When the Duke Found Love (3 page)

But Lord Crump wasn’t even looking at her. Instead he was staring off down the path, his expression suddenly more animated and eager than it had been since he’d met her.

“By Jove, that
is
Merton,” he murmured, marveling. “In the park, of all places.”

“Who is Merton?” Diana asked innocently.

He frowned, clearly irritated to have her ask a question that was so obvious to him.

“The Earl of Merton, of course,” he said, still looking down the path. “A most important gentleman in the House of Lords. I have been trying to meet with him for days regarding an important trade bill before it comes to a vote, and now—here, you will not object if I go speak with him, Lady Diana. I shall be only a moment, and will return directly when I am done.”

He did not wait for Diana to reply, but immediately charged off in the direction of the elusive Lord Merton.

Speechless again, Diana watched him go. Although she’d hardly been enjoying his company, it was still preferable to being abandoned here in the middle of the mall. Already the fashionable crowd on the walk was beginning to gape at her, taking note of the astonishing sight of a young lady standing alone and unattended. Anxiously she smoothed the sleeves of her gown and then her lace scarf over her shoulders. It was too soon for her sister and mother to return in the carriage, and she’d absolutely no desire to chase after Lord Crump and his precious Lord Merton.

Yet she could not remain where she was, as adrift as if she’d been cast off in a boat in the middle of the ocean. She looked down one way, then the other, and without hesitating any longer she turned from the main path entirely and ran off among the shady trees, not stopping until she was deep in the shade. Breathing hard, she leaned against the nearest tree and closed her eyes.

A moment alone to think, to calm herself, to swallow back her humiliation and despair. Only a moment, and then she’d go back and wait for the carriage.

But a moment was more than she’d have. She heard the rustling in the dry leaves first, the odd snuffling breathing that was suddenly around the hem of her skirt. She yelped with surprise and her eyes flew open. The white dog at her feet looked up at her, unperturbed and happy to have her attention. He was smallish, some manner of bulldog, with oversized pink ears like a bat’s and a crumpled face that was so ugly it became endearing. His barrel-like sides quaked as he panted, and he seemed to be grinning up at her with his tongue lolling from the corner of his mouth.

She was thoroughly charmed.

“Whom do you belong to?” she said softly, crouching down before the dog to ruffle his ears. “Where is your master, to let you run through the woods like this?”

The dog closed his eyes and made such a grumbling groan of complete contentment that she laughed.

“What a delightful fellow you are,” she said. He was obviously someone’s much-loved pet: not only was he round and well fed (perhaps a bit too well fed), but he wore an elegant red leather collar with silver studs around his neck. There was a silver tag, too, and she tried to turn it around to learn his name. “Come, let me properly make your acquaintance, sir.”

“His name’s Fantôme,” said a gentleman’s voice behind her. “It seems he has made a more glorious conquest than his usual squirrels.”

With a little gasp of surprise, Diana looked swiftly over her shoulder to the gentleman, and gasped again. He was young, not much older than herself, and he was every bit as handsome as his dog was not. He’d broad shoulders and the strong, even features that would make any woman walking along the mall take notice of him, but it was his smile that captivated Diana. The devil-may-care grin that reached his eyes made her smile at once in return.

“
Fantôme
is French for ‘ghost,’ isn’t it?” she asked.

“It is,” he said, crouching down to her level with the dog between them. He wore a blue coat and a red waistcoat, both cheerfully bright even here in the shadows, and his light-colored buckskin breeches were tucked into top boots. There were spurs on the boots, which showed he’d been riding and had somewhere shed both his mount and his hat to chase after his dog.

“Though I fear Fantome’s far too corporeal to be a real specter,” he continued. “You’ve only to look at him to see the truth. Isn’t that so, Monsieur le Gros?”

“Master Fat!” Diana exclaimed, translating for herself. “You’d call this fine gentleman by so dreadful a name?”

“I would,” declared the gentleman soundly, patting the dog’s broad back with fondness. “He is a French dog, and he is fat. And I do call him Monsieur le Gros, because it’s true. All the best endearments are, you know.”

“If you call your dog Master Fat,” she said, “then I should not wish to hear what you would call your lady.”

“Ah, but I haven’t a lady, you see.” He sighed deeply and drew his brows together, trying to look sorrowful, but only succeeded in making Diana laugh again. “I’ve no need for endearments beyond those for Fantôme.”

“I don’t believe you, sir,” Diana scoffed. “Gentlemen like you always have ladies.”

“That’s true, too,” he agreed. “More truth: I do not have a lady at present, but I expect to have one again very soon.”

Her cheeks warmed. It wasn’t the same kind of miserable flush that she’d felt with Lord Crump, but the exciting glow that came from mutual interest and amusement. He was flirting outrageously with her, and if she were honest, she was doing the same with him. She shouldn’t be permitting any of this, of course. She should rise and immediately return to the path and to Lord Crump or her sister’s carriage, whichever returned first.

But she didn’t. “Then we are quite even,” she said. “I didn’t have a gentleman when I rose this morning, but I do now.”

“I congratulate you on your swift acquisition, ma’am,” he said, clearly assuming she meant him. “Might I guess the fortunate gentleman’s name?”

She shook her head, the flirtation as suddenly done as it had begun. Yesterday, and any other yesterday before it, she would have been gratified to see the interest on this gentleman’s handsome face. Any other day, and she would have been pleased to see that he was as charmed by her as she was by him.

But today, now, she was promised to Lord Crump. She could vow she wouldn’t marry him, that she’d rebel, but her conscience told her that she wouldn’t. She’d be as dutiful in obeying her mother’s choice as her sisters had been, and pray that her own marriage would be as happy as theirs. She would because, truly, a lady had no choice.

And she would never again sit beneath a tree to laugh and flirt with a handsome gentleman like this one.

She scrambled back to her feet. “I must go. I can’t stay any longer.”

He stood, too, making her realize how tall and broad and brilliantly male he was in his blue coat.

“You could stay if you wished it,” he said as Fantôme, agitated, began to race around them. “Another moment or two. Please. You can.”

She shook her head, looking back through the trees to the path. She saw Lord Crump, his black mourning standing out among the others as he waited for her.

“Please don’t ask me,” she said, beginning to back away. “Because I can’t. I
can’t
.”

He caught her hand lightly to keep her from leaving.

“Only a moment, sweetheart,” he said. He considered her hat, then plucked one of the tiny silk flowers from the crown, as if plucking a real flower from a garden. He tucked the wire stem into the top buttonhole of his coat and gave it an extra pat.

“There,” he said softly, smiling. “For remembrance, yes?”

“No,” she said, striving to harden her voice and her heart, and failing at both. “Good day, sir.”

Then she turned and ran, back to the path, to Lord Crump, and to her fate as his wife.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

There were very few people in this world (or the next, for that matter) who could influence the actions of George Charles Bramley Atherton, the fourth Duke of Sheffield. The groom charged with the breeding of His Grace’s favorite horses was one, and his personal
chef de cuisine
in Paris was perhaps another. But the only mortal who, by way of a letter alone, could make Sheffield return to London on the night boat from Calais was his favorite cousin, the Duke of Breconridge.

Now, as the carriage slowed before Brecon’s town house, Sheffield glanced down at the white bulldog dozing on the seat beside him and sighed. He’d slept late, and he’d taken his time dressing, and he’d even gone for a brief ride in the park to help compose his thoughts, and his defense, too. The shadows in the street were long and the day was very nearly done, and he couldn’t keep Brecon waiting any longer.

“I fear it’s finally time, Fantôme,” he said, resigned. “Though the fair lady you found for me in the park certainly was a worthwhile diversion.”

He touched the silk flower, still in his buttonhole. She
had
been fair, and with her golden hair and wide blue eyes, she’d been as delicious a creature as ever could be found in London. Yet there had been more to her beyond her beauty. It was hard for him to define exactly. He’d liked how she’d laughed, a rippling merriment deep in her throat, and he’d liked how she’d answered him with ease and with cleverness, too. She’d made him smile, and she’d made him laugh, which in his experience was both rare and pleasurable. Of course, when she’d crouched down to pet Fantôme, she’d also unwittingly displayed her well-rounded breasts as her lace kerchief had come untucked, and remembering that—or them—was powerfully pleasurable, too.

Not that anything would come of it. He sighed again. There was the man she’d mentioned, and Sheffield was sure she’d run off to join whoever it was. Besides, Sheffield must now vow to Brecon to be as chaste as a monk, at least until Brecon’s ire had faded. He smiled ruefully down at the little silk flower and pulled it from his coat. Brecon would spot such a token at once, and Sheffield already had sufficient explanations to make without adding a mysterious girl in the park. But instead of casting the little flower into the street, he tucked it inside his waistcoat pocket for safekeeping.

“Don’t tell Brecon, Fantôme,” he said, still thinking of the girl as he glanced from the window. “Misbehavior of any sort will not be tolerated while we are in His Grace’s domain.”

Two years had passed since Sheffield had last climbed those white marble steps, two years that he’d spent traveling abroad, yet nothing had changed about Brecon’s house. Nothing had changed, really, for as long as Sheffield could remember. The silver knocker, shaped like a curving dolphin, still gleamed mirror bright, and the carefully clipped yew trees in their marble pots beside the door never grew any larger. And Sheffield would have wagered a sovereign that at the precise instant his carriage’s footman let his hand approach that black-painted door, the door would open, and behind it would be Brecon’s butler, the improbably named Houseman, equally unchanged and unchanging.

Which was exactly what happened, though to Sheffield’s regret, no one else had stood by to witness and take his sovereign wager.

“Good day, Your Grace,” Houseman murmured as he held the door wide for Sheffield and Fantôme to pass. It was one of the miracles of Houseman that the butler could unerringly sense when a person of rank was calling, so that he could step in the place of the more usual footman to open the door himself. “Might we offer you a welcome upon your return to London, sir?”

“I’ll be most happy if you do,” Sheffield said, smiling. “I trust you are in good health yourself?”

“Tolerably well, sir.” The butler wouldn’t smile in return—he never did—but Sheffield never doubted the sincerity of the welcome. Everyone in his cousin’s employ was cordial and well-mannered, a reflection of Brecon himself. Even Brecon’s dogs were perfectly behaved and incapable of a misplaced yelp or a mess on the carpet, unlike a certain other canine of Sheffield’s acquaintance.

“I’m happy you are well,” Sheffield said, handing his hat to the footman. Uneasily he glanced about for Fantôme, who was sniffing at the base of a tall Chinese vase with malicious intent. He grabbed the dog by the shoulders and hoisted him up into the crook of his arm, away from mischief. “Is my cousin in the library as usual?”

“No, sir,” Houseman said, giving his jowls a sorrowful shake at having to offer Sheffield a negative reply. “His Grace begs your forgiveness for being unable to be at home to greet you, but he was called away of a sudden on a private matter.”

Sheffield’s dark brows rose with interest. “For once it cannot have been me,” he said. “At least not this night.”

“True, sir,” Houseman said. “I believe he was summoned by her ladyship the Countess of Hervey.”

Now Sheffield was truly interested. Brecon must be in his mid-forties by now. He had long been a widower, and though he’d kept a succession of mistresses, each of those women had been as esteemed for her discretion as for her beauty. Brecon would never have become distressingly entangled with any true lady, especially not one so noble as a countess.

“Who is this Lady Hervey, Houseman?” he asked, his curiosity growing. “Is she handsome?”

Houseman blinked, his way of signifying that any dolt, including Sheffield, should have recognized the lady’s name.

“Her ladyship is the mother of Her Grace the Duchess of Marchbourne,” he explained, “and of Her Grace the Duchess of Hawkesworth.”

“Ah, yes,” Sheffield said, faintly disappointed. Lady Hervey was almost family since her daughters were married to his other two cousins. If the countess was old enough to have borne those daughters, she was also likely to be too old to amuse Brecon, at least in an interesting fashion. Instead he must have answered her summons in only the most courtly (and Brecon-ish) manner, ready to offer assistance to an aged, widowed gentlewoman. “The older ladies do need tending, don’t they?”

“I will leave any further questions to His Grace to answer, sir,” Houseman said, prim even for him. “If you please, sir, His Grace asked that you wait for him in his library.”

Obediently Sheffield asked no further questions, and followed the butler into his cousin’s library. This, too, had not changed: a dark-paneled retreat with enough books for a small college, the dark red armchairs, the framed portraits of ancient philosophers, and blind Homer’s marble bust on the mantle. He set Fantôme before the fire, where the dog turned three times and instantly fell asleep. Sheffield himself had scarcely sat when a maidservant appeared with a light supper and a footman came to pour him his choice of Brecon’s wines.