Duchess in Love Read online

  One thing led to another, one of which was the discovery that the inn had a dartboard. As the evening wore on, it turned out that Lord Perwinkle was not only an expert with a dart, but he had a veritable passion for fishing, a passion shared by Cam. And by the time it transpired that Tuppy Perwinkle and Cam had attended the same school, separated by a mere five years, the two had achieved a state of intimacy found only among those raised in the same nursery or pickled in the same French brandy.

  In fact, when Mumby inquired whether Cam wished to hire a coach at first light, the duke refused. It had been a weary journey from Greece, all of forty-five days and a storm around the Bay of Biscay. There was plenty of time to meet his ball and chain, and he didn’t feel any need to rush to London.

  Tuppy agreed with that, having misplaced his own wife a few years before. “She left in a huff for her mother’s and never returned. Having tired of her complaints, I did not retrieve her. And so it’s been ever since.”

  “Tell my solicitor to come to me,” Cam told Phillipos. “I pay the man enough. He can join me for breakfast.”

  Phillipos never ceased to admire his employer’s ability to put away the best and show no effect the next day. Even so, he doubted whether the duke would really wish to see a solicitor at first light, given that a third bottle of brandy stood uncorked and waiting. But he bowed and sent off an urgent message to the metropolis, requesting the presence of Mr. Rounton, Esq., of Rounton & Rounton at a breakfast meeting with his esteemed client, Camden Serrard, the Duke of Girton.

  As a matter of fact, Phillipos had no cause for alarm.

  Edmund Routon, the Duke of Girton’s solicitor, was not a foolish man. He had had abundant—far too abundant—acquaintance with the duke’s late father. And on the off chance that the present duke was anything like his forebearer, Rounton had no intention of arriving until the early afternoon, when the man was as mellowed by food as possible.

  Around two o’clock a starched and gleaming Rounton descended from a coach, uncomfortably aware of a flutter of nervousness in his stomach. Interviews with the duke’s father had been a trial, to put it mildly. In a nutshell, the old duke seemed to specialize in projects that wandered from allegiance to the rule of law, and he would explode with rage on hearing the slightest disagreement.

  On the surface of it, the present duke seemed a different kettle of fish from his sire. “Good afternoon, Mr. Rounton,” he said, bounding out of his chair. He had the same dark eyes as his late father, although they were rather more cheerful. The old duke looked like Beelzebub, what with his nasty, sooty eyes and white complexion.

  Rounton bowed. “Your Grace, it is indeed a pleasure to see you in such fine health and returned to your native land.”

  “Yes, well,” Girton replied, waving at a chair. “I won’t be in England for long, and I need your help.”

  “If there is anything I can do, of course, I am more than willing, Your Grace.”

  “Do stop ‘your gracing’ me, then,” his client said. “I can’t stand formality.”

  “Of course, Your—of course.” He eyed the duke’s casual attire. No coat! And his shirtsleeves rolled up, showing muscled forearms. In all truth, Rounton found such informality quite unattractive.

  “I mean to annul my marriage,” Girton began. “I shouldn’t think it will take too long, under the circumstances. Everyone knows that it wasn’t a real marriage, and never has been. How long do you think it will take to draw up the papers?”

  Rounton blinked. The duke continued blithely, “And I might as well see Bicksfiddle while I’m there. Not that I plan to make any changes to his management. He has been making a surprising amount of money. But I do want to ensure that it’s all in fine fettle for Stephen.”

  At that the solicitor’s mouth fell open.

  “I shall settle a good amount on my wife, of course,” Girton added. “She’s been remarkably nice about the whole thing.”

  Mr. Rounton shook himself. “You wish to annul your marriage, Your Grace?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And did I understand that you wish to transfer your estate to your cousin…the Earl of Splade?” The man looked perfectly sane, if a bit unconventional. He was downright messy, the way his hair bristled up in that queer way, but he didn’t appear drunk.

  “The estate and the title will ultimately be Stephen’s or his son’s, at some point. I make no use of it. Swore to my father my word that I wouldn’t touch his estate, and I’ve never taken a penny from it.”

  “But…what—your heir—your wife—” Rounton spluttered.

  “I have no heir other than Stephen,” Girton pointed out. “And I don’t have a wife in more than name. Given that I have no intention of marrying again, I would like to dispense with the estate as soon as possible.”

  “You wish to annul your marriage, but you do not have another wife in mind.”

  The duke began to show signs of impatience. “As I said.”

  “Preparing the annulment papers is a relatively easy task, Your Grace. But such a process takes a great deal of time to effect. Much longer than a week.”

  “Even in our situation? After all, I haven’t seen my wife since she was, what—eleven or twelve years old? There can’t be anyone foolish enough to think the fiasco was ever consummated.”

  “I doubt that will present a problem given that your wife was so young,” Rounton replied. “However, the process requires the confirmation of Parliament and of the Regent. It could not happen readily. I am afraid that you must consider a longer stay in this country.”

  “Can’t do it,” Girton returned promptly. “I have work to do in Greece.”

  “Surely—” Rounton put in, desperately.

  “No.” And the solicitor could see he meant it. “I go into a frenzy if I’m away from my studio too long. You wouldn’t want a mad duke roaming the English countryside, would you?” Girton stood up. The interview was clearly over. “Why don’t you see how far you can get in the next few days? If I sign the papers, surely you could take care of it on your own.”

  Rounton rose slowly, his mind dancing over the thousands of legal obstacles that lay ahead of him. “I shall need to speak to you frequently before you leave the country,” he said, rather anxiously.

  “I believe I’ll stay in this inn for a night or two,” the duke said. “I hear there’s some very good fishing just to the north. Why don’t you investigate the process, and return here tomorrow?”

  “I will do my best,” Rounton replied. The young duke was like his father: they both wanted impossibilities, and wanted them yesterday.

  “Then I shall look forward to seeing you for dinner. And thank you very much.” The duke bowed.

  Back in London, Rounton settled into his comfortable office in the Inns of Court, and thought long and hard about the situation. He could see as clear as day that the duke was going to annul his marriage and then run back to the fleshpots of Greece, or whatever he had been doing over there in the last twelve years. And there would go the dukedom of Girton.

  His father and his father’s father had served the Dukes of Girton. And Edmund Rounton would be damned if he’d let it be thrown aside by an arrogant young whippersnapper who cared only about shaping bits of marble, and didn’t understand the importance of his own title.

  “I can’t let the boy do it,” he muttered, walking around his desk. It was a serious matter, letting an ancient and honored dukedom fall into new hands.

  Naturally he could understand why the man went abroad in the first place. Rounton never forgot the dizzy rage in the youngster’s face as he muttered his vows, marrying a young girl whom he had thought was his first cousin until that very morning. It didn’t surprise him when the bridegroom fled out a window after the ceremony and was never seen in England again. Not even when his own father was dying.

  “Godspeed his soul,” Rounton said reflexively, and then added, “the old bastard.”

  Besides, Girton’s only heir was the Earl of Splade, al
though as a Tory representative for the Oxfordshire district, Splade had long refused to use his title. Not that it mattered, because Splade was no better than his cousin. He was never going to get married. Too interested in politics. He was older than Girton anyhow. Must be thirty-six, if he was a day. Splade would fall dead on the floor of the House of Commons; Girton would continue his merry, unmarried debauchery off in Europe; and the dukedom would be gone. Doomed. Dead.

  Rounton himself had failed to produce a male heir, and so the equally old and honored firm of Rounton & Rounton was due to fall into strangers’ hands as soon as he retired. At the thought a stab of pain shot through his stomach. Rounton sighed. Let Girton do as he wished. Throw away his lineage. The hell with it.

  He opened up the newspaper that lay on his desk, neatly ironed and waiting. His doctor had suggested that calm activities such as reading would soothe his recurrent bouts of dyspepsia. For a few moments he stared listlessly at “General Observations About the Town,” mechanically reading down a list of frivolous activities performed by frivolous persons. Suddenly a passage jumped out at him:

  We find ourselves confused by a recent trend amongst the most fashionable: the beauteous young Duchess of G__, who surely can have no complaints of boredom, given that she receives invitations to every amusement in the town, has taken a history tutor with her to Lady Troubridge’s famed house party. Rumor has it the tutor is a handsome young man…one can only hope that the duke will return from abroad and entertain his wife himself.

  Rounton’s eyes narrowed, and he forgot the burning in his stomach. Energy ran through his limbs. He wouldn’t retire until he saved the Girton lineage. It would be his final act of loyalty: the last and best gift to the Dukes of Girton from the loyal Rountons.

  At least he himself had made a decent attempt to produce a little solicitor to inherit the firm. He and Mary, bless her heart, had been unable to have youngsters; well, so be it. But the duke had a perfectly good young wife sitting around, and he could damn well try to breed with her before he went back to the continent.

  “I’ll make him do it,” Rounton said to himself. His voice had the ring of a man who habitually wrangled the law—and feeble humanity—to suit his clients’ interests. “And what’s more,” he decided, “I’ll do it with a bit of finesse. Creativity, that’s what is called for.” God knows, the old duke had forced him to learn creative ways around the law. It shouldn’t be too difficult to make the new duke dance to his piping.

  3

  Family Politics

  The Queen’s Smile, Riddlesgate

  The upshot of Mr. Rounton’s decision to rescue the Girton lineage from certain oblivion was that three men descended from a carriage in front of the Queen’s Smile, just around six o’clock the following evening.

  It only took a second for Cam to recognize his heir, Stephen Fairfax-Lacy, the Earl of Splade. “Stephen!” he shouted, leaping up from his chair and hauling his cousin into his arms. “How marvelous to see you. It must be eight years since you came to Nissos!”

  Stephen extracted himself and sat down, a quiet smile lighting his eyes. “Since when have you taken to hugging? What shall I call you? Your Grace would be proper.”

  “Bollocks to that. I’m still Cam, and you’re still Stephen. I’ve come a long way from all that rotten English formality business that my father so believed in. In Greece, men express themselves as they wish.”

  Rounton cleared his throat. “Your Grace, I trust you do not mind that I asked the Earl of Splade to accompany me. A subject of the highest importance has arisen.”

  Cam grinned at Stephen at once. “The pleasure is mine.”

  “May I introduce my junior partner, Mr. Finkbottle?” Rounton asked, indicating a nervous-looking man in his twenties. “He will act as a liaison between yourself and my office.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, sir. Shall we all have a seat? There are plenty of chairs here, and the landlord has some excellent brandy.”

  Stephen sat down and stretched his legs. A man of his height—he was a good six feet four in his stocking feet—found even an hour in a coach to be an uncomfortable endeavor. “You look older, Cam,” he said abruptly.

  His cousin shrugged. “Age is an infirmity we all share. I’ve not been living the dandy’s life for the past twelve years.”

  Mr. Rounton cleared his throat and started a fussy sermon about the legal hurdles involved in annulments. Stephen sipped his brandy and stared at his cousin. For a man who lived in Greece, Cam’s skin was remarkably white. In fact, in the flickering light of the fire, his eyebrows looked like slashes of charcoal on parchment. His was a face of hard angles and impatient gleams of light. But his hands hadn’t changed, Stephen thought with a fuzzy sense of nostalgia. Their childhood had been enlivened by what those long fingers could make from wood—

  “Do you still whittle, Cam?” he asked abruptly, jumping into a moment’s pause in the conversation.

  A fleeting smile crossed his cousin’s face. “Look here.” He reached down beside his chair and picked up a splinter of wood.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a dart,” Cam said, turning it over. Interest had lit up his eyes. “I had an idea that if I moved the flight up the shaft, the dart would be faster to the target.”

  Stephen reached out and took the slender piece of wood in his hand. Like everything Cam made, the dart was beautifully shaped, a sleek, dangerous spike with a narrow groove waiting for its feather.

  “What d’you think?”

  “It’ll dip when weighted. It may fly faster, but once you put a tip, the feather won’t balance.” He illustrated with his finger. “See? The dart will spiral down rather than fly straight forward. You might get around it by narrowing the tip.”

  Cam looked at it broodingly. “Likely you’re right,” he admitted.

  “You always were short on the mechanics,” Stephen commented. “Remember all those boats you whittled?”

  “Sank, almost every one of them,” Cam said, laughing.

  “They wouldn’t have, if you had shaped them in a normal fashion. You invariably tried to be too clever.”

  Mr. Rounton judged it time to turn the conversation to a more delicate area, since the duke seemed to be in a reasonable frame of mind. “Your wife is currently at a house party in East Cliff, around an hour’s travel from here,” he stated.

  Cam’s deep-set eyes rested on the solicitor’s face for a moment and then returned to the dart in his hand. “A pity,” he said casually. “I would have liked to meet the chit after all these years. But I haven’t time to be jaunting about the country.”

  Rounton recognized the set to his employer’s jaw immediately: he’d seen it often enough in the duke’s father. But he had his rejoinder planned.

  “It appears to be virtually impossible to prepare annulment papers in a week,” he stated.

  “May I suggest that you try very, very hard?” The duke’s tone was kind.

  His father’s son, Rounton thought gloomily. “There is another problem, Your Grace.”

  “Oh?” The duke had taken out a small knife and began whittling the tip of the dart.

  “I am prepared to initiate the annulment. However, something has recently happened to your wife which has complicated matters.”

  He looked up at that. “What about her?”

  “The duchess is…” Rounton hesitated. “The duchess has found herself in the midst of a scandal.”

  “A scandal?” The duke sounded only mildly interested.

  “Gina? What sort of a scandal could Gina make? Likely a storm in a teapot, Rounton. She’s a sweet little thing.”

  “Naturally I agree with you as to the duchess’s virtues, my lord. However, she is currently viewed by the ton in a less salubrious light.”

  Cam turned the dart over and over, his long fingers searching for any irregularity in its surface. “Now that I find hard to believe. Every Englishman who has made his way over to Greece—and there’ve been a surprisin
g number of them, with France in a frenzy—has been keen to applaud my wife’s virtues.”

  Rounton said nothing.

  Cam sighed. “I suppose they would say that?”

  “If you seek to annul the marriage at this particular moment, I have no doubt that you can obtain that annulment, but I am afraid that Her Grace may be barred from society in the aftermath.”

  “I gather little Gina has been burning the candle at both ends,” Cam said. His eyes moved to Stephen. “Well?”

  Stephen shrugged. “I don’t move in those circles.”

  Cam waited, long fingers flipping the dangerous little arrow.

  “I’ve heard rumors,” his cousin said. “Gina has a rather wild group of acquaintances. Young married women…”

  “All married?”

  “Their reputations are not chaste,” Stephen added, rather reluctantly.

  Cam’s jaw tightened. “In that case, why would annulling the marriage make any difference to Gina’s reputation?”

  The solicitor opened his mouth but Stephen cut in. “Rounton thinks you should make a show of support. He has asked me to go to this house party as well.”

  Cam scowled down at the dart in his hands. What the devil was he supposed to say to Gina? If she was gallivanting around with her marquess, well, she meant to marry him, after all. “Once Gina marries Bonnington, won’t it all blow over?”

  “I doubt it,” Rounton said. “That would certainly mitigate matters, but what if the marriage does not occur?”

  “Gina is thought to have spent the night not with Marquess Bonnington but with a man named Wapping, a servant of some sort,” Stephen put in. “There is now some doubt about whether Bonnington will wish to go through with the marriage.”

  “That’s nonsense,” Cam snapped. “Wapping is the tutor that I sent her. Found him in Greece and dispatched him over here.”

  Rounton nodded. “You can see how important your opinion will be in the aftermath of this unfortunate debacle, Your Grace. If you were to spend a few days at the house party, making it clear that Wapping is your employee, it will go a long way to soothing people’s suspicions.”