The Wicked Duke (22 page)

Aylesbury pulled on the banyan and walked out while he buttoned it. The servant managed to close the door without turning his head.

Ten minutes later, Aylesbury returned, appearing subdued.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A private courtesy message, sent from Windsor because of my station. The king died tonight at half an hour past eight o'clock.”

Soon after he finished speaking, the big bell of St. Paul's Cathedral began tolling.

“W
e will stay here in town until the king's funeral.” Aylesbury explained the plans to Marianne over dinner two days later. “He will lie in state on the fifteenth, and be interred the next day. You will need to press your dressmaker for appropriate garments. As my duchess, you will have very high precedence in the procession.”

Marianne appeared much subdued. Far more than he expected after the night they had just shared. He might be itemizing their duties for her, but half of his mind saw her wild and naked, rising above him while she rode him in her frenzy. That image of her had not left him all day.

He was enjoying their time in town, and was not sorry that they had to stay. Still, he kept waiting for news from Gloucestershire. In particular he expected a letter from Sir Horace, informing him that the coroner
had finally issued a verdict of death by natural causes for Percy. If one did not arrive by tomorrow, he would write to Sir Horace and inquire about the delay.

Marianne no longer ate. She just looked at her plate and wineglass, distracted.

“What is wrong?” he asked.

“Putting myself in an appropriate garment will hardly make me pass muster. I have no idea at all what I am supposed to do. You speak of a procession, but I have not even seen one. And how am I to know what an appropriate garment even is?”

“I will arrange for someone to explain it all, as I promised, and to help you with the dress. You will also wear traditional state garments at the coronation that is coming. I will have those shown to you, so you become accustomed to them.” He reached for her hand. “Do not look so glum, pretty flower. It is not the ideal way to first meet your equals, but it cannot be avoided and you will dazzle them all.”

How easily those flatteries dribbled out. He was not a man given to such things, so he impressed himself. He realized it mattered to him that she not be so worried. He truly wanted to reassure her.

A spark of humor entered her eyes. “I doubt I will dazzle. I do not think anyone's eyes will be on me. Have you learned anything else about the ceremony?”

“Only what the papers report.” He returned to his meal.

That had been a lie. He knew all the details. In particular he knew which dukes would be pallbearers. His own name was not on the list.

There were many explanations for that. He was newly invested in the title. The king had not been his friend, or even of similar age.

However, he did not miss that as the royal servants and government officials made their arrangements, the Duke of Aylesbury had been given no role. Since there were not many dukes, and even fewer nonroyal ones, the slight appeared deliberate.

It might all have to do with that revelation Carlsworth had shared with him. It most likely did. He really did not give a damn if he had a place in a ceremony. He very much cared if the notion of trying him had gained any supporters.

“Now you are the one looking worried,” Marianne said. “I daresay it is more than garments and protocol that concern you.”

“Perhaps that is all it is. It will be my first ceremony as a duke, after all.”

She laughed, and squeezed his hand. “I hope I can judge character enough to know that such things do not make you frown. You will do it like you have already done it a hundred times. Something else troubles you, I think. I will not pry, however.”

He wished he could tell her. Odd that he wanted to, but there it was. Only if he did, she might realize she had her answer to her big
why?
about his proposal. He never wanted her to know about that bargain with her uncle. She would not, either, if he had any say in it.

Their meal had not ended, but he stood and drew her up by her hand. “The days weigh heavily with talk of the
king and his funeral and his past. Wherever one goes, that is all one hears. I am not immune to the melancholy abroad in the realm. The nights, however—they are about life and pleasure and the present. Come to bed with me now. You will see no frowns there.”

“Nor will you, if you use your best skills.”

He embraced her with one arm and guided her from the dining room. “Which are my best skills?”

“Don't you know? Can't you tell?”

“As it happens, you have not yet experienced what I consider my best skills, so I am confused.”

At the stairs, she extricated herself from his hold. “Allow me to go and prepare, but come to me soon.” She started up the stairs, then paused and looked back. “I know great pleasure from all your skills, Aylesbury. But I think no matter what else happens, it will always be the best for me when you allow me to hold you close in the peace afterward. I am old-fashioned, I suppose.”

She continued walking upward, leaving him astonished and unexpectedly moved.

*   *   *

T
he king was dead. The proclamation of the next king was delayed one day, because January 30 was the anniversary of the execution of Charles II.

The day after that, Lance received a letter from Merrywood's steward. He read it, put it in his pocket, and left the house for a morning ride in the park with Ives and Gareth.

“The town is filling,” Ives reported. “Even in the High
Season we do not see such a collection of peers. The Strand is jammed with coaches.”

“Two weeks hence, they will all jam the road to Windsor,” Lance said. “I assume our new king is distraught at his father's demise?”

“So it is reported,” Ives said. “He has taken ill. A malady of the lungs. He is very ill, I have heard. So ill that some fear there may be a double funeral.”

Since Ives had a friendship with the new king, he probably heard right when he heard about Prinny.

They continued walking their mounts at a sedate pace. Everyone in the park who was astride did the same. Galloping would appear too joyful in light of current events. It would be insulting to the Crown to publicly enjoy oneself right now.

“He is a robust man, even if more corpulent than is healthy,” Gareth said of the new king. “He will pull through.”

Lance did not know if his brothers offered prayers in the silence that followed. His own mind calculated. Two weeks until the funeral. No one would think of anything else during that time. Then another fortnight at least while the practicalities of the transition occurred. He had a month more or less to have his problem settled so no one bothered with it when life began getting back to normal.

“Is your bride overwhelmed while she prepares herself for her first public court ceremony? It must be a daunting notion for her,” Gareth said.

“She is at the dressmaker today, with Lady Kniveton as her advisor. The viscountess has agreed to shepherd
her through the preparations, and explain where she must go and what she must do.”

Gareth glanced over, surprised. Ives grinned.

“An odd choice of advisor,” Ives said.

“She was very happy to do it. Delighted. She has taken to the task with enthusiasm.”

Ives laughed aloud. That drew a few scowls from others in the park. Including Gareth.

“Did you limit your list of possible advisors to Gareth's old lovers, or were there others considered?” Ives asked.

“She was not really my lover,” Gareth muttered. “It was a very brief fascination.”

“On your part.”

“I did not limit my choices to our brother's conquests, for lack of a more accurate word,” Lance said. “I merely realized one of them would be most likely to agree in these most busy and trying times.”

Gareth did not like it at all. “If you so much as intimated to her that I might attend on Lady Kniveton while she advised, I am going to thrash you.”

“I intimated nothing.” Lance smiled. “I cannot be held responsible for any hopes the lady may have, however.”

“If she expects a little attention, you can surely give it,” Ives said. “For Lance. For his duchess. For the family. For England, by Zeus!”

“The hell I will.”

“You speak like it takes great effort on your part to charm ladies,” Lance said. “It comes to you as naturally as breathing. No one will expect you to compromise
yourself or your love of Eva. However, if Lady Kniveton gets peevish, it might help if you smile once or twice when in her company. Flatter a tad. Et cetera, et cetera . . .”

“I keep telling you there will be
no ‘et cetera
.' Nor will I ever be in her company.”

“He gets very piqued when we mention his past, doesn't he?” Lance asked Ives. “Oh, how the mighty fall when vanquished by a woman.”

“Let that be a lesson to you, Lance, lest marital delight cause you to abandon good sense. If a man is not careful, a woman will make him sentimental and doting,” Ives lectured.

“I should follow your example instead, you mean. Remain in command of both my woman and myself.”

“Exactly.”

They plodded along the path. Lance looked over at Ives, just in time to see Gareth doing the same. Gareth smiled slowly, and shook his head in amazement.

Ives gazed straight ahead, confident in his illusion that marriage had not changed him in the slightest.

*   *   *

L
ance soon peeled away from his brothers, and aimed his horse southwest through Middlesex. Once he had left London's environs behind, he stopped and took out the letter the steward had sent him. It contained an address and a few directions.

A half hour later he walked his horse up a country lane to a cottage surrounded by a garden. A young woman and
a girl sat beneath a tree beyond the house, amid shrubbery. The girl saw him, spoke to the woman, and ran into the house.

By the time Lance reached the door, it had opened. A short man, bald and bespectacled, stood there pulling on his coat. “Your Grace! When my grandniece said a gentleman approached, I never imagined it would be you.”

“Mr. Payne. It is good to see you so well.”

Payne looked behind himself, then smiled weakly. “Would you like to come in?”

Lance did not want to impose the way a duke's visit inevitably would. “The day is fair. If you can spare a few minutes, we can chat out here.”

“Time is what I've plenty of these days.” He closed the door. Together they paced back up the lane.

“I was neglectful in not seeing you before you left Merrywood,” Lance said. “I should have done so, to thank you for your long service to the family.”

“I took no mind of that, Your Grace. It was a confusing time.”

“You are living with your daughter here, I am told.”

“She was good enough to have me. Her husband is a farmer. My situation suits me. The air is fresh, and the neighbors are honest. Do a bit of gardening, I do now. I have a knack for it. Who would have guessed?”

From up the lane, they could see the gardens again. The girl had returned to the woman. “I am happy to hear you are contented.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

“I did not only come about that, though.”

“I did not think so. I expect you'll be wanting to ask about him.” Payne appeared bland, even resigned.

“You may have known him better than anyone else. I am not asking you to be disloyal—”

“I knew someone might ask me about him eventually. What with how he died— I have thought hard about loyalty, and what I may owe him. He settled a good sum on me, didn't he? More than I expected.” Payne made a face of consternation. “I decided not to see it as a bribe, Your Grace. A man has struck a bargain when he accepts a bribe, hasn't he?”

“A clear bargain, with two parties in agreement.”

“That is how I see it.”

Lance allowed that conclusion to sit there a few moments before broaching his question. “My brothers and I have believed he died naturally. However, I have decided to see if perhaps the suspicion it was not natural may have some credence. I must now be more disloyal to him than you could ever be, when I ask you if you were aware of any reason why someone might do this?”

“Kill him, you mean. Murder him. Most definitely.”

Not only the admission surprised Lance, but also the plain, flat way Payne said it.

“Was he unkind to any of the servants at Merrywood? To you?”

Payne's gaze turned flinty. He looked Lance right in the eyes. “Does a man kill another because of unkindness? He does not. Does he even kill him over one dastardly act of cruelty? Did you kill him because of that scar? Oh, yes, I knew about that. He told me, the little—”
He caught himself. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. “Forgive me, Your Grace. I forgot myself. That was uncalled for.”

“Was it? I am thinking not.”

Payne composed himself. “A man does not kill so easily because of slights to himself, but those that might kill could have had good reason to do him in. What I am trying to say is that a man might be moved to murder to protect those dear to him. A man not given to violence might well entertain such notions then.”