Love Letters From a Duke (15 page)

She’ll keep her word
,
bless her heart.

Just as his grandfather had always averred a Sterling must, for wasn’t that their motto?
Verbum Meum Jusjurandum
.

My word is my oath.

And now that promise fell on him.

Yours, sir, is exactly the attitude that leaves women—whose fates, I might add
,
are entirely at the whims of men—to fend for themselves by whatever means possible.

Miss Langley’s words, accusation really, still continued to echo the next morning through Thatcher’s thoughts.
Whatever means possible.
Hard words indeed, but what they hid was a woman with a generous and loyal heart. A determined chit, surely, but there was more to his unlikely betrothed than the marriage mad miss he’d first assumed her to be.

From across the table, Aunt Geneva’s insistent voice penetrated his musings. “You didn’t tell her who you were?”

Thatcher shook his head. “No.” Instead of elaborating, which appeared what Aunt Geneva wanted him to do, he dug into his breakfast—the ham too fragrant to ignore. Besides, he’d learned his lesson about eating with Aunt Geneva yesterday—best to fortify himself quickly.

What was he going to say?
Aunt Geneva
,
Grandfather betrothed me to a penniless miss
,
whose chaperone is a notorious pickpocket
. Then when the old girl was revived by a crate of smelling salts, he could finish her off by revealing that Felicity had gained her housekeeper on the advice of a former highwayman.

She’d think he was as mad as the fifth duke.

His aunt set down her napkin and looked across the breakfast table at him. “Your Grace, ’tis cruel to continue deceiving this poor innocent girl.”

He suspected his aunt’s sympathy had more to do with her desire to see them well rid of such an undesirable
parti
than for any real concern for Miss Langley’s reputation.

And his sympathies? Well, they’d been shaken by Mrs. Hutchinson’s revelations. After a glass or two of Stanbrook’s brandy, the old housekeeper became quite loquacious, revealing far more than he thought Miss Langley would ever own up to.

The Duchess deserves more than that duke of hers. I told her to find a good man who would love her
,
like my Bertie loved me. But she wants her duke
,
she does. Well
,
I says
,
where is that top-lofty nob? He should ‘ave been here to greet her when she arrived the first day. If he’s done her wrong
,
I’ll show him what a cleaver can do
,
I will.

Thatcher closed his eyes and wished himself out of this muddle. Honor dictated that he marry her, betrothal or not. But Mrs. Hutchinson was also right. Felicity Langley deserved someone who would love her. Passionately. Whether she knew it or not.

And there in the wee hours of the morning, as the sun started to rise over the snowy rooftops of Mayfair, Thatcher had seen a different light to this entire muddle.

What if she could love him? What if they could find some passionate accord before the chains of ducal responsibilities turned their lives as dull and lifeless as those “natural inclinations” she’d been nattering on about?

“Your Grace, are you listening to me?” Aunt Geneva was saying. “You can’t continue this! You need to cry off and be done with her. Take up your responsibilities.”

Thatcher put down his fork and stared at her. “That girl, like it or not, is my responsibility. How can I just cry off? Where is the honor in such an act?”

“Honor!” she scoffed. “She most likely deceived Father in some manner to ingratiate herself into our family. Well, it is scandalous, and now it can all be undone.” His aunt took a deep breath and then smiled. “Your Grace, you have duties that must be seen to. Why just look at the salver! It is overflowing with cards and invitations. All pressing matters that need your attention.”

He flicked a glance over at the sideboard and winced. Indeed, the salver overflowed with tidings. Invitations. Cards from families with proper daughters, respectable housekeepers, and nary a pickpocket in sight.

There it was. His future life as the Duke of Hollindrake. Obligations with little time left for skating and whatever other misadventures he had to suppose would trail in Miss
Felicity Langley’s wake to the end of her days if she didn’t end up as proper and stuffy as she seemed to think she must. No, if anyone could save him from a life of dull events and boring soirees, it would be Miss Langley, but only after she learned that passion counted for something.

And he suspected, given the lively light he’d spied in her flirtatious eyes yesterday, that she had enough passion to make even the most wretched recital interesting.

“The salver can wait,” he told her. “I am engaged elsewhere at present.”

Geneva threw up her hands. “This is beyond intolerable, Your Grace! It will be the ruin of us all! I beg of you to put an end to this. For if you won’t, I’ll…I’ll…”

He pushed back his throne of a chair and rose. “Really, Aunt Geneva, I’m not some callow youth for you to chide. However do you propose to stop me?”

But Thatcher had underestimated the depth of Sterling blood that ran through his aunt’s veins.

“I shall summon your mother.”

Tugging on her mittens, Felicity stood on the steps of her “borrowed” house and took a deep breath of the icy air. It did little to clear her thoughts, which were a jumble from Mr. Mudgett’s revelations from the day before.

I’ll tell you
,
miss
,
he’s a bounder, that one. Cut a fine swath through Town he did. A regular hound when it came to chasing skirts.

Her Hollindrake a hound? She shuddered and tried to tell herself the man who had written her such thoughtful letters couldn’t be such a cad. There had to be some mistake. Even Tally had tried to look on the bright side, arguing that now that the duke was well over thirty, a veritable Methuselah according to her sister, his inclinations could no longer stray toward “drinking all night and gambling away whatever he could lay his hands on,” as Mudgett claimed.

Felicity tried to blot out such an image for it hardly fit the noble and honorable one she’d imagined. Oh, could it be that she’d spent four years at Miss Emery’s Establishment toiling away on every subject so as to be his perfect duchess for naught?

And the evidence went further than Mr. Mudgett. For here it was Wednesday, and Hollindrake had been in Town (if one wanted to believe Sarah Browne) since Monday, and she had yet to receive a single word from the man. Not a note, not a card, not even a carefully chosen selection of blossoms from his hothouse.

Not that such things turned her head. Not at all. But one would have thought he could have at least—

“Isn’t it rather cold out to be woolgathering, Miss Langley?”

She looked up and found Thatcher at the bottom of the steps. He doffed his hat and bowed to her, but his dark, compelling gaze never left hers, as if he was searching for something.

Something that sent a shiver of anticipation down her spine.

“You’ll have icicles hanging from your nose if you stay out here much longer,” he teased as he straightened.

Of all the foolish drivel,
she told herself, moving down the steps and dodging around him, a hint of bay rum teasing her senses. Bay rum? She slanted a glance up at him, noticing that he had managed a decent shave this morning. Unfortunately, the smooth line of his jaw only made him look less imposing and more…oh, botheration, handsome.

And gracious heavens, if he’d managed to find a razor, why hadn’t he been able to get his hair decently trimmed? Her fingers itched to pull it out of that wretched queue he wore it in and trim it herself. Into some fashionable short cut—a side parting perhaps, or spiked forward, for she doubted his straight hair, as intractable as the man beneath
it, would hardly take to being curled and fussed over. And if he were in a real suit of clothes, not their hand-me-down livery and his ragged topcoat, she had to imagine he might even look noble.

Heroic,
as Mudgett had averred.

She cringed. Oh, the world had surely tipped upside down when her footman held more ducal qualities than her own nearly betrothed!

“You’re late!” Felicity sputtered, then paused and glanced over him again, trying to convince herself that she’d been seeing things—that her footman was just that—a footman. “With such a deplorable sense of duty, you shall never be a
proper
footman.”

“And yesterday I was a war hero,” he reminded her, folding his arms across his chest and planting himself in her path. “And where exactly are you going?”

She tucked her nose up in the air. “None of your business.”

He flicked a glance over her shoulder. “And without even your maid for company?
Tsk tsk
, Miss Langley.”

She pressed her lips together, but only for as long as it took one of their neighbors and her maid to walk past. “You know I haven’t one.”

A sly smile stole over his handsome lips. “I fear you will never be a
proper
duchess, Miss Langley, if you insist on gadding about Town without an escort.”

Beneath the brim of her plain blue bonnet, her brows furrowed into a single taut line. “I wouldn’t be going out alone if you had arrived on time.”

“Touché,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “So where are
we
venturing off to this morning?”

Oh, the devilish rogue. He’d outfoxed her again. Well, if he wanted to tag along after her, that was just fine. “If you must know, I’m off to the draper’s shop.” She made a point of stepping around him and heading toward Bond Street. “Aunt Minty needs some red thread for darning,” she said
over her shoulder. “And…well, it’s just best—for the time being, that is—if she doesn’t go shopping.”

“Shoplifting, you mean,” he said, falling in step.

She flinched but recovered quickly. “What a terrible thing to say about an old woman in her dotage, Mr. Thatcher. What if someone heard you? I am only running this errand to save her from becoming chilled,
that is all
.”

He’d caught up with her and strolled easily alongside her. “From what I understand Mrs. Follifoot has had this penchant for ‘darning’ for quite some time, and that she’s not your aunt.”

Felicity skidded to a stop and turned around slowly. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. Or do you want me to repeat it?”

She caught him by the sleeve and pulled him into Avery Row, an alley that ran at an odd angle up to Grosvenor Street. With tiny, working shops tucked along one side, it was far less traveled by anyone of consequence. “Now I know why Mrs. Hutchinson wasn’t fit to cook supper last night. You got her drunk!”

Thatcher leaned against the brick wall. “Such an accusation, Miss Langley. One that implies your housekeeper is prone to drink.” He held up a hand to stave her off. “And if you must know the truth, I only filled her glass once.”

“’Tis all it takes to encourage her, sir.”

“Tell me about it,” he mused, rubbing his temple. “I thought I had a good head for spirits, but your Mrs. Hutchinson could drink Mr. Mudgett under the table.”

“Serves you right,” Felicity said, slanting a glance at him and realizing he did look a little paler this morning. “In the future, if you have questions about my household, I’d prefer you ask me directly, rather than encouraging Mrs. Hutchinson to consume too much brandy. We were in a sorry state last night. Tally cooked supper!”

He laughed, and the sound was so hearty, she found herself laughing as well.

“Was a dreadful affair,” she told him. “But I see your sacrifice gained you a wealth of information from Mrs. Hutchinson.”

“She quite enlightened me,” he told her, pushing off the wall, and they continued down the row.

Felicity shook her head. “So?”

“So, what?”

Oh, the odious man. Was he going to make her pry? Apparently. “So what else did you discover?”

He scratched his chin and thought about it for a moment before he said, “That my wages won’t be so forthcoming.”

Felicity shrugged. That was the least of their problems. “You were bound to find that out eventually.”

Now it was his turn to skid to a stop. “What? No remorse over your deception?”

“Hardly so, you are a terrible footman,” she teased.

And he grinned back at her. “I also learned that you’ve—” He curled his hand up and coughed into it, and when he spoke again, he’d managed to catch Mrs. Hutchinson’s strident speech. “‘Lived in such heathen places as would curl your soul, Mr. Thatcher,’ and that all that ‘gadding about’ has left you with some ‘demmed queer notions.’”

Felicity laughed. “She thinks we are quite mad.”

“I don’t think there are many who would argue with her. Coming to London without any money, no dowries, and expecting to set Society on its collective ear.” He paused. “I’m with Mrs. Hutchinson, you are mad.”

“And you, sir? You have a patched coat, worn boots, and this is the first time I think I’ve seen you decently shaved. And still you continue in our service. Now who’s mad?”

“That may be, but I at least am not penniless,” he told her, reaching inside his jacket and plucking out a coin.

“I gave you that,” she said, pointing at it, “to get your hair cut.”

He doffed his hat and ran his hand over his hair. “What is wrong with my hair?”

She wrinkled her nose. “It is too scruffy.”

“Then complain to my former batman,” he told her. “For the last time it was trimmed, it was done by Mr. Mudgett.”

“With what?” she asked. “Your saber?”

He leaned over and winked at her. “How do you think I got this scar?”