Never Dare a Duke

by Wendy Soliman

  An apology was the last thing that Farrah had expected. She inclined her head in acceptance of it, wishing it could have been as public as the dispute that had necessitated it. ‘Thank you. Let’s put the incident behind us.’

  ‘The duke has taken a liking to you.’

  Farrah waved a hand to dismiss that impression, leading them along a path so thickly lined with trees on either side that they were required to walk beneath a canopy of almost bare branches that met across their heads. It must be magnificent when those trees were in full leaf, Farrah thought absently.

  ‘The duke is surrounded by females keen to attract his interest. Has it occurred to you how trying that must be for him, always having to be on his guard? He knows that I harbour no aspirations of that nature, so he feels safe with me.’

  ‘I can’t…I have to.’ She paused, looking uncharacteristically vulnerable and on the verge of confiding in Farrah. That sort of thing happened frequently. For some reason, people found her easy to talk to. Even females like Lady Melody, who didn’t seem to like her very much. ‘My connections expect me to make a good match. My portion is quite small, you see, so I have to depend upon my appearance to attract the type of gentleman my mother wants me to marry.’

  ‘And I am sure you will achieve that ambition. You are very pretty, well connected and accomplished. But you are also aiming very high.’

  She shrugged. ‘The duke has to marry someone. The duchess approves of me. Lady Hazel doesn’t seem interested in him. That only leaves…’

  ‘Don’t look at me.’ Farrah held both hands palms out towards Lady Melody. ‘I don’t know the duke well, but I get the impression that he will make up his own mind in his own time without influence from his lady mother.’

  ‘How can you possibly–’

  ‘Look out!’

  They had wandered further into the wood than Farrah had realised. A sudden movement in the thicket behind them heralded a clear sight this time of the man in blue. He looked her in the eye and then headed directly for them. He held a dagger aloft, his expression devoid of all emotion. Farrah had seconds to react. Lady Melody was too self-absorbed to have noticed anything and continued to talk about herself.

  ‘What?’ Lady Melody stopped walking, looking confused.

  Farrah reacted instinctively. With no time to explain, she pushed Lady Melody aside and fell to the ground on top of her in an effort to protect her, shouting loud enough to attract the attention of Mr Anglesey. The distraction would have made their attacker think twice and run off, had Lady Melody not fought against her.

  ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ she yelled as she twisted from beneath Farrah, tumbling over her on the muddy ground and squashing her so tightly with the weight of her body that all the air left Farrah’s lungs and there was nothing more she could do to help the woman. In her panic, Lady Melody had left her own back exposed to the knife-wielding thug.

  The man lashed out blindly with the dagger and Lady Melody let out a shrill scream.

  The noise and commotion brought the gentlemen running. From her position beneath Lady Melody, she couldn’t see if Mr Anglesey had reached them first or if preservation of Hazel’s reputation had caused him to hold back. By the time the first of the gentlemen had arrived, their attacker was long gone. Lady Melody rolled off Farrah, still screaming hysterically.

  The duke towered over them and Farrah silently cursed the circumstances that had brought the situation about, easily able to imagine what he, what they all, must be thinking. She was covered in Lady Melody’s blood, and it must appear as though the two women had been brawling like fishwives. Farrah knew who would be blamed for that situation.

  ‘She tried to kill me!’ Lady Melody screamed, her face a study of abject horror as she crawled away from Farrah into the arms of her equally hysterical mother, blood dripping from a slash to the back of her shoulder.

  Chapter Seven

  Brin took the scene in at a glance.

  ‘Move aside,’ he said to Miss Dorset, picking up the dagger which had been used in the attack and slipping it into his pocket. Miss Dorset stood on unsteady legs, watching him as he examined Lady Melody for injuries. There was a rent in the back of her pelisse from which a small amount of blood still seeped, but Brin could see that it had been a glancing blow, neither deep nor life-threatening. Shadow, who had followed Brin to the scene, flattened his ears against the racket being created by Lady Melody and her mother and instead rubbed his head against Miss Dorset’s legs. She absently scratched his ears, looking shaken and holding on to her composure by a thread.

  ‘Oh, Mama!’ Lady Melody sobbed uncontrollably against her mother’s chest, still using the artificially childish voice that so grated on Brin’s nerves. Why mothers encouraged their grown daughters to behave as though they had regressed to the schoolroom was a mystery to him. ‘Such wickedness.’

  One or two voices muttered their agreement and cast accusatory glances at Miss Dorset, who looked dazed and said nothing to defend herself, even though Brin was already convinced that she wasn’t to blame for the altercation.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked her.

  ‘Bruised and shaken,’ she responded. ‘But I did not—’

  ‘Shush. It’s all right. I know you did not.’

  She looked surprised by his reassurance. ‘You do?’

  ‘Sit down and recover your composure,’ he said, his voice brisk. She looked as though she was about to argue with him—when did she ever do as she was told? —but eventually she sat on the steps to the log cabin and dropped her head into her splayed hands. All the ladies had gathered around Lady Melody, his own mother leading the sympathisers. None went anywhere near Miss Dorset or even bothered to ask if she was injured too.

  She had lost her bonnet and her hair cascaded around her face in a distracting tangle of dark curls, making her look gloriously dishevelled and touchingly vulnerable. She would hate to know it, he imagined, Miss Dorset being the strongest-willed, most annoyingly independent female of his acquaintance. She looked upon Lady Melody as an irritation, and had been insulted by her, but would certainly not resort to physically attacking the silly creature. That being the case, Brin knew that he must take control of the situation before it descended into a witch hunt. Where was Lady Hazel and why hadn’t she gone to her friend’s aid?

  ‘There is no cause for alarm,’ Brin said calmly, his authoritative tone cutting through the growing outrage. Everyone stopped speculating and looked to him for guidance. Mercifully, even Lady Melody had stopped wailing and batted suspiciously dry eyes in his direction in a misguided attempt to look fragile. Brin was tempted to tell her all that blinking made her look like a myopic owl. ‘It was just a minor accident. Lady Melody is not badly hurt.’

  ‘She tried to kill me!’ Lady Melody played the scene for all it was worth as she pointed an accusing finger at Farrah. ‘She is jealous of me.’

  ‘Hush, my love,’ her mother soothed. ‘You cannot help being so beautiful. You must expect resentment.’

  Farrah opened her mouth to speak but Brin shushed her with a gesture. None of these people would listen and the majority already believed the worst. Tempers needed time to cool. Brin had no idea what had occurred but was perfectly sure that Miss Dorset had not turned into a knife-wielding maniac.

  ‘Where is Lady Hazel?’ he asked her in an undertone. In all the confusion, he appeared to be the only person who had noticed her absence. He had a pretty good idea of the answer to his own question, since Anglesey was missing too. Miss Dorset confirmed his suspicions when she inclined her head in the direction of the cabin. ‘I’ll move everyone away from here, then she can emerge.’

  ‘Let’s get Lady Melody back to the house so that she can rest and recover,’ he said assertively. ‘Mother, take the rest of the ladies back with you and attend to Lady Melody’s injuries. I will take responsibility for Miss Dorset’s wellbeing.’

  ‘Your grace, I need you to take me,’ Lady Melody wailed, looking
frail and tragic. ‘I feel quite faint and…’

  ‘Go with them, Kent,’ Brin said to his friend, ‘and try to keep them from being too hysterical if you possibly can.’

  ‘You ask a lot,’ Kent replied. ‘What the devil happened here?’

  ‘I have no idea. Yet.’ Grim-faced, Brin rubbed his jaw. ‘I take it as a personal affront when a guest is attacked on my land but don’t think for one minute that Miss Dorset did the attacking.’

  Kent nodded, then turned and shepherded the ladies towards their waiting conveyances. Predictably, Brin’s mother waited behind.

  ‘She will have to go, of course,’ she said, lowering her voice but glowering at Miss Dorset, her expression one of unmitigated dislike. ‘Now. Immediately. I will not endure her presence another night beneath my roof.’

  ‘It’s my roof, Mother, and unlike you, I will not jump to conclusions.’

  ‘No one is jumping to anything. We saw them rolling in the mud with our own eyes.’

  ‘And you just assume that Miss Dorset instigated the affray?’

  ‘Well, Lady Melody said as much, and she is the one with the injury.’

  Brin closed his eyes and adjured himself to find patience. ‘I would prefer to establish the facts before apportioning blame. Until I have done so, I depend upon you to keep everyone calm and not fan the flames of idle gossip.’

  ‘Of course you would take her part,’ she replied, sniffing. ‘The chit has got you behaving like a dog on heat.’

  ‘I won’t repeat myself, Mother. Do as I ask or there will be consequences that you will not enjoy.’

  She met Brin’s steely gaze, clearly realised that he wouldn’t back down and capitulated. ‘Oh, very well. I suppose it would be better to avoid a scandal.’

  ‘Infinitely better.’

  She went off, albeit reluctantly, but Brin was satisfied that she wouldn’t openly defy him. What trouble she planned to cause privately for Miss Dorset he preferred not to think about. One problem at a time.

  Miss Dorset remained where she was; a lonely and disorientated figure in a torn and muddy gown. Brin wondered what he could possibly say to her to restore her fighting spirit. He glanced at her pale face and the frown lines that had formed between her eyebrows as she cupped her small chin with one hand and stared off into the distance. He felt overwhelmingly protective towards her and wished there was something he could say or do to make her pain go away.

  Satisfied that the others were now out of sight, he tapped at the cabin door. Lady Hazel poked her head cautiously around it, her face chalk white, hands trembling.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked, gasping when her gaze fell upon Miss Dorset. ‘You are covered in blood, dearest. Are you harmed? We…that is to say I heard a commotion and was afraid to…’

  Lady Beardsley came scuttling back into the clearing.

  ‘There you are, Hazel. Where have you been? I couldn’t find you anywhere.’ She cast an accusatory glance at Miss Dorset. ‘Your friend attacked Lady Melody for no apparent reason. God alone knows what she might have done to you.’

  ‘No!’ Lady Hazel shook her head emphatically. ‘I don’t believe that for a moment.’

  ‘Take your daughter back to the house with the other ladies, ma’am,’ Brin said in a firm tone. ‘And I will thank you not to make unfounded accusations about a guest of mine. It isn’t helpful.’

  ‘Unfounded?’ Lady Beardsley’s mouth fell open. ‘But we all saw Lady Melody fighting for her life. The evidence seems obvious to me.’

  ‘We certainly saw her fighting but have yet to establish who instigated the brawl.’

  Lady Beardsley puffed out her chest. ‘Surely you are not implying…’

  ‘I am not implying anything. I deal in facts, madam, not speculation.’

  ‘Of course we must discover what happened, your grace.’ But she fixed Miss Dorset with an accusatory look. ‘Naturally, there could be another explanation…’

  ‘Go, Hazel,’ Miss Dorset said wearily. ‘I shall be fine.’

  ‘Well, if you are sure. I shall come and see you the moment I get back.’

  ‘Go back to the shoot, Nyle,’ Brin said once the last of the ladies had left and the rest of the men lingered in the clearing. ‘There’s no reason for the sport to be curtailed.’

  Nyle nodded, smiled at Miss Dorset and led the men back to the covert. At least they would not gossip, preferring to concentrate upon killing more birds than their neighbours.

  ‘You can come out now, Anglesey,’ Brin said in a clipped tone that implied disapproval.

  A rather sheepish gentleman appeared from the cabin.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  ‘That was a question I intended to put to you, but you clearly chose not to involve yourself.’

  ‘Well, I…’

  ‘Good God man, surely you heard the ladies screaming. Gentlemanly instincts should have compelled you to—’

  ‘I had to protect—’

  ‘Just go back to the shoot before anyone realises that you are missing,’ Brin said with a weary sigh.

  ‘Right.’ He glanced at Miss Dorset, still seated on the steps. ‘I say, are you all right?’

  She nodded.

  ‘It’s a little late to show concern now,’ Brin said, seething with suppressed anger. Miss Dorset could have been killed, this sorry excuse for a man could have prevented it but had put his own concerns ahead of hers.

  ‘I can depend upon your discretion, Exeter?’ Anglesey asked hesitantly.

  ‘Of course you damned well can; for the lady’s sake if not your own, but I am less than impressed by your failure to put others before yourself.’ Brin glowered at Anglesey, who appeared incapable of meeting his gaze. ‘Now go before I lose my temper. I wonder if he’s the man your friend thinks he is,’ Brin added, watching him go and addressing the comment to Miss Dorset.

  Brin half expected her to jump to Lady Hazel’s defence and run on about abiding love and all the rot that women set so much stock by. When she said nothing at all, it took Brin a moment to realise that he’d been a complete fool. The gradual diminishing of the men’s voices as they returned to the shoot left them in total quiet, but for the sound of Shadow panting and Miss Dorset’s near silent sobs. Sobs that lacked Lady Melody’s dramatic flair. Brin had been getting agitated about Anglesey’s selfishness, temporarily forgetting that Miss Dorset had far more serious demons to wrestle with.

  Shadow whined and rested his head in her lap. Brin sat beside her, passed her his handkerchief and waited until she had her emotions under control.

  ‘Thank you.’ She mopped her eyes, blew her nose and seemed to have recovered. Brin admired her determination not to wallow, as most females of his acquaintance would be tempted to do; especially if they’d found themselves unexpectedly alone with him. Brin reasoned that he would not have permitted that situation to arise with anyone else. ‘I can imagine how it must have seemed when you came upon us, but I can assure you that I didn’t stab Lady Melody. However, thank you for not jumping to the same conclusion as everyone else.’

  ‘I know you do not suffer fools gladly, but you are certainly not stupid. You might give into the temptation of injuring Lady Melody with cutting words but I cannot conceive of a situation in which you would ever resort to physical violence.’ His expression turned grim as he extracted the dagger he’d picked up from his pocket. ‘Besides, I can’t see you having one of these about your person. Quite apart from the fact that you have nowhere to conceal it, what possible reason would you have to carry it?’

  ‘It looks lethal.’

  ‘It is.’ He twisted the asymmetrical dagger with its distinctive blade patterning through his hands. ‘It’s a Kris. I saw plenty of them in India. Their history goes back to the study of carvings and bas-relief panels in south-eastern Asia.’

  ‘Is it valuable?’

  ‘I doubt whether your assailant intended to leave it behind. He obviously panicked, fortunately for you.’

  Miss
Dorset nodded. ‘Who would have such weapons here in England?’

  He shrugged. ‘A lot of people who have travelled in Asia, I would imagine. I have one myself.’

  ‘The presence of that dagger is why you are so convinced of my innocence,’ she said, a hint of disappointment fuelling her tone.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! You are incapable of inflicting violence on anyone, even if you were angry and embarrassed when Lady Melody was so impolite to you earlier.’

  ‘She was not though, not as far as everyone else is concerned; that’s the problem.’ Miss Dorset hiccupped. ‘Only you heard her taunting comment but unfortunately everyone heard my response to it.’ Farrah stubbed at a root with the toe of her boot. ‘No one will believe that I didn’t attack her and it’s all your fault.’

  ‘Mine?’ Brin raised a brow, amused despite the gravity of the situation. ‘What did I do?’

  ‘Nothing deliberately, but Lady Melody has her sights set on you and seems to think that…well, it’s ridiculous of course,’ she said, stammering as her cheeks flooded with colour, ‘but she totally misunderstands and has got it into her silly head that you prefer me.’

  Brin struggled to suppress a grin. ‘Totally ridiculous; I entirely agree.’

  ‘Well, there you are then. She came after me when I left the picnic and actually apologised for her behaviour. I wished at the time that her apology could have been as public as our spat had been, but I was impressed by her willingness to bury the hatchet, so I decided to give her some advice regarding her marital ambitions.’

  Brin chuckled. ‘That I should have liked to hear.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Obviously I wouldn’t have spoken if you had been within earshot.’

  ‘What were you doing here alone?’ Miss Dorset’s gaze drifted towards the log cabin and Brin nodded. ‘Ah, of course, Lady Hazel’s assignation. You were her go-between.’