Along Came a Duke (22 page)

After a nudge from Barkworth, Tabitha remembered her manners. “Thank you, madame.” She bobbed a curtsy, which gained another litany of rapture from this esteemed lady, who was probably the same age as Tabitha but who possessed the polish of Town and the manners of the
ton
that she, a country vicar's daughter, lacked so utterly.

Barkworth stammered openmouthed at this offer, obviously dazzled by the prospect of Almack's as much as by the infamous lady herself.

“However did you find this darling fashion plate, Barkworth? La! Here, I always supposed you to be such a dull fellow! How surprising that
you
would find her first.”

Mrs. Drummond-Burrell circled Tabitha like a shark, eyeing the cut of her gown from top to bottom, all the while tossing praise at Barkworth.

“No keeping this divine creature to yourself now, Barkworth!” she cooed. “After tonight you must share her, you devilish fellow!” With an airy wave of her hand, fan aflutter and the gems at her wrists and ears twinkling like stars, she was off to her next conquest. “Wednesday next, Miss Timmons. I shall send vouchers around. And bring Barkworth.” She laughed as if it were a grand idea, and then was gone.

“Vouchers!” Barkworth said smugly, his broad chest puffing out. “To Almack's.”

While it made him appear all the more impressive, Tabitha bit back the retort that he would be well advised to watch his buttons lest they pop.

“I am not surprised you have enchanted Mrs. Drummond-Burrell,” he said. “Though I must admit I thought your lapses in judgment earlier might prove to be your undoing. That gown, dancing too close with that bounder—”

“As I explained before, that couldn't be helped,” she rushed to say. No more than she could stop the desires that bounder lit inside her when he held her in his arms.

“Yes, yes, so you said. Still, it is to my credit that allowances are being made for your mistakes. I must say, in all humility, that my good name and reputation have carried you over what could have been a disastrous coming out.”

Tabitha bit her lips together. “I hardly think one dance—”

Barkworth made a “
tsk tsk
” and continued, though notably in a much lower range, “He referred to you in the most intimate manner, Miss Timmons. Tabby, indeed! How dreadfully common! I fear he was insulting you, my dear. Or worse, attempting to bring about yet another of his infamous scandals.”

“Yes, wretched man,” she agreed, though not as wholeheartedly as she ought.

“Many a lady has been dazzled by the Duke of Preston, but he does not marry them.” Barkworth shook his head. “But it is all forgotten now.”

Not to Tabitha. If only she could forget.

“Ah, here comes the maid with your pelisse,” Barkworth was saying, making a great show of being the attentive escort. For once he glanced at her and actually took stock of her welfare. “Dear God! Look at you shivering. The night air is dreadful this time of year.” He took the wrap from the maid and tossed it over Tabitha's shoulders. “Don't let anyone see you shaking like that or it will be all over Town that you have a weak constitution.” He paused and looked at her again. “You don't, do you?”

Tabitha was taken aback. “No,” she told him. “Not that I know of.” Considering she'd spent the last three years cleaning the vicarage from cellar to attics every day, she was probably as hearty as a draft horse.

“Excellent,” Barkworth replied, his attention already focused on a couple passing by, whom he greeted with a well-executed bow. Then in an aside he added, “My uncle said you came from right proper stock, and we wouldn't want him to think otherwise.”

“Your uncle? What has he to do with this?”

“What has he to do with this?” Barkworth repeated as if the answer should be self-evident. “If my uncle were to disapprove, why, it would be disastrous! Where would our standing in good society be if you were snubbed by the Marquess of Grately?”

Tabitha, having seen enough of “good society” to last her a lifetime, did her best to look as contrite as possible. “I leave these matters to your superior experience, Mr. Bark—” It was nearly on the tip of her tongue to say Barkton or Barkley or one of the other names Preston had worked into their conversation. “Mr. Barkworth,” she finally managed.

The man smiled at her, as if he found her more demure posture delightful. “Let us forget all about this and move forward with a clean slate. Mother and I plan to call tomorrow so we can work out the final arrangements if that would please you.”

“Tomorrow?” she said, and probably a little too quickly. They had reached the front steps and Tabitha faltered a little.

Barkworth didn't notice her misstep, for he was smiling and waving at Mrs. Drummond-Burrell yet again. “But of course,” he said, finally having lost the other lady's attention. He turned to survey the line of carriages awaiting the lords and ladies. “However can we be married, and quickly, if we do not settle things? Though most of it has already been attended to by the lawyers—dreary details which you needn't worry over.”

This was news to Tabitha. Whatever needed to be settled? She glanced at Barkworth and considered asking him how their, nay, her, future was being decided but doubted he would explain it to her—that is, if he even understood it.

Tabitha glanced over at her taciturn uncle, Sir Mauris. She had to imagine he understood where every penny of Uncle Winston's money was going and how it was going to be settled.

But would he be willing to share the details with her? She doubted as much.

Perhaps she could ask him when they got home. For even now, Sir Mauris was sending a lad off to find his coachman.

She said a silent prayer the boy was fleet of foot.

“I had thought to finish the Season in Town,” she lied. “An autumn wedding, perhaps. If anything, I reach my majority in a sennight—”

Barkworth shook his head and guided her to a spot near the mews, far enough out of earshot of her aunt and his mother, but close enough to be proper. “There is no time like the present, my dear Miss Timmons. The sooner we are married, it will be for the best—our happy union a shining example to all. Society will rejoice in our love.”

“Our love?” she said, more to herself. They'd just met. And now he was declaring them in love? Besides, she didn't believe in love at first sight.

It had taken a second glance for her heart to become entangled with Preston.

“Our love,” Barkworth replied in all confidence.

“Don't you think that is doing it up a bit, sir? We can hardly be said to be in love.”

He stared intently into her eyes. “I don't know about you, Miss Timmons, but this evening I have been struck deeply in a state of admiration over you.”

A state of admiration
. She looked into his handsome face, into his pale blue eyes, and waited for her heart to flutter, to beat wildly at this . . . this . . . declaration.

Yet nothing happened. And why would it?
A state of admiration
. She'd never heard such a ridiculous thing.

She couldn't imagine Preston making such a statement. Then again, she doubted Preston would even pause over a state of admiration, let alone waste the breath to utter such a foolish sentiment.

“I have spoken too soon,” Barkworth said, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips.

Tabitha stilled as his lips tenderly touched her fingertips, as he held her hand for a second or so longer than need be, with an expectation that a spark of magic would happen.

That she would be struck by the same blinding flash of passion that drove her heart to pound wildly, that made her insides tangle into knots, that left her knees quaking under her every time Preston held her, touched her, came close.

But instead she found herself glancing impatiently up the street for any sight of her uncle's carriage.

“You needn't be worried that our acquaintance is too short to support a prosperous marriage,” he said. “My parents were married with the same due haste, and my mother avers that if my father hadn't died a fortnight later of a chill, their marriage would have been most prosperous.”

“Don't you think it is prudent to get to know a potential partner before becoming engaged?” she asked.

“I daresay your Uncle Winston knew exactly how we would suit when he tied us together with his inheritance.”

She resisted the urge to point out that her Uncle Winston had never once laid eyes on her, let alone had known what sort of man might “suit” her.

“Perhaps instead of making arrangements tomorrow when you call, we could take a walk in the park,” Tabitha suggested. “Get to know one another.”

“As mother says, there is an eternity for a married couple to fall in love,” Barkworth said, waxing on as if his poetry would turn the tide of her misgivings. “And who wouldn't be in love with you? You have ensnared the very crème of the
ton
tonight. Tomorrow, all of London.” He waved his arm in a grand gesture over the shadowed streets of Mayfair.

“I think it is merely because I am new to Town,” she said. Truly, it didn't take a modicum of wit to realize that the novelty of her position, her scandalous gown and Preston's attentions were behind the sudden rush of interest in her.

“If it is a walk in the park you desire, Miss Timmons, I would be remiss not to give you your heart's desire. But I suspect you have chosen the park if only to give all of London another chance to see us together and so you may collect more invitations.”

Actually, she was thinking about the coaching inn near the park that her cousin had mentioned earlier in the day.

P
reston stepped out of the shadows of the mews, where he'd been waiting for Roxley. The last time he'd seen the earl, he'd been charming a widow in one of the alcoves.

Of course, as luck would have it, Roxley made his appearance just as Preston took a step after Tabby and Barkworth as the couple started toward her uncle's carriage.

They weren't engaged.
She and Barkworth weren't betrothed. At least not formally.

There was still time to save her.

“Leave her be, Preston,” Roxley advised.

“That man is a pompous oaf,” Preston argued.

“Oh, you'll get no argument from me that Barkworth is a fool, but gels like Miss Timmons are offered up to fellows like him every day. It is how it is done.” Roxley took another glance at the Timmons party and shrugged before he nodded down the street, where his tiger could be seen bringing up the curricle.

“‘How it is done'? What the devil does that mean?”

Roxley looked over his shoulder. “You know exactly what that means. If that chit is going to inherit a fortune, then she is better off married and married quickly. To save her from being snatched up and hauled off to Gretna Green by some fortune hunter. Or worse, ruined before the deed can be done.” The earl's brow arched into a sharp point.

One Preston got—having been cast as the ne'er-do-well in that scenario more than once. “He—they—will ruin her,” he sputtered instead, glancing around with disdain at the milling crowd of curious onlookers, who were also watching Barkworth and Tabby.

“Better Barkworth than you. At least that nitwit will marry her.”

Roxley's remark hit Preston just as it was intended. Straight in the chest.

Preston shifted, trying to catch his breath. Roxley, damn his hide, was right. Barkworth was the type to marry an heiress—all but sight unseen.

Roxley, who waited for the tiger to clamor back to his perch, climbed up into the carriage while Preston hung back.

“If you don't want to watch,” Roxley said as he adjusted the reins, “go off to the country for the rest of the Season.”

Preston shook his head. Going to the country meant going to Owle Park, and he hadn't been home . . . well, not since he'd left it. No, that wouldn't do. Not even if it meant he had to watch Miss Timmons, his Tabby, being transformed into Mrs. Reginald Barkworth.

He shuddered. Egads. Barkworth would have her done up in some matronly gown. Or worse, in a turban with a cloud of feathers over her once pretty head. “Perhaps I could—”

Roxley shook his head. “Hen would never forgive you if you ruined that gel. Nor would anyone else. Not now. Especially now that she's made her debut and gotten half the town besotted over her. Including you . . .” He paused. “Which wouldn't have happened if you hadn't singled her out for that dance. Good God, man! What were you thinking?”

Preston ground his teeth together. He hadn't been thinking. What the devil was wrong with him?

Tabby. That was what was wrong with him. Tabby, with her practical exterior and her passionate underpinnings. She was like finding the breathtaking grandeur of a cathedral under the wrappings of a modest cottage.

And for one night, she'd been his. Until he'd gone too far and . . .

“Are we to White's then?” Roxley asked him. Hen had already left for home in the company of friends.

“Not unless you got the address for that widow you had buttonholed.”

Roxley patted his breast pocket, where he kept all his notes. “Most decidedly. But the lady can wait. Had rather hoped to run into Dillamore.”

“You'll never collect from him.”

“I shall endeavor,” Roxley vowed.

The duke laughed and climbed up into the seat next to the earl. The height of the curricle gave him a raised vantage point from which to watch Barkworth help Tabby into her uncle's grand carriage with all the flourish and show of a pandering Dandy. Preston shuddered. “If she must marry, as you think—”

“I do,” Roxley said.

“Then why him? Why must she marry him in such a hellfire hurry? And again, if she must marry, why not someone of her own choosing? Surely there is someone less of a . . . not so much of a—”