Love Letters From a Duke (4 page)

And Hollindrake House.

Why, the chit had deliberately encamped within firing range of his home. He was of half a mind to move. Not that he could right this moment, not with Brutus having found a firm grip on his boot. Again.

He gave the dog a shake, but there was no removing the determined mutt.

Miss Langley flinched and shot him an apologetic glance, even as she reached down and retrieved her sister’s pet. “I’m sorry about Brutus. I hope he doesn’t deter you, Mister…Mister—” She stopped and glanced up at him, a stray strand of hair having fallen loose and curling at her shoulder.

That pair of wide blue eyes stopped him. They held an unexpected surprise to them, like a patch of bluebells adrift in a lonely wooded grove. And for a moment, she made him stop in wonder and try to figure out how on earth they’d come to this unexpected, unintended moment.

Her lips pursed, like a woman did just before she offered
herself up for a kiss…or more. And those eyes, those extraordinary blue eyes, called to him, called to some unknown part of his heart that he didn’t even know he possessed.

He could see her suddenly, tumbling backward onto the great bed in Hollindrake House wearing nothing but the duchess’s coronet and those eyes looking up at him with longing, with needs she wanted only him to claim. To conquer.

But her fair lashes fluttered and she stammered again, “I hope Brutus doesn’t stop you from helping us, sir. You will help us, won’t you?”

Her question snaked right through his newfound livery and into his chest. It left him breathless and unsteady and wondering what the hell had just happened.

“Yes, well, Miss Langley…” he replied, without even realizing what he was saying. Try as he might, he couldn’t quite shake off the vestiges of whatever she’d just done to him as she began to close the door in his face.

And then it struck him. The chit had beguiled him into—

“Oh, dear,” she said, opening it up again. “I forgot to ask you one thing.”

“What is that?” he asked, taking a cautious peek at her.

The hands were fisted on her hips again. “Your name, sir. Whatever am I to call you?”

“Gracious heavens! Listen to this, Staines.” Lady Geneva Pensford pointed down at the paper unfolded on the table before her. “Lady Bellinger was accosted on the Thames. How terrible for poor Winifred.”

“Disgraceful,” the poised butler replied as he refilled the lady’s cup with a steaming and fragrant pekoe.

“On the Thames?” Thatcher asked from the doorway of the opulent dining room. With a flick of a glance he took in the trays overflowing with breakfast delights, and the abundance of liveried footmen standing poised and waiting for the slightest indication that their services were needed—even though the only two people currently living in the splendid Hollindrake mansion were himself and his aunt, Lady Geneva. “Pray tell, however was Lady Bellinger accosted
on
the Thames?”

“Why, you are up far too early, Your Grace,” his aunt replied from the far end of the long dining room table, a place she had sat at for as long as Thatcher could remember. In an elegant pink day gown, with her red hair still untouched by gray and done up in a formal knot, she looked the perfectly fashionable lady. She had taken after her mother’s side of the family, much to the old duke’s chagrin, but Geneva had made up for her lack of dark hair and eyes by perfecting the Sterling stare and being the Sterlingest of all the family. And right now she was giving him her most elevated look of disapproval. “Yes, you are up too early. Especially when Staines informs me you didn’t return home until an unseemly hour. Whatever were you doing out so late?”

“Staines, you old dog!” Thatcher said, nodding to the family butler. “I would have thought you had gotten too old to carry tales to my aunt.” As for Geneva, she wasn’t the only one who could pin someone with a glance. “As to my whereabouts, madame, and the hour of my return, do you really want me to tell you?”

“No,” she replied, adjusting her napkin. “But really, Your Grace, I do hope you don’t intend to take up with your old friends and spend your hours idling about those horrid haunts of theirs.”

He laughed, for that was exactly what he’d done when he left Miss Langley’s. He’d gone off in search of any of his old friends—Mad Jack Tremont, Temple, even Lord Stewart Hodges would have been welcome company. But all his
“horrid haunts” were either shuttered and closed or filled with young cubs and loungers he didn’t recognize. And he’d realized in an instant he was far too old to join their youthful company.

Truly, his only bright spot the entire day had been those fifteen minutes in Miss Langley’s madcap company.

Miss Langley.
Answering her own door. In red socks, no less! He’d spent most of the evening trying to fathom how this blindingly pretty chit could be the woman his grandfather had chosen. Living in a nearly empty house, with a sleepy chaperone and a dog his troops would have viewed as a nice treat with tea.

He even considered that he’d called on the wrong Miss Langley, and would still be dwelling on such a reassuring notion if the scent of bacon wasn’t tickling his senses. Taking a glance at the overladen buffet, he happily ambled down the long table until he reached the chair opposite Geneva’s.

When he went to settle into it, she arched a brow and tipped her head down toward the other end, where a footman stood beside his grandfather’s chair at the head of the table.

His chair now.

Oh, no
. He wasn’t ready yet. Couldn’t he just put this off for a few more days…until he got used to the notion that his life—and freedom—were over?

“Your Grace,” she said, “Staines has already set your place.”

“Aunt Geneva, please call me Thatcher. Everyone else does.”

“I shall not. Now take your place, Your Grace,” she said, scolding him as she had when he’d been the child no one would have ever thought stood to inherit the dukedom.

“I won’t sit down there all alone,” he told her, folding his arms over his chest.

“Don’t be so stubborn. It is your chair. Yours whether you want it or not.”

Not
. Life had been much simpler when he’d been merely Mr. Aubrey Sterling and his uncles, father, and elder brothers all stood between him and the esteemed title of Hollindrake.

But even if he had told her so, she wouldn’t have heard him anyway, for she was still nattering on. “…you simply must sit there. Otherwise the servants will talk.”

He eyed the distance between the ducal throne, because that’s what it was in comparison to the other chairs around the table, and her chair. “I’ll have to shout at you just to converse.”

“I’m quite used to it,” she replied, taking a sip from her tea. “Father quite adored bellowing at all of us down here below the salt.”

“I’ll go only if you come with me,” he insisted, holding his ground.

She took a deep breath, then rose. “Staines,” she said, addressing their butler, “His Grace would like to make some changes to the seating arrangements for breakfast.”

“Yes, my lady, Your Grace,” the man replied, his lips pursed with displeasure.

Lady Geneva walked down the long row of chairs with the air of an early Christian martyr. Had she been born a Papist, he suspected she’d be a saint by now.

“So now that we have all that settled,” he said. “Do explain poor Lady Bellinger’s predicament.”

“Not until you tell me how you left Miss Langley. Is the poor dear broken-hearted?”

He shook his head. “Ducal privilege. You have to tell me first.”

“Well, if you hadn’t been in such an ill humor yesterday and had come home early enough to dine with me,” she replied, adjusting to her new chair and position at the table, “you would know that the Thames has frozen quite solid. Has been for over a week now.”

“Like it was in ’95?” he asked, remembering his boyhood joy at such an event.

“Yes, I daresay like it was then,” she replied. “A regular country fair—food stalls, trinkets, all sorts of entertainments, merchants ready to separate you from your coins. Why, they’ve even got a printing press down there and you can have your name printed on a pretty little engraving of it all.” She paused as she glanced over at his coat, having finally taken in the costume he’d chosen for today, and her brows furrowed. “Everyone is mad to go,” she finished, her gaze still fixed on his choice of jackets.

“Have you?” he asked, ignoring her inquisitive glance.

“Of course,” she replied, straightening in her seat. “Though the company is quite rough. Certainly not someplace you would go without a proper escort.”

“And who did you go with?” he asked. “Apparently not your husband, since you are still living here. By the way, how is Pensford these days?”

“Don’t be so rude,” she replied. “You know very well that subject isn’t spoken of in this house.”

So the subject of Aunt Geneva’s scandalous marriage was still taboo. He wanted to point out that while that rule had been his grandfather’s edict, this was now
his
house, and the subject could damn well be broached whether she liked it or not. Then again, the last thing he needed was his aunt getting her petticoats in a bunch and deciding to move out. Leaving the job of hostess wide open for say…someone else…like his mother.

Thatcher shuddered, realizing that perhaps they both had plights that were best left unbroached.

Meanwhile, Aunt Geneva sat waiting, her hands folded primly before her. “Now tell me about your visit to Miss Langley. I daresay she’s probably seen fit to leave Town by now.” Much to his surprise, she sounded quite worried at the prospect. Then he discovered why. “I do hope you didn’t
leave her in a state of decline. I don’t want to see her name listed in the obituaries next month.”

Of course. Such a thing would put a blight on their good name, and the one thing a Sterling never did was bring scandal down upon their family’s golden reputation. With the possible exception having been him.

Aunt Geneva sighed. “Still, I suppose she was quite undone by her loss.”

Thatcher glanced up from the laden plate that had just been put before him. “Hardly. When I left her, I do believe she was quite elated. She offered me a fine salary for my troubles.”

She paused, her teacup halfway to her lips. “A salary? To be her husband?”

“No. To be her new footman.” He paused and waited and then it came.

Geneva coughed and sputtered, nearly dropping the Wedgwood piece. “Her what?”

“You heard me perfectly,” he replied. “I am Miss Langley’s new footman.”

Aunt Geneva laughed. “And here I thought the army had tamed that wretched sense of humor of yours. Truly, Your Grace, now that you’ve inherited, you need to remember who you are.” She glanced over at Staines and shook her head, as if to signal to the man that His Grace wasn’t truly a footman, nor mad, like the fourth duke had been rumored to be.

“’Tis no joke. This is the Langley livery.” He held out his arm and smoothed his hand over the sleeve. “I fear the jacket is a little snug in the shoulders. Do you think Weston could do the alterations?”

“I think not!” she declared.

Probably also wouldn’t do to let his aunt know about the jacket’s rather questionable past. So instead he tucked back into his breakfast, happily chewing a large bite of ham.

“The Langley livery, indeed!” Geneva huffed. “Now tell
me what happened yesterday, and none of this falderal about footmen and livery.”

“But it isn’t falderal,” he told her. “Miss Langley mistook me for some fellow an agency was sending over.” He tried the bacon and found it to be perfect. Mrs. Hutchinson had been right about one thing—it had been a while since he’d had a good and filling meal. “Apparently you were right about me calling on her before I’d had a chance to change into something more…more…”

“Respectable? Fitting of your station?” his aunt suggested. “Your Grace, tell me you are joking about all this.”

“I fear not,” he told her, taking another bite of bacon.

“But Your Grace, this is ruinous. I warned you something like this would happen.”

“So you did, and it has, but I don’t see anything ruinous about it,” he said, slathering a large helping of marmalade on his toast. “There might be a bit of a dustup, some good laughs at my expense, but I hardly see it worth this Cheltenham tragedy of yours.”

“Have you thought for a moment how this will reflect on Miss Langley?”
Hence on us
, her words implied.

He glanced up. “Miss Langley? What has this to do with her? I was the one who looked like a regular beggar.”

Aunt Geneva drew a deep breath. “Why, her name will be cast about in the most unflattering of manner. She’ll be ruined.”

“Really, Aunt Geneva, ruined?

“Utterly, Your Grace! You must go over there as soon as you are properly outfitted and set matters to right.”

He waved his hand at her. “There is no need to wait for the tailor to make me decent, I must have some old togs around here somewhere in the attic. Besides, if you must know, I had every intention of going over this morning and setting matters to right, as you say.”

“Good,” Aunt Geneva announced. “’Tis best settled quick
ly. What Father was thinking when he encouraged that girl, I know not. The Langleys are hardly good
ton
.” This was punctuated with a very disapproving sniff.

That his aunt looked askance at Miss Langley actually gained the chit some small favor in his mind. He’d always found the people Aunt Geneva disliked, well, interesting. And there was no arguing the point…Felicity Langley
was
interesting.

“And once we have this distasteful matter finished,” she was saying, “we can get to the business of finding you a proper bride. I’ve gone to the liberty of drawing up a list of likely candidates, and I think you’ll discover—”

“Aunt Geneva, I have no intention of getting married,” he told her. “These bumble-brained chits they pass off in London society hold no interest for me.” Empty conversations, worries about the latest fashions, or whether or not one possessed the latest
on dit
. He shuddered at the very idea of spending the rest of his life listening to such mindless prattle.

She sniffed and waved a hand at him. “You’ll have your choice of brides, any woman you want. Why, they’ll be lined up around the square before the end of the week.”

“Yes, because they want the title,” he shot back.

“So? Whatever is wrong with that? In the end, the choice is yours.”

Still, even that concession didn’t set well. Pick of the litter might seem a boon to some, but they were still all mewling kittens with sharp claws in his estimation.

“Your Grace, you must marry,” Aunt Geneva persisted. “You are the last of the Sterlings.”

“Nonsense. Isn’t there that second cousin, old Bertie’s boy, who’s next in line?”

“Tristam?” Her regal brow furrowed.

“Yes, that’s the fellow. He’ll produce an heir or so and leave me to my peace.”

She threw up her hands. “That will never happen. The man is most unsuitable.”

“More than me? I find that hard to believe.” Thatcher had been the family’s black sheep for so long, he hadn’t considered that there could be someone more inappropriate to inherit. “Go find him a likely bride—that ought to do the trick.”

He dug back into his breakfast, which was steadily growing cold. Perhaps there was a reason beyond her ill-conceived marriage that had resulted in Aunt Geneva’s banishment to the end of the table.

Like not letting the old duke finish his breakfast in peace.

“We can gain him whatever bride you want, but she’ll never bear a child,” his aunt told him.