Somerville Farce (13 page)

He walked over to the bed and collapsed
heavily onto the edge of it, cursing himself for having dismissed
his valet. If his man were in the room he would not be able to
allow his melancholy to show—which might be a good thing. It was
better to keep busy, to keep moving, so that he had no time to
think. No time to remember.

It had been the hurt in her eyes that had
nearly destroyed him. He knew that now. The kiss—that damnable
ill-timed, destructive, instructive, deliriously enjoyable
kiss—had, he acknowledged, turned out to be the single most
unintelligent action of his entire life.

It was not as if she were totally blameless
in the affair, Harry had reminded himself more than once, for he
was a man, and men have since time immemorial leavened their
feelings of guilt with the sure knowledge that there exists no such
creature as a totally innocent woman. He certainly had suffered
mightily at Trixy Stourbridge’s hands.

Even the most cruel judge would have to say
that the duke’s current situation—although rooted in his pursuit of
Myles Somerville and generously fertilized by the chuckleheaded
machinations of William and his harebrained cohort, Andrew—had only
grown into a full-grown noxious weed patch when Trixy, with her
threat of blackmail, had volunteered for the position of head
gardener.

The duke stepped away from the bed and
crossed to the large window that overlooked Lord Hargrove’s
weed-free east garden. “None of this is my fault, not really. I
tried to avenge my father, just as any good son should. But when my
attempt failed, did I become obsessed with thoughts of revenge? Did
I go haring off to Ireland to confront Somerville? Did I even so
much as entertain the thought of finding satisfaction in some other
way—some terribly twisted way?

“No. I most certainly did not. I faced my
disappointment like a man and went home, only to find that my
beloved brother, in his innocence, had become the target of a
ruthless blackmailer.” The duke frowned as his last words hung in
the air. They didn’t sound quite right; quite fair. “Well, perhaps
not exactly ruthless. ‘Desperate’ might be a better word.” He
chuckled softly. “Perhaps even ‘inventive.’”

A lone horseman rode past below him, barely
visible through the encroaching dusk that reminded him that it
would soon be time for the dinner gong, and he retraced his steps
to the jewelry box to select a plain gold signet ring that required
no great sartorial decision-making on his part.

“Well, no matter what term I give it, I
certainly spiked her guns soon enough,” he consoled himself,
thinking back on how he had turned the tables on Trixy, shattering
her dreams of retiring to the country on his largess.

“If only she had let it go at that. But no,”
he said, jamming the ring onto his finger, “she couldn’t do that,
could she? She had to take over my household, make an idiot of me
in front of my brother, and then hunt me down in my own chamber to
tell me that she was an innocent party and I had brought all my
troubles on myself. Kiss her? What a ridiculous reaction. I should
have stuffed my pillow down her throat!”

His footsteps took him back to the window as
his mind traveled, as had become its custom during moments of
reflection, to that single heart-searing kiss he and Trixy had
shared. Yes, they had shared the kiss. It may have been one-sided
at its inception, but she had given as well as taken, her hands
clutching at his shoulders, her soft breasts insinuating themselves
against his chest.

How could such an exasperating woman still
be such an intriguing, desirable creature? The duke couldn’t
understand it. Trixy was not exactly young, although, to be fair,
she wasn’t precisely ancient either. She hadn’t come equipped with
a handsome dowry, or been blessed with important connections. She
certainly possessed none of the conventional claims to beauty. Why,
he didn’t even like red hair, now that he thought about the thing.
Red, as far as he was concerned, looked good only on Irish setters!
It was just, it was just that...

“I don’t know what it just is!” the duke
exclaimed in exasperation, pressing his heated forehead against the
cool windowpane. “Dammit! It just is!”

His head still resting against the
windowpane, Glynde faced his biggest problem. “Six weeks until the
night of the ball. Six weeks until I see her again. How will she
look? How will I act? Will she goad me into disgracing myself
again? Will I be able to keep my hands off her? Six weeks. Am I
doomed to thinking of her for every moment of that time? How will I
stand it? Even more to the point, how will anyone stand me?”

Sighing, he turned away from the window just
as Sir Roderick Hilliard entered the room without bothering to
knock, unknowingly finishing off Glynde’s thoughts about the impact
of his recent melancholia on his friends.

“Harry! I’ve run you to ground at last. Are
you coming down? I have to tell you, friend, you have not exactly
been the most congenial fellow all week. Salty says you’re casting
a damp shadow over the whole party, and I’m beginning to think he’s
right, which bothers me most extremely, for you know how I loathe
agreeing with Salty about anything. It’s not like you, Harry. Not
like you at all.”

Sir Roderick’s mention of Grover Saltaire’s
remarks goaded Glynde into snapping, at least momentarily, out of
his doldrums—and into a spur-of-the-moment stroke of what he
sincerely hoped was genius.

“Roddy,” he improvised swiftly, stepping
smartly toward the door, “have I told you that I’ve taken on the
chore of launching some young friends of my aunt’s this Season?
They’re twins, you know—young, blond, pretty as buttercups, and as
alike in looks as two peas in a pod.” He slipped one arm
companionably about Sir Roderick’s broad shoulders. “Now, seeing as
how I’m rather new at this come-out business—a sad lack that has
kept me worrying and fretting all week—and seeing as how you and
Salty are two of my oldest and dearest friends—”

“Twins, you say?” Sir Roderick interrupted,
falling into step with the duke—as well as into Glynde’s hands,
although the handsome peer was, thankfully, blissfully unaware of
that fact. It was enough that Harry had surprisingly lumped him and
Salty together under the title of “dearest friends,” a level of
intimacy Sir Roderick hadn’t known he had with the duke. “Do they
have any portion? Not that I’m purse-pinched or anything like
that.”

Glynde laughed, knowing that neither Sir
Roderick nor Grover had to look to marriage as a way out of
oppressing debt. “Did the Gunnings have need of a portion,
Roddy?”

“The Gunnings?” Sir Roderick lifted a hand
to stroke at his short black beard. “I’ve seen portraits of those
two, you know. As pretty as all that, are they? Tell me,
Harry—seeing as how I helped my aunt pop off m’sister Charlotte
last year—do you think it would make you less uneasy if Salty and I
joined you in town for the ball, being your dearest friends and
all?”

Glynde would not have to face Trixy alone.
He would have his “friends” by his side, to guide him, to help him,
to protect him. His smile was so wide it nearly gave the game away.
“Why, Roddy, how kind of you—and what a splendid idea. Now I can
relax and enjoy myself, knowing everything will be just fine. How
can I ever thank you?”

Sir Roderick shrugged his wide shoulders.
“Don’t say another word about it, Harry. Just think a minute—what
else are friends for, if they can’t help one another? Now, let’s go
ferret out Salty and give him the good news.”

They walked down the wide hallway arm in
arm, in search of Grover Saltaire, Harry’s second intended victim.
“Twins, you say,” Sir Roderick repeated thoughtfully. “Yes, I think
Salty and I will have a jolly good time helping you out, Harry. A
jolly good time.”

A spring once more in his step, and with his
heart feeling pounds lighter than it had, Glynde purposefully
cleared his mind of any thoughts of a certain red-haired “problem”
and, as Sir Roderick pounded heavily on Grover Saltaire’s chamber
door, dedicated himself to enjoying the coming six weeks to the top
of his bent, and the devil take the hindmost!

It is widely known that when it comes to the
more ticklish dilemmas of romance, men—including the Duke of
Glynde—do not experience much difficulty in deluding themselves
with the hope that studiously ignoring their troubling situation,
and enlisting as allies other men as blithely ignorant as
themselves, will sooner or later result in the romantic problem
solving itself.

This optimistic conclusion, when coupled
with the likewise widely known fact that women do not take this
same ostrichlike view, probably accounts for the fact that so very,
very many men do eventually wake up one fine morning to discover
themselves married.

T
he mansion in
Portman Square had been a veritable beehive of activity from cellar
to attic for nearly every moment of the previous six weeks, but if
the number of carriages now vying for space outside the Glynde
front door was any indicator, the twins’ come-out ball—if not their
entire Season—was bound to be a roaring success.

“Or at least it will be a success among
those members of society most likely to dine out on gossip,” Trixy
told her reflection in the drawing-room mirror before hastening out
of the room, on her way to join Lady Amelia at the top of the
landing outside the ballroom. “Tongues will be wagging all over
Mayfair tomorrow when it gets out that the esteemed Duke of Glynde
couldn’t bother to show up at his own ball—the rat!”

“A rat, am I? With beady eyes and one of
those long, straight tails? Oh, unkind! Unkind! And after all I’ve
done for you, Miss Stourbridge? I have to confess it, you have cut
me to the quick.”

Trixy halted in her tracks and whirled about
to see none other than the supposedly absent Duke of Glynde, large
as life, lounging at his ease against a thick marble pillar in the
hallway. He was clad in splendidly cut midnight-blue evening
clothes, his snowy white cravat accenting his tanned skin that
flattered his casually arranged dark locks, sparkling, even white
teeth, and gray eyes. He was gorgeous.

Trixy’s stomach—and all her hard-won resolve
of the last six weeks—immediately turned craven and promptly
plummeted straight to her toes.

She blurted into speech. “Harry! You’ve come
back. Why wasn’t I told?”

“Why weren’t you told?” Glynde pushed
himself away from the pillar, his smile melting beneath a mighty
scowl. “And why should you be? My aunt was informed of my arrival
two hours ago, as she is a beloved member of my family—as well as
my hostess. I have taken Somerville’s brats as temporary
wards—making them my family of sorts, I suppose, now that I think
on it, so that I may have been remiss by not alerting them to my
return as well—but I have to own it, madam, I do not remember ever
adopting you. It’s amazing, but I had almost forgotten how
encroaching you can be. It was very kind of you to remind me.”

Trixy raised her chin and took two slow
steps in the duke’s direction, then stopped to stare up at him most
intently.

He hadn’t noticed her pale seafoam-green
gown, a beauteous creation she had thanked Lady Amelia for at least
seven dozen times since its purchase.

He hadn’t noticed her newly styled upswept
hair, or the delicate strands of faux pearls that the hairdresser
had twined so cleverly through her burnished curls.

He hadn’t noticed, as she herself couldn’t
help but notice—considering that she had stopped before every
mirror in the mansion on her way to the ballroom, to reassure
herself that the mirror in her bedchamber had not been lying to
her—that she had never been in better looks.

And, most important of all, it was clear as
glass that he most certainly had no intention of bringing up the
matter of their last meeting and the embrace they had shared. Oh,
no. Harry was much, much too busy finding new ways to insult her to
notice or mention anything at all.

Had she ever really believed herself
vulnerable to this smug, insufferable man? Had she ever actually
considered that her heart could be in danger once he deigned to
return to London? Had she ever, even in her wildest dreams, felt
the least bit guilty about trying her hand at blackmailing a
duke?

Now, Trixy Stourbridge was by nature slow to
anger. What else could explain her willingness to put up with the
many terrible positions she’d had since her father’s
demise—including this last trouble-ridden sojourn with the
les
deux
Somerville? Trixy was the last person to be mean, or
petty, or to allow herself to be slighted when, indeed, no slight
was intended. Really she was. But then, up until this moment at
least, Trixy had always believed herself to be heart-whole.