The Duke's Holiday (3 page)

Women could, Astrid had to grudgingly agree, be quite as
idiotic as men.

But that was only because men had made them so with their
petty despotism and paternalistic property laws.

Fortunately, Alyosius’s male failings had not extended to
the matter of his daughters’ education. He’d been wise enough – or unwise
enough, depending on how one looked at it – to believe in equal education
for the sexes. He’d been a self-proclaimed progressive, but most people had
just called him endearingly eccentric, as they did all the Honeywells. Whatever
the case, due to old Alyosius’ eccentricity, the Honeywell girls were quite
possibly the best educated females in Yorkshire.

Or the worst – again, depending on how one looked at
it.

Astrid and her sisters knew very little in the way of
feminine accomplishments, the sort of subjects taught at expensive finishing
schools for ladies. Things like pouring tea, making idle conversation,
embroidering pillows and handkerchiefs, and dabbing at watercolors were
baffling endeavors to them. The forthright Honeywells never made idle
conversation, and they never
dabbed
at
anything. And who, Astrid had always wondered, needed to be instructed on how
to pour tea, for heaven’s sake? She did it all the time quite easily enough
without having studied it in school.

The Honeywell girls knew Latin and Greek, European
languages and history, philosophy and economics, and even a smattering of
biology (scandalous indeed). Alice, Astrid’s younger sister by three years,
excelled at maths, of all things, and helped Astrid keep the estate books in
order. Ardyce and Antonia, the two youngest, liked to chatter to each other in
ancient Greek and reenact scenes from Homeric epics in the stable yard. Astrid,
unsurprisingly, enjoyed spouting political theory the most, and had firm
opinions on the matter of women’s place in society. She was a bluestocking and
proud of it.

No, she was quite glad she had not been born a man. Yet she
thought the primogeniture laws in this country – written by men to
benefit men – were absurd and downright antediluvian. Because she didn’t
have a rather inconvenient piece of equipment dangling between her legs (oh,
and the Honeywells were
not
delicate
flowers regarding anatomy), she was denied her father’s legacy; and because of
this, the Honeywell family was going to be denied the home they had lived in
for more than two hundred years.

Never mind the fact that she had run the brewery, the farm,
and the estate single-handedly since her father’s first stroke when she was
fourteen years old. Never mind that her staff, employees, and the tenants
– with a few notable exceptions, of course – respected and obeyed
her quite as if she had been a man. Never mind Rylestone Hall and all of its
tenants prospered under her stewardship. One had only to cross over the
property line into the next county to see how badly off most tenant farmers had
it at the hands of their bumbling aristocratic overlords.

And that was another thing. Astrid thought the aristocracy
was equally as idiotic as the male species. No wonder most of the country’s
inhabitants were starving; because the Upper Ten Thousand hoarded the profits
from their estates to build enormous houses, throw elaborate balls, and buy new
hats at the drop of … well, a hat. Not to mention wage ridiculous wars with
neighboring countries. It was a wonder England’s lower classes didn’t take a
page from the French, storm Whitehall – or better yet the sublime
banality of Almack’s – and drag off the Prince Regent and his cronies to
madame la guillotine
. Astrid was quite
sure the world would be a better place.

One only had to look to Rylestone as an example. It was a
true democracy, free of any inbred titled fop’s unwelcome interference. Or at
least she strived for it to be. Most of the tenants couldn’t seem to wrap their
heads around the idea of majority rule and ended up asking Astrid what to do
anyway. Monarchism had become a bad habit not easily broken. But she tried. And
she distributed the profits from the estate from a common bank, keeping no more
for her family than anyone else.

It had been this way in her father’s time, and in his
father’s time (Honeywells had always been radically, if not successfully,
progressive), and the system worked. The only flaw in it was Montford.

Montford was an entity, unseen and unheard, but always
there, hovering over them like the Old Testament God. Or a rain cloud. To her
knowledge, no Honeywell had actually seen a Montford since the seventeenth
century. The centuries’ old feud connecting the Honeywells with the Montford
dukedom was as impenetrable as the Genesis story, retold and reworked so often
through the years that nothing but hyperbolic myth remained, but some facts
were clear:

The Norman-ish Montfords had stolen Rylestone from the Saxon-ish
Honeywells. The Honeywells had promptly stolen it back. This went on for some
years. Back and forth, back and forth. Then another Montford sent into the
Honeywells’ midst a Trojan Horse in the form of a Montford female. Astrid’s
ancestor had signed a devilish contract in order to be allowed take the woman
to wife.

Apparently, she had been quite a catch.

And that marriage had marked the Honeywells’ doom. Of
course, they’d managed to postpone it for two hundred years, but still. She had
bought herself one year simply by conveniently forgetting to inform Montford of
her father’s death. The only reason His Grace knew now was because of that
blasted Mr. Lightfoot.

But something would come to her, she was sure. What she needed
was time.

And stalling was one of her fortes.

Poor Mr. Stevenage had never stood a chance against her
family.

Astrid crept into the front hall of the castle in the early
morning light a fortnight after the strange little man’s arrival and intercepted
Stevenage’s latest letter from London, as she had all of his correspondence.
Glancing around to make sure she was alone, she hastily ripped open the note
and scanned its contents.

What in the hell is
going on up there? M.

Astrid’s lips curled at the edges in a sly grin, and one
eyebrow lifted in an expression that an onlooker would have likely termed
devilish.

“What indeed, you bloody piker?” she murmured, crumpling
the letter in her fist and heading for the nearest available open flame.
“You’ll have to send someone worthy next time around. Not that it would do you
any good. We aren’t going anywhere.”

Though inside she was not nearly so sanguine. Trouble was
coming to Rylestone Hall. It was only a matter of time. But one thing she knew
for certain: Rylestone belonged to the Honeywells, not Montford, no matter what
any trifling contract said.

BACK IN
LONDON…

MONTFORD
WAS supposed to have gone somewhere that evening. A ball, he believed it was,
at the Duke of Bedford’s. He had, at his last tedious morning call to Araminta,
promised to lead his fiancée out for the first waltz. The prospect had filled
neither Araminta nor Montford with anything resembling anticipation. He was
merely doing his duty, and so was Araminta, with her usual glacial poise. But
now, it seemed, he would fail in that duty this particular night. Which was
quite horrifying.

He never failed in his duties.

Never.

But this damned Honeywell business was cutting up his
peace.

Montford couldn’t explain why it had unsettled him so much,
or why he was presently sitting behind his desk in the library, staring
vacantly into the fireplace, at ten o’clock at night. Yet the truth of the
matter was that, loathe as he was to admit it, he had felt poised on the edge
of a precipice ever since he had formally asked for Lady Araminta’s hand, and
the Honeywell business had given him the final push.

Montford did not believe he had made a mistake regarding
his choice of Duchess. He had carefully selected Araminta out of all of the
eligible women in the Kingdom. No one had her impeccable bloodlines, her poise,
or her tidiness. She seemed intelligent enough, so he did not have to worry
about his offspring being lack-witted. And she did not natter on as most
females did and had no bad habits, as far as he knew, that would annoy him
overmuch. And even if she did, he owned seventeen residences, all of them big
enough so that he never even had to see his wife if he so chose.

Oh, and Araminta was thought to be quite beautiful. He
supposed he found her attractive enough in a purely theoretical way, rather in
the way he found Grecian marbles attractive. But he took no great pleasure in
her beauty and felt no stirrings of lust when he kissed her.

Which was precisely why he had chosen her, he supposed. It
would not do for him to lust after his own wife. Or, God forbid, fall in love
with her. Such a thing was the height of bourgeois. Not to mention thoroughly,
utterly impossible for Montford. He did not love anyone.

He had done exactly what he was supposed to have done by
courting Araminta. And it was inexplicable to him why he should now be at sixes
and sevens. No, not inexplicable. Inconvenient to be bothered at this juncture
in his life with this impossible restlessness.

He was a formal man. A cold man. He would not deny this. He
was the living embodiment of an eight hundred year old duchy. He
was
Montford. But sometimes – not
often, but sometimes (usually right after he’d tossed back a port or two and
right before his given names began to sound good in his head) – he longed
to be just a man with a simple name, not a title that conjured up ancestral
ghosts, coats of arms, grand estates and duty, duty, duty.

But then he would quickly come to his senses. He could not
very well shirk said duty simply because he was plagued by emotions and
sentiments in his rare, weaker moments. Someone had to steer the helm, pay the
bills, and run the country. Who else was going to do it? Sherbrook? Marlowe?

Now
there
was a
laugh.

As if his thoughts had summoned up the devils in question,
his butler knocked on the door and announced two visitors. Montford had no
difficulty figuring out who they were, for the two men strode into the room on
Stallings’ heels, as was their custom, before Stallings was able to get out
their names. It had become something of a running joke, if such a thing existed
under Montford’s roof. Stallings always tried to announce them properly, and
Sherbrook and Marlowe always interrupted him before he could, one or the other
of them slapping the old codger familiarly on the back and sending him on his
way.

Which Marlowe did now with a sturdy thwack that made
Stallings hop in place and yelp involuntarily.

“Steady on, old thing,” Marlowe drawled, dropping his
considerable frame onto a chaise lounge by the fire, sending his evening hat
tumbling over the side. “’Twas only a love pat. Fetch us some of them little
sandwiches, will you, Stallings? And maybe them biscuits your little frog man
makes down there, what with the little nick nacks in them. I’m famished.”

Marlowe was always famished.

And he never asked for permission to order food from
Montford’s kitchens – food that Montford’s French chef, Pierre, was
always offended to have to prepare. Marlowe’s favorites, sandwiches filled with
“nick nacks”, and meat pies, did not qualify as worthy of Pierre’s talents.

“Very good, your lordship,” Stallings responded, recovering
his gravitas and bowing out the door.

“What the blazes are you up to, Montford?” Sherbrook
demanded, pulling off his elegant gloves before prowling over to the sideboard
and pouring them a round of drinks. “Looked for you at White’s and Belmont’s
do.”

Montford grunted, in no mood to explain himself.

“’T’was damned crush,” Marlowe added. “And a crushing bore.
Me sister drug us there. I believe she is trying to turn us respectable.” Marlowe
belched and scratched his arse, illustrating just how onerous a task her sister
had set for herself. “Give us a tipple, Sherbrook.”

Sherbrook obliged by placing a snifter of port in Marlowe’s
outstretched paw. He put one in front of Montford as well. Montford took a
reluctant sip, one eye glued on Marlowe’s precarious hold on his glass. As
Marlowe settled his rump more snugly into the chaise, port sloshed over his
fingers and down his sleeve.

Montford rolled his eyes and wondered not for the first
time how it came to be that his two best friends were perhaps the slovenliest
pair of malingerers in the country.

At least
Marlowe
was,
with his rumpled clothes, slight paunch, shaggy black mane, and permanent state
of intoxication. Sherbrook was a bit harder to categorize. He was always
smartly enough turned out…

All right, so Sherbrook was a bit of a man-milliner, as
evidenced by his current attire. He was at the moment wearing a pink waistcoat
embroidered with silver thread and a matching coat cut to his elegant form like
a second skin, Brussels lace spilling out of the sleeves. All of his fingers
were encircled with bejeweled rings, and not one, not two, but …
five?
watch fobs and gold chains
criss-crossed his abdomen. He wore the encrustation of lace and gold and jewels
with a lackadaisical elegance no other English gentleman had yet matched,
though they had tried.

And he always managed to convey the impression from his
dashed off cravat and carefully mussed hair of having tumbled out of bed. The
ladies were mad for Sherbrook.

Less so for Marlowe, who had the ruddy complexion and
slightly bloated abdomen of a dedicated sot. He cared nothing for his wardrobe,
and would as soon – and often did – go out in public in his
dressing gown and a pair of sandals he had acquired on a trip to Greece, his
toes hanging out for the entire world to see. Marlowe prized comfort above all
else.

But it was universally agreed by both sexes that the
gentlemen in question were the worst libertines in England. Worse than Byron
and his cronies, who were mere featherweights in comparison. The pair of them
had failed out of Cambridge, and after a Particular Incident involving
Sherbrook’s contemptible uncle and Marlowe’s fist (which was referenced among
the three friends as a deed better left unexplained), the pair, with Montford’s
help, promptly bought commissions in the army, and gambled, wenched, and
brawled their way through Spain and Portugal.

After they were simultaneously injured at Badajoz and
decamped to London as War Heroes, no gaming hell, racetrack, brothel, or any
other den of iniquity had been spared their attentions. They only occasionally
set their unwilling Hessians in respectable venues, having been dragged there
by Montford or Marlowe’s long-suffering sister, the Countess of Brinderley.

Despite their reputations, Marlowe and Sherbrook were
beloved by the
ton
, which didn’t
surprise Montford, since he knew they were the source of society’s juiciest
gossip. Marlowe was sought after for his genial, slightly inebriated good humor
and his instinctive knowledge of horseflesh. And the ladies collectively
swooned at Sherbrook’s feet, as he was regarded as the Singlemost Beautiful Man
in London.

This was according to the
Times
.

That same publication had often wondered over Montford’s
unerring association with the two rogues, as His Grace was – also
according to the
Times
– a
Pillar of Moral and Sartorial Rectitude and a Creature Not Quite Flesh and
Blood. Montford was equally baffled over his friendship, but it had been the
case that ever since their days at Harrow, he, Sherbrook, and Marlowe had been
inseparable. He supposed he was cast rather in the role of older brother,
extricating the two of them from various scrapes, urging caution at the gaming
tables and exhorting them to
please, for
the love of God, make sure the wench is clean
before you stick it there
. That sort of thing.

When he’d migrated to London after Cambridge (
he
had not flunked out), Marlowe and
Sherbrook had greeted him with open arms, and had urged him to “cut a dash”
with them. Which meant gaming, wenching, and racing his way through the Season.
But while his best friends had become the Worst Libertines in London, somehow
he had not qualified for such a lofty sobriquet.

After all,
someone
had to keep a level head in order to rescue Marlowe and Sherbrook from the
worst of their excesses, scare off whoever it was spoiling for a fight with
them, and carry them to their beds when they lost the ability to stand.

Montford was Montford, and that was precisely Montford’s
problem at the moment, as he sat behind his desk, sipping his port and bleakly
watching his friends loaf about the room, feeling as if his head might explode
at any moment.

Stallings returned bearing a tea tray laden with sandwiches
and biscuits. Marlowe was roused from his dozing long enough to make short
shrift of the food, then fell back against the chaise lounge, closed his eyes,
and took up his port. In that order.

“You’re even less fun than usual,” Sebastian said fondly,
perching on the edge of the desk and molesting the box full of quills, knocking
it out of its parallel alignment with the desk edge.

Montford gritted his teeth and tried to ignore Sebastian’s
deliberate goad. Sebastian knew precisely how much he was bothering him. They’d
roomed together at Harrow, after all. “Some of us have important business to
attend to, Sherbrook,” he muttered.

“Last time I checked, the House of Lords was recessed.”

“Last time I checked, I had a dukedom to manage,” Montford
retorted.

“You have old Stevenage for that.” Sebastian craned his
neck around the room. “Where
is
your
shadow?
 
Don’t tell me you pack him
up in one of your drawers at the end of the day.”

Marlowe, who had begun to drowse with his snifter of port
balanced precariously on his burgeoning gut, started awake. “Drawers?” he
blustered, looking wildly around the room, only just catching his port before
it sloshed onto the upholstery. “Never wear the blasted things. Chafe like the
devil, what,” he declared before dropping back into his stupor.

Sebastian grimaced. “Didn’t need to know
that
.” He turned back to Montford, who
was trying very hard not to visualize what Marlowe was
not
wearing beneath his extremely snug breeches. “I do hope you
allow Stevenage out of this room sometimes,” Sebastian continued playfully.

“Clearly I do, as he’s not here,” he sniffed.

“I am speechless.” Sebastian paused, took up one of the
feathers, and began twirling it in his fingers. “Well, what have you done with
him?”

“He’s in Yorkshire on business.”

“You don’t sound very sure of that.”

“I’ve not heard from him in a fortnight.”

He must have sounded strange, because Sebastian dropped the
quill into his lap and blinked in surprise. “You’re really worried, aren’t
you?”

“It’s very unlike him not to keep me informed.”

“Yes, one would expect an itemized accounting of every
minute of his trip,” he said dryly. “This is Stevenage we’re talking about. A
man even more meticulous than you. And where in blazes did you send him?
Yorkshire? Nothing but bloody sheep in Yorkshire last time I checked.”

“I sent him to sort out some business on one of my
estates.”

“Aren’t
we
vague
tonight. As you have so many damned estates, it would help if you were more
specific.”

Montford did not want to be more specific. He knew exactly
how Sebastian would react if he brought up Honeywell. God knew how Sebastian
had ferreted out the story of the Montfords and the Honeywells. God knew how
Sebastian came to know most of the things he did. One wouldn’t suspect from
glancing at the self-avowed model of indolence currently perched on the edge of
his desk that behind that bored, cynical face dwelled a very acute thinking
organ. Sebastian was quick. Quicker than Montford had ever been. And he had the
memory of an elephant.

Especially in regards to matters pertaining to the pursuit
of pleasure.

Like Honeywell Ale.

“What are you hiding?” Sebastian asked, eyes narrowing.

Damn
. He supposed
Sebastian would find out eventually. “Alyosius Honeywell is dead.”

“Honeywell …
 
wouldn’t mind one, if you have one on hand,” Marlowe murmured, roused by
the possibility of more beverages.

“Gads, Marlowe, you sot. He said Honeywell is dead!”
Sebastian exclaimed, rising from the desk.