Love Letters From a Duke (8 page)

Why couldn’t this intriguing man be her duke?

It seemed to Thatcher that all of London had turned out to make merry on the frozen Thames. With the happy exception of Miss Browne and her mother.

Apparently, the Langley sisters and Lady Philippa didn’t share their former classmate’s horror of common folk. The ladies looked quite delighted to be amongst Miss Browne’s rabble. Even sleepy Aunt Aramintha’s eyes were bright with excitement as she watched the crowds around them.

Thatcher took a deep breath of the cold, crisp air and smiled as well.

Far better than being poked and prodded by Weston and the countless other tailors and bootmakers and milliners his aunt surely had lined up by now outside his Grosvenor Square residence.

“Come on, Duchess,” Miss Thalia was saying, tugging at her sister’s hand. “Look over there! A great swing! Don’t you remember the one Papa took us on in Geneva? Hurry along so we can get in line.”

“I will not,” she replied. “I hardly think it is proper at our age to be whirled about in such a fashion.”

“Bah!” Miss Thalia replied. “Proper, indeed! ’Tis fun, Felicity. And I haven’t seen you smile in an age. Come along and laugh with us.”

Miss Langley shook her head and stood firm. “I will not. ’Tis for children. Besides, it is a waste of money.”

“I’ll forgo an extra candle tonight,” was her sister’s reply, and off she went arm in arm with her cousin and aunt.

“As if that will happen!” Miss Langley huffed. “She’ll forget her promise and be begging for more tapers so she can ‘read one more chapter.’”

Thatcher laughed, and then found himself the subject of a glare from his unlikely employer.

“Please do not encourage her,” came the haughty order.

“You should have gone with them,” he said, nodding toward the contraption that now had the others swinging back and forth in a grand arc over the ice. “It does look like fun.”

“Harrumph.” Miss Langley straightened, and while her stance was convincing, he swore he could see a tiny, envious light in her eyes as she glanced over at her sister.

“Is it about the money?” he asked, though for the life of him he couldn’t understand why the daughters of someone as highly placed as Lord Langley or the daughter of an earl would be in such reduced circumstances—even if both their fathers were gone. “For if you would like to go, I have a few spare—” He began to dig around in his pocket.

“I think not!” Her gaze fluttered up to meet his, and then her fair lashes shuttered him out. “It wouldn’t be proper to take money from you.” She heaved a sigh. “It’s just that we
incurred a few more expenses than we thought we would moving into Town and our solicitor is forever forgetting to send over a draft. Why just the other day he called on us, apologizing quite profusely…”

She nattered on, but he didn’t believe a word of it. Miss Browne might be a pea goose, but he wasn’t.

“…as for going on swings, as I said before, I hardly think it proper—”

“I could escort you back to Mayfair,” he offered. “Perhaps we can catch up with Miss Browne and her mother. They seemed a proper pair.”

The chit looked ready to level him, but then her face softened and she laughed. “I suppose I do deserve that much.” There was another sigh from her, and then finally a softly spoken sentence. “I want to thank you for your help this morning.”

“My help?”

“Yes,” she replied. “With Miss Browne.” As she said the other chit’s name, he could almost hear her teeth grinding.

He chuckled. “Apparently not your special bosom bow, as she would have led us all to believe.”

“Never,” Miss Langley said with a shudder. “She’s well…I don’t like to say anything ill about a fellow graduate of Miss Emery’s but…she’s…oh, she’s…”

“A wretched bit of baggage?”

Her lips twitched, but only for a moment. “Mr. Thatcher!”

“What?” He leaned against the rail that separated them from the swing.

“You shouldn’t say such a thing about a young lady.”

“Why not?”

Her hands went to her hips. “Servants aren’t supposed to speak ill of their betters.”

He frowned and rubbed his chin. “They aren’t?”

Shaking her head, she said, “No. Absolutely not.”

“Whyever not?”

That stopped her, but only for a moment. “Well, it just isn’t done.”

“Of course it’s done.”

“It shouldn’t be,” she countered. “It isn’t proper.”

Proper
. He hadn’t known Miss Langley for twenty-four hours, and already that word was starting to wear on him. This chit and her proper notions.

“Tell me you weren’t thinking the exact same thing.”

“Thinking what?”

“That your Miss Browne is a wretched piece of baggage.”

“I was not and she is not ‘my Miss Browne.’”

“Oh yes, you thought the exact same thing when you saw her waving like a…like a…”

“Pea goose,” she supplied.

He snapped his fingers. “Yes, that’s it. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, nose tucked in the air. “But I will aver for the remainder of my days that I never thought of her as a ‘wretched piece of baggage.’”

Thatcher leaned over and peeked beneath the rim of her bonnet. “Truly?”

“What I was thinking was far less charitable,” she admitted.

They both laughed, and he wondered if she would be so free and easy with him if she knew who he was. He had to imagine not, for he couldn’t remember anyone joking with his grandfather. Or for that matter, his grandfather ever laughing.

“I daresay Miss Browne will no longer vex me when I am married,” she said, tugging at her red mittens, which were the same color as the socks she’d worn the day before. Red wool socks on a debutante! He had been away from London too long. Though he had to guess they weren’t the pink of fashion, especially compared to the expensive rigging Miss Browne had sported. “Nothing will, I suppose.”

“How so?”

She arched a brow. “For I shall be the Duchess of Hollindrake.”

Presumptuous little chit. Especially when Gibbens had assured him that there was no formal betrothal in place. “You will be?”

“Yes, I told you so yesterday.”

“I was a bit preoccupied in saving my boots,” he reminded her.

She flinched. “Brutus! He is a horrible animal, but Tally thinks the sun sets at his feet, so I fear we are stuck with him. I hope your boots weren’t ruined.”

He held one out for her inspection. “Just a few reminders of our meeting, nothing more.” Of course, the marks had left his grandfather’s valet in horrors, especially when he had instructed the man not to attempt to repair the damage. “What if Miss Browne were to marry some other duke?”

“Unlikely,” she said, full of confidence. “I have conducted a thorough study of all the marriageable dukes—”

“A wha-a-t?” he stammered.

“A study of marriageable dukes. I wasn’t about to leave my prospects to chance.”

“Of course not,” he managed to say. “But a study?”

“Not really a study, per se, more of a chronicle.”

“The
Bachelor Chronicles
,” he said, remembering the odd remark Miss Browne had made earlier about a journal.

“Yes. Miss Browne and her ilk christened it thusly. Not that they understood the importance of such a work—for they only saw it as a directory of eligible men.”

“And it’s not?” He was more inclined to view it like Miss Browne. Hell, what man wouldn’t?

“Gracious heavens, no. Finding the right marriage partner isn’t just a matter of title and wealth.” She paused for a moment as he arched a glance at her. “I won’t lie and say those things aren’t essential.”

“Of course,” he agreed, not meaning a word of it.

Felicity continued on as if the mocking tone in his voice held all the agreement of a fervent
amen.
“Titles and wealth aside, a true marriage requires a meeting of minds, of temperaments, of natural inclinations.”

Had he heard her correctly? “Natural what?” he sputtered against his better judgment.

“Natural inclinations,” she repeated. “Oh, not that nonsense that Tally and Pippin go on about. Romance and passion and such foolery. For anyone of good sense knows that when a couple is well matched, they share a…well, it will be…”

He supposed he could have nodded for her to continue without explaining it in excruciating detail, but it was much more fun to stand by mutely and watch her cheeks pink.

“Suffice it to say, the marriage will be beneficial for both parties,” she managed to finish.

“Sounds as such.” Sounded dead dull to his way of thinking, but he wasn’t about to argue the point. “As you were saying, your
Bachelor Journals
—”

“
Chronicles
,” she corrected.

” Yes, these
Bachelor Chronicles
are a study of all the eligible dukes?”

She bit her lip and shook her head. “Well, it was that at first, but I found I needed to expand my studies.”

“And how far did you expand them to?”

“To all the noblemen in England,” she confessed. Proudly, he thought.

“All?”

“Well, not all of them. Only the unmarried ones. And of course I didn’t include those who weren’t up to snuff. You would be surprised how many terrible rogues there are out there.”

“Yes, so I’ve heard,” he said, wondering why his reckless past hadn’t gained him such immunity. “But I thought you were only interested in ducal candidates.”

“I am,” she replied adamantly. “But sadly, there is a regular dearth of dukes—”

“No!” he teased.

“There are currently only three eligible dukes in the Marriage Mart.”

“Only three?” A one out of three chance, and of course
he’d
won her matrimonial lottery.

She ignored him. “Yes. I fear they aren’t a very prolific group, and worse still, most of them are half mad.”

That should have taken the Sterlings off her list—he could cite a full list of ramshackle relations, starting with his grandfather.

“With so few ducal candidates, I added marquisates during my second year. And then earls and on down.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “And what exactly do you ‘chronicle’?”

“Oh, the usual,” she said. “Date of birth, lineage, residences—”

“Couldn’t you glean all that with a copy of
Debrett’s
or
Stockdale’s
?”

She shook her head. “Why no! They don’t get to the heart of the matters.”

No
,
of course not
.

“My
Chronicles
cover the important things. Tendencies toward drink, gambling, charitable associations, family connections, financial status…”

As she went on with her laundry list of nearly every sort of fault or folly a man could profess, he realized something very important.

He was in those pages. Chronicled and dissected with the same efficiency that marked everything she did.

So how the hell had she ever come up with him as her choice?

She’d finished and now stood waiting for some sort of response from him. Lord knows he was trying, but he couldn’t
make his mouth move for it had grown as dry as the Spanish plains in August. But he managed the question that was tolling in his brain like the bells of St. Paul’s. “Why Hollindrake?”

“Actually, I would never have considered him if it hadn’t been for Lord John Tremont.”

“Mad Jack?” he blurted without thinking.

“You know him?” she asked, suspicion rising immediately in those all-too-intelligent eyes of hers.

“I know of him,” he said quickly. “Who in London hasn’t heard of Mad Jack Tremont?”

“True enough,” she conceded, casting one last speculative glance in his direction.

Thatcher made a note to himself to kill Tremont the first chance he got. Leave it to the same man who’d convinced him that the army was his only way out of his grandfather’s machinations to send this marriage-mad little chit in his direction.

“I might not have met His Grace in person,” she was saying, “but I know him well enough. We’ve spent the last four years exchanging a veritable panoply of ideas. While he is quite opinionated…”

She didn’t know the half of it. His grandfather had probably been the most inflated and overbearing person who’d ever lived.

“…he expresses himself with an eloquent style that leaves any proposition up for a fair and open discourse…”

Thatcher slipped from where he was leaning against the railing. It was hard to remain upright—ice or not—when anyone used the phrase “fair and open” to describe his grandfather.

“…our letters convinced me he was the perfect choice for my marriage partner…”

Those letters! He needed to get his hands on them. Curse Gibbens and the man’s fear of riding.

In the snow
,
Your Grace? Oh
,
no
,
I couldn’t
, the bespectacled man had squawked at the very suggestion of riding.

So now while he waited for Gibbens and the carriage to arrive, he could only speculate as to what the devil his grandfather and Miss Langley have been writing about.

“…even before I’d settled my affairs with His Grace, I knew my
Bachelor Chronicles
would prove useful. For you see, my sister and cousin are not as discerning about their marriage partners,” she was saying. “And if I am to be a duchess, I must see that they succeed to their rightful places as well.”

“But of course.” He glanced over at Tally and Pippin, who obviously held propriety with no little regard, for they were both laughing uproariously. “I imagine you have your work cut out for you.”

“If you only knew!” Felicity said, glancing skyward. “Truly, if Miss Browne marries above either of them, all my work will have been in vain. She’ll bedevil me to no end.”

“That may be true, but could you imagine Miss Browne’s humiliation if those Misses Hodges outdid her?” he said entirely in jest.

Felicity laughed. “She would be beside herself, but I doubt Lord Stewart’s daughters are going to have much luck finding lofty marriages. Their father is a bit of a…a…”

He let her falter on, for he knew Lord Stewart, or Stewie, as he was known. The toady little man in his brightly colored waistcoats had been hard to miss—and hard to divest oneself of—when Thatcher had been cutting his swath through society. The man’s daughters could be paragons, but the idea of having that nincompoop for a father-in-law most likely drove away all but the most desperate fortune hunters.