The Duchess Hunt (2 page)

“I’ve heard of him!” Sarah exclaimed,
seizing on the one element of the story that was familiar to her. Mama had told
her nighttime stories of Poseidon and the other gods.

“Well, Poseidon sent a giant serpent from
the sea to kill Laocoön and his two sons. And that’s what this statue
represents.”

Sarah stared at the statue. She had seen real
death. Recently. Real death was bad enough, so why on earth would people choose
to remind themselves of it on a daily basis?

Simon turned from her to gaze at the
statue again. “I don’t like it either,” he said in a low voice.

After another minute during which they
both frowned at the gruesome thing, Simon opened the door and led her into
another room, this one smaller but equally magnificent. In contrast to the
echoing cavernous feel of the previous room, this one was warm and colorful and
full of laughter. Children’s toys covered a carpet containing a design of reds
and golds and browns, and a large fire crackled heartily in the enormous
hearth.

The room seemed to be brimming with
people, and Sarah came to a dead stop at the threshold, her heart surging to
her chest. For as soon as she and Simon entered, all eyes turned to them.

Oh no, she thought with a sinking heart.
Except for the woman standing in the middle of the room and the toddler she
held in her arms, the room was filled with children ranging from about her age
to one who looked older than Simon – all of them boys.

This was the family. It must be. Servants
didn’t wear satin frocks or the fine wools and linens that these boys wore.
Servants never played in spaces with silk hangings and Persian carpets.
Servants’ toys weren’t carved of ivory and adorned with gilt.

Papa was going to be so angry.

Sickness welled in Sarah’s gut. Simon had
led her right where her father had told her never to go. And nothing weighed on
her more heavily than the idea of disappointing her father. Now that Mama was
gone, he was all she had.

She tried to tug her hand from Simon’s
grip, but he held firm, keeping her standing beside him.

The woman who stood in the center of the
room had mahogany hair speckled with gray coiled elaborately on her head, but a
few curls bounced down at the sides of her face. All that lovely blue satin she
wore accentuated her voluminous bosom and narrow waist. The toddler was
darker-haired than his – or her, Sarah couldn’t be sure – mother, with soft
ringlets brushing his – or her – nape and a round, pink-cheeked face.

Sarah blinked hard. The lady of the house
was a duchess. One day, she’d dreamed about meeting a duchess.

There was no doubt in Sarah’s mind. Though
children surrounded this woman, and she even carried one on her hip, she was no
nursemaid. She was far too elegant, far too regal. She had to be the Duchess of
Trent.

And here Sarah was, finally face to face
with a real duchess. But Sarah was bleeding and dirty, with torn stockings and
a ripped dress, and her traitorous fingers itched to stroke that blue satin
that clung to this beautiful lady’s body.

If it were possible to die of
mortification, Sarah would have dropped dead right then and there.

The duchess looked at her hand holding
Simon’s – her grip had tightened as she’d realized exactly who she was facing –
then smiled. “What sort of creature have you brought us this time, darling? A
forest nymph?”

Sarah’s brows crept toward her hairline.
Darling?

Simon shrugged, a little chagrin seeping
into his expression. “Not sure. I found her under attack from a blackberry bush
by the stream.”

“Come closer, child.” Hitching the toddler
higher on her hip, the duchess approached them. What a contradiction – such a
fine lady doing something so common as adjusting a babe on her hip. Weren’t
such actions reserved for more lowly people, like Sarah herself?

Simon stepped forward to meet the duchess,
pulling Sarah along with him.

“What’s your name? Where do you come
from?”

Sarah opened her mouth but no words would
emerge.

“She said her name is Sarah, and she’s
from here,” Simon supplied.

The duchess cocked a dark brow. “Is that
so?”

“Down, Mama!” the toddler complained,
squirming. “Down, down, down.”

With a sigh, the duchess lowered the
child, never taking her gaze from Sarah. The toddler stared at Sarah curiously
for a moment, then ran toward the cluster of boys, but Sarah couldn’t drag her
eyes away from the duchess long enough to see what was happening on the other
side of the room.

“I don’t recall having any little girls in
residence at Ironwood House,” the duchess mused. “Do you, Trent?”

“No, ma’am. But I’ve not been home. There
have been no new arrivals this summer?”

“No, only the…” The duchess’s brown eyes
brightened. “The new gardener. Fredericks hired him. I had naught to do with
it. I’d wager she belongs to him.”

Simon looked down at Sarah. “Are you the
gardener’s daughter?”

Biting her lip and looking down at the
beautiful carpet her dirty feet had trod upon, Sarah knew she’d made a horrible
mistake. She should have stopped Simon when they’d passed the gardener’s
cottage. She should never have come into the house. What on earth had she been
thinking?

She hadn’t been thinking.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Firm fingers grasped her chin, forcing her
to look up into the stern face of the duchess. Tears sprang to Sarah’s eyes.
Now was her only chance.

“Please,” she whispered. Her throat opened
just enough for her to speak in a croaking voice. “Please don’t dismiss my
papa.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and Sarah’s
heart sank so low, she could feel it beating in her toes.

“What has your Papa done?”

Sarah stiffened. “Nothing!”

“Then why should I dismiss him?”

Sarah’s eyes darted toward Simon, pleading
for help.

“Mother,” he said quietly, “you’re scaring
her.”

The duchess dropped her chin, leaving
Sarah with blazing cheeks.
Mother?
Simon was one of the family, too, then. Oh, she was a royal idiot.

“I brought her here because she needs
medical attention.” A touch of irritability had seeped into Simon’s smooth
voice. “Where is Mrs. Hope?”

“I’ve no idea.” The duchess turned away
toward the group of boys. “Mark, my love, will you go find Mrs. Hope? Tell her
to bring some of the salve she uses on you ragamuffins when you get a cut. Sam
– run and fetch the new gardener, will you? Explain that his daughter has been
injured, but do let him know it’s not serious. Bring him back to the house if
he wishes it.”

Sarah flinched. Her father had never
beaten her before, but she had committed a severe enough infraction that she
was entirely deserving of a whipping. Hopefully he would wait until they had
some privacy. Nothing would be more disgraceful than being beaten in front of
Simon.

“Can I go with Sam, Mama?”

“Yes, Luke, but stay with him and come
straight back here. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Me too?” said the smallest of the boys.
“I want to go with Sam, too, Mama.”

“All right, Theo, but do stay with your
brothers.”

As the door swung silently shut behind the
four boys, the toddler wandered back to the duchess – a girl, Sarah thought,
deducing from the child’s features rather than her dress. Taking her plump
little hand, the duchess turned back to Sarah. “Really, child, there’s no
reason to be afraid. You’ve done nothing wrong.” A hint of a smile touched her
lips. “The duke said the bush attacked
you,
after all. You probably didn’t even encourage it.”

Slowly, as if through a bucket of thick
syrup, Sarah turned to Simon. “The
duke
?” she whispered.

Not quite meeting her eyes, Simon gave a
one-shouldered shrug, and Sarah’s heart began to kick its way back up her body.

“I see he didn’t introduce himself
properly.” The duchess turned on her son. “Really, darling, must you always
ignore the fact that you’re the duke now? It has been almost three years.”

“We didn’t exactly have a proper
introduction. Trust me, Mother,” he added dryly, “whenever I am involved in a
proper introduction, the title is
never
forgotten.”

The duchess stared at her son for a
moment, then smiled. “Of course it is not.” She held her free hand out to
Sarah. “Now, come, child, and sit down. Your leg is still bleeding. It must
pain you to stand upon it.”

Sarah glanced at the pristine silk sofa that
the duchess was gesturing to and shook her head. It was so beautiful, the
deepest color of purple she had ever seen, and shining in the sunlight
streaming in from the window. “Oh, no, ma’am. I can’t. I’m too dirty.”

“If I was afraid of a bit of dirt and
blood, I’d have never been able to countenance raising one child. But I am
raising six, and I assure you, you are
not
too dirty to sit upon my sofa.”

Simon gave her an encouraging look. “I
think you should sit.”

So she took the duchess’s hand and allowed
the great lady to guide her to the sofa. Simon helped Sarah to settle on the
sleek silk upholstery before he sat beside her, and the duchess took an elegant
armchair across from them while the toddler wandered toward a pile of shiny
toys in the corner of the room. Sarah studied the duchess. She looked like a
beautiful fairy tale ice queen regally sitting upon her throne. That was, until
she gave Sarah a smile that rivaled her son’s in its kindness. “Do you like
tea, Sarah? I’ll ring for some.”

“Um…?” She glanced at Simon for guidance.

He nodded, then winked, making her feel
like she’d just exchanged some communication with him that she hadn’t yet
deciphered, before turning to his mother. “Some warm milk?”

Sarah looked into her lap, smiling. That
did sound nice.

“Of course.” The duchess rang a bell, and
a dainty maid came in to take the order for a bit of warm milk from the
kitchen. The maid didn’t even slide a disparaging look toward Sarah, just
hurried to do the duchess’s bidding without comment.

When the door closed behind her, the duke
and his mother looked at Sarah expectantly, and the absurdity of the situation
washed over her.

She was lounging in the parlor of a duke.
She’d just been offered tea, and now a duke and a duchess were gazing at her as
if expecting her to begin some sort of important conversation. And here she
sat, torn and bleeding, her legs dangling from the adult-sized sofa, smearing
dirt and blood onto the fine silk.

Feeling a little desperate for a
completely different kind of saving, Sarah glanced at the door.

“She’s charming, isn’t she, Simon? And
lovely, too, I imagine, underneath all that grime. The best thing that’s
happened to us all day.” The duchess made a face as if reconsidering. “Well,
aside from those wretched abrasions.”

Just then, the door opened, and an older
woman with fluffy white hair bustled in. Simon rose to his feet. “Mrs. Hope.
Thank you for coming so quickly.”

The woman curtsied. “Your Grace.”

Sarah should have curtsied and said, “Your
Grace,” too, to both the duke and duchess, but it was too late now. She would
have at least risen from the sofa, but the older lady came bustling toward her
brandishing a bottle, and she shrank back against the cushions.

“Here now, little one, let’s have a look
at all those cuts.” Mrs. Hope crouched in front of the sofa, first taking each
of Sarah’s arms in her gentle hands, then carefully peeling her stocking away
from the worst of the scratches on her knees. “We’ll have to wash them first.
Binnie, hand me a towel.”

Sarah hadn’t noticed the young,
dark-haired maid who had entered with Mrs. Hope before now. She stood at
attention near the sofa holding a basin and several small white towels, one of
which she handed to Mrs. Hope. Mrs. Hope finished removing Sarah’s stockings
and cleaned her knee, muttering about how the injuries looked horrible, but
they were really quite minor, and once she’d cleaned them and applied a bit of
salve, Sarah would feel as good as new. At one point, when Mrs. Hope had pulled
Sarah’s dress up over both her knees, she glanced up at Simon. “If she were any
older, Your Grace, I’d have you leave the room.”

Simon’s expression didn’t falter. “I found
her, so I am responsible for her. I’ll stay until I’m certain she’ll be all
right.”

She gave him a shy smile. She was already
all right, thanks to him. She wouldn’t have ever imagined that a duke could be
so kind. Or a duchess, for that matter.

Ever since she’d come to Ironwood Park
with Papa and lived under the shadow of the enormous house and his dire
warnings should she go anywhere near the family, she’d formed an image of the
House of Trent as a group of cold, unkind aristocrats who would brush her aside
like an annoying fly – if they’d even bother to look down their noses at her.
But they were nothing like that. Beneath the great gabled roofs and beyond the
marble and silk and gilt, they were a shockingly regular family.