It's Hard Out Here for a Duke Page 21

  “Yes, but people love, too. Look at our parents,” Bridget said. “Don’t we all want that?”

  Everyone, from the duchess to the butler, fell silent. Thoughtful. Amelia bit her lip. Claire exhaled deeply. James felt his heart clench.

  “We want what our mother and father had, Josephine. Love,” James said quietly, looking at Meredith. “The kind of love you throw a dukedom away for.”

  One might already say they were throwing the dukedom away with every rule broken, every convention flouted, all the daggers shot from eyes, excessive quantities of champagne quaffed, unchaperoned London adventures, accidental slips and falls in ballrooms, Claire’s scandalous attendances at mathematical lectures . . .

  They should at least get love out of it.

  There was little Meredith could do about that, other than get out of the way of it happening.

  As she stood there in the foyer while the metaphorical smoke cleared between the duchess and the Cavendishes, Meredith knew two things as sure as she knew her own name.

  James could never put his own happiness ahead of his sisters. This was one reason she loved him. And if he prioritized their love over his sisters’ happiness, they would never be truly happy together knowing the price his sisters paid.

  Meredith knew the duchess would be devastated if she failed at her life’s goal of assuring the succession of Durham. She had watched for years as the duchess tried and failed, tried and failed. So desperate was she to assure success that she had tracked down a long-lost American relative in the desperate hope that he might be a decent duke.

  Everyone said she was mad to go searching the colonies for a long-lost heir. But James was her last hope. Here he was, so close to being the man Durham needed him to be, save for Meredith tempting him to throw it all away.

  One by one, the Cavendishes drifted away from the foyer to be alone with their thoughts. She’d never seen them so quiet and pensive before.

  “Meredith, if I might have a word with you.”

  “Of course, Your Grace.”

  Meredith followed the duchess upstairs to Her Grace’s private sitting room. James started after her, and Mer shook her head no. This was between her and the duchess. She had to do this alone.

  Once in familiar environs of her private sitting room the duchess settled into her favorite chair, and Meredith took her usual place on the settee opposite.

  They’d sat together like this a hundred times, a thousand times. They had discussed light topics, like the latest ton gossip: who wore what to the theater, how best to attire the Cavendish girls, or which parties to attend.

  Meredith had also been privy to more private concerns: the duchess’s ongoing distress about a lack of heir, or even a girl child; the late duke’s declining health, the duchess’s worries about the dukedom.

  Something in the air, or maybe it was something in Meredith’s heart, told her this would not be a lighthearted gossip session about the fashion choices at last night’s soiree.

  “Well, did you enjoy the ball?” The duchess’s voice was heavy.

  Meredith answered truthfully. “Very much. It was an honor to attend.”

  “I suppose we should see to it that you attend more engagements. You might find a suitor,” the duchess said and Meredith stilled. This was unexpected. “I suppose it’s been selfish of me to keep you with me on the sidelines, and thus on the shelf, so that I might have your company for longer.”

  “I understand why you do.” Until a few Americans tumbled into their lives, Meredith was the only person the duchess could rely on. She was like the daughter she’d never had. She was her companion for now and for her old age.

  Remember that. Remember that. Remember that.

  “But never mind such sentimental thoughts.” She reached into the drawer at the side table and withdrew something shiny and sparkly. Something that made Meredith suck in a breath. “I found this last night.”

  There it was, in the duchess’s palm, the butterfly brooch with nary a diamond or emerald out of place. The one Meredith had borrowed and lost.

  “Oh! I had been looking for that last night and this morning. I was wretched with worry. I thought it might have fallen off on the stairs . . .”

  “Actually, one of the housemaids found it in the duke’s study, near the desk. Which is, oddly, where she found the duke when I sent her to find him for the toast late last night.”

  Meredith stilled. She knew this wasn’t a pleasant afternoon chat. She just hadn’t realized how much the duchess knew, and she was achingly sorry that Her Grace had found out from someone other than herself.

  “I can’t imagine why the brooch might have fallen off your gown there. Or what His Grace was doing in his study during a ball. It sounds like you might have been with him. But I shouldn’t like to make assumptions, especially about such a grave matter. Especially not about you, Meredith.”

  There were just enough holes in the story for Meredith to fill them in with lies and half-truths that would be to her benefit. She could dispel any suspicions. She could buy time, and wait for James to come to her rescue with his excuses and noble declarations of blame me, not her and I am the duke.

  And then what?

  Meredith would be left standing in the shadows again. Besides, she wasn’t some fairy-tale miss who counted on Prince Charming to swoop in and save her. No, she had been raised by none other than the Duchess of Durham, and as such, she was no shrinking violet.

  This was it then, the moment of reckoning.

  This was not even about her and the duke.

  It was about her and the duchess. If nothing else, Meredith owed her the truth.

  “I think I might love him.”

  Meredith hadn’t said the words aloud before. She had barely even allowed herself to think them. But she had felt them with each beat of her heart, with every breath, with each and every heated gaze between her and the duke. But saying them aloud . . . that made it all seem real.

  Perhaps she should have said those words to James first.

  I think I might love you.

  While she was mostly certain of his reply, she was on tenterhooks as to how the duchess would answer. And Dear Lord in Heaven, was she taking her time crafting a response.

  First, her gaze sharpened.

  Next, her lips flattened into a thinly pressed line.

  Meredith stopped bothering trying to control her inhales and exhalations; she gave up and let the air get stuck in her throat and her lungs grow tight and fiery. She had not expected acceptance. But this waiting for her sentence was excruciating.

  “Well,” Her Grace said after an endless silence. “That is inconvenient.”

  And that is what broke Meredith’s heart. She and her feelings were nothing more than an inconvenience to the woman who raised her. Who, presumably, loved her. Who, unlike her own mother, recognized and remembered her.

  “Meredith, you know that he needs a bride. A . . . suitable bride.” The duchess spoke delicately, with a small sigh of lament.

  It was one thing for Meredith to have said it herself, always with a little hope that she might be wrong. But if the Duchess of Durham said it, it was not wrong.

  “My question is why I am not suitable.”

  “Meredith, you know how the ton works . . .”

  “I do know,” Meredith said, voice tight. “But I want to hear you say it. All of it. Because we both know that the only person who knows Durham better than you is myself. We both know that I possess all the accomplishments of a lady. I am well mannered, well spoken, well educated. I am experienced in society. I have been taught by the best.”

  “And we both know that is not enough.”

  “You mean my family is not enough. My father, the duke’s valet, was not enough. My mother, who served you faithfully for years, is not enough. We’re too common. But that’s just it, isn’t it? She served. Just as I serve you . . .” She bit back the word faithfully. She was in no position to say that this morning.

  “It i
s not what I think, it is what the ton thinks. And we both know ancestry is everything. Connections are everything. Wealth is everything. Class is everything.”

  “And there is no hiding the truth with me.”

  “Never mind the truth about you. I have had one purpose in life, one purpose in a world that allows women to be little more than decoration. My life’s work is to secure Durham for another generation. I love you like a daughter, Meredith. I only want what is best for you. And I don’t think this is it. The ton will be cruel. Your children will struggle for acceptance . . . especially if your mother’s condition proves to be heritable.”

  “I think he might love me, too.”

  “Passion fades, Meredith. And then how will you and the duke get on when the ton has turned against you both? When they refuse to accept your children?”

  As much as it pained her, she knew what the duchess said was true, and spoken with only the best of intentions. She knew the right thing to do. Meredith swallowed hard. She loved James. But she loved the duchess, too.

  “I think I should go away for a spell. I’ll go visit my mother. Perhaps when it comes to the duke, out of sight is out of mind. Perhaps while I’m gone, he and the girls will make suitable matches.”

  “Meredith—you should keep this brooch. One day I’ll explain why.” The duchess held out the brooch. A peace offering, perhaps. A mere token of affection. A little treasure from the Cavendish family vaults. But she didn’t ask her to stay.

  A duke must always respect a woman’s wishes. Even if they break his heart.

  —The Rules for Dukes

  It took Meredith a few days to make the arrangements for her departure, and all the while she pretended as if nothing were amiss. She sat in during the family’s afternoons at home, and was present when Amelia’s suitor came calling. She consoled Bridget over Darcy and served as a confidante and rather lax chaperone for Claire when Lord Fox came to call.

  She did her very best to avoid James.

  She almost succeeded in avoiding him entirely, but he caught her in the foyer—the great, vast, marble and gold foyer that made a person feel oh, so small—as she was trying to sneak out without saying goodbye.

  She watched as James took note of the footman walking ahead toward the open door with her luggage. Next he took note of her traveling dress, and the gloves and reticule in her hands.

  There was a stormy look in his blue eyes. He didn’t like what he saw.

  “You’re leaving,” he said.

  “I am leaving.”

  “Why?”

  James stood at the bottom of the stairs. She noticed his grip on the balustrade tightening.

  “Because it is the right thing to do. We both know that, James.”

  “We need you. I need you. Amelia now has this suitor and I’m not certain of him. Bridget is heartsick over this Darcy fellow. And I have no idea what is happening with Claire and Lord Fox. I need you to advise them. And me.”

  “Exactly,” Meredith said, her resolve to leave strengthened, even as she looked into James’s blue eyes, which always made her melt a little.

  “Exactly?”

  “Your sisters have real chances at true happiness. I shall not stand in the way of it.”

  “Why would you stand in the way of it?”

  Meredith gave him a sharp look, because he very well knew the answer to that.

  “Besides,” she continued. “I need to visit with my mother. She is not well.”

  “I’ll go with you.” He started toward her. “You will want company.”

  “Your sisters need you here and I need to visit her alone.” She took a few steps back, careful to maintain a sensible distance between them. If he got too close, she would lose her resolve. But then he took another step or two in her direction.

  “I see what you are doing,” he said, standing close, oh, so close. “You are being my better judgment. You are demonstrating the strength and restraint that I should show but cannot. And here I am some lovesick fool, begging you not to go.”

  “I’m not going away forever.”

  “But who knows what will have happened by the time you have returned. I might fall in love with someone else.” He said this softly. The words hung in the air between them.

  Or rather, one word.

  Love.

  He paused.

  She paused.

  “If your heart is that fickle, then I suppose I should be rid of you now.”

  “It isn’t. That’s not what I meant. Mer . . . I feel like . . .” She watched his hand gripping the railing. The knuckles were white as he held on for what seemed like dear life. “I don’t want to be parted from you. This house will feel incomplete without you. I will feel incomplete without you. Meredith, I don’t know how to do this without you.”

  The anguish in his voice almost made her lose her resolve. Almost.

  “I don’t know who I am outside of the shadow of the duchess, and of Durham,” Meredith explained, because this wasn’t entirely about him, and he needed to know that. “I don’t know what world or life awaits me outside of this role. This might be the best I could hope for. Or there might be more for me. There is so much I don’t know, James, and I won’t know as long as I stay here. And you and your sisters won’t know as long as I am here, distracting you from becoming someone great, someone you were born to be.”

  “You are certain. I can see in your eyes, and the stubborn tilt of your jaw that there is no persuading you otherwise.”

  “And I can see in your eyes that you know I am right, and that you know better than to try to change my mind.”

  “This is goodbye then.”

  “Goodbye, James. Just James.”

  She reached out and caressed his cheek, one last time. He gripped her hand and held it to him.

  “Goodbye, Meredith,” he said, finally letting go. “You’ll never be just a girl to me.”

  Chapter 17

  A few days later

  Hampshire

  “How good of you to visit us,” Mrs. Bates said, with no small amount of sarcasm as she opened the door to the small cottage. Meredith stood on the step, holding her few belongings. “It’s so very good of you to spare some time for your mother between all your fancy parties and shopping sprees.”

  In London, Meredith was a nobody who barely clung to the fringes of fashionable society. But here she was considered fancy and above herself. In spite of her best efforts to be modest and obliging, they all thought she put on airs.

  Especially Mrs. Bates, a large and bullish woman, who was left with the thankless task of caring for Meredith’s mother, Mrs. Clara Green, former and beloved lady’s maid to the Duchess of Durham.

  “How is she?” Meredith asked, stepping into the small foyer.

  “She was fine an hour ago, actually. You’ll have to see for yourself how she is now. You know how she changes and how quickly.”

  Meredith followed Mrs. Bates into the parlor, where her mother was in her usual seat of the rocking chair near the window, with a view of the garden. Her hair had long ago gone gray, and the wrinkles that lined her face had deepened as the years went by.

  “Who is it? Who is there?”

  Meredith looked into her mother’s eyes—ones that were an awful lot like Meredith’s—and saw the confusion there. Long ago, those dark eyes had looked at her with love, worry, joy, delight, and all the feelings a mother had for her daughter. These days, they barely registered her existence.

  “It’s me, Mother. Meredith.”

  “I am not at home to callers,” her mother said archly.

  “She’s not at home to callers,” Mrs. Bates repeated with a snort.

  “I heard her,” Meredith murmured. Then, playing along with whatever scene was unfolding in her mother’s head, she said, “Perhaps I shall call another time.”

  “Leave your card, if you will.” Her mother gave her a dismissive wave.

  “She thinks she is the duchess,” Mrs. Bates confided. “High and mighty, l
ike mother, like daughter.”

  Meredith bit her tongue. Mrs. Bates had no idea of high and mighty—perhaps one day she would, if she actually met the duchess. Her Grace could freeze that sneer right off Mrs. Bates’s face. And yet, the duchess provided the funds for Clara’s care, but left Meredith to manage Mrs. Bates.

  It couldn’t have been easy, putting up with her mother in this state. All those hours shut up alone in this cottage with a madwoman who, more often than not, was confused about the day or the year or her own past or even her own daughter. She forgot she had a daughter.

  Meredith knew this was merely a symptom of whatever afflicted her mother’s mind. But today, after leaving the duchess and parting with James, she worried, am I so forgettable then?

  The next morning

  In London, there was always plenty to do, and with the arrival of the Cavendish family, there had been plenty of conversation at meals and laughter ringing through the corridors. Never a dull moment with that lot.

  So it was strange now to be in this small, quiet house.

  In London, Meredith just felt small and in the shadows, but here she felt large and ungainly and intrusive. There was little to do and few people with whom to associate.

  In fact, the only thing to do was sit in the parlor with her mother and attempt conversation whilst Mrs. Bates sat nearby, hemming bedsheets.

  “Good morning, Mother.”

  “Who are you speaking to? Who is it?” she asked, alarmed.

  “It is I, Meredith. Your daughter.”

  Her mother laughed. “I’m only one and twenty and unwed. I can’t have a daughter.”

  Ah, so her mother’s mind was lodged in the past again. Meredith did some calculations in her head (though admittedly not as quickly as Claire would have performed them). Her mother must think it was 1783. She and the duchess would have both been one and twenty, and the duchess married for three years already.

  Her mother then fixed her attentions on Meredith. For a second, she thought her mother’s mind had cleared, so sharp was her gaze.