An Ideal Duchess (34 page)

             
“Duchess, Amanda—”

             
“Mr. Goddard, leave my room at once,” Her Grace sounded choked, but she had risen to her knees to point at the door.

             
“You can’t possibly—”

             
“I shall scream bloody murder if you do not go.”

             
Mr. Goddard merely smirked and stepped further into the room, obviously deciding to ignore Her Grace’s threat. Maggie’s heart was in her throat, but she looked at the heavy silver hairbrush in her hand and then whacked Mr. Goddard the intruder squarely at the back of his head. He groaned loudly before sliding bonelessly to the floor at her feet. She gaped at the man and then at Her Grace, who was just as frozen in shock. The hairbrush in Maggie’s hand was covered with blood and she swayed, sick with fear.

             
“Did I kill him?”

             
“Maggie, give me the hair brush,” Her Grace was suddenly at her side, her hand outstretched. “Quickly, please.”

             
She looked dazedly at the lifeless man on the floor, and swayed again when Her Grace ripped the hair brush out of her hand, knuckles white as she surveyed Mr. Goddard’s dead body. Maggie saw her blanch and turned slowly to see the door crowded with bleary-eyed, and quickly shocked, gentlemen and ladies.

             
“I say, is the blighter dead?” Came a drawling male voice.

             
“What a scandal!” Came another voice, this one female.

             
“Darling, duchess, what on earth—” Mrs. Montague pushed her way through the throng, still clad in evening dress.

             
“Someone ought to call the doctor,” Her Grace said calmly. “He isn’t dead.”

             
“Thank God!”

             
Mrs. Montague bent over Mr. Goddard and slapped him on the cheek. His eyeballs moved beneath their lids and he moaned, but he did not awaken. She straightened. “Instead of gawping like dead fish, why don’t two of you strong gentlemen pick him up and carry him back to his room?”

             
No one moved for a moment, and then Mr. Montague, the Dowager Duchess’s cousin, shuffled forward in his eveningwear, and bent to lift Mr. Goddard’s arms. Two other gentlemen stepped forward—one in eveningwear and the other in striped bedclothes—and between the three of them, managed they huff and puff down the hallway with Mr. Goddard’s limp body. Their hostess, Lady Rawson swept a gleeful look about the room before gathering the rest of the gawkers in her fleshy arms and ushering them back to their rooms. Maggie felt sick, knowing that if those belowstairs gossiped, those upstairs gossiped even more viciously.

             
“I-I—”

             
“Hush, Maggie,” said Her Grace, who moved to close the door.

             
“My word, Amanda,” Mrs. Montague looked discomfited and irritated. “You didn’t have to brain the man when you changed your mind.”

             
“I never—” Her Grace began heatedly. She cut herself off, and when she spoke again, her voice was deadly quiet. “I did not invite him to my room, Sylvia. In fact, I expressly forbade it, and did my best to dissuade his attentions.”

             
“I can just imagine those cats, thrilled to death because Julian slipped from my grasp.” Mrs. Montague sounded petulant. “And now you’ve probably ruined the rest of this delightful house party.”

             
Her Grace looked shocked. Maggie was also shocked—she thought Mrs. Montague was Her Grace’s friend.

             
“I was nearly raped in my bedroom and your concern is your own wounded pride.” Her Grace’s voice shook with emotion.

             
“Don’t exaggerate,” Mrs. Montague said irritably. “They are boys, really, and all they want is a little tease and cuddle before you send them on their way. If you had to poach, you needn’t—”

             
“ My God, Sylvia!”

             
“I don’t know why you’re acting the wounded dove,” Mrs. Montague’s voice rose sharply. “If I let a word slip…poof goes your innocent act. I saw you and Anthony Challoner looking quite cozy in an automobile.”

             
Her Grace sat down hard on the chair at her dressing table, face leeched of all color. Maggie stood still, rooted in fear and disbelief. Mrs. Montague sauntered towards the door. She paused, her hand on the knob.

             
“If I were you, I would find some way to get in with La Rawson. She looked like the cat with cream at the prospect of harboring such a juicy scandal. One word from her, and everyone will keep their mouths buttoned.”

             
With that, Mrs. Montague stepped out of the room and closed the door firmly behind her.

             
“Your Grace,” Maggie rushed to the duchess’s side. “I can tell the truth, it was my fault.”

             
“You don’t want that, Maggie,” Her Grace said distantly. “Mr. Goddard would press charges of assault against you when he wouldn’t against me.”

             
“You mean I’d go to gaol?” Maggie whispered in horror.

             
“Not with me taking the blame,” Her Grace pressed her hand to her head with a grimace. She also finally set the blood-spattered hairbrush on the dressing table (Maggie shuddered). “What a mess I’ve gotten myself into. If only—”

             
“Oh no Your Grace—begging your pardon for interrupting—Mr. Goddard did not care if you said no,” Maggie said fiercely. “Mrs. Finch told us housemaids that it isn’t our fault if a man doesn’t stop when you say no.”

             
“Dear, dear, Mrs. Finch. And dear, dear Maggie,” Her Grace took her hand. “Thank you.”

             
Maggie blushed, and ducked her head shyly.

             
“Don’t worry about me, Maggie,” Her Grace looked her in the eye, her expression reassuring. “Go to bed and clear your mind of all of this.”

*          *          *

             
Bron almost threw away the letter when Fowler handed it to him at breakfast. His name was scrawled across the front of the cream vellum envelope in Bim’s familiar handwriting, as though nothing untoward had occurred between them. His curiosity got the better of him in between consuming a rasher of bacon and a poached egg, and he reached for the envelope and his mother’s letter opener and slowly worked its sharp end through the sealed flap.

             
The letter was short, he observed, hesitant to really read the words for fear of receiving some invective…or an olive branch. Amanda’s name leaped out at him, and he frowned as he read the letter from Bim’s terse salutation to the closing sentence. His first reaction was sheer anger at the predicament in which his wife found herself entangled, and then bitter jealousy that she felt she could reach out to Bim for assistance instead of him.

             
He pushed his chair away from the table, startling his mother and Viola, as well as Fowler, who reached towards him as though to assist with his seat.

             
“Inform Wilcox that I need him to drive me to the railway depot,” He ordered the butler.

             
“Where are you going on such short notice?” His mother set her napkin aside.

             
He held the letter, hesitant to expose Amanda to their ridicule, and so said, “Rawson Manor, to join my wife.”

             
“You cannot be serious, visiting that awful woman’s country house? I hear not even His Majesty will set foot on the estate.” His mother shuddered in distaste.

             
“Have Pettingell pack my trunk and send it on.” He replied shortly and then walked out of the dining room.

             
He threw a greatcoat over his riding clothes and then stalked outside, where Wilcox waited in the motorcar. He held up a hand to stay the chauffeur and ducked inside without any assistance, slamming the door shut and gesturing for Wilcox to drive on. He glowered at the letter and then stuffed it into the pocket of his coat, torn the entire ride to Bledington’s railway depot between stepping in to rescue Amanda and wringing her bloody neck.

*          *          *

              Viola gloated all afternoon over the secret she held in her palm. She did not normally open the dowager duchess’s mail beforehand, but something about this particular letter seemed of the utmost importance, and so she had stolen it from Her Grace’s pile of correspondence and tore it open. Imagine her surprise and delight to read the letter sent to the dowager from her aunt, the elderly but spry Lady Hero Willoughby, about the dreadful fix Bron’s wife had gotten herself into. The gossip was that Amanda had been found in bed with another man, and when another man she invited to her bedroom accidentally appeared, the first man was killed! They tried to cover it up by sending the dead body back to its bed, but everyone heard the commotion before they could do so!

             
No wonder Bron tore out of Bledington so quickly, Viola thought gleefully. She imagined all sorts of situations surrounding the scandal, but they all ended in one way: Amanda disappearing from Bron’s life and from Bledington Park. She schooled her face into the pleasant blandness expected of a companion when the dowager duchess entered her boudoir, and rose to greet her. Viola sat back at her Underwood typewriter and removed its hood, soon thereafter commencing with Her Grace’s less intimate correspondence, which she liked to have typed. When the dowager moved to her more intimate correspondence, which she liked to respond to by hand, Viola slipped Lady Hero’s letter into the pile of letters she opened for Her Grace and waited for the bomb to explode.

             
It couldn’t come soon enough, and the dowager duchess looked furious enough to spit nails. Viola stifled her amusement until the dowager duchess left the room, and then burst into triumphant laughter.

*          *          *

              Ursula sought refuge from her dampened emotions in the stables, where she coldly ordered one of the grooms lounging about to saddle her horse. A nice, long, bruising ride was just the ticket for her absolute fury at the gossip relayed by her Aunt Hero. It was a bitter pill to swallow to realized that Malvern’s American wife had managed to undo all of the defenses she had built up to shield the Townsend family from common gossip and prying eyes. All that she had done to repair their reputation after Alex’s death…her husband’s foolhardy speculations…the rumors swirling about her all those years ago.
Damn that girl!
She thought furiously.
Damn her.

              Amanda supposed it was rather bad of her to have written Anthony for assistance, but she had hoped that her beacon would find its way in a roundabout fashion to Malvern. Now that he was here, she was torn between elation and shame, wanting to hide from him and to brazen the situation out under the pretense that she could handle this herself. But she couldn’t, she soon realized, and even after Julian Goddard slunk away like the coward he was, she could not staunch the flow of gossip as everyone attempted to discern just what led to her holding a bloody hairbrush with Mr. Goddard sprawled at her feet in her bedroom at night.

             
The whispers had faded a trifle when Malvern appeared and made a show of being pleased to see her, and she was faintly hopeful that the coup of hosting a highly respectable duke and his duchess at her house party was enough of a bribe to keep Lady Rawson’s mouth locked tightly. Malvern had not spoken a word to her in private since his arrival, choosing to maintain a polite distance when they joined the members of the house party who motored to the nearest golf links. He had not remained downstairs after supper when Lady Rawson set up the tables for more bridge, and she ended up wagering more than she planned in her reluctance to join him in their bedroom. What rankled the most about this turn of events was Sylvia’s behavior. She hadn’t taken her petulance seriously, but it seemed Sylvia truly did blame her for Julian Goddard’s defection and the subsequent scandal of his leave-taking. Sylvia hadn’t quite given her the cut direct, but it was perilously close.

             
After a few bad hands that cost her nearly one hundred pounds and the ire of her bridge partner, Amanda folded her cards and gave her seat to another less distracted player. She stifled a wince at the whispers and stares at her back as she left the drawing room, knowing that the conversation that awaited her upstairs would be more cutting. But she did not regret shielding Maggie from the threat of gaol, and she took a deep breath for fortitude before sweeping upstairs.

             
Malvern looked up from the book he was reading when she entered the bedroom. The room that had seemed too large for one person now seemed too small for two, and she swallowed, her fortitude and bravura quivering at the sight of him lying in her bed, long limbed and silver-eyed, a vee of pale, lightly freckled skin exposed at the open neck of his shirtsleeves. It was uncanny how he still affected her physically even when his behavior was angering and hurtful. She lowered her eyes with a sigh of regret and moved to the dressing table to remove her bracelets and dogs’ collar.