It's Hard Out Here for a Duke Page 13

  Life with the duchess opened her eyes to the possibilities that existed in the world. Through conversations with worldly people at soirees and calling hours, or books, newspapers, and nights at the theater, Meredith was exposed to a wealth of possibilities. But through a steady stream of subtle reminders of her place—a request to fetch something, say, or never being asked her opinion on the ideas in a book—she was reminded that it was not her place to dream of them. She was here to be a loyal and faithful companion and nothing more.

  Meredith kept stitching, pushing and pulling the needle and thread through the fabric. She was good at being a companion, though. She knew all the rules and etiquette. She knew the ways of the haute ton, even if she didn’t quite belong. Perhaps one day she might write a book or start a school: A Commoner’s Guide to High Society.

  Rule number one: do not dally with the head of the household, especially if he is a duke.

  Despite her inner turmoil, Meredith did adore how the family had the entirety of Durham House at their disposal, but still sought out each other’s company to sit in a companionable silence, each engaged in their own pursuits. It would be a lovely, relaxed scene of family harmony if . . .

  What happened yesterday wasn’t discovered.

  What happened last night was ignored.

  Meredith, knowing the duchess as she did, was not optimistic. The woman was sharp and missed nothing.

  She stabbed the needle and thread through the sampler she was working on and then tugged it back again. Stitch after stitch kept her hands busy and steady, even if her nerves were frayed and mind bleary from a night spent fretting rather than sleeping.

  Thus far, she had made it through breakfast unscathed.

  But the day was young.

  And the duchess was nobody’s fool.

  And Meredith was positive that any second now the duchess would say something.

  Meredith took no satisfaction in being right.

  “How was yesterday’s picnic outing?” Her Grace asked, innocently enough. Meredith and James exchanged a fleeting, heated glance.

  “It was quite nice, actually,” Lady Claire replied, absentmindedly, as she continued her work, doing things with numbers that went far beyond multiplication and division.

  “I should have liked to have gone,” Amelia added morosely. “Instead of more social calls.”

  “But Lady Whoever We Visited served some very delicious cakes,” Lady Bridget replied. “I would enjoy calling hours much more if every hostess served such excellent cake.”

  Meredith kept her head down and prayed.

  Don’t ask me. Don’t ask me. Don’t ask me.

  “Miss Green,” Her Grace said. “What did you think? Did you enjoy the picnic?”

  She couldn’t lie. But she also couldn’t tell her that they had gone to a boxing match instead and had deliberately misled her—all in addition to whatever Her Grace witnessed in the corridor last night. It was all a tremendous betrayal of trust, and now, the morning after, Meredith couldn’t even believe she had done it.

  In a panic, she glanced to James, her gaze crying, help!

  “We had an excellent time,” he replied smoothly. “The weather was fine, the company charming, and the events of the day were entertaining.”

  Only a mischievous sparkle in his eye belied that, while everything he said was true, it was also terribly misleading.

  In that second Meredith caught a glimpse of him as a rascally young man, causing trouble and charming his way out of it. Such a vision was almost enough to make her smile. Almost.

  “I don’t suppose the day might also be described as raucous, scandalous, or violent,” the duchess said dryly.

  “Now that sounds like a picnic I might enjoy,” Amelia said, grinning fiendishly.

  Lady Claire dropped her pencil and looked to her brother, alarmed. Meredith fought the urge to do so as well.

  Keep stitching. Keep stitching. Keep stitching.

  “Duchess, what are you imagining?” James feigned shock.

  “My sources informed me that you were spotted at some boxing match. Some lowbrow fight, attended by thousands of the great unwashed.”

  Meredith concentrated very, very hard on her stitches, ensuring they were perfectly small, tight, and straight. Because she had a feeling that, in spite of James’s charm and bluster, things were starting to unravel. What seemed to be innocent conversation was, with the duchess, an interrogation that would trap and doom them all.

  “We were chaperoning Lady Claire with her suitor, Lord Fox,” James replied. “The marquess invited us.”

  “You did say to encourage him, Your Grace,” Claire added, her voice trailing off as the duchess, being brilliant and ruthless, shifted her focus to the one person in the room who could not lie to her.

  “Miss Green, as my devoted companion, I am surprised that you would allow me to persist in believing a deliberate untruth.”

  “Uh-oh,” Amelia said softly under her breath.

  Bridget reached for a biscuit.

  Meredith took a deep breath and summoned her courage. All of it, every last bit. There was no point in denying what was known and true.

  “I do apologize, Your Grace. I seem to have forgotten myself.”

  She was sorry, she thought, as she resumed stabbing the fabric with her needle and thread. Sorry that they had to hide and mislead the duchess to assist Claire’s courtship. Sorry that she had taken advantage of the opportunity to be near the duke. Sorry that her heart yearned for him so much that she even considered things that, until recently, were inconceivable. Meredith was sorry that she was torn between loyalty to the duchess and the desires of her heart. She was sorry that the world made her choose.

  But she was not sorry they had all gone.

  “I told her I would take care of informing you about our plans,” James cut in to protect her, just as much as he did yesterday in the crowd. “I apologize for being remiss in that. The good news is that Claire and that Fox fellow seem to have gotten along. Perhaps they might make a match, given more opportunities to spend time together, as they did yesterday.”

  “Um, maybe . . .” Claire said halfheartedly. Or maybe even 1/4-heartedly.

  “If I had known courtship involved excursions to violent and raucous boxing matches, I might take it more seriously,” Amelia said. “Really, Josie, you should have told me.”

  Only Lady Amelia could get away with calling the Duchess of Durham Josie.

  “Josie” ignored her.

  “Ah, so you are coming around to the idea of your sisters making matches and settling down in England?” The duchess arched her brows, more challenging than questioning. “Do you mean to encourage them? Lady Claire has Lord Fox, Lady Bridget has Mr. Wright. We’ll just need to make arrangements for Lady Amelia, and soon they’ll be settled and out of your hands.”

  Meredith watched James tense, then shift uneasily. His sisters stopped what they were doing and watched him carefully.

  His sisters were the one point of leverage the duchess had with him, and Her Grace knew it. They all knew it.

  “I want them to be happy,” he said.

  “And if it means chaperoning them to various outings with suitors?”

  “Well, yes . . .”

  “Except for my math lecture,” Claire said pointedly. “You missed that.”

  “Let’s not go too far,” he replied. “It was the same day as the Exton races, and I couldn’t very well miss that.”

  “But a boxing match . . .”

  “The things a man does for his sisters.”

  This was punctuated with his usual sigh and eye roll heavenward. And yet . . . it felt as if they all knew that yesterday hadn’t entirely been about Lady Claire’s courtship. It had been an excuse for something else—whether it was time with her or merely an escape from the dukedom, Meredith knew not, but either way the duchess would disapprove.

  “I must commend you, Duke, on a valiant attempt to convince me that yesterday’s outing was
nothing more than an unconventional excursion which both you and Miss Green were supervising. But it has not escaped my notice that you have been exchanging loaded glances with Miss Green all morning.” The duchess paused. “Perhaps even longer.”

  The clock ticked loudly in the silence.

  Lady Bridget stopped writing.

  Lady Amelia closed her book.

  Lady Claire looked up from her work.

  Meredith’s heart was pounding.

  This. This is what she’d been afraid of. Discovery.

  “Now, Duchess . . .” James drawled, attempting to charm her.

  She would not be charmed.

  The duchess silenced him with just one look: the one that conveyed what-kind-of-fool-do-you-take-me-for?-I-expected-better-than-this-from-you.

  And as for the look she gave Meredith—well, a little corner of her heart might have turned black and withered away. The guilt. The anguish.

  At this, Meredith accidentally stabbed her finger with the needle, drawing a tiny drop of red blood.

  “I have decided that it’s time for you, Duke, to visit one of your estates,” the duchess said in a voice that would brook no disagreement. “We’ll go to Durham Park first—it’s a short drive from London, so we shan’t miss too much of the season. We wouldn’t want to miss out on proper courtship opportunities, now would we?”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Lady Amelia exclaimed. “I’m ready to go immediately.”

  “A trip to the country does sound lovely,” Bridget mused.

  “Shall I make arrangements for packing?” Meredith inquired.

  “Please. And it will just be the duke and me.”

  “I think my sisters would like to see the country estate as well,” James said.

  “This is not about your sisters, Duke. It is about your duty. And how you have been distracted from it by”—the duchess paused and looked at Meredith—“London.”

  Chapter 10

  A duke must take time to visit all of his properties. Visiting multiple vast estates around the country may prove to be a strenuous and lengthy endeavor for which many will feel no pity.

  —The Rules for Dukes

  There were worse things, James supposed, than spending a few hours alone in an enclosed carriage with the duchess for a trip he had no wish to embark on. He spent the first portion of the journey listing them privately to himself: a trip to the dentist, bloodletting, enduring a mathematics lecture with Claire, being separated from Meredith . . .

  She had stayed behind to supervise his sisters.

  That was the polite excuse anyway.

  It was understood that the duchess had seen them in a somewhat compromising position. Perhaps she had also witnessed that invisible, intangible, passionate something between them.

  He shouldn’t be kissing anyone the way he kissed her. It was one thing when Meredith told him not to—that, he could respect. It was all those rules and expectations forbidding them from being together that he found intolerable.

  But he couldn’t say he was surprised by it. Meredith had let him know that she wasn’t suitable, and thus that the duchess wouldn’t approve. Yet he hadn’t quite been prepared for the extent of her disapproval. It radiated from her like rays from the sun on a cold day—bright, cold, relentless.

  Even now, a few hours into a carriage ride.

  “Well, it is nice to leave London at least,” James remarked, finally done with his list of greater tortures and eager to thaw out the duchess. “I confess I do miss greenery. And open space. And fresh air.”

  “You will like Durham Park. The house is very fine, of course, but I suppose it is the grounds that you will find most enticing; there are many rolling hills and a forest thick with game. The stables are fine, too. I imagine that you might wish to spend the majority of your time at Durham Park, once things are settled.”

  “You mean my sisters are settled.”

  “And you. When you are all properly settled.” There it was again—a pointed little reminder that she knew, or suspected, or at any rate disapproved that the one woman he fancied was not considered an acceptable candidate for the role of wife and future duchess. “We can always retire there when the season concludes.”

  “And when does that blessed event occur?”

  “In midsummer.”

  “I shall count the days,” James said dryly.

  The duchess opened her mouth to say something and quickly thought the better of it. Was it a lecture on how lucky he was to have to suddenly assume more responsibility than he wanted? Or was it another lesson on how to succeed in society? Perhaps she even had a reason why he should prize the good opinion of the haute ton over true happiness with Meredith.

  James braced himself. She ought to have a go at him now, when he was a captive audience. Instead, she pressed her lips in a firm line and looked out the window.

  “C’mon now, Josie, what were you going to say?”

  “You’ll see, Duke.” The duchess gave him a smile that made him nervous. “You’ll see.”

  Durham Park

  When the carriage turned in the drive, something clenched in James’s chest. That tight squeeze in the region of his heart felt something like love. The land was beautiful with lush green fields dotted with grazing sheep, massive trees, all set against an endless blue sky. It reminded him of home, in America, and it made him wonder if his father had picked their land to settle on because it was so achingly familiar to this beautiful ancestral estate.

  It made him wonder if perhaps he could be happy here.

  The house was, as she described, very fine and imposing, and he wasn’t too bothered with it. Not when he was so taken with the grounds.

  As with his London arrival, the servants lined up to greet them. There were so many that James didn’t have a prayer of learning their names or faces.

  The butler, who, like the London butler seemed to be hundreds of years old, inquired if James would like to start with a tour of the house. The duchess answered before he could reply.

  “I think the duke would prefer to tour the grounds and stables first, Rutherford,” she said. “We should also like to pay a call upon the tenants this afternoon. Please, see that baskets are prepared for us to bring them. His Grace has been learning about the social aspects of his title, and today I should like to show him another side of this duke business.”

  The stables were what one might imagine for a duke—large, well-constructed, with every amenity for both man and beast. James whistled softly, reverently, under his breath as he strolled through the center aisle, looking into each stall as he went by. They were stocked with fine specimens of horseflesh for every purpose—great animals for racing, breeding, or merely riding around the estate. He could tell.

  Lady Jemma was right that these stables were enviable. He would have to tell her about his visit. When he called on her. If he called on her.

  James could imagine working with these magnificent creatures. If he stayed.

  James could also imagine his father sneaking in here in the dead of the night, stealing away with Messenger, escaping with the horse all the way to America, where he used him to establish his own stables.

  It was a story he’d heard a thousand times: a story of a moonlit night, of a young man determined to make his own way in the world. The whole plot threatening to go awry, thanks to grooms stirring awake—but thankfully drifting off to sleep. All that whiskey they’d drunk with his father earlier in the evening saw to that.

  It was the story of a midnight ride, through this very countryside, with his father knowing, every step and hoofbeat of the way, that he could never, ever return.

  James wondered, again, if his father would have returned to assume the title had he lived to inherit it. He wondered, too, how he was supposed to return to the place his father had fled and call it home.

  A duke must become acquainted with his tenants, for it is their labors that support his livelihood. He will do well to keep this in the forefront of his heart an
d mind.

  —The Rules for Dukes

  The afternoon was spent paying calls upon the tenants. James was happy for a ducal duty that didn’t involve sitting behind a desk.

  He and the duchess took an open carriage, filled with heavy baskets full of gifts and foodstuffs. The duchess didn’t say much—which surprised him. He had come to expect rules and protocol to learn or instruction on what to say and how to stand.

  Instead, she smiled and took in the scenery.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? This is where the duke and your father were raised. The main country seat is in Hampshire, but the family has always preferred this place.”

  “It is very picturesque,” James agreed. But inside, he was awed by the beauty and taken with imagining his father here. How could he not have spoken of this more? There had been fleeting mentions—fishing in the lake, a rope swing in an old oak tree, that story about absconding with Messenger. Perhaps he’d have time on this visit to seek out all those places, and understand his father a little more—like why he left only to seek out a home that resembled this.

  James turned his head and fixed his gaze on the scenery, as a way to dissuade the duchess from more conversation. He was afraid that if he were forced to speak, he would confess to the emotions bubbling up inside him: curiosity about this place, wanting to understand his father, wanting to understand why he now felt some connection with this land.

  The carriage rolled to a stop in front of a small and quaint stone cottage, surrounded by some other small buildings, presumably other houses and accommodation for animals.

  A man strolled forward to greet them—he could have been thirty or fifty. He could be James, in twenty years’ time, if he kept up his life of tending to horses outside in the sun.

  “This is Mr. Simons,” the duchess said. “His family has been farming this land for four generations.”