The Accidental Duchess Page 2

  “Speaking of lovely girls,” his aunt said while the dealer slid away her money. “Did I mention that Lady Barrowton’s niece is coming up to town? Her beauty is said to be celebrated.”

  “Said to be? Has no one seen for certain?” Only a corner of his mind heeded the conversation, since the rest already knew what it would hear. Most of his attention had riveted on the entrance to the ballroom. A dark-haired, soulful-eyed woman had just arrived. Lydia Alfreton.

  That was odd. He was certain Southwaite had mentioned that his sister would be at that little dinner party being held tonight at Ambury’s house. Yet here she was, ready to press her considerable luck at the tables instead.

  The green dress she wore flattered her dark hair and very pale skin. She appeared happy. She only looked like that when she gambled, unfortunately. If one met her during the day, her eyes stared right through you, opaque and unseeing, and her face remained expressionless.

  “Of course some have seen her niece. Otherwise she could not be celebrated. However, she has never been to town before. She is coming for her final finishing prior to coming out.”

  “A child then. All children are lovely. Sweet too. And boring.”

  “Hardly a child. A fresh, innocent girl. I would like to introduce you.”

  “I am not interested, but thank you.”

  The proximity of the dealer suddenly discomforted her. She dismissed him in an imperious tone that had him backing away at once, leaving a good deal of money unattended. She turned her whole body. She angled her gray head so her next words would not be missed. “You must marry eventually, and this girl sounds perfect.”

  “I told you long ago that I would not be managed in this. If you think I will be more amenable because you raise the matter in a public place instead of at the house, you are mistaken. And, surely by now you know that I will have no inclination to marry a fresh, innocent girl when the day comes that I marry at all.”

  She heaved a sigh of forbearance. “I have never understood your preference for older women.”

  “Haven’t you?”

  She flushed and looked away to avoid acknowledging the question. Something distracted her. Her brow furrowed. “I suppose I should bow to your preferences, since your instincts proved so wise regarding that one there. Her poor mother must be turning over in her grave.”

  He did not have to look to know she spoke of Lydia Alfreton. He did anyway, in time to see Mrs. Burton greet Lady Lydia and escort her to the hazard table.

  “I had no instincts regarding her. I had an understandable annoyance at you and Lady Southwaite deciding whom I would marry before the girl was one day old. Such prearranged pacts are antiquated, lack any legality, and are not to be tolerated.” Upon inheriting at age fifteen, disavowing their ridiculous arrangement had been among the first things he did. No one but his aunt spoke of it anymore. He doubted anyone else even remembered it.

  “Celeste was my dearest friend, and so sweet and good. Whoever expected her daughter to—well, to turn out like that.” Her hand gestured at Lydia, who had just won a throw. People had gathered around to watch her. Perhaps her reputation for winning drew them. Maybe her vivacious excitement did. Eyes afire with lights that normally the world never saw in her, she raised her gaze and her arms upward while she laughed after each win, as if thanking Providence for once more favoring her wagers.

  His aunt clucked her tongue. “During the day she is a sphinx, and unknowable. Here at night she is like a bacchante drunk on wine. She is going to ruin Southwaite if he does not rein her in. Everyone says so. She will ruin herself, and him, and that whole family.”

  “She wins. If she keeps at it, she is more likely to double the family fortune than ruin it.” That was the problem. Southwaite was sure that if she would lose even once, big, that would end it.

  “I am not talking about the gambling.”

  That got his attention. “You cannot be talking about men.”

  “Can I not?”

  “She has no interest in them. Gambling, yes. Horses, yes. Art and literature, yes. But if there are rumors about that other kind of ruin, they are not accurate.”

  “You heard this from Southwaite, no doubt. As if he would know!” Her eyes narrowed on the other side of the chamber. “She has befriended a number of men while she games, and is hardly demure in her conversations with them, I am told. Her aunt Amelia is most distressed about it.” She shook her head. “My dear, dear Celeste. Perhaps it is just as well she did not live to see it.”

  He swallowed the inclination to repeat that the gossip was inaccurate by a mile. In the end, what did he know? Southwaite certainly worried about his sister. If more than her gambling had become a problem for the family, Penthurst did not expect to be informed.

  As if to underline his aunt’s whispers, a man approached the hazard table. He squeezed himself through the crowd so as to stand by Lydia’s elbow. Penthurst angled his head to have a better look at the fellow’s face. He could not prevent a laugh from escaping once he recognized the man. Algernon Trilby? Trilby and Lady Lydia? He did not think that likely.

  “What is so amusing?” his aunt demanded.

  “I am chewing over what you just told me, and could not suppress my reaction.”

  “Laugh all you want. The on dit is rarely wrong on such things.” She beckoned the dealer and returned to her cards.

  Their conversation turned once more to his introduction to the sweet, innocent niece of Lady Barrowton. He sidestepped any commitments to meet her. While they carefully placed their feet in their dance of interference and resistance, he found himself looking on occasion to where Lydia seemed to be winning nicely with the dice.

  She appeared to know Trilby. She spoke to him several times. Whatever she said had the man flushing. Finally Trilby peeled away and went to watch the faro play. Lady Lydia appeared to know how to shed unwelcome attention with grace but finality.

  He almost pointed that out to his aunt, so she might spare his friend’s sister unnecessary gossip. Just as he was about to speak, however, Lydia herself left the table. No longer bright-eyed, but wearing the aloof, blank expression that caused his aunt to call her a sphinx, she walked directly to the terrace doors and slipped outside.

  Twenty steps behind, Algernon Trilby followed.

  “You must excuse me. I think I will retreat for a short spell, then you can take me home.” His aunt held out her hand so he might help her to stand.

  “I will come and find you in a few minutes,” he said.

  “Not too few. The best gossip will be in the retiring room.”

  “I will wait until you have your fill.”

  She sallied forth. She left thirty pounds on the table, as if returning them to her reticule were too much a bother. For a woman supported her whole life by dukes, it probably was. He gestured for cards.

  With his aunt’s removal, others came to use the table. Spirited play ensued. During the fourth round, he looked around the chamber and realized that neither Lydia nor Trilby had yet returned.

  There had been no indication that Lydia had planned an assignation, but with each passing minute more people would assume that to be the case. He pictured Trilby out there now, annoying her at best and importuning her at worst.

  He threw in his cards, stood, and walked toward the doors. If she were his sister, he would expect Southwaite to keep one eye on her, after all.

  Chapter 2

  Lydia held the sheet of paper under the lantern and read the familiar words. She glared over at Algernon Trilby. “To send me the letter you did, and demand this meeting, was inexcusable, and now you dare insinuations about this page you brought me. Are you mad?”

  “Are you?” Even in the lantern’s light she could see him flush. He mustered haughty indignation to mask his discomfort. As soon as he had come through those doors she had met him with as much anger as she dared display in a spot that anyone might see if they chose.

  “I was shocked to read that,” he went on. “Shocked, I
tell you. For you to take such risks. To compromise your family’s honor—”

  “Do not be a fool. Where did you get this?” She shook the paper in his face.

  “I bought it. I paid a good deal of money for it, to spare you the scandal of it falling into the wrong hands.”

  “It is removed from a larger text. Much larger.”

  “Indeed it is. The journal that is its context hardly does you credit. Nor does it explain away why you were keeping detailed accounts and records of the ships lying at Portsmouth, and their movements, less than two years ago. It looks as if— Well, it appears that you were—” He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.

  She stared at the list of ships. It appeared as if she were keeping track of the naval fleet for all the wrong reasons.

  In a rational world no one would ever entertain the notion that she, of all people, had been spying on the fleet for the French. The world was not rational at the moment, unfortunately. It was full of people worried about invasion coming soon and French agents lurking amid them. Even her own brother spent a good deal of time defending the realm from such things.

  What a muddle! And for this to fall into the hands of such a fool as Trilby— She took a deep breath to calm her chaotic emotions.

  “It is not a journal. It is a novel, written in the first person.” Not a good novel. A very rough first try. A fitful exercise in romantic artistry while she waited for something wonderful to happen. Just remembering the manuscript called forth sad nostalgia, and a spring season when she still harbored dreams.

  She had not even seen those pages in over a year and a half. Not since the day she knew nothing wonderful would happen after all. Ever. She had left the manuscript in her aunt Amelia’s cottage in Hampshire, unfinished.

  Or had she? So many memories from that time had been swallowed by the dull, gray cloud in which she lived for so long afterward.

  Trilby clasped his hands behind his back, and peered down his nose censoriously. His fair hair formed a widow’s peak from which high arches of his receding hairline sprung, and the effect lengthened his already narrow face. The scoundrel dared to act superior, and examined her as if forming judgments.

  Whoever guessed this unremarkable man had it in him to cause so much trouble? He had come up to town six months ago and found introductions through a cousin who was the younger brother of a baronet’s wife. No one would have given him the time of day except that some hostesses thought his sleight-of-hand tricks an amusing way to fill an hour in their drawing rooms. Lydia’s own interest in those tricks, for her own edification, had led her to form an acquaintance.

  She crumpled the sheet of paper in her upraised fist, right in front of his face. “You must give me the rest of the manuscript. At once. It is dishonorable for you to withhold it.”

  He looked at her fist and squared his shoulders. “There is more where that came from. Keep that if you like.”

  Her mind raced through the “more.” The amateurish way she had padded the novel’s length with lists of banquet dishes, or ball gown descriptions—or ships at anchor—marched through her memory. The last had been an attempt at local color, much like her enumerations of the militia organized along the coast near her family’s estate of Crownhill.

  Oh, dear. That would look as bad as the ships.

  The characters in her novel reformed, as did the details of their romance, which was based on little experience, but a lot of fantasies.

  Some of the more intimate passages between the hero and heroine finally forced themselves to the forefront of her thoughts. One scene in particular, written during an especially lonely and lovesick night, played out in her head—

  Good heavens.

  She stepped away from the lantern so he might not see her reaction. There were chapters in that novel that would make this page pale in comparison, should they become known. And if it were assumed it were a journal—

  “Have you read it?”

  “Not all of it. I did not think that proper.”

  “No, it would not be proper, although it is a work of fiction. It is so poorly written I could not abide anyone reading it. That I thought such a literary endeavor should include lists of the ships observed from that hill is proof enough of its poor quality.”

  “Or of something else,” he murmured.

  “I repeat, it is merely a novel. You must return it to me. You know you must.”

  He scratched at his receding hairline while he pondered that. “I went through a good deal of trouble getting my hands on it. To spare you, as I said. I am not a rich man. I should like to be reimbursed.”

  Now they were down to it. “How much trouble did you go through, Mr. Trilby?”

  “Ten thousand pounds’ worth of trouble.”

  Her breath caught. Was he mad? She doubted that he had paid more than a hundred at most. Where would he get ten thousand in ready money?

  Where would she get it, for that matter?

  The outrageous amount disheartened her. Trilby apparently understood the value of what he had found. She did not think she could bargain him down, although she had to try.

  “I cannot possibly reimburse you all of your expenses right away.”

  “Just go in there and throw the dice or play the cards. I’ve seen your talent with it.”

  “And if I lose? I will be so far down I could never pay you, not for years. I’ll find a way to get you a good amount of it, and promise to pay the rest later. You will be fully reimbursed in the end.” It would kill her to gamble in the future just to pay off this blackmailer. She had much better uses for the winnings, and it would break her heart to neglect them.

  He crossed his arms and pouted. “If you can’t see your way clear, perhaps your brother can.”

  The notion of Southwaite seeing that novel, and heaven forbid. reading that scene, almost undid her. “If my brother learns of this, more likely he will call you out and kill you for daring to try to blackmail me.”

  He took a step back at the threat, but stood his ground again fast enough. “Blackmail? I seek to protect you from the worst speculations regarding your character and loyalty, and you accuse me of such a thing? I am wounded.”

  “You are not wounded. You are impatient and greedy.”

  “Such insults are not to be borne. If Southwaite won’t cooperate, I’m sure I can find another use for it all. There’s those who pay smartly for such things.” He gestured to her fist. “The rest of that list there, for example. Maybe the government would pay to see it.”

  “No one will reimburse you for all your trouble except me. Would it not be better to have part of the funds soon and the rest later, than all of a much smaller amount right away?”

  Still acting insulted, he thought it over. She turned away from him and crossed her arms to wait. It was then that she noticed a man standing against the house, as if he had just stepped through the French doors. He looked around until his attention settled on her. At that very moment she felt a touch on her shoulder, as Mr. Trilby called for her attention.

  The man at the door noticed that touch, she was sure. He seemed to grow taller. He strode forward and the lamps’ illumination caught him. Impressive in height, he wore a distinctive midnight-blue frock coat that sported discreet but expensive gold embroidery along its edges, as if its owner had relinquished the more fanciful costumes of the past with regret. The tiny glints of reflection off those gold threads told her who it was.

  “Lady Lydia, can I be of service?” The voice confirmed his identity just as his face became distinct. The Duke of Penthurst’s deep-set eyes did not look at her so much as at Mr. Trilby behind her. Golden, brittle lights showed in those eyes as he neared, making him appear dangerous. Trilby froze in surprise.

  Penthurst glared more directly. “Sir, unhand the lady, please.”

  “You had better do as he says, Mr. Trilby. His Grace on occasion kills men in duels over minor matters such as this. Being a duke, he is allowed to.”

  Trilby snatched h
is hand away as if her shoulder burned. He took two long strides away from her. “I—That is, I—”

  “Penthurst, it is always a pleasure to see you.” She curtsied. “Do you know Mr. Trilby? We happened upon each other out here and he was confiding how he does one of his tricks.”

  “We have not met, although I have heard about the tricks. I did not know they involved importuning women.”

  Trilby’s mouth gaped. “Impor—? No, never, sir. I— I—”

  “Hardly importuned, sir. A mere tap on the shoulder, to indicate the trick was ready.”

  “More than a tap, I’d say.”

  “You might, but I do not. Had you not startled him, I am sure it would have been a very brief tap indeed.”

  Penthurst’s severe expression did not soften.

  To divert the confrontation into something less dramatic, she made introductions. Penthurst did not appear glad for that. Trilby could barely contain his relief. He sputtered and fawned for half a minute, making disjointed conversation, which the duke did little to help.

  “Well, I must— That is, I should—” All but tripping over his own legs, Trilby took his leave.

  Penthurst looked out to the garden, his profile limned by the lamps’ light. Lydia took a step toward the doors too.

  “Did I interrupt something, Lydia?”

  She pivoted. “Only a conversation.”

  “You appeared angry when I first came out. Was that man imposing on you?”

  “Only with his boring talk.”

  “His hand was on you.”

  “He sought my attention, that is all. He is a bit of a fool, I am afraid.”

  “It appeared you agreed to meet out here with him.” He turned and looked at her. “It was noticed.”

  “By you, obviously.”

  “And others. Such things always are noticed.”

  “How careless of me, then, to indicate I needed some air in front of him. Although I cannot be responsible for who wants air at the same time as I do, can I? If you followed in order to save me, it was not necessary. While the gesture was gallant, I am not your concern.”