Say Yes to the Duke Read online

  “I knew the blue was too good to be true,” Lady Knowe groaned. “That green is far too fashionable for me, Lavinia, darling.”

  The truth was that she had lost control over her own wardrobe. For the previous decade, she had scarcely left Lindow Castle, living happily in Cheshire and raising her brother’s horde of children.

  But the children began marrying and leaving the castle.

  North and his wife lived not far from Lindow, but Alaric and Willa sailed in and out the port of Dover. Betsy had debuted in London, and her husband was often in the city. Parth had to manage his bank and all the rest of his businesses. Somehow Lady Knowe kept finding herself on the road to London.

  Every time she arrived, Lavinia would have a new gown waiting for her, a garment she hadn’t chosen, wouldn’t have ordered, and would have never thought to wear.

  Before she knew it, reporters had begun watching for her wherever she went. She couldn’t attend the opera at Covent Garden without being besieged by newspaper correspondents working for The Lady’s Magazine, or its French equivalent, Galerie des Modes.

  “The green will clash,” she said, trying in vain to regain some control over color, if not design.

  “This is not mere green, but acid green,” Lavinia corrected her. “I shall frame the bodice and large turn-back cuffs with an extravagant amount of this lace. And I mean to have some satin dyed to match for the lining.”

  Lady Knowe groaned. “Everyone will look at me.”

  “That’s the idea,” Lavinia said. “Viola and Joan must dress like perfect young ladies, albeit the best-dressed debutantes of the Season. But with you I can be creative!”

  “Why can’t you expend your creativity on your own clothing?”

  “Because I’m married to Parth,” Lavinia replied. “He’s getting to be terribly powerful. Oh, no, Barty. Don’t sit on that satin.” She just managed to snatch the scrap of fabric away before Barty fluttered down and nestled next to her leg to take a nap.

  “I don’t see why that means you can’t wear an acid green,” Lady Knowe said.

  “If Parth decides he wants to stand for the House of Commons, or accept one of those titles they keep offering him, I don’t want the fact that he has an outrageously fashionable wife to stand in the way,” Lavinia said. “You know what people are like. I already attract far too much attention.”

  “Parth doesn’t agree,” Joan said. “He thinks you should be known as the most fashionable lady in London. He told me that last night.”

  “I am wiser to the ways of polite society than my husband,” Lavinia said, even though her smile showed how much she appreciated Parth’s unwavering faith. She clasped her hands and put on a beseeching look. “Please, Aunt Knowe, allow me to design your riding costume. I promise that it will be flattering.”

  Lady Knowe bent over a pile of fabric to give Lavinia a hug, being careful not to dislodge Barty. “This family is lucky,” she said, feeling misty. “The day you married Parth was one of our most fortunate moments of all.”

  “Does that mean you’ll wear my blue and green riding costume in Hyde Park?” Lavinia’s eyes were bright with excitement. “I promise you that the combination will be extraordinary.”

  Lady Knowe winced. But they both knew that she wouldn’t refuse.

  “Let’s return to the question of clandestine letters,” she said instead, looking over at Viola.

  Viola stared back, fruitlessly wishing that she could raise a sardonic eyebrow. It would be so useful!

  “There is nothing improper about our correspondence,” she said instead. “Mr. Marlowe asked me if I knew the source of the unfortunate odor in the library. As it happens, I do. A weasel died in the attic and was undiscovered for some time.”

  “Disgusting,” Joan said with a shudder.

  “The smell seeped through the floorboards, and the only way to remove the smell will be to rip them out. I said as much to Father Duddleston before he passed away, but he thought the repairs would be too burdensome. His solution was to stop using the library altogether.”

  “Mr. Marlowe could have figured that out himself,” Joan said, rolling her eyes. “He merely wanted an excuse to write to you, and never mind the fact that his fiancée is hovering in the background like a bird of prey. Wait until Miss Pettigrew finds out about these notes you’re exchanging.”

  Viola felt a twinge of guilt and looked down at her letter. If the truth be told, she hadn’t even mentioned the weasel. Mr. Marlowe’s last sermon, preached in the townhouse chapel, had addressed marital love, and she was trying to compose an intelligent response to prove that she was worthy of being a vicar’s wife.

  Her lack of success was evidenced by the crumpled pieces of paper at her feet.

  Miss Pettigrew certainly wouldn’t approve.

  Dear Mr. Marlowe, she’d written, I wish to congratulate you on the perspicuity of your recent sermon on marital harmony.

  She wasn’t quite sure what “perspicuity” meant.

  I shall take to heart your point as regards avoiding using another human being as an instrument for one’s own pleasure, thus making a spouse an object of indulgence.

  That was as far as she’d got because, frankly, what did she know? Lavinia and Parth had joined them for the Sunday service, and she was quite certain that Parth had been laughing because she heard Lavinia hushing him. Her stepfather and mother had just looked straight ahead with mildly interested expressions.

  Lady Knowe looked as if she might confiscate the letter, so Viola hastily folded the draft. It felt improper, even if it wasn’t improper.

  As if her aunt could hear her thoughts, Lady Knowe said, “The very fact you are corresponding is improper, perhaps even more so because you are abiding under the same roof. Darling, don’t you see that it doesn’t say much for Mr. Marlowe that he has engaged in, let alone encouraged, your correspondence? As Joan pointed out, he is betrothed. Miss Pettigrew surely has no idea that you are exchanging missives, no matter how innocent the subject.”

  “He doesn’t think in those terms,” Viola explained. “Mr. Marlowe isn’t attuned to the mores of polite society. He devotes all of his time and energy to helping parishioners.” But she felt another pang of guilt.

  “Here, do I look as peckish as Pettigrew?” Joan asked. She picked up a piece of black lace and hung it over her head.

  “Don’t be unkind,” Lavinia said, plucking the lace away. “Whoever Miss Pettigrew is, she’d be lucky to find herself in that particular piece of lace. Do you know how hard it was to find a vegetable dye that results in a true black? We’re having to reserve it for widows.”

  “I can’t see how Miss Pettigrew could object to my notes,” Viola said, not convincing anyone, including herself. “I’m merely trying to help.”

  “You’re not the only one hankering after our local clergyman,” Joan pointed out. “You do remember that in the week before we left for London, the church pews were fairly bursting? That wasn’t the case when dear old Father Duddleston was preaching.”

  “You’re being remarkably impolite,” Viola retorted, leveling a frown at Joan. “Father Duddleston’s sermons were excellent.” She looked down at her folded letter. “I regularly told him what I thought of them, although he never agreed.”

  “That isn’t what I meant,” Joan said. She picked up some white lace and draped it on her head. “Here, now I’m saintly Viola.”

  “You’re being horrid,” Viola snapped.

  Lady Knowe frowned. “The two of you rarely lowered yourselves to squabbling in the nursery, and there’s no reason to do it now. Viola, I suppose I should be unsurprised that you would risk your reputation in order to share advice. You were the kindest child in the nursery by far.”

  “Except when she wasn’t,” Joan said. “Remember the scene she made when Father thought that Barty would be better off living in the woods?”

  “He didn’t understand that Barty’s wings don’t work properly,” Viola said.

  Lavinia lo
oked up from the piles of fabric she was sorting through. “Do you have a hidden stubborn streak, Viola? I didn’t know that.”

  “Of course I don’t,” Viola said. “Well, perhaps a little bit.”

  “Years ago she discovered two calves were being fattened up for Easter dinner, and she practically threw herself across their bodies to save them,” Joan told Lavinia. “To this day, Cleo and Daisy live the life of queens. They have their own cowshed, and I’m surprised it isn’t gold plated.”

  “No more letters to Mr. Marlowe,” Aunt Knowe said, laying down the law. “If anyone found out, Viola, you’d be ruined, and never mind that you’re sharing ideas for a Sunday school or whatever. It won’t matter.”

  Viola nodded. She’d just have to find another way to impress Mr. Marlowe with her thoughtful appreciation of his sermons.

  “Now we can talk of other things,” Lady Knowe said. “What color will you wear to the Murgatroyd tea tomorrow, Joan?”

  Joan sighed. “Lavinia has mandated that Viola and I have to wear pale colors. With white wigs. Ghostlike.”

  “Pale colors emphasize that this is your first Season,” Lavinia said, looking unrepentant.

  “I thought they both looked charming last night,” Lady Knowe said, “but I didn’t realize you meant to clothe them in white for the entire Season.”

  “Wildes set trends, we don’t follow them,” Lavinia said. “Our ball opened the Season. When Lavinia and Viola came down the stairs dressed in white, it changed the entire conversation. They’ll wear pale tints for the Season, and I am expecting that by next year white will be de rigueur for a debut.”

  Viola knew exactly what she meant. A ballroom full of people speculating about Joan’s and Viola’s claims to being members of the Wilde family were being handed another subject of conversation. Rather than discussing the whole not-Wilde business, they could talk about fashion instead.

  “You are brilliant, darling,” Lady Knowe said, dropping a kiss on Lavinia’s cheek.

  “Everyone will be talking about you as well,” Lavinia promised Aunt Knowe. “The color of this green lace has never been seen before. The clever man who creates our dyes made it from crushed beetles.”

  Lady Knowe groaned.

  “That’s horrible,” Viola exclaimed. “Those poor beetles!”

  Joan pointed at Lavinia. “You’ve done it now. She’ll probably set up a beetle sanctuary outside the cowshed.”

  “Almost every dye comes from vegetables and weeds,” Lavinia said. “I can’t say that I feel true sadness for the beetles.”

  “I would wear the beetle lace,” Joan said grumpily. “As it is, I’m going to spend all Season looking as if I’m being christened. I’d like to wear something that makes me stand out in the crowd. Scarlet, for example.”

  Viola rolled her eyes. “You always stand out in a crowd, Joan.”

  “You think you don’t,” Joan said, “but you certainly made an impression on the Duke of Wynter last night. The only thing he wanted to talk about during our dance was you! And if you’ll forgive me, Viola, generally speaking, gentlemen at least ask me a polite question or two about myself.”

  “He isn’t interested in me that way,” Viola said quickly. “I overheard him tell Sir Reginald that he thought the ball was meant for the duke’s real daughter and I was only included for practical reasons.”

  “Despicable!” Joan exclaimed.

  “When he first arrived at the ball, he didn’t even bother to be introduced, or to ask me to dance, because he is determined to marry a duke’s daughter. A real one like you, Joan.”

  Lady Knowe narrowed her eyes. “Oh, he did, did he? My brother will disabuse him of that notion. You’re not to dance with him again, Joan.”

  “His name is dead to me,” Joan said. “I wouldn’t have, anyway. I don’t think he is handsome at all.”

  Viola didn’t agree. The duke was not conventionally handsome but there was something very compelling about him. She was wrestling with a new twinge of guilt: After all, once they met, the duke had repeatedly asked her to dance with him.

  “I think he’s attractive,” Lavinia said. “He’s an acquaintance of Parth’s, and I’ve met him a few times.” She twinkled at Joan. “All that brooding masculinity.”

  “More importantly, Viola, what did you say to him in response?” Joan asked.

  “How could she say anything, if she overheard the comment?” Lavinia asked, before Viola could answer. “Parth won’t be pleased to hear of Wynter’s comment. For obvious reasons, he abhors people who question whether His Grace is a true parent to all his children.”

  “I shared a nursery with Viola for years,” Joan replied, grinning. “She doesn’t need Parth to defend her, do you, V? May I remind all of you that the Duke of Wynter couldn’t stop asking questions about Viola throughout our entire dance?”

  “In fact, I was wondering if perhaps I’d been unkind,” Viola confessed.

  Joan laughed. “Out with it!” she demanded. “What did you say to him? Where were you when you overheard him making a fool of himself? Obviously, you tamed him within moments.”

  “I said that he was impolite, and I implied that he was too old to marry.”

  Lady Knowe nodded. “Wynter is not old, but it’s the thought that counts.”

  “I asked Mr. Marlowe to pray for the duke’s chances of matrimony,” Viola said, uncomfortably. “I might have implied that His Grace was lacking courage and experiencing delusions. It’s all a bit fuzzy in my mind because I was very cross, but I know that I told him his title was no justification for his opinion of himself.”

  Lavinia broke out laughing. “Oh, I wish I’d overheard the conversation!”

  “I’m very sensitive about being a Wilde,” Viola said, “but I am trying to be a better, kinder person.”

  By the time everybody in the room stopped screeching with laughter, Viola was feeling distinctly annoyed.

  “One thing I don’t understand,” Aunt Knowe said, catching her breath. “Where was Mr. Marlowe that you were able to ask him during the ball, presumably, to pray for Wynter?”

  Viola had never been any good at hiding her emotions. She knew perfectly well that guilt was written all over her face.

  “I think that perhaps Mr. Marlowe should return to the vicarage and oversee the renovations,” Lady Knowe stated.

  Joan gave her a beseeching look. “Oh, please, please arrange it so that the man with blue eyes who can’t talk about anything but good works—and is horrendously tedious as a result—returns to the country.”

  “That’s mean,” Viola said. “You simply don’t like respectable gentlemen, Joan, and you never have.”

  Joan shrugged. “I don’t like men who wear their virtue like a coat of armor, that’s true. Father is virtuous, and he doesn’t reek of holiness. Mr. Marlowe has no sense of humor and he is practically saintlike, except that I think saints have more ambition.”

  “Don’t say that,” Viola flashed. “He has done nothing to deserve such rudeness.”

  “Mr. Marlowe is good, but boring,” Joan retorted. “He makes you boring too. All you do is sit around and gaze into his eyes. You may be shy, Viola, but you were always funny. Now if he’s not in the room, you just sigh and look into space!”

  “She’ll get over it,” Lavinia said. “When I first fell in love with Parth, I didn’t know what to do with all that emotion.”

  “You gazed soulfully into the distance?” Joan asked skeptically. “I can’t imagine that.”

  “Well, no,” Lavinia admitted. “I spent my time making up insults about Parth. He wouldn’t pay any attention to me, you see.”

  “Despicable Sterling!” Lady Knowe said, remembering that particular courtship with delight. “Appalling Parth!”

  “I don’t have the faintest inclination to call Mr. Marlowe names,” Viola said.

  “Parth thought I was an empty-headed bit of fluff,” Lavinia said. “I couldn’t make him like me, so I concentrated on the opposite.” She
shrugged. “I never said it was an intelligent plan.”

  “Maudlin Marlowe,” Joan cried, brightening.

  Viola scowled at her. “Stop that!”

  “Mawkish Marlowe!”

  Joan ran out of the room, shrieking with laughter, and Viola chased after her, trying to hit her with the folded letter.

  Lavinia watched them leave. “What are you going to do about the vicar, Aunt Knowe?”

  “I’m not sure. My instincts say that sending him to the country would be a mistake. Absence makes the heart, etcetera. He’s a very good man, and an excellent vicar, but not the right husband for Viola.”

  “Ophelia will be here soon to discuss a new morning dress; perhaps she will have an idea,” Lavinia suggested.

  Barty woke up and squawked irritably, realizing Viola had left the room.

  “Viola cannot marry a vicar,” Lavinia stated, scooping up Barty and putting him on her shoulder. He settled down, stroking her hair with his beak.

  “I wouldn’t stand in her way if it was the right vicar,” Lady Knowe said. “Marlowe is a good man with excellent ideas for improving parish life.”

  “But he wouldn’t fit in with the men in the family,” Lavinia said. “If you don’t mind a bit of unasked-for advice . . .”

  “From you, always,” Lady Knowe said.

  “Parth’s courtship of me advanced at a snail’s pace compared to some others in the Wilde family, partly because we had a history of disliking each other, but also because our relationship was not conducted under the same roof,” Lavinia said. “Whereas Willa and Alaric . . .”

  She cleared her throat. “Intimacy is easier to establish in close quarters. In this case, letters could easily lead to more clandestine meetings—even if only to discuss clerical arrangements.”

  “North and Diana were living together in the castle,” Lady Knowe said, eyes narrowing. “Hell’s bells, it was my idea to bring Marlowe to London.”

  “Send him back to Cheshire,” Lavinia suggested. “Viola may have a bruised heart, but her virtue will remain intact. Either that, or invite Miss Pettigrew to stay here.”

  Lady Knowe shuddered. “I’d prefer to return to Cheshire myself than live with that woman. And Ophelia would never agree. You know how amiable Ophelia is, and yet she’s taken a strong dislike to the Pettigrews.”