The Hazards Of Hunting A Duke (6 page)

“Oh dear, Egbert! That’s so vulgar!” Lucille chastised him, earning an impatient glance from her younger brother.

“It is a matter of necessity that it be discussed, Lucy,” he said impatiently, “and I can think of no way to discuss it other than to utter t he words aloud!”

“I beg your pardon, my lord,” Ava quickly interjected, “but you are in a much better position to know about the, ah…money…than am I.”

Now she was confusing him. “Me? How could I possibly know?”

“Well,” Ava continued, looking just as con fused, “we…we don’t know how…how much she had, but

we rather supposed there is enough to take a modest residence.”

It was suddenly clear to him, and Egbert, charitable man that he was, almost came out of his chair in his eagerness to lean across the desk and pin the bold one with a stern look.

“Are you suggesting, miss, that

I lease you a residence?”

Ava blinked. “I, ah…I just assumed that you would —”

“Then you assumed incorrectly!” he bellowed. “Clearly you do not understand what a financial and social burden the three of you present to me!”

“But we do,” Ava hastily sought to assure him with Phoebe and Greer nodding furiously alongside her. “ That is why we thought to offer to go elsewhere.”

“You will remain here,” he said sharply, sinking back in his chair. “I cannot possibly afford to put you up

in a separate residence. Now. As I was saying before I was interrupted, I find it very difficult to mourn

my wife properly with you and her things underfoot,” he said, gesturing wildly to them and the furniture, which indeed had been purchased with his wife’s money. “So I have decided to go to Paris for a time.

You will remain here under the care and watchful eye of my sister.”

The three of them looked at Lucille as if they were seeing her for the first time, but Ava quickly returned

her attention to Egbert. “That is all, my lord? You are to France and we are to remain here, the same as before?”

“Aha!” he said, lifting a finger. “Not precisely the same as before. The endless days of shopping and ordering gowns and shoes and whatnot have come to a most desired end.”

Ava and Greer gasped. Phoebe looked as if she actually might be ill.

“Furthermore, I see no reason to pay for a coterie of servants now that you are in mourning. There will

be no traipsing about this Season’s assemblies, will there? Moreover, you are three industrious young women. I should think you quite capable of making a bed and sweeping a carpet. I shall retain Cook for

you, but as a daily.”

“Oh dear God,” Ava moaned, and closed her eyes. “I beg your pardon, sir, but our mother was quite wealthy. If I may be so indecorous as to inquire…surely she left something for our care?”

“Of course she did,” he said pleasantly. “A modest dowry for each of you. The rest is left to me to look after as I see fit.”

“We’re doomed!” Phoebe whispered to the ceiling.

“Oh come now!” he scoffed at them. “It’s not as if you’ve been turned out into the street!

I shall see that you are properly cared for! You shall have a roof over your head and food in your belly. What more

could you possibly need?”

“What more?” Phoebe echoed, a little too petulantly for his taste. “We can hardly go out into society without proper clothing!”

“At last glance, girl, you have more clothing than can be housed in a single room,” he sharply reminded her. “I should think that will suffice until I return.

”

“How long will you be away?” Greer asked calmly.

He shrugged. “Until autumn at the earliest, I should think. Perhaps even as late as the start of the next

Season.”

“That is months!” Ava cried. “You will force us to live like paupers for months?”

“Do not raise your voice to me, Lady Ava! There is no cal l for a theatrical performance! I have provided

for your needs—paupers indeed!”

Phoebe turned to Ava, who grasped her hand and held it tightly.

Greer was the only one to keep her composure, looking at Egbert with such cool intensity that he shuddered slightly. “If I may, my lord…what do you mean to do with us when you return?”

“Precisely what should have been done long ago. Next spring shall come a new social season, and I shall accept the offers for your hands that will undoubtedly be brought round,” he said with a confident smile, and rose from his seat. “And I shall do so as expeditiously as possible, for it is long since time you were all properly married.”

Ava opened her mouth, but he spoke before she could argue. “This interview is complete!

I should like

to review some items with my sister, and then I have the servants to contend with, so if you will excuse

us?”

“My lord, you’ll not release Beverly from service, surely,” Phoebe begged.

“Won’t I? Three young women in perfectly good health do n ot need the assistance of a woman to dress themselves each day!” he said sternly. “You may help one another.

Come, now, I’ll not have your

despair! You shall manage quite well on your own and with Lucille’s help, I assure you!

Now, then, go

on with you.”

The three of them reluctantly gained their feet.

“Here, now, you mustn’t look so downcast,” Lucille said sternly. “Your face will bear the permanent lines

of it if you continue to frown!”

They glanced uneasily at Lucille as they walked out, heads down, l ips pressed firmly together.

“Oh dear,” Lucille sighed when the door closed behind them. “That did not go very well at all, did it?”

“It went perfectly well, Lucy,” Egbert muttered, but his mind had already moved on to how he might release the servants.

The servants were gone by the end of the week. Ava, Phoebe, and Greer stood in the foyer, fighting tears as they bid good -bye to servants who had been in their mother’s employ for so long they were

considered family—family who had been tossed out onto the street with nothing more than a fortnight’s salary and the promise of a reference.

“But I ain’t got nowhere to go, milady,” Old Derreck, their gardener and horseman, said to Ava as he pushed a thick hand through a shock of gray hair. “I got nowhere to lay me head.”

Ava caught a sob in her throat, threw her arms around him, and held him tightly to her.

“I’m sorry, Derreck. I’m so very sorry.”

“Here,” Phoebe said, pulling Ava’s arms from the old man and taking his hand in hers.

“Take this.” She pressed three gold crowns into his palm —the last three gold crowns Phoebe possessed. “It’s hardly anything, but it will at least provide you with lodging for a time.”

“Until I can send Lord Ramsey a note on your behalf,” Ava interjected, thinking of one of her mother’s friends. “He’s always in need of a good gardener. I am certain he can find you a position in his

household,” she promised, cringing inwardly at her lie. She had no idea what Lord Ramsey needed or

didn’t need, but she would beg him to take Old Derre ck in as a favor to her mother’s memory if nothing else.

Beverly was the last to leave, and the three of them cried as they clung to the woman who had helped them bathe and dress for as long as they could remember. “There, now, wipe your tears,” Beverly said bravely. “I’ll not have you carrying on for me. I’ve been meaning to visit my mother in Derbyshire for

ages. So wipe your tears, all of you. Lady Downey would not like you to cry. She’d ask what you would

do to improve your lot, wouldn’t she?” Beverly was right, but it didn’t hurt any less.

When she’d left, Ava closed the door behind her, feeling the weight of her sorrow and worry of what would become of the three of them like a heavy winter cloak about her shoulders.

“I hate him,” Phoebe whispered.

Ava gathered Phoebe and Greer to her, and the three of them retreated to their rooms to grieve in private.

Lord Downey left two days after that, his step amazingly light for a man whose waist circumference

seemed to equal his height. By the following Monday, a little on dit buried deep in the pages of the daily newspaper suggested that three young women known very well about town had lost their fortune to their stepfather and would undoubtedly be in search o f another man’s fortune as soon as they could put aside their mourning clothes.

That small mention was, as far as the three of them were concerned, a death knell for their social life.

Fortune was everything to the ton, and those who did not possess at le ast a bit of one were not, as a rule, particularly welcome in the salons of those who had fortune in abundance.

They agonized for days what to do, and finally agreed on a course that was unconventional, and in some cases, ill -advised. They were a bit desp erate, true, but they were far more determined to find their way in

the wake of their mother’s death.

I t was Jared Broderick’s bad luck to have returned to London after a particularly harsh winter a full

fortnight after his father. It had given the old man time enough to meddle in his affairs, long enough for him

to have arranged an interminable luncheon with Lord Robertson and his family. The duke had not, it

would seem, mellowed over the winter months while Jared had remained at Broderick Abbey, managing

to stay out of his father’s sight and, he’d hoped, his mind. He’d entertained Miranda only thrice in an effort to maintain a low profile.

Yet if anything, the old man seemed even more determined in his mission to see his only son married to

Lady Elizabeth Robertson.

Lady Elizabeth Robertson had not improved in looks or mien, as one might have expected after a full

Season out. To be fair, Jared was basing his opinion on one exceedingly dull luncheon at which he was

still engaged. The woman had said very little and eaten much less, which was not, he supposed, sufficient information by which to judge a person’s entire character.

But his opinion of her had not changed.

He thought he would crawl out of his skin if he w as forced to endure one moment more of this luncheon, and as he watched Lady Elizabeth take precisely measured bites of her whitefish, his mind wandered

again to his father’s most recent threats.

It was his own fault—he should have held his tongue yesterd ay when his father asked him if, after a winter of contemplation, he realized he must put Miranda aside for the sake of the dukedom.

“No,” Jared had said wearily.

“No? That is all you will say?” the duke had asked incredulously. “I do not think you understand me, sir.

If you refuse to put her aside, then I am prepared to expose your greatest mistake and all those

associated with it.”

At first, Jared thought he’d misheard him, but when he saw the look of triumph in his father’s eye, he was stunned. “A re you threatening me, your grace?”

“Threaten is perhaps too harsh a word. I am trying to impart the depth of my conviction,”

the duke responded evenly.

“You have a rather cold way of imparting your conviction.”

“I do what I must to ensure the sanctity of the name Redford.”

Jared had scoffed at that. “Can you truly say that in the same breath you use to threaten me? My God, I

don’t believe you care for anyone or anything other than your blessed name!”

“That’s ridiculous,” his father had said, waving a bony hand at him. “I care for you, but you are too

bloody stubborn to see it. Yet I care for your honor more, which you have so carelessly squandered. Do

as I ask, Jared,” the duke continued at Jared’s gro an of exasperation. “Marry Lady Elizabeth. Her family

is awaiting your offer. Perhaps you will speak to her father at luncheon tomorrow.”

“I will not speak to him,” Jared said calmly. “I will not be forced into marrying her.”

The duke sighed, and he look ed, Jared thought, older than he had at their last meeting, four months ago.

“I am warning you—don’t push me to do something you will regret.”

“I don’t push you to do anything, your grace. I have only asked that you leave me to live my life as I see

fit. It is a request any man might make of his father,” he snapped, and walked out, ignoring the duke’s shouted warning that he would do what it took to keep his name from being tarnished.

Jared had left Redford House feeling as he always felt after these inte rminable interviews—as if his father had placed an invisible vise around him and was slowly turning the screws, torturing him with his

demands, forcing his hand.

London was swelling with the Quality as they began to make the trek from the country to town in anticipation of the Season, and he rather supposed yesterday’s row had already spilled across Mayfair,

for his father’s servants, he believed, were amazingly fast in their ability to spread untoward gossip among

the ton.

To stave off any more gossip —and for deeper, more complex reasons that he did not fully understand— Jared had come to the Robertson luncheon as commanded. He’d come to keep the peace, he supposed, fearful that his father would make good on his threat and hurt more people than just Jared . It had pained

him to do so, for the day was lovely and quite warm for an early March day.

But here he was—stuck in a drafty mansion, seated across from a demure Lady Elizabeth while her mother spoke of their winter —imagining days and weeks and months an d even years of such tedium stretching before him.

“We had a repair done on the east wing,” Lady Robertson was saying, as if he might possibly care what they did. “But what with all the rain and snow, the work was not completed.”

“Ah,” he said, forcing himself to look away from Elizabeth’s deliberate chewing.

“Once we have completed the work, we shall host a weekend affair for all of our good acquaintances. We’ve a dozen bedrooms in that wing alone.”

“Very good,” he said idly, and glanced at Elizabeth again. She smiled shyly. He smiled very thinly, trying

to think of one thing—anything!—that would be more excruciatingly painful than to spend an entire weekend in the country with this family.