Along Came a Duke (30 page)

If the shock registered on his face, Hen gave no indication that she saw it. Taking one more glance at the mirror, she gave her hair a satisfied little pat, then gazed expectantly at him. “Well, now, I suppose I will just have to go alone. Though I so loathe—”

“Wait!” Preston said, bolting to his feet. “I'll take you.”

She shook her head. “You weren't invited. You know how the marquess is. He has very exclusive attendance at his parties.”

“And you think you are going alone?”

Hen shrugged. “Perhaps it is time I ventured out a bit. As you are always telling me, I should—”

Preston's jaw worked back and forth. He had to stop that announcement. He'd promised Tabby he'd help her.

Not for the world would he let her down. Abandon her now.

Ever . . .
a soft voice whispered in his ear.

Meanwhile, Hen had gathered up her belongings and was headed out of the room.

“I forbid it!” Preston declared.

Hen stopped at the door. She turned around slowly. “You what?”

He straightened into his most ducal stance, something very much like what his grandfather would have taken great joy in displaying. “I forbid you to leave this house unescorted.”

“You wha-a-a-t?” she sputtered, glancing over at Henry for help.

Not that he was any help. He was too busy gaping at their nephew as if Preston had suddenly gone round the bend.

“I forbid it!” Preston repeated, this time actually sounding like their father. Like a duke. “You will not attend that party without me.”

Hen bowed her head. “If you insist, Your Grace.”

“I do,” he replied.

For a moment, they all stood there, measuring this sudden change in the house, the subtle shift that Preston had finally managed.

“Then you had best get changed,” she nudged, tipping her head toward the clock. “So we don't miss the announcement.”

“Yes, quite,” Preston agreed, glancing down at his plain coat and breeches. “Can't miss that announcement.”

“Announcement?” Roxley muttered. “Tonight?”

Lady Juniper heaved a sigh. “Yes, haven't you been listening?”

“I try not to,” he replied.

There was a snorkle of laughter from Henry, which was squelched with a hot glance from Hen. “Remember Preston, no scandals.”

He bowed to his aunt and said, “Most assuredly, my lady.”

Which meant he'd just have to find a way to ruin Miss Tabitha Timmons without Hen finding out.

“D
espite yesterday's unfortunate events,” Barkworth said, “my uncle is most taken with you, my dear.”

How Tabitha wished he wasn't. Good heavens, whatever was it going to take to get Barkworth to cry off?

How she wished Preston had been just a little quicker with that kiss. She gave herself a moment to delve into the delicious possibilities that said kiss might have offered, but then she shivered, and once again, Barkworth intruded into her reverie.

“Miss Timmons, you have the most dreadful habit of shivering. Someone is going to think you in ill health,” he complained. “My uncle has a great dread of infection.”

Who can blame him
, she thought,
knowing you will inherit?
She just smiled and straightened, for she had no desire to come under the marquess's scrutiny any more than she had to.

As Preston had said, the Marquess of Grately was an odious old goat, who'd come up and inspected her like a horse at the fair, stopping just shy of checking her withers.

“Excellent, Barkworth. Excellent,” he'd cackled as he'd walked around her, eyeing the low cut of her bodice with a lecherous stare.

Meanwhile, Lady Timmons and Lady Ancil had looked on approvingly.

Even now, with Barkworth at her side, and his mother and her aunt right behind them, there was little room for escape, not that the two matrons were leaving anything to chance. Even worse, Barkworth continued to go on and on about the Special License he had procured this very afternoon so they could expedite “their happy and joyous union.”

What would have been “happy and joyous” would have been to awaken this morning with her ankle swollen to the size of a small pumpkin and her unable to attend the marquess's ball. Yet once again, her long hours of labors at the vicarage had left her able to rebound quickly—and her ankle had presented hardly a twinge.

So unless Tabitha could manage another injury, it appeared there was little time left to stop Barkworth's uncle from making his announcement.

Please, Preston. Save me.

“Good heavens above!” Lady Timmons gasped. “What is she doing here?”

Lady Ancil sniffed. “Scandalous creature. Three husbands, indeed! How can she call herself a lady?”

Three husbands?

Tabitha looked up and spied Lady Juniper coming into the ballroom. The stately lady was like an answer to her prayer. For if Lady Juniper was here, then Preston must be close at hand . . .

Rising up on her tiptoes, Tabitha craned her neck to find him, but much to her disappointment it wasn't the duke escorting Lady Juniper this evening but the Earl of Roxley guiding her into the crush of guests.

No, no, no!
Tabitha wanted to cry out.
Oh, Preston, where the devil are you?

Harriet, who stood off to one side with Daphne, met her gaze and nodded, understanding in her eyes and a slight smile on her lips. Without a word, she slid away into the crowd.

Tabitha knew exactly where her friend was going: to Roxley. Which was a scandalous notion in itself, but not one Lady Timmons would notice, for she was too busy keeping a tight guard on her niece.

Meanwhile, Barkworth continued on, blithely discussing the merits of a vacant house near Hanover Square that a friend had mentioned. “The morning room is supposed to have a lovely view of the garden,” he was telling her.

Tabitha feigned interest, all the while thinking of the clutch of bluebells Preston had picked for her. That he'd gone out into the countryside and found them just for her.

You, Tabby, astound me.

You surprise me, Your Grace.

Her insides trembled as she recalled how he'd leaned down and she'd thought, nay, she'd wished with everything she possessed that he would kiss her again. Leave her so breathless and insensible that he'd pick up the reins and steal her away, take her far from London before she ever gained the wits to protest.

However had this happened? She'd been able to convince herself that their night at the inn had been naught but the results of hunger (on her part), too much wine (on his part—and hers, if she was being honest) and a setting fraught with intimacy—as well as a less-than-stellar chaperone.

But even surrounded as they had been in Lady Knolles's ballroom, Tabitha had discovered that an entire world could exist between two people. A stage of sorts that was theirs, and theirs alone. Secrets shared, a touch that sent shivers of promises through one's limbs, the desire to get lost in an intimate gaze.

Again, she tried to convince herself that the night had been inclined to romance—dancing with a handsome duke, the music, her scandalous gown, a night she never could have imagined before . . .

Just as now, she had come to realize how no two men were alike. Or that her heart, once it had discerned the difference, could not be swayed.

Preston . . . and his wretched bluebells . . . and his lopsided grin . . . and his teasing manners.

She wished him to perdition. She wished he'd taken that corner by the oak with all due care and continued through Kempton so that she'd never met him. She wished he'd never come into her life and turned it so very upside down.

She wished him at her side this very moment.

If only to turn it all to rights by doing his very best to turn it all to ruin.

“And how could I fail to mention that uncle has invited us to Grately House for the autumn shooting season. Can you imagine that? It is a compliment on my choice of bride, I do believe,” Barkworth was saying. “There, my dear, you shall have your jaunt to the country yet.”

An entire month of the old goat ogling the front of her gown at every opportunity—Tabitha's stomach rolled. She glanced away lest he see the tears rising in her eyes, and there across the room she thought she saw him.

Preston.
A tall figure done up in black standing to one side. Could it be him? She dashed at her eyes with the back of her glove.

Just then, Harriet came rushing back from her foray. “Tabitha! Oh, there you are. Most excellent news. Lady Essex is here. You must bring Barkworth over to meet her.”

“Lady Essex? Indeed!” Lady Ancil enthused. “You know Lady Essex?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Tabitha said. “She kindly brought us all up to London.”

“Lady Essex holds Tabitha in the highest of esteem,” Harriet said, which was doing it up a bit but nonetheless gained the desired results.

“Oh, that is wonderful,” Lady Ancil said, a bit of admiration and approval showing in her eyes, where most of the night she had regarded her future daughter-in-law as a necessary evil. “She is hosting a breakfast next week that is supposed to be quite exclusive.”

“We've been invited,” Harriet said, glancing at her gloved fingers. “At least Tabitha and Daphne and I were.”

Lady Timmons sniffed.

Apparently, Lady Ancil had not been and was even now seeing her opportunity. “Yes, yes, we should all go over and pay our respects to Lady Essex.”

She moved forward and Barkworth went to follow, towing Tabitha with him, but unfortunately, Harriet had not been paying attention and trod down on the hem of Tabitha's gown so that it ripped.

“Oh, no!” Harriet said, dancing back a bit, her eyes wide with horror.

Tabitha, having played enough games of charades with her friend, knew it was all an act.

Lady Ancil glanced down and shuddered, for the gold overskirt of Tabitha's gown was torn—noticeably so. “You clumsy girl,” she scolded Harriet. “However can she go up for the announcement looking like that?”

“Oh, I've ruined everything!” Harriet bit her lip and looked ready to cry. “Tabitha, will you ever forgive me?”

Then Daphne waded in. “Harriet, take her to the retiring room and fix it.” She glanced over at Lady Ancil. “As awkward as Harriet is, she is ever so good with a needle.” Winding her arm into Lady Ancil's and her other into the crook of Barkworth's free arm, she continued, “Have I told you that Lady Essex is a Dale? A very distant one, but she holds such a fondness for family. I know if I were to ask her—”

“Do you think you might, Miss Dale?” Barkworth interjected, his tattered bride-to-be all but forgotten.

However, Lady Timmons wasn't so easily diverted. She glanced down at the ruined hem and frowned. “Come now, Tabitha. That gown must be repaired.”

Daphne wasn't a Dale for nothing, for she glanced over her shoulder. “Lady Timmons, aren't you coming? I am ever so sure we could secure invitations for you and Tabitha's cousins—if you were there to remind Lady Essex of her obvious oversight in not including all of you to begin with.”

The lure of invitations to the most coveted breakfast in London proved to be the lady's undoing. “Tabitha, why are you still loitering about? Go have Harriet fix your gown and return as quickly as possible.” She shooed her off, then hurried after Daphne and Lady Ancil.

“Come quickly,” Harriet said, towing Tabitha in the opposite direction.

“But I thought I saw Preston,” she whispered. “Over there—” She tipped her head toward the other side.

“He has found the perfect place,” Harriet said.

“The perfect place for what?”

They had come to a stop in the foyer, which was empty, save for the footman standing well outside the front door on the steps, awaiting any latecomers.

Harriet grinned. “For your ruin, what else?”

H
arriet all but shoved her through a narrow door, and Tabitha landed squarely in Preston's firm embrace.

“Tabby, whatever are you doing here?” he murmured into her ear as he held her close.

Tabitha knew she shouldn't feel this way—but whatever was it about this man that made her long to be with him, rub against him like a house cat? More than that, Preston smelled heavenly—like a man ought—of a bit of bayberry rum soap and something else that she couldn't put a finger on but her fluttering senses recognized.

A masculine, sensual air that had her inhaling deeply.

“Didn't they tell you it was a betrothal party?” he scolded so very firmly that she might have thought it a ducal reproach if it hadn't been for the twinkle in his eyes. “And after you promised me so faithfully that you would not engage in such tawdry matters.
Tsk
,
tsk
,
tsk
.”

She smiled at his teasing. “I am hardly here by my own volition, Your Grace.”

“Preston,” he corrected.

“If you insist,” she said, knowing very well she would never think of him otherwise.

“I insist,” he told her. “It is my right.”

“You are a scandal,” she shot back, then glanced around at their surroundings. “What is this place?”

“The footman's closet.”

Indeed it was, tucked partially under the stairs, with lamps on hooks, umbrellas at the ready and all the other tools of their trade. As well as an old sofa in one corner for the poor man who had to tend the door late into the night.

“A perfect place to cause a scandal, don't you think?” he mused, holding her out at arm's length and looking her up and down from head to toe.

Tabitha shook her head and stepped out of his grasp. “If you ruin me . . . Think of what it will do. What if your aunt makes good her threat? Then where will you be? Preston, I won't have it.”