When the Duke Returns (4 page)

Gore House, Kensington
London Seat of the Duke of Beaumont
February 22, 1784

“D
o you suppose that if I ordered a particularly enticing nightdress it might arouse him? Or do you suppose that nothing can arouse him at all? Jemma, do you know anyone we could ask about male incapability?”

Jemma wrinkled her nose. “
Must
we talk of this over breakfast, Isidore? Since the poor man has never seen a nightdress in his life, I advise simplicity. Ribbons rather than laces, for example. He might not be able to handle laces.”

Isidore looked down at her coddled eggs and felt a little nauseated. “I really do wish my mother were alive.”

“What would your mother do in this situation?”

“She would laugh. She used to laugh a great deal. She was Italian, you know, and she thought Englishmen were very foolish. Mind you, my father was Italian and she thought he was just as foolish as the worst Englishman.”

“How did she die?”

“They were sailing. A sudden squall came up and swamped their boat.” She was able to say it now, years later, without her voice breaking. Which was something of an achievement.

“I'm so sorry,” Jemma said. And being Jemma, she looked genuinely sorry.

“At least I have memories of her and Papa. And the aunt who raised me afterwards was truly wonderful.”

“Was she from your mother's side?”

“No, she was my father's sister. She accompanied me to the Cosway estate after the funeral; people thought that since I was affianced to a duke, it made sense for his mother to raise me. Since Cosway had reached his eighteenth year, we went through the proxy marriage. But I was clearly miserable living there, so my aunt snatched me away shortly thereafter.”

“I can imagine that the duchess must be an appalling companion. I met her only once, but she gave me a strict set-down.”

“The duchess—or dowager duchess, rather—does not believe in grief,” Isidore said, remembering. “She told me so repeatedly. I think she was quite happy to see the back of me, although she tried to make me return once she learned more of my aunt.”

Jemma raised an eyebrow.

“My aunt is a violinist. She told the duchess she would take me to live with my father's relatives in Italy, but in fact we traveled around Europe as she gave concerts. We lived in Venice on and off, but we went farther afield as well, to Prussia, France, Brussels, Prague…”

“How unusual.” And, after a moment: “The Duchess of Cosway's daughter-in-law in company with a traveling musician.” Jemma grinned. “Is your aunt still alive?”

Isidore nodded. “She leads a rather quiet life now. A few years ago she professed herself tired of wandering about Europe. We kept expecting that Cosway would return. So we would say,
one last trip to Vienna!
But somehow there was always another trip, and never a message from Cosway. She moved to Wales when I turned twenty-one.”

“By herself?”

“No. She married a painter.”

“Really? Anyone I might have heard of?”

Isidore said it reluctantly. “One of the Sargents.”

“Not Owen Sargent! The man who painted Lord Lucien Jourdain in the nude with just a bunch of violets?”

“The very one.”

“Then you must have seen the portrait,” Jemma said, delighted. “Were the violets just where you might expect? And did he wear his wig? I heard so, but I couldn't countenance it.”

Isidore sighed. “I don't know how it happened, but I'm so much more strait-laced than my family. Do you know, Jemma, I really didn't wish to see Lord Jourdain without his clothing?”

“Isidore…” Jemma said imploringly.

“Of course he wore a wig. And a patch. I remember being surprised by the size of his—ahem—violets.” Isidore picked up her cold tea and drank a sip, put it down again. “Perhaps I should follow Cosway to the country and force the question, Jemma. I can strip myself naked in his bedchamber and see how he responds.
If
he responds.”

“It depends on how much you wish to be a duchess,”
Jemma replied. “It could be embarrassing for both of you.”

“I
do
want to be a duchess. I've thought of myself as a duchess for years. And all those years I told myself that I would accept whatever sort of man the duke turned out to be. I steeled myself to accept a man with one leg, or any number of vices. I just kept telling myself that I wanted to be truly married, to be able to have children, and stop living this half existence.”

Jemma nodded. “I absolutely understand, darling.”

“So what's the real difference between a one-legged and a mad husband? I can tolerate this sort of derangement on a daily basis. He doesn't hear voices the way Lord Crumple does.”

“Good point,” Jemma said. “You're wonderfully brave.”

“But if Cosway is unable to respond to me…perhaps not.” Isidore pushed all her eggs to one side of her plate. “I can't imagine myself choosing a consort simply in order to provide an heir. I'm not a very adventuresome woman.”

“Most women would not be in your untouched state, given a husband who didn't return from Africa for this many years. You are, as they say in the Bible, a pearl above price.”

“I'm a tedious pearl,” Isidore said, moving all her eggs across the plate again. “I realized that during my stay at Lord Strange's estate. I don't want to have interesting conversations about French letters, or watch dissolute plays featuring half-naked mythological gods. And I don't want a marriage predicated on my need to find a substitute in the bedchamber.”

“Then you should certainly determine if Cosway is capable,” Jemma said. “If he is not, you can annul the marriage. If he is, you can resign yourself to his eccentricities.”

Isidore nodded. She had read Tacitus on how to conduct a war, and Machiavelli on how to conquer a kingdom. She could launch a campaign so overwhelming that her husband would never know what hit him. The dowager duchess was almost certainly attempting to convince her son to wear clothing befitting a duke. Well, Isidore was going to spend her time trying to get him
out
of those same clothes.

She pushed her plate away. Advance planning was crucial to any plan of war. “If I send a message to Signora Angelico, she will send me a nightdress on an urgent basis.”

Jemma grinned. “That's a brilliant trap. A capable man, presented with such a nightdress and your figure inside, will react swiftly. If not…”

Isidore reached up and pulled the bell cord to summon her maid. Cosway's days as a bachelor—and a virgin—were numbered.

Revels House
February 22, 1784

S
imeon's father had rarely made use of his study. He was an outdoors sort of man. Simeon's happiest childhood memories were of afternoons spent tramping through wet forests, looking for game.

It made him uneasy to walk into his father's study and sit down behind his great oak desk. He felt as if his father would erupt back into life, bellowing at him. Simeon shook his head. His greatest teacher, Valamksepa, had taught him the importance of maintaining peace by exerting personal control. He could hear the man's soft voice in his ear, telling him that hunger, pain, thirst, lust…all of those things were nothing more than insects biting at the soul.

A man walked through life on the path he created for himself. He did not allow pettiness to lead him astray. Valamksepa's teachings had kept Simeon calm in the face of tribal unrest, the death of half his camel-drivers from intestinal fever, and fierce sandstorms. This was nothing in comparison.

Simeon took a deep cleansing breath and sat down, pushing aside stacks of paper. Then he paused and looked again. An undated bill of trading for purchase of thatchery materials, presumably for mending village roofs. He looked at the next one. An imploring letter from a cottager, requesting winter wheat. His mother's spidery handwriting noted, “Done.” He glanced through the first ten or fifteen. Only a very few contained his mother's notations; the rest appeared to have been ignored.

Anger is nothing more than the other side of fear…and both drive a man to his knees.
A man never falls to his knees from anger, lust, or fear
. The three most dangerous emotions.

Simeon picked up a few more of the papers and read them. Valamksepa had forgotten to speak of guilt.

Hours later, he raised his head from a stack of papers and stared blearily at his butler.

“Your Grace, would you like me to bring you a light breakfast?”

Simeon ran a hand through his hair. “What time is it?”

“Eleven in the morning. Your Grace ought to go to bed,” Honeydew said disapprovingly.

Had he really stayed up all night? He had. And yet more papers awaited, stacked in crazy piles around the desk. He'd found a new cache at four in the morning, letters from solicitors pleading for their clients' payments, letters from his father's solicitors containing information about the estate, about investments…The only thing that seemed to characterize this particular
pile was that they were written on hot-pressed paper rather than foolscap.

Could it be that his mother hadn't responded because she didn't like the type of paper the writers employed?

The very idea of asking her made him want to groan.

“Breakfast,” Honeydew prompted.

“Yes.”

“No doubt you would like to bathe before eating,” the butler said, “I shall order a footman to prepare one for you directly.” It wasn't a hint. It was more like a royal command.

“I have a few more papers to read,” Simeon said. At some point people in his household would have to stop treating him like the rebellious sixteen-year-old boy he had once been.

A few minutes later he raised his head. “Ah, Honeydew. I forgot to…”

“It is now one o'clock,” Honeydew informed him.

Simeon looked with some surprise at the tray next to him. Apparently, he'd eaten all the toast without noticing.

“Those papers have been waiting for years, Your Grace. Surely a night or two won't make any difference.”

“Some—nay, many—of these papers extend back into the days when my father was alive.”

“Ah.” The butler's face was utterly inexpressive.

“Yet my father didn't suffer a long illness; he died in a carriage accident. How could—” Simeon bit off the words. It wasn't appropriate to ask the butler why his father had stopped answering estate mail.

And yet it was true. Incredibly, it seemed that his father had made a practice of not paying bills until he absolutely had to, until letters from solicitors reached hysterical and unpleasant depths. He knew. He'd found all the letters. He even thought there was a system to it:
his father paid after the fourth or fifth dunning letter, and then quite frequently only part of the bill.

Apparently tradesmen were so happy to receive a few pence on the pound that they ceased their complaints. It was inconceivable.

Well, perhaps it was conceivable in the case of a man with no substance. Yet the Duke of Cosway could hardly be described as poor.

Simeon kept turning back to the estate books, neatly kept, neatly laid out. The estate was thriving. He couldn't explain how or why. There had been no improvements made in years. His father had fired the estate manager years ago. But it was. He could pay off all the outstanding bills and feel no pinch.

So why had his father done it?

There was only one person who could tell him, and he didn't wish to speak to her.

“Mr. Kinnaird has arrived, Your Grace,” Honeydew said.

Thank God. His father had somehow neglected to fire Kinnaird, the manager of his London properties, perhaps because he didn't see him often. “Send him in immediately, please.”

Kinnaird entered, bowing. He was a tall, nervous-looking man with a skinny bottom that showed to no great advantage in his short frock-coat. With it he wore horizontally striped stockings, undoubtedly because his valet thought the effect would give his legs more breadth.

“Kinnaird,” Simeon snapped, thinking that the man looked like a fool. And then: A fool to whom I cheerfully dispatched thousands of pounds worth of fabric and jewels over the years.

His hand tightened under the table, but he made his voice affable enough. “Please, sit down, Mr. Kinnaird. I
do apologize for my brusque greeting just now. I find myself worried by the state of Revels House.”

“Entirely understandable,” Mr. Kinnaird said, rather unexpectedly.

“Could you tell me where all the fabrics and other items that I sent my mother over the years might be found?” Simeon asked.

“The East Warehouse in Southwark,” Mr. Kinnaird replied. He pulled out a small black notebook and opened it. “You first sent ten boxes of stuffs from India in 1776, Your Grace. Those were stored in the upper reaches of the warehouse. As they arrived, succeeding goods were numbered and placed in similar shelving. In 1779, we purchased the warehouse, the better to maintain security. It is guarded around the clock, and all goods are dry and free of infestations.”

“And the stones and other nonfabric goods?”

“Jewels were sent on two occasions, arriving in England in March 1781 and in November 1783. On neither occasion did I judge our warehouse to be sufficiently secure. Those materials are stowed at Hoare's bank in London. I have here the bills of deposit, co-signed by the bank manager, myself, and the captain of the vessel in question.”

“Mr. Kinnaird,” Simeon said, “I have misjudged you. I'm afraid that when I entered this house and realized the state it was in, I jumped to the worst of all possible conclusions.”

Kinnaird looked about him. “I cannot take offense, Your Grace. The truth is that the dowager duchess did not welcome my visits, nor did she accept the goods you sent for her personal use. I returned those trunks to the warehouse as you will see on the itemized list.”

Simeon sat for a moment. “Did she give any explanation?”

“She is rather set in her ways, Your Grace, as I have noticed elderly ladies often are. Perhaps India and Africa seem too distant for her.”

“I gather that she did not allow you to act as a man of business for her, given—” he gestured “—the stacks of papers I find here.”

“No, Your Grace. She informed me that she would continue to run things precisely as your father had done. I did inform you of this in a letter, Your Grace.”

“Not every letter reached me,” Simeon said, staring sightlessly at the piles of foolscap covering his father's desk.

“No, Your Grace. Of course.”

“Well, Mr. Kinnaird,” Simeon said finally, “could I ask you to return to London and arrange for transfer of the goods I intended as gifts? They can be transported here. I am in the process of directing payment of all overdue bills.”

Kinnaird cleared his throat. “I should inform you that Mr. Honeydew occasionally forwarded bills to me that had to be paid and naturally I took care of them.”

“You mean he would steal them from this table and send them to you in London?”

“That allowed the household to keep running, Your Grace,” Kinnaird said.

It wasn't easy to accept that one's mother has lost her mind. Gone uncooked. Thrown her pancakes to the roof. However you want to put it.

“Very good, Kinnaird,” he said. He paused. “Have the servants' wages been raised since my father died?”

“No, my lord. Nor for some years before that sad event. However, I took the liberty of giving each of them a Boxing Day present that brought their wages to near-current rates. Again, Mr. Honeydew was invaluable in this respect.”

“As were you, Mr. Kinnaird.”

Kinnaird's knees turned inwards and he gave an odd little bob that Simeon thought indicated pleasure. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

Simeon felt like going for another run, but instead he made his way to his mother's chambers and knocked on the door.

She was sitting before a small secretary at her window. Simeon realized with a sinking heart that her desk, too, was stacked with sheaves of paper.

He dropped into the bow that she required, waited while she held out her hand to be kissed, waited while she arranged herself in a chair and motioned him to another. Though they were in the country, and surely not expecting morning callers, she wore a high powdered wig hung with teardrop pearls.

“You have come, of course, to apologize,” she said, folding her hands. “I expected as much from your father's son.”

When had his mother's voice become so high and quavering? When had she developed that slight hitch in her step? When had she become so
old?

“Mother,” he began.

She raised her hand. “I see no reason that you, a duke, should address me by a term suitable for a schoolboy's use.”

“Your Grace,” he started over. “I am concerned about the state of the paperwork in the study.”

“You needn't worry about that,” she said, bestowing him with a gracious smile. “I took care of everything regularly. I was brought up to manage a large estate, and I have continued to do so since your father's death. In every case I noted the instructions I gave Honeydew, so that you have a thorough record.”

“There are some unpaid bills,” he observed.

“Only if the bill was absurd.”

“Perhaps I do not grasp the problem. The local candle-maker, for example, does not appear to have been paid in over a year.”

“A case in point. How on earth could we have used two hundred tallow candles? Acting as the guardian of your estate, I could not allow chicanery to continue. Either the servants are stealing candles, or the chandler is defrauding us. Either way, the bill remains unpaid until I am satisfied about the matter. Your father was very firm, very firm indeed, when it came to matters of thievery. He couldn't abide a thief!”

“Of course not,” Simeon murmured. “Do you have any idea, Mother, why he didn't pay the estate bills? There are a great number unanswered, from well before his death.”

“Only the thieves,” she said dismissively. “They charge us double, you know, because of the title. They think they can get away with robbery because the dukedom is so well respected.”

He doubted that. In fact, he had no doubt but that the majority of the people living around the duchy loathed the name, seeing that they had been defrauded of proper payments for years.

“And now…your apology.” She looked at him expectantly.

For the life of him, he didn't know what he was supposed to apologize for.

He cleared his throat.

“You are just like your father!” she exclaimed. “I used to have to instruct him in the precise wording of this sort of thing as well. You have come to apologize for the dissolute manner by which you showed your lower limbs not only to myself, but to the household staff. The lower orders are highly susceptible.”

“Susceptible to what?”

“Immorality and vice, of course.”

“And my bare knees?”

“Your knees, Cosway, are not only unattractive but uninteresting. I am certain that the footmen would rather not see them, and neither would I.”

“And the immorality thereof?” Simeon enquired.

“To be unclothed before the lower orders, except in necessary situations, is to be avoided at all costs.”

“I apologize for my bare knees,” Simeon said obediently. “Your Grace, would you like me to take care of such correspondence as you are unable to manage?” He nodded toward the desk.

His mother raised an eyebrow. “Do I appear to be an invalid? No? Well, then, why on earth would I wish you to take care of my correspondence?”

“I merely thought—”

“Don't,” his mother said magisterially. “There is rather too much thinking going on in this household. Honeydew has always been prone to thought, and I'm sure it's bad for his digestion, as I've told him time and again.”

Poor Honeydew, Simeon thought. Probably spent a bit too much time thinking about how to pay bills. Guilt curdled his stomach. “Now you must forgive me,” he said, rising.

She shrieked. Simeon dropped back into his seat.

“You may not rise while I am seated,” she said, patting her chest. “Nor may you leave until I dismiss you.”

Simeon ground his teeth. “I must needs retire, Your Grace.”

“Well, why didn't you say so?” She came to her feet nimbly enough. “You are dismissed.”

He bowed and left, feeling as angry—and as small—as a schoolboy.