An Unlikely Duchess (23 page)

“I do not sneer,” the duke said.

“Yes you do.” Josephine glared at him. “But leave me your card before you go. I would never have you say that I did not pay my debts. I shall pay back every farthing you have spent on me, sir, including the price of this unspeakable garment.” She caught at the wool stuff of her new dress.

“Will you stop talking about money?” Mitford said irritably. He passed a hand across his brow. “Do you think of nothing but money and jewels?”

“If I had spent money on you in the last week,” she said, “you would worry about it too, sir.”

“How absurd!” he said.

“Yes,” she said, “it is absurd, is it not, to know that a lady can have some pride? You are looking at me, sir, rather as if I am a worm beneath your feet. I am not. I am a woman. A person. And I will pay you back the money. And if you spend one penny in recovering my jewels from Mr. Porterhouse, I will never forgive you. Not ever, because I would never be able to repay that kind of money. You must be wealthy, I think.”

Mitford blew out air from puffed cheeks. “So I am to let you do any foolhardy act that comes into your head,” he said. “What I ought to have done, ma’am, was turn you over to your father that very first night. Or explain the whole thing to Mr. Hennessy the second. Or put you into your brother’s care yesterday. Or today. You must go home. Though your father has my profoundest sympathy. You are unmanageable. He should have walloped you long years ago.”

“Well.” Josephine’s hands were back on her hips. “Well.” Lost for words as she was, she had to let out her fury in another way. She lifted on hand from her hip and dealt him a stinging blow across one cheek. “And don’t ask me to say I am sorry, either,” she added.

The duke’s face turned livid so that the red marks left by four flashing fingers stood out in marked contrast. He held himself stiffly erect. “So, ma’am,” he said, “it seems that you have forced me to my senses at last. Why have I talked constantly about what I ought to have done and yet have never done any of it? It is time for me to write a note to your brother. If you will excuse me.” He made her a stiff bow.

“Oh!” Josephine’s hands had flown to her mouth and she regarded him with two large and horrified eyes. “Paul, don’t. Don’t turn all cold on me. Oh, don’t. It is not fair. I was angry and so were you. I did not mean it. Not any of it. Oh, please forgive me.”

“I shall find out Mr. Hennessy,” he said, “and ask for paper and pen.”

“Paul.” She caught at one of his arms with both hands. “Please don’t. Oh, please don’t be angry with me.”

“I am not angry,” he said. “Not at all. Only restored suddenly to common sense. I told you a few minutes ago that you were lacking in it. But I have been without it for days. I shall write to your brother without further delay.”

“Paul,” she said, linking one arm through his and smoothing her free hand over the lapel of his coat, “tell me you forgive me. Don’t look at me like that. You look like a king viewing the lowliest of his subjects. You look like the Duke of Mitford’s valet. Don’t. Please say you forgive me. Smile at me.” She smiled at him.

His shoulders sagged suddenly and he sighed. “I am not angry with you,” he said, “only aghast at what I have allowed to happen in the past week. I should never have started it. Your father had come to your rescue, and I allowed you to hide from him in my own room. Good Lord.”

“Don’t,” she said. She had both hands on his shoulders and lifted one of them to brush back some wayward curls at his temple. “Don’t start to feel guilty. You were merely helping me. You have been very kind. Smile at me.”

“Kind!” he said, closing his eyes briefly.

“Smile at me,” she said.

He looked at her and shook his head slightly. “Do you have any sense of decorum whatsoever?” he asked. “Do you have any idea what you have got yourself into, Miss Middleton?”

“Smile at me,” she said, “and say you forgive me.”

The Duke of Mitford shook his head and sighed again. “Words are wasted on you, are they not?” he said in exasperation, and kissed her instead of wasting more.

“Say you forgive me,” she whispered. “I did not mean to strike you. Truly I did not. Say you forgive me.”

“I forgive you,” he said, reaching for her lips with his own again. “I did not mean to look at you as if you were a worm, you know. And I did not mean to look like Henry.”

“Henry?” She had her fingers entwined in his curls and was watching his lips, very close to her own.

“The duke’s valet,” he said. “You did say he was Henry, did you not?”

“Did I?” She closed her eyes and opened her mouth at the approach of his. She set her body against his almost before he put his arms about her and drew her close. “I don’t remember. Paul. Oh, Paul.”

“Mm, ” he said, and his tongue teased her lips, and one hand moved up between them to touch her breasts, full and warm beneath the soft wool of her dress. His tongue accepted the invitation of her opened mouth, and his hand fondled and kneaded as she drew the upper part of her body away from his.

“Paul,” she whispered, her fingertips moving through his hair when his mouth moved down over her chin to her throat. “I am not sorry. Perhaps I should be, but if I had not come I would not have met you. I would hate never to have met you.”

He raised his head and looked down into her half-dosed eyes. “Ah, but you should be sorry,” he said. “And I should be horsewhipped. Whatever are we about now? Good Lord, what are we about now?” He put her from him, set one hand over his eyes, and shook his head vigorously.

“Paul.” She touched his sleeve again.

“No,” he said. “I am going to find paper and pen. No more foolishness, ma’am. And no more delaying.” He walked purposefully across the room and flung the door open only to find Mr. Hennessy on the other side, his hand raised ready to knock.

“Ho,” he said with a booming laugh, “I was almost afraid to knock. I know what those silences after a noisy argument usually mean. And it was a noisy argument, to be sure. Your first, I take it, but not by any means your last.” He laughed again. “I would have left you to your reconciliation, but I thought this might be important.” He held up a sealed letter. “It came from Deerview Park. I undertook to deliver it into your hands myself, sir.”

Mitford took it and looked at it. “I thank you, sir,” he said. “Perhaps I could beg the use of your study after I have read it? Josephine is planning to rest.”

“Any time, any time,” Mr. Hennessy said, looking past the duke to wink at Josephine. He turned away and Mitford closed the door again.

“What is it?” Josephine asked, coming across the room toward him.

“From Burgess,” he said. “A friend of mine staying at Parleigh’s.”

He read quickly and then folded the letter with care, his eyes on what he was doing.

“What is it?” Josephine asked again.

“Your sister,” he said quietly. “It seems that Porterhouse has her. He has gone off with her. Your brother and Tom have gone in pursuit.”

“Sukey?” Josephine was whispering. “He has kidnapped Sukey?”

The duke turned to her with sudden decision. “The letter is from my brother-in-law,” he said. “We have to return to London immediately. My sister has just given birth. To a boy. We will have to hope the Hennessys do not realize the impossibility of my having received it. Pack your bag.”

“I am going to kill him,” Josephine announced, “with my bare hands.”

“Use your bare hands to pack your bag,” the Duke of Mitford said firmly. “I shall see that my curricle is at the door in fifteen minutes’ time.”

Chapter 14

Josephine, still boiling with indignation, clung to a fistful of the Duke of Mitford’s coat and urged him onward.

“You do not need to slow down at every bend in the road on my account,” she said. “I am quite accustomed to riding in a curricle by now, sir, and even if I were not, I trust your driving. Besides, I cannot wait to get my hands on the villain. Oh, just wait. He will be sorry he was ever born.”

“It was fortunate we met that farmer a few miles back,” he said, “so that at least we know Porterhouse was making his way back to the Great North Road. But we have to use some small modicum of common sense, Miss Middleton. If I do not slow for the bends, we would both be tossed into a hedge and never get to the highway ourselves.”

“But this road is nothing but bends,” she said in some frustration, clinging more tightly as they swayed around yet another one. “Where do you suppose he is taking her?”

“To Gretna,” he said, “or to London. Who knows? If I were he, I would make for London. There are many places there to hide. And he can possibly force a larger dowry from your father if he can threaten not to marry your sister than if he has already done so.”

“Threaten not to marry her?” Josephine turned from her intent stare at the road ahead to gaze at her companion in disbelief. “Threaten? Papa will kill him rather than let him marry Sukey.
I
will kill him.”

“And your sister may have to live in disgrace for the rest of her life as a result,” he said quietly.

“In disgrace,” Josephine said. “How absurd. Who says so?”

“Society, I am afraid,” he said.

“Society is an idiot,” Josephine said indignantly.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But it is an idiot we have to live with.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “I have no intention of doing any such thing. Marrying a man merely because one has been abducted by him, indeed. I have never heard anything more foolish in my life.”

“Somehow, Miss Middleton,” he said, “you have turned the meanings of sanity and insanity so topsy-turvy in my mind, that I am no longer confident of knowing the difference. Am I going too fast for you?” Her free hand had joined the other in clinging to his coat.

“No,” she said resolutely, “you may spring the horses if you will, sir. Do you think the Hennessys believed your story about your sister?”

“If they have believed everything else we have told them in the past few days,” he said, “doubtless they believe this too. And you did go into quite convincing raptures at the prospect of seeing your new nephew.”

“I am going to feel very guilty writing to them from home,” she said, “to tell them that this has all been a lie. It does not seem right to have so deceived them.”

“Don’t write too soon,” he said. “Just leave it for a while.”

“I shall,” she said. “Doubtless I shall be busy for a week or so listening to Grandpapa’s lectures.”

“I can see the Swan Inn ahead of us,” he said. “We have made good time.”

“But how will we know which way to go?” Josephine asked. “If he was wise, Mr. Porterhouse will not have stopped at the inn. Oh, the villain. My fingers itch to be at his throat. At least he could have kidnapped me. I am the one who has been pursuing him. He might have left Sukey alone. I will never forgive him for this. I will kill him.”

“Probably,” he said, “your brother will have relieved you of the pleasure of doing so by getting there before you. I would not worry unduly, Miss Middleton. He and Burgess would not have been far behind Porterhouse and your sister. It is fortunate that Tom saw them leave.”

“Who is this Burgess you talk of, anyway?” Josephine asked, but she did not wait for an answer. She leaned eagerly forward as the curricle drove into the courtyard.

Mitford lifted her to the ground before turning with her to speak to the ostler who had come forward to see to the horses.

“We are in pursuit of a carriage that came along the same country road as the one we have just emerged from,” the duke said.

“Ah, yes, sir,” the man said cheerfully, “that would be the blue and yellow carriage that turned north. The lady and gent inside were headed to Scotland for a purpose if you was to ask me.” He favored Milford with a broad smile.

“The villain,” Josephine said. “So he is taking her to Gretna. But he will not get there in time. I swear he will not. Come, sir, we will leave immediately, and I will kill him.”

“There was another carriage too?” the duke asked.

“Not that I know of, sir,” the ostler said, turning to his work.

“There is not time to change the horses,” Josephine said. “We will change them later. Let us be after him.”

The Duke of Mitford turned to her. “Go inside and order some tea,” he said. “We will pause here for ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes!” Josephine said. “In ten minutes we can be a few miles down the road, sir.”

“Ten minutes,” he said firmly.

Josephine frowned as she scurried inside the inn and allowed herself to be ushered into a private parlor. What was it about Mr. Villiers that sometimes had her rushing into obedience almost like a frightened child? He never raised his voice as Bart sometimes did, or blustered as Papa did when he was too embarrassed to be angry, or lectured as Grandpapa did. He just looked at her with those level gray eyes and spoke to her in such a way that she thought a mountain would probably move if he told it to.

There was no reason at all why she should have obeyed. How could he expect her to cool her heels in an inn parlor sipping tea while Sukey was being borne away to Gretna Green to be married to a slimy villain whose only concern was to get his hands on some of Papa’s and Grandpapa’s fortunes? And it seemed that everything depended upon her. No other carriage but Mr. Porterhouse’s had passed this way. Bart’s must have gone astray.

Josephine did not order tea, but she did remain in the parlor for all of five minutes, pacing the floor and swearing that she was going to kill someone, though whether she meant Mr. Porterhouse or the duke even she could not tell. She was saved from the torture of the remaining five minutes by the entry of Mr. Villiers.

“Well,” he said, “I have had the truth.”

“Let us go,” Josephine said, marching across the room toward him. “How many days will it take him to reach Gretna?”

“He is going to London,” he said.

“Oh, nonsense,” she said. “You heard the ostler.”

“Yes,” he said. “He was very eager indeed to give us the information, was he not? He even described the carriage before we did.”

“Well,” Josephine said, “it is a very distinctive carriage and one in very poor taste.”