In Bed with the Duke (14 page)

The moment Milly finished rinsing her hair she surged out of the tub on a wave of indignation. She hadn't been able to rebel very successfully against Aunt Charity because she'd only been a girl. But she was a woman now. And over the last couple of days she'd discovered that she was well able to overcome whatever fate threw in her path.

And that included deceitful dukes!

‘Hand me that towel,' she said imperiously to Milly. ‘And bring me those clothes.'

She was not going to let him hide her away up here as though she was something to be ashamed of.

‘Where are you going?' cried Milly when she walked to the door and flung it open the moment she was dressed.

‘I need to have a few words with G...His Grace,' she said, since she had no wish to offend the servants by referring to their lord and master by the name he'd given her. After all, her quarrel was with
him
, not them.

‘Oh, no, my lady, you cannot disturb His Grace just now,' said Milly in horror. ‘He will be in his bath. He had Sam and me fetch the water for yours first, so he's bound to be a few minutes behind. And what with Sam having no experience as a valet, even if His Grace is out of his bath I shouldn't think he'll be ready to receive anyone.'

‘I don't care,' she said, clenching her fists. After all, it wasn't as if she hadn't seen it all before, was it?

Though admittedly not wet.

A rather scandalous vision popped into her head of all those rippling muscles with soapsuds sliding slowly over them.

‘Oh, please, my lady,' wailed Milly, bursting the vision, and with it all the soapsuds. ‘Don't go out yet!'

Prudence whirled round to see Milly wringing her hands.

‘I don't want no one to see you with your hair like that.'

As Milly pointed to her head Prudence realised she still had a towel wrapped round her wet hair.

‘They'll all say I can't get you presentable,' Milly continued. ‘Let alone I haven't treated your blisters yet. They'll say I ain't up to the job. And then I won't be your maid no more. And I did so long to be your maid. And go to London and dress you for balls and such.'

Prudence wasn't ever going to go to London—not as the Duchess of Halstead anyway. The very idea was preposterous. She'd thought she was going to be marrying the rather hard-up and ordinary Mr Willingale—a man who made his living somehow by righting wrongs and sticking up for the underdog. Not a duke who went about the countryside in disguise as a means to alleviate his boredom. For he'd admitted he'd been leading a dull life, hadn't he?

But she did thank heaven that Milly had had the courage to speak her mind. If she'd gone barging into the Duke's room while she was so angry with him that she'd forgotten she had her hair wrapped in a towel she would have definitely embarrassed herself. Oh, yes, she could just see him lounging back in his tub, looking down his imperious nose at her, while she stood over him screeching her complaints.

‘That's a good point, Milly,' she acknowledged. ‘Thank you.' And she meant it. It was going to be much better to marshal her arguments so that she could break off their betrothal in a dignified manner. ‘You had better dry and style my hair so that I shall look my best when I next speak to
His Grace
.'

‘I shall run and fetch a comb and some scissors,' said Milly with evident relief. ‘I won't be but a twinkling.'

‘I will put some ointment on my feet while I'm waiting,' said Prudence, going to the dressing table on which Mrs Hoskins had placed the pot.

The minute she'd gone Prudence plonked herself down and plunged her fingers into the pot of greenish salve. Right, then. She'd use the time until Milly had made her presentable enough to appear in public to prepare a speech in which she'd explain that she couldn't marry Gregory, not now she knew who and what he really was.

But she hadn't come up with anything much before Milly returned with the scissors. And also a maid with a tea tray. And Lady Mixby.

‘I hope you don't think of this as an intrusion,' said Lady Mixby. ‘I just thought I would check that you have everything you need. Particularly that cup of tea you didn't drink downstairs. And just one or two little sandwiches and cakes, since you looked close to fainting. There is nothing worse, I find, than a hot bath if one is already a touch light-headed.'

There was nothing Prudence could do but say thank you.

Lady Mixby beamed at her. Then went across to the little table on which the maid had set down the tea tray. ‘I shall just pour you a cup and bring it to the dressing table while Milly makes a start on your hair. And then you can sip it and nibble at these few dainties while she works. Oh,' she said, setting the cup on the dressing table. ‘I see Mrs Hoskins has found you a gown. I hope you don't mind that it appears to be dreadfully behind the fashion.'

Milly pulled her lips together and carried on doggedly combing out Prudence's tangles.

‘Oh, no, I am very grateful for the dress. It is lovely to be in something clean and respectable again.'

Which was the absolute truth. Milly's Sunday best had turned out to be a rather lovely gown of mossy green wool, with a demure neckline and long sleeves. Since it was exactly the sort of thing she was used to wearing, it made her feel much more like herself instead of some kind of impostor creeping in where she had no right to be and pretending to be something she wasn't.

Milly flashed her a grateful look in the mirror as Lady Mixby went to the window seat.

‘I am sure it must be,' said Lady Mixby, hitching herself up onto the cushions. ‘I cannot tell you how shocked I was to see you and Halstead standing on the threshold of my drawing room looking like a pair of gypsies. Oh, but only for a moment. For then, you see, I recalled the Hilliard portrait of the First Duke. And saw that Halstead wanted only a pearl earring and a lace ruff and he would have passed for an Elizabethan privateer.'

He would, at that.

‘Though I hear he has shaved now,' Lady Mixby continued, ‘which is a great pity. He looked dangerously attractive with that hint of a beard.' She sighed. ‘Milly, are you sure you should be using the scissors quite so freely? Poor Miss Carstairs will not have any hair left at this rate.'

‘I have given Milly leave to do what is necessary,' Prudence explained when Milly's nimble fingers stilled for a second. ‘It is much kinder for her to cut out the worst of the knots than attempt to remove them with the comb.'

‘Well, if you are sure...'

‘Oh, yes. It has been several days since I've had use of a comb, you see, and my hair has always been difficult to manage, even with regular brushing.'

Prudence had only refused to have it cut before out of a perverse determination to thwart Aunt Charity. She wouldn't mind having it all cut off now, while Milly was at it. Only just as she opened her mouth to make the suggestion she recalled the look in Gregory's eyes as he'd wound one curl round his finger. One curl of what he had called ‘russet glory'.

‘Several days! How perfectly frightful,' Lady Mixby was saying. ‘And what kind of thief would steal a lady's comb? My goodness—what wickedness there is in the world. You must have a macaroon,' she said, hopping to her feet, going to the tea table and putting one on a plate. And then adding a couple more dainties and bringing them across.

‘There. Three cakes. I was just saying to Benderby this morning how things go in threes. First Hugo came to visit, which he only does when he is quite rolled up. And then that strange Mr Bodkin person arrived, in possession of Halstead's ring. His very own signet ring, which was handed down from the First Duke—the one I told you he resembles so nearly. Or would if he would only keep the beard and get himself a pearl earring.'

She sighed wistfully, giving Prudence the impression she had a rather romantical notion of pirates. Or Elizabethans. Or possibly both.

‘That set us all in a bustle, as you can imagine. If dear Hugo hadn't been here I should have been quite terrified,' she said, absentmindedly popping the macaroon she'd fetched for Prudence into her own mouth. ‘But he took charge in the most masterful way, considering his age, taking Mr Bodkin aside and getting the whole story from him before explaining it to me. At least, he explained
some
things, which all sounded highly improbable—but then when gentlemen go off in pursuit of some wager they often get tangled up with the most extraordinary company.'

Prudence was about to agree, since she'd had pretty much the same thought earlier, but Lady Mixby hadn't even paused to take breath.

‘Why, you only have to think of cock pits and boxing saloons and places of that nature. Not that I have ever been in one. Nor would I wish to. They sound perfectly frightful.'

While Lady Mixby was giving a delicate little shudder at the thought of what might go on in a boxing saloon, Prudence took the opportunity to inject a word or two of her own.

‘So Hugo told you all about the wager, did he?' She said it as though she knew all about it, hoping that Lady Mixby would enlighten her without her having to admit she was almost completely in the dark.

‘Incredible, isn't it?' Lady Mixby's eyes widened. She leaned forward in a conspiratorial fashion. ‘I would never have believed it of Halstead, had he not arrived here today without his valet and groom, looking so very unlike himself. Though, come to think of it, now I've seen his resemblance to the First Duke—who was little more than a pirate, really—I can believe him to be getting up to any amount of mischief. Not that I am implying he has done anything that is not fitting to his station in life.'

She looked at Prudence guiltily.

‘
Has
he? Oh,' she added, before Prudence had a chance to draw breath. ‘Not that I would blame you if you had done something you ought not... The way he looked just now, I can see exactly how it might be that you couldn't resist him. Though I would not have thought anything of the sort had you not said that about trusting him with your virtue. Oh, dear—how I do rattle on. I have ever been thus. It is why I never
took
, as a girl—why I never married. No rational man could have put up with me—that is what my father always said.'

‘I'm sure that is not true,' said Prudence faintly, in the pause that came while Lady Mixby was popping a second fancy cake into her mouth.

‘Dear girl,' she said, flicking crumbs from her skirt onto the expensive carpet. ‘It is such a sweet thing of you to say, but the truth is we were all as poor as church mice in spite of our name. Such is the way of the world. Girls with plain faces only get proposals if they have a dowry large enough to make up for it. Whereas the veriest drabs will have oodles of men paying them court if they have money to back them,' she said with a shrug.

She was in blithe ignorance of the way she'd just plunged a knife into Prudence's already sensitised heart. Because she
did
have money, didn't she? Could that be why Gregory had tacitly accepted her proposal, in spite of the discrepancy in their rank? After all, the men in Aunt Charity's congregation had suddenly started looking at her differently once it had become common knowledge that she was heiress to the Biddlestone fortune.

Was Gregory really as mercenary as the men of Stoketown?

‘But let us not dwell on the past,' said Lady Mixby, sighing and clasping her pudgy hands together. ‘I am so looking forward to hearing all about how you met Halstead and how you came to fall in love. I know—you don't need to remind me,' she said, raising her hand in the air as though in surrender. ‘Not a word about any of it until we are all together after dinner. Speaking of which,' she said, getting to her feet, ‘I should really go and get changed. Or should I?' she said, just as she reached the door. ‘Would it be terribly tactless of me to dress up when you have nothing decent to wear? Halstead himself is borrowing the Sunday clothes of the under-gardener, who is the only one of the male staff with broad enough shoulders to have a shirt that would fit. I shall ask Benderby. Such a treasure, you know. I can always rely on her to come up with a practical solution.'

The room seemed very, very quiet once Lady Mixby had left. Prudence had never come across anyone with the ability to speak continuously without pausing for breath before. Or with the tendency to flit from one subject to another like a butterfly.

How on earth could Gregory have led her to believe for one minute that Lady Mixby was a dragon? She was the very opposite. It almost seemed wrong to describe her as an aunt at all. In fact she'd been so welcoming that she'd completely dispelled the slightly oppressive atmosphere of the room. It no longer felt as though the furnishings had been expressly designed to depress the pretensions of impostors, but rather to enfold any weary guest in a sumptuous sort of embrace.

The only trouble was that now Lady Mixby had told her that one of Gregory's ancestors had been an Elizabethan pirate she couldn't help picturing him with a pearl earring and a rapier in his hand. So instead of arming herself with a quiver full of clever remarks with which to confound him, she now spent the time before dinner imagining him engaged in various nefarious pursuits. The most frequent of which imaginings involved him mounted on a black horse, holding up a stagecoach at midnight. Though the one of him lounging back in his bathtub, naked apart from some strategically placed soapsuds, came a close second.

By the time she was ready, physically, to go downstairs, she was no more prepared to cross swords with His Grace the Duke of Halstead than poor betwattled Lady Mixby would ever be.

Chapter Fourteen

‘M
iss Carstairs, how very much better you look,' said Gregory when she entered the dining room.

Prudence couldn't help raising one hand to her hair and flushing self-consciously. Did he really like the way she looked in this gown, with her hair neatly brushed, braided, and coiled on the top of her head?

His eyes followed the movement of her hand. He must have seen she was blushing, but his expression remained completely impassive. How different he was now from the man he'd been in that barn, when he'd described her hair as russet glory and trembled with the force of the desire he said he'd felt for her. This Gregory was a complete enigma. It was as if, the moment they'd set foot in Bramley Park, he'd deliberately snuffed out the man she'd come to know.

So how could she care so much about what he might be thinking? How could she long for him to find her as attractive as she found him, seeing him for the first time closely shaved and in a full set of clean clothes—even if they did belong to a humble gardener?

Bother Lady Mixby for putting that vision of him with a pearl earring into her mind. Though, to be fair, she'd come up with that vision of soapsuds slithering over his naked masculine musculature all by herself.

Well, it was no use having visions of that sort. Because they were weakening her resolve to put an end to a betrothal which should never have begun.

She drew on every ounce of pride she possessed, and said, ‘Thank you,' in as calm a voice as she could muster. ‘The maid you sent was very proficient. It is entirely due to her,' she couldn't resist adding, ‘that I no longer look as though I've been dragged through a hedge backwards.'

‘You have never looked as though you had been dragged through a hedge backwards,' he said, in a manner that must have looked to everyone else like gallantry. ‘Not even after you spent the night sleeping in hay.'

‘Sleeping in hay?' Hugo, who'd leapt to his feet, was grinning. ‘I heard a rumour that you spent last night in a barn, Halstead. And now you have confirmed it.' He rubbed his hands together in glee. ‘I can't wait to hear how all this came about.'

‘Come, let me place you at my right hand, Miss Carstairs,' said the Duke, ignoring Hugo as he led her to the rather small square table standing in the very centre of the room.

Hugo took the chair at his left without being asked.

‘As you can see,' said Gregory witheringly. ‘We are dining informally tonight.'

‘I thought it for the best,' said Lady Mixby. ‘All things considered.'

‘Yes, but
some
of us have managed not to forget our manners,' he replied, as Mr Bodkin held out a chair for Benderby.

Hugo shot Gregory a look loaded with resentment, but didn't get to his feet. Really, he was a very badly behaved boy. He put her in mind of one of the subalterns once under her father's command, who'd come from a good family and had resented taking orders from men he regarded as his social inferiors. It had been insecurity, she'd overheard her father explain to her mother, that had made the lad so spiky and awkward, not any deep-seated malice. And once he'd proved his worth in battle his manners had greatly improved. What a pity there was no battle that Hugo could fight—that would knock some sense into him.

Benderby gave the butler a slight nod once they were all seated more or less where they wished, and he in turn marshalled Sam, his footman, into action.

‘I do hope the meal will meet with your approval,' said Lady Mixby anxiously.

‘I am sure it will,' said Gregory. ‘Since Mrs Hoskins was not expecting us today, we can hardly expect her to have prepared anything fancy, can we?'

The housekeeper would have had a jolly good try, though. Having the Duke turn up out of the blue must have created a state bordering on panic below stairs.

‘The cook here is excellent,' put in Hugo. ‘I can vouch for that.'

‘No doubt,' said the Duke. ‘Since you have been availing yourself of his services for the past se'ennight.'

‘Only five nights, in point of fact,' said Hugo smugly.

‘Thank you, Hugo,' said Gregory repressively. ‘There is no need to dwell on that just now. Is the soup to your liking, Miss Carstairs?' he asked, turning to her.

‘The soup? You want to talk about the
soup
?'

He gave her a look that was almost as quelling as the one he'd directed at Hugo. It made her want to seize the tureen and upend it over his head. But she wasn't going to allow him to goad her into that kind of behaviour.

‘The soup is delicious,' she said, satisfying herself with imagining it dripping down his clothes.

The Duke of Halstead—for now that he was speaking in that odiously pompous manner she couldn't think of him as anything less—turned to Mr Bodkin.

‘And you, Mr Bodkin? Everything is to your satisfaction, I trust?'

Mr Bodkin mumbled something indistinguishable, his face glowing an even deeper shade of red than it had been when Gregory had commended his manners while criticising Hugo's.

The poor man. As well as feeling out of place, he must now feel out of his depth, with all the undercurrents swirling between the diners seated at this table.

Lady Mixby tried to lighten the atmosphere by launching into typical dinner table conversation. But since it was mostly about people Prudence had never heard of, and events she'd never considered before, it only had the effect of making her feel a strong kinship with Mr Bodkin. And although she knew that they couldn't possibly talk about anything very confidential or meaningful in front of the servants, every time a new dish came to the table she grew more and more tempted to empty the contents over the Duke's head. Which in turn reinforced her earlier fears that she didn't belong here. Because what kind of woman would empty the soup tureen over the head of a duke?

But at length the servants stopped scurrying to and fro, ceased depositing fresh courses on the table and whisking away the old ones. Sam deftly removed the cloth and Perkins brought in a decanter of port on a silver salver. Lady Mixby stood up, signalling that it was time for the ladies to withdraw to...wherever it was that ladies went in this house. Prudence would just have to follow Lady Mixby and Benderby, who'd also risen from her place.

As she got to her feet Mr Bodkin shot her a look bordering on panic. She could heartily sympathise with his reluctance to be left to the tender mercies of Gregory and Hugo. At least while she'd been at table he hadn't been the only one feeling like a fish out of water.

Hugo had been wriggling in his seat like a schoolboy waiting to be let out of lessons for some time. He was evidently itching to have Gregory to himself so they could settle up over their wager.

As the men rose to their feet, she wondered whether she could breach protocol by inviting Mr Bodkin to join the ladies. She was just about to suggest it when Gregory picked up the decanter and made for the door which Perkins was holding open.

‘Hi, where are you going with that?' Hugo objected.

‘The morning room,' said Gregory. ‘We shall all be more comfortable there.'

‘
I
shan't,' said Hugo.

‘Hugo,' Gregory growled. ‘I told you I was not going to discuss...anything with you before I had explained it all to Miss Carstairs.'

‘Yes, but—'

‘The sooner we get it all out into the open the better,' said Gregory implacably. ‘Lady Mixby, you will forgive us if just this once we break with tradition and accompany you to the morning room, won't you?'

‘Of course,' she said at once. ‘I am positively agog with curiosity.' She flushed. ‘Not that I... I mean of course I'm sure it is none of my business, but... Oh, do come along, Hugo!' She turned a beseeching look in his direction. ‘Nothing so exciting has happened in this family for an age. I, for one, cannot wait to hear Halstead's account of how he met Miss Carstairs, and if he says he wishes to give it in the morning room then I see no reason why we shouldn't all go there at once.'

‘Miss Carstairs?'

He was actually deigning to ask her opinion?

‘It is well past time you explained yourself,' she said. Her patience had been stretched thinner and thinner the longer the meal had dragged on, and it wasn't going to take much for it to snap altogether. ‘And if you call me Miss Carstairs once more, in that odiously pompous way, it won't be
tradition
that will be broken!'

‘I say, Miss Carstairs,' said Hugo. ‘I think I am beginning to like you.'

It was all she could do to resist the urge to poke out her tongue at him. He was the kind of boy who dragged everyone down to his level.

Fortunately Lady Mixby took her arm before she could poke out her tongue, or hurl any dishes, or slap anyone's face.

‘I know you recall the way to the morning room, but let me get you settled into a comfortable chair—not too close to the fire, but out of any draught,' she said, leading her across the hall and into the reception room she'd been in earlier that day.

It was no longer flooded with light. The sun had moved round to shine through the windows in a different part of the house, leaving the whole room rather gloomy, in spite of the fire crackling in the grate. She wondered that the ladies chose to withdraw to
this
room in the evenings, and why they called it the morning room if it was used at other times of the day.

‘Rather than have you all bombarding me with questions,' said Gregory, once they'd all taken seats in various parts of the room that Prudence thought ought more properly to be called the...the sitting room. Or the ladies' parlour. Or something that actually described the fact that ladies used it at many times of the day. ‘I have decided it would be better for me to relate my story in my own words.'

Typical.
Everything
had to be his own way.

‘But before I begin it occurs to me that it would be rather ungentlemanly of us to sit here drinking our port while you ladies go without refreshment. So I wonder if you would care to join us. Just this once? While we are dispensing with tradition?'

‘Oh!' Lady Mixby's face lit up. ‘How novel. Yes, I should
love
to try a glass of port.'

‘Miss Benderby?'

‘I'll not refuse, Your Grace.'

He opened his mouth, as though to ask Prudence if she'd like a glass of port, and then paused. Was he recalling her objection to him calling her Miss Carstairs in that odious manner? Was it too much to hope he was actually considering her feelings?

She turned to Lady Mixby. ‘I have never tried it, either, Lady Mixby,' she said, ‘and I'm not sure if I should.'

‘I am sure it cannot be wrong, since His Grace has suggested it,' said Lady Mixby, making Prudence grind her teeth.

‘You can have tea, if you would prefer it,' said
His Grace
. ‘I shall have to ring for more glasses anyway. I can easily ask them to bring a pot and cups while they're at it.'

‘I will light the candles while we're waiting,' said Benderby, getting to her feet. ‘Then the servants will have no excuse to come knocking on the door without us sending for them.'

‘Oh, what a good idea,' said Lady Mixby. ‘This room is always so gloomy in the afternoons. It will look so much more cheerful with some light.'

So why do you sit here, then?
Prudence wanted to ask, but didn't. It would only show her up as someone who didn't understand the way the upper classes lived and made use of their houses.

As Benderby went round lighting the candles and drawing the curtains Prudence succumbed to the temptation to try a glass of port. She had a feeling that a cup of tea wasn't going to be enough to sustain her through the rest of the evening. She was going to have to sit and listen to Gregory explaining away the reasons he'd allowed an impertinent nobody to inveigle him into a betrothal. Oh, why hadn't she asked to speak to him in private earlier? They could now be explaining that it had all been a mistake. That she'd had no idea who he was when she'd proposed. That she was doing her best to put things right.

Perkins arrived, and Gregory ordered him to bring three more glasses.

‘And will that be all, Your Grace?' Perkins glanced round the room, his eyes resting briefly on the lit candles, the drawn curtains, and the full coal scuttle sitting on the hearth by the blazing fire.

‘We shall ring if we require anything else,' said Gregory firmly.

Which left Perkins in no doubt that he had better not return to this room without that summons.

‘I shall begin by explaining,' said Gregory to Prudence as he brought her a glass and poured just half an inch of the rich blood-red liquid into it from his decanter, ‘why I told you my name is Willingale and not about my title.' He paused, his lips tightening for a second. ‘I suspect that by now you have worked out that some of what I have been doing over this past week is on account of a wager I made with Hugo.'

Prudence nodded. Her feelings were so turbulent she couldn't have formed a sensible response even had she wanted to.

‘Hugo is not only my nearest male relative, but my heir,' he said, sauntering across to where Hugo was lounging on an armchair and pouring a generous measure into the glass Hugo was holding out ready. ‘Therefore I make him a quarterly allowance. Which he considers insufficient.'

Hugo snorted and pulled a face.

‘We were having one of our regular discussions, during the course of which Hugo accused me of being miserly...'

Lady Mixby gasped. ‘Oh, Hugo, how could you? Halstead is the most generous of men. You know very well he gave me a home here, saying it was so that I could look after the property which would otherwise remain empty and neglected. And he gives me a simply huge allowance. It is supposed to be for the household bills, which everyone knows his man of business settles in full because I haven't the ability to look after a...a cushion! I'm that scatterbrained. I'd only get into a scrape if I was obliged to balance the accounts, if ever I was given any to balance—which I must own I haven't.'