The Lost Duke of Wyndham (10 page)

“Miss Eversleigh!”

Grace jerked upright. “Ma'am?”

The dowager pierced with a stare. “You snorted.”

“I did?”

“Are you questioning my hearing?”

“Of course not, ma'am.” The dowager abhorred the notion that any part of her might be susceptible to the usual impairments of age. Grace cleared her throat. “I apologize, ma'am. I was not aware. I must have, ehrm, breathed heavily.”

“Breathed heavily.” The dowager appeared to find that as appealing as she had Grace's earlier chirp.

Grace touched a hand lightly to her chest. “A bit of congestion, I'm afraid.”

The dowager's nostrils flared as she peered down at the cup in her hands. “I do hope you did not breathe on my chocolate.”

“Of course not, ma'am. The kitchen maids always carry the tray up.”

The dowager evidently did not find any reason to ponder that further, and she turned back to her newspaper, leaving Grace alone once more with her thoughts of Mr. Audley.

Mr.
Audley
.

“Miss Eversleigh!”

At that Grace stood. This was getting ridiculous. “Yes, ma'am?”

“You sighed.”

“I sighed?”

“Do you deny it?”

“No,” Grace replied. “That is to say, I did not notice that I sighed, but I certainly allow that I
could
have done so.”

The dowager waved an irritated hand in her direction. “You are most distracting this morning.”

Grace felt her eyes light up. Did this mean she'd escape early?

“Sit down, Miss Eversleigh.”

She sat. Apparently not.

The dowager set down her newspaper and pressed her lips together. “Tell me about my grandson.”

And the blush returned. “I beg your pardon?”

The dowager's right eyebrow did a rather good imitation of a parasol top. “You did show him to his room last night, didn't you?”

“Of course, ma'am. At your directive.”

“Well? What did he say? I am eager to learn what sort of man he is. The future of the family may very well rest in his hands.”

Grace thought guiltily of Thomas, whom she'd somehow forgotten in the past twelve hours. He was everything a duke ought to be, and no one knew the castle as he did. Not even the dowager. “Er, don't you think that might be a bit premature, your grace?”

“Defending my other grandson, are we?”

Grace's eyes widened. Something about the dowager's tone sounded positively malevolent. “I consider his grace a friend,” she said carefully. “I would never wish him ill.”

“Pfft. If Mr. Cavendish—and don't you dare call
him Mr. Audley—really is the legitimate issue of my John, then you are hardly wishing Wyndham ill. The man ought to be grateful.”

“For having his title pulled from beneath his feet?”

“For having had the good fortune to have had it for as long as he did,” the dowager retorted. “If Mr.—oh, bloody hell, I'm going to call him John—”

Jack
, Grace thought.

“If John really is
my
John's legitimate son, then Wyndham never really had the title to begin with. So one could hardly call it stripping.”

“Except that he has been told since birth that it is his.”

“That's not my fault, is it?” scoffed the dowager. “And it has hardly been since birth.”

“No,” Grace allowed. Thomas had ascended to the title at the age of twenty, when his father perished of a lung ailment. “But he has known since birth that it would one day be his, which is much the same thing.”

The dowager grumbled a bit about that, using the same peevish undertone she always used when presented with an argument to which she had no ready contradiction. She gave Grace one final glare and then picked up her newspaper again, snapping it upright in front of her face.

Grace took advantage of the moment to let her posture slip. She did not dare close her eyes.

And sure enough, only ten seconds passed before the dowager brought the paper back down and asked sharply, “Do you think he will make a good duke?”

“Mr. Au—” Grace caught herself just in time. “Er, our new guest?”

The dowager rolled her eyes at her verbal acrobatics. “Call him Mr. Cavendish. It is his name.”

“But it is not what he wishes to be called.”

“I don't give a damn what he wishes to be called. He is who he is.” The dowager took a long gulp of her chocolate. “We all are. And it's a good thing, too.”

Grace said nothing. She'd been forced to endure the dowager's lectures on the natural order of man far too many times to risk provoking a repeat performance.

“You did not answer my question, Miss Eversleigh.”

Grace took a moment to decide upon her reply. “I really could not say, ma'am. Not on such a short acquaintance.”

It was mostly true. It was difficult to think of anyone besides Thomas holding the title, but Mr. Audley—for all his lovely friendliness and humor—seemed to lack a certain gravitas. He was intelligent, certainly, but did he possess the acumen and judgment necessary to run an estate the size of Wyndham? Belgrave might have been the family's primary domicile, but there were countless other holdings, both in England and abroad. Thomas employed at least a dozen secretaries and managers to aid him in his stewardship, but he was no absentee landlord. If he had not walked every inch of the Belgrave lands, she would wager that he'd come close. And Grace had substituted for the dowager on enough of her duties around the estate to know that Thomas knew nearly all of his tenants by name.

Grace had always thought that a remarkable achievement for one brought up as he had been, with a constant emphasis on the Wyndham place in the hi
erarchy of man. (Just below the king, and well above
you
, thank you very much.)

Thomas liked to present to the world the image of a slightly bored, sophisticated man of the
ton
, but there was quite a bit more to him. It was why he was so very good at what he did, she supposed.

And
why it was so callous of the dowager to treat him with such a lack of regard. Grace supposed that one had to possess feelings in order to have a care for those of others, but really, the dowager had quite gone beyond her usual selfishness.

Grace had no idea whether Thomas had returned the night before, but if he hadn't…well, she wouldn't blame him.

“More chocolate, Miss Eversleigh.”

Grace stood and refilled the dowager's cup from the pot she'd left on the bedside table.

“What did you talk about last night?”

Grace decided to feign obtuseness. “I retired early.” She tilted the pot back, careful not to drip. “With your very kind permission.”

The dowager scowled. Grace avoided the expression by returning the chocolate pot to its spot on the table. It took her an impressively long time to get it just so.

“Did he speak of me?” the dowager asked.

“Er, not so very much,” Grace hedged.

“Not very much or not at all?”

Grace turned. There was only so much interrogation she could avoid before the dowager lost her temper. “I'm certain he
mentioned
you.”

“What did he say?”

Good heavens. How was she meant to say that he'd
called her an old bat? And if he hadn't called her that, then he'd probably called her something worse. “I don't recall precisely, ma'am,” Grace said. “I'm terribly sorry. I was not aware you wished for me to take note of his words.”

“Well, next time, do so,” the dowager muttered. She turned to her newspaper, then looked up toward the window, her mouth in a straight, recalcitrant line. Grace stood still, her hands clasped in front of her, and waited patiently while the dowager fussed and turned and sipped and ground her teeth, and then—it was hard to believe, but Grace thought she might actually feel
sorry
for the older woman.

“He reminds me of you,” she said, before she could think the better of it.

The dowager turned to her with delighted eyes. “He does? How?”

Grace felt her stomach drop, although she was not certain if this was due to the uncharacteristic happiness on the dowager's face or the fact that she had no idea what to say. “Well, not completely, of course,” she stalled, “but there is something in the expression.”

But after about ten seconds of smiling blandly, it became apparent to Grace that the dowager was waiting for more. “His eyebrow,” she said, in what she thought was a stroke of genius. “He lifts it like you do.”

“Like this?” The dowager's left brow shot up so fast Grace was surprised it did not fly off her face.

“Er, yes. Somewhat like that. His are…” Grace made awkward motions near her own brows.

“Bushier?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he is a man.”

“Yes.”
Oh, yes
.

“Can he do both?”

Grace stared at her blankly. “Both, ma'am?”

The dowager began lifting and dropping her brows in alternation. Left, right, left, right. It was a singularly bizarre spectacle.

“I do not know,” Grace said. Quickly. To cut her off.

“Very strange,” the dowager said, returning both of her brows back to where Grace hoped she'd keep them. “My John could not do it.”

“Heredity is very mysterious,” Grace agreed. “My father could not do this”—she took her thumb and bent it back until it touched her forearm—“but he said his father could.”

“Aah!” The dowager turned aside in disgust. “Put it back! Put it back!”

Grace smiled and said with perfect mildness, “You will not wish to see what I can do with my elbow, then.”

“Good Lord, no.” The dowager snorted and waved toward the door. “I am through with you. Go see to breakfast.”

“Shall I have Nancy help you dress?”

The dowager let out the most amazingly long-suffering sigh, as if a lifetime of aristocratic privilege was just too much. “Yes,” she agreed gracelessly, “if only because I can't bear to look at your thumb.”

Grace chuckled. And she must have been feeling especially bold, because she did not even attempt to stifle it.

“Are you laughing at me, Miss Eversleigh?”

“Of course not!”

“Don't,” the dowager said sharply, “even
think
about saying you're laughing
with
me.”

“I was just laughing, ma'am,” Grace said, her face twitching with the smile she could not keep contained. “I do that sometimes.”

“I have never witnessed it.” Said as if this meant it couldn't possibly be true.

Grace could not say any of the three rejoinders that immediately sprang to mind—

That is because you are not listening, your grace.

That is because I rarely have cause to laugh in your presence.

or

What of it?

So instead she smiled—warmly, even. Now this
was
strange. She'd spent so much of her time swallowing her retorts, and it always left a bitter taste in her mouth.

But not this time. This time she felt light. Unfettered. If she could not speak her mind to the dowager, she didn't much care. She had too much to look forward to this morning.

Breakfast. Bacon and eggs. Kippers. Toast with butter and marmalade, too, and…

And him.

Mr. Audley.

Jack
.

J
ack staggered out of bed at precisely fourteen minutes before seven. Waking had been an elaborate undertaking. He had, after Miss Eversleigh had departed the night before, rung for a maid and given her strict orders to rap on his door at fifteen minutes past six. Then, as she was leaving, he thought the better of it and revised his directive to six sharp raps at the appointed time, followed by another twelve fifteen minutes later.

It wasn't as if he was going to make it out of bed on the first attempt, anyway.

The maid had also been informed that if she did not see him at the door within ten seconds of the second set of raps, she was to enter the room and not depart until she was certain he was awake.

And finally, she was promised a shilling if she did not breathe a word of this to anyone.

“And I'll know if you do,” he warned her, with his most disarming smile. “Gossip always makes its way back to me.”

It was true. No matter the house, no matter the establishment, the maids
always
told him everything. It was amazing how far one could travel on nothing but a smile and a puppy-dog expression.

Unfortunately for Jack, however, what his plan boasted in strategy, it lacked in eventual execution.

Not that the maid could be blamed. She carried out her part to the letter. Six sharp raps at fifteen minutes past six. Precisely. Jack managed to pry one eye about two-thirds of the way open, which proved to be just enough to focus upon the clock on his bedside table.

At half six he was snoring anew, and if he only counted seven of the twelve raps, he was fairly certain the fault was his, not hers. And really, one had to admire the poor girl's adherence to plan when faced with his somewhat surly
No
, followed by:

Go away
;

Ten more minutes
;

I said, ten more minutes
; and

Don't you have a bloody pot to scrub?

At fifteen minutes before seven, as he teetered on his belly at the edge of his bed, one arm hanging limply over the side, he finally managed to get both eyes open, and he saw her, sitting primly in a chair across the room.

“Er, is Miss Eversleigh awake?” he mumbled, rubbing the sleep from his left eye. His right eye seemed to have shut again, trying to pull the rest of him along with it, back into sleep.

“Since twenty minutes before six, sir.”

“Chipper as a bloody mockingbird, too, I'm sure.”

The maid held her tongue.

He cocked his head, suddenly a bit more awake. “Not so chipper, eh?” So Miss Eversleigh was
not
a morning person. The day was growing brighter by the second.

“She's not so bad as you,” the maid finally admitted.

Jack pushed his legs over the side and yawned. “She'd have to be dead to achieve
that
.”

The maid giggled. It was a good, welcome sound. As long as he had the maids giggling, the house was his. He who had the servants had the world. He'd learned that at the age of six. Drove his family crazy, it did, but that just made it all the sweeter.

“How late do you imagine she would sleep if you didn't wake her?” he asked.

“Oh, I couldn't tell you
that
,” the maid said, blushing madly.

Jack did not see how Miss Eversleigh's sleep habits might constitute a confidence, but nonetheless he had to applaud the maid for her loyalty. This did not mean, however, that he would not make every attempt to win her over.

“What about when the dowager gives her the day off?” he asked, rather offhandedly.

The maid shook her head sadly. “The dowager never gives her the day off.”

“Never?” Jack was surprised. His newfound grandmother was exacting and self-important and a host of other annoying faults, but she'd struck him as, at the heart, somewhat fair-minded.

“Just afternoons,” the maid said. And she leaned forward, looking first to her left and then her right, as if there might actually be someone else in the room who could hear her. “I think she does it just because she knows that Miss Eversleigh is not partial to mornings.”

Ah, now that
did
sound like the dowager.

“She gets twice as many afternoons,” the maid went on to explain, “so it does even out in the end.”

Jack nodded sympathetically. “It's a shame.”

“Unfair.”

“So unfair.”

“And poor Miss Eversleigh,” the maid went on, her voice growing in animation. “She's ever so kind. Lovely to all the maids. Never forgets our birthdays and gives us gifts that she says are from the dowager, but we all know it's her.”

She looked up at him then, so Jack rewarded her with an earnest nod.

“And all she wants, poor dear, is one morning every other week to sleep until noon.”

“Is that what she said?” Jack murmured.

“Only once,” the maid admitted. “I don't think she would recall. She was very tired. I think the dowager had her up quite late the night before. Took me twice as long as usual to rouse her.”

Jack nodded sympathetically.

“The dowager never sleeps,” the maid went on.

“Never?”

“Well, I'm sure she must. But she doesn't seem to need very much of it.”

“I knew a vampire bat once,” Jack murmured.

“Poor Miss Eversleigh must adhere to the dowager's schedule,” the maid explained.

Jack continued on with the nodding. It seemed to be working.

“But she does not complain,” the maid said, clearly eager to defend her. “She would never complain about her grace.”

“Never?” If he had lived at Belgrave as long as Grace, he'd have been complaining forty-eight hours a day.

The maid shook her head with a piety that would have been quite at home on a vicar's wife. “Miss Eversleigh is not one for gossip.”

Jack was about to point out that everyone gossiped, and despite what they might say, everyone enjoyed it. But he did not want the maid to interpret this as a critique of her current behavior, so he nodded yet again, prodding her on with: “Very admirable.”

“Not with the help, at least,” the maid clarified. “Maybe with her friends.”

“Her friends?” Jack echoed, padding across the room in his nightshirt. Clothing had been laid out for him, freshly washed and pressed, and it did not take more than a glance to see that they were of the finest quality.

Wyndham's, most probably. They were of a similar size. He wondered if the duke knew that his closet had been raided. Probably not.

“The Ladies Elizabeth and Amelia,” the maid said. “They live on the other side of the village. In the other big house. Not as big as this, mind you.”

“No, of course not,” Jack murmured. He decided
that this maid, whose name he really ought to learn, would be his favorite. A wealth of knowledge, she was, and all one had to do was let her get off her feet for a moment and into a comfortable chair.

“Their father's the Earl of Crowland,” the maid went on, nattering away even as Jack stepped into his dressing room to don his clothing. He supposed some men would refuse to wear the duke's attire after their altercation the day before, but it seemed to him an impractical battle to pick. Assuming he was not going to succeed in luring Miss Eversleigh into a wild orgy of abandon (at least not today), he would have to dress. And his own clothes were rather worn and dusty.

Besides, maybe it would irk his dukeliness. And Jack had judged that to be a noble pursuit, indeed.

“Does Miss Eversleigh get to spend time with the Ladies Elizabeth and Amelia very often?” he called out, pulling on his breeches. Perfect fit. How fortunate.

“No. Although they were here yesterday.”

The two girls he'd seen her with in the front drive. The blond ones. Of course. He should have realized they were sisters. He
would
have realized it, he supposed, if he'd been able to tear his eyes away from Miss Eversleigh long enough to see beyond the color of their hair.

“Lady Amelia is to be our next duchess,” the maid continued.

Jack's hands, which were doing up the buttons on Wyndham's extraordinarily well-cut linen shirt, stilled. “Really,” he said. “I did not realize the duke was betrothed.”

“Since Lady Amelia was a baby,” the maid supplied. “We'll be having a wedding soon, I think. We've got to, really. She's getting long in the tooth. I don't think her parents'll stand for much more delay.”

Jack had thought both girls had looked youthful, but he
had
been some distance away.

“Twenty-one, I think she is.”

“That old?” he murmured dryly.

“I'm seventeen,” the maid said with a sigh.

Jack decided not to comment, as he could not be sure whether she wished to be seen as older or younger than her actual years. He stepped out of the dressing room, putting the finishing touches on his cravat.

The maid jumped to her feet. “Oh, but I should not gossip.”

Jack gave her a reassuring nod. “I won't say a word. I give you my vow.”

She dashed toward the door, then turned around and said, “My name is Bess.” She bobbed a curtsy. “If you need anything.”

Jack smiled then, because he was quite certain her offer was completely innocent. There was something rather refreshing in that.

A minute after Bess left, a footman arrived, as promised by Miss Eversleigh, to escort him down to the breakfast room. He proved not nearly as informative as Bess (the footmen never were, at least not to him), and the five-minute walk was made in silence.

The fact that the trip required five minutes was not lost on Jack. If Belgrave had seemed unconscionably huge from afar, then the inside was a positive labyrinth. He was fairly certain he'd seen less than a tenth
of it, and already he'd located three staircases. There were turrets, too; he'd seen them from the outside, and almost certainly dungeons as well.

There had to be dungeons, he decided, taking what had to be the sixth turn since descending the staircase. No self-respecting castle would be without them. He decided he'd ask Grace to take him down for a peek, if only because the subterranean rooms were probably the only ones that could be counted upon not to have priceless old masters hanging on the walls.

A lover of art he might be, but
this
—he nearly flinched when he brushed past an El Greco—was simply too much. Even his dressing room had been hung wainscot to ceiling with priceless oils. Whoever had decorated
there
had an appalling fondness for cupids. Blue silk bedroom, his foot. The place ought to be renamed
Corpulent Babies, Armed with Quivers and Bows Room
. Subtitled:
Visitors Beware
.

Because, really, there ought to be a limit on how many cupids one could put in one small dressing room.

They turned a final corner, and Jack nearly sighed in delight as the familiar smells of an English breakfast wafted past his nose. The footman motioned to an open doorway, and Jack walked through it, his body tingling with an unfamiliar anticipation, only to find that Miss Eversleigh had not yet arrived.

He looked at the clock. One minute before seven. Surely that was a new, postmilitary record.

The sideboard had already been laid, so he took a plate, filled it to heaping, and chose a seat at the table. It had been some time since he'd breakfasted in a
proper house. His meals of late had been taken at inns and in rented rooms, and before that on the battlefield. It felt luxurious to sit with his meal, almost decadent.

“Coffee, tea, or chocolate, sir?”

Jack had not had chocolate for more time than he could remember, and his body nearly shuddered with delight. The footman took note of his preference and moved to another table, where three elegant pots sat in a row, their arched spouts sticking up like a line of swans. In a moment Jack was rewarded with a steaming cup, into which he promptly dumped three spoonfuls of sugar and a splash of milk.

There were, he decided, taking one heavenly sip, some advantages to a life of luxury.

He was nearly through with his food when he heard footsteps approaching. Within moments Miss Eversleigh appeared. She was dressed in a demure white frock—no, not white, he decided, more of a cream color, rather like the top of a milk bucket before it was skimmed. Whatever the hue was, it matched the swirling plaster that adorned the door frame perfectly. She needed only a yellow ribbon (for the walls, which were surprisingly cheerful for such an imposing home) and he would have sworn the room had been decorated just for that moment.

He stood, offering her a polite bow. “Miss Eversleigh,” he murmured. He liked that she was blushing. Just a little, which was ideal. Too much, and that would mean she was embarrassed. A bare hint of pale pink, however, meant that she was looking forward to the encounter.

And perhaps thought she ought not to be.

Which was even better.

“Chocolate, Miss Eversleigh?” the footman asked.

“Oh, yes, please, Graham.” She sounded most relieved to get her beverage in hand. And indeed, when she finally sat across from him, her plate nearly as full as his, she sighed with delight.

“You don't take sugar?” he asked, surprised. He'd never met a woman—and very few men, for that matter—with a taste for unsweetened chocolate. He couldn't abide it himself.

She shook her head. “Not in the morning. I need it undiluted.”

He watched with interest—and, to be honest, a fair bit of amusement—as she alternately sipped the brew and breathed in the scent of it. Her hands did not leave her cup until she'd drained the last drop, and then Graham, who obviously knew her preferences well, was at her side in an instant, refilling without even a hint of a request.

Miss Eversleigh, Jack decided, was definitely not a morning person.

“Have you been down long?” she asked, now that she had imbibed a full cup.