An Unlikely Duchess (7 page)

But she could remember—she could distinctly remember now that she thought about it—that his body was very firm and well muscled.

Mr. Villiers might be no Hercules, but for all that he was still her hero. She gazed down admiringly at his rumpled curls and nice face. And he stirred even as she did so.

She smiled down at him, the side of her head still propped on one hand. “Good morning,” she said. “I am relieved to see that you slept, though I will not ask if you slept well, for I am sure you did not. It was very kind of you to put yourself to so much discomfort when you paid for the room and therefore the bed. You are a true gentleman, sir.”

And then she remembered, as his eyes looked up to her, first blank and then startled and then with full consciousness, that she had pushed her blanket down to her waist and that the previous night after she had lain down she had wriggled out of her torn dress. She was lying in bed inside a small room with a strange gentleman, dressed in her shift.

How unspeakably mortifying!

“Oh, dear,” she said, sitting up and bringing the blanket up to her neck even as he sat up hastily and turned away from her.

“Good morning, Miss Middleton,” he said. “I trust you had a comfortable night.”

“It would be ungrateful of me to complain,” she said. “Quite comfortable, I thank you, sir.”

Oh, yes, she could see through his wrinkled shirt that he did indeed have well developed muscles in his shoulders and arms even though his back tapered to a slender waist and hips. His fair hair curled down over the collar of his shirt. She blushed and pulled the blanket to her chin.

And then she realized that she was facing a nasty predicament. How was she going to get her dress on—the untorn one that was in her valise? The room suddenly seemed very small indeed. She should have made herself busy while he still slept, instead of lying gazing at him and dreaming of heroes. Would she never use her head?

He was on his feet and plucking at his coat, which was draped over the foot of the bed. “I shall leave you for half an hour, ma’am,” he said, not once turning to look at her.

“Is it safe?” she asked. “I mean, are you sure Mr. Porterhouse really did leave last night? And what about Papa? He will kill you if he gets his hands on you.”

“Mr. Porterhouse will have left if he knows what is good for him,” he said, his hand on the doorknob. “Your father will hardly set upon a stranger. Besides, if he really is in pursuit of you, the chances are that he either did not stay here at all last night or else left again at the crack of dawn. The crack of dawn is when I finally fell asleep, I believe.”

“Oh, dear,” she said as he let himself out of the room, “I knew you could not have had a comfortable night, sir. And it is all my fault.”

But she had no time to indulge in remorse. She leaped off the bed, splashed water into the basin, washed herself as thoroughly as she could at such great speed, gasping at the coldness of the water, and pulled out her clean dress from her valise. Oh, dear, she should have thought to take it out the night before so that some of the wrinkles might have fallen out.

Betty had a gift for packing garments in such a way that they did not wrinkle at all. Unfortunately, she had not been able to ask Betty to pack for her.

She pulled the dress on and slapped and shook ineffectually at the wrinkles. Well, it would have to do until she reached her aunt’s. Aunt Winifred would send a servant for a trunk of her clothes—if they did not run into Papa on the way there, of course. But she would not think of that. She would not think of that at all. Time enough to give it thought if it happened. The chances were that Papa would have gone rushing back home already.

She tackled her hair next. Unfortunately, whenever it grew to her shoulders or below, it came to bear a disturbing resemblance to a bush. But she had insisted on growing it long, even though Bart had come back from Cambridge and a vacation in London to say that short hair was all the crack. Who cared about being all the crack?

She had never had to worry before. Betty had a way with her hair as she seemed to have a way with everything else. Unfortunately, Josephine did not share that way.

She was staring rather gloomily into a cracked and tarnished mirror at what looked woefully like a crow’s nest when there was a tap at the door and Mr. Villiers appeared again. He had his bag with him. He must have found somewhere to change his shirt and shave himself. He looked quite respectably neat and tidy, and not at all as if he had just spend the night sleeping in his clothes on a bare floor. Even his curls had been brushed to look soft and orderly. Josephine preferred them tousled, and blushed as she caught herself in the thought.

“I am afraid I look rather rumpled,” she said, smiling at him in the mirror.

His eyes passed over her. “You look quite pretty enough to me,” he said. “Your father passed the night here, Miss Middleton, but left very early. I still think I should take you back to Rutland Park."

“You know where I live?” she asked, turning from the mirror.

He rocked on his heels in that habit she had noticed the night before. “You mentioned it last night,” he said.

“Did I?” She flashed him a smile. “I daresay I did, and a great deal more besides. I am afraid my mind was considerably addled.”

“Understandably so,” he said. “I shall bring a breakfast tray up to you, ma’am, and then take you home. Doubtless your father will be there before you, having not found you at your aunt’s.”

“No,” she said, “you cannot do that, you see, because Papa would want to know where I spent the night and when I met you. And even if Papa is still from home, Grandpapa will be there. And Grandpapa would kill you. I should hate that.”

“Yes,” he said. “So should I.”

“You must take me to my Aunt Ermingford’s if you will be so kind,” she said. “There is a long and winding driveway leading to the house. If you set me down halfway up it, you will not be seen either by my aunt and uncle or by Papa if he is still there. I can walk the rest of the way and think of some convincing story by the time I arrive. And Aunt Winifred will take my part if Papa is out of sorts.”

The duke sighed. “I shall fetch the tray,” he said.‘ ‘We will decide after breakfast what it is best to do.”

“You know,” she said kindly, “the servants will bring it up for you if you ring, sir. You do not have to do everything for yourself when you travel. You must assert yourself, as Papa would say. Servants will respect you the more for it.”

“I registered here as a single gentleman,” he said. “What would the servants think if they were to find you here?”

“Oh,” she said, “I had not thought of that. You are quite right. You are trying to protect my reputation. How kind of you.”

He pursed his lips and left the room.

***

“You know, Suke” Bartholomew was saying at precisely that moment, a note of impatience in his voice, “if you did not think of it, it would not happen. You should think of something else.”

Susanna was standing outside the open carriage door, facing a hedge. “I have thought about Mr. Porterhouse being even more of a villain than I suspected,” she said wanly. “I have thought about Grandpapa’s face when he reads your note. I have thought about Papa’s face when he arrives at Aunt Winifred’s and finds Jo not there. I have thought about a thousand and one different things, Bart, and it makes no difference.”

“Devil take it,” he said, “you did not even have breakfast before we left. How can you feel bilious?”

“I don’t know how,” she said apologetically, “but I do.”

“Come on,” he said, as she gulped in an attempt to control her queasiness, “get in again. We will stop at the Crown and Anchor for something to eat. You can rest there a while.”

“For something to eat,” Susanna said faintly. “Oh, Bart, can’t we wait here just a little longer?”

He clucked his tongue in exasperation. “Get in,” he said. “I’ll take you back and drop you off a mile from home. I ought not to have brought you in the first place.”

“I shall be all right,” she said, squaring her shoulders and looking up at her brother with resolute eyes and green cheeks. “Jo needs me. I shall think of Penny and Gussie all alone at home, and Grandpapa making excuses to the Duke of Mitford for Jo’s absence. I shall think of...other things.”

“Think of the duke or marquess or prince or whoever that Grandpapa is likely to pick for your husband,” Bartholomew said, handing her back into the carriage. “He has done so wonderfully well for Jo.”

“I don’t want a duke or marquess,” she said, “just someone I can have a regard for. But if Grandpapa did pick out someone good for me, Bart, I would at least meet him and get to know him. It would be unfair to condemn a man out of hand just because one expected him to be toplofty.”

But she had to cut short her reflections as her brother shut the door.

***

Josephine turned her attention back to her bird’s nest. But there was nothing to be done. If she tried to make the coiffure smoother, like as not the hair would all come cascading down and she would have to start all over again.

She liked Mr. Villiers. He was not near as tall as Mr. Porterhouse or Papa or Grandpapa or Bart. She did not know how she could have got the impression the night before that he was. She remembered now that when she put her arms about his neck the night before—oh, dear, had she really?—she had not had to reach up very far. She would wager that her head must reach at least to his shoulder and perhaps even a little higher. How pleasant it would be to walk beside him. She might even feel that she was a woman and not a child.

She would like to walk beside him into Aunt Winifred’s drawing room. She would like to tell her aunt all about his heroic rescue of her the night before. But she had better not. For she would also have to tell about sleeping in his room, even though she had slept on the bed and he on the floor. And then someone—Uncle Clive, probably, and certainly Papa if he was there—would get some ridiculous notion about how she had been compromised and how Mr. Villiers should marry her. If Papa did not kill him first, that was.

Poor Mr. Villiers. She was quite sure she would prefer him to the Duke of Mitford any day of the year, but it would be a mean trick to play on him after his extreme kindness. Besides, perhaps he was married already or betrothed or promised. Now there was a lowering thought. And a slightly depressing one.

She rushed across the room to open the door, at which someone was kicking gently. She smiled at Mr. Villiers.

“Only one egg and one cup of coffee, I’m afraid,” he said. “But I could hardly say there were two of us up here.” “You may have both,” she said magnanimously, “provided I can have one piece of toast, sir. But will they not know there are two of us when we go downstairs to leave?”

“I shall go down first,” he said, “to see to the harnessing of my horses to my curricle. You must stroll down after ten minutes, ma’am, and hope that no one notices you were the lady who occupied the wrecked room last night.”

“I really shall not care if they do know,” she said. “Are you sure I am not inconveniencing you dreadfully, sir? Were you planning a very important journey for today?”

“Nothing that cannot wait,” he said. “It is to be to your aunt’s then, ma’am?”

“Yes, please,” she said, jumping to her feet in order to stuff her town dress and her hairbrush into her valise. “I am ready whenever you are.”

She watched him drain the coffee cup and get to his feet. And then she felt the blood drain from her head, just as the coffee had done from the cup. The next moment her valise was open on the bed, all its uncarefully packed belongings flying out of it again.

“It’s gone!” she said, her voice shaking almost out of her control. “It really has gone. I suddenly realized that when I put my dress in it was not in there. Oh, whatever am I to do?”

“What is gone?” he asked.

“I know I brought it,” she said. “I distinctly remember putting it into the bottom of my valise. I remember thinking perhaps I was foolish since I was only going to Aunt Winifred’s. But I was afraid that Papa would try to drag me back to marry the Duke of Mitford even with Aunt Winifred to plead for me and I would never be able to go home again. So I know I brought it with me.”

Mr. Villiers’s voice sounded reassuringly calm—except that there could be no reassurance. She knew she had brought it with her. “What did you bring with you?” he asked.

“My jewelry case,” she said. “I brought it with me because I thought I might be destitute without it. I have spent all my pin money for this month, you see, and my purse is quite, quite empty. So I thought of bringing my jewels.”

“And you are quite sure it is missing?” he asked, looking about at her few scattered belongings and into the empty valise.

“It’s gone!” she said, sitting with a plop on the bed and staring at him with blank eyes.

“Were there any valuable pieces?” he asked.

“There were Mother’s garnets,” she said, “which Papa used to keep for me because he said I was such a scatterbrain. But he let me keep them for myself after my eighteenth birthday because I really am careful with things of value. Though I appear not to have been careful now, do I not? Oh, dear.”

“What else?” he asked. He was leaning over her, a look of concern on his face.

“There were my pearls,” she said, “which Grandpapa gave me also on my eighteenth birthday. Oh, and the diamond ring that used to be Grandmama’s and is now mine, though I do not have a finger big enough for it to fit on.”

“Anything else?” he asked.

She stared at him and thought. “The little emerald earbobs that Bart brought from London,” she said. “He brought ruby ones for Sukey and sapphire pins for Penny and Gussie.” His hands were on her shoulders. They felt very comforting, except that there was no comfort to be had. “You are quite, quite sure you brought the box?” he asked. “You did not leave it on a table somewhere, thinking you had packed it when you had not?”

“No,” she said. “I remember that the edges were sharp against the bottom of the valise, and I warned Mr. Porterhouse about bruising his leg with it.”

“Saying that it was your jewel case, I suppose,” he said.