From How to Ruin a Duke, by Anonymous
For five days and six nights, Thaddeus debated possibilities. Was Mama writing the blasted sequel? She tended to her correspondence incessantly, with volumes of letters both arriving to and departing from the ducal residence. At the theater, Antigone sent Thaddeus brooding glances, and at the formal balls, every matchmaker and wallflower came under his scrutiny.
And through all the sorting and considering, he was haunted by one fleeting kiss from a woman he’d spent two years assiduously ignoring. He’d ignored the musical lilt in Lady Edith’s voice, the warmth in her smile. He’d ignored her humor and her patience. He had rigidly forbidden himself to do more than notice her figure—she’d been a woman in his employment, and thus her figure was entirely irrelevant—and yet, she had a fine figure.
“Shall you eat that trifle,” Elsmore asked, “or stare the raspberries into submission?”
Lady Edith was fond of raspberries. Was she fond of Thaddeus? “Help yourself.” He passed the bowl across the table. “Does your mama pester you to take a duchess?”
“My mother is a duchess, pestering anybody is beneath her. With so many potential heirs to the title already dangling from the family tree, she doubtless considers getting my sisters fired off a higher priority, and thank heavens for that. What has put you off your feed, my friend?”
Elsmore tucked into the dessert, and Thaddeus battled the absurd urge to snatch the sweet away, because doubtless, Lady Edith had not had trifle in months.
“I am pre-occupied,” Thaddeus said, studying the bottle of cordial brought out with the dessert. “I am considering the notion that my own mother also considers pestering beneath her, while embarrassing me into wedlock does fit her character. She thrives on intrigues and petty scandals.”
Elsmore paused, a spoonful of cream and fruit halfway to his mouth. “That book transcended petty scandal a month ago. I’ve heard some of your famous lines quoted over cards, and my valet asked if I’d like my hair styled à la épave de phaéton.”
“The vehicle was a curricle, not a phaeton, and I did not wreck it.” Though Thaddeus had doubtless finished the race looking as if he’d survived a wreck. The distinction between a curricle and a phaeton was exactly the sort of altered detail a female author would regard as insignificant.
“I heard about the floral society,” Elsmore said quietly. “You don’t really take their foolishness seriously?”
The Society for the Floral Improvement of the Metropolis was one of a dozen charitable organizations that boasted the Duke of Emory among its honorary directors. That term was a euphemism for financial sponsorship, which Emory had agreed to at the duchess’s request.
“Jeremiah didn’t grumble all that much,” Thaddeus replied. “For him to be the sponsor of record, when he hasn’t a groat to spare, amused him enormously. I won’t miss two-hour meetings devoted to the benefits of potted salvia over herbaceous borders, but I don’t care to be told to stand in the corner by yet another charity.”
“How many does that make?”
“Four.” In every case, the suggested solution to having a disgraced duke on the board of directors was to quietly request that Lord Jeremiah “serve the cause” for a time instead. Jeremiah was bearing up good-naturedly; nonetheless, a scolding from the very groups who ought to be trumpeting Thaddeus’s generosity was annoying.
“If you’d like to turn one or two charities over to me,” Elsmore said, “I can find a cousin or sister to attend most of the meetings in my stead.”
“Thank you, but I hope that won’t be necessary. Elsmore, would you mind very much if I left you in solitude to finish your dessert? The press of business intrudes on my plans.”
Elsmore regarded Thaddeus across the table. “I have never seen you so out of sorts. What could be in that sequel you’re so worried about?”
“Lies that reflect poorly not only on me, but also on my brother? Jeremiah is hardly a pattern card of probity, but he is my heir. If both of us are sunk in scandal, where does that leave the succession?”
Elsmore poured a dash of plum cordial over his dessert. “Perhaps that’s a fruitful line of inquiry? Have you cousins lurking in the hedges that would like to see you and Lord Jeremiah disgraced past all redemption?”
For a duke and his heir that would take a deal of disgracing. Thaddeus rose, because again, he’d like to have the benefit of Lady Edith’s thoughts on this possibility.
“You will excuse me. I apologize for leaving you without a companion, but…” What to say? I am drawn to the company of a woman who no longer owns even a decent tea service?
Elsmore took up his spoon. “Away with you. Do you know how rarely I am permitted to enjoy a meal to myself? How unique a pleasure it is for me to be free of the burden of polite conversation when all I want is to partake of my food in peace? You have but the one immediate heir, while I have a dozen first cousins all clamoring for my favor and influence. The aunties and their endless progression of god-daughters line up behind the cousins, until I sometimes feel like a waltzing, bowing, smiling automaton.”
For Elsmore, who was at all times gracious, mannerly, and pleasant, that amounted to a tantrum.
“Try a bit of scandal,” Thaddeus said. “Clears a man’s schedule handily.”
“Are you complaining?”
“No, actually.” The lunch and dinner invitations had all but stopped, leaving only the courtesy invitations which Thaddeus was free to decline. Jeremiah had been happy to do some of the obligatory socializing, proving that fraternal loyalty was not yet dead in Merry Olde England. “I will wish you the joy of your trifle.”
While the day wasn’t gorgeous, it was at least dry. Rather than summon his coach, Thaddeus walked the distance to Lady Edith’s door, stopping only to procure sustenance at the inn where they’d eaten the previous week.
Will she be home to me?
Did that kiss mean anything to her, and if so, what?
What do I want it to have meant?
Thaddeus’s imagination took the answers to that last question to all manner of inappropriate places, such that by the time he arrived at Lady Edith’s house, he felt like an adolescent standing up at his first tea dance.
“Your Grace.” She curtseyed and stepped back. “Won’t you come in?”
Was it progress, that her ladyship wasn’t warning him to keep the visit short? If so, progress toward what exactly? And what was wrong with civilization that the daughter of an earl had to answer her own door?
“You will think me presuming in the extreme,” he said, passing over his parcel, “but I stopped to enjoy a meal at the establishment down the street, and realized that I need not eat in solitude when excellent company was available not far away.” Forgive me, Elsmore.
“You are being charitable,” she said, gesturing him into her house. “I am just hungry enough to pretend I’m delighted to be the object of your kindness.”
“My kindness is being held in low regard these days. I have been sent to Coventry by several of the charities to which I’ve been a staunch contributor.” Lady Edith took his coat and hung it on a peg, then accepted his hat and walking stick. She smoothed the wool of his coat, so the sleeves hung straight, a gesture Thaddeus found… wifely.
She turned a curious gaze on him. “Why would any charity…? Oh. They don’t want to be tainted by your notoriety?”
“They aren’t that honest. The hypocrites want proximity to the ducal purse and the family name, but not to the Flying Demon of the Brighton Road.”
“He is a rather colorful fellow,” Lady Edith said. “Let’s eat on the back terrace, shall we?”
The back terrace was a euphemism for an uneven patch of slates at the rear of the house. Grass intruded between the stones, and the garden walls were encrusted with lichens, but irises apparently found the space congenial. A bed of purple flowers along each side wall was just beginning to bloom. Two venerable maples cast the little yard in dappled shade, which also meant that
Lady Edith would have privacy when she sat out here.
The wrought iron chairs were sturdy, if ancient, and Thaddeus had no sooner unwrapped his sandwich than an impertinent pigeon came around begging for crumbs. Lady Edith tossed the bird a crust, so of course three more of the damned beggars appeared, strutting about and making pigeon noises.
“How are you?” Thaddeus asked, when the lady had consumed half a sandwich.
“I am well, and you?”
She was not well. She was quiet and troubled, even more than she’d been the last time he’d imposed his company on her.
“I am vexed past all bearing by this damnable book, and I’ve had a few ideas I’d like to put before you. First, though, might you kiss me again?”
Shortly after putting off mourning, Edith had begun keeping company with a local squire who had owned a patch of property near her aunt’s cottage. They’d walked out together, and matters had progressed along the predictable lines of a rural courtship.
Within weeks, she’d developed an understanding with her swain, and her prospective groom had developed the ability to charm his way under her skirts, as often happened with engaged couples. When it became apparent that he’d had a fine time with the vicar’s daughter as well, and that the vicar was soon to become a grandpapa, Edith had joined the household of a relative in the next county. She did not want a husband she couldn’t trust, no matter how skilled he was in the hay mow.
And the gardener’s shed.
And the saddle room.
For several years thereafter, she’d told herself that she’d had a near miss, and in exchange for bruised pride, she’d had a precious and rare education. That education had stood her in good stead when she’d become a duchess’s paid companion, and rakes and roués had besieged her even under her employer’s roof.
Nothing had prepared her for the Duke of Emory bearing sandwiches though.
Edith took up an orange, one of four the duke had brought along with sandwiches, lemonade, meat pastries, and shortbread. His generosity meant she needn’t pawn her earbobs today, but that day would soon arrive. She rolled the orange between her palms, enjoying the texture and scent of fresh citrus, a pleasure she’d too long taken for granted.
From most men, a request for a kiss would have been easily brushed aside, but Emory needn’t ask anybody for anything. He was a duke, a wealthy, powerful man who had better things to do than share a porch picnic with an impoverished spinster. And memories of him—lounging on the loveseat, pacing the parlor, standing in the rain on her front stoop—had kept her awake late at night.
“You’d like me to kiss you again?” Edith would enjoy kissing him, of that she had no doubt.
“I would, or I could kiss you. The point is,”—he tossed the last of his sandwich crust to the cooing pigeons—“your kiss has been on my mind.”
“You have been on my mind too. You and your situation.”
He plucked the orange from her grasp and tore off a patch of the rind. “My damned situation seems to be growing worse by the week. I receive only the courtesy invitations these days, and when Mama drags me to Almack’s, I’m the only wallflower ever to sport a ducal title.”
Watching him peel an orange ought not to have been an erotic experience, but such was the attraction of Emory’s hands—strong, competent, masculine—that Edith let herself gawk.
“Even the patronesses at Almack’s are turning up their noses at you?”
“Not explicitly, but those women excel at innuendo, and there was that business about singing God Save the King on the steps of the assembly rooms.”
He popped a bit of orange rind into his mouth and shredded another piece to scatter on the paving stones. The birds leapt upon those offerings, nimble little sparrows joining the pigeons.
“According to the book, you sang after midnight, when the doors were already closed.” Edith would have liked to have heard him, and liked to have seen the looks on the faces of his audience when he’d held forth.
“I timed my aria for when the orchestra was blasting away on some waltz or other, so I know I wasn’t heard inside, but still… Not well done of me.”
“Why did you do it?”
He spread out a table napkin and separated the orange into sections. “One of Jeremiah’s more foolish friends dared him to serenade Almack’s with a drinking song, at midnight, in full voice. Other fellows joined in the nonsense and soon bets were flying in all directions. Had Jeremiah stepped up to the challenge—and you know how little regard my brother has for rules—he might well have been barred from the dances for the rest of the Season. Mama would have been wroth, a petty war would have begun… but my folly was sure to be overlooked, or so I thought.”
“Because you are a duke.”
“Because I am a duke, and because, until recently, nobody would have believed me capable of such nonsense. Besides, God Save the King is regularly sung in every pub and tavern in the realm, and yet, who could object to that song at any hour in any location?”
“Nobody should object, but placed side by side with a half dozen other incidents, even God Save the King becomes suspect.” Edith sensed a pattern to the tales told about Emory, a consistency regarding the direction in which each vignette was slanted to show him in disrepute, but she could not focus her thoughts on that puzzle.
Not when Emory held out the table napkin, the glistening pieces of orange offered like a bouquet.
“I want to kiss you,” Edith said, taking three succulent sections, “and indulge in rather more than that, but I am not interested in anything tawdry.”
Emory chose three pieces for himself and set the rest on the table. “You echo my own sentiments. My esteem for you is genuine, but also the esteem of a man who appreciates a woman’s intimate company. I am not in the habit of… that is to say… I respect you, and I flatter myself that you respect me as well, thus creating a foundation for rare and lasting goodwill. Jeopardizing your opinion of me is the opposite of my aim. The very opposite, if you take my meaning.”
If His Grace had ever kept a mistress, he’d done so discreetly enough that even the duchess, even Lord Jeremiah, hadn’t remarked it. His lordship would have mentioned such a topic purely for the pleasure of testing Edith’s composure.
The rotter. Edith nibbled a section of orange, enjoying everything from the juicy texture, to the sweet, sunny flavor, to the tart burst of citrus on her tongue.
“I am not without experience, Your Grace.”
“Neither am I, though my recollections of intimate congress are growing dim.”
This amused him, and it pleased Edith. “None of the scandals laid at your feet in How to Ruin a Duke relate to women.” Was that a coincidence or a clue?
“Another factor that leads me to believe the author is female.”
“Possibly.” She finished her part of the orange and wiped her fingers on the linen Emory had brought along. If she accepted Emory’s overture, she’d be embarking on an affair the duchess would have called a friendly liaison. Nothing legal or lasting, and nothing sordid either. No money changing hands, which in Edith’s circumstances was an upside-down comfort.
A year ago, even a month ago, she would have been dismayed to be the object of Emory’s intimate interest. A lady was virtuous, a duke was a gentleman. The very society that spelled out in detail what a lady must do to maintain her respectability offered not one useful suggestion about how that lady was to keep body and soul together when cast on her own resources.
Hypocrites, the lot of them, whereas Emory offered companionship, pleasure, comfort, and a respite from all woes. Better still, if Edith found she did not enjoy his attentions, she could simply say so without risking judgment from matchmakers and wallflowers.
Perhaps being a lady was over-rated, at least being a relentlessly proper lady.
“Our discussion adds more urgency to my desire to sort out that ruddy book,” Emory said, wrapping up the uneaten food. “One cannot go forward in a public sense—for a duke ther
e is always the public sense to be considered—with such a cloud ever present over one’s head. Elsmore has suggested I look to the spares for someone with a motivation to ruin me and Jeremiah.”
“Lord Jeremiah is hardly ruined by this book, Emory.”
“Might you on occasion—when the moment is comfortable—call me Thaddeus? I have asked you to consider sharing personal intimacies with me, after all, and one hopes the undertaking will be accompanied by a certain informality when private.” He wrapped up the orange sections in tidy folds of linen, though Edith had the sense his request was anything but casual.
She did very much enjoy watching his hands. “Yes, when the moment feels comfortable.” He’d offered to become her lover, after all. The gift of his name was a privilege he’d granted to very few. That gesture suggested a friendly liaison with Emory could be enjoyable in a more than physical sense.
Edith craved the emotional surcease that intimate pleasures could provide, and quite selfishly, she wanted the fortification Emory’s regard gave her. Not a perspective she would have understood a year ago, but then, a year ago, she’d been a paid companion.
A post she’d neither wanted nor enjoyed. “Your spare is a second cousin, as I recall.”
“A pleasant enough fellow tending his acres in East Anglia. We have him to dinner when he comes up to Town, and he notifies me when his wife presents him with another child so Mama can send along a basket of comestibles and spirits. His idea of literature is an agricultural pamphlet read of a Sunday evening. I can’t see him conceiving of, much less writing, an entire book.”
“What of your uncles?”
“My uncles?”
“But for you, wouldn’t one of them have inherited the title? I’m looking for a motive, Your Grace, for a reason why somebody would cast you in such an unflattering light.” And I am watching your hands and your mouth, and the way the breeze riffles your hair. Concentrating on the book was becoming nearly impossible.
Emory leaned closer. “I appreciate your diligence more than you know, but at this very moment, at this very special moment, I am looking for a private place to take you in my arms and indulge in pleasures that make How to Ruin a Duke read like an etiquette manual, assuming those pleasures interest you.”
How to Ruin a Duke: A Novella Duet Page 20
