdens of both statuses.
“I doubt she liked being Mama’s companion, but she does fancy herself as an author of domestic advice.”
Elmore finished his wine. “Offer to sponsor those aspirations. Have a word with a publisher on her behalf. You’re a duke. The publishers have to be polite to you.”
“Lady Edith wasn’t polite to me.” She’d twitted him, truth be told.
“Then you’d best pay a call on her before she accepts a post in Lesser Road Apple. She’s making you smile and inspiring you to fashioning butter sandwiches. She also had you traipsing about London with a sack of comestibles like her personal footman.”
“True enough.” And—most telling of all—she and her situation had kept Thaddeus awake half the night. “You have a point, Elsmore. That doesn’t happen often, so we should remark the rare occasion when it befalls us. You do have a point.”
Chapter Four
“If the Duke of Amorous asks you to dance, you should smile, curtsey, and run like the devil.”
From How to Ruin a Duke, by Anonymous
Rainy days were particularly vexing to Edith. Her half-boots did not keep her feet dry, she had neither umbrella nor parasol, and yet, if she wanted to procure something to eat, then go out, she must. Foster had sallied forth to do whatever he did of an early afternoon, while Edith had put off a trip to the nearest bake shop as long as she could.
“It’s not a downpour,” she muttered, donning her cloak. “More of a drizzle. Barely qualifies as rain.”
And yet, a London drizzle had a chilly, penetrating quality that wilted bonnets and spirits alike. She decided against her bonnet and instead took down the only other choice, a wide-brimmed straw hat left over from when she’d spent an occasional morning in Her Grace of Emory’s flower garden.
Edith tied the ribbons firmly under her chin—the wind was gusting most disagreeably—and gathered up her reticule.
“There and home in no time,” she said, gloved hand on the door latch.
A stout triple knock had her leaping back. Did bill collectors knock like that? She wasn’t behind on anything that she knew of, but Foster’s finances were mysterious to her.
Edith cracked the door to find a very wet Duke of Emory standing on her front porch. “Your Grace. Good day.”
“Might I come in? This deluge shows no signs of abating and I seem to have misplaced my ark.”
Water dripped from his hat brim, and the fragrance of his shaving soap blended with the scent of damp wool and… fresh bread?
“I am home alone,” Edith said, stepping aside. “You shouldn’t stay long.”
The temperature was dropping and the wind picking up. She really could not leave him on the stoop, nor did she want to let the house’s meager heat out by standing about with the door open.
“I will stay only long enough to complete my business. I brought food.” He held up a sack as Edith closed the door behind him. “You will accept the sustenance. I am hungry, I missed my nuncheon, and you would not be rude to a guest, would you?”
“Not until after we’ve eaten.” Edith took his greatcoat from his shoulders. The garment had three capes and weighed more than her entire wardrobe combined. “I can’t even offer you tea to go with the food, though.”
“No matter. I brought hot tea as well.”
Edith was torn between pleasure at the thought of another meal, dismay that Emory should again have evidence of her straitened circumstances, and—how lowering—pleasure at the simple sight of him. He was a connection to a better time, and as high-handed and imperious as he could be, he was also a gentleman.
He held doors for her.
He escorted her home when he’d no obligation to do so.
He’d thought to bring her food, and he’d arrived on foot—no carriage, even in the rain, which meant no coachman, grooms, or footmen on hand to speculate about the purpose of the call.
“We can eat at my desk,” Edith said. “I don’t keep the fire in the kitchen lit, so the front parlor is the warmest room in the house.”
His Grace did not peer around, wrinkle his nose, or otherwise indicate that a shabby little sitting room in any way offended his sensibilities. He passed Edith the sack of food, which weighed nearly as much as his coat had.
“I have another suggestion.” He lifted the side table, carried it into the parlor, and set it down before the loveseat. “That should suffice.”
Edith was too interested in the food to scold him for moving furniture without first asking permission. She withdrew a loaf of bread—still warm—and a crock of butter. A larger crock held beef stew seasoned with basil. The duke had also brought a wedge of cheese, tarts, what looked like a shepherd’s pie, and—bless him—a flask of tea.
“The tea has sugar in it,” he said. “I hope that will serve?”
“I’ll find us some cups.” Though all Edith had were mugs and they didn’t match.
“No need for that. We’ll share. Shall we sit?”
She took one side of the loveseat, he took the other, a cozy arrangement with a man of his proportions. The chop shop, bake shop, or pub where he’d procured this feast had sent along utensils and bowls, and in a few moments, Edith was consuming the best beef stew she’d ever tasted.
“Wherever did you find this? It’s delicious.”
“I have my sources. Try the tea.” He uncorked the flask and passed it to her.
“I’m to drink from the flask?”
“That’s the usual approach. Tally ho and all that.” He tore a portion of bread from the loaf, buttered it, and sopped it in his stew.
Edith tipped the flask to her lips, the hot, sweet tea a benediction on such a dreary day. She passed the duke the flask and felt slightly naughty to be sharing it with him. One small step past the bounds of formality reassured her that a few choices yet remained to her, however modest the resulting indulgence.
Emory tossed back some tea as if parlor picnics were a frequent item on his schedule.
“Still hot,” he said, buttering another chunk of bread. “I cannot abide tepid tea.” He passed Edith the bread reinforcing the sense of casual intimacy.
More than the tea and the food, the duke’s unexpected companionability made the meal a pleasure. Nobody warned a lady that poverty was a lonely undertaking. Edith did not call on those who had known her as the duchess’s companion. One didn’t presume, in the first place, and her wardrobe was no longer up to that challenge in the second.
“I’m told one usually consumes buttered bread,” the duke said. “Preferably while the bread is fresh, but save room for a pear tart.”
“I adore pear tarts.”
“One suspects you have a sweet tooth. Your secret is safe with me. Don’t let your soup get cold.”
“Not a chance of that happening. Have you discovered who wrote How to Ruin a Duke?” And why would a man who could dine at the finest clubs or command his own French chef to prepare him delicacies choose instead to share this meal with Edith?
Now that the worst of her hunger was sated, the odd nature of the call itself troubled her.
“I have not found the author yet, but I might be getting closer. More soup?”
Edith could have consumed the entire crock but that would leave nothing for supper. “A pear tart would serve nicely.”
Emory sliced her a wedge of cheese and held out the basket of tarts. “Before we discuss specifics relating to the book, I have a proposition to put to you.”
Edith had picked up the flask, the pewter warm against her hand. Her insides, however, went queasy and cold.
“A proposition, Your Grace? A proposition? You come here when I am likely to be alone, bringing me much needed sustenance. You pretend to enjoy a meal with me, merely so that you can offer to do more damage to my good standing than any book has done to yours.” She shoved th
e basket back at him. “Please leave.”
He took a pear tart and left her holding the basket. “Your imagination has got the better of your common sense, my lady. I can procure the favors of the six most sought-after courtesans in London at the same time if I please to. What I seek from you is a rarer skill than what they offer, also of more value to me.”
Edith was angry, but also caught in a confusion of contradictory emotions. She had long since noticed Emory’s broad shoulders, his sardonic humor, his vigilance where his family’s wellbeing was concerned. She knew he genuinely liked Italian opera and also enjoyed a ribald farce. He gave generously to charities and was incensed at the cost royalty inflicted on the national exchequer.
He was, in other words, a good man, if lamentably short of charm. He was also attractive. Not in the flirtatious, polished manner of his brother, but in a robust, unapologetically masculine sense. The notion of the duke sharing a bed with a half dozen courtesans put that attractiveness before Edith with startling vividness.
And yet, he was offering her some sort of proposition? “Half a dozen, Your Grace? At the same time?”
He took a bite of pear tart. “One doesn’t discuss such topics with a lady, but I have it on good authority that more than two at once becomes taxing from an organizational standpoint. Shall we return to the matter at hand?”
The duke’s expression was perfectly composed, and yet, his eyes danced.
Edith set aside the basket of pear tarts. “I’m prepared to listen to your proposition, but I will not be insulted in my own home.”
“Nor do I offer you any insult. Quite the contrary. Do have a tart. They’re quite good.”
“Do stop giving me orders, sir.”
The smile broke over the rest of his features, from his eyes to his mouth, dimples grooving his cheeks. “Why my mother ever let you go is yet another vexing mystery.”
“She had no choice, Your Grace. I was determined to leave. I had had enough of service, and though she offered me an increase in salary, my mind was made up.”
The duke wasn’t buying that load of wash, but Edith had no intention of providing him a more honest version of the facts. He would not believe her any more than the duchess had.
“A discussion for another time, perhaps,” he said, the smile fading. “Her Grace was much happier when you kept her company. We were all much happier, come to that. And now we are unhappy in part because of this damned book. You are ideally suited to help me solve the mystery of its authorship.”
Edith bit into a pear tart, and oh ye dancing muses of Epicurus, the taste was divine. The crust was a buttery marvel of perfectly cooked pastry, the pears redolent of some elegant vintage sacrificed in the name of a perfect reduction, and the spices both subtle and complex.
“I am in love,” she murmured. Perhaps poverty made the palate more discerning, perhaps she had never had a proper pear tart before. “I am in love with this recipe. I’d like to publish it, but first I’d like to eat the rest of that basket of tarts, slowly, one at a time, in complete silence.”
Emory regarded her, a half-eaten tart in his hand. “They are good.”
“They are incomparably delectable.” She took another nibble, and the first was as ambrosial as the second.
The duke watched her enjoying her sweet, his expression thoughtful. “If I promised you an endless supply of these pear tarts would you agree to help me find the author of the dratted book?”
Edith spoke without thinking. “If you agreed to supply me with pear tarts like these, I’d promise you nearly anything.”
His smile reignited, blazing from naughty to a degree of wicked merriment that rivaled the pear tart for its scrumptiousness. “You’d promise me anything, my lady? Anything at all?”
“I have done something daring,” Antigone whispered.
Jeremiah was trapped in the family parlor with the ladies, a penance that had befallen him because of the rain. No riding out this afternoon, no carriage parade, no pleasant stroll over to Mrs. Bellassai’s establishment, not that he was welcome there again—yet.
“You have doubtless done something foolish,” Jeremiah said. “Tell Cousin Jere your sins, and I’ll do what I can to sort them out.”
“I made a list,” Antigone said, “of every silly prank I ever got up to.”
“A long list indeed.” Uncle Frederick was at the piano, twiddling away at Mozart. The music provided privacy for Antigone’s confidences, and kept Uncle from descending into the usual litany of his own youthful follies.
“My list is interesting, not merely lengthy,” Antigone said, scooting closer. “How many young ladies of good breeding have knotted their sheets into a rope and escaped the manor house to dance at midnight under a summer moon?”
In Jeremiah’s estimation, that stunt was probably a rite of passage, akin to a youth’s first experience of drunkenness. “But did you climb the rope back up to your bedroom undetected?”
Antigone glowered at him over her embroidery hoop. “Of course not. What do you take me for? I came in through the scullery as any sensible woman would.”
“And perhaps at some point, you stole a bottle of wine from the pantry of your finishing school, and you and your five closest friends grew tipsy on one glass each?”
The glower became a frown. “We took to stealing a bottle every Saturday night. Cook went into the village to see her sister, and we knew where the pantry keys were. Nobody ever said anything, so we concluded the wine wasn’t inventoried.”
Jeremiah patted her arm. “The cook tippled, meaning she claimed to use much more of the wine in her recipes than was necessary. Rather than expose her own pilfering, she overlooked yours. At public school, the errand of purloining libation from the wine cellar is assigned to the newest boys. They feel daring and bold and provide a needed service.”
He yawned, the weather making him drowsy. Then too, he’d been up late the previous evening.
“Well, I can promise you no public school boy ever stole his papa’s cigars and smoked them in the orchard.”
“Antigone, dearest, if a boy—any boy, from the royal princes to the drover’s pride and joy—has a father who indulges in tobacco, that boy eventually steals from the humidor and coughs himself silly trying to learn to smoke. He ends up light-headed and sick to his stomach, and his dear father ignores the lad’s reeking clothing. Some traditions cut across all classes.”
Antigone stabbed her needle through the fabric and set aside her hoop. “You are being awful.”
“I’m being honest. Why have you prepared this list of follies?”
“So I can attribute each one of them to somebody I dislike and write a wildly popular novel. I will be famous and have lots of money and everybody will wish they’d thought of it first.”
Oh, dear. Jeremiah was torn between laughter and terror, for Antigone was stubborn beyond belief. “You do know that Lady Caroline’s reputation never recovered from penning Glenarvon? She was never allowed back into Almack’s, and many fashionable doors remained closed to her. Is that what you want?”
“Nobody ever liked Lady Caroline; besides, I’ll write as if I’m a man recounting my sister’s mistakes.”
An interesting ploy. “And if your identity should be revealed?”
Uncle Frederick thumped away at the pianoforte, taking a repeat that Jeremiah was sure the composer hadn’t included in the score.
“Nobody will find out who the author is,” Antigone said, leaning near. “Emory has been trying to determine who wrote How to Ruin a Duke, and if he can’t unearth that information, with all his resources, then no anonymous author need worry for her privacy.”
Valid point, damn the luck. “How will you manage the vast sums that come pouring into your coffers in exchange for penning this disaster? You aren’t yet even permitted your own pin money that I know of.”
Antigone turned innocent blue eyes on him. “I was hoping I could count on you for that sort of assistance. I know you can be discreet when necessa
ry, and I’d be willing to share a bit of the proceeds with you.”
“Do you know what Emory would do to me if I in any way aided you? Do you know what he’d do to you?” Though, thundering choruses on high, what if Antigone enlisted the aid of one of her throng of admirers?
“His Grace can’t stop me. Do you know, I’m glad somebody wrote that awful book. Emory is a plague on my freedom. When he’s preoccupied with his literary troubles, he hasn’t as much time to interfere with my life.” She paused to look around the parlor. “I got a letter from Sir Prendergast.”
Real alarm replaced Jeremiah’s amusement. “I do not want to hear this.”
“He’s a very resourceful fellow. I’m sure the footmen thought the letter was from a former schoolmate. The penmanship was all flourish-y and the paper was scented with lemon verbena.”
Uncle’s sonata transitioned into the slow movement, thank the merciful angels.
“Sir Prendergast is a very married fellow, Antigone. He ought not to be sending you anything, ever.”
She fluffed her skirts. “He’s unhappy. He wrote to apologize to me for all the trouble and disappointment he caused. I thought that quite gallant.”
If Jeremiah scolded her, she’d sulk as only Antigone could sulk. The next time Sir Prancing Ninny wrote to her, she’d tell no one, until some daft elopement was in train—or worse.
“Antigone, do you recall the incident in How to Ruin a Duke where His Grace planted some fellow a facer behind Carlton House?”
“Very unsporting of the duke, but who will tell the likes of Emory that brawling nearly on the street isn’t the done thing?”
Carlton House’s grounds were not ‘nearly on the street,’ which was beside the point. “Emory drew the other fellow’s cork because that man was making ungentlemanly comments about a lady. The lady is of good birth, and this bounder presumed to announce that he could lift her skirts on the way to Gretna Green, and the woman’s family would have to accept him as her husband.”
“What has that tale to do with me, Jere?” Murmured over the rippling chords of the adagio.
How to Ruin a Duke: A Novella Duet Page 18
