Her Mystery Duke (30 page)

She gazed down at him coolly. “I’ve told you not to feel
badly about the cartoon. It did create potential for great trouble and grief,
but that didn’t come to pass.”

“Only because Hartley is your lover, your protector, and he
fixed things for you.”

“Well, no matter how it happened, it’s over now. Please
allow me to leave.”

“Miss Darling, I want you to know that you can trust me. I
would be a friend.”

That was enough to raise her hackles. No one offered
“friendship” without seeking something in return. “Why? Why should you be a
friend to me, David’s mistress?”

“Because I know how very taxing and lonely it is to be
Hartley’s mistress. Thérèse told me. He gives everything to his work and he
expects the woman in his life to somehow fill the emptiness that brings him.”

“You don’t strike me as the sympathetic sort.”

He chuckled. “No?”

“Definitely not.”

“I do have an ulterior motive. Lady Somerville wanted me to
ask you something.”

“Of course, but why—”

“She’s a grand lady. She’s not going to risk anyone catching
her talking to Hartley’s mistress. Forgive me for saying it so bluntly but you
come from the very lowest possible segment of society. You aren’t even a fashionable
impure. You’re just impure.”

Quite correct. She suppressed a wince. She should have
accepted this with a practical shrug. And once, perhaps, she would have. But
now it hurt. Deeply. Even if that hurt was illogical, it was real. “What is it
she wants?”

“She wants you to meet her at Mrs. Gray’s Dress Shop. It is
all arranged and will be very discreet.”

* * * *

Isabella waited for her in the back room of Mrs. Gray’s
Dress Shop.

“Thank you for coming, Miss Darling.”

Jeanne hugged herself. Her gaze flickered over the
collection of fabric jammed into the small space. A bolt of shimmering cloth of
silver particularly caught her eye. It must cost a fortune.

The dust was making her nose burn and run. “What can I
possibly do for you?”

Lady Somerville motioned to the chair next to her. “Please
sit, Miss Darling, you’re making me nervous with your pacing.”

Jeanne sat in the chair but just on the edge and folded her
hands in her lap.

“You are a special friend to Hartley?” Lady Somerville said.

What was she supposed to say to that question? Lady
Somerville knew that she was David’s mistress and that he kept her in a house.

Jeanne nodded. Her gloves were beginning to stick to her
palms and that began to itch. She took her handkerchief from her reticule and
dabbed at her nose.

“David had a special friend before. Only one that I know of.
My sister, Thérèse.”

“Thérèse was your sister?”

Lady Somerville compressed her lips and nodded. “You know
that David provides her with a house and an income.”

Jeanne nodded slowly.

“She’s ill now.”

“I am very sorry to hear that.”

“Yes, well, it does affect her in many ways. One of them is
her sanity.”

“Then I am doubly sorry to hear that.”

“It becomes worse every day. I fear for her safety.”

Jeanne lifted her shoulders. “What can I say? I am very
sorry.”

“I need your help.”

“My help?”

“With Hartley. He doesn’t understand. He is too softhearted
where she is concerned. She was his first love and you know how men can be
about that.”

“What could I possibly do?”

“I know that your father was insane. He died in the asylum.
You knew when the time came that he must be committed. You had the strength to
do that.”

“I don’t think it was strength. It was just necessity.”

“I do see it as strength and you must speak with David and
convince him act in a manner that will be best for Thérèse.”

“But I only committed my father because I couldn’t afford
any servants to help me with him. I was only eighteen and I had no choices open
to me. Surely Thérèse has more options.”

“Yes, a genteel confinement. But David allows her to live in
a house with just a housekeeper to watch over her. There are no locks to keep
her safe from herself. She may come and go as she chooses. She’s become lost
and wandered about, several times. I am Lady Somerville. I have a duty to my
husband and son, and also to David. You must know how I help him with his work.
The social aspect I mean.”

Jeanne nodded. “Yes, I do know. You are a great help to
him.”

“Well, I am torn apart inside with worry for my sister. I mean,
I try to watch over her but I do not live with her.”

“Could she not live with you?”

“She refuses and David enables her to continue to defy my
wishes.”

“You truthfully believe she is a danger to herself?”

“She is my beloved sister. How could I possibly want to see
her confined if it were not completely necessary? But if something doesn’t
change, I fear I shall be at my wits’ end.”

Jeanne recalled vividly every sleepless night she’d spent
watching over Papa. The constant fuzzy head and constant sick feeling in her
stomach that kept her from eating. Of course she would help Isabella if she
could. She couldn’t deny such a personal plea.

But how would David react to such a plea, especially given
his latest unhappiness at her refusal to accompany him to tour that asylum?

* * * *

“I won’t see her confined.”

It was a little past one in the morning. The world seemed so
silent that David’s vexed tone sounded even more ominous than perhaps it would
have otherwise been. Jeanne sat up straighter against her pillows, watching as
he removed his jacket and laid it over a chair. “Lady Somerville says she is a
danger to herself?”

“A danger to herself?’

“Yes, she says that she has wandered off and become lost
several times now.”

David’s dark brows snapped together even as his fingers
froze upon his waistcoat buttons. “Good God, Jeanne, she’s too ill, too weak to
leave her home unaided now. She can’t even walk downstairs. Mrs. Murchison and
her daughters are more than able to care for her at present.”

Maybe Isabella was privy to information that David didn’t
know. Maybe David could be too softhearted where his old love was concerned.
Lady Somerville might be exactly correct. The prospect did not rest easily on
Jeanne’s heart. “David, why are you so opposed to seeing her properly
confined?”

“Properly confined? Locked away and denied any dignity at
all?”

“Surely it wouldn’t be that way.”

“Believe me, if Isabella had her way, it would be. She is
ashamed of her sister. Not only because of her current mental decline but also
because of the way that Thérèse behaved in the past with me. With other men
after me. She was a scandal.”

“You made her a scandal.”

“No, I did not. She had made her decision to be scandalous
before we met. She had nearly ruined herself with her eldest sister’s husband.
There was a child and it was farmed out in the way of these things. Her family
hushed things up and she became engaged to Lord Toovey. He was a friend of my
younger brother, and his family held a house party where I met Thérèse. I was
twenty and she was older by two years. We experienced an immediate attraction.
It was like nothing I had ever experienced. It seemed at the time that we could
not help ourselves, yet looking back it just seems to have been more a matter
of human weakness and inexcusable caving in to mere lust.”

“Your father forbade you to marry her?”

“Yes, of course he did. She was a commoner. Certainly she
had a fat dowry but our family was wealthy. My father had no incentive to
accept the daughter of a merchant.”

It hurt to hear him say those truths. That a man in his
position, a duke from an old illustrious family with wealth, could never accept
a commoner for a bride. Then something struck her. “But then Isabella is a
commoner…”

“Yes, she is. You wouldn’t guess it now, would you?” He
smiled in that barely there way. “When Thérèse came to live under my
protection, she lost her dowry and the sum was added to Isabella’s. It made
Isabella one very attractive bride. She was more of a classical beauty than
Thérèse.”

“Really?” That was a shock to hear for she had pictured
Thérèse as a great beauty.

“Thérèse was very thin, she has a sort of…I don’t know how
to say it…elfin face? And she has never possessed a decent bosom. But she had a
very carnal allure—it is hard to explain. So many men adored her. After she
left me, she married a dashing naval hero who was killed at Trafalgar. Shortly
after his death, when she learned that she was very ill, she prevailed on my
help, my protection.”

“You loved her?” She had to ask but she didn’t know if she
could bear the answer.

“Yes, I suppose I did, but it is funny how time changes some
impressions. I know I loved her but I cannot fully grasp what that feeling was
like. I knew so much pain because of her. And then guilt. Those feelings have
created a sort of buffer through which I cannot access the old feelings of love
and passion that drove me so strongly in my youth.” He sat on the bed beside
her and took her hand. “It is impossible to imagine that I once felt for her
the same intensity of passion I have known for you.”

Warmth slammed into her heart. And relief too. But she still
wondered about something. “David, why did you never marry?”

“I had Thérèse. I had no time, energy, or inclination for a
wife.”

“Yes, but surely your father…I mean dukes marry young, don’t
they?”

“I was engaged. But she jilted me for an American merchant.”

That was a most shocking revelation. It left her quiet for a
time. Yet she wanted to know more about his family history. “Why would your
father allow Henry to marry a commoner?”

He released her hand and leaned back against the pillow.
“Henry is the second son. Second best. My father viewed that as good as
useless. Meaningless. Especially since I had survived childhood and was of
marriageable age. The spare was no longer needed. Henry certainly wasn’t
expected to sire an heir to the dukedom, either. My father allowed him to wed
Isabella. He saw no reason to deny a second son the prospect of marrying into
his own wealth.” David’s smile became rueful. “Especially since Isabella was
about seven months away from presenting Henry with a child.”

True shock washed over her. “Goodness.”

“Now that child is my heir apparent. My father’s will has
been thwarted on that. If I never wed, never produce a direct heir, he shall be
the next Hartley. It was a very shrewd strategy on Isabella’s part to secure
her position. She’s always been that way. Never underestimate her.”

“But she is your friend.”

“She helps me grease the social wheels for my endeavors. I
know and accept her weaknesses and limitations. I always strive to be tolerant.
My father was so intolerant. His intolerance for life and everyone around him
led him to be a monster. He confined my mother.”

This conversation was full of nothing but shocking
revelations. Her mind couldn’t keep up with them. “Your mother was mad?”

“No, she was not mad in the strictest definition. But my
father’s uncontrollable rages over the years wore her down. It made her nerves
more and more fragile until she broke completely. Her weakness, her increasing
need for care and understanding, drove him to further anger. And she became
very ill. His patience ended. He didn’t like seeing her or being reminded that
he’d played a part in her demise. God but they were two people who should never
have married.

“He confined her to her chambers. It killed her. It killed
her years before her body died. Do you know that is how he prevented me from
marrying Thérèse?”

“How?”

“When I came of age, I bought my own home and I took my
mother and my brother to live there, in a place of peace away from the constant
fear. Father didn’t stop them from coming. But he told me if I dared to wed
Thérèse then he would forcibly remove my mother from my home. He told me that
his duchess would never suffer to live with such a disobedient son.”

“But that makes no sense. Your mother didn’t care. She was
happier with you.”

“Well, my dear, the truly insane do not make sense at times,
as you well know. My father was the insane one. Everyone knew it. No one dared
do anything about it.”

She stared at the coverlet. “I am sorry that I didn’t
understand about Thérèse and how your growing up shaped your view of a person
being confined.”

“If she were a violent person, perhaps I would think
differently. If she becomes violent, I will change my view. But for now, it
does no harm for her to simply live in her old house and know that she is free
to come and go. Even if she is not truly well enough to do so.”

“Yes, I understand.”

He squeezed her hand. “It is not like with your father. He
had become truly violent and you had no choice in the matter.”

She didn’t want to think of Papa tonight. “I am tired. I
want to sleep.” She pulled her hand away from his. “I want a sea change. Dry
land.”

“Of course,” he said.

She left the bed. She changed from the silken robe to her
thick flannel nightdress. She was aware of his eyes upon her body the whole
time and knew he had wanted her tonight.

She had nothing to give him of herself. She had tried to nap
in the early evening, as was her custom when David would see her very late. But
her mind had been full of anxiety over approaching David about Thérèse. The
meeting with Isabella and the ensuing discussion with David had exhausted her
in a way she couldn’t adequately explain. When she crawled into bed, he went to
the sidebar and poured himself a brandy.

“How did Isabella contact you?”

Her heart began to hammer. She was tired— too tired to deal
with any more agitation tonight. Knowing David’s feelings for Toovey, she
anticipated his likely reaction if she shared the full story with him.