My Dear Duchess

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Authors: M.C. Beaton

BOOK: My Dear Duchess
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M. C. Beaton
is the author of the hugely successful Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, as well as a quartet of Edwardian murder mysteries featuring heroine Lady Rose Summer, several Regency romance series and a stand-alone murder mystery,
The Skeleton in the Closet
– all published by Constable & Robinson. She left a full-time career in journalism to turn to writing, and now divides her time between the Cotswolds and Paris. Visit www.mcbeatonbooks.co.uk for more, or follow M. C. Beaton on Twitter:
@mc_beaton
.

Titles by M. C. Beaton

The Poor Relation

Lady Fortescue Steps Out • Miss Tonks Turns to Crime • Mrs Budley Falls from Grace

Sir Philip’s Folly • Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue • Back in Society

A House for the Season

The Miser of Mayfair

Plain Jane

The Wicked Godmother

Rake’s Progress

The Adventuress

Rainbird’s Revenge

The Six Sisters

Minerva

The Taming of Annabelle

Deirdre and Desire

Daphne

Diana the Huntress

Frederica in Fashion

Edwardian Murder Mysteries

Snobbery with Violence

Hasty Death

Sick of Shadows

Our Lady of Pain

The Travelling Matchmaker

Emily Goes to Exeter

Belinda Goes to Bath

Penelope Goes to Portsmouth

Beatrice Goes to Brighton

Deborah Goes to Dover

Yvonne Goes to York

Edwardian Candlelight

Polly • Molly • Ginny • Tilly • Susie • Kitty • Daisy • Sally • Maggie • Poppy • Pretty Polly • Lucy • My Lords, Ladies and Marjorie

Regency Candlelight

Annabelle • Henrietta • Penelope

Regency Royal

The Westerby Inheritance • The Marquis Takes a Bride • Lady Anne’s Deception • Lady Margery’s Intrigue • The Savage Marquess • My Dear Duchess • The Highland Countess • Lady Lucy’s Lover • The Ghost and Lady Alice • Love and Lady Lovelace • Duke’s Diamonds • The Viscount’s Revenge • The Paper Princess • The Desirable Duchess • The Sins of Lady Dacey • The Dreadful Debutante • The Chocolate Debutante • The Loves of Lord Granton • Milady in Love • The Scandalous Marriage

Regency Scandal

His Lordship’s Pleasure • Her Grace’s Passion • The Scandalous Lady Wright

Regency Flame

Those Endearing Young Charms
? The Flirt • Lessons in Love • Regency Gold • Miss Fiona’s Fancy • The French Affair • To Dream of Love • A Marriage of Inconvenience • A Governess of Distinction • The Glitter of Gold

Regency Season

The Original Miss Honeyford • The Education of Miss Paterson • At the Sign of the Golden Pineapple • Sweet Masquerade ?The Constant Companion • Quadrille • The Perfect Gentleman • Dancing on the Wind • Ms. Davenport’s Christmas

The Waverly Women

The First Rebellion • Silken Bonds • The Love Match

Agatha Raisin

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet

Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener

Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley

Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam

Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came

Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate

Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House

Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance

Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon

Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor

Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye

Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison

Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride

Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body

Agatha Raisin: As the Pig Turns

Agatha Raisin: Hiss and Hers • Agatha Raisin and the Christmas Crumble

Hamish Macbeth

Death of a Gossip

Death of a Cad

Death of an Outsider

Death of a Perfect Wife

Death of a Hussy

Death of a Snob

Death of a Prankster

Death of a Glutton

Death of a Travelling Man

Death of a Charming Man

Death of a Nag

Death of a Macho Man

Death of a Dentist

Death of a Scriptwriter

Death of an Addict

A Highland Christmas

Death of a Dustman

Death of a Celebrity

Death of a Village

Death of a Poison Pen

Death of a Bore

Death of a Dreamer

Death of a Maid

Death of a Gentle Lady

Death of a Witch

Death of a Valentine

Death of a Sweep

Death of a Kingfisher • Death of Yesterday

The Skeleton in the Closet

Also available

The Agatha Raisin Companion

My Dear Duchess

M. C. Beaton

Constable & Robinson Ltd.

55–56 Russell Square

London WC1B 4HP

www.constablerobinson.com

First electronic edition published 2011

by RosettaBooks LLC, New York

This edition published in the UK by Canvas,

an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013

Copyright © M. C. Beaton, 1979

The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in

Publication Data is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-47210-136-5 (ebook)

Cover copyright © Constable & Robinson

Chapter One

Everyone in the top ten thousand agreed that the weather was no respecter of persons. A heavy rain roared down on London town with unremitting violence, chuckling in the lead gutters, pouring down the drainpipes and setting the filth from the kennels awash over the roads. The Season had begun but two weeks ago and now the promising groundwork that had been assiduously laid by hopeful mothers and their equally hopeful daughters seemed to be in a fair way to being ruined. Rides in the park at the fashionable hour, shopping in Bond Street, ices at Gunters—the myriad of opportunities for chance encounters to further the acquaintance of the ballroom—were all being washed away.

Even Clarence Square, the most fashionable of Mayfair addresses, had not escaped the ravages of the deluge. Water soaked into the brick facade of its elegant buildings and ran in little waterfalls from its stately porticos. The pretty gardens of the square were pockmarked by huge depressing puddles and the battered rose bushes threw their scarlet petals over the sodden grass like summer warriors bleeding to death before an onslaught of watery spears.

Captain Henry Wright jolted into the square in the confines of a stuffy carriage and fretted for the hundredth time in the cage that was called love. Instead of putting on the gloves with his friends at Jackson’s or playing a rubber of piquet at White’s, here he was, all dressed up like a Bond Street fribble in a coat with twelve shoulder capes and buttons the size of soup plates, going to call on a young female and endure the cold glances of her odious mother.

Ever since he had set eyes on Clarissa Sayers but a se’enight ago at her come-out ball, his heart had been lost—to the great amazement of London society who had labelled the Captain a hardened flirt. His sister, Emily, could point out that Mrs. Sayers, whose vast fortune came from a series of thriving woolen manufacturies in the North, smelled of the shop and was an encroaching Cit. His friends could remind him that since he had just been honorably discharged with a leg wound after the long rigors of the Peninsular War, he was bound to be susceptible and ready to fall for the first pretty face he met. But all in vain. He had no sooner set eyes on Clarissa’s ethereal beauty than his heart was well and truly hers.

His goddess preferred the Dandy set rather than the athletic Corinthians that the Captain favored—hence the outrageous coat which was already beginning to make him feel uncomfortable.

In spite of the drenching rain, he walked slowly up the wide marble steps and then banged on the knocker with unnecessary violence. He was admitted by the butler and, with relief, was divested of his outer coat. Revealed underneath was an impeccable swallow tail coat which might meet with the butler’s approval, but he felt sure that his love would have been better pleased had he attired himself in all the glory of padded shoulders and a nipped waist.

His heart beating fast, the Captain followed the butler up the wide carpeted stairs to a morning room on the first floor and, straightening his cravat and feeling like a schoolboy, made his entrance.

But there was nothing in his manner to betray his feelings to Miss Clarissa Sayers or to her mother who were engaged at their embroidery. From his fair curly hair cut in a fashionable Brutus crop to his shiny hessians with their little gold tassles, he was the epitome of languid elegance.

Mrs. Sayers was a plump woman of middle years dressed in a green and white striped dress displaying a generous expanse of mottled bosom. An elaborate lace cap was balanced precariously on curls of an improbable gold. Her heavy jaw betrayed all the force of character that was necessary for a matron, however rich, with a background of trade, to storm the aristocratic bastions of London’s West End. She hid her heavy domineering character behind a mask of helpless girlish fluttering. When her bluff Yorkshire husband had departed this world in a fit of apoplexy she lost no time, once the regulation period of mourning was over, to realize her lifelong ambition. Her beautiful daughter should make her debut in London and marry a title. No less than a Lord would suffice. And with her fortune and Clarissa’s looks, she was in no doubt that she would soon succeed. She had paid a certain “lady of quality” handsomely to assure her daughter’s entree into the best circles and only certain hostesses, notoriously high in the instep, had kept their doors firmly closed.

She eyed the handsome Captain with a gleam of disfavor which she hurriedly masked by ringing the bell for refreshments. After all, the Captain moved in the first circles and his father’s death had assured him of an easy competence. And she had no fear of her darling throwing herself away. Clarissa was as ambitious to secure a title as her mama.

Clarissa betrayed none of her ambitions, however, as she smiled prettily at the Captain and thanked him in her soft voice for having ventured out in such terrible weather.

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