The Gypsy Duchess (13 page)

The letter ended with, “Ready yourself for a quick return to London if the situation worsens and please send me Colonel Stamden’s direction if you know it. I am unable to locate him.

Devon sat for long minutes while his food grew cold, deeply troubled by his friend’s news. Higgins was not given to hysteria; if he said trouble was brewing, it was a certainty the pot was near the boiling point. He vowed to pen a note to Stamden forthwith and have one of his grooms carry it personally to Northumberland.

He finished his dinner before opening his mother’s letter. From past experience, he knew he needed sustenance before reading the latest in her madcap saga in the staid and proper environs of Bath. In truth, he was surprised the residents hadn’t yet requested she take her girlish gaiety elsewhere and leave them in peace.

The letter started with her usual plea for an increase in her “paltry allowance” and stated she’d enclosed a collection of unpaid bills from modistes, bonnet makers, shoemakers, and various other shops catering to ladies’ needs.

She had, she declared, perused her wardrobe with a view to the upcoming London season and discovered, to her horror, that every gown she owned was hopelessly passé. Annoying though it was, she’d been forced to take time out of her busy social schedule to buy an entire new wardrobe.

This sacrifice was made not for her own sake, but rather for Devon’s, since they would undoubtedly attend many of the same functions and she could not bear the thought of disgracing him. Furthermore, he would be happy to know she had saved him a fortune by discovering a marvelous modiste in Bath who charged half the price of the London couturiers.

She went on for a number of pages with her usual prattle of pump room gossip and ended with, “I have a new admirer. A charming man who is flatteringly attentive. I know you will approve of him since he is exceedingly well born—a viscount to be exact. True, he is a wee bit younger than I, but then, as you know, I have always looked to be twenty years less than my age. And the dear man agrees age is of no consequence where love is concerned, so one can plainly see his is a nature perfectly suited to my own sensitivity. I feel certain he will soon approach you with an offer, and I implore you to look upon it favorably since he has quite captured my heart.”

Devon groaned. He loved his mother dearly, but to say the woman was a flea-brained would be to insult fleas. An aging beauty who clung to her vanishing youth with frantic desperation, she could be instantly duped by anyone who pandered to her obsessive need for flattery. This viscount, whoever he might be, was probably like all the other insolvent noblemen who, since his father’s death, had seen her as a chance to ally themselves with one of England’s wealthiest families.

So far Devon had managed to discourage them by letting it be known he held the family purse strings and would cut his mother off without a penny if she married against his will. He hoped this latest “admirer” could be routed as easily, but it was all such a damned nuisance and he dreaded another ugly confrontation.

He’d just signaled a footman to clear away his plate and poured himself a glass of brandy when he heard the clatter of horses’ hooves outside his window. Moments later Partridge announced the Marquess of Stamden, and Peter strode into the room.

He was hatless and covered with dust from head to foot. A fine film of it clung to his buckskin breeches and riding jacket and dulled the sheen of his usually immaculate Hessians. It lay in muddy splotches on his sweat-covered brow and turned the creases at the sides of his mouth into tiny muddy rivulets. He had obviously ridden long and hard and fast, from where Devon couldn’t imagine. He would have to have been astride Pegasus to make it to Northumberland and back in a sen’night.

Devon rose to his feet, a welcoming smile on his face. “By all that’s holy, I’ve never been more glad to see anyone. I’m heartily sick of my own company.” He indicated the chair at his right. “Sit down, my friend. You look as if you could use a stiff drink and a good meal in that order.”

“A hot bath will do for now, thank you, and the loan of your valet.” Stamden grinned sheepishly. “I want to call on the Vicar Kincaid before my courage fails me, if you’ll give me his direction.”

“Gladly, but not tonight surely. By the time you make yourself presentable it will be past eight o’clock. We keep country hours here in Cornwall. You’re apt to catch the good vicar in his nightshirt.”

“Damn! You’re right of course. I’ve lost all track of time. It’s the first thing tomorrow morning then.” Stamden sat down, sending a cloud of dust spewing about him. “I’ll take you up on that drink, but I think I’ll forgo the meal until after I bathe. A tray in the library perhaps. I have much I need to discuss with you.”

“And I with you,” Devon said. “I’ve disturbing news from Whitehall and, oddly enough, a request to locate you if possible. It seems Wellington could use some support from those of us who have influence with the Regent.”

“Well, he has mine. I’d follow Old Douro into the jaws of hell if he asked.” Stamden raised his glass of brandy. “Though come to think of it, I believe I’ve already done that.”

He took a healthy swallow and visibly relaxed. “Speaking of support, would it be too much to ask of you to accompany me to the vicar’s tomorrow? His daughter may be able to turn a blind eye to my imperfections, but a marriage offer from a one-armed gargoyle could be a bit of a shock to her father. Maybe you could soften the blow by vouching for my sterling character and excessive wealth.”

Devon grimaced at the self-denigration in his friend’s caustic words. “I will vouch for you if you wish, but only to give you moral support, not because I think it necessary.”

“Thank you.” Peter sighed his relief. “Then we can call at White Oaks and you can visit with the duchess and young Charles while I plead my case with Elizabeth.”

Devon choked on his brandy. “I think it might be best for all concerned if you make that call on your own,” he said when he recovered his breath. “The duchess and I are not on the best of terms at the moment.”

“You two have quarreled again?’ Stamden gave Devon a look of disgust. “What did you do
this
time? And don’t tell me the fault wasn’t yours because I’ve seen how shabbily you treat the lady.”

Devon felt himself flush. “I wasn’t planning to deny blame,” he said somewhat sheepishly. “This time the fault was entirely mine.”

“Then the solution is simple. Apologize.”

Devon avoided his friend’s astute eyes. “I’m not sure she’ll accept my apology. In truth, I doubt she’d throw me a rope if I fell into a pit of vipers.”

“Nonsense. She has already demonstrated she will do anything to ensure young Charles’s happiness, and the lad obviously idolizes you. A quarrel between you and his stepmother would be bound to hurt him.” Stamden finished off his brandy. “So, what did you do that was so terrible you think it may be unpardonable in the duchess’s eyes?”

Devon studied the small amount of amber liquid left in his glass as if it held the answer to the question, but no answer came to him that he could bring himself to put into words.

Stamden set his empty glass down with a thud. “Good God! Never say you made a lewd proposition to the duchess.”

“I have never made a
lewd
proposition to any female,” Devon said indignantly. “I merely suggested that because of our joint responsibilities to Charles, we would necessarily be in close contact for the next fourteen years and…” He squirmed uneasily. Looking at his attempted seduction of Moira through another man’s eyes, it took on a less than honorable connotation.

“Have you lost all sense of propriety?” the marquess asked in a dangerously quiet voice. “The lady may be the most desirable woman imaginable, however, that does not give you leave to treat your ward’s stepmother like one of your opera dancers.” Stamden’s eyes sparked with anger. “I have a great deal of respect for a woman who can rise above her background—something I’ve seen few men accomplish. I believe you owe the lady an apology and friend or no friend, damned if I won’t call you out unless it is forthcoming.”

“I’ll apologize,” Devon said stiffly. “Not because of your threat because we both know I could shoot your eyes out before you ever got off a shot, but because I have already concluded it is the thing to do.”

Stamden nodded. “Good. Enough said then. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have that bath I’m certain the estimable Partridge has already ordered.”

He rose from his chair, obviously stiff from his long hours in the saddle. “Something just occurred to me,” he said with a smug smile that set Devon’s teeth on edge. “There has to be a reason why you and the duchess set each other’s backs up so often.”

Devon frowned. “Such as?”

“Such as, this lust you apparently feel for her may not be lust at all, but a much deeper emotion.”

Devon’s heart thudded against his rib cage. Stamden was too clever by half. “And if it is, what do you suggest I do about it?” he asked in a choked voice.

“I think you know the answer to that question.” Stamden shrugged. “If it is her humble background that keeps you from an honorable offer, you are speaking to the wrong man. What little belief I had in the strictures of the English social system died a painful death on the Peninsula. I found it impossible to tell blue blood from red with it was seeping out of a hole in a man’s chest.”

“There is more to it than that,” Devon said, thinking aloud. “I may have lost my heart to a beautiful, devil-may-care hoyden. But I cannot say she fits the concept I have always held of the woman who would make me a perfect wife.”

“Gentle, sweet-natured, and pliable like Elizabeth, whom you once declared the ideal wife and mother? No, the duchess is none of those,” Stamden agreed. “She would probably sink a knife in you the first time she caught you with one of your opera dancers. But then, I suspect that with such a woman as your wife, you might soon lose your taste for the ladies of the chorus.” Then, a pensive look crossed his scarred face. “Do not misunderstand me. I am deeply grateful that a fine woman like Elizabeth should want what is left of me. I look forward to a quiet contentment I would not have thought possible a month ago. But think, my friend. Is quiet contentment really what
you
want out of life?”

Devon sat alone long after Stamden had withdrawn to his chamber, his mind awhirl with the thoughts his friend had planted there. For the first time he allowed himself to contemplate what it would be like to have Moira as a wife and helpmeet, not just a mistress to warm his bed.

To his surprise, the idea was strangely appealing. Not only did she have all the feminine attributes that made him ache with desire; she had the qualities he had heretofore only looked for in the men he chose as friends: honesty, loyalty, courage, keen intelligence. It had never occurred to him that a wife could be a man’s friend and lover as well as the mother of his children. Most of his friends who had taken on leg shackles to produce the required heir were back on the petticoat circuit six months after the wedding. He smiled to himself. Stamden was right. With the fiery Moira as his wife, he would have no need of opera dancers.

Suddenly he found himself looking forward to the morrow with an eagerness that had been noticeably missing from his life since the day he’d first relinquished his youth and his ideals to the awful carnage of a Peninsula battlefield.

Elizabeth was embroidering the altar cloth she planned to give her father for Christmas and Moira was writing a letter to her man-of-affairs when John Butler, as Alfie had dubbed him, entered the first-floor salon to deliver the Marquess of Stamden’s and the Earl of Langley’s cards.

Elizabeth leapt to her feet, dropped her embroidery, and cried, “Show them in immediately,” obviously forgetting in her eagerness that she was not the one who should be giving such and order.

“Yes, ma’am,” John Butler said, his eyes twinkling, and then looked to Moira for confirmation.

Moira swallowed the command hovering on her lips to show the earl the door because she couldn’t put a damper on Elizabeth’s happiness. Instead, she nodded briskly, gave an order for tea and cakes, and prepared to leave her companion to entertain their gentlemen callers.

Unfortunately, she had made it only halfway across the room when they entered the door. Stamden’s gaze instantly flew to Elizabeth and hers to him. “My dear, how I have missed you,” the marquess said, taking her hand in his.

Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears. “And I you, my lord. I have thought of you every day. But how could you have made it to Northumberland and back in so short a time? I did not dare hope you would return this soon.”

Stamden laughed. “I didn’t. Halfway through my third day on the road, I realized I needed to speak to Vicar Kincaid far more than I needed to attend to the business of my estate, and turned around and headed back.”

“You needed to speak to Papa? But whatever for?”

“For the usual reason, my dear, and he has given me permission to address you.” Stamden turned to Moira. “If you will excuse us, your grace, I should like to take your companion for a walk in the garden.”

“My soon to be ex-companion, I fear,” Moira said, her own eyes misting at the look of absolute joy and disbelief on Elizabeth’s face. “You have my permission, my lord, and my best wishes in your suit, though I do not think you will need them.” She watched the tall war-ravished man and the small plain woman walk arm in arm through the French windows and onto the terrace, a lump the size of a cricket ball filling her throat.