Love Letters From a Duke (22 page)

“If you would put the tray here, Thatcher,” Felicity told him, and he did so, keeping his head down and counting the seconds until someone said something. But nothing came and he glanced over at Lady Rhoda.

After a flicker of recognition, she coolly turned her gaze toward Felicity. “I see you have settled quite nicely into London. However did you find such a perfect address?”

“And costly,” Lord Stewie said. “When all the talk is that you three haven’t a coin between you, seems demmed odd you’d have such a fine house. Why, I’d say you’d have to commit treason to manage such a splendid address!”

While Thalia sputtered, Felicity rushed in to explain, “Our solicitor, Mr. Elliott, assisted us. He was quite adamant we find suitable lodgings.”

“A lovely room,” Lady Rhoda said. “Interestingly appointed.” This she directed at Thatcher.

He took a deep breath and turned to flee, er, leave.

“No, no,” Jamilla protested. “Thatcher, is it not?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You must stay. I may have need of something. Stand over there,” she told him, waving her hand toward the drapes.

And so he had no choice but to plant himself in the corner. But the advantage was that he could observe everyone with little notice being sent in his direction.

Certainly Stewie had changed little in twelve years. Still the same toady, garish buffoon he’d always been.

“You have a fine hand at pouring, Miss Langley,” Lady Rhoda was saying.

“Miss Emery was an exacting teacher,” Felicity demurred as she finished and began handing out the cups and saucers.

“An extra lump for me,” Stewie said. “Not unlike the lumps I used to get when I went out in Town with Aubrey and Mad Jack.”

The mousy-looking girls on the settee all groaned. “Papa!”

Ah, the Misses Hodges, he realized.

“Come now, poppets, Miss Langley needs to know the sort of man she’s aligned herself with. I wouldn’t be doing my duty to Lord Langley if I just let her attach herself to such a rapscallion fellow without fair warning!” He smiled at his daughters. “As much as I would love to see one of you wearing a ducal coronet, I wouldn’t have a daughter of mine marrying such a fellow. No, indeed!”

Oh no. Not again,
Thatcher silently cursed.

“I am certain you have the current duke confused with someone else,” Felicity said politely.

“Confused? I daresay I’d know the man in the middle of Japan!”

“Which,” Lady Rhoda pointed out, “would be quite simple, Stewart, for he would be the only Englishman around.”

Stewie slapped his knee, sending his napkin flying. “Well, I daresay you’re right, but still, I know the man. That I do!” Flicking a glance over at Thatcher, he said, “Be a good fellow and fetch that for me, will you?”

“Yes, milord,” Thatcher said, catching the napkin up and dropping it into the man’s wide lap.

Stewie glanced up at him and blinked. For a moment Thatcher thought he was about to be unmasked, but what
ever thoughts tumbled through Stewie’s madcap mind, making the connection wasn’t one of them, and he continued, “Now where was I? Oh, yes! Hollindrake! Fine fellow if you are looking for someone to prowl about with. But marriage? Ridiculous notion! Can’t see him falling into the parson’s snare—not and take to it, if you know what I mean.”

“Lord, I hope not,” Lady Rhoda muttered.

“He’s a demmed rake, Miss Langley. Cut a swath a mile wide when he was in town. Flirted with Rhoda a bit afore I ran him off.”

“I believe
I
flirted with
him
,” she corrected. She turned to Felicity to explain. “I used your poor betrothed quite shamefully, but a few dances with Mr. Aubrey Sterling was enough to get my most excellent Mr. Toulouse to propose.” She shot an apologetic smile at Thatcher, her eyes a-sparkle with her trademark intelligence and mischief.

Thatcher felt his pride crack a little. So much for his legendary prowess and charm.

Stewie still wasn’t convinced he hadn’t had a hand in all of it. “Disappeared right after that. Probably feared I’d have him eating grass for breakfast.”

One of the Miss Hodges groaned, and Felicity glanced from Lady Rhoda back to Lord Stewart.

“The duke is not the same man he was back then,” she announced. “He is quite a changed man.”

Lord Stewart laughed. “That’s how they all appear when they go courting. But mark my words, we rakes never change.”

Thatcher began to choke. Stewie thought himself a rake? Had the man ever owned a mirror? Unfortunately, his sputtering drew nearly everyone’s attention.

“Are you well?” Felicity asked.

“Yes, miss,” he said.

The pompous little fellow continued. “No, Hollindrake
hasn’t changed. I remember a night when ol’ Aubrey, Mad Jack, and I were out on one of our prowls—liked to prowl about Town, we did—and I bet Aubrey a ridiculous amount that he couldn’t steal Lady Fanshaw’s yellow petticoat—”

“Stewart!” Lady Rhoda protested. “That is hardly—”

He waved his sister off. “Oh, now don’t get miss-ish on me, Rhoda. Miss Langley needs to know the sort of man that she’s aligning herself with. Besides, demmed if Sterling didn’t show up the next day at White’s with the petticoat. Caused a fine
on dit
that week.”

Thatcher had all but forgotten that escapade but flinched at the memory. Why was it Stewie wouldn’t be able to tell you the capital of France, even if he were standing on the front steps of Notre Dame, but he had a memory for gossip that would put the
Morning Post
to shame? Not only that, his indiscreet nature let him blather on without a care for his audience.

And one of those, namely Felicity, didn’t appear to share Stewie’s enthusiasm for the tale. With her jaw set and her eyes narrowed into two dangerous slits, a smarter man would have shut his mouth.

No, not Stewie, he took her silence to mean she was ready for more. And more he had. “Though that was a fine lark, I always liked the time Aubrey got so drunk he fell in the Thames and we had to pay a ferryman to fish him out. Middle of May, but you couldn’t tell that by the way he was shivering. Thought he’d catch his death that night. Lucky for him, Lady Babcock came along and offered him a ride back to Mayfair, but once she caught a whiff of him, she made him strip down to his small clothes afore she’d let him into the carriage.” Stewie laughed. “And demmed if old Aubrey didn’t offer to—”

“More cakes,” Thatcher said, having picked up the tray and shoved it under the man’s flapping lips.

“Well, yes, I don’t mind if I do,” he said, looking slightly befuddled at having been prevented from finishing his story.

Felicity took the opportunity to jump into the conversation and steer Lord Stewart in a new direction. “I must confess, I did have a purpose behind my invitation to all of you.”

“Do tell, Miss Langley,” Lady Rhoda urged her. “
Please do tell
.”

“Well, it is just that I am so happy in my situation”—this she directed at Lord Stewart—“that I thought perhaps to share my joy with your daughters by suggesting the following…”

Thatcher closed his eyes, for what man wanted to witness another hapless bachelor—no, make that three poor souls—about to meet their fate in the form of one determined Felicity Langley.

But then again, he had to admire her for one thing.

She’d gotten Stewie Hodges to shut up. Something he doubted anyone in the
ton
had ever succeeded in doing. For when she announced that she intended to see the eldest Miss Hodges become the next Countess Lumby, the poor fool keeled over in a dead faint.

After Jamilla provided a vial of her smelling salts and Lord Stewart was brought around, the visit with the Hodges went off better than Felicity could have imagined. All and all, her suggestions had been met with great enthusiasm by the Misses Hodges, but strangely, Lady Rhoda had remained the only one not to voice an opinion—and considering her reputation as a forthright matron, it was more than a little odd.

Lady Rhoda was not only forthright, but also astute, and she’d kept her questions to herself until everyone else was bundled into the waiting carriage. There on the curb, the woman, still beautiful and stately, stopped and turned to Felicity. “It is most kind of you to help my nieces…” She
paused as she adjusted her gloves. “But I must ask, why?”

Felicity would have expected as much from someone as smart and experienced as Lady Rhoda. “I will be perfectly frank,” she told her. “I have two reasons. One being, I wish to vex Miss Sarah Browne, and helping your nieces find advantageous marriages will do that.”

Lady Rhoda nodded, a sly smile on her lips. She was too much of a lady to express her approval of such a plan, but one could see that she knew of Miss Browne’s slights toward the girls. “And the second reason?”

Taking a deep breath, Felicity knew the only course was, again, the honest one. “We are out of coal.”

Lady Rhoda laughed. “That is it? That is the boon you seek in return?”

She nodded. There was no use beating about the bush, they needed coal, and apparently everyone in Town knew they were up the River Tick. Blast her father for not leaving them in better straits before he’d gone off on this fool’s assignment for the Foreign Office.

“Miss Langley, you will never survive in Society if all you ask for is a lump of coal! You are living in an empty house, having obtained it by Lord only knows what means—”

“As I said, our solicitor—”

The woman waved her off. “Please, no more of this gammon about your solicitor. Everyone knows what a pinch purse Mr. Elliott is. I only ask that one day you tell me how you managed it, for I suspect it is a marvelous story.”

Not so much marvelous, Felicity would have told her, but rather a rare stroke of luck. She’d spotted a notice in a newspaper she’d picked up to pass the time while waiting in Mr. Elliott’s office. There, amidst the notices, she’d spotted the following:

It had only taken a little prompting—and flirting, Tally would have added—to get Mr. Elliott’s clerks to explain the case to her, one of them having had a pint or two a few nights before with Mr. Georges’s unfortunate clerk. Apparently, several “heirs” had come forward, all with different versions of the late Mr. Burbage’s will. Each was clamoring for the right to live in the house, and a judge had recently ruled that until the matter was sorted out, the house could sit vacant.

“Of course, that could take months,” the tall, skinny clerk had informed her in his most professional of opinions. “These sort of matters do.”

And to Felicity’s way of thinking, it had seemed an awful shame that such a perfect address should sit vacant while the proceedings languished, so they’d…

“I don’t need to know how you came by this house, but I think you need more than coal.” The lady let her words fall gently, for they held an offer for so much more.

But Felicity had her pride, and she wasn’t going to take more than was necessary. “No, I ask only for enough coal for the month. By then things should be settled—”

“With Hollindrake?” There was a disapproving lilt to her query.

Felicity nodded. “I know your brother means well—”

Lady Rhoda drew her away from the carriage. “My brother barely knows his waistcoat from his trousers, but I want you to think well on the subject before you jump into marriage with a man you know so little about. You’ve put much thought into the matches for the girls, but I wonder if you’ve done as much
to discover who it is you are about to marry?” She tucked her hands into her gloves and shivered in the winter chill. “I’ll ask Alice to have the coal sent around directly. And in the meantime, I might suggest you find a man you can love, Miss Langley. One who will warm you for far longer than any amount of coal.” She glanced up and over Felicity’s shoulder and smiled, then turned and climbed into the carriage.

Felicity shivered as Lady Rhoda’s words struck a chord inside her.
I wonder if you’ve done as much to discover who it is you are about to marry?

And then there was Thatcher’s angry peal as well.
You have nothing…with a man you’ve never met.

She wavered on the curb as Mr. Mudgett’s voice added to the cacophony.
He’s a bounder
,
that one. Not fit company for a good lady
,
if you know what I mean.

And finally, there was Lord Stewart’s laments.
He’s a demmed rake
,
Miss Langley. Cut a swath a mile wide when he was in Town.

Oh, heavens! This was a disaster. Suddenly, her duke didn’t seem so perfect after all. Rather, it seemed her betrothed was the worst sort of dodger.

Here she had prided herself on knowing every detail of so many men’s lives, but had she ever really pried that deeply into Hollindrake’s? Truthfully? No. And she knew the reason…for fear she’d discover exactly the sort of things that Lord Stewart had recounted. Or Mr. Mudgett had willingly offered.

She’d wanted Hollindrake to be her perfect duke and looked no further, certain he would love her for having worked so hard to be his perfect duchess.

But could he love her? This libertine? This rake? This petticoat-stealing lounger? How would she even know how to keep such a man?

And finally, it was Lady Rhoda’s voice of reason that left her trembling from head to toe.
Find a man you can love.

The wind curled down the street, whipping at Felicity’s skirts and chilling her to the bone, but she barely noticed, for her world seemed to be over. How could she ever love Hollindrake? Love such a terrible man?

Then for some reason, she turned around and discovered what had caught Lady Rhoda’s attention. Or rather, whom.

Thatcher.

To her chagrin, and then relief, an odd, comforting sort of warmth spread through her limbs at the sight of him. Before she knew what she was doing, she stumbled up the steps and into his arms. And there she started to cry.