Along Came a Duke (23 page)

“Nodcock?” Roxley said, his gaze narrowing.

“Yes, exactly,” Preston said as he too followed the course of the earl's focus.

Which happened to be Miss Hathaway, who had hung back from her party with a man who looked to be a close relative—from their similar coloring and easy smiles. Then she gave the man a quick embrace before she hurried into the Timmonses' carriage.

The fellow stood sentry until Miss Hathaway was safely inside and the coachman had clicked the reins before he turned to leave.

“Ah, Chaunce comes our way,” Roxley said.

“Who is that man?”

“Chaunce,” Roxley said, as he drove the carriage toward the fellow.

“A chance for what?” Preston asked.

“Good God, Preston, not what. Who.” Roxley laughed and pulled the carriage to a stop, doffing his hat to the man and saying, “Preston, my good man, may I introduce you to Mr. Chauncy Hathaway of Kempton. Though you might want to call him Opportunity. For if anyone knows the answers to your questions, Preston, or can ferret them out, it is my old friend, Chaunce.”

Chapter 11

T
he next morning, Tabitha, Daphne and Harriet came down the stairs to find Tabitha's cousins, Euphemia, Edwina and Eloisa, all standing around the table in the main foyer where the salver sat.

This was hardly unusual, for her cousins spent a great deal of time hovering about the front door waiting to see who might be dropping off calling cards, invitations or other tokens.

“Ah, cousin,” Euphemia said. “You have an admirer.” On either side of her, Edwina and Eloisa snickered like a pair of mismatched horses. Then the trio parted to reveal the subject of their amusement.

To Tabitha's shock a single, small bouquet of bluebells awaited her. Tied with a bit of twine.

“There is no note,” Edwina complained. Which probably explained a good part of her cousin's dismay—she hadn't been able to discover who was the sender.

“And they look like they were picked from the roadside,” Eloisa said with a discerning sniff. She backed away from the table. “Not even from the hothouse.” She and Edwina and Euphemia parted ways to allow Tabitha a closer inspection, all three of them tittering and shaking their skirts as if to remove even the hint of such wayside offerings from their lofty sphere.

Tabitha needed no note. She knew exactly who had sent them 'round.

Preston. He'd sent bluebells.

The color of your gown, I imagine.

The stems were crushed, as were a few of the blossoms, but they were country bluebells, nonetheless. She shivered and reached out with a single finger to touch the twine, if only to see if it was real.

“I think they are lovely,” Daphne said loudly to no one in particular. “How thoughtful of Barkworth.” She turned to Tabitha. “I imagine when you are his marchioness he will shower you with much grander offerings.” Daphne smiled as she continued, this time turning toward Tabitha's eldest cousin. “A marchioness! I just can't believe it. Won't you be pleased to have such a lofty connection to mention when you go out calling, Miss Timmons?”

Euphemia nearly tripped over the carpet at this, while her younger sisters were the perfect portrait of a pair who had been sipping lemonade.

Before the sugar had been added.

Tabitha didn't correct her friend that the bluebells weren't a sign of Barkworth's affections, for it was too much fun to see her cousins twisting a bit.

She glanced at the bluebells again.
A lady deserves to be courted.

How like Preston to send these, in stark contrast to Barkworth's clear lack of any such offering.

Then again, she'd only met her betrothed the day before . . . even though she'd been in London an entire fortnight. She could hardly expect that on such a short acquaintance Barkworth would be bringing her bluebells . . .

Oh, bother Preston! He was making her second-guess her own betrothal.

Yet why hadn't Mr. Reginald Barkworth called before their grandly orchestrated meeting? Or, at the very least, sent around a note? Hadn't he been the least bit curious to meet her, his future bride? Not even enough so to gather a small bouquet of roadside bluebells and send them along?

Picking them up, Tabitha sighed. Leave it to Preston to uncover her heart's desire before anyone else. Wretched awful man. Wading about some roadside and picking these for her just to make his point.

That image alone was enough to make her smile. The Duke of Preston out in some field, pilfering flowers! As she gazed down at the less-than-perfect little blossoms, she knew something else.

Exactly what it was like to have a man court her.

Even if he had no intention of following through, she reminded herself.

She looked up and found Harriet studying her with a wry glance that said two things:

She envied Tabitha. Not in a covetous way, like Tabitha's cousins did—for more than once they had made it clear how undeserving they thought her of Barkworth and her future as the Marchioness of Grately.

No, Harriet envied the significance of the gesture. Probably because her knowing glance also said all too clearly that she knew the flowers were not from Barkworth.

Daphne was too busy gloating over Tabitha's triumph—for even this small bouquet was more than her cousins had received this morning—to notice the silent exchange between her friends. She looped her arm into Tabitha's and smiled brightly. “Is this not why we came to London, Tabitha? So you could get to know Mr. Barkworth? And see! He has made his intentions clear. And with your favorite flowers, no less.”

“I would hardly say that his intentions are clear, Daphne,” Tabitha corrected. “I barely know the man.”

“And how could you? You haven't had the opportunity,” she agreed. “But today will offer you the perfect chance to see his true character. You musn't jump to any conclusions about the man until you've had a chance to discover his qualifications.”

“As a dim-witted ponce,” Harriet said in an aside.

Daphne ignored her, and they followed Euphemia, Edwina and Eloisa toward the receiving room, Daphne continuing to chatter on about Barkworth's superiority above all other gentlemen, until they drew close enough to the room to hear not only Lady Timmons's voice but that of Lady Peevers as well.

“I aver, Antigone, it is all over Town,” the matron was saying loudly, “that he chose her because he thought her naught but a—”

“Ah, dear Tabitha,” Lady Timmons exclaimed, cutting off her sister as Tabitha came to a stop in the doorway. “There you are, and how pretty you look.”

“Daphne chose this,” she demurred. She'd never had a gown as fine as this apple green muslin, with its modest robe front that fastened just below her bosom. From its high neck and long plain sleeves, there was nothing anyone could object to . . . especially not her exacting aunt.

“Perfect for an afternoon call.” Lady Timmons acknowledged Daphne's choice with a nod of appreciation.

Daphne smiled slightly, then slid alongside the wall and took up a place on the window seat at the far side of the room, muttering, “This will never do” as she surveyed the crowded parlor.

Meanwhile Harriet followed close on her heels and settled into the spot next to Daphne, her eyes bright as she too took in the setting.

Meanwhile Lady Timmons shooed a sulky Eloisa off the end of the settee. She patted the cushion and smiled up at Tabitha. “Come sit here, so you will be the first person Mr. Barkworth sees when he enters the room.”

And as if on cue, the doorbell jangled, and all eyes turned in that general direction.

Tabitha hadn't even time to ask what scandal Lady Peevers had been reporting, but it was the first subject from Lady Ancil's lips when the butler showed her into the room.

“We came at once!” the lady announced, “to see how poor Miss Timmons is faring.”

The lady entered the room like a great hen, all feathers and fluff, so it was hard to discern her expression until she settled into a chair, quickly vacated by Edwina. Only then could Tabitha see that it appeared she'd been crying.

She shared a glance with Harriet and Daphne.
Whatever have I done now?

How would we know?
they both seemed to answer with slight shrugs of their shoulders.

“Did you say Miss Timmons?” Lady Peevers blurted out. “How utterly like you, Lady Ancil, to be worried about our dearest Miss Timmons when this must be such a trial to
you
.” Her ladyship paused for a moment, then added, “And Barkworth as well.”

Lady Ancil fluttered a handkerchief in the air as if it was all she could manage.

Barkworth, who up until now had been standing stock still in the doorway, came striding into the fray. If Tabitha didn't know better, she would almost swear the man had been posed, awaiting the perfect moment for his entrance.

And Lady Peevers's heartfelt declaration proved to be just that. When the lady caught sight of him, she drew her own handkerchief to her bosom. “Ah, Barkworth! You brave, dear man!”

But Barkworth had eyes only for Tabitha. “My dear Miss Timmons, the news of your scandal has not left you overwrought, has it?” He dropped to one knee and took her hand in his, his earnest expression pinned on her own startled one.

“I fear I don't know of any scandal,” she managed, glancing first at Daphne and then at Harriet.

“No flowers
,” Harriet mouthed.

Indeed, the man had arrived without so much as a petal.

Tabitha cursed not Barkworth but Preston for this. She wouldn't have noticed if the duke hadn't told her how all this courting was done.

Barkworth still clung to her hand, though his attention was fixed on Lady Peevers. “You haven't told her?”

“I was just getting to the matter,” the lady replied, picking at the lace on the sleeves of her gown, her nose wrinkled at the loss of this opportunity.

“Whatever is amiss?” Daphne asked.

Lady Ancil spared her a glance and then turned back to the company at hand. “It is being said that the Duke of Preston singled out Miss Timmons for his attentions last night because he thought her quite beneath him—beyond society's cares. He meant it as a snub.”

Tabitha plucked her hand free of Barkworth's grasp. “What nonsense!”

“Not at all,” Barkworth corrected. “The evidence is overwhelming.”

Lady Peevers nodded. “He danced with you and the daughters of several rather unremarkable families.”

“Save for Lady Pamela,” Eloisa pointed out.

“That was Lady Juniper's doing,” Lady Peevers avowed. “She thinks to make a match, but Preston's actions said quite clearly last night he has no intention of setting up a nursery.”

There were nods of understanding all around the room, save for Tabitha and her companions.

It made no sense to her. Whyever would Preston's choice of her as a dance partner be considered a snub?

Barkworth picked up her hand again. “Be brave, Miss Timmons. I am sure my uncle will see fit to give his approval to our match despite this terrible insult to the Barkworth name.”

“Four hundred years of propriety,” Lady Ancil was saying. “Four hundred years of unblemished and untarnished honor, and it all ends like this.”

“I am afraid I do not understand how my dancing with the Duke of Preston could injure the Barkworth name,” Tabitha ventured. Truly, it wasn't as if the man had ruined her.

At least not last night.

“Truly, I don't see the insult either,” Daphne ventured. “They merely danced.”

Cousin Eloisa just shook her head, appalled to have such dim-witted company to endure.

“It is not the dancing,” Lady Peevers began, “though I daresay the duke held Miss Timmons far too close, but I fear I am a bit old-fashioned over these things—”

“The point is not the dancing,” Lady Timmons interjected, “but the company he kept last night. No one save the lowest of society will dance with him, so by singling you out, he has shown one and all that you are not worthy. He meant it as an insult.”

“An insult?” Harriet shook her head. “That isn't it at all.” All eyes turned toward her, and ever the Hathaway, she stood her ground. “The duke is trying to amend his standing in society. That is why he chose Tabitha.”

“Wherever would you get such a peculiar notion?” Lady Peevers demanded.

“From Lord Roxley,” Harriet said, her cheeks pinking a bit. “He says the Duke of Preston is trying to rehabilitate his reputation and was dancing with Tabitha because she is the proper daughter of a respectable vicar.”

The company gathered in the room looked around at each other as if weighing this information—each appearing to measure the notion that the
on dit
of the day wasn't the scandal that they believed it to be.

But then again this
was
society, and the notion that Harriet had the right of it and it wasn't the grand iniquity they were making it out to be just didn't suit.

Where was the gossip to be found in such a noble and respectable notion?

Tabitha watched in dismay as each of them shook their heads and refused to believe that Preston could possibly seek to reform his reputation.

Then she realized something else: it should be her defending Preston, not Harriet.

Oh, he was all the things they were making him out to be—rakish, disgraceful, ruinous. But Tabitha couldn't help but remember the pain in his eyes as he'd spoken of his mother and father . . . or how he had shared the last piece of apple tart . . . and taught her to dance.

There was more to the Duke of Preston than the reprobate ne'er-do-well that most thought him to be. Yet . . . if she were to explain this, then she would also have to confess to how she knew such intimate things about him.

And that would be as ruinous as his kiss—if not more so.

“Ridiculous, Miss Hathaway,” Lady Peevers declared. “Truly, I would think that Lady Essex would have disabused you of any inclination toward listening to a single word that reprobate nephew of hers has to say.”

“He has insulted Miss Timmons and by extension our very family,” Lady Ancil said, shaking her head and looking to be on the verge of tears.

“You shan't call him out, will you, Mr. Barkworth?” Harriet asked, having slid off the window seat and come to stand closer to Tabitha.

The suggestion silenced everyone in the room, including Lady Ancil and her weeping.

Tabitha knew Harriet was only teasing—she was, wasn't she?—but everyone else in the room took her question to heart.

Barkworth blinked and gaped, looking quite like a fish out of water.

“Defend your beloved's honor?” Harriet prodded like only a Hathaway could. “Isn't that how it is done by gentlemen of honor?”

Barkworth released his grasp on Tabitha's hand and rose, tugging his jacket back into place, his broad shoulders drawing into a taut line. “I suppose I—” he began, each word being carefully and slowly issued.